Yalla Dada!

As a playwright, one of my favorite moments in the theatre was when a Dada play that I had written was performed in Lincoln Center’s Directors Lab (some of the actors in it included Aasif Mandvi, my chihuahua Anubis (as the maestro), and me). The performance was designed to coincide with the 2006 Dada exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art — the first in the United States to focus exclusively on Dada (one of the 20th century’s most influential avant-garde art movements). Recently, there has been renewed worldwide interest in Dada — from New York to Lebanon — in response to widespread conflict and migration. A new exhibit in Beirut, Yalla Dada at Station (curated by Nabil Canaan), is dedicated to resurrecting the Dada movement in the Middle East.
On the occasion of the centennial celebrations of the radical avant-garde Dada movement, STATION presents an interdisciplinary exhibition featuring international and Lebanese artists who embody the creative, revolutionary and universal spirit of Dada. At a time when the Middle East finds itself in a predicament of violent upheaval as Europe was during World War I, YALLA DADA will explore Dada’s artistic reach, contextual significance and potential for resonance in the region. Through a month-long series of parallel events, Yalla Dada will also explore ways to stimulate a Dada impulse in the region.