USA Projects

What’s the project?

 Eleven Reflections on September is a poetry-based, multi-media performance on Arab American experience, Wars on/of Terror, and “the constant, quiet rain of death amidst beauty” that each autumn brings in a post-9/11 world. 

Through United States Artists, I am fundraising for the newest incarnation of this project, a full-length theater production based on the series of poems I’ve been writing since 2001.  My vision is to include live music, interactive video and sound design, and a time-based set installation in which dialogues about the content of the work can be staged.  My goal is to raise a minimum of $5000 for the inaugural production at Pangea World Theater’s Alternate Visions Festival, in April 2011.  Any additional funds raised, up to $15,000, will go to support national touring, and my dream of extending the project to an international exchange with artists in Lebanon, Poland, Mexico and beyond. 

Why this now?

The year 2011 marks 10 years of anti-Arab, anti-Muslim prejudice and violence under the so-called War on Terror.  I am Lebanese American.  I'm also a New Yorker.  For 10 years, I’ve been writing poems about this:  these wars, the contradictions of identity, the many ways violence manifests in everyday life.  And each year, the month of September is particularly poignant for me – full of memory, and littered with images of the fallen …  

 The poems included in Eleven Reflections on September deal with themes of 21st century Arab American identity, as well as the wars and military interventions that the US is currently involved in, directly or indirectly (Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Palestine, Somalia, Pakistan).  Aesthetically, the poems explore the disintegration of language and meaning in the face of unspeakable violence; as such, they progress from lyrical to abstract and broken.  The annual witnessing of autumn – the falling leaves, the barren landscapes and gradual decay in a northern US climate – becomes a recurrent metaphor.  And words themselves begin to fall … disintegrate … explode into linguistic shrapnel.

Why a multi-media piece?  Because media is all over this war.  The media is all up inside the era of Islamophobia that we’re in.  The media, and it’s influence, is impossible to avoid.  So I need to flip it.  To visualize the unspoken.  To create alternative media in response, and alternative visions in relation to the wor(l)d.

Actually, I haven’t finished writing the poems yet.  I cannot finish … until the wars are over.  But even as I am always writing, I have to speak them.  They must be heard, seen, embodied … We have to feel them in real time.  Together, and in public spaces.  They cannot be silent.  They stand witness to the historical moment we are in, and to the history we are creating, right now.  We have to talk about it.  As a society, a culture, a group of cultures, families, individuals – we must create spaces to talk about this.  In real ways.  Together.  

How will the work develop?

Many of the poems in the series have been previously presented, in a reading or spoken word format, at various venues and festivals including:  the RAWI conference (Radius of Arab American Writers, 2010); Centro Cultural Tijuana, Mexico (2010); the Zero Budget Festival, organized by the WorkCenter of Jerzy Grotowski & Thomas Richards, Wroclaw, Poland (2009); Bowery Poetry Club in NYC (2007), and more.  

In April 2011, I will create a fully-staged, multi-media theater production of Eleven Reflections on September, commissioned by Pangea World Theater’s Alternate Visions Festival and co-produced with Art2Action Inc.

While in residence with Pangea, I’m collaborating with Minneapolis-based media designer and Artistic Director of Aniccha Arts, Pramila Vasudevan, to create a holistic, interactive design that can tour with the project.  I’m also exploring the integration of live music, to create a dialogic relationship between mechanized and human sounds in real time.  Depending on how much money I can raise, I’d like to include percussion, vocals, or string instruments, exploring a continuum of contemporary and classical sounds, from the Middle East to the Americas.  If funding allows, I very much want to collaborate with a guest musician from Lebanon, guitarist and vocalist May Nasr.  I’d also like to explore the use of multiple languages, as some of the poems have already been translated into Spanish and Polish, with a forthcoming translation in Arabic (which is particularly exciting and meaningful for me).  Interactive dialogue will be an integral part of the performative experience, and take place in the context of a set installation that changes over time.

From Minneapolis, I hope to tour Eleven Reflections on September to national festivals, such as the 3rd National Asian American Theater Festival in L.A. (presented by CAATA), the Alternate ROOTS Anniversary Festival in Baltimore, PICA's Time-Based Arts Festival (TBA), as well as internationally to Mexico, Poland, Lebanon, and beyond.  If you donate, you’ll receive regular updates on what comes next!

OK, what will my contribution do?  What difference would it make?

 By contributing, donors will positively impact the scope of this work, make it possible for me to realize my vision for the project, and definitively increase the number of people it will reach.  I MUST raise at least $5000 to produce this work in April, and get it ready to tour!  Remember, if I don’t meet my minimum goal, I don’t get a cent.  So if you invest in this project, please also spread the word and encourage others to add their support!  Here’s where the money will go:

$5000 = Minimum goal!  Support for interactive media design by Pramila Vasudevan, lighting and visual design, 1-3 collaborating musicians, and production costs for the April 2011 performances in Minneapolis.

Any additional money I can raise will extend the reach of the project, increase the number of people engaged and lives touched by it, and will further the artistic development and production value of the artistic work …

$7500 = Support for interactive media design by Pramila Vasudevan, lighting and visual design, a guest Music Director and collaborating musicians, production, and partial travel support for the project to tour to summer festivals.

$15,000 = Maximum Goal!  Support for interactive media design by Pramila Vasudevan, including an interactive web-based extension of the project on-line; production, lighting and visual design for April and beyond; international guest artist, Lebanese singer and musician May Nasr, and supporting musicians; and partial travel support for this project to tour festivals in the United States and internationally.  One of my hopes is to eventually perform in Beirut and other Arab cities, as well as around the U.S. 

Shukran / Thanks

I am very honored to be an invited artist on the United States Artists site, among so many colleagues whose artistic work I admire and respect.  Thank you to United States Artists, to the person who nominated me for 2010 USA  fellowship consideration, and to the National Performance Network (NPN) for all their support and the award of a 2010 Creation Fund commission.  SPECIAL THANKS to Pangea World Theater, for incredible on-going support, and for commissioning & co-producing Eleven Reflections on September in their 2011 Alternate Visions Festival.  And SHUKRAN to you, for reading all this, and for making a donation to this project!!! 

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