Launch of the International Drums Festival from the Northern Cairo Wall Theatre

The tenth edition of the International Drums and Traditional Arts Festival has kicked off in Cairo, featuring approximately 30 local and foreign groups from Greece, Mexico, Bangladesh, South Sudan, Indonesia, Algeria, Sri Lanka, Yemen, India, and Palestine. The participating groups presented snippets of their arts on the stage of the Northern Cairo Wall, as part of an annual show called "International Workshop," led by the festival's founder and president, artist Intisar Abdel Fattah. The festival's free performances, which extend until June 2nd, are spread across five venues: the Cultural Park at Al-Hawd Al-Marsoud, Al-Hanager Square at the Cairo Opera House, Beit Al-Sennari in the Sayeda Zeinab district, the Child Center for Civilization and Creativity in New Cairo, and the Northern Cairo Wall Theatre. Festival director Sihem Ismail stated that "the Drums and Traditional Arts Festival creates a state of human communication between different cultures and showcases the folk identity of the participating countries." She added that "the festival also includes various Egyptian groups from different governorates alongside the groups of the Artistic House for Folkloric Arts." The festival is held under the slogan "Drum Dialogue for Peace" and is organized annually by the Dialogue Foundation for the Arts and Cultures of Peoples, under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture and in collaboration with the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.