Intensive preparations for Sana’a Cultural Capital, 2004 [Archives:2003/676/Culture]

For several months Sana'a has been preparing for her crowning celebration as capital for the Arabian Culture in the year 2004. All preparations have been ongoing for months now and had taken serious steps into seeing life. Minister of Culture and Tourism Mr. Khalid al-Rowishan announced the highlights of the plan prepared by the ministry to declare Sana'a as Arab culture capital. The plan is based on two principles; one concerning infrastructure and the other related to cultural and creative activities during the coming year.
Concerning the infrastructure part, this is based on building a cultural city in Old Sana'a – “Dar al-Hamd” especially that this mini city will include a number of infrastructure projects where there are three amphitheaters under construction, a sound and light theater, and a large modern theater being built. In addition to a musical center for Yemeni music that documents of all kinds of Yemeni musical arts since the beginning and until day, and all that had been mentioned about the Yemeni music in the Arab League and the UNESCO, the center includes a popular theater. Most of the musical and dance exhibitions are planned to take place in the latter.
Among the infrastructure projects as well is the establishing of a national center for manuscripts especially that Yemen possesses many historical old and ancient manuscripts that are kept in some of the mosques and with old families and now the attempt are to gather them all in one place. The documents will be bought from the owners and will be archived in the center according to classification and type.
The Yemeni architecture will be displayed through huge modules describing the Yemeni cities in addition to that there will be a special fashion house for the Yemeni costumes from all around the country. A cinema hall will be created for showing films during the coming year. The movies will come from all around the Arab world especially from Oman. A hall for modern arts will be constructed and halls in the national museum will be renovated.
As for the programs that will take place in 2004 they will start from January until December and throughout there will be events going on. The events include 12 national seminars and 8 Arab seminars, three Arab and international conventions where Arab intellectuals, artists and authors will participate in. There will be five exhibitions in poetry, stories, novels, plays, and folklore songs.
Sidewise with these cultural and artistic events an exhibition for poetry will take place where famous poets from around the Arab world will gather. Also there will be a similar exhibition for Arabic story and an exhibition for books and a conference of Arabian sculptures.
The events will publish 35 scripts of the traditional books and translation of 5 books about Yemen into different languages. 100 books will be printed of various modern creative works for Yemeni intellectuals and artists as well as Arab writers. Twenty-five books for women and children will be printed and 500 titles will be printed. Around 100 Arab personalities will be invited and hosted during the events varying from cultural, intellectual and artistic personalities in the Arab world.
——
[archive-e:676-v:13-y:2003-d:2003-10-13-p:culture]