In-Person
Undoubtedly the most exciting accomplishment of this year was Tanfis.
From August through November, we led an NYC-based cross-cultural and interdisciplinary residency to uplift underrepresented musics and stories from the SWANA (Southwest Asia and North Africa) region. The residency featured 11 traditional musicians, 1 remix artist, and 1 DJ, most of whom are immigrants from Egypt, Iran, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia, and Turkey. The goal was to collaboratively produce a digital library of musics and stories that are simultaneously rooted in SWANA traditions and forward-looking, all under the guiding theme of “Tanfis,” or “a deep renewing, cathartic exhalation.” Key activities included:
Recording and filming 11 traditional songs from Iran, Anatolia, and the Levant
Facilitating several day-long gatherings with all resident artists to collectively engage with the “Tanfis” theme, create new works, co-design how all the elements would come together at our planned live event, intended as a 3-hr cross-cultural, interdisciplinary tanfis journey
Building partnerships with a variety of local organizations and venues including:
Renowned organization StoryCorps to record four introspective dialogues between our partnering artists
Brooklyn-based venue Public Records to host the live Tanfis event
Brooklyn-based event space Delight Factory to host the residency
Arabic music organization Brooklyn Maqam to promote the show
Community-supported music platform Viewcy to livestream the show
Hosting a sold-out event at Public Records on November 30. The energy in the room was described as "pure love"; the experience as "not only a thing that was fun, but a thing that was needed"; the space "safe and inclusive." The impact was palpable even among our livestream attendees:
I have been so moved by what you and the artists put together tonight I just feel compelled to let you know in the moment. [...] The depth of our crisis is met by the exponential rise in possibility flowing from our most primal virtue—our capacity to cooperate. Music gives us the vision in our bodies, and you have tapped something very powerful tonight.
Invitations to Participate in Other Events
As the world began to transition back to in-person gatherings, our staff and partnering artists accepted invitations to participate in other events, notably:
In October, Habibi Festival - a blossoming NY-based festival showcasing SWANA music - featured the musical stylings of our founder and director Hatim Belyamani - aka HAT - and partnering artists Bnat El Houariyat & Esraa Warda (formerly known as Khadija El Warzazia). This was an important touchpoint for us with New York audiences and helped strengthen connections within the SWANA diaspora community.
Watch a short excerpt and a discussion with HAT
In June, HAT performed as part of the Summer Concert Series at Chicago’s Millennium Park. Opening for the legendary Afrobeat musician Femi Kuti, HAT introduced hundreds of people to his signature audiovisual remixes featuring Remix ⟷ Culture partnering artists from all over the world.
In May, Hatim presented at the Fair Saturday Forum for Cultural and Social Innovation in Bilbao, Spain. In his talk “Beyond Fair Trade: The Relational Future of Traditional Music and Remix,” Hatim shared his personal journey as an artist seeking a more connected approach to remixing traditional music and how this journey is intimately interwoven with the origins and evolution of our work.
Online
Our evergrowing library of recordings and films provides continual opportunities for producing and releasing new content from the archives. In August, we released four videos, sample packs, and two remixes in a two-week rollout celebrating the stories and culture of a unique traditional ensemble from the southeastern Moroccan town of Tamegroute.
Deqqat Assif Ou Aqellal
Comprehensive Digital Release
In 2022, we hit a big milestone with our YouTube community, exceeding 50,000 subscribers and 11million views. Our digital releases on YouTube not only further our mission by co-creating spaces of belonging around underrepresented traditional musics, but also have been instrumental in supporting the careers of our partnering artists. For example, our 2021 releases and livestream with Khadija El Warzazia - reaching 380,000+ views on YouTube in 2022 - directly led to new live performance opportunities for the band, including their first US tour with three NYC performances in 2022, and a return to NYC for GlobalFest in Jan 2023.
Thanks to our investment in part-time staff leading our communications efforts, our social media presence and engagement grew astronomically:
Behind the Scenes
The above accomplishments would not have been possible without the support of various hard-working core contributors. In 2022, we worked with new consultants and part-time staff to support with Remix ⟷ Culture strategy, operations, development, communications, and post-production. These consultants and staff members (Hatim Belyamani, Darwensi Clark, Maria Mazzenga, Samuel Ogoe Jr., Michael Silverstein, Melissa Stevens, Jeremy Thal, Amita Vempati, and Tyler Wood) provided the infrastructure from which Remix ⟷ Culture could continue to grow its creative vision and outputs. Key accomplishments include:
Establishing processes and dedicating resources to regularly defining and evolving our communications strategy
Bringing on our first employee on payroll, and setting up all the infrastructure necessary for state and federal compliance
Transitioning all of our operational and online collaboration processes into a unified streamlined platform
Expanding our grant-writing and donor stewardship capabilities
Streamlining and documenting our content post-production processes
Cultivating relationships with growing community of traditional musicians, remix artists, and filmmakers in NY, which laid the groundwork for the Tanfis program
What’s Next?
Strengthening Our Organization
1) Fundraising
Without funding, much of this work would not be possible, so we’re hitting the ground running in 2023 with:
an ambitious community-supported fundraising initiative
an increase in the number of grants and institutional funding opportunities we’re applying to
2) Board of Directors
Our organization is at an exciting crossroads, poised for growth into the next chapter of our journey. We’re actively seeking new board members who not only are passionate about our work but also whose values, skillsets, and commitment abilities are aligned with our needs at this particular juncture.
3) Staff
In 2022, we were able to find the right balance between slowly investing in increased staffing while investing in new programming and serving our communities. In 2023, we plan on continuing this trend, hiring a small number of part-time staff to better support our new programs.
4) Partners
Through Tanfis, we strengthened a variety of community partnerships that enabled us to implement the residency and event at a lowered cost. We plan on expanding such partnerships and continue to explore community-based non-monetary models of reciprocal support and mutual aid.
New Programming
We are cooking up some exciting plans for 2023. These are our areas of focus:
1) Diaspora Communities in NY
Building on the success of Tanfis, we plan on uplifting the musics and stories of other underrepresented diaspora communities in NY, and facilitating new collaborations culminating in live cross-cultural inter-disciplinary events that go deeper than our Nov 30 event in cultivating musical and communal intimacy and further in experimenting with technology-aided immersive experiences.
2) Continuing to Uplift Our Global Partnering Artists
As Bnat El Houariyat found new homes at Habibi Festival and other US-based performance spaces, we believe our partnering artists deserve the opportunities to be seen and heard and supported by international audiences. To this end, we will continue to release digital content from our existing partnering artists, and continue to advocate for opportunities to showcase their work.
Through these two areas of focus, we will foster new dialogues between the community-building work we’re doing in NY and internationally. This will inform future work with underrepresented communities abroad that is in conversation with the work we’re doing with diaspora communities in NY. This is expected to add a richer dimension to our mission of co-creating spaces of belonging and mutual support by collaboratively documenting and remixing underrepresented traditional musicians and their communities’ stories.