Despina Stamos: Dancing the immigrant experience

passTRESpass (2011)

directed by Jill Woodward

filmed in Athens, Greece 2009

20 minutes -- in English, French and Greek with English subtitles

Tens of thousands of immigrants and refugees make their way across the porous borders of Greece every year. Despina Stamos, a Greek American dancer, connects with a diverse group of immigrants in Athens and proposes a community dance performance. Their collaboration bridges communities from four continents and culminates in an experience that will touch their lives profoundly.

Support the work of Despina Stamos and the modern dance awareness society at their 2015 Benefit Gala (Monday, May 11, 6pm), including a "transcontinental live-stream dance performance" with Athen collaborators and silent auction.

Proceeds make possible a three-week movement workshop, performance and film project with refugees in Greece.

For complete information and tickets, click here.

Writing of Afghan women to be presented at Queens library

The Friends of Richmond Hill Library

and The Afghan Women’s Writing Project

present

Readings from the Afghan Women’s Writing Project
featuring novelist and founder Masha Hamilton

at Richmond Hill Library, Queens

Monday, January 13, 6:30pm

Admission: Free

A selection of poems, essays, and stories by participants of the Afghan Women’s Writing Project will be read by audience members, AWWP staff and volunteers, and special guests. AWWP believes that to tell one’s story is a human right, and this work testifies to the bravery of Afghan women and to the power of their words. Author and AWWP founder Masha Hamilton will also read from her latest novel What Changes Everything.  Admission is free.

Masha Hamilton is the author of five acclaimed novels, most recently What Changes Everything, which the Washington Post praised for its “elegantly wrought prose (which) conveys terror as well as tenderness” and 31 Hours, which the Washington Post called one of the best novels of 2009. In October 2013, she finished sixteen months working in Afghanistan as Director of Communications and Public Diplomacy at the US Embassy. She is currently working as Communications Director for Concern Worldwide. She also founded two world literacy projects, the Camel Book Drive and the Afghan Women’s Writing Project.

Masha is the winner of the 2010 Women’s National Book Association award, presented “to a living American woman who derives part or all of her income from books and allied arts, and who has done meritorious work in the world of books beyond the duties or responsibilities of her profession or occupation.” She began her career as a full-time journalist, working in Maine, Indiana, and New York City before being sent by the Associated Press to the Middle East, where she was news editor for five years, including the period of the first intifada, and then moving to Moscow, where she worked for five years during the collapse of communism, reporting for the Los Angeles Times and NBC-Mutual Radio and writing a monthly column, Postcards from Moscow. She also reported from Kenya in 2006, and from Afghanistan in 2004 and 2008. 

Richmond Hill Library
118-14 Hillside Avenue, Queens
Train: J or Z to 121 Street
Bus: Q10, Q55, Q56

Matiullah Turab: Afghan poet of defiance

An Afghan Poet Shapes Metal and Hard Words
by Azam Ahmed, The New York Times, August 18, 2013

Dances of Iran and Afghanistan with master teacher Rana Gorgani

Anahid Sofian Dance Studio

welcomes you to

Traditional and Sacred Dances of Iran

and

Nomadic Dances of Iran and Afghanistan

two workshops and slide presentations

with Persian master dancer 

Rana Gorgani

Traditional and Sacred Dances of Iran
Saturday, June 29 (3-6pm)

Very honored and respected in ancient times, Persian Dances come directly from ancestral customs and traditions. Taught and preserved through generations, the Dance is delicate, elegant, subtle, and full of emotions, as is Persian Poetry and Arts. All the different dances of Persia have always expressed the joy of life and love.

Dance was essential in every sacred and divine rite related to the cultural environment of each people.

Drawing its roots from the heart of the Indo-European cultures, we can find in Iran more than ten style of dance, each owning its own vocabulary of the gesture, rhythms, garments, and meaning according to the region and people.

Rana Gorgani is one of the few Iranian artists promoting and preserving Persian folk and traditional dances. As an active member of the international dance council of UNESCO, her work is the result of years of research on music, customs, rites and symbols of Persia through dance. It is with authentic dresses, full of colors and amazing detail that she embodies and represents the variety of Persian peoples, revealing a rich and precious heritage. 

Nomadic Dances of Iran and Afghanistan
Sunday, June 30 (2-5pm)

Dances of Afghanistan

Afghan dance is characterized by its amazing turns and movements intense in rhythms. It is a perpetual interaction between the dancer and the public. The improvisation of the music and the dance is omnipresent, creating breaks and accelerations. In the Afghan dances, the dancer's veil holds an essential place, such as in the culture, and it is by games of "hide-and-seek" that the movements evolve and become furthermore rich in meaning, always keeping a part of mystery.

Nomadic Dances (Ghashghai)

As a symbol of unity and harmony, this dance celebrates the joyful events of the tribe, with the dancers dressed in colorful and bright dresses and waving their shiny scarves towards the sky and then the earth. Precise gestures chain up ceaselessly, reminding of all the art of the Ghashghai women, who make colored carpets called "Ghabbeh." Their dances create a kind of trance, rocked by their light and swift movements. The dances symbolize the long trip gone through every year as the seasons pass by.

Her slide show and lecture is a journey, a walk danced in the heart of Persia, a mosaic colored with wonderful traditions and the rich diversity of Persia. From Khorasan, on the road of the Ghashghai nomads across the rice fields of Gilan … on the deserts of Yazd, the country of Zoroasters, on the path to Shiraz, Persian city of the great poets … Rana guides us through Iran.

Space is limited, and registration required (no walk-ins). For fees and other information or to register, contact sofiana@tiac.net.

Anahid Sofian Studio
29 West 15th Street, 6th Floor (between 5th and 6th Avenues), Manhattan
(map/directions)

National heritage sites threatened in Afghanistan

OP-DOCS: ‘A Chinese Threat to Afghan Buddhas’
by Brent E. Huffman, The New York Times, April 23, 2013

‘Restrepo’ Director Killed in Libya

‘Restrepo’ Director Is Killed in Libya
by C. J. Chivers, The New York Times, April 20, 2011

War dance

In ‘Into Sunlight,’ Horrors of War, Depicted in Dance
by Karin Lipson, The New York Times, April 8, 2011

Courage of an Afghani filmmaker

Sonia Nassery Cole’s Battle to Make an Afghan Film
by Brooks Barnes, The New York Times, September 21, 2010

Journalist Bergen on Afghanistan

Peter Bergen lecture on Afghanistan Today

The Metropolitan Museum of Art
(Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium)

Thursday, September 17 (6pm)

Admission: $23 (Ticketing)

Years of war and much foreign intervention have had a profound effect on the traditional way of life in Afghanistan. Peter Bergen will shed light on the country’s recent history, drawing on his personal experiences during his many visits to the region. To augment his discussion of the Bamiyan Buddhas and their significance in the rich cultural heritage of the Afghan people, the film The Giant Buddhas will be screened following the lecture.

Peter Bergen is a print and television journalist, an author, and an adjunct professor at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

This lecture is presented in conjunction with the exhibition Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul, June 23–September 20, 2009.

Saving Afghanistan's cultural treasures

Precious Works From A Perilous Land
by Roberta Smith, The New York Times, June 26, 2009

Gutierrez takes action

Miguel Gutierrez’s 24-Hour Dance of Solidarity
by Claudia La Rocco, The New York Times, December 29, 2008

Performing freedom

[Note: The following information contains an updated list of participating artists, current as of December 24.]

On December 31, artists across the nation will perform freedom of information 2008: a 24-hour performance/protest/ritual, initiated by choreographer Miguel Gutierrez in response to the U.S.-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Participants will engage in continuous movement improvisation performed while blindfolded and ear-plugged, which is intended as a contemplative act of solidarity with those displaced by the wars.

This action takes place over the last 24 hours of 2008, from midnight to midnight of December 31st. It ends with the ringing in of the New Year. At present, there are 29 artists participating in freedom of information 2008. Each artist will perform the action in her/his respective state and during the 24 hours that correspond to December 31st in his or her time zone. Miguel Gutierrez originally performed freedom of information alone on December 31, 2001, in response to the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. This time, inviting artists from across the country creates a nationwide, synchronous event.

freedom of information 2008 involves staying in one room for the duration of the event. Moving continuously for 24 hours throughout the space of her/his choosing in a sensory-deprived state, the performer meditates on the dislocation and disorientation of those who do not have the basic right of being safe for the duration of a single day, who instead must be continuously on the move because of the threat of violence.

freedom of information 2008 is free and open to the public in each of the venues that the artists have selected. Throughout the 24 hours, people are invited to come and go as they please, watching the participating artist as they attempt to fulfill the simple but rigorous demands of this action.

For more information on the preparations and locations for this event, click here.

The event has been initiated by Miguel Gutierrez, a choreographer/performer based in Brooklyn, NY. Gutierrez is an award-winning artist whose evening-length pieces tour internationally. For more information on his work, click here.

Gutierrez will continue to identify artists to participate in this action throughout the month of December. As of December 24, here are the participating artists for freedom of information 2008:

Alabama – Rhea Speights
Alaska – Kyli Kleven
Arizona – Aileen Mapes
Arkansas--Malinda Allen
California – Jesse Hewit
Colorado – Lily Brown-Johnson
Connecticut – David Dorfman
Florida – Heather Maloney
Georgia – Diana Crum
Hawaii – Brianna Skellie
Illinois – Marissa Perel
Iowa – Amanda Hamp
Kentucky – Ben Asriel
Maryland – Sharon Mansur
Massachusetts – Jesse Zaritt
Michigan – Marlee Cook-Parrott
Minnesota – Morgan Thorson
Montana – Harmony Wolfe
New Hampshire – Gregory Holt
New Jersey – Joshua Bisset
New York – Miguel Gutierrez
North Carolina – Janice Lancaster
Ohio – Lena Lauer
Oregon – Tahni Holt
Pennsylvania – Jung-Eun Kim
Tennessee – Layard Thompson
Texas--Daniel Adame
Vermont – Selene Colburn
Virginia – Zap McConnell
Washington – Tonya Lockyer
Washington, D.C. – Maida Withers
West Virginia – Katherine Ferrier

In New York, Miguel Gutierrez will perform freedom of information 2008 at The Barn, an independently run dance studio in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. (ilovebarn.com)

In New York, Miguel Gutierrez will perform freedom of information 2008 at The Barn, an independently run dance studio in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.