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Previous events by year.

2008 2007 2006

2008

December 17, 2008
PAF Shab-e She’r – A Night of Poetry
Bowery Poetry Club 6-8pm
Featuring performance by Sara Goudarzi from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Co-curated by PAF Literary Arts Director, Richard Jeffrey Newman and Kaveh Bassiri.

November 19, 2008
PAF Shab-e She’r – A Night of Poetry
Bowery Poetry Club 6-8pm
Featured guest reader will be Award-winning translator, Niloufar Talebi. Co-curated by PAF Literary Arts Director, Richard Jeffrey Newman and Kaveh Bassiri.

October 15, 2008
PAF Shab-e She’r – A Night of Poetry
Bowery Poetry Club 6-8pm
Featured guest reader will be Solmaz Sharif. Co-curated by PAF Literary Arts Director, Richard Jeffrey Newman and Kaveh Bassiri.

September 17, 2008
PAF Shab-e She’r – A Night of Poetry
Bowery Poetry Club 6-8pm
Featured guest reader will be Safa Samiezade=Yazd, an Iranian-American solo theatre artist who works to transform politics into poetics. Co-curated by PAF Literary Arts Director, Richard Jeffrey Newman and Kaveh Bassiri.

June 11, 2008
PAF Shab-e She’r – A Night of Poetry
Bowery Poetry Club 6-8pm
Featured guest reader will be Manijeh Nasrabadi, co-director of the Association of Iranian American Writers, whose work appears in About Face: Women Write About What They See When They Look in the Mirror and will appear in Love and Pomegranates. Co-curated by PAF Literary Arts Director, Richard Jeffrey Newman and Kaveh Bassiri.

Apr 14, 2008
PAF sponsors Jamshied Sharifi's "ONE" CD Release Concert
Joe's Pub 9:30pm
425 Lafayette @ Astor Place
Jamshied Sharifi with special guests Hassan Hakmoun, Yungchen Lhamo, Vishal Vaid and Mamak Khadem. Also performing: Ole Mathisen, Brahim Fribgane, Damon Banks, Benjamin Wittman, Simone Haggiag.

Apr 16, 2008
PAF Poetry Night
Bowery Poetry Club 6-8pm
PAF's April 16th edition of its monthly poetry night features Maryam Habibian, author of the play Forugh's Reflecting Pool: The Life and Work of Forugh Farrokhzad, and Fawzia Afzal-Khan, editor of Shattering The Stereotypes: Muslim Women Speak Out. Dr. Habibian will read a section from her play and offer a dramatic reading of some of Farrokhzad's poems, in English and Persian. Dr. Afzal-Khan will sing a selection of Farrokhzad's poems in Persian.

Apr 18, 2008
Mamak Khadem w/ Jamshied Sharifi
DROM 8pm
85 Avenue A b/w 5th & 6th
Melodies of Iran, Greece, Turkey, and Armenia. Mamak Khadem is best known as the voice of the acclaimed and popular cross-cultural Persian fusion ensemble Axiom of Choice. Her first solo album, Jostojoo, co-produced with Jamshied Sharifi. PAF is proud to be a promotional partner for this concert, featuring two prominent Iranian artists.
March 15, 2008
Weaving the Common Thread: Perspectives from Iranian Artists
Queens Museum of Art 5-9pm, Closing Reception
On view Feb 24 – March 16
Weaving the Common Thread investigates how contemporary Persian art has been influenced and inspired by the post-revolutionary Iranian Diaspora. This collection showcases more than 20 pieces from eight emerging Iranian artists.  Saturday's closing reception features an artist & curatorial talk, a Persian New Year (Norooz) celebration with DJ Payam, a special, tonight-only, interactive multi-media project and a series of Iranian short films.
Exhibiting Artists
Pooneh Maghazehe (PAF Art Director/Curator), Samira Abbassy, Anahita Vossoughi, Sara Rahbar, Arien Valizadeh, Negar Ahkami, Ali Banisadr and Khosro Berahmandi. Multi-media Installation at reception by Parastou Marashi & Dean Gransar.

March 19, 2008
Night of Persian Poetry, Shab’e Sha’er
Bowery Poetry Club 6-8pm
308 Bowery @ Bleecker NYC
Open mic night to recite your favorite Persian poetry or your own original work in Persian or English.  Featured guest Joe Martin, author of the stage adaptation of Rumi’s Mathnavi.

March 23, 2008
Haale & Divahn
DROM 7:30pm
85 Avenue A b/w 5th & 6th
Drom & The Persian Arts Festival are pleased to present Haale and Divahn together onstage for a special show of female-fronted Persian rock and contemporary music. Tonight Haale celebrates the release of her new record; while Divahn performs a special set for Purim, a Jewish holiday commemorating a woman's courage to save her Persian Jewish community from persecution.

March 14, 2008
The New York Arab and South Asian Film Festival present Greta Films from Iran
Co-Presented with Persian Arts Festival
Have You Another Apple? / Baaz ham sib daari?
Directed by: Bayram Fazli
Iran / 2007 / 90 mins / 35 mm / Farsi with English Subtitles
Tribeca Film Center, 375 Greenwich Street, b/w North Moore Street & Franklin Street

February 20, 2008
PAF Shab-e She’r – A Night of Poetry
Bowery Poetry Club 6-8pm
Featured guest reader will be Safa Samiezade=Yazd, an Iranian-American solo theatre artist who works to transform politics into poetics. Co-hosted by PAF Founder Mona Kayhan and PAF Literary Arts Director, Richard Jeffrey Newman, who will be our featured reader.

January 16th, 2008
PAF Shab-e She’r – A Night of Poetry
Bowery Poetry Club 6-8pm
Featured guest reader will be Roger Sedarat, Professor of English at Borough of Manhattan Community College, and winner of the 2007 Ohio University Hollis Summers Poetry Prize for his poetry manuscript, Dear Regime, in which he explores his family’s relationship to Iran. Co-hosted by PAF Founder Mona Kayhan and PAF Literary Arts Director, Richard Jeffrey Newman, who will be our featured reader.

2007

DEC 19, 2007
Night of Persian Poetry, Shab’e Sha’er
Bowery Poetry Club 6-8pm
Shab-e She'r, A Night of (Persian) Poetry, at the Bowery Poetry Club (BPC). FeaturIing well known Iranian-American novelist and memoirist, Nahid Rachlin, reading from her recent memoir, Persian Girls.

October 16, 2007
A Tribute to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
Joe's Pub | 324 Lafayette | NYC 9:30 pm & 11 pm
Featuring Vishal Vaid & Karsh Kale + GlobeSonic Sound System

March 24, 2007
NYU's Annual NORWUZ PARTY Sponsored by PAF
8pm, New York Univiersity, Kimmel Center 4th Floor
Highlights include a Persian dinner, DJ Alex & Amir, a piano performance by Tania Nourmand, and a dance performance by Delbara.

April 5, 2007
NYU Persian Cultural Society Presents/Co-sponsored by PAF
New York Univiersity, Kimmel Center Room 802, 8pm,
Come hear poet & translator Richard Jeffrey Newman read from his two books of translations, Selections from Saadi's Gulistan & Selections from Saadi's Bustan (both published by Global Scholarly Publications.)  Newman's Bustan has been called "fine and engaging" by Professor John Moyne and "a milestone in literary history" by Bob Holman. Richard Jeffrey Newman, PAF's Literary Arts Director, is an Associate Professor in the English Department at Nassau Community College and is the author of The Silence Of Men (CavanKerry Press 2006), a book of his poems.

March 15, 2007
Persian Arts Festival, ArteEast & Rattapallax Present:
Jonathan Shorr Gallery, 109 Crosby @ Prince St., NYC  7-12mid
We are celebrating Norooz, the Persian New Year with a book reading by critically acclaimed author, Nahid Rachlin, a series of short films and music while you socialize with New York’s Persian community. A special edition of the AIC-Rattapallax Salon at Jonathan Shorr Gallery.
8pm Nahid Rachlin reading, Persian Girls
9pm Persian Short Films:
Fortune Telling, Sara Saeidan, 4 min Animation (Documentary and Experimental Film Center)
The Dragonfly Storm, Shahram Mokri 14 min (Association of Young Iranian Cinema) 
A Hasty Story of a Simple Revenge with a Happy Ending, Bahram Tavakoli, 15 min (Association of Young Iranian Cinema)
10pm-12mid Persian Music

March 16, 2007
NOROOZ PARTY
9pm-4am, KUSH Lounge, NYC
191 Christie Street b/w Stanton & Rivington. 
A Norooz Party featuring Persian and Middle Eastern soundscapes by DJ Payam and a special performance by Persian dance troupe, Delbara.

January 31st – February 14th, 2007
Special series: War in Iranian Cinema
Cantor Film Center 36 East 8 Street NYC
Spring at CINEMAEAST
Co-sponsored by the Persian Arts Festival
This series will be the first time many of these films will be viewed by a wide audience outside Iran. It concludes with a special panel discussion moderated by Shouleh Vatanabadi and provides a unique opportunity to address the issues of war, particularly at a time when the mainstream American media is beating the drums of military action all over the Middle East.
Curated by Asal Shakeri and Fereshtah Taerpour.

Jan 18, 2007
A Tribute to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
Makor | 35 W 67th St | NYC
Kick off 2007 by honoring Mawlana Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi, known to the English-speaking world simply as Rumi, a 13th century Persian poet, jurist and theologian. Transcending national and ethnic borders, Rumi’s work has had widespread influence on literature, artists, musicians and has been translated in many of the world’s languages.  Upon a proposal by Culture and Tourism Ministry of Turkey, the year 2007 was declared as the "International Rumi Year" by UNESCO.  Intended to mark the prominent Iranian mystic and poet’s 800th birth anniversary, with many happening celebrations all over the world.

Persian Arts Festival collaborates with GlobeSonic Entertainment to present a very special evening, A Tribute to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan with Vishal Vaid, The Brooklyn Qawwali Party, GlobeSonic DJs & special guests.  2007 marks the 800th year of the birth of Rumi and the 10-year anniversary since Pakistani qawwali legend Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan passed away.  From his birth in Faisalabad, Punjab in 1948 until his passing in 1997, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan took the devotional Sufi music of qawwali to reaches unknown in the Islamic world. He was part of a 700-year familial lineage of qawwals, but the first to break it from the folk tradition of weddings, funerals and public service and to mainstream audiences through collaborations with the likes of Peter Gabriel, Eddie Vedder and Michael Brook.  That low, guttural trademark voice is beloved by fans worldwide, for having brought the sacred poetry of Rumi, Hafiz and others to an entire planet.  His music reminds us how the beautiful terrain of Pakistan, India and Iran – the profound richness of the Islamic world – radiated through his voice.”

2006

March 7, 2006
Persian Arts Festival Pre-Party
8PM, KUSH LOUNGE 191 CHRYSTIE STREET
DJ ROK w/ live drums, daf & more! 10pm ERTAL DAWG feat. Mona Kayhan (PAF Founder)
. beats . dubbed out live . middle eastern grooves .

March 19, 2006
1st Annual Persian Arts Festival
2-12midnight
MAKOR 35 W. 67TH STREET B/W COLUMBUS & CPW
ALL DAY EVENT ! AFTER THE PERSIAN DAY PARADE !!! ALL AGES !!!!!

March 28, 2006
A Special ArteEast Program in conjunction with the Persian Arts Festival !!!
Mama’s Guest (Mehman-o-Maman) by Dariush Mehrjui. Iran, 2004, 108 min, 35 mm New York Premiere
Iranian New Wave cinema icon Dariush Mehrjui crafts an artful tale with beguiling skill and mastery. The arrival of her nephew and his new bride throws poor Mrs Effat into a crisis. Her larder is too meager to do them honor and she is too proud to lose face. Through self-pity and manipulation, she eventually involves her entire bickering apartment complex in her dilemma. But what begins as comedic farce evolves into something more compassionate: we come to understand each neighbor's struggle and means for coping. All may be poor and even willfully self-deluded, but for one night at least, they create a small miracle of food and happiness on behalf of Mrs. Effat's guest. In Persian with English subtitles.