Sam Spade's San Francisco

Ya Hala: 14th Annual Arab Cultural Festival

On August 24, San Francisco's Arab Cultural and Community Center will present their 14th Annual Arab Cultural Festival, the largest celebration of Arab heritage in Northern California.

The day-long event will showcase the arts, entertainment, food, traditions, and most importantly the spirit of the Arab and Arab-American people, and their contributions to the Bay Area's cultural landscape. This year's theme, Ya Hala (Welcome) expresses the tradition of hospitality and generosity that is a hallmark of Arab culture throughout the world.

Featured Performers: North African rai music by Tunisian artist MC Rai. Egyptian folkloric dance by Yasser Darwish. Lebanese, Egyptian and khaleejy (Arabian Gulf) music by the Georges Lammam Ensemble, Arab-American hip hop by Washington's Iron Sheik, traditional Palestinian dabkeh dance by Al-Juthoor, poetry by Dina Omar, and more.

Booth Bazaar includes: Jewelry, textiles and crafts from the Arab world, Arabic cuisine, Henna tattoos, informational booths for many Arab cultural and community organizations, artwork by Arab-American visual artists and calligraphers, a Children's Activity Booth and more.

2008 Arab Cultural Festival Performers

MC Rai
MC Rai was born in 1977 in the southern Tunisian city of Gabes. As a youth he was immersed in the folk music traditions of chabi, or mizoued, as it is known in Tunisia. At the age of eight he was performing live on the local radio station. In 1995, he began to turn his attention from chabi to rai music, and realized that he could develop a style of rai distinct from that emanating from Algeria, and infuse it with the traits of his Tunisian music. While many of his contemporaries such as rai singers Faudel, Sawt-el Atlas and Abdu relocated to France to garner an international audience, MC Rai chose instead to move to the U.S. in 2000. Since that time he has performed with well-known rai musician Khaled, appeared on stage with artists such as Bonnie Raitt and Joan Baez, and is featured in the soundtrack to the movie Rendition. With the release of his album Raivolution in 2006 on Embarka Records, he continues to develop a strong national following. Currently based in Los Angeles, MC Rai is in the studio working on his latest work De Gabes a Los Angeles, to be released in July of 2008.

For more information: www.mcrai.com

Yasser Darwish
Yasser Darwish of Alexandria, Egypt has an extensive career as a performer of Egyptian folkloric dance including national and international tours with companies such as the Alexandria Folk Dance Group and the National Folkloric Dance Troupe (Firqat Qowmeyya) of Egypt. Among the dances in his repertory are dabkeh, the folk dance of the Levantine region, the dances of the Middle Egypt area, including the Saidi tahtib (stick) dance, the dances of Nubia and finally the dances of the nomadic Bedouin tribes found in Egypt's west desert region. He is also a master of Tanoura or the Whirling Dervish dance, a style associated with the mystical religious order Sufism, which originating from present day Syria and Turkey. A distinct Egyptian variant developed that Yasser performs and from which he derives his name - Darwish. In 2001, Yasser moved to New York. He currently lives in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn with his wife. He can be seen performing and directing dance and musical presentations for public and private cultural events and festivals. He works independently and also through professional agents and entertainment companies. He was recently appointed Chairman of the Cultural Branch of the Arabic American Association.

For more information: www.egyptiancelebration.com

Iron Sheik
Using hip-hop as his medium, the Iron Sheik relays informed views on the war on terrorism, US foreign policy, the Arab world, the Palestinian movement for independence, and growing up Arab-American. Since releasing his albums "Camel Clutch 2003" and "Yet We Remain," he has toured and performed nationally and internationally. Media as diverse as the Berkeley-based radio station KPFA, Egypt's Nile TV, the web-zine Muslim WakeUp, Wayne State University's South End Press, and the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Jerusalem Report, and the New York Times have covered the Sheik's work. Musically, the Sheik often draws on Arabic music, such as the legendary Um Kulthoum, Fairuz, Marcel Khalife, Abdel-Halim, and more. Intellectually, he draws inspiration from thinkers such as Edward Said, Ilan Pappe, Walid Khalidi, Hannah Arendt, and many others. He was a featured performer at the national American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Convention, the Palestinian-American Women's Association, and at Awwal Rabie (First Spring) at the Al-Mawred Al-Thaqafy in Cairo, Egypt and regularly performs at Native American reservations, inner city schools, and community centers, among other places.

For more information: www.ironsheik.biz

Al Juthoor
Al Juthoor ("Roots"), founded in January 2005, is a folkloric dance company whose mission is to present and preserve Palestinian dance, music, and culture. Dabkeh is the indigenous folk dance of the Levant region of the Middle East, which includes Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, and portions of Jordan and Iraq. This dance is customarily a part of any social or celebratory event, such as parties and weddings. Dabkeh groups that present staged versions of this folk dance are common in the Middle East as part of state-sponsored or community folk dance groups. Al-Juthoor's artistic growth and level of respect in the community has shown steady and progressive increase since its founding. From its early days, Al-Juthoor has received strong support from the Arab community and has been in high demand for performances, including the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival.

For more information: www.al-juthoor.com

Georges Lammam Ensemble
Georges Lammam is the second of three brothers who are professional musicians. Of Palestinian descent, born in Beirut, Lebanon and living for 14 years in the United Arab Emirates, he is well-known in the Middle East and the United States as a violinist exemplifying the Arab style of instrumental improvisation and lyricism. Currently living in San Francisco, he and his ensemble have performed at the San Francisco World Music Festival, The Legion of Honor Museum, the De Young Museum in San Francisco, The Fine Arts Cinema in Berkeley, and many more local and national venues. Mr. Lammam is instructor of violin and Arabic singing at the annual Middle Eastern Music and Dance Camp in Mendocino, California and has taught Arabic music ensemble and vocal classes at the UC-Berkeley, Humboldt State University, Santa Fe College and Middlebury College in Vermont. Well-versed in the repertory of classical and popular Arabic music from Egypt, Lebanon and beyond, he has also recorded as a featured artist with two notable fusion groups, Shabaz and Ancient Future as well as with the legendary Holly Near. "Dreaming the Diaspora", his new recording of original music fusing Eastern and Western musical sensibilities was released in August, 2006.

For more information: www.amorfiaproductions.com
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