Sacred Music Festival: Exploring Sufi Traditions September 15, 2012

This festival has celebrated sacred musical traditions of the greater Middle East since 2007. The programs on this season’s celebration of the sacred focus on Sufi, mystical Islamic, traditions that stretch across North Africa through the Levant and east into Central and South Asia.
All concerts begin at 8pm
Doors open at 7:30 p.m.

September 15: Arooj Aftab and Ensemble
Fresh, graceful innovations based on classical Pakistani, Sufi, and pre-partition South Asian music honoring ancestral roots performed by Arooj Aftab, originally from Lahore, Pakistan, and her ensemble.

September 20: Screening: Bab'Aziz - The Prince Who Contemplated His Soul
Bab'Aziz is the latest film from Tunisian writer and director Nacer Khemir. The story unfolds as the blind dervish Bab'Aziz (Parviz Shahinkhou) and his granddaughter Ishtar (Maryam Hamid) cross the desert in search of the great reunion of dervishes that takes place only once every thirty years. Side-by-side, the old man and the child wander for days across wide seas of sand with only their faith to guide them.

September 22: Ushāq
A melding of spiritual, improvisatory music based on a shared common ground of Sufism, poetry, & related maqām systems, performed by representatives from North Africa, the Arab World, and Central/South Asia brought together in an ensemble called Ushāq and presented in collaboration with the Asian American Arts Alliance's Locating the Sacred.

September 29: Tarab Ensemble
Celebrating the communal practice of music through repetitive chanting, rhythmic cycles, and dance movements transports the devout into a state of trance. The New York-based Tarab Ensemble takes its name from the word "tarab," which refers to the intoxication induced by music, the gate through which Sufis cross into the world of true being.

Official Website: http://alwanforthearts.org/event/891