Today's Edition
MAYS IBRAHIM (ABU DHABI)
Twelve UAE-based performing artists have been selected for the fourth edition of Numoo, a professional development accelerator designed to help creatives build long-term careers in the arts.
Hosted by The Arts Center at NYU Abu Dhabi, with support from MusicNation, the programme will run from May to August 2026.
Launched as an online pilot during the pandemic in 2021-2022, Numoo has supported 34 artists to date.
This year’s cohort was selected after an open call attracted nearly triple the number of applications received in previous editions.
Aimed at early- and mid-career artists, the programme focuses less on artistic training itself and more on the practical side of sustaining a career in the arts.
Workshops cover areas including producing, fundraising, contracts, branding, touring and collaboration.
For Bill Bragin, founding executive artistic director of The Arts Center at NYUAD, Numoo is part of a broader effort to shape a distinctly UAE-rooted creative ecosystem.
“We don’t want the art scene that we’re cultivating in the UAE to look like the art scene anywhere else,” Bragin told Aletihad in a recent interview. “It can be something that has the porousness of people going across discipline and style and experimenting.”
The 2026 cohort includes musicians, dancers, actors, choreographers, storytellers and multidisciplinary performers from a range of backgrounds, including Emiratis, long-term residents and more recently arrived expatriates.
Bragin said the interdisciplinary nature of the programme is intentional, allowing artists to learn not only from invited mentors but also from one another.
“A big part of it is the conversation that happens between the artists,” he explained. “Having those conversations with people who are coming from a different discipline opens you up to the possibility that the way you’ve been doing things is not the only way to do it.”
The programme itself grew out of the COVID-19 period, when international touring slowed dramatically and cultural institutions began engaging more deeply with artists already based in the UAE.
Bragin said that moment revealed the depth of local talent and presented an opportunity to develop stronger professional support structures.
“How do I make a living as an artist? How do I move my career forward?” Bragin said Numoo’s curriculum addresses those questions through intensive sessions led by UAE-based and international arts professionals.
Topics range from intellectual property and artist contracts to building creative teams and developing commissioned work. Beyond skills training, Bragin said the programme aims to encourage artists to take greater ownership of their careers. “One of the things that’s really exciting is seeing artists now starting their own work and pushing it forward [without waiting for an invitation from an institution].”
Several alumni have gone on to develop independent productions and collaborations after meeting through the programme’s growing network, which now spans 46 artists including the incoming cohort.
Bragin said the initiative has also influenced The Arts Center’s own programming. Previous Numoo participants have later been commissioned by the institution, including members of 63kolektib, a Filipino theatre group whose production “Metro Diaries” went on to sell out at the venue.
“Not only do we want to help the UAE, we want to help ourselves to create more opportunities to include more local artists in our programme,” he said.
The Numoo 2026 Cohort
• Ananya Murali - singer-songwriter
• Dalia Yassine - film and performance maker
• Doris Tao - dancer
• Ibrahim Ustadi – actor
• Isaac Tbazz - bass player
• Ksenia Klubova - dancer, choreographer, and aerial artist
• Maitha Ali - artist and theater maker
• Ram Farha - musical theater actor
• Samir El Kawas - storyteller
• Sreeja Chakra - musician
• Stephanie Tadros - multidisciplinary performer and director
• Yousif Hassan - singer-songwriter
