On Friday night, the largest Korean pop (K-pop) show yet in the Middle East will take place in the UAE, when the sixth SM Town Live world tour hits Dubai’s Autism Rocks Arena, with 13 artists performing. K-pop has witnessed a phenomenal rise in global popularity in recent years, and Mohammed Khammas, CEO of show organizers Al Ahli Holding Group, told Arab News he believes that’s down to the “incredible variety of talents within each song or performance.”
“K-Pop combines an incredible variety of talents within each song or performance,” Khammas said. “The choreography is the same standard as professional dancing troupes, while the songs are not only catchy but tell a story the audience can identify with — adolescence, love, joy, grief…
“Everything from the writing and music to the performance takes an incredible amount of talent, time and dedication, so the artists themselves are certainly multi-talented, and I think the audience recognizes that,” he continued. “Add to that the intricately designed sets for both the music videos and live performances, and the fact that many of the artists are well-known public figures who present on television or make their own videos, and you can see that they create a real connection between the fans and the music.”
Khammas is hopeful that connection will be forged in the Middle East too.
“Our expectation is to bridge cultures and diversify entertainment in the region,” he said. “Having witnessed the caliber of the artists, we’re hoping the show will open K-pop up to a new demographic of concertgoers. The high-energy, choreographed shows are astounding to watch. I think we can expect many new K-Pop fans once they witness the show in Dubai.”
K-pop comes to Dubai
K-pop comes to Dubai
This handout photograph released on Jan. 21, 2026, shows a view of prehistoric cave paintings in the Sulawesi island of Indonesia, which includes faded hand stencils dated to at least 67,800 years ago. (AFP Photo/Maxime Aubert/Griffith University)
- Newly dated artworks are believed to have been created by ancestors of indigenous Australians
- Discovery shows Sulawesi as one of world’s oldest centers of artistic culture, researcher says
JAKARTA: Hand stencils found in a cave in Indonesia’s Sulawesi are the world’s oldest known artworks, Indonesian and Australian archeologists have said in a new study that dates the drawings back to at least 67,800 years ago.
Sulawesi hosts some of the world’s earliest cave art, including the oldest known example of visual storytelling — a cave painting depicting human-like figures interacting with a wild pig. Found in 2019, it dates back at least 51,200 years.
On Muna, an island off the province’s southeast, researchers have discovered new artworks which are faint and partially obscured by a more recent motif on the wall. They used a new dating technique to determine their age.
The cave art is of two faded hand stencils, one at least 60,900 years old and another dating back at least 67,800 years. This makes it the oldest art to be found on cave walls, authors of the study, which was published this week, said in the journal Nature.
Adhi Agus Oktaviana, a researcher at the National Research and Innovation Agency, or BRIN, and co-author, said this hand stencil was 16,600 years older than the rock art previously documented in the Maros-Pangkep caves in Sulawesi, and about 1,100 years older than stencils found in Spain believed to have been drawn by Neanderthals.
The discovery “places Indonesia as one of the most important centers in the early history of symbolic art and modern human seafaring. This discovery is the oldest reliably dated rock art and provides direct evidence that humans have been intentionally crossing the ocean since almost 70,000 years ago,” Oktaviana said on Wednesday.
The stencils are located in Liang Metanduno, a limestone cave on Muna that has been a tourist destination known for cave paintings that are about 4,000 years old.
“This discovery demonstrates that Sulawesi is one of the oldest and most continuous centers of artistic culture in the world, with roots dating back to the earliest phases of human habitation in the region,” said Prof. Maxime Aubert of Australia, another of the study’s co-authors.
To figure out the stencils’ ages, researchers used a technique called laser-ablation uranium-series dating, which allows for the accurate dating of ocher-based rock art. The method uses a laser to collect and analyze a tiny amount of mineral crusts that had formed on top of the art.
The study also explored how and when Australia first became settled, with the researchers saying the stencil was most likely created by the ancestors of indigenous Australians.
