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This event is curated by West Philly based community organizer, artist and musician Line El Dirini

With performances by local artists:Line On Some Trip (L.O.S.T.) is a Syrian-Palestinian Hippie-Punk singer-songwriter and musician born and raised in the suburbs of Paris. Her quirky songs tackle topics such as identity seeking, mental illness, complex family relations, the effects of capitalism, misogyny and racism on society, and the acceptance of the fragility of life.

Accompanied by dulcimer player Mika Romano, violinist David Choi and flutist Gabe Preston, she will be presenting a rendition of Fairouz’ song “Sanarjiou” (We will return) as well as original songs from her album “The Prophecy of the Vulnerable”.https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/lineonsometrip/the-prophecy-of-the-vulnerable

Leila Delicious is a Palestinian burlesque artist who has performed around the country for the past 2 years. She began her performing career as a political performance artist and sees burlesque as a continuation of that work. Leila was a finalist in the Philadelphia Burlesque Battle Royale Season 10. She has performed in festivals such as Cannonball and Burlesque ’n’ Beyond. Smoother than olive oil, she’s thicker than hummus, she’s Leila Delicious!

Julius Masri is a local multi-instrumentalist composer and performer born in Tripoli, Lebanon. He earned his degree from Bard college and released his solo album “The Arabic Room”, under the project name Mephisto Halabi in 2021. He will be performing improvisational electro-arab music in collaboration with poet Meenakshi, who will be reciting poems by Mahmoud Darwish, Summer Awad, Mosab Abu Toha, Yahya Ashour, and Nathalie Handal, and reading three poems of their own.

Mason Shihab is Syrian American (though he inherited his white mother’s skin color) from Columbus, Ohio and was raised Muslim in Christian America. His experience balancing Western, Secular, and Middle Eastern perspectives has given him what he thinks is a correct view of relevant current events. He will be presenting comedy regarding Arab and Jew relations (he has many Jewish friends) and other related topics. He started doing comedy in 2017 to get over his fear of public speaking (which is still ongoing!).

Andrew Galati is a filmmaker whose work explores the concept of cinema as poetry. He received a degree in filmmaking at Boston University where he studied various modes of visual storytelling. Over the past decade, he has documented his travels across the United States and in various countries abroad. He has made animations, music videos, documentaries, experimental video art, and more.He will be showing a video exploring Palestinian history and culture which means to evoke the soulful and resilient nature of the Palestinian people, in collaboration with pianist Ivy Soto.

Ivy Soto composes fantasias for piano. Inspired by romantic-era and impressionist stylings, she utilizes shifting layers of melodic texture to convey surreal imagery and induce a meditative state. She will be performing “Storm”, a piece which illustrates power struggle through an explosive disruption of balance.