[Opening / Closing]
Opening: "Unveiled Courage"

About This Event

A Thousand Blooms II
~ Artworks Exhibition & Performances Showcase ~
Featured Arts Exhibition: "Unveiled Courage - identity, plight, and courage of Muslim-American women under duress of wars, cultural strictures, and media disenfranchisement" from our Special Guest Artists, Saadia Khattak and Sheila Mahoutchian

Sunday, May 16th, 2010
5:00pm to 8:30pm

at Bloombars (http://www.bloombars.com/)
3222 11th Street NW @ Lamont St
(between Wonderland and Room 11)
Columbia Heights, Washington, DC 20010

Media coverage of A Thousand Blooms I at Bloombars on 4/25:

-Culture Walking video blog -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeaajMkEJbo

-Murmur DC arts event blog -
http://www.murmurdc.com/2010/04/26/photos-a-thousand-blooms-bloombars/
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BloomBars is organization that works to inspire and unite communities through the arts while nurturing artists committed to serving the community. Redefining the perception of a bar, BloomBars does not serve or allow alcohol and is open to all ages. To learn more, visit www.bloombars.com
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A Thousand Blooms is a artwork exhibition and film, musical, theater,
and dance showcase to celebrate the liberating, redemptive, and galvanizing "thousand blooms" power of artistic expressions in affirming human rights, heal injustices, and breach cultural, societal and religious divides and in the process helps build a more vibrant and tolerant community

ARTWORK EXHIBITION:

*** Featured Exhibition: "Unveiled Courage - identity, plight, and courage of womanhood under the duress of wars, cultural strictures, and media disenfranchisement" from our Special Guest Artists, Saadia Khattak and Sheila Mahoutchian ***

- Saadia Khattak is a artist who seeks to 'begin a revolution for the voiceless of the world, most prominently the Pushtuns [her family's tribal root]" through works that capture the sorrow of war victims and orph...ans, and of poverty and conflict around the world. Her paintings and drawings are infused with the soulful influences of the music, colors, and customs of her itinerant upbringing in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Ethopia, Greece, Pakistan, and the U.S.. They come pure from her heart in the liberated spirit of a twenty-seven years old Pushtun-American who now makes D.C. her home in asylum. A self-professed 'rebel through the arts for the rest of my life', Saadia is making a difference where she lives to 'give voices to the diverse cultures of the nations capital' as the founder of the International Pashtoon Society and as a host of the international radio show Global Rickshaw

- Sheila Mahoutchian is a first-generation American born Persian whose rock climbing passion is a metaphor for what she seeks to achieve within herself and her arts - the stamina, strength, and courage to overcome cultural taboos and strictures and express in courage her own truths as a Persian-American through works that represent who she is and what she has experienced at the intersecting cross-point of the the in-flux and in-fraught "boundary" between East and West. Her self-reflecting imprints meld graphics and arts, present contradictions that reveal the times and mirror our own ambivalences and challenge us to delve deeper than what meets the eyes. Ms. Mahoutchian is the founder of Scavenger Design, a full graphic solution firm.

* Photography exhibition from the True Beauty - Young Womanhood in DC photobok project (http://www.truebeautydc.org) that profiles through images and stories the inner beauties and humanistic sensibilities of modern womanhood in Washington DC. - proceeds from the book sales will be donated to a hospice for cancer survivors. Photography by Richard Chu and Jim Tetrick.

* Paintings from some of the artists who had contributed original paintings for the photobook:

DECOY (http://decoyink.com/)
Matt Sesow, (http://www.sesow.com/),
Anna U. Davis (http://www.frocasians.com/)

PERFORMANCE SHOWCASE:

7:00PM - Screening of "Return of the Cicadas" [15mm, TRT: 21 mins] about the spiritual atonement of a Vietnam War vet to the mixed-blood daughter he abandoned after the War [selection of Georgetown Film Festival - written & directed by Richard Chu)

8:00PM - Cello performance by Ms. Janel Leppin (http://www.JanelLeppin.com). Janel has studied North Indian classical music in India and the Netherlands and performed with the Chakavak Ensemble specializing in Persian Classical Music. For the last several years, she has been experimenting with free improvisation and has applied effects pedals to her instrument. She writes and collaborates with electric guitarist Anthony Pirog and are recording their third album. Kudos: "Janel Leppin is wicked talented on the cello." - Brightest Young Things. "Janel Leppin brings a haunting lyricism to the cello - her honest approach to creative improvisation leaves the ears more curious with each encounter" - Hurd Audio. "If your soul is downright weary from the burdens of everyday life, cellist Janel Leppin and guitarist Anthony Pirog present an ideal antidote with their intimate, intuitive music. In both bucolic acoustic numbers and immersive dronescapes, the duo offers transport from mundane matters of the world." - Time Out New York

9:00PM - Seed the Sound (an acoustic jam session with music from a diversity of genres) with Artist in Bloom Resident Fellows Terrence Cunningham and Carolyn Malachi will be headlining this inspirational performance

FOOD & DRINKS:

Banh Mi Vietnamese subs
Spring water

HOSTED BY :
Richard Chu et al. of The Ripplestone Project
http://www.murmurdc.com/2009/10/11/true-beauty-womanhood-in-washington-d...

SUGGESTED DONATION:
$7 - proceeds go toward supporting the community initiatives of Bloombars