Integral to Stay a Little Longer’s celebration of diversity and language, will be our Storytelling Series, curated by Shereen Saif.

Shereen Saif is an Indian-born UAE-bred multi-disciplinary artist, who is known for her physical storytelling style that integrates elements of music, dance and theatre. Her current movement vocabulary is grounded in her training in the Indian classical traditions of Bharatanatyam, Mohiniyattam and Kathak, while her acting draws inspiration from her training in India at Natanakairali and Adishakti Laboratory for Theatre Art Research. Her solo “A Woman’s Mind” was awarded the Abu Dhabi Cultural Foundation Production grant (2021) and premiered in 2022 with the support of Alserkal Avenue, HIBA Art Project and The Junction.

The first Storytelling session on 1 April will include stories told in the following languages:

English: Shereen Saif

Arabic: Lamya Tawfik

Hindustani: Sunil Jasuja

Farsi: Asareh Ebrahimpour

Malayalam: Anoop Chandran + Shamnad

Storyteller bios:

Dr. Lamya Tawfik is an Egyptian performing artist, media professional, storyteller and presenter. As an actress she has performed in English, Arabic and Italian with several theater groups in Dubai including Danú, Dubai Drama Group, ITACA, DramaDonne, and Artbox Group, and as a storyteller, she has performed in many children's events, storytelling festivals and also told stories at the Sharjah International Book Fair and the Louvre Abu Dhabi.

Asareh Ebrahimpour is a Dubai based interdisciplinary artist and an experienced Art performer, originally from Tehran, Iran. She is known to be the only artist who conducts therapeutic expressive movement art workshops in GCC and many other countries. In her performances, she fuses dance and art to create intuitive drawings using the wisdom of the body as her primary tool. She has performed and exhibited at Firetti Contemporary art gallery, World Art Dubai, United Nations, Expo 2020, Sima Dance Company, Indigo Open top museum, DIFC, Oxford Art Festival, and many more.

Anoop Chandran is an Indian poet, actor, voice artist and screenplay writer who has been based in the UAE for over 20 years. His first collection of poems titled Oxygen Cylinder was published by Mathrubhumi Books in 2012.

An architect by profession, Sunil Jasuja has been involved in Dubai’s community theatre circuit for several years. He has worked with almost all of the established theatre groups and has performed in English, Hindi / Urdu, Punjabi, and even Arabic. His love for languages and Indian literature keeps him on the path of new explorations. Storytelling as a performative art form is a new chapter in his artistic journey.