Shema: What Jewish Culture Sounds Like, Denver, CO, Feb 15-20, 2008
The Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Denver presents,
SHEMA: WHAT JEWISH CULTURE SOUNDS LIKE
With Galeet Dardashti and Divahn for an exploration of
Middle Eastern and Sephardic Jewish music
Saturday, February 16, 2008, 7:30 p.m.
The Oriental Theatre
4335 West 44th Avenue
Denver, Co. 80212
$18 general public
$10 DU faculty and staff
$5 with a University student ID
Thanks to support from our sponsors, tickets are offered at a reduced price.
Tickets available online at www.theorientaltheater.com or by calling 1.800.838.3006.
Doors open at 6 p.m. with a cash bar and restaurant available for pre-concert dining. Concert begins at 7:30 p.m. A reception with Divahn to follow the concert.
Public Lecuture with Galeet Dardashti
Mizrahi Piyutim: Middle Eastern Prayer Poetry
Join Galeet Dardashti for an interactive evening that introduces attendees to the Sephardi piyut traditions from the Middle East and North Africa. This evening will not only allow you to hear and learn a few of these beautiful and poetic songs but will provide you with a cultural and historical lens for understanding why the paytanim (poets) wrote them and continued composing them up until the last century. This lecture will also highligh the important ways in which the music of these piyutim draws from secular Arabic and Middle Eastern music. Galeet will perform and teach a number of piyutim representing the Iraqi, Sephardi-Yerushalmi, Moroccan, and Iranian traditions.
For further info: www.du.edu/cjs/public_programs.html
SHEMA: What Jewish Culture Sounds Like continues with our year-long project at the University of Denver’s Center for Judaic Studies which explores the orality of Jewish culture through media of music, sermons, poetry, theatre and languages of Jewish culture. Join us for a week of Middle Eastern and Sephardic Music with one of the most noted artists and scholars in this field – Galeet Dardashti and her all female band, Divahn!
Galeet Dardashti is completeing her PhD. in ethnomusicology in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Texas, Austin. An Iraqi Jewish cantor, Galeet is a world-renowned musician of Middle Eastern music. She is the winner of several prestigious arts fellowships including the Six Points Jewish Arts Fellowship from the Foundation of Jewish Culture in New York. Dardashti's work examines the relationship between traditional Arabic muscial forms known as piyyutim and contemporary popular music in Israel, both Arab and Jewish. Her all female band, Divahn, has performed around the world and is the leading voice of Mizrahi (Middle Eastern) Jewish sounds. Visit their website and sample their music at www.divahn.com
Mizrahi Kabbalat Shabbat Service at Hillel
Join Galeet Dardashti in her role as a cantor for a dynamic Sephardi-Mizrahi Kabbalat Shabbat service which will have you singing and clapping! This special service involves prayers with beautiful melodies from a range of Middle Eastern and North African Jewish communities.
The Center for Judaic Studies brings you these and other programs with generous support from community members, departments and academic units at the University of Denver, the Posen Foundation, Rose Community Foundation, Hillel at the University of Denver and ISIME.