Music of Banned gives voice to women
Concert features female artists, musicians from ‘banned’ nations
A week after President Donald Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, 2017, he signed an executive order banning entry to the United States for 90 days by citizens of Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.
For San Francisco vocalist, actor and producer Dina Zarif, the travel ban forced an abrupt change of plans. An Iranian citizen and green card-holding resident alien, she was scheduled to perform in Poland as a shadow actress in a puppet play by ShadowLight Productions.
“For almost a month, it wasn’t clear even as a green card holder whether I’d be able to get back in the country if I left,” Zarif recalled. “People were being detained and turned away in airports. We had to find a lawyer. I didn’t know if I could go. My parents and brother were scheduled for a visit, and they couldn’t come.”
Looking to protest the seemingly haphazard policy with other artists caught up in its chaotic implementation, she reached out to the Mission District’s Red Poppy Art House, where she’d started volunteering in 2012 shortly after moving to the Bay Area to work as an architect.
The storefront nonprofit venue has served as an incubator for some of the region’s most celebrated artists in recent years, including Meklit Hadero, Tiffany Austin and Diana Gameros,
and Zarif found an ideal partner in producing what became Music of the Banned. Presented by the Red Poppy as part of the Mission Art Performance Project, the event featured music from Syria, Iran, Turkey and Sudan with an expansive cast of musicians.
The concert’s success inspired a follow-up at Yerba Buena Gardens Festival last June, and this year, Zarif planned a series of three interdisciplinary Banned concerts with support from the California Arts Council, San Francisco Arts Commission and Red Poppy Art House, where she’s now a program
director.
The series concludes Sunday at San Francisco’s Brava Theatre Center with a quadruple bill focusing on women artists, including Jackeline Rago’s innovative VNote Ensemble, which has honed a gorgeous fusion of folkloric Venezuelan rhythms and jazz.
Part of what sets this concert apart is that it highlights the struggles of women artists in many of the countries originally subject to the travel ban.
“Women have another layer of suppression in Muslim countries,” said Zarif, who grew up in Iran’s second-largest
city, Mashhad, which is known primarily as a destination for Shiite religious pilgrims.
“Growing up, I never saw a live concert of women singing,” Zarif said. “When I went to Tehran, art was everywhere and more exposed. I got lessons from an Armenian conductor, the director of the main choir of Iran. Most of the singers are Armenian, not Muslim.”
Kurds are one of many minority populations in Iran, and they make up the region’s largest population without its own recognized homeland. On Sunday, the tradition is represented by
Walnut Creek’s Rojan Feyz. She delivers a program of classical and folkloric songs accompanied by Sirvan Manhoobi on oud, Ehsan Matoori on santoor, Rumen “Sali” Shopov on percussion and Farzin Dehghan on kamancheh, an Iranian bowed string instrument.
“In each concert, I wanted to put some Kurdish music,” Zarif says. “It’s not a country, but an ethnicity divided among four countries, which adds more layers of discrimination. Rojan is such a beautiful singer, and she is very involved in working for women’s rights.”
Working with a jazzsteeped acoustic sextet, she performs with her Dina Zarif Ensemble. While some of the material is traditional, the group plays radically reimagined arrangements of Iranian songs “so that it doesn’t sound at all like what it was,” said Zarif, who sings in Farsi.
Much like Zarif, Sudanese vocalist Salma El Assal was caught up in the travel ban, with several family members unable to join her in the United States. A celebrated vocalist in Sudan and Egypt, she performs folk and contemporary Sudanese music with Khalid El Mahi on oud and Tarawa (aka Mazin Jamal) on ukulele, calabash drum, ngoni and Sudanese bongos.
“That was really scary to be from one of those countries,” El Assal said, speaking in Arabic. “My daughter and husband were in Egypt, and we didn’t know whether they’d be stuck there. That was the hardest moment in my life. But I’ve been really happy and proud having all those people from different places working together, giving me more background and ideas to work with.”
Zarif is already looking to present another series of Banned concerts, where the connections between the artists can continue to grow.