Events By Quarter
Performance
The Alif Series: In Conversation With The Dead Zulfikar Ali Bhutto //Faluda Islam\\
MCC Theater
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto //Faluda Islam\\ is an artist, performer, zombie drag queen, and curator of mixed Pakistani, Lebanese, and Iranian descent. His work explores complex identities formed by centuries of colonialism and exacerbated by contemporary international politics. Bhutto unpacks the intersections of queerness and Islam and how it exists in a constant liminal and non-aligned space. Faluda Islam is less a drag queen and more a drag comrade, she is more 'extra' than terrestrial, and more dead than alive. She has traveled through time and space and been brought back to life through wifi technology from a gory encounter with American allied troops in Libya. As a time traveller and living corpse, she has many powers including being able to speak to the dead, as she herself comes back to life she will also resurrect, if only for a brief period, martyrs, comrades, allies, and family who she must engage in conversation with to understand her own struggle.
Cup of Culture
Tested
MCC Theater
The racialized opportunity gap in America remains extreme. Nowhere is this more evident than our nation's top public schools. In New York City, where Blacks and Hispanics make up 70% of the city's school-aged population, they represent less than 5% at the city's most elite public high schools. Meanwhile, Asian Americans make up as much as 73%. This documentary, in an effort to prove that this gap is systematic, not individual, follows a dozen racially and socioeconomically diverse 8th graders as they fight for a seat at one of these schools. Their only way in: to ace a single standardized test. TESTED includes the voices of such education experts as Pedro Noguera and Diane Ravitch as it explores such issues as access to a high-quality public education, affirmative action, and the model-minority myth. Post film discussion with director, Curtis Chin. himself!
Race Matters Series
The Struggle to Abolish Environmental Racism Pam Tau Lee
MCC Theater
This talk will highlight the Asian radical imaginings of environmental justice from the homeland to the frontlines. Rooted in 50 years of Asian American radical activism and environmental justice organizing, Pam Tau Lee addresses the question: “Can an Asian radical perspective contribute toward achieving environmental justice?” Pam Tau Lee is a veteran Asian American organizer and activist. She was involved in the San Francisco Asian American struggles of the 1960s-70s and helped found both the Chinese Progressive Association and the Asian Pacific Environmental Network. Pam has worked with some of the most important people in the environmental justice movement to insist that the movement focuses on environmental racism, Indigenous struggles, and include the voices and leadership of the most vulnerable.
Music Performance
Ismail Lumanovski and Inspector Gadje Balkan Brass
MCC Theater
Ismail Lumanovski (mastermind of New York Gypsy All-Stars) and Inspector Gadje released their debut album Live At Kafana Balkan in March 2017. There’s been a buzz from the start for this pairing, which consistently draws sold out crowds propelled by high energy, soaring, funky, dirty, ecstatic brass. The New York Times called Lumanovski a 'brilliant, fearless young clarinetist, “ and the San Francisco Chronicle calls Gadje 'an instant party atmosphere,' so you can imagine the virtuosity and sway this dynamic project inspires. While Lumanovski and Inspector Gadje each stand tall as performers in their own right, together they have a certain synergy and magic that take their music to new heights. Tight and adventurous arrangements, grooves that get under the skin and into the feet, and epic solos come together for music that touches the heart, stirs the soul, and moves the body. $5 for UCSB students and youth under 12; $15 for general admission.
Buy Tickets Here: https://events.ucsb.edu/event/ismail-lumanovski-and-inspector-gadje-balkan-brass/
