NOoSPHERE Arts presents a Rooftop Season Opening Event
Company:
NOoSPHERE Arts
NOoSPHERE Arts will kick off its outdoor season with a music, dance, and performing arts event celebrating the summer solstice. Held in the spectacular, one-of-a-kind setting of wildflower meadows stretching across the roofs of an industrial plant against the iconic backdrop of the NYC skyline, the event will be centered around a Sufi opening ritual honoring nature's cycles, performed by Whirling Dervish Farima Berenji. Farima—a Sufi Master and Magi and her sacred dancers will be accompanied by the klezmer music and Sephardic folk melodies of The Shul Band. The ceremony has been designed as a unique blend of Muslim and Jewish elements—epitomizing the possibility of interfaith collaboration.
The main event will involve solo acts, duets and a whirling performance in which several participants—including Cyr wheelers—will interpret the movements of individual planets around a star. The show will also feature poetry readings and storytelling by Master Farima and be accompanied by the live music of the Shul Band. Following the whirlers’ performances, The Shul Band will keep playing against the darkening night sky.
Farima Berenji is an internationally acclaimed dance artist, ethnologist, choreographer, instructor, and archaeologist specializing in ancient, sacred, classical, and folk dances spanning the millenniums of Persian civilization, the Silk Road, and the Near East.
The Shul Band, led by Adam Feder, plays music rooted in Jewish folk music but drawing on the musical wellsprings of New York City and of the whole world. It is equally prayerful and raucous, meditative and joyful. The band has performed at major venues such as Carnegie Hall.
The Solstice celebration will be the opening event of NOoSPHERE Arts’ WE ARE NATURE: Rising and Falling—the fourth iteration of the nonprofit’s annual rooftop series. Each season’s theme references an aspect of systems thinking, an approach to environmental sustainability spearheaded by leading thinker Fritjof Capra, a longtime NOoSPHERE Arts collaborator. This view considers all the major problems of our time—including energy, economics, climate change, and inequality—as interconnected and interdependent.
In 2023, the summer series explores the theme of Nature’s Cycles. A cycle is an interval of time during which a characteristic event occurs, often repeated regularly or in a sequence of events. There are cycles in everything—seasons, circadian rhythms, cellular life, planetary systems, politics, and economics—and cycles in one realm affect cycles in others. Thinking about cycles can help us to discern structure, order, and patterns in the world around us, and to realize that everything in life will ebb and flow—an encouraging thought in times of darkness.
In addition we will also unveil the highly anticipated site-specific installation by this season's KWBS Residency Award winners, Ezra Campelli and Jeremy Clemente. Prepare to be amazed by "Westerlies," a mesmerizing fusion of sound and sculpture meticulously crafted for the Kingsland Wildflowers Green Roofs.
Don't miss this extraordinary event, kicking off NOoSPHERE Arts' WE ARE NATURE: Rising and Falling rooftop series. Join us as we explore the theme of Nature's Cycles, reminding us that everything in life ebbs and flows.
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