From a presentation of traditional Sufi devotional music to poems discoverable by a QR decoder on a cell phone, the Asian American Arts Alliance’s Locating the Sacred Festival promises all New Yorkers a chance to glimpse the sublime and the sacred in everyday life.
The 25-event, 12-day festival—which takes place in all five New York boroughs from 12 September to 23 September 2012—is a vibrant collaboration between artists of all disciplines with traditionally and non-traditionally sacred spaces all across the city, exploring together the meaning of the word “sacred” and its relevance in their communities. The festival opens on Tuesday, 12 September, 2012 at 8 p.m. at the Church of the Ascension in Greenwich Village with an innovative program of transcendental music bringing together new music artist Bora Yoon with the South Asian Sufi devotional musicians of Riyaaz Qawwali. The festival is coordinated by the Asian American Arts Alliance, a non-profit organization that for 30 years has supported individual artists and small arts groups in New York.
“This amazing festival showcases the diversity and talent of the Asian American community, which now makes up more than 1 million people in New York, or 13% percent of the population,” said Andrea Louie, executive director of the Alliance. “The festival aims to promote artists as agents of change, demonstrating the power of art and culture to unleash imagination, break down barriers, and connect communities together for the greater good.”
In addition to such events as Chang-Jin Lee’s giant inflatable Buddha installation on the East River, Dana Leong’s sundown concert in the Skyroom at the New Museum, and Kelly Zen Yie-Tsai’s 9/11-inspired spoken word theater world premiere, the festival will feature three panel discussions: “The Power of Sound: An Interfaith Exchange,” “Damn It, I Want to Be Enlightened! Yoga, Meditation, and the Search for Balance” and “Making the Memory Sacred: Art, Human Rights, and Community.” Other festival components include a sacred spaces map to which the general public can contribute, an online dialogue/blog, “Making the Memory Sacred: Art, Human Rights, and Community,” and a team of filmmakers who will trade tasty treats from a food truck in exchange for recipes and family stories.
“The festival acts as a vehicle for the active collaboration—artistic, logistical and financial—of hundreds of artists, spaces and partners across the city” said Nico Daswani, Festival Director for the Alliance. “We now turn it over to all New Yorkers to share in the exceptional work that has been created through this process and to explore what is sacred to us all.”
For a full calendar of events, biographies of all the artists, and details about all the collaborators, please visit www.locatingthesacred.org.