May 27, 2021

Mizna at RAWIfest

by Lamia Abukhadra | in Literary

Mizna is a proud sponsor and presenter of this year’s RAWIfest, a free virtual program celebrating Anglophone SWANA (Southwest Asian & North African) literature and performance art. RAWIfest takes place June 10–13, 2021.

In addition to presenting a virtual Hafla, Mizna will co-present two readings which highlight and celebrate queer SWANA artistry.

+Queer Voices Reading + Q&A at 7pm EST, June 10, 2021.
+I Want Sky: honoring the life of Sarah Hegazi, 10:30am EST, June 11, 2021.

More information + registration

Hafla @ RAWIfest

A party! SWANA and Muslim creativity! A kind of loving and campy queer SWANA tiktok? Mizna’s offering to this year’s RAWIFest literary gathering is essentially a two-hour party featuring a series of quick performances (both live and pre-recorded videos) with dance breaks DJ’d by the fab Yasmeenah, emceed by our loves Zeyn Joukhadar & Fargo Tbakhi. Join for a spirit of joyful play & unstructured togetherness.

June 12 | 7:30 EST
Register, donate, and grab the Zoom link here.

With performances by DJ Yasmeenah,  Celiné Aziza Kaldas Anderson, Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán, Michael Chang, Dorian Gaye, INDKNA, Yousef Fiennes, Zeyn Joukhadar, Noel Maghathe, Trish Salah, Nailah Taman, Fargo Tbakhi.

HOST BIOS

Zeyn Joukhadar is the author of the Stonewall Book Award-winning novel The Thirty Names of Night andThe Map of Salt and Stars. His work has appeared in Salon, The Paris Review, Kink, and elsewhere. He is a RAWI member, Periplus Collective mentor, and guest editor of Mizna’s Queer + Trans Voices issue.

Fargo Tbakhi (he/him) is a queer Palestinian-American performance artist. A Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, he is the recipient of the Ghassan Kanafani Resistance Arts Prize and a Tin House Summer Workshop alum. His writing can be found in Apex Magazine, Strange Horizons, Mizna, Peach Mag, the Shallow Ends, and elsewhere. He is a Halcyon Arts Lab Fellow and works at Mosaic Theater.

The ethereal and joyous Yasmeenah is a creative who is not afraid to reflect the times while prioritizing Black joy and celebration on the continuous path towards liberation. Yasmeenah is a first-generation Somali-American DJ, Producer, Curator, based in South Minneapolis. Yasmeenah is the creator of “UNBOTHERED”, a dance party & radio show on Verge.FM  She lives and examines the intersections of creation, music, queerness, Blackness as she believes art is essential for radical movements.

PERFORMER BIOS

Céline Aziza Kaldas Anderson is an artist and educator of Egyptian and Black American descent. She graduated from Swarthmore College in 2019 with a BA in Anthropology and has worked in elementary and middle schools. Her art has been featured in The Vallt, Soo Visual Arts Center, La Luz de Jesus, and Liminal Alternative Artspace. In her free time, she watches lots of movies.

Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán is a multimedia artist, activist/organizer, critic, and educator. He is author of Archipiélagos; Antes y después del Bronx: Lenapehoking; and South Bronx Breathing Lessons; editor of Yellow Medicine Review’s international queer Indigenous issue; and co-editor of Movement Research Performance Journal’s Native dance/movement/performance issue.

Noel Maghathe is a Queer Mixed Palestinian-American performance-installation artist. Maghathe creates and performs with queer functional tools to help them navigate the world. Maghathe holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in photography with a minor in sculpture from the Art Academy of Cincinnati in 2017. They currently create work in their studio based in Cincinnati, Ohio. They also co-instigate unique art experiences at PIQUE art experience and bed-and-breakfast with Lindsey Whittle, Annie Brown, and Clint Bassinger.

Dorian Gaye is a Palestinian drag king based in New York City. One of his fans has described him as “normative but not hegemonic” in his masculinity. While in-person drag shows were on hold this past year, he’s been getting in touch with his softer side by writing poetry.

INDKNA // إندكَّنا is a group of Yemeni and Yemeni American artists and songwriters who offer alternative and empowering narratives for Yemeni women and minorities. As a band of immigrant and gender nonconforming women, INDKNA’s music centers a radical feminist approach in its songwriting practice, as it tackles issues of bodily censorship, political unrest in Yemen and personal struggles. INDKNA uses song to reclaim the Yemeni dialect and innovates Yemeni music through introducing experimental genres inspired by electronic music, jazz, hip-hop and classical Arabic sounds.

Yousef Fiennes is your once and future fellahi crooner sweetheart. Disowned half-brother to Ralph and Joseph, he mentored Zayn Malik and Rami Malek long before their fame surpassed his own. Yousef reminds us to love each other more than we long for the meager rewards of death-making institutions.

Trish Salah is the author of the Lambda Award–winning collection, Wanting in Arabic, and Lyric Sexology, Vol. 1. Her work appears in Mizna, Tripwire, and We Want It All: An Anthology of Radical Trans Poetics. A professor of Gender Studies at Queen’s University, she edits the Journal of Critical Race Inquiry, and has co-edited issues of TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly and Arc Poetry Magazine.
Nailah Taman is a queer Egyptian American multidisciplinary artist + cultural worker based in Minneapolis, MN. They graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2015 with a BA in Visual Arts. They currently serve as Program Director at Mizna, and are an artist with Studio 400. They are an avid collector of objects they deem precious by their own criteria.