Ahla friends,
I looked at this week's lineup and realized I accidentally curated only free events. Well, almost, one event is $25, and looking at the caliber of the 50+ artists participating, it’s basically considered free. . Everything else? just events you can actually go to without calculating what you'll have to skip later.
It shouldn’t be radical to say that good culture should be accessible, but here we are. This week, it actually is. In a city of $20 cocktails and $7 lattes, NYC feels unusually generous, and our creative community, as always, meets the moment
Samar
LITERATURE. WELLBEING
TALK Therapy is Political: Lara Sheehi
Wed May 21st, 7-8:30pm
Online (Therapists 4 Palestine)
Q&A with Lara Sheehi on her new book From the Clinic to the Streets: Psychoanalysis for Revolutionary Futures. Her work focuses on psychoanalysis, liberation struggles, and the psychic dimensions of resistance. For therapists, organizers, and anyone thinking about what healing looks like under occupation.
WELLNESS
Mind over Mat Pilates at Domino Park
Saturdays May 23, 30, June 6 at 10am
Domino Park, Williamsburg
Salma, an Egyptian instructor leading free Pilates in the park. Core strengthening, breathing, alignment, and an "obsessive focus on proud posture." Bring your mat, bring a friend and surround your self with Salma’s wonderful energy. Now that its’ getting sunny and warm, what better plans than a workout in the park.
ART. LITERATURE
Hidden Companions by Ahmad Nabil
Wed May 21st, 7-9pm
Jay Seven Inc., Williamsburg
Art showcase and book launch for Ahmad Nabil's Hidden Companions, a visual and testimonial archive of Palestinian folklore from the Old City of Jerusalem. Jinns, ghouls, guardians, tricksters, the Unseen beings as natural elements of everyday life. Stunning illustrations, stories held in whisper networks and passed down as inheritance.
FOOD. COMMUNITY
Laziza Memorial Day Backyard BBQ
Sun May 24th, 3-10pm
Laziza, Bed-Stuy
Annual Memorial Day backyard BBQ inspired by Lebanese-style Sunday family gatherings. Music by Jay Esko (Sonic Fantasy) and Selly F, food, cocktails, and the kind of vibe where strangers leave as friends. Madre Mezcal and Jun Lebanese Gin sponsoring. Long day, good energy.
LITERATURE
Traveling with Abdelwahab Meddeb
Sun May 24th, 5-7pm
Barzakh Cafe, Crown Heights
An evening discussing the work of Tunisian writer and poet Abdelwahab Meddeb (father of filmmaker Hind Meddeb, if you've been following). Barzakh Cafe hosting. For anyone who wants to sit with literature that doesn't translate easily but hits the heart, the soul and all the feelings.
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EVENT HIGHLIGHT
Initiatives that got us excited
This Friday May 22d, a 50 Person Arabic Chorus Takes Over NYC
Let me tell you about Mona Miari, because if you don't know her yet, you should. Palestinian-American, New York-based, and an absolute force. And what she's building with the NY Arabic Chorus is something this city has never had before: the first Arab chorus in New York.
This concert is the culmination of a 12-week intensive, 50+ singers from across the diaspora, meeting every Monday, learning traditional and contemporary Arabic repertoire under Mona's direction. All levels welcome, language not required. Some of these singers are seasoned, some are brand new to maqam, but what unites them is the willingness to show up for something bigger than themselves.
Mona herself is a babe, let's be honest. But more than that, she's terrific. She headlined her first major concert in Jerusalem at 15, has performed everywhere from Lincoln Center to BAM to Joe's Pub, made history as the first Arab singer at Boston's Hatch Memorial Shell, and recently collaborated with Roger Waters on a reimagined "Comfortably Numb" as an anthem for Palestinian rights. She's been working with legends like Zülfü Livaneli, Ibrahim Maalouf, and her music fuses Palestinian and Levantine folklore with jazz, global influences, and a deep respect for the maqam tradition.
The musicians backing this chorus are high-caliber. Brooklyn Maqam, the nonprofit producing this, is the real deal, they're the ones hosting Simon Shaheen, Lubana al-Quntar, Syrian Music Preservation Initiative concerts, the whole ecosystem of serious maqam artists working in New York.
What I feels is sooo refreshing about this concert is that it's not about perfection. It's about presence. Fifty people in a room, singing in harmony, holding space for a tradition that doesn't always get the platform it deserves in this city. Mona's vision is clear: Arabic music as a bridge, as resistance, as joy. And she's done the work to make it happen, 12 weeks of rehearsals, building community, teaching people how to breathe together.
Please go and send me some pics/video. Doors at 6:15pm, concert at 7pm. $25 advance, $30 door.
Bring someone who's never heard a chorus sing in Arabic before. Bring yourself. Just go.
PROJECT HIGHLIGHT
Initiatives that got us excited
Gypsum is Bringing Three Egyptian Battling Symbols of Power
Courtesy of Gypsum and the artists, Pictures By Nicholas Knight
Two women who run galleries on opposite sides of the world met at Art Basel Qatar and decided to work together. Aleya Hamza runs Gypsum Gallery in Cairo, one of the most thoughtful contemporary art spaces in Egypt. Allegra LaViola runs Sargent's Daughters in Williamsburg. The Bestiary is what came out of their conversation: three Egyptian artists showing work in New York for the first time outside of a fair booth.
The artists are Dina Danish (French-Egyptian, based in Amsterdam), Huda Lutfi (self-taught artist and cultural historian, based in Cairo), and Mohamed Monaiseer (Cairo-based, works in painting, drawing, and embroidery). What ties them together is their relationship to medieval craft traditions, appliqué, Islamic illuminated manuscripts, heraldic symbolism, and the way they use those histories to reflect on contemporary life.
The show examines how power has always clothed itself in symbols, and how those inherited visual languages continue to shape the present. You'll see suited figures, ceremonial fruit platters, microphones, cargo ships, imagery pulled from today's news cycles, sitting alongside investigations into historical knowledge and personal repair. Medieval craft as a lens for examining systems of power: how they're built, broken, and endured to.
This exhibition is part of NYC Art Week, right in Tribeca. I stopped by on Friday, it was packed with SWANA and non SWANA friends, and it felt genuinely special to see that kind of representation at the center of it all, surrounded by galleries of every scale showing up for the moment. It’s on view through May 30th.
Free. More info here
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— Menna curates cultural content and events for informational purposes only. Event details are subject to change—
