Gartal presents
The Part of You That is Me:
A Reading of Queer, Crossed and Hidden Histories from Multiple Diasporas
Sunday, May 11, 2014
6 – 7:30 pm
Bowery Arts + Science
308 Bowery
New York, NY 10012
Subways: F to 2nd Ave; B,D,F,M to Broadway-Lafayette; 6 to Bleecker Street; N, R to Prince St.
$10 admission
Featuring:
Danielle Abrams
Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán
Lola Koundakjian
Alan Semerdjian
Hosted by Nancy Agabian
Sponsored by the Armenian Gay and Lesbian Association of New York
Inspired by the recent stories from Turkey of hidden Armenians in family trees, the readers for Gartal: The Part of You That Is Me will be sharing stories, poems and nonfiction on hidden and shared histories – from various cultures and identities, queer and otherwise.
Artists' Bios:
Danielle Abrams is a an artist and writer who has performed at art museums and performance spaces including the Detroit Institute of Arts, The Jewish Museum, Bronx Museum of Art, Queens Museum of Art, The Kitchen, WOW Performance Cafe, Dixon Place, and the Roger Smith Hotel. She has also lectured at conferences including Open Engagement (Portland, OR), Intervene! Interrupt! (UC Santa Cruz), and the Creative Time Summit (NYC). Abrams has been awarded grants and fellowships from the Franklin Furnace Fund for Performance Art, New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Urban Artist Initiative. She teaches writing and art at York College and College of Staten Island (CUNY) and at in the MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts Program at Goddard College.
Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán is the author of Antes y después del Bronx: Lenapehoking and South Bronx Breathing Lessons, and editor of an international queer Indigenous issue of Yellow Medicine Review: A Journal of Indigenous Literature, Art, and Thought. His work appears in 180 publications in 20 nations in the Américas, Africa, the Arab world, Asia, Europe, Australia, and the Pacific. Bamboo Ridge Editors’ Choice Award Winner, he has been awarded 12 artist residencies, including Yaddo, Vermont Studio Center, and James Merrill House; and Fine Arts Work Center, Lambda Literary Foundation, and Macondo Foundation scholarships. He is completing Yerbabuena/Mala yerba.
Lola Koundakjian is the author of the Armenian/English poetry collection The Accidental Observer, which includes translations in Spanish. She was an invited poet at the 20th Festival Internacional de Poesía, Medellín, Colombia in July 2010. In 2013, she was invited to the Second Festival Internacional de Poesía, in Lima, Peru, and the first Mamilla International Poetry Festival in Ramallah, West Bank. Next October she will be reading her work at the 30th international poetry festival at Trois-Rivières, Quebec, Canada. Lola has organized evenings dedicated to the Dead Armenian Poets’ Society since her university days, and has curated the online Armenian Poetry Project since 2006. www.lolakoundakjian.com
Writer, musician, and award-winning educator Alan Semerdjian’s poems and essays have appeared in several print and online publications and anthologies including Adbusters, Diagram, and Ararat. He released a chapbook of poems called An Improvised Device (Lock n Load Press) in 2005 and his first full-length book In the Architecture of Bone (GenPop Books) in 2009. His songs have appeared in television and film and charted on CMJ. Alan has performed and read all over North America. He currently teaches English at Herricks High School in New Hyde Park, NY, writes a monthly column, music reviews, and other kinds of prose for LI Pulse, and resides in New York City’s East Village.
Since 2002, Gartal ("to read" in Western Armenian) has been an independent forum for both established and emerging writers of Armenian descent and/or multicultural writers dealing with related themes to read their poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction and dramatic texts to the public. Coordinated by writer Nancy Agabian, Gartal brings together, via the dual acts of reading and listening, diverse Armenian constituencies, from the progressive to the traditional. A particular effort is made to give voice to stories that haven't been widely heard, including those of mixed race, various religions, different economic backgrounds, and queer Armenians. For more information, email nancyagabian@gmail.com.
Since 1998, the purpose of AGLA NY has been to provide space for lesbian, gay, bi, and transgender Armenian-Americans, their partners, and their allies to come together as a community. The forum to network fosters our visibility and strengthens our cultural and ethnic ties to the queer communities and Armenian communities to which we each belong.
