WRITER’S CONFERENCE FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2011 7:30 PM to 9:30 PM with book signing to follow
Keynote Speaker: Junot Díaz
The Dominican-born American writer Junot Díaz will deliver the keynote address for the 2011 MCCC Annual Writers Conference. A winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his debut novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Díaz has published in the New Yorker, the Paris Review, and The Best American Short Stories. One of the New Yorker's top 20 writers for the 21st century, Díaz writes fiction on the experiences of young immigrants in America, chronicling "their outwardly cool but inwardly anguished attempts to recreate themselves in the midst of eroding family structures and their own burgeoning sexuality," according to Publisher's Weekly. Díaz's keynote opens the two-day conference, with workshops and agent appointments for aspiring writers taking place on Saturday, November 5, 2011.
DOBET GNAHORE SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2011 8 PM (AFRICAN WORLD MUSIC)
We will also present, in a Philadelphia area debut, Dobet Gnahoré, a singer, dancer, percussionist, and songwriter from the Ivory Coast. She creates an entire concept for each piece complete with choreography and lighting. Her performances are a window to Africa past, present and future. Gnahore embodies a Pan-African ideal bringing together the traditions of various sub-Saharan peoples. She sings original material in seven languages. Her compositions, carried along with jazz inspired music, are varied and colorful. Gnahore’s songs often address politically charged aspects of African Society taking a stand against genocide, injustice.
http://www.imnworld.com/artists/detail/112/dobet-gnahor (Check out audio samples Jho Avido and Dala.)
RAGAMALA FRIDAY, NOVEMBER, 18, 2011 8 PM (INDIAN DANCE)
Will feature Ragamala performing their latest work Sacred Earth. Sacred Earth couples eternity and transience, body and nature, soul and Earth in a celebration of the divine balance found in the universe’s continuous pulse. From southern India come kolams, floor designs drawn by women with rice flour to create a sacred space every morning, gone in the space of a day, a kolam’s geometric shapes are a reminder of beauty’s impermanence, and its perishable materials nourish birds and small creatures as a way to give back to the earth. Against a backdrop of kolam paintings from the Warli folk artist Anil Chaitya Vangad, each dancer in Sacred Earth summons the spirituality of this earthly connection into tangible existence. Imbuing the graceful and dynamic dance form of Bharatanatyam with its own distinctive vision, Ragamala Dance, called "a transcendent experience" and "rapturous and profound" by The New York Times, conveys to audiences worldwide that Bharatanatyam is contemporary and distinctly current.
www.ragamala.net
This tour of Ragamala is made possible by a grant from the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts Regional Touring Program. (logo Mid-Atlantic)
The presentation of Sacred Earth was made possible by the MetLife Community Connections Fund of the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project. Major support by NDP is also provided by the Doris Duke charitable Foundation with additional support from the Andrew Mellon Foundation and the Boeing Company Charitable Trust.
