BY: Weam Namou/Ambassador Blogger Award-winning Iraqi American playwright and performer Heather Raffo, who is famous for her one-woman play 9 Parts of Desire, spent the first week of October in Michigan. On October 4, she offered a free theatrical storytelling workshop, entitled Places of Pilgrimage: Identity and Belonging in America, at the Arab American National … Continued
Source: ArabianBusiness.com
Baladi Festival On the Golden Coast BY: Sami Asmar/Contributing Writer The romantic city of Santa Barbara on the beautiful California coast is a mecca for tourism as well as the home of one of the campuses of the University of California. Just like its older sister UCLA, UC Santa Barbara has a music department with … Continued
BY Peter Beaumont The Guardian Israel’s official entry for the best foreign language category at the Oscars is a drama in which the dialogue – for the first time – is exclusively in Arabic. Sand Storm, a gritty film dealing with the lives of Bedouin women in an impoverished and conservative southern village, is the directorial … Continued
OLA KSEROOF Stepfeed In the Arab world, getting engaged is almost as important as getting married. The occasion is usually celebrated in style with a big party and a whole lot of zlagheet and aabalkon. But with the increasing difficulty of finding suitable, marriage material men and overcoming other obstacles (financial, social, emotional), you can’t … Continued
by Emily Ferrari The Phoenix– Swarthmore’s Independent Newspaper After its successful debut last year, the Israel/Palestine Film Series is returning this semester in an attempt to supplement the analytical study of Israeli and Palestinian politics and to shed some light on the underlying emotional complexities of the conflict. Last Wednesday, the film “Walk on Water” … Continued
Philadelphia’s Garden of Eden BY: Sami Asmar/Contributing Writer The name alone tells the whole story, Al-Bustan (the Garden) Seeds of Culture. The Philadelphia non-profit organization promotes Arab culture through music and language by planting the seeds of beauty and the arts with the young and old. With a children ensemble and outreach to the general … Continued
The Big Apple Tastes the Hummus BY: Sami Asmar/Contributing Writer There is probably nothing one cannot find in New York City, the metropolitan like no other. This includes Arab music of all forms. Over the years, several innovative bands were formed there and, until recently, the city was the home of Simon Shaheen, the world … Continued
By Nur Shkembi Reorient Magazine Exploring art as a subversive practice amongst contemporary MENA artists at the Guggenheim It was an uncomfortably hot and typical Brisbane afternoon as I made my way across the concrete courtyard from the Gallery of Modern Art to its big sister, the Queensland Art Gallery. There is something rather exciting … Continued
By Maria Saporta
– Saporta Report
During the politically volatile season when some people mistakenly mention Arabs, Muslim, Islam and terrorists as if they were interchangeable, voices of reason and understanding are hoping to be heard.
One of those voices is Abe Kasbo, an Arab American who was born in Aleppo, Syria.
Slide of ALIF Institute before showing move
Kasbo has spent nearly 10 years working on a documentary to dispel some of those perceptions. The movie – “A Thousand and One Journeys: the Arab Americans” – had its Southern premier Sunday night at the Atlanta History Center.
The event was presented by ALIF Institute, an Atlanta-based organization that has the motto: “Where Arab Culture Lives.”
“Each one of you is a part of the history of this country,” Angela Khoury, executive director of the ALIF Institute, told the audience in the nearly sold-out auditorium. “Be a vibrant part of the future.”
Kasbo said he started thinking about making the film in 2006, and he remembered talking to Nidal Ibrahim in 2007. At the time, Ibrahim was editor and publisher of the Arab American Business Magazine, and today he is an account executive with the Atlanta Business Chronicle.
“I’m proud to play a small part in getting this film to Atlanta,” Ibrahim said Sunday night. “One of the reasons it was so important to bring it here is because we live in politically turbulent times right now.”
Ibrahim went on to to say: “We have an obligation to fill the vacuum; people who seek to define us will do so if there’s a void. We too often are insular in our communities.”
Looking around the room, Ibrahim said they were pleased to fill the auditorium with a diverse audience.
“We are very proud we were able to fill this place with 40 percent of the folks who are here are of non-Arab descent,” he said. “That was our goal.”
Kasbo, who moved to the United States from Syria when he was 10 years old, said the film cost about $700,000, “We raised $150,000,” Kasbo said. “This is not the definitive film.”
Ideally, the history of Arab Americans would be a six-hour series that could be aired over several nights. Kasbo said he has reached an agreement with PBS to have it distribute the film in 2017 – provided it can raise another $20,000.
Filmmaker Abe Kasbo thanks Nidal Ibrahim for helping organize the Southern premier of his film (Photo by Maria Saporta)
“A Thousand and One Journeys: the Arab Americans” tracks the immigration of Arabs to America from the 1860s to the present – explaining the differences among the various waves. The first wave included primarily Arab Christians, many who were largely uneducated with many settling in Brooklyn to work in the textile industry. And the immigrants weren’t just Arab Christians. Syrian Jews also immigrated in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
By the end of World War I, following the fall of the Ottoman Empire, about 250,000 Arabs called America home. During World War II, 15,000 Arabs served in the Armed Forces, there were Arab communities in Dearborn, Michigan; Boston, Ma.; Utica, New York, East Toledo, Ohio; Oklahoma; and even North Dakota, where the first mosque in the United States was located.
Most of the Syrians immigrants in that day were Christians, but people in America assumed they were Muslim. The second wave of Arab immigration happened after World War II, and many of them were Palestinians, fleeing the conflicts in the Middle East. They mostly practiced Islam, were well educated and assimilated into American society.
But that all changed after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. A Palestinian comedian said in the movie that night he went to bed a white guy and woke up as an Arab. Few people realize that only 10 percent of those who practice Islam are Arab.
“The message has really been owning us,” said Kasbo, adding that Arabs crossed over various religious lines.
One way the film hopes to change people’s perception it is by identifying Arabs who have made a difference in America.
Among the Arab Americans interviewed or portrayed in the movie included Sen. George Mitchell, actor Jamie Farr, consumer advocate Ralph Nader, General John Abizaid, Pulitzer Prize winner Anthony Shadid, former White House correspondent Helen Thomas, Indianapolis 500 legend Bobby Rahal, and actor Danny Thomas, who was the founder of the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
“The Arab-American experience is truly an American story,” Kasbo said in statement before the Atlanta showing. “Just like Polish and Italian Americans, the immigration of Arabic speaking people to the United States and their evolution into integral, productive citizens is a purely American phenomenon. As Americans, we can only complete our story when we recognize everyone else’s story.”
Source: saportareport.com
by Darby Maloney The Frame (L-R) Actor Rami Malek, creator Sam Esmail and actor Christian Slater from the USA Network hacker drama, “Mr. Robot.”HEATHER KENNEDY/GETTY IMAGES “Mr. Robot,” the hacker drama on the USA Network with Rami Malek in the lead and Christian Slater in the title role, is born from the brain of Sam … Continued
Rob Garratt
Last month, something special happened. 47Soul – a supergroup uniting four alternative-music figureheads who share roots in Palestine – performed in the West Bank.
For the musicians, it was an emotional homecoming. Despite having rocked huge crowds across Europe – including at the UK’s Glastonbury Festival and Womad (World of Music, Arts and Dance) – the group’s headline slot on July 27 at the Palestine International Festival marked the first time the four members were permitted to perform their twisted electro take on the country’s street music to a native audience.
Why? Passports. The band members share Palestinian heritage – but due to population displacement, they are scattered and none have Palestinian Authority papers.
“It’s home, it’s the home that’s been banned for us to go to, or be in certain places, to be a part of it,” says singer Walaa Sbeit.
“We are Palestinians originally, all of us, with different passports and documents – and those documents put us in a position where we cannot perform where we are originally from.”
The “glue” of the band – which was formed in Jordan in 2013 and is now based in London – is Ramzy Suleiman, better known as electronic artist Z the People. He grew up in Washington DC but decided to trace his father’s roots, moving to Palestine to learn the Arabic quarter-tone keyboard.
He began working with Jordan-based acoustic folk-rapper Tareq Abu Kwaik. Better known as El Far3i, he is a former member of renowned Middle Eastern underground rock act El Morabba3 (The Square). He shared a flat with Hamza Arnaout, guitarist with rival Amman alt-rock act Autostrad, also known as El Jehaz.
The final piece of the puzzle is Sbeit, who has a background in theatre and poetry and also brings a reggae sensibility to the fold, as a former member of Palestine’s Ministry of Dub-Key.
Despite – or, rather, because of – their distinct musical backgrounds, together these four “brothers” have brokered a borderless, genre-less sound by focusing on the one thing they have in common – repurposing the region’s traditional dabke street dance into frenzied 21st-century electronica.
On the surface, 47Soul might recall Egypt’s electro-shaabi craze, but careful listening reveals a cosmopolitan blend, peppered with elements of hip-hop, rock and reggae. Politically charged but party-starting chants and raps fly in Arabic and English.
Listeners have called it “futuristic Levant wedding music”. The band call it “shamstep”. Whatever the name, this quixotic sound has translated easily to international audiences. Lead single Intro to ShamStep has clocked more than a million views on YouTube.
But reaching those audiences live has been problematic; visa issues mean many gigs have had to go ahead at the last minute, with just two of three of the members present. Much of the globe remains inaccessible. Abu Kwaik’s and Arnaout’s parents fled Palestine in 1948 and, as refugees, became Jordanian citizens, which can complicate European travel. Suleiman is an American, while Sbeit was raised in Haifa and holds an Israeli passport, which limits his ability to travel to the Arab world.
“We are stuck like Humpty Dumpty on the wall,” says Sbeit. But his humour hides darker existential issues associated with growing up as a citizen of an alien country, with limited rights and restricted freedom of movement into Palestine.
“My parents and grandparents were displaced from their home in 1948, and forced internally into what became Israel – internal refugees,” he says.
“I’m an indigenous minority – a Palestinian with an Israeli passport. It’s not fun to be a second-class citizen, to feel disenfranchised all the time, unwanted in your own homeland – that’s something that I don’t wish for anybody.” Unafraid to stand up for what he believes, Sbeit has clashed with Israeli authorities on a number of occasions. In June 2014 he was reportedly one of three activists arrested during direct action to reclaim his family’s historical Palestinian village of Igrit, close to the Lebanon border.
“This is one of many, many encounters,” he says, recalling instead a separate incident during which he was interrogated after performing politically sensitive material at a street festival.
“Very simply, we are activists,” he says. “We fight for equality, for being a normal human – and through that you try to do socially and politically conscious work.
“The Israeli system does not accept that, and you can easily be arrested, be accused of attacking officers, waging terror or violence – just by using lyrics and art and performance. This is something that every artist deals with as long as he wants to be not in the mainstream.”
Despite their often charged lyrics – the subject of checkpoints crop up more than once – 47Soul are wary of being defined by their individual politics. United, they do not want any single message to eclipse the infectious power of their music.
“A solo song by any one of us would be talking about the reason these checkpoints exist – and how we should rise up to make them not exist anymore,” says Abu Kwaik neatly.
“A 47Soul song would be about someone trying to meet a girl at a party – and getting stuck because of the checkpoint.
“We just want the world to dance to our sound – and then have a good political discussion after the show with the people you dance next to.”
“My goal for 47Soul,” adds Sbeit, with a laugh, “is to teach the world some new moves besides the Macarena.”
Source: www.thenational.ae
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