Dia al-AzzawiDia al-Azzawi was born in Baghdad in 1939. He is an outstanding artist, art consultant, and author who has written several articles about Iraqi contemporary art and Arab art. He is a prominent artist of the Iraq school who played a role in the promotion of Iraqi and Arab art to wider audiences, notably through numerous publications and exhibitions of his and his contemporaries' works. In 1969 he formed the art group New Vision along with other artists such as Rafa al-Nasiri, Mohammed Muhriddin, Ismail Fattah, Hachem al Samarchi, and Saleh al-Jumaie. Al-Azzawi joined the One Dimension group that Shakir Hassan al-Said initiated but remained within the fold of New Vision until 1972. Beyond painting, Al-Azzawi's work includes sculptures, prints, and drawings, as well as books through which visual art interacts with prose and poetry. He has exhibited extensively in the Middle East, North Africa, United States, India, Brazil, and Europe, including a retrogressive exhibition, "Dia Azzawi," at the Institute du Monde Arabe (IMA) in Paris in 2002. In 1976, Al-Azzawi relocated to London to work as an art consultant at the Iraqi Cultural Centre.

Reviewed by Omid Arabian

"Green Zone" is out on DVD: your purchase in part benefits Levantine Cultural Center
All it took to make me want to see Green Zone was the New York Post's review. The unabashedly fascist tabloid, which serves as a generally reliable counterindicator around my house, called the Matt Damon Iraq-war actioner "a $100 million slime job that conjures up a fantastically distorted leftist picture of the war" and "one of the most egregiously anti-American movies ever released by a major studio." I took this to mean that Paul Greengrass's film was a well-made, engaging piece of work that dared to speak some well-proven (i.e. Fox-denied) truths about U.S. foreign policy. And boy, was I right.

Damon stars as Officer Roy Miller, leader of a U.S. Army squad tasked with smoking out possible WMD locations around Iraq in 2003. When one by one the sites turn out to be duds, Miller begins to question the intelligence through which the alleged sites are being identified.

Ariel Sabar, My Father's Paradise: A Son's Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2008)

Reviewed by David Shasha

My Father's Paradise: your purchase in part benefits Levantine Cultural CenterTowards the end of Ariel Sabar's extraordinarily compelling retelling of his family's history in Iraqi Kurdistan, he makes a brilliant observation that encapsulates his tale and is emblematic of the broken stories of so many Middle Eastern Jews. Recalling his father's feverish memories of his fractured past-a past of rich traditions that were destroyed over the course of successive exiles-he states:

Dreams, I recalled now, had long been a refuge from his life's incongruities. During his first year in the United States, he once told me, he dreamed he was in New York, all alone in Grand Central Station. All at once, the train doors swept open and all of Zakho's Kurds poured out onto the platform. Dreams were a place where fragments could be made whole. (pp. 278-279)

By Hadani Ditmars

I am back in Baghdad after seven years away.

Since 2003, a million people have died in Iraq in the wake of post-invasion violence. (1) Sectarian wars have torn the country apart, foreign troops have established huge military bases, and politicians who have sworn to crack down on militias have their own private armies. This once secular nation has been scarred by extremism, with terrible consequences for women, gay people and religious minorities. As government ministries remain feeding troughs for cronyism and sectarian patronage, national reconciliation remains elusive.

By Jessica Proett, Staff Writer

Veiled women strolling in Barcelona: (AFP)In the West, the veil has now gone beyond a cliché symbol into a catalyst for policymaking. Whereas new dress code laws claim they aren't specifically targeting religion, banning face coverings directly affects the choice to wear certain traditional Muslim attire such as the niqab or burka. Consequently, issues of free speech, freedom of religion, public safety, and current events are all colliding with stereotypes and Islamaphobia in a cocktail for rabble-rousing debate on how religion should be dealt with in the public sphere, and more specifically, how Eastern cultural traditions should be dealt with in Western democratic societies.

Event Details

Date/Time: 

Jun 20 2010 1:00pm - 5:00pm

Price: 

$40 in advance, $45 at the door ($36 members with advance RSVP)
Click here to buy tickets

Where: 

Levantine Cultural Center
5998 W. Pico Blvd.
Los Angeles CA 90035
Street parking
Located equidistant between Fairfax and La Cienega

a creative writing workshop

Levantine Cultural Center & The Writing Studio present Writing for Peace: War, Peace & the Path to Freedom. This workshop in creative writing with Elana Golden is for new and experienced writers—limited to 10 participants.

Turning wounds into literature is an act of self-preservation, self-discovery—a journey toward personal and global healing and peace. Elana Golden is a Los Angeles writer and teacher who works and corresponds with Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel. She has taught creative writing at Levantine Cultural Center for  the past two years. She has worked with new and established writers from many countries, including Iran, Iraq, Israel, Pakistan, Egypt and the United States.

Whether among nations, classes or families, the workshop provides a peaceful, respectful and inspiring space in which to write stories born of war, conflict or occupation. The skills of creative writing will be taught and explored, as well as effective methods to put aside the critical mind.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Jordan Elgrably, Nile El Wardani, Elie Karam
Levantine Cultural Center
310.657.5511 or 310.402.8866

[Los Angeles, May 20, 2010] Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's top aide, Special Representative to Muslim Communities Farah Pandith, will speak in a public forum on cultural diplomacy organized by the Levantine Cultural Center on Thursday, May 27, 2010, at 7 pm at the Mark Taper Auditorium in downtown Los Angeles.

The "clash of civilization" dialectic and the "war on terror" discourse require Americans to broaden our international outreach, to improve understanding of the Arab/Muslim world. In fact, the alchemy of change requires that we empathize with narratives that may differ from our own; and sometimes these narratives are strikingly similar. Cultural diplomacy efforts use the arts to address communities in conflict-or groups that appear to have opposing interests whether because of different religious traditions, political beliefs or ethnic identification.

Event Details

Date/Time: 

May 27 2010 6:45pm - 10:00pm

Price: 

Donations requested (suggested $20 forum, $50 forum & reception)
Click here to RSVP

Where: 

Mark Taper Auditorium
Los Angeles Central Public Library
5th and Flower Streets
Downtown Los Angeles 90071
Parking garage entrance on Fugueroa just south of 5th, $8.
Info, reservations 310.657.5511

May 27, 2010 Forum: There Is No "Us and Them"

"I Save Babylon" Benefit Concert Features World MusicLevantine Cultural Center and Souk77 Productions will host I Save Babylon, a benefit concert featuring the legendary Cheb i Sabbah, along with MC Rai, Sila and guests, performing North African, AfroFunk and world fusion at the historic Warfield Theatre in the heart of San Francisco on July 17, 2010.

Features house/electronica DJ's including Algeria's DJ Pheeko Dubfunk Trio.

I Save Babylon is the first of an ongoing annual concert event whose mission is to raise money to provide instruments to community outreach and youth centers for the children of Iraq. Some Iraqi children have never touched a musical instrument due to devastating effects of poverty and ongoing conflicts. This concert was created in the hope of bringing inspiration to the children of Iraq so they can envision a brighter future for themselves and their community through unity and music.

When asked about the purpose of the concert, MC Rai stated that "...having an opportunity to express myself musically while growing up in Tunisia gave me the ability to adapt to different cultures and understand the real meaning of tolerance. This is why I wanted to create an evening of not only sharing the music of Cheb Khaled and North Africa, but also an opportunity to give back to young people that need the hope that musical expression creates."

Event Details

Date/Time: 

Jul 17 2010 8:00pm - 11:00pm

Price: 

General $25, VIP $100
Can't attend? Donations are welcome. Click here to donate to "I Save Babylon"

Where: 

Warfield Theatre
982 Market Street
San Francisco CA 94102
415.345.0900

"I Save Babylon" Benefit Concert: with Cheb i Sabbah, MC Rai, Sila, Hamsa Lila et alLevantine Cultural Center and Souk77 Productions host I Save Babylon, a benefit concert featuring the legendary Cheb i Sabbah, along with MC Rai, Sila and guests, performing North African, AfroFunk and world fusion at the historic Warfield Theatre in the heart of San Francisco on July 17, 2010.

Features house/electronica DJ's including Algeria's DJ Pheeko Dubfunk Trio.

I Save Babylon is the first of an ongoing annual concert event whose mission is to raise money to provide instruments to community outreach and youth centers for the children of Iraq. Some Iraqi children have never touched a musical instrument due to devastating effects of poverty and ongoing conflicts. This concert was created in the hope of bringing inspiration to the children of Iraq so they can envision a brighter future for themselves and their community through unity and music.

Can't attend the show in San Francisco? You can make a donation to "I Save Babylon" here. You'll receive a receipt for your taxes and an update on where the instruments are going!

When asked about the purpose of the concert, MC Rai stated that "...having an opportunity to express myself musically while growing up in Tunisia gave me the ability to adapt to different cultures and understand the real meaning of tolerance. This is why I wanted to create an evening of not only sharing the music of Cheb Khaled and North Africa, but also an opportunity to give back to young people that need the hope that musical expression creates."