Reviewed by Afsaneh Ashley Tabaddor

What does it mean to be "White" in America today?

Passage to Dawn concertThe Society of Cinema and Arts presents "Passage to Dawn" at the Zipper in a night of live Persian and Azari music with master musicians Hamid Motebassem on setar, Pejman Hadadi on percussion and Imamyar Hasanov on kamancheh.

This is haunting, spirited music suitable for those with the soul of a Sufi wanderer.

Sample some Hamid Motebassem music now.

A portion of the ticket sales benefits Child International (C.H.I.L.D.), a major charitable organization that helps children in Iran and elsewhere in the Middle East with educational and development needs—so you can feel good while feeling good.

Buy tickets online here (be sure to scroll down).

Levantine Cultural Center in association with The Writing Studio^TM offers ongoing classes in creative writing,

Imaginary Knots: Multimedia Persian PerformanceDancer and choreographer Shida Pegahi, a founding member of Levantine Cultural Center, will present her new collaboration with Iranian composer and musician Hamid Saeidi along with a highly creative team of 30 artists who have put together an evening celebrating the cultural origins of Persian carpets at LACMA.

LACMA has acquired two 16th century Persian carpets that are going to be on display for two months and Levantine Cultural Center, SociArts and the Farhang Foundation wanted to encourage the community to come and see those carpets and enjoy an artistic event about Persian carpets.

Percussionist Rowan StormRowan Storm, master of Middle East percussion and vocalist who has performed with a wide range of world music stars, including Omar Faruk Tekbilek, Naser Musa and Souhail Kaspar, will offer a rare Los Angeles workshop on "Essential Frame Drum Method: an Introductory Survey of Middle Eastern Frame Drums."

This workshop is for new and experienced drummers, but note that no previous experience is necessary.

In this three-hour workshop you will learn:

1. Essential elements for playing Frame Drums of the Middle East and Mediterranean, including:
- Frame Drums with nothing added
- Frame Drums with jingles: tambourine
- Frame Drums with rings: dayereh and daf

2. Key patterns which are common to many kinds of Middle Eastern percussion instruments

3. Efficient technique which empowers you to play tirelessly for many hours

4. Rhythms from the Middle East and Balkans

 
The character of Agrin, contemplating the abyss...We watch the young girl walk in bare feet to the razor blade edge of the cliff, and hope she does not fall. The wind moans in our ears, dusty pebbles shift under her apprehensive steps, and her dark eyes search the hollow space behind her. She returns her gaze to the desolate canyon before her, and draws her feet to the precipice sharpened with snow. And no, she does not fall into the careening abyss. She jumps.

Javad Tehranian teaches KiyanaSpecial guest instructor Javad Tehranian, who is touring the United States this summer, will be teaching the Persian form of whirling or Sufi dance known as Kiyana.

Wear comfortable clothes and prepare for a three-hour intense dance and exercise workshop. Javad Tehranian teaches vital exercises, infinity respiration, eye exercises, and body discipline, as well as symmetric and asymmetric movements by the method of divided attention, inner development, rhythmical contemplative movements, and the  enchanting, euphoric Sama'a dance.

Kiyana, meaning “the origin”, is a system of movements and internal work coming from ancient Persia; it relates to the education and the complete development, the unity and oneness of the body, mind and spirit, cleanliness, purity, equilibrium, power, health of body, tranquility in the mind and subtility of the soul of human beings.

The ability to observe and recognize the level of the self-being and beyond.

Concentration and complete attention, divided attention, and presence.

Front coverFrom Publisher's Weekly:

"Ironic, beautifully written, brutal and ugly, Khadivi's ambitious debut novel follows a Kurdish boy who is tragically and violently conscripted into the shah's army after his own people are slaughtered in battle. Assigned the name Reza Pejman Khourdi-Reza after the first shah of Iran, Pejman meaning heartbroken and Khourdi to denote he's an ethnic Kurd-the boy suppresses all things Kurdish within him, fueled by a sense of self-preservation and self-loathing. Channeling fear and hate into brutal acts against the Kurds, Reza makes a quick climb up the military career ladder, eventually gaining an appointment to Kermanshah, a Kurdish region in the north of Iran. There, as overseer of his own people, Reza promotes Kurdish assimilation and the budding nation of Iran while mercilessly silencing voices of Kurdish independence. As he grows old with his Iranian wife, Meena, Reza's internal conflicts simmer, then boil over, with unexpected and terrible results.