The Arab British Centre

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Arabic Music Theory

This course is highly recommended for students who want to take oud lessons for the first time but haven’t seriously studied music before. In this short series of classes, consisting of 5 lessons, you will learn all the basic skills you need to read, write and “talk” music. Taking a practical approach to music theory, we will be adapting the best bits from Western classical music theory and Arab classical music theory to give you all the tools you need to start your new life as a musician.

CourseBy The Arab British Centre

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Creative Indiscipline: Art, Exile, and Resistance

*Starts Tuesday 31 March* A six-week course exploring how artists, writers, filmmakers, and cultural practitioners in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia have developed distinctive ways of making, thinking, and imagining since independence. By creative indiscipline, the course understands insubmission as a conscious refusal of colonial legacies, patriarchal norms, religious authoritarianism, and attempts to regulate culture, bodies, and memory. The course explores how indiscipline has been practised through imagination, form, and experiment: as a way of thinking, making, and living otherwise.

CourseBy The Arab British Centre

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Decolonising Belly Dance: Theory and Practice

*Starts Tuesday 31 March* This ‘Decolonising Bellydance’ in person course is aimed at those who want to learn ‘bellydance’ beyond its bodily movement. It will look into the dance as a cultural celebration addressing its historical journey, its travel to the west and its development to the different styles we see today. It will tackle the myths that surround it, the problematic terminology and the stereotypes associated with it through the theories of Orientalism, Male & Colonial Gaze and Feminism.

CourseBy The Arab British Centre

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Islamic Geometric Pattern: Practice and Meaning

*Starts Wednesday 25 March* Traditional geometric art served as a powerful tool in contemplating the harmonic qualities of the natural world. In this course you are invited to explore the symbolism of Islamic Geometric Pattern and try your hands at the meditative practice of its construction using only pencils, a ruler and a drawing compass.

CourseBy The Arab British Centre

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Manuscript Kufic Calligraphy

*Starts Thursday 10 September* Immerse yourself in Manuscript Kufic, an early style of Arabic calligraphy that flourished during the Abbasid “golden age”. This hybrid course combines online theory with in-person, practical weekend full-days. It is based on the finest example of this architectural and spacious Qur’anic script which fell out of use almost a millenium ago. Under Joumana Medlej’s guidance you will learn to use the pen and gallnut ink associated with this style.

CourseBy The Arab British Centre

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Stitching Survival: Palestinian Embroidery as Ontological Resistance and Feminist Praxis

*Starts Thursday 26 March* This course explores Palestinian embroidery (tatreez) as a living cultural practice, a visual language, and a form of ontological and feminist resistance. Moving beyond craft-based readings, the course situates tatreez within broader historical, political, and decolonial frameworks, examining how stitched motifs encode memory, identity, gendered labour, and survival under conditions of displacement and colonial violence.

CourseBy The Arab British Centre

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Taqasim Music School: Darbuka Courses

*New term starts in September* The darbuka (also doumbec, tabla and goblet drum) is a drum with an ancient history and is widely used in the music of the Middle East and neighboring areas. It is played with the hands and has a single “head”. Originally, it was made of baked clay and an animal-skin head. Modern versions are usually made of a light metal such as aluminum and have a plastic “head”.

CourseBy The Arab British Centre

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Taqasim Music School: Oud & Arabic Music Theory Courses

*New term starts in September* Taqasim Music School, founded by Iraqi Oud Master Ahmed Mukhtar, was established in 2011 to teach one of the most significant Oriental instruments called Oud, among other instruments and disciplines that represent Middle Eastern Music.

CourseBy The Arab British Centre

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Telling Our Stories: Writing and Illustrating Children's Books with Authentic and Empowered Representation

*Starts Wednesday 16 September* This six-week online course invites writers, illustrators, storytellers, and anyone passionate about children’s books to explore the world of picture books together. Whether your interest lies in writing, illustration, storytelling, or understanding the publishing industry, the course will guide you through the creative journey from idea to publication.

CourseBy Nadine Kaadan

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“The Revolution Continues”: Creative Practices Since the 2011 Egyptian Revolution.

*Starts Wednesday 10 June* This 6 week live online course explores creative practices since the January 2011 Egyptian revolution, and how they have been negotiated by Egyptian artists, cultural practitioners, and activists as forms of resistance, grassroots activism, or political expression. Drawing on examples from the performing arts, media, visual arts, and cultural preservation, the course unpacks some of the dynamics of ‘subversive’ artistic practices that emerged since 2011, and their role in shaping understandings of place, citizenship, and collective agency, and by implication, reactivating the public sphere.

CourseBy Nesreen Hussein

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The Third House: Writing and Sharing Diasporic Poetry

*Starts Tuesday 22 September 2026* The Third House is an in-between space between home, homeland, and the imagined future home, where Arab diaspora voices can explore identity, intergenerational memory, cultural landscapes, language, and belonging through creative practice and poetic writing. Led by poet Amina Atiq, this participant-led online course engages creative methodologies including oral storytelling, body mapping, photovoice and ghazal poetry; offering an opportunity to actively explore and produce knowledge shaped by stories carried, lived, and imagined.

CourseBy The Arab British Centre

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Vision Machines: The Multi-Worlds of Arab Science Fiction Narratives

*Starts Tuesday 7 July * What alternative and encompassing views of time, technology and the cosmos do Arab science fiction narratives have to offer? A genre popularized in the twentieth century by comics/manga, blockbuster movies/anime and Anglo-American authors, science fiction is frequently referenced today to describe a world that is being dramatically and rapidly transformed by warfare, artificial intelligence, and environmental destruction. Vision Machines examines the work of authors, artists and filmmakers who alter widely held conceptions about the genre. Participants will have the opportunity to explore a vibrant range of material, including mainstream Egyptian movies and TV shows, experimental films by Palestinian and Lebanese artists, children’s comics, and serialised graphic novels. Drawing on Islamic tradition and culture, inventions and ancient myths, this course will enhance our understanding of the past, present and future as conceived in the Arab world.

CourseBy The Arab British Centre

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