K-pop’s BLACKPINK to perform in UAE for the first time

The music sensations will light up the stage at Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Park on Jan. 28. (AFP)
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Updated 28 October 2022
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K-pop’s BLACKPINK to perform in UAE for the first time

  • Celebration of latest album ‘Born Pink’
  • Most popular Korean female band on world tour

DUBAI: K-pop girl group BLACKPINK are set to make their UAE debut in January.

The music sensations will light up the stage at Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Park on Jan. 28.

This concert will be part of the group’s world tour that celebrates their most recent album “Born Pink.” Concertgoers will experience the group’s array of new songs touching on themes including self-confidence, love, self-encouragement, and dealing with fame and detractors.

The concert tickets will be available for pre-sale on Nov. 2 and for general sale starting Nov. 4.

BLACKPINK, comprising Jisoo, Jennie, Rose and Lisa, is the first music group and Korean female act to have five music videos accumulate 1 billion views each on YouTube, and has the most subscribers on the platform at over 80 million.

The iconic group’s music style is an eclectic mix of pop, hip-hop and trap.

President of Live Nation Middle East James Craven said in a released statement: “K-pop has seen a huge rise in popularity in recent years and BLACKPINK have been at the forefront of this movement, being one of the most famous groups globally.”

“Live Nation are delighted to be able to bring this iconic group to the UAE for the very first time and fans will witness an incredible live show on Jan. 28. Boasting a huge collection of smash hit songs, it promises to be one of the best nights of the year for the Abu Dhabi live music scene,” he added.


‘One in a Million’: Syrian refugee tale wows Sundance

Updated 24 January 2026
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‘One in a Million’: Syrian refugee tale wows Sundance

PARK CITY: As a million Syrians fled their country's devastating civil war in 2015, directors Itab Azzam and Jack MacInnes headed to Turkey where they would meet a young girl who encapsulated the contradictions of this enormous migration.

In Ismir, they met Isra'a, a then-11-year-old girl whose family had left Aleppo as bombs rained down on the city, and who would become the subject of their documentary "One In A Million," which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on Friday.

For the next ten years, they followed her and her family's travels through Europe, towards Germany and a new life, where the opportunities and the challenges would almost tear her family apart.

The film is by directors Itab Azzam and Jack MacInnes. (Supplied)

There was "something about Isra'a that sort of felt to us like it encapsulated everything about what was happening there," MacInnes told an audience at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah on Friday.

"The obvious vulnerability of her situation, especially as being a child going through this, but that at the same time, she was an agent.

"She wasn't sitting back, waiting for other people to save her. She was trying to fight, make her own way there."

The documentary mixes fly-on-the-wall footage with sit-down interviews that reveal Isra'a's changing relationship with Germany, with her religion, and with her father.

It is this evolution between father and daughter that provides the emotional backbone to the film, and through which tensions play out over their new-found freedoms in Europe -- something her father struggles to adjust to.

Isra'a, who by the end of the film is a married mother living in Germany, said watching her life on film in the Park City theatre was "beautiful."

And having documentarists follow her every step of the way as she grew had its upsides.

"I felt like this was something very special," she told the audience after the screening. "My friends thought I was famous; it made making friends easier and faster."