Join us for a special post-show Conversation with ArteEast’s Lila Nazemian and Founder of Waterwell’s Arian Moayed A GOOD DAY TO ME NOT TO YOU WRITTEN AND PERFORMED BY: Lameece Issaq DIRECTED BY: Lee Sunday Evans DATE: November 16, 2023 TIME: 7 pm LOCATION: The Connelly Theater, 220 East 4th Street in Manhattan SLIDING […]
Join us Tuesday, August 7, 7pm at UnionDocs for an evening with Egyptian filmmaker Aida ElKashef, in conversation with Sarah Leah Whitson, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East and North Africa Division. The evening will feature a sneak preview of Aida ElKashef’s The Day I Ate The Fish, the feature documentary in-progress revisits stories of women behind bars in Egypt’s infamous women’s prison, Al Qanater, convicted of murdering their husbands. The evening will include a screening of ElKashef’s activist video work with Operation Anti-Sexual Harassment (OpAntiSH), active in Egypt during the revolution to combat sexual harrassment and sexual assaults of female protestors in Tahrir Square.
Contribute now to help support July artist residency in NYC for Egyptian Filmmaker Aida ElKashef Support Aida's work on "The Day I Ate The Fish": the feature documentary revisits stories of women behind bars in Egypt’s infamous women’s prison, Al Qanater, convicted of murdering their husbands.
"Zig Zig opens with five women sitting behind desks in a row at the back of the stage. One plays the violin, another reads an archival document that sets the scene, and the others mime leafing through documents. I liked this set-up. They move around and return to the desks, combining dance, song and acting. Each play different roles at different moments, reading from the archives, reflecting on them, acting as the military, the native prosecution or the women themselves giving testimony and answering harsh questions in the British military court."
“They’re not there to talk about gender, but obviously it stems from a feminine and feminist perspective,” said Hafez. And, as there is a prevalent American media depiction of Middle Eastern women as disempowered, audience members who entered the venue drunk on that spiked Kool-Aid were likely to leave sobered up by the diversity and evident power of the performers. Said choreographer and NYLA artistic director Bill T. Jones, who conceived the festival with Kriegsmann, “We think [women from the MENA region] are oppressed or deluded. Then we see these women expressing themselves as individuals. That’s important for us to see.”