Join Circa for a trans-organized and queer-centered learning space to practice dabke and drumming. Rhythm is a tool of resistance and an ancestral technology of togetherness. Dabke is a dance of collectivity, solidarity, and mutual aid from the crossroads region of Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Jordan, and beyond. During this time of uprising for a Free Palestine, drumming has taken a central role in our streets and resistance. By drumming and dancing, we practice the embodiment of liberation as we organize ourselves and our communities. The rhythm in our hearts reminds us why we fight. We fight for love.
In this workshop open to SWANA folks and our allies, the facilitators will provide an overview of dabke’s origins and its power for movement, explore how we as trans and queer people can embody our traditions, and practice the basics of social dabke. The last hour of the workshop is reserved for jamming together.
This workshop will take place at Pieter Performance Space on Saturday, October 19, 2024, from 1-3 p.m. and is open to folks of all experiences and abilities! Come to learn and share knowledge.
Facilitated by interdimensional storyteller Starlight Shamsi and their creative kin in House of Uranus, including rhythm artists DJ AriB and Canelo Mercuccio.
This program is suitable for all ages.
Participants
Starlight Shamsi practices interdimensional storytelling for liberation. Their creative work encompasses facilitation, embodied research, textile art, moving image, and sonic worlds. They emerge from root systems of their transness, displaced indigeneity, spirituality, and Yemeni and Canaani ancestry in South West Asia and North Africa.They dance with Palestinian dabke group Al Juthoor, perform drag throughout the cosmos, and collaborate on creative production with their kin in House of Uranus. Recently a Sarah Hegazy Healing Arts Fellow with Queer Crescent, they have created work at Coaxial Arts Foundation in LA, Bread and Salt in San Diego, and the Wassaic Project, NY.
Canelo is a Brown queer and trans Two-Spirit Pisces who seeks to birth the internal worlds within them into this dimension through supersonic hypnotic rhythms and relationships. Thinking out loud with their hands leads them to creative and cultural practices that embrace working with their hands in some capacity, including drumming and fixing bikes. They love feeling free and autonomous, so offer biking as liberation, land connection, and spirit journey. They focus on archival work for queer, folks, Two-Spirit and Indigequeer folks, especially those who are melanated and disenfranchised in our own communities. Find them with their fur baby, Muneka.
DJ ariB is a non-binary Iranian-American DJ, dancer, and musician from the Bay Area. Their family roots trace back to Khorramshahr, Southern Iran, a region known for Bandari music and African rhythmic connection. They spin high BPM club sounds with Middle Eastern, Latin, and Afro beats, and work with techno, footwork, drum & bass, hip hop, and house across Bay Area clubs and DIY venues. They host “The Art of Sound” on Lowergrandradio, Hyde FM, and Fault Radio. This show highlights electronic musicians from Iran and the SWANA region, reflecting their study of the interconnectedness of sound and entropy.
This workshop is organized by Starlight Shamsi as part of Circa: Queer Histories Festival 2024, presented by One Institute.
Pieter is a home for all people to dance, create, and heal together with the belief that embodiment liberates. We say “all people” because dance spaces historically exclude those who are non-white, non-able, non-“fit,” non-“healthy,” non-young, non-cisgendered and non-independently-wealthy. Dance includes a broad spectrum of body-based practices and the cultivation of culture. Rooted in Los Angeles, Pieter fosters a just and expansive community of movement artists, healers and activists.