Labels: Arabic, Art, Jordan, Politics

Do you remember my post about the expected construction of an opera house in Amman? GAM changed opinion and decided to build something not restricted to opera music only, a new, more general cultural center named "Darat King Abdullah II".

This center will be built on the former location of the cigarettes factory in Ras al Ein (What is now called the GAM strip, see above).

It will be home to the Amman Symphony Orchestra, the National Institute of Music, the National Folklore Group and the Amman Municipality Group of Folk Art. The center consists of two main theatres; the first with 1600 seats and the second with 400.

GAM has previously promoted an international competition to select the best designs. The first prize winners were world-renowned architectures Zaha Hadid and Delugan Meissl. Their futuristic proposals are amazing. If you look at the good work of Hadid which is inspired by Petra, you'll find movement, innovation and creativity. The proposed shape is really captivating.
Meissl's design is hard-shaped and fits very well with the urban reality of Amman (and it is more practical and buildable).

Zaha Hadid:

Delugan Meissl:

Labels: Art, Jordan

This is my first attempt to draw something similar to a graffiti in Arabic. Thanks to my friends (Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop) the result is, in my own opinion, quite good. By the way, I will post what "A7la Shabab" is, and the reason I'm so busy these days in some future posts :)

Labels: Art, Personal

I've recently read a post of Roba who was clearly criticizing the Jordanian theatre scene. Well, she built her opinion after watching a low quality play at Masrah Il-Thaqafeh in Amman.

I think Roba went by herself to see the actors and their "artistic" performance, but my experience of Monday was quite different.. I was normally walking down University St. (Irbid) when I was surprised by a big crowd standing in the middle of the road and on the sidewalk in front of Gloria Donuts.

I came close to that crowd and asked one of the guys about what was going there..

He answered with a shining smile: Masra7yeh

At first, I've thought he was kidding me, I'm quite pessimistic and I suppose that's more probable to see a fight or a theft attempt in Irbid's streets, anyways, the guy was right, that thing looked like a theatre play with two guys and three women putting on their techniques in stage acting.

I've watched some acts for nearly ten minutes, all-amazed by the big group of people who were recording the play with their mobile phones and by the many cars that stopped to know the reason of all that mess.

Yesterday, I read on Alrai newspaper that the actors were not allowed to enter Yarmouk University, in which the play should have been performed, the university's security guards refused that without giving any reason.

I don't know if people were there by chance, curiosity or interest, (a Service driver sincerely told me: We thought they were psychopaths) but I'm sure they had more audience in this way than by the usual unknown performance in the university's theatre which no one attends.

And it is not wrong to have more theatre plays in our streets!

Labels: Art, Jordan, Personal

"Greater" Amman Municipality is serious about the building of an opera house, it will be opened in the Muhajereen zone, where now there is a building owned by the Jordan Tobacco & Cigarettes Co.
The opera house is a part of the Muhajereen zone development plan, Al Rai reported.

It's interesting to see what people think about spending money for this project, if it is good to have a new cultular organization, or it's not opportune and it's better to build something we really need... What do you think?

Labels: Art, Jordan

A photo exhibition entitled 'Harmonious China: Aspirations and Dreams' was held last Wednesday in my university and was opened by our president and the Chinese Ambassador, Mr. Gong Xiao Sheng.

On the way to the exhibition hall, I was discussing with some friends what exactly the word 'harmonious' in the name of the exhibition means, if it was necessary to include such a term and most important what was the goal of that word. (The Arabic translation was not so clear; this made us opening such unnecessary debate) After half an hour we have reached the hall, there were more than a hundred students waiting in the narrow corridor the reaching of the ambassador, we were really shocked for how many people were there to attend the official opening ceremony, unfortunately, after we have seen that the crowds were even increasing and other students were arriving we decided to delay our visit to Thursday.

Thursday

When you enter the exhibition a giant photo of Mount Qomolangma stays majestically in front of you, Qomolangma is one of the most impressive peaks of the Himalayan Mountain Range, and its picture was grandly covering the entire left-side wall, aside of this picture the official logo of the exhibition built up from English, Arabic and Chinese scripts. Similar graphics representing Chinese sayings and proverbs were present in different parts of the room.

The visitor is then guided to have a detailed look of the ancient civilizations that made up historical China; in this section you will see old temples, magnificent buildings and ancient ruins, these images are gently faded to pictorial expressions of the grandness of Chinese culture, traditions and folklore, the ancient legends and myths are proudly inherited by modern people, who are fine custodians of these traditions.

Modern China splits out suddenly… today's families, customs, habits are surrounded by technology and modernity, an evidence of China's economic power.

The Chinese way-of-life, the faces and the expressions of the society all materialized in these artistic photos. Good feelings are hold until the end of exhibition, when you become understanding that photos are not chosen at random, nor the proverbs, nor the name of the exhibition. Man and land, religion and atheism, technology and traditions… yes, they are conflicting but they harmoniously compose together a modern country, a great civility named China.

(Well, I'm not the only one who had enjoyed the exhibition; I was constricted to wait nearly 10 minutes before I had access to the guestbook)

Labels: Art, JUST

On June 10 and July 7, 2003 NASA's twin robot geologists, the Mars Exploration Rovers were launched toward Mars. Primary scientific goals of the mission were to search different types of rocks and soils, in addition to discover the sites affected by liquid water in the past. Several photos of the red planet were taken as the robots are supplied with several cameras, one capable of taking images of the surface and sky of Mars and other microscopic cameras to zoom rock and soil targets.

In 2007, after three years from Spirit and Opportunity landing (the twin rovers), NASA announced a contest to choose the best photos of Mars, the voting began on January 3, and ended on January 24, and these are the winners (presented in order):

	NUMBER ONE Sunset The sun sinks beneath the rim of Gusev Crater on May 19, 2005.
	NUMBER TWO Dazzling Dunes As Opportunity crept to the bottom of Endurance Crater, the rover investigated dune crests in false-color, seeing a "blue" tint from hematite-containing spherules ("blueberries") that accumulate on flat surfaces.
	NUMBER THREE Cape Verde Scientists named this dramatic cliff "Cape Verde" and all features at Victoria Crater in honor of locations on Earth that Magellan explored in the 1500s.
	NUMBER FOUR Blueberries on Mars When some scientists first saw these strange beads of hematite, the spheres seemed like "blueberries" embedded in a "muffin" of martian soil.
	NUMBER FIVE Wheel Tracks Hundreds of millions of miles from Earth, a pair of wheel tracks chronicles the rover's journey across a rocky, sandy, rippled slope above a broad Martian plain.

(Photos' descriptions from nasa.gov)

Click if you want to see the other photos or the results of Saturn's photo contest.

Labels: Art, Technology

Today, the deanship of students' affairs in JUST held a nice art exhibition in the show room hall beside al-Farouq hall in Engineering Faculties Complex.

Up to 40 drawings are on view in this exhibition, all of student Shorouq Shabsough (Pharm, 5th year) and this is the fourth time these artworks are shown to the audience in our university, although several other exhibitions for this artist were hold in JU, Yarmouk University, Mutah University as well as Saudi Arabia. Shabsough fully merited the third place in the nationwide prize for drawing - 2002.

Artistic Technique: The major intension of the artist is to deposit all her energy in these oeuvres that are based on an essential thought of a principle, a sentiment or a feeling from which she mixes several colors in the most proper way, aiming to express herself in boundless freedom and liberty.

The other side of the works is represented by her strong sense of belonging to Jordan, so she depicts the passion to her country by pure fantasia. She lives again by these paintings her Caucasian origins and testifies the relationship with ancestors; Circassian culture and folklore are evidently mirrored in her artistic personality.

Labels: Art, JUST