Last night, Alwan hosted acclaimed journalist and author Nir Rosen, in a discussion and book signing of his new book, Aftermath: Following the Bloodshed of America’s Wars in the Muslim World. Having spent the majority of the past eight years living in Iraq and in other Middle Eastern countries, Rosen’s firsthand experiences in the region inform his work. Frustrated with the international community’s current attitude towards Iraq as a won-and-done conflict, Nir Rosen spoke about the current situation on the ground, describing from that perspective what he sees America really leaving behind as it withdraws its troops.

Event Summary

Rosen’s frustration was clear as he began to speak about the problems that still plague Iraq after the American invasion, many of them a direct result of the US’s intervention. Clearly upset with the dearth of coverage western media now affords Iraq within the larger regional happenings connected to the Arab Spring, Rosen attempted to contextualize the rises and declines of conflict in Iraq over the past eight years, beginning with the start of the Iraq War.

Iraq

Rosen painted a picture of present-day Iraq very different from what US media typically presents as a timely exit strategy from a stable country. Rosen did not dispute that the current government is now stable, as it faces no insurgent opposition, but did not equate that stability with the safety or security of citizens. Rosen described Iraq as being a country with daily assassinations, extreme police corruption, and tense sectarian relations. Some direct consequences of the United States’ entrance into Iraq include the polarization of the country along Sunni and Shia’a lines, as American military forces supported Shia’a militias in their attempt to overthrow the Baathist party, which had in turn strong Sunni affiliations. Once Saddam’s regime was ousted and the US prompted government elections, most Sunnis, in protest of the United State’s involvement in Iraq’s affairs, chose to boycott the elections. The boycott backfired and the Sunni population of Iraq became drastically under-represented in government. This sparked new tensions between the Sunnis and Shia’as, and had a role in igniting a civil war in Iraq that Rosen claims began in 2004, two years earlier than the US media’s reports of the civil war starting. The fighting was largely carried out by local militias, of which many claimed an affiliation with Al-Qaida in order to boost their legitimacy, where no such affiliation existed. During this civil war it was not unusual for random men to be abducted and  to be found murdered weeks later, often with some identifying mark to show their Sunni or Shia’a affiliation.

The fighting largely stopped with the declaration of a ceasefire by Shia’a and Sunni militias, which coincided with the timing of the United States’ new surge tactic. US media attributed the drop in violence to their military success, when in fact it had more to do with internal shifts in Iraq. The cessation of wide-spread violence was not symptomatic of the end of sectarian tensions in Iraq; rather it was a result of the Shia’a community’s comfort and stability in Iraq’s highest roles of government. There was no longer a significant Sunni threat, as many Sunni militias had been weakened, and much of the Sunni population had fled Iraq to the relative safety of Syria and Jordan.

Currently Iraq is more severely divided along sectarian lines than ever before. Sunnis have lost much of their political and military power, making them easy targets. Militias easily made the transition from open violence to organized crime, currently carrying out assassinations, car bombings, and the like for those that will pay. The Iraqi criminal-law system as it stands is riddled with bribery, and police corruption is common; many officers make arrests for personal profit. Illegal checkpoints break up the landscape of the city, and US troops stationed in Iraq are rarely seen, content to remain mostly in base camps.

Given this current state of affairs, Rosen contends that the US media’s portrayal of Iraq as an American victory and as a finished fight is fallacious, the reality on the ground being that the US leaves in its wake a country for whom stability only means the stability of control that violent factions have in different sectors of government, state, and civil life. In a country thus divided, with organized crime being rampant, and corruption ubiquitous, Iraq has been left behind a dangerous, and by no means socially stable place.

Elsewhere

Rosen went on to discuss the current conflicts in Syria, Lebanon, Isreal and Palestine, Yemen, Bahrain, Somalia, Afghanistan and Libya. For more insight into his work on these places, and for a more comprehensive account of the United States’ effects in Iraq, please stay tuned for our videotaping of the event to be uploaded here and on our Youtube channel. To purchase Nor Rosen’s book for an in-depth understanding of his perspective on this subject, be sure to check out his book Aftermath: Following the Bloodshed of America’s Wars in the Muslim World.

Reactions

Here are some reactions of the Alwan for the Arts volunteers to Nir Rosen’s lecture.

“This was one of the most comprehensive but concise overviews of the 21st century Middle East that I’ve ever heard. You can tell he really knows not only the events but the groups and the people in these countries inside and out so you just feel like you’re getting information straight from the source. While it’s nice to be informed, it’s now more frustrating than ever knowing that US media so inadequately reports on Middle Eastern events.” – Bahij Chancey, Intern

“By his own admission, Nir had little that was hopeful to say about the prospects of ending, at least in the near future, the conflicts under discussion. However, his main thesis – that the situation in Iraq (and elsewhere in the region) devolved into a violent confessional conflict in response to external pressures – is an important antidote to the mainstream American view that inter-denominational and inter-ethnic conflict in the Middle East is a millennial condition that can only be managed by oppressive, undemocratic regimes that act as a bulwark against atavistic animosities. Nir contended that the individual actors participating in such conflicts are not motivated by ideological fervor so much as responding to social pressures that are created and exploited by those same oppressive regimes: pressures that stifle civil society and, when a power vacuum is created, lead to social breakdown and factional violence.

The prospect of altering these conditions, and, most saliently in Nir’s talk, the corrosive effects of U.S. foreign policy, may be bleak, but Nir’s recognition that the source of conflict being contingent, rather than culturally essential, is a refreshing and much-needed alternative to the dominant narrative.” – Liz Behrend, Acting Director

Full Event Video

A video of the full event will be posted here and uploaded to our youtube channel soon.

Event Summary

Dr. Irum Shiekh, a filmmaker and scholar, discussed her newly published book, Detained Without Cause: Muslims’ Stories of Detention and Deportation in America after 9/11, published in 2011, alongside New York City attorneys Sandra Nichols and Martin Stolar and mediated by Adem Carroll.

Dr. Irum Shiekh presented various cases of Muslim Americans, from her book, who have faced severe charges for minor crimes ranging from expired visas to unpaid penalties.  The subjects have been either incarcerated in high-security prisons or endured physical abuse and torture by the mere fact of them being Muslims.  Through the means of oral history, Dr. Shiekh denounced the bigotry and racial discrimination and profiling that has plagued the United States since the events of 9/11.

Renowned New York City attorney Martin Stolar, highlighted a parallel between today’s racial profiling of Muslims and Arabs and the internment and racism against the Japanese-Americans during WWII or the repressive discrimination against Communists during the McCarthyist decade. He also brought up the degrading conditions in which these detainees were kept, in many cases far outweighing the harm of their non-existent or very petty crimes. Some of the men were put into solitary confinement and shackled, and another was held for 15 months for a negligible offense. Mr. Stolar also made apparent the justice systems exploitation of the legal structure to detain men that would have otherwise been free to appear before a court by order of supine.

Attorney Sandra Nichols attested to the unfair extra-judicial measures that are taken against Muslims in the United States by relating a few of her clients’ experiences. The consequences of law-enforcers actions on these men were harmful and far-reaching, most of them were deported and many still live in shame having been forced to leave the country. There are actions being taken against the unfairness of these situations such as lawsuits and detainees recounting their story, yet there is no strong or united movement to demand justice or reparation on their part, and most victims still keep their grievances under silence.

Responses

After the event we asked some guests for their reactions to the panel discussion on this important topic:

“It was very interesting to finally hear people stand up for the rights of minorities and realize how fallacious the american model is. I was very moved by this event. It was not anything brand new, but it was very interesting” - Hélène Barthélemy

“It was extremely informative, I learned a lot. Some of the stories about the detainees were extremely moving and touching and I feel inspired to do something.” - Colin Stokes

“I think it was extremely interesting, I think it was really interesting as well that most of the people on the panel were not muslims so to see that it was not something only for the muslim minority but that it was also something coming from the entire city and the US and that people were complaining about it is something really really good.” – Julia Hug

“I was pretty shocked by the sub-human treatment of the detainees and how widespread the fear and paranoia towards Muslim-Americans was and continues to be. The degree to which people acted on their gut fear and ignored the legitimate justice system was horrifying.” – Bahij Chancey

“I was particularly impressed with Martin Stolar’s lucidity vis-à-vis the American Justice system and his unwavering and passionate devotion to justice and ethics.  This panel was a breath of fresh air in a putrid world of bigotry.” -Alia Massoud

Full Event Video

In 2000, Jebreal became the first foreign anchorwoman in Italy to broadcast the evening news on national television. Since 2004, Jebreal has hosted numerous high profile Italian television programs including: Omnibus, her daily talk show during which she interviewed Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Palestinian Authority President Abu Mazen, and Nobel prize-winner Mohammad El Baradei, among others. Jebreal was recognized by Media Watch in 2004 for her coverage of the Iraq war. She is the author of The Bride from Assuan, which was awarded the International Fenice Europe Prize, and Divieto di Soggiorno, a study of the history of immigration in Europe.

Q: Can we start by talking about you a bit, your career as a journalist, move to Italy?

R: I moved to Italy when at the age of 19 I received a scholarship to study there. I started studying medicine then moved to journalism and became the first foreign journalist to read the evening news. I also worked in the media in the Arab world, particularly in Egypt,

Q: Tell me about some of your most memorable moments as a journalist

R: I began as an anchorwoman, reading news, then wanted something different so I developed my own TV show on politics and foreign affairs. In 2004, I interviewed Berlusconi about the terrorist attacks in Europe. He asked me what my position was. I answered: I am a media woman. If you want to make change, you need to send a wider message about the Iraq war. Obviously there is a connection. Send a wider message that you’re against the war. He said he was, but I said nobody knows it. You must publicize your position more widely. He listened to me. Came on my TV show, declared war to be a mistake, and said he’d tried to avoid it by attempting to convince Bush not to go to war. We sold the interview to 17 networks.

Another moment was while doing a program on the death penalty. I interviewed the governor of Texas and was able to prevail on him to stay the execution of a 17-year-old accomplice of murder and have his sentence commuted to life imprisonment instead.

Q: Let us talk about Miral. Was it your first experience in writing fiction?

R: Yes, it was my first fiction writing experience. Started in 2000 when there was hope and prospects for peace.

Q: There are significant autobiographical elements in the novel.

R: Everything is based on true facts, things that happened to me and friends and family. That’s how novels are written I think. Writers observe their world – as if it were an emotional mirror.

Q: There is an overriding theme that I noticed in the novel – a failure to protect, for example, Nadia or Fatima in the novel. For many of these women characters, society has failed them, not offered them protection. As a result there are willful, powerful women who take matters into their own hands as is clear with Hind and Miral.

R: Representation of different choices in Palestinian society. Each woman represents different options. It is the stratification of Palestinian society and how they react to the conflict with different choices. Hind opens an orphanage because it’s her perspective on life. Fatima turns to violence. Nadia represents the collapse of society, lack of choice. One kills herself, one kills others, Hind turns to love. Pulled in all directions, these different facets, ultimately the question becomes which will win in the end?

Q: The men in the novel are, well, there are some good men, Hany and Jamal and governor Anwar Khatib – but they are not as powerful as the women, or fully capable.

R: True. Less is more. Writing about Jamal who’s humble, strong and powerful through understanding and commitment to the woman he loves. How Western culture sees Muslim culture today as patriarchal and oppressive of women is completely different than how I lived it, what I witnessed. I found religious men dignified and honest. When Jamal tells Nadia how do you want our daughter to grow up, he knew she was self-destructive. But nonetheless loved her unconditionally, despite her fragilities, and was willing to have a daughter and share a life with her.

Q: The biological father of Miral who is a professor of literature, an accomplished worldly man, is absent from the novel.

J: Yes. Men in the book are not weak or marginal. But it is the women who are the major protagonists.

Q: There’s a very feminine quality to the book, in its sensuality.

R: These are the senses of my country; I describe the poetry of living in such a place. How can you see the poetry in a war zone? I decided to look for beauty in the world, in my life. Once you look for it, you keep seeing it. I write about small hopes. It changed my life and saved me. Everyone else writes about war and violence, stones and rockets. I write about flowers, hope and love.

Q: Something very nurturing about the book in spite of pain and catastrophe. Hopeful – small hopes are everywhere. How was it, transforming the novel into a script that is intended to meet visual ends?

R: It is more difficult to write life than to live it. Primarily it was my shared understanding with the director, Julian Schnobel, about how to present each character. In Miral, the film, visually everything is present. The visual aspects are meant to describe relationships, emotions, hate, anger and passion. We needed to gain sympathy of the audience with the characters’ experiences.

The visual transformation is the director’s role. He saw my story through my eyes. It is really moving to see a Jewish director understand my story, our similarities. More than anyone else, Israelis should understand our aspiration for freedom and to have a country and home, to preserve our identity.

Q: Did you feel that the camera accurately captured the complexity of the events?

R: Absolutely. I was present for each day of filming, and during preproduction. Julian was generous to include me in the process and invite my point of view. It’s very authentic as if a local person made it. It was shot in Qatar, Abu Dhabi, Tunisia and Ramallah. And the audiences who have seen it are shocked by its authenticity. If the book has touched you, the film is very similar.

Q: What’s next?

R: Working on research for a novel.

Q: Writing in English or Italian?

R: Still deciding. I don’t know where the story will take me. I know the beginning and what will go into it overall. It is different from other novels – about the relationship between media and power. I have always written in Italian. Need to decide if I will write in English this time.

Q: So this is not autobiographical?

R: I was a journalist for 16 years, so of course there is some autobiographical element. Anchormen/women have a daily struggle with power because they tell the truth, against the interests of media owners, politicians, and so on. Our main problem today is that there’s no free media. We’re overloaded with information that confuses public opinion. That’s why no one dared to tell governments anything different or oppositional about the Iraq war, that there was no connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq. Questioning came two years after the war. Why didn’t anyone question earlier? How often does this happen in less high profile issues?

Q: You won an award for your Iraq reporting. What’s your analysis of how the media played along with the war?

R: If you protested the war, you were called a terrorist. I was one of a few journalists in Europe who spoke out. My only agenda was to tell the truth. I didn’t care much about what I was accused of. I was recognized for it two years later by people who came to understand the tragedy of the war and loss of life whether Iraqi civilians or others. I got an award but would rather have avoided the war than won an award. You know, I was born in Haifa, lived in an orphanage from 5 to 19 and I have come to understand that only humans are capable of making a difference, good or bad.

Q: Do you go back?

R: Every year. I love my country. The orphanage where I grew up is still there, still a place of hope for many orphans, especially girls.

Q: How and when did you begin writing?

OK: To be honest, I hardly wrote fiction, in Arabic when I was in Jordan. Before I came to the States I was writing more critical essays on cinema, and I published a few of them in Jordanian newspapers. I wrote a few poetry pieces, a few short stories, but I never felt like I was going to be a writer of short stories until I came to New York, which is ironic for me because I’m far from the spoken language itself. But I think one of the things that made me want to write is the fact that I want to be close to Arabic in New York – I felt nostalgia for the language.

At the time I began the first two or three stories of the book in 2007, I didn’t realize that I was writing a collection, so I just wrote things – I just felt that I had some things to say and wrote them. After a few stories, I began to feel like I was writing a book, like a whole narrative was beginning to emerge.

Q: Is this book autobiographical?

OK: This is one of the problems that I had with this book. There are twelve stories in the book, and ten of them are narrated in the first person, and most of the stories talk about someone of almost my age who came from the Middle East and experiences a new life in New York. It’s tempting for any Arab reader who knows me or who knows anything about the writer to identify the narrator with the book, which was a big concern for me, so much so that I actually censored my writing in a sense to distance myself from the narrator. In the first couple of drafts there were even more references to my real life, but after that I had to edit it more and more to create this distance. I don’t want the book to be read as only autobiographical.

But of course, this book had to be written by someone who came from the Middle East, who speaks Arabic, who experienced New York for the first time in the last couple of years. There is bound to be an autobiographical element in the book, but it’s not an autobiography.

Q: Do you have a specific audience intended for this work?

Ka’annani Ana (As if I Were Myself)

OK: I want to be read by Arabs mainly, that’s why I’m writing in Arabic. There is an audience in mind, but since it’s mainly about New York, my audience is not here and might not know what I’m writing about when I mention a name like Lincoln Center or even things happening in the subway, references that the narrator sometimes explains.

At the same time, I really want my friends who don’t know Arabic at all to read it, but at some point I was feeling that some of the things that we take for granted in Arab culture and language might sound awkward when you write them in English. At one point, I tried to edit myself a little bit, to shape my writing so that if this book were ever translated it wouldn’t sound awkward.

Q: Do you address any specifically Palestinian issues in this book?

OK: I was conscious about distancing myself from any clear political reference while writing, if that is at all possible. I want to introduce myself to Arab readers as a writer, not as a Palestinian writer, because Palestine is a privilege in a sense. If you are a Palestinian writer, people come to read you first with expectations, “where is Palestine in your writing?” Second, they privilege you. They look at you in an almost empathetic but not quite sympathetic sense. I don’t want to give myself this privilege yet. I just want to present myself as a writer who writes in Arabic with almost no Palestinian background. There are very few stories where Palestine is present. The stories could happen to any Arab or any foreigner really.

Q: Do you consider this a pan-Arab immigrant story?

OK: Any good story is a universal story. An American, someone native to New York, might not feel what I’m feeling here, but this is one of the greatest things about New York. I think anybody who comes to New York, who’s new in the city, who doesn’t know English very well (especially at the beginning of the journey), who still feels lonely in the city, might feel that these stories speak to them

At the same time, I don’t actually qualify as an Arab immigrant—I am not. I came to New York as a student, and not sure yet what to do after I finish—stay or go back. I don’t feel that I am a would-be resident in New York, which could have driven my writing toward a different atmosphere.

Q: What are your future writing plans?

OK: I’m actually waiting to see the reaction of people who might read As If I Were Myself. When you finish something, you’ve put your energy into that thing, and you want an in between time to reflect on it, to see what people might say, to benefit from their criticism. I intend to write another short story collection where I’d like to experiment more with the third person rather than the first so that it doesn’t primarily center on the narrator.

October 9, 2010

Photo by George Rand

The Ismene character is best known from “Antigone”, the third of the Theban plays written by Sophocles, and dealing with themes of civil disobedience, fealty, pride, and resilience.  In Antigone, Ismene and the title character are the sisters of Polyneices, one of two brothers who perished while warring over the throne of Thebes.  Though both brothers lost their lives in this battle, only one was denied a proper burial by Creon, the newly appointed Theban king.  Creon declares that Eteocles, one brother who died fighting in the Theban civil war, will be honored, while the other brother, Polynieces, will be left to the elements and without divine last rights.  This act of insult activates Antigone into civil disobedience as she plans to bury Polynieces with honors in defiance of Creon’s edict, and pleads Ismene’s assistance. But Ismene demurs and refuses to go against Creon’s dictate in order to bury their brother.  The character of Ismene has been alternately viewed as chronically weak, or as strategically strong, for her actions, with vacillating viewpoints on the result of those actions.  While it is open to debate whether Ismene was making a point about compliance to the state, fidelity to man-made or divine law, or rational versus instinctual actions, her fate has traditionally been read as open-ended, and it remains that this daughter of Oedipus was the only one of her royal family to survive and extend that lineage.

Q: How do you describe your play?

AA: For ten years we have been talking about how to work together, with me as an actress and Kevork as a visual artist. I decided to write this play as the vehicle for this collaboration, and I wanted to write about what I was obsessed with, which at the time was motherhood. I was also obsessed with Greek myth so I took the story of Ismene, the sister of Antigone, who doesn’t get much attention in the Greek plays, and decided to tell, through hers, the story about my mother and my grandmothers. I had collected my grandmothers’ stories over many years and I wanted to share them. When I was writing the piece, it was with Kevork in mind, and I knew that his art was going to be another character; two of the main vehicles of the piece are Ismene’s story and the art, both interpreting the story and setting the scenes.

KM: I have been working with musicians for the last 12 years and it was my idea to collaborate with Alexandra, but like I had in the past with musicians and dancers. I wanted to use the hand that is drawing throughout the play as a motif: as a part of the acting, where things come out of the hand, and interact with a person, the person being Alexandra. There was this idea of things coming out of the hand, and the hand being an architect of destiny. I read the play and thought about it for several months, the (drawing) lines that came out were very similar to Arabic or Armenian handwriting so we decided to keep the drawing lines like that, to keep the flow of that look. I wanted to create magical moments, happening then and there, with the audience taken to a different dimension through animation. Through the live drawing I want the audience to see and feel that there are things happening behind Alexandra, almost to the last moment, that there are things from her spirit, the drawing, her speaking, where the yarn is drawn out.

Q: When you think of Antigone you tend to think of someone rebellious whereas Ismene is more accommodating of the structure; we don’t know if she got her way in the end. How did this influence your thinking of yourself as a mother, of your mother, of your grandmother? Was there a statement being made there?

AA: Partly conflict – I think Ismene is so conflicted; she says no but then yes, she wants to give up her life for her sister but isn’t allowed to. The piece is also about sisterhood, not just mothers and daughters. What fascinated me about Ismene was that she didn’t know her place, her role. Antigone knows her place but Ismene seems to me more of a third wheel, wracked by uncertainty. And I have struggled with what my own place is, as an artist in New York. It is a challenge to be an active actress in New York. I have another identity as a singer as well… There’s also the uncertainty you feel as a young mother, especially in this society, and trying to be an artist at the same time. And the uncertainty of someone who has lost a mother recently as I did, you feel yourself now at the top of the matrilineal pyramid and that in itself is confusing. My grandmothers were so important in my life and so fascinating and their experiences were so immense; of course they were important to me before my mother died, but their importance came back to me even stronger afterwards. I felt like my Armenian grandmother always had a sense of what she was for in the world- for her it was religion (Armenian orthodox). She spent her life giving to others and we realized that was what made her strong – the ability to give. The forward motion she clearly had was more resembling of Antigone’s, in a way, though her forward motion is constant and unending. The Latvian grandmother in the play was revolting against the fact that she was so tied by the ropes of her family. She suffered from depression and wanted to leave life but the people who loved her pulled her away from death and kept her alive, perhaps against her own wishes. Ismene also realizes she is being carried forward by the ropes of those she is close to, rather than having a distinct idea of what her end will be. She is tied to her parents, her brother, her sister. In the Greek play she is late in reacting to those ties, and doesn’t react like Antigone does, but she does need to be there, to offset Antigone and carry the actions forward.

Q: Predetermined destiny, are you trying to make the point that women particularly are governed by, are archival carriers of history?

Photo by George Rand

AA: My experience has been that the feminist movement’s fight for equality hasn’t really been won. In this society when you get into motherhood, it’s impossible to really have equality because women are so tied to their children. They are lovely ropes but ropes nonetheless.

Q: You chose to use the foil of the relationship in the sisterly sense of Antigone/Ismene, but you chose the coupling of your Armenian and Latvian grandmothers. You are duplicating the narratives into an entwined one…

AA: I meant to show that Antigone’s route is something that ends but Ismene does what she does and goes through weaving her destiny using what she is given by her grandmothers, pulling from her past. I see Ismene as a survivor who needs to be in the story at the end of it, in order for the story to be told.

Q: The problem is never so much the catastrophe but the trauma afterwards, the suffering of the survivors. In your sketches, Kevork were you conscious of the interplay of the characters that were almost one and the same, replicating history, rehearsing the past but rather ambivalently, with the convolution and tricks of memory?

KM: I realized there is a type of symmetry – things happening left and right, with the characters constantly changing. Sometimes the character is on the right and is a specific representation, sometimes the same on the left, but sometimes the character is in the middle, and these are the more universal things, like when we share experiences like war. So the sketches, (and my compositions on canvas) were meant to resemble the actions on stage, and the symmetry flows according to these lines. So I know there are four women in the play for example but I don’t know where I am going to start the sketch, I have to follow where the characters are and what they are saying. You see my drawing live and you think I’m improvising but I am not. It is like there is a dialogue between the painting and the acting. It goes back and forth between thoughts, stories, a backdrop on the stage (like a balcony in Africa in one scene). I am also painting because of my own direct experiences with Alexandra’s grandmothers. Like the one who smoked in her room who was surrounded by art (the Latvian), she really enjoyed life. She was really about her environment; the present, capturing the moment. She was obsessed with the painting hanging on the wall. But the Armenian one was always about others, she was always fixing things for tomorrow, planning. Probably the Latvian was the way she was because that was how she survived, how she got through the day, to be surrounded by art and to live in the moment.

Q: What is the role of music into the piece?

AA: Music is such an important part of both our lives. I have a trio called Zulal (Armenian folk). I was very drawn to the idea of the Three Fates, the literal weavers of destiny in the Greek lore, and there are threes abounding in the piece. Music is linear so it made sense for it to be a pivotal part of the piece. Most of the melodies were original. We used some Armenian and Bulgarian folk music. When you think of the arts, you think of visual art, music and theatre (written art) and so we captured that trio; and it was fitting to use my Armenian trio, which has the right haunting, lyrical sound for a piece such as this.

KM: Both of us, being artists, it is difficult to join our paths sometimes and we’ve been thinking of this for ten years. Our original idea was to weave the music onstage while the presentation was happening, to hear live sounds as the characters move and have the weaving motif throughout. But it became so difficult to get all the musicians together and so we developed the soundtrack. We had the logical idea to have a Greek chorus as well. It just became too cumbersome to be involving others so we wanted something we could put on ourselves whenever we wanted to and could.

Q: Can you talk about the dichotomy of the sisters?

AA: Ismene is a mix of my sister and me, as is Antigone. I have this fascination with the bonds of sisterhood, the love, the competition, which sister assumes more responsibility for the family, for maintaining the stories. This is part of the main tension between Antigone and Ismene, the sense of abandonment Ismene has by Antigone. In the Greek play Ismene is the one made out to be more selfish. In my play I made Antigone the more selfish one, the one who just goes through with her destiny, with no thought for the survivors. But if it were not for Ismene, the family line would be dead. I think that is true strength- the willingness to be a survivor, the one who carries the threads of the family and the history to their future. Antigone is more masculine whereas Ismene is more feminine. Ismene as the feminine, as a woman, wants to survive.

Photo by George Rand

AA: There is such a strong sense of destiny in Armenian culture, so many songs about fate in the village, where women have their fates read by stars, it seemed like a good fit with the Greek style, where these great primordial questions about fate, choice and subjectivity are in constant interplay.

Q: Did Armenian lore or mythology filter into the text?

AA: It is not pulled from Armenian mythology but there is a bit more Armenian feel than Latvian, because, I suppose, of the dominance of Armenian players in the piece, (myself a half-breed, Kevork, and the women of Zulal), but it wasn’t a measured decision. We know we are children born of the past. We are here today as we are, formed by our ancestors. The Armenian grandmother refers to the genocide, to her survivorship through decades of hardship over several continents – that adaptation that keeps on going and keeps us going.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Leila performing in Cairo with her orchestra

To inform the broader public about the varied styles and influences of raqs sharqi (Arabic for Oriental dance, or simply bellydance in English), Nicole shares her thoughts about some of the social and cultural trademarks that continue to shape and reconcile two worlds in this exquisitely refined, yet modernizing dance form.

Rooted in baladi folk traditions and integrated with Western elements, terms like delicate, playful, improvisational, and social are qualities used to describe the dance.  Today it continues to hold culturally disparate meanings, becoming contextualized in different regions of society.  However, Nicole emphasizes that reinvention may take place in some cultures, but raqs sharqi continues to be performed in its indigenous context, stating “It’s reinvented here in the U.S. in a different way.  Here, it may be related to feminism, spirituality, development of self-image, Oriental stereotypes of the Middle East, it emerges in all these ways.”  Nicole admits it is controversial, and many people often look unfavorably upon it “In many Arab countries it is not seen as a respectable career or art, yet bellydance is very popular here in the States… It can ultimately serve as a step toward greater exposure to understanding Arab music, art, and regional culture.”  In addition, due to the global appeal of this unrooted form–derived from culturally specific Middle Eastern contexts—it is important to bring discussion into the picture.  Through personal narratives and research, Nicole believes that the public will gain a better sense of the dance’s differing manifestations here in New York, as well as Cairo and throughout the Arab world.

Leila graces the Egyptian stage in live performance with her orchestra, filmed programs and alongside Arab pop stars.

As the dance curator for Alwan, Nicole hopes to utilize the workshop format as a means to reach out to fellow dancers.  This year Alwan plans to host an array of Middle Eastern dance seminars, concerts, and folk dance classes.  When asked about her purpose and goals in Alwan’s public dance programming, Nicole expresses “I want people to go away knowing that dance presentation at Alwan is important because it can be integrated into other genres as it is in the indigenous form – around the world and within the Arab diasporas.  There’s a lot of space for creating contextualized dance, not just dance on its own.  It’s a great way to reach out to Arab American communities as well as non-Arabs who are interested and attracted to the glitter of belly dance.”

- Contributed by Denis Noev

I sat down with Hakan Ali Toker (Visit Hakan’s Website) from Istanbul, Turkey before his performance on Saturday, June 19^th to talk about his musical background, influences, goals, and thoughts on Alwan for the Arts. A passionate and innovative musician who musically draws upon many sources of inspiration, Hakan shared some equally passionate insights on the importance of sincerity and synthesis in meaningful art. He was especially thrilled to be performing solo, a rarity that allows him the full range of artistic expression to musically convey his unique goals.

This talented pianist first encountered music through a small, electronic keyboard bought for him by his parents, the best toy since “you could make up your own thing with [it].” Hakan has kept the spirit of improvisation alive in his playing since that time, believing music to be his favorite game rather than a grueling responsibility, a spirit he recommends to any musician, particularly those students who are just beginning (and their parents). “Discipline ought to come out of passion – committedness to the game,” he says. Hakan feels that passion and sincerity are the most important aspects of his musical performance, whether simple or sophisticated, and in his own performance, stating, “the thing I strive for is the product of sincere self-expression supported by craftsmanship.”

His craftsmanship is extensive, with his musical study and ideas spanning a wide range of genres. After coming to the United States to study classically, Hakan was surprised to meet many musicians born and raised in the United States with a great interest in his own musical heritage, Middle Eastern music. Similarly, Hakan is pleased that Alwan for the Arts fosters interest in Middle Eastern arts in New York, stating, “it’s nice to find a Middle Eastern cultural center in the middle of Manhattan.” Though he began as a Western classical pianist and composer, he became interested in world music partially as a result of seeing American musicians interested in learning traditional Arab instruments like the ‘oud and nay, so he taught himself to play the qanun along with Middle Eastern music and studied jazz.

Self-proclaiming his music to be a synthesis of East and West, Hakan believes that “everything is a synthesis,” even the genres of music we so easily categorize as one thing or another. He believes that thorough mastery of even one genre of music, requires musicians to study more than one genre – in his words, the “history and geography of music” – so they can perceive what they’re trying to accomplish in better perspective. This means, having an understanding of what came before this focal genre, and what was happening around it, at the time of its birth. He cites many classical composers as musical influences, from Rachmaninoff, Chopin, and Strauss to Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven, yet he also considers representatives from the last period of Ottoman Court Music from the early 20^th century like Tanburi Cemil Bey and Sadettin Kaynak in addition to jazz greats Oscar Peterson and Fats Waller.

Though he cites musical influences as the sources of his inspiration, Hakan also shares, “I almost exclusively write when I’m in love.” He has written pieces for particular women, and shares the true stories on his website (http://www.hakanalitoker.com/samples.html).

As for his future musical projects, he is extremely interested in Geoff Smith’s fluid piano, a piano with pitches capable of being altered by the performer, making them suitable for playing the microtones characteristic of Turkish music. He would like to bring this piano to Turkey, record an album, and tour with it. He additionally plans to record a second album this fall with his group “Tanini,” made up of qanun, nay, and piano, to be released this winter.

Finally, he hopes to record a solo album this summer, as he misses the opportunity to play solo piano with full artistic license. Hakan believes that his solo piano performances, like the one he was excited to play at Alwan, grant him full freedom to explore the personal synthesis he strives to convey to his audience, which is the pinnacle of sincerity, “the most important thing in music-making.”