Mophradat: prelude

Mophradat and BAC invite you for an evening of music and drinks to celebrate many new beginnings – of autumn, of songs, of ideas, and of collaborations. The evening will feature music by concert and the dwarves of East Agouza followed by dancing to the tunes of DJ Jana Saleh. During the evening, as part of their ongoing glossary project for Mophradat’s website, the Cairo-based art collective Nile sunset annex will present the latest glossary term: bar. We would be delighted if you can join us!

Concert is a musical collaboration between visual artists Chris Evans, Morten Norbye Halverson, and Benjamin Seror. The band, which plays in different configurations, will present a performance of its sentimental disco improvisations. Their LP of songs with lyrics by different artists “behave like an audience” is available from Sternberg press.

The dwarfs of East Agouza is a Cairo-based trio featuring Alan Bishop (Sun City girls, the invisible hands), Maurice Louca (Alif, Bikya), and Sam Shalabi (Land of Kush, Shalabi Effect). formed in 2012, when the three were living in the same apartment building in Cairo’s Agouza district, the trio’s instrumental improvisation-based explorations are propelled by Lorca’s North African percussion loops and shimmering keys, Shalabi’s West African tinged free jazz guitar, and grounded by bishop’s driving krautrock-style acoustic bass.

Nile sunset annex sometimes functions as an art space that puts on monthly exhibitions of artists’ work in garden city, Cairo, but it also acts as a publishing house, a contemporary art collection, an archivist, an artist, an author, a bartender, a curator, and an installation team. Founded in January 2013, NSA is still evolving. Since December 2015, Nile sunset annex has been commissioned to be an editorial voice for the glossary on Mophradat’s website where it presents art-related words each month that have a twist when translated between Arabic and English. This is Nile sunset annex’s first live entry for the glossary.

Jana Saleh is a Beirut-based composer, DJ, and music producer who has worked internationally across musical genres from electro-acoustic to reggae to dancehall. Landing back in Beirut in 2009, she founded b. root productions which are dedicated to local Arabic-sung music in Beirut. At b. root, she produced the first album for the band Mashrou’ Leila, and is currently working on the project “Aziza”, releasing its debut album in 2014, and now working on a musical of the same name and original music.

Mophradat is a Brussels-based international art association that supports and organizes contemporary art projects. www.mophradat.org