The DIA’s Friends of Asian Arts and Cultures auxiliary invites you to an enchanting afternoon of culture and flavor. In connection with the special exhibition The Art of Dining: Food Culture in the Islamic World, this program will feature musicians playing instruments related to the exhibition, presentations about coffee, tea, and cooking cultures from the Islamic world, and delicious samples of food and drink to enjoy. Experience the rich heritage and artistry of the Islamic world through a sensory journey that promises to be both educational and unforgettable.

For all ages. (60min.) This program is free with museum admission. This event will take place in the DIA’s Lecture Hall, followed by tastings in FJC Dining Rooms A/B as supplies last. Capacity is limited – seating begins 30 minutes prior to performance start.

While at the museum, be sure to visit the DIA’s special exhibition The Art of Dining: Food Culture in the Islamic World on view from September 22, 2024 through January 5, 2025.

Hosted by award-winning singer-songwriter Audra Kubat, this evening will feature some of Detroit’s finest songwriters and be fashioned after the ‘Nashville-style’ writers-in-the-round. This intimate storytelling opportunity will engage in a conversational approach, inviting the audience inside the powerful relationship between the artist, the story, and the song. Songwriters include Audra Kubat, Emily Rose, Isis Damil, Mayaeni, Michelle Held, and Marbrisa!

Pandit Debashish Bhattacharya is arguably the greatest slide guitarist in the world. He is an undisputed master of both Hindustani classical music and modern world fusion. A ‘virtuoso’s virtuoso,’ he has revolutionized a number of techniques on the instrument. He also designed and patented four types of guitar for performing Indain raga music which he named Chaturangui, Ghandharvi, Anandi, and Pushpa Veena. These guitars are played lap style, with a small steel bar and finger picks. Free with museum admission.

Join us to celebrate the MC5’s upcoming induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with two events (information below) and the release of MC5: An Oral Biography of Rock’s Most Revolutionary Band. Variety hails the book as “definitive,” and Rolling Stone calls it “worthy of the band’s legacy.” Meet the authors Brad Tolinski (Guitar World) and Jaan Uhelszki (Creem) for a book signing and a brief discussion about the band moderated by WDET host Liz Warner. The evening will be capped off with a dynamic set from the Motor City’s legendary garage rock band, The Detroit Cobras.

• MC5 Book Release hosted by Liz Warner: 6:30 p.m. 
• Friday Night Live! featuring The Detroit Cobras: 7 p.m

MC5: An Oral Biography of Rock’s Most Revolutionary Band will be available for purchase during the event at the DIA Shop. 

Event is free with museum admission.

Brooklyn based jazz and ambient trio Alaara explores the relationship between their longform improvisations and the visual worlds of renowned Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky. The trio will perform a pseudo “live score” alongside immersive, haunting visuals taken from his films. Alaara’s sounds echo the words of Tarkovsky himself: “Give a shot enough time and meaning will be formed of its own accord.” The group features Sonya Belaya on piano and synthesizers, Grey McMurray on guitar and Nicole Patrick on drums. Free with museum admission.

Created and directed by Hamid Rahmanian with an original music score by Ramin Torkian, Song of the North is a large-scale, cinematic performance combining the art of shadow puppetry with projected animation to tell the classic Persian tale of Manijeh. This performance tells of a heroine who must use all her strengths and talents to rescue her beloved from a perilous predicament (of her own making) and help prevent a war. This epic love story is adapted from The Shahnameh, an ancient collection of myths that are a historical and cultural touchstone in Iran. A cast of 500 handmade puppets and a talented ensemble of nine actors and puppeteers come together to create a spectacular live experience that advances the themes of unity, collaboration, and experimentation through performance and story.

While at the museum, be sure to visit the DIA’s special exhibition The Art of Dining: Food Culture in the Islamic World on view from September 22, 2024, through January 5, 2025, which features pages from beautiful illuminated manuscripts of The Shahnameh.

For all ages (80min.) This program is free with museum admission. Capacity is limited and seating begins 30 minutes prior to performance start.

Presented with a live piano score performed by David Drazin, this compilation of short films includes animation masterworks by prolific illustrator Winsor McCay (Gertie the Dinosaur, 1903), Lotte Reiniger (Dr. Dolittle and His Animals / 1928), Disney’s Laugh-O-Gram series (Alice’s Wonderland, 1923) and Władysław Starewicz’s amazing stop-motion films made with dried bugs (The Insects Christmas, 1911).

Early silent animation dived fast and deep into visions of fantasy worlds, and gave them uncanny life using ingenious techniques including hand-drawn cell images, shadow and 3D puppet stop-motion photography, multi-plane cameras for achieving painterly effects, and double-exposures that blended two real worlds into something unreal.

Animated Fantasy Shorts of the Silent Era is presented free to DIA audiences as a holiday gift, wrapped with a live piano score performed by David Drazin. For ages 10 and up. Free with museum admission.

Join Iraqi multimedia artist Sadik Kwaish Alfraji and Diana Abouali, Director of the Arab American National Museum, in a conversation about food, memory, and the meaning of home, in conjunction with the exhibition The Art of Dining: Food Culture in the Islamic World, opening at the DIA on September 22, 2024.

Born in Baghdad, Iraq, in 1960, Alfraji has been based in the Netherlands since the 1990s. The Art of Dining features Alfraji’s A Thread of Light Between My Mother’s Fingers and Heaven, a new commission created for this exhibition. Consisting of a large-scale animation, drawings, and photographs, the work explores the artist’s memories of his mother, her homemade bread, and family meals in Baghdad.

Abouali joined the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, in 2019. As director, she has spearheaded projects to update exhibitions, grow the museum’s artist-in-residence program, and strengthen ties to the community, among other initiatives. Born in Toronto, Canada, to Palestinian parents, she has a PhD in Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University and has worked in the museum and cultural heritage sectors in Palestine, Jordan, and the U.S.

This program is co-sponsored by the DIA Friends of Asian Arts and Cultures and Friends of Modern and Contemporary Art.

Jenny Scheinman is an acclaimed violinist and composer who spent years on the downtown NYC music scene, leading both her own bands, as well as working alongside artists ranging from Lucinda Williams to Lou Reed. The New York Times praised her “distinctive vision of American music, suffused with plainspoken beauty and fortified by country, gospel, and melting-pot folk, along with jazz and the blues.” Moving back to the Pacific Northwest, Scheinman was reawakened to the extraordinary biodiversity of the region known as “The Lost Coast” where she was raised, a stretch of earthquake-prone coastline cut off from the main thoroughfares. This would ultimately inspire Scheinman to write and record All Species Parade, an epic double album featuring guitarists Bill Frisell, pianist Carmen Staaf, and bassist Tony Scherr.

Capacity is limited – seating begins 30 minutes prior to performance start.

USA/1922-directed by Alan Dwan

Robin Hood is a silent adventure film produced by and starring Douglas Fairbanks, a swashbuckling adventure based on the tale of the medieval hero Robin Hood, and the first to present elements of the take-from-the-rich and give-to-the-poor legend that became familiar to audiences for decades on. Robin Hood was also the first motion picture to have a Hollywood premiere (at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre) and the most expensive film produced in its day. It remains one of the most exciting and entertaining American films of the silent era and will be even more so when the DFT presents it with a live score composed and played by David Drazin.

For ages 10 and up. (132 min.) Free with museum admission.

“The superlatives that press agents have coined during the past ten years can now be put to profitable use. They can all be wrapped up, in bundles of twelve, and all applied to Douglas Fairbanks’ Robin Hood.” -Robert Sherwood, The New York Herald, 1922