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Celebrate the Poet Rumi’s Birthday with the CRS Sufi Community & Brooklyn Nomads
September 30, 2022 @ 7:00 pm - 9:30 pm EDT
$25
On the occasion of the 815th birthday of the beloved Sufi mystic and poet Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Mevlana Rūmī, we invite you to join us for an intimate evening of art, poetry reading, and dance under the direction of Sufi dance artist Paola García, accompanied by live music by Hadi and Mohamad Eldebek of the Brooklyn Nomads, at the L-Private Gallery.
FEATURED DANCERS
Paola García, Danielle Karabos, Fanny Pérez Gutiérrez, Melissa Rivero, and Wendi Wang
VISUAL ARTISTS
Loy Luo, Mina Omidi, and Fanny Pérez Gutiérrez
Let’s come together to empty our minds of all thoughts of the individual self and practice divine listening, connecting with the still center within, around which we turn. Into this emptiness we invite the flood of divine fullness, which sometimes gives rise to a state known as “mystical intoxication,” a reflection of knowing and experiencing that you and I and the Divine are One.
Please bring and wear your mask, and socks or slippers if you would like to try whirling.
Doors open 7pm. Ritual/performance starts 7:30pm. You may not be able to enter after 7:30pm.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
HADI ELDEBEK is an Oudist, Composer, and Cultural Entrepreneur based in New York City. He has collaborated with prominent figures and institutions in the Arts, Culture, and Education sectors, including Yo-Yo Ma’s Silkroad Ensemble, Harvard Graduate School of Education, The Kennedy Center, TED, Disney World Imagineering, and others. In addition, Hadi has founded several cultural startups, including grantPA and Circle World Arts. His TED talk, discussing the importance of funding the arts and artists, has gone viral with over 1.25 million views.
MOHAMED ELDEBEK is a percussionist from Lebanon based in New York City. He has performed internationally in numerous venues including the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, the National Center for Performing Arts in Beijing, Symphony Space, Metropolitan museum of Arts, Shanghai Concert Hall, and others. His musical adventures brought him to tour in China and teach Arabic music and dance at the first world arts workshop in Xizhou town, Yunnan Province.
THE BROOKLYN NOMADS is a cross cultural collective rooted in musical traditions from the Arab world. Our musicians are from Lebanon, Germany, Sudan, Turkey, Iran, the US, Albania, and others. Our music includes global styles like Flamenco, Jazz, Balkan, Bluegrass, North & East African, European Classical and more. thebrooklynnomads.com
FANNY PÉREZ GUTIÉRREZ is a visual and movement creator, writer, and teacher. CRS presented her solo exhibition “Electricity” in 2019. She is a trained facilitator of Ritual Body Postures by the Cuyamungue Institute and is currently studying Yarsan Sufism and mysticism with Farima Berenji. She has also studied Sufi dance with Rana Gorgani and Läle Sayoko and performed with the CRS Sufi dance community and elsewhere. She recently performed with the American Sufi Music Project as part of Litfest 22 by Asylum Bookstore in Pittsburgh, PA. @fannnsystem
LOY LUO is a Chinese artist who lives and works in Beijing. Since January 2020, She has been working in the United States. She received her MFA from the Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology in 2010 and taught art at the University of Science and Technology, Beijing from 2010-2012. Luo creates Paintings, Sculptures, Concept and Performance art. Her works have been exhibited or collected in China, Italy, America, Germany, Belgium, Sweden, Australian, and France, etc. Her solo exhibitions include: “Homeless” at Undercurrent (New York, America); “The Other I (The Me in Others)” at WhiteBox Harlem (New York, America); “Who is the ‘Me’”online show curated by Funspace Art Center( Roma, Italy) “Mirror” at Anaya Beach Art Fair (Heibei, China); “Stillness”at Beijing Jindu Art Center (China) in 2018; “Dance Together”at Fun Space Gallery (Rome, Italy) in 2016, and“Suspending”at 798 Ning Space Gallery (Beijing, China) in 2015. loyluo.art
MINA OMIDI is a multidisciplinary artist and designer living and working in New York. In her work, painting functions as a place of reflection, as a medium to snatch the fleeting time in an ongoing journey of self discovery and unfolding. Mina is an intuit who works through the constant process of being an observer in the moment; cultivating the flow of energies that need to be captured, in an intimate engagement with color, form, and space. The essence of her exploration is to depict the world between visual and spiritual senses. Her goal in her practices is to create escapes that help to contemplate and evoke the purity of lightheartedness and rawness; which would not only be a form of putting healing energy out through a piece but also to inspire and elevate anyone who experiences her work. minaomidi.com
PAOLA GARCÍA teaches Sufi dance at Anahid Sofian Studio and performs with the CRS Sufi dance community and elsewhere. She has studied extensively with Sufi dance artist Rana Gorgani in NYC and in Europe and was awarded the International Sufi Dance Certification Of Cid UNESCO by her, granting Paola authority to teach Gorgani’s method of Sufi dance training. She has performed in multiple venues including Grounds for Sculpture, Mana Contemporary, Alwan Center for the Arts, The Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, From the Horse’s Mouth, The Outlet Dance Project, Dixon Place, MODArts Dance Collective, Queens Library, and Jamaica Center for the Arts, among others. Paola holds a Master’s Degree in Islamic Studies from Columbia University and a J.D. from Columbia Law School. She is a writer, Middle Eastern Studies researcher, lawyer, translator and student of Sufism. @wonder_paola
MELISSA RIVERO is the author of The Affairs of the Falcóns, which won the 2019 New American Voices Award and a 2020 International Latino Book Award. The book was also longlisted for the PEN/Hemingway Debut Novel Prize, the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize, and the Aspen Words Literary Prize. Born in Lima, Peru and raised in Brooklyn, she is a graduate of NYU and Brooklyn Law School. She still lives in Brooklyn with her family. melissa-rivero.com
WENDI WANG is the founder of China’s One Thousand and One Nights Dance Art Center and is currently the Artistic Director of the “1001 Experimental Theater.” She has won the Asian International Music, Dance Art Competition, and the champion of the Fujian Women’s Talent and Emotional Reality Show. Wendi is known for her spiritual teaching, and she has trained a group of outstanding dancers and teachers with distinct personalities and independent thoughts to cultivate a group of talents in the promotion of Chinese oriental dance. She has served as a judge of the major art festivals in China, traveling to Middle East and North Africa, and many countries in East Africa. She went to the United States in 2015 and actively joined in various art activities at New York and actively promoted dance art. She has successively exhibited at New York fashion Events and art exhibition centers, poetry associations, museum, libraries, and churches, and collaborated with artists from different fields. She hopes to establish a bridge between Eastern and Western culture through her work. wendiwengdanceart.com
ABOUT THE PRESENTERS
L PRIVATE GALLERY is an extension of artist Loy Luo’s workspace. The artist’s pursuit of artistic quality, enthusiasm for artistic exchanges, and convenient transportation have gradually transformed the space into a place for painters, sculptors, musicians, performance artists and philosophers to collide and display their works. There is a brave spirit of academic exploration and an open atmosphere of artistic innovation. loyluo.art
CRS (CENTER FOR REMEMBERING & SHARING) is a spiritual healing and art center founded in 2004 by the writer/lecturer/spiritual counselor Yasuko Kasaki and artist Christopher Pelham. Our mission is guided by A Course in Miracles (ACIM). ACIM says that recognizing that you and your brother are actually one is the only way to experience peace. The mission of CRS is to promote the awareness that limitless creativity lives within each of us. We train minds to recognize the light in themselves and others and provide them opportunities to share their inner vision through the healing and creative arts. Since its founding CRS has provided numerous residencies and performance and exhibition opportunities to artists from all over the world. Currently, CRS is a multi-year sponsor of M³ (Mutual Mentorship for Musicians), a platform created to empower, elevate, normalize and give visibility to women, non-binary musicians and those of other historically underrepresented gender identities in intersection with race, sexuality, or ability across generations in the US and worldwide, through a radical model of mentorship and musical collaborative commissions. crsny.org