A Taste of Morocco in Minneapolis

Mural next to the patio at Marrakech

To say that Minneapolis have been sun-starved this week, much less the entire winter would be an understatement. So after work with the weather still warm, it was the perfect evening to search for new food adventure.

Central Avenue in Northeast Minneapolis has really come alive with several new ethnic restaurants over the past few months. The one that caught my attention looking to bask in the rays of the setting sun was the Marrakech Moroccan Café and Grill.

It’s a little café nestled back off of Central Avenue south of 19th Avenue Northeast.  According to their owner Redouane, they have been open for seven months, and with an outdoor patio he’s hoping more people will visit. At the time of their opening, Marrakech was the only restaurant in town serving solely Moroccan food. Having spent a year in Holland and eating more than my fair share of family-prepared couscous and tagine dishes, I was really looking forward to dinner on the patio.

Looking on their menu, it took me literally two seconds to decide my dinner – harira soup, lemon chicken tagine, and of course mint tea. Redouane quickly served up the mint tea and harira soup, and with the sun setting it was perfect. Harira is a very aromatic tomato and lentil soup with a slightly building heat from pepper and many other herbs. It had a great texture from the lentils that reminded me of mulligatawny. The mint tea was the perfect contrast, and really unlike any mint tea I have ever tried.

Lemon Chicken Tagine at the Marrakech Cafe

About the time I was finishing the soup, they brought out the lemon chicken tagine. It was like a family roast with two large pieces of chicken surrounded by potatoes and topped with green olives. The smell of the dish with turmeric, cumin, and paprika really transported me back to all of the dinners I had shared with Moroccan families overseas. The chicken was extraordinarily tender as I pulled the meat from the bone with my fork. It was really a perfect meal for a cool, sunny spring evening.

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Young Immigrants Share Their Views of the World

Melissa Slachetka, a contributor for the blog, The Northeast Beat, presents a piece on an exhibition taking place this month at the Pierre Bottineau Library by the Sheridan Shooting Stars, a group of immigrant youth in the Sheridan neighborhood.

“With a camera, a little guidance and a lot of imagination, they’re giving a glimpse of the world they see; from flowers to funny faces, they take pictures of family, friends, community activities and their neighborhood.

The kids involved come from around the world, including Africa, Europe and South America. They meet at the library and use editing software to work on their digital photography with help from mentors.”

Read More.

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Tizi Ouzou – A Love Story

Received this from Mizna. Mizna is an organization based in Northeast Minneapolis, encompassing and presenting the many facets of Arabic art, culture, language, music, etc.

Tizi Ouzou
Written and performed by Taous Khazem
Directed by Zaraawar Mistry
Created in Collaboration with Mizna and Dreamland Arts

Set to the dynamic pulse of Berber and Algerian music, Tizi Ouzou is a story of love, struggle and awakening in the small city of Tizi Ouzou, the historically strife torn capital of the Berber Kabylia region of Algeria. Taous Khazem portrays a multitude of colorful and compelling characters — in search of their history, their country and themselves. (Tickets: $10)

June 1 & 2 at 8:00 p.m.
At Dreamland Arts
677 Hamline Ave N.,
St. Paul, MN 55104
Tel: 651-645-5506
http://www.dreamlandarts.com
The house only seats 45 so reserve NOW, online or by telephone.
For more information.

Bio: Taous Claire Khazem trained at the Jacques Lecoq International Theatre School in Paris, France and Macalester College. She is an actor, director and teaching artist and has performed in Minneapolis with Frank Theater and 2 time Ivey award winning Off
Leash Area Performance Works. She recently directed A Lion’s Tale: Somali Folktales for SteppingStone Theatre where she is also the Education Coordinator. Taous serves on the Mizna Board of Directors.

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Northeast Artist Feature – Margaret “Meg” Bussey

“In my work I am led by my intuition. Something I see makes me stop and take a second look. Things, people, and places arrest me for some combination they carry: a combination of emotional reference, visual matters (such as color, shape, and value arrangement), and deeper spiritual meaning. A sense of movement and discovery exists, even in apparently still circumstances.”

The quote from Margaret “Meg” Bussey perfectly describes her finished art whether in painting or printmaking as well as watching her at work as she tries to capture a moment with ink. I watched Bussey multiple times in a continual process as she applied ink to the etched stone, pressed the paper against the inked stone, and rolled the stone and paper through the press.

Once finished she lifts up the paper with the newly inked image, and the whole process seems very magical as she’s trying to capture the image of a bridge. In watching her adjust the amount of ink each time she rolls across the stone, the artistic process of creation and trying to transfer her mental image of the bridge to paper through printmaking seems very sacred. It was amazing to see how each varied outcome appears to be a new work of art.

In addition to creating lithographs, Bussey teaches drawing and painting classes on the Coon Rapids Campus of Anoka-Ramsey Community College (ARCC).

The images show the creative process that Bussey goes through to capture the image of the bridge as a lithograph. You can see the etched image of the bridge on the stone before the inking and printing process as well as the press she uses. She laid the finished attempts out on the table next to the press. The final image shows Bussey looking over her work.

Additional works by Bussey can be seen on her website. More information on lithography is available through Wikipedia. Bussey shares a studio with Kurt Seaberg, a painter and printmaker, in the Northrup King Building in studio #361.

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Last Weekend for Latitudes – Arabic, Berber, and Iranian Culture in Minneapolis

Received this from the Mizna e-mail list. Mizna is an organization based in Northeast Minneapolis, encompassing and presenting the many facets of Arabic art, culture, language, music, etc.

This is the last weekend of their Latitudes exhibition, a program featuring art by the recipients of Mizna’s first ever granting program. The program was designed to facilitate and support original artistic work created by community members who identify as Arab, Muslim, Berber, or Iranian.

Exhibition Location
California Building Gallery
2205 California Street NE
Minneapolis

Dates and Times
May 25-26, Fridays and Saturdays
7:30 pm – $5.00

Exhibition Details
Jumana al Hashal
Film

Taous Khazem
Performance piece, Tizi Ouzou

Abdellah Ouchagour
Salla Moracaine (Moroccan living room) and gallery talk

Layla Dowlatshahi
Staged reading, “Elevator”

Artists Bios and Project Descriptions
Jumana Al Hashal
Title: Film

My current work explores the turbulent geopolitical Arab
experience at home, in diaspora, and in exile. I use various media including printmaking, drawing, photography, and film to expose the absurdity in cultural and political preconceptions in my current home, the United States, and in my homeland, Jordan. In the midst of tension between home and homeland, the impulse to create becomes a survivalist one; art becomes a semi-public means of communicating urgency. I am an Arab Jordanian artist, currently living and working in the Seattle area.

Bio:
Jumana is a 2005 graduate of Macalester College where she graduated Cum Laude in Studio Arts. Her recent exhibitions include:
• Tekween: Making Art in Arabic, Mira Gallery, Mpls, MN, Aug-Sep
2006
• Prism of Longing, Phipps Center for the Arts, Hudson, WI,
January-Feb 2006
• Graphic Images, Stevens Square Center for the Arts, Mpls, MN,
Feb-March 2005
• Haneen: Between Home and Homeland, Mira Gallery, Mpls, MN,
Feb-March 2005
• Art of Democracy: Tools of Persuasion, Minneapolis Institute
of Arts, MN; Oct-Nov 2004

Taous Claire Khazem
Title: Tizi Ozou
Written and performed by Taous Khazem
Directed by Zaraawar Mistry

Created in Collaboration with Mizna and Dreamland Arts and set to the dynamic pulse of Berber and Algerian music, Tizi Ouzou is a story of love, struggle and awakening in the small city of Tizi Ozou, the historically strife torn capital of the Berber Kabylia region of Algeria. Taous Khazem portrays a multitude of colorful and compelling characters — in search of their history, their country and themselves.

Bio:
Taous Claire Khazem trained at the Jacques Lecoq International Theatre School in Paris, France and Macalester College. She is an actor, director and teaching artist and has performed in Minneapolis with Frank Theater and 2 time Ivey award winning Off
Leash Area Performance Works. She recently directed A Lion’s Tale: Somali Folktales for SteppingStone Theatre where she is also the Education Coordinator. Taous serves on the Mizna Board of Directors.

Abdellah Abd Ouchagour
Title: Salla MAROCAINE.( Moroccan living room)
An ensemble of six pieces of furniture created, designed and built by the artist. Oak carved wood and upholstered functional and traditional Moroccan items used in everyday life, with modern touch, to harmoniously feet in modern life.

Bio:
Abdellah was born in the South of Morocco. He has a B.F.A in Furniture Design and Painting from MCAD. Watercolorist, he has had many individual and group shows in Morocco and Minneapolis

Layla Dowlatshahi
Title: The Elevator
An ousted dictator tries to steal a bride away from her groom on his last night in power.

Bio:
Layla Dowlatshahi graduated from UC Berkeley and received her MFA from Goddard College. Her play, Joys of Lipstick was staged at The Producer’s Club and at Lark Theatre, New York. The Waiting Room had a staged reading at the Annenberg Studio Theatre and was included as coursework for a class entitled East Meets West on Stage and Screen at UPenn. She is a Playwright’s Center Many Voices Resident for 2007 and was recently awarded a Minnesota State Arts Board Grant to travel to Bosnia and Croatia for research on a new play. She has written three additional plays, a teleplay and a novel. Her latest play, Ogham Stones, tells of the strain of familial bonds among four isolated women in southern Ireland.

For more information on Latitudes, visit Mizna’s website.

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Art-A-Whirl kept my head spinning

The number of artists, amount and variety of pieces, and support for local artists really make Art-A-Whirl in Northeast Minneapolis a unique event in the region. Every city has an art festival, but to have a festival driven by this many local artisans and having the festival play out and be supported by every local coffee shop and bar is quite amazing.

Having seen the size of the festival and all of the Art-A-Whirl activities the night before, I quickly realized this isn’t a festival where I should attempt to see everything and instead spent several hours around the Northrup King Building as well as relaxing at Columbia Grounds.

Over the next few days I will focus on artist and printmaker, Margaret “Meg” Bussey, and sculpture, Jack Pavlik.

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Minneapolis This Weekend

If you visit Minneapolis World Beat or the Northeast Beat, you know there’s a lot going on this weekend:
Art-A-Whirl – Features over 400 artists from Northeast Minneapolis – Check out the Northeast Beat or a comprehensive guide on all things Northeast from Vita.mn.

Latitudes from Mizna – Exhibition of original artistic work created by Twin Cities community members who identify as Arab, Muslim, Berber, or Iranian. Latitudes takes place over the next two weekends in Northeast Minneapolis.

Electric Eyes at the Southern Theater – Electronic Eyes is a two-week event focusing on collaboration featuring cutting-edge music with new electronic media. The festival, which began last week, is being held at the Southern Theater at 1420 Washington Ave, South.

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