Date/Time
Date(s) - 05/18/2019
0EDT - 0EDT
Location
Arts at the Armory Hall
Purchase your Tickets Click Here
From 12 pm – 4:30 pm
Our 2019 Festival will include:
Festival will be providing a platform for small business and artists to sell their products and art work by setting tables and displays. Join us to support them and encourage their work!
Yasser Darweesh in a traditional Egyptian Dance with his magical Tannoura and Horse shows! 3:50 pm
Amal Waqar, the American Omani Musician with her Berklee Band in their performance of “Wadi Al Shurooq” @1:00 pm
Photograph by Firas al-Raisi (2018)
Amal Waqar is a dynamic young Omani/American oud player, composer, and educator. Born and raised in Muscat, Oman, she began developing her passion for music at age three, and clandestinely listened to it throughout her childhood. At fifteen, Amal’s tireless pursuit of music materialized in an oud. At seventeen, she made national headlines as the first woman and youngest musician in Oman to headline a recital. In her brief six-year career, Amal has established herself as an internationally performing artist, participating in music festivals like the Beirut & Beyond International Music Festival in Lebanon, and Katara’s Festival for Oud Instrument in Qatar. Currently studying at Berklee College of Music with oud master Simon Shaheen, Amal is deepening her command of traditional maqam and repertoire, in addition to Western and contemporary musical forms.
Today, with great pleasure, she presents this quartet featuring global musicians, original compositions, and influences of music from the Arabian Peninsula. In celebration of the diversity of her regional music and the potential of new horizons, Amal shares explorations of groove, maqam, and lively spirit.
Bahloul and Friends, the Syrian-American artist with his band launching songs of his new album @2:30 pm
Bahloul is a poet, writer, musician and performance artist. He was born (Hussam Jefee-Bahloul) in Lattakia, Syria, in 1983, and currently lives in America. He is currently working on an album of his songs which will be released in Summer 2019. Under the name Hussam Jefee, he had published his first poetry collection in Arabic in 2008: The Opener of Canned Hope. His second collection was released in 2017: Birds Smoking Marijuana, at Al-Moutawasset publishing; Milano, Italy. His first English book of poetry (The Chronicler of Indifference) will be released in Spring 2019 in the US by Cervená Barva Press. His poems appeared in American poetry magazines including Nixes Mate Review, and Cathexis Northwest Press. He is the founder of project ta’sheeq which merges the elements of poetry/music/visual art together in multi-sensory performances. His ta’sheeq theatrical performance “exit the echo chamber” was premiered in Boston and NYC in the fall of 2018. The performance merged Bahloul’s original poetry with cello and electronic music and video art.
Bahloul will debut songs from his new album “Master Voyeur” produced by (db Realms Production) at the Center for Arabic Culture-Boston (CAC) May 18th 2019 accompanied by artist musicians Mohammad Araki (a Grammy nominated artist), Ghassan Sawalhi, and others.
Alwan Dance Ensemble will be performing a group dance from various Arab countries @3:15 pm
The amazing calligrapher, Hajj Wafa will hold his calligraphy session during the festival and the audience will participate in painting a large canvas to display at CAC @ 1:35- 2:20 pm
Artist Shadia Tohme is volunteering a dance workshop during the festival @1:45 pm at CAC B6 Hall.
Shadia will teach 3 mini workshops on different styles of dance from the Arab World. (debke, raqs sharqi and classical).
Exhibit by Artist Yara Awad
My name is Yara Awad. I was born in Damascus, Syria. At age 2, I moved with my family to Saudi Arabia, where I grew up until my highschool graduation. The inevitable solitude that was enforced on me by life in Saudi Arabia is one of the major reasons for my drive to paint. Unable to live a typical child’s life, my sister and I were encouraged to paint by our parents. My father gave us our first coloring pens, and my mother became our biggest fan. Though I am a self-taught painter, it is my family who cleared and prepared the learning path for me. In 2012, I moved to Beirut, Lebanon to pursue a college degree at the American University of Beirut. At the time, I had been a child who grew up mostly within her bedroom’s four walls, yet I was thrown in a hyper-active city of raging personalities, drugs, and corruption. It was in Beirut that I experienced true, debilitating displacement, and it was in Beirut that I was twisted and molded into the social being that I am today. In 2017, I moved to Boston, Massachusetts to start a PhD degree at Boston University. My work and studies are in Computer Science, focused on operating systems, distributed systems, and programmable smart machines. The scientific agendas that have engulfed me during my studies have rewired my brain in a way that made me see things differently. I do not try to replicate reality, nor do I try to change it. I only aim to show it from a different perspective, a different angle. Solitude, oppression, displacement, grief, and transient blissful hysteria are my fuel, and my world, friends, and family are my muse. I hereby present a distributed self portrait: a dismantled me in some of my most prominent angles.
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Festival will be providing a platform for small business and artists to sell their products and art work by setting tables and displays. Join us to support them and encourage their work!
Purchase your Tickets Click Here
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Looking forward to see you all soon!
Call for Artists, Vendors, and Small Business Owners
for May 18 Annual Festival!
CAC is inviting artists, vendors and food and small business owners to participate in showcasing and presenting their art work and products at our Annual Festival on May 18, 2019 at the Art at the Armory Hall in Somerville MA.