:: April 2005 ::

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All programs free unless otherwise noted.


Through April 30—"The Fire Next Time" Exhibit of Kamran Moojedi's Recent Work at Sharq Gallery

Nahid Massoud and Robert Rosenstone invite you to attend an art exhibition featuring the recent works of Kamran Moojedi, "The Fire Next Time,” mixing pigments and pixels.

"The Fire Next Time," (with homage to James Baldwin) Kamran Moojedi’s mixed media works of sketches, digital paintings, and photography intends to be a powerful investigation of death and rebirth in nature and in culture. Before this recent series, and for over twenty years, Moojedi has been engaged in a collaboration with his computer, plotter, mouse and stylus to create what are some of the most extraordinary digital images of our age. In his memorable series of portraits of Andy Warhol, what began with curved lines changed to straight lines and ended up as numbers that made up the image of Warhol. Moojedi subsequently created stunning images of such cultural icons as Stephen Hawking, Woody Allen, and Nelson Mandela.

"The Fire Next Time" consists of more personal works, motivated by the great San Bernardino Mountains fire of 2003, which came close to destroying Moojedi’s studio. As he explains, these new pieces are not meant as an illustration of the fire and what it left behind, but rather, they focus on archetypal elements that took him back to ancient Persian mythology and ritual. The works are a meditation on the concept of duality in Persian culture, first taught by Zoroaster, using it as a way to come to grips with the contradictions in his own life.

Born in Tehran, Moojedi left to attend art school in Turin, Italy, then went on to Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, where he received his Master of Fine Arts degree and remained to teach for six years. Following that, he worked for seven years as a multi-media designer and art director at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab. The 1979 revolution left Moojedi stranded in the United States. He compares the Islamic revolution to a wildfire, flaming out of control, burning equally the guilty and the innocent, the past and future. Like fire, revolution can be considered destructive and evil or as a purifying and cleansing agent. The trauma of the San Bernardino fire and it's aftermath made Moojedi face a series of unpredictable changes in his life including seeking a closure with his past. For the first time, he went back to his homeland and spent four months in Iran.

"Seeing Tehran after 25 years, I experienced strong emotional surges of highs and lows. One moment I was filled with excitement, the next with despair. It felt much like the first time I saw the burnt forest. This place had no resemblance to the home I remembered. I was lost.”
The way of finding himself again was through the process of creation. After Moojedi’s return to California, the twin experiences of the fire and of his homeland came together in his new works:

“As I began reworking the Fire series from the alien landscape, bringing together elements from within and without, mixing pigments and pixels, something familiar started emerging in the artwork, which was generic and not limited to this particular tragedy. It was not a representation of time and space in a two-dimensional format; rather, it was an expression of emotional and psychological interactions with those realities."

The resulting works in his superb new series, "The Fire Next Time" contain some of the most compelling and insightful images being created today in any medium.

Exhibition runs to April 30, by appointment SHARQ, 537 Arbramar Ave, Pacific Palisades, CA 90272. RSVP. 310.454.6826. Email for more info. Directions: Sunset Blvd one block west of Temescal Canyon; turn left on El Medio, go four blocks; turn right on Miami Way; turn left at first corner, Arbramar 537 is fourth house on the right; SHARQ is located down the driveway at the back of the property.

Neshama: Stories of the Soul, April 3, 3 pm

Los Angeles-based dance company Keshet Chaim Ensemble with special guests from Israel presents a mosaic of music, dance and color when Israeli singing sensation Noa Dori joins the ensemble in Neshama: Stories of the Soul at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza on Sunday,

April 3. Neshama features choreography by Keshet Chaim artistic director Eytan Avisar and guest choreographers Ilana Cohen and Tsion Marciano of Israel’s Inbal Dance Theatre. Original music is composed by Uri Ophir and Sharon Farber.

Neshama: Stories of the Soul celebrates the myths evoked by the city of Jerusalem for thousands of years, embracing biblical images as dramas of the soul. The full-length, multimedia performance is inspired by personal, spiritual journeys and enriched by thousands of years of Jewish legends, commentaries and religious texts. Through movement, music, song, visuals and narration, the production sweeps through the millennia, beginning before the creation of the universe and ending in the present.

“Neshama is a dance-theater production that takes the audience on a journey,” explains Keshet Chaim executive director Genie Benson. “The story is acted out through dance movements that incorporate modern, ballet and folk. Over 300 hand-painted silk costumes created by Danish costume designer, Nili Glazer, help to transport the audience into the time period.”

Sunday, April 3, 2005 at 3 pm (Daylight Savings starts on April 3rd. set your clocks ahead).
Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza, 2100 Thousand Oaks Blvd, Thousand Oaks.

Tickets: $26 - $72 through the Keshet Chaim Ticket Line: 818.986.7332 or www.kcdancers.org or the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza box office: 805.449.ARTS or 805.449.2787 or www. ticketmaster.com.


Whirling Dervishes of Turkey, April 4, 8 pm

Global Cultural Connections brings one of the wonders of Turkey to Los Angeles: "Whirling Dervishes of Rumi" perform one of the most exquisite ceremonies of spirituality.

Audience members who come to see the Whirling Dervishes will be eligible to win a free Turkey trip for two. This is a rare opportunity to experience a mesmerizing seven-century old
ritual, incredible performance featuring beautiful costumes, hypnotic live music with flutes, string and percussion, and the amazing sight of the Dervishes whirling on the stage.
Tickets are: 20$-Student, 25-35-45. Discounts of -10% for groups of at least 10. (If you decide to see this show with your groups, please contact to group ticket discounts at 213.
792-0378 or grouptickets@gccfoundation.com.)

Tickets at UCLA Ticket Office
or call 310. 825.2101 or
Ticket Master or call 213.365-3500

The Whirling Dervishes ritual unites the three fundamental components of human nature:
the mind (as knowledge and thought), the heart (through the expression of feelings, poetry and music), and the body (by activating life, by turning). These three elements are thoroughly joined both in theory and in practice and as perhaps in no other ritual or system of thought. Experiencing the Whirling Dervishes is like being transported on a magic carpet ride, with the exotic music creating a sense of inner rapture.

For more information about Sufism and whirling dervishes, please visit Global Cultural Connections at or email them.

Whirling Dervishes of Rumi, Royce Hall, UCLA, Monday, April 4, 8:00 pm. Parking $7 in lot 5 (enter from Sunset Blvd. just west of Hilgard).


April 11 (Mon), 4 pm—Ella Shohat discusses & screens "Forget Baghdad," a documentary about Arab-Jewish cultural relations, postcolonial displacement, exile & belonging.

“Forget Baghdad” is a must-see documentary, reflecting upon the clichés of “the Jew” and “the Arab” in the last hundred years of cinema, combined with the biographies of some extraordinary individuals: Iraqi-Jewish communists.

“Son of the Sheikh” “Jud Süss” “Exodus” “True Lies”. Silent film star Valentino as the noble Bedouin. The image of the “greedy Jew” serving the Nazi cause. Paul Newman as the blue-eyed Jewish freedom fighter in Palestine. The dark-skinned, hook-nosed, hysterically shrieking Arab terrorist who gets annihilated by Schwarzenegger… A muddled composite of cineastic memories!

Jewish Arabs? Arab Jews? Sephardim? Mizrahim? Over the past few years, there has been a lively debate in Israel, mainly among intellectual “Mizrahim” (Middle Eastern Jews). Their criticism is directed at the politics of alienation and the ways in which Arab Jews have been used against Palestinian Arabs, stemming from the colonial pretensions asserted by Israel’s European-influenced founding generation. See "Forget Baghdad" web site.
King Hall D140, Cal State Univ., 5151 State U. Dr, LA. Info, 323.343-5001 or visit Cal State L.A. web site.


April 22 (Fri), 12 noon—Author Asne Seierstad reads from A Hundred and One Days on Iraq

In January 2003 Asne Seierstad entered Baghdad on a ten-day visa. She was to stay for over three months, reporting on the war and its aftermath. A Hundred and One Days is her compelling account of a city under siege, and a fascinating insight into the life of a foreign correspondent. An award-winning writer, Seierstad brilliantly details the frustrations and dangers journalists faced trying to uncover the truth behind the all-pervasive propaganda. She also offers a unique portrait of Baghdad and its people, trying to go about their daily business under the constant threat of attack. Seierstad’s passionate and erudite book conveys both the drama and the tragedy of her one hundred and one days in a city at war.
Vroman’s Books, 695 E Colorado Blvd, Pasadena.


April 28 (Thurs), 7:30 pm—Screening of Iranian director’s Ramin Serry’s “Maryam” at Caltech

“Maryam” (2000) memorably tells the story of a woman growing up Iranian-American as the 1979 revolution hits and politics invades her ordinary American life. Written and directed by: Ramin Serry. Cast: Mariam Parris, David Ackert, Shaun Toub, Shoreh Aghdashloo, Maziyar Jobrani, Sabine Singh, Victor Jory.

Cinematography: Harlan Bosmajian. In English and Persian with English subtitles.
For his debut feature, Maryam filmmaker Ramin Serry turned to a period of history that he knew well — the 1979 Iran hostage crisis. Though he was only 10 at the time, in the coming years, Serry, an Iranian-American, felt the sting of prejudice that arose from that event. With Maryam, Serry turns that early pain into art and fine drama.

Maryam Armin (Mariam Parris) is a New Jersey teenager whose biggest problem is her too-strict father (Shaun Toub). An Iranian immigrant, she doesn't feel much of a connection to her homeland or the revolution taking place there. But then her Islamic fundamentalist cousin Ali (David Ackert) moves in, and shortly after that, the hostages are captured in Iran. Maryam's native country becomes suddenly a central fact in her life as Ali struggles to find his place in the revolution and a new bigotry grips the Armins' suburban community.
“Maryam” offers both a heartfelt coming-of-age drama and a thought-provoking look at the corrosive effects of American-style prejudice — a subject that, unfortunately, remains timely. After making the rounds of film festivals, where Serry picked up an early champion in critic Roger Ebert, “Maryam”went on to garner considerable acclaim. Screens at Baxter Hall, Caltech, 332 S Michigan Ave, Pasadena. Info, 888.2CALTECH.

April 30 (Sat.), 7-11:00 p.m.—"Blood," Exhibit/Reception in Iraq art series

Selah Artistic Giving Center presents the fourth Iraqi/American collaborative gallery opening. "Blood" brings artists together to manifest blood's many meanings in such a way as to illuminate cultural tensions and beautifully provoke understanding. “Veil.Blood.Book.Desert” Four New Symbols of Peace By Iraq and America.

The exhibit will feature an Interactive Family Tree Installation: Blood as family lineage: A 13 foot family tree comprised of black and white copied Iraqi family tree posters will cover the gallery’s center column. These posters plot the line of BLOOD from Abraham and from his two sons Isaac and Ishmael, depicting their separation of their own family trees. This historical separation of brothers was the foundation of the cultural tensions between Judeo-Christian America and the predominantly Islamic Iraq. The Blood lineage family tree will also intermix both Iraqi and American newspapers with articles & pictures covering the war. The trees branches will extend across the gallery’s ceiling and those who attend the opening will have the opportunity to have their picture taken and hung from the branches along with other American and Iraqi artists. Literature on both the Islamic and Judeo Christian story of Isaac and Ishmael will be available for people to read and take with them.

The evening features music & dance with Frankie Flave from Style Elements and Kilafornia along with Jeremy McDara will organize world class breakdancing battles set to Drum n’ Bass and Hip Hop. Their performances will depict
Los Angeles' warfare in the inner city streets and arts way of sublimating gang warfare into positive expression.

Paintings by: Abdulah Ashaeb an Iraqi artist living in Iraq. Using lcd projectors will project the images of his paintings Iraq projected onto the gallery walls. Also work by Michael Ulrich, Patrick Haemmerlein.

Performance Art by downtown artist Launa Bacon, who will engage in an instant message conversation with her cousin, a soldier, who is currently stationed in Iraq.

Charity Art: The Red Cross will set up a mobile blood drawing booth. As blood flows down through the family lines and is lost through warfare, so does blood circulate throughout our system. Gallery opening goers will have the opportunity to give blood that will be earmarked for Iraq, thereby completing the circulation within the exhibit as well as the circulation of blood between the cultures sprung from Isaac and Ishmael.

Selah invites everyone to come and experience a beautiful night of art, music, and dance celebrating the reconciliation of understanding. Chapter 4: Blood, April 30th, 7-11pm . 1001 e. 1st st. gallery #15, Los Angeles 90012. $5 suggested donation.


May 6 (Fri), 8:00 pm—Poets Nathalie Handal & Sholeh Wolpé Read From New Works

Palestinian American Nathalie Handal and Iranian American Sholeh Wolpé are two of the most dynamic young women poets who are not from the United States, yet are part of a vibrant and growing Mideast literature in the diaspora represented by American contemporary literature. On Friday evening, May 6, 8 pm, they will both read from their new books, The Lives of Rain (Interlink 2004) and The Scar Saloon (Red Hen Press 2004), at Beyond Baroque Literary/Arts Center, in a special appearance organized by Levantine Cultural Center.

Nathalie Handal is a poet, playwright and writer who has lived in Europe, the United States, the Caribbean, Latin America and the Middle East. She finished her MFA at Bennington College and her post-graduate degree at the University of London. Her work has appeared in numerous magazines, literary journals and anthologies worldwide, and she has been featured on NPR, KPFK, and PBS Radio. She has directed and is the author of numerous plays; and of Traveling Rooms (Poetry CD), The NeverField (poetry book), and The Lives of Rain, a collection shortlisted for The Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry/The Pitt Poetry Series. Handal is the editor of The Poetry of Arab Women: A Contemporary Anthology, an Academy of American Poets bestseller and winner of the Pen Oakland/Josephine Miles award. Handal is presently editing two anthologies, Dominican Literature and Arab-American and Arab Diaspora Literature (Fall 2005); and co-editing along with Tina Chang and Ravi Shankar, Risen from East: An Anthology of South Asian, East Asian and Middle Eastern Poets. She is Poetry Books Review Editor for Sable (UK) and Associate Artist and Development Executive for the production company, The Kazbah Project. She teaches at Columbia University.

Poet and translator Sholeh Wolpé was born in Iran but spent most of her teen years in the Caribbean and Europe, ending up in the U.S. where she studied Radio-TV-Film at George Washington University in Washington DC. She then obtained an MA in the same field from Northwestern University and later, an MHS in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University. In 1984 she moved to California where she produced documentaries for the health field. She later founded her medical business company, ZyQuest, which she still owns and operates. She has served on many boards of directors including the Redlands Bowl, Bonnes Meres, Tebot Bach and the Performance Loft. She has widely traveled through Europe, the Middle East and Asia, and speaks several languages. Sholeh Wolpé is the director and host of Poetry at the Loft, a successful poetry venue in Redlands. She divides her time between Redlands and Newport Beach.

Founded in 2001, Levantine Cultural Center explores contemporary Mediterranean/Middle Eastern arts and cultures, and often collaborates with Beyond Baroque on the literary arts. Nathalie Handal and Sholeh Wolpé, Friday, May 6, at 8 pm, Beyond Baroque Literary/Arts Center, 681 Venice Blvd., Venice 90291. Tickets $10, $8. Seating limited, reserved early. Call 310.559.5544 or 310.822.3006. First show 8 pm, second show 9:30 pm.

Volunteer with Levantine Cultural Center's Programming Committee

Bring your ideas, enthusiasm and support to the Center by participating in a new Programming Committee, that will cooperate with our Board of Directors in creating new arts programs in the weeks and months ahead. To get on the reservation list for the next meeting, email us now!


Board of Directors Seeks Community Leaders

Levantine Center's Board of Directors is continually in formation, and welcomes inquiries—we are actively searching for more people with our passion and conviction! The board consists of diverse members of the community who are of Middle Eastern/Mediterranean heritage or who have a strong professional or artistic interest in furthering our mission. As directors, board members represent the organization officially, are responsible for its financial health, and make the priority strategic decisions, with counsel from Advisory Board members where possible. Board members work with activists heading specific committes, including the Film/Video, Literary, Education Performing Arts and Membership Committees.

Our Advisory Board is also in formation. Advisory board members are known professionally in their own communities and offer valuable counsel and services to the organization; they are eligible to attend the organization's annual retreat and receive other benefits.

Please contact us at 310.559.5544.

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LEVANTINE CULTURAL CENTER
Cultures of the Middle East & Mediterranean
8424A Santa Monica Blvd., N.789, West Hollywood CA 90069
310.559.5544, info@levantinecenter.org

Levantine Center advocates for, educates about, and in general promotes and supports Middle Eastern and Mediterranean contemporary arts and traditional cultures. We present or cosponsor programs of music, literature, art, film/video, publications, new media and more, often from educational and historical perspectives. While acknowledging the value of entertainment, we emphasize scholarship and substance. We are strongly multidisciplinary and non-sectarian, do not embrace any political or religious doctrine, and are committed to the principle of cross-cultural cooperation. We support the strengthening of ties between all cultural, ethnic and religious communities of the Middle East/West Asia/Levant, as well as between all peoples of Middle Eastern descent in diaspora.

 
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