Annual Middle Eastern Arts Festival endeavors to educate community

There are three main goals of the Middle Eastern Arts Festival, which will be held Thursday to Feb. 10, says Naomi Spector, assistant outreach coordinator of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures. \nThe first goal of the festival is to highlight the arts at IU. \n"We mean to challenge people as to their concept of, 'What is art?' We try to include as many types of medium as possible and as many disciplines as possible," she said.\nThe 10-day festival will include dance performances by the Bloomington modern dance group Windfall Dancers; speeches by artists and professors; and film screenings, according to the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures' Web site. \nThe second goal of the festival, Spector said, is to challenge people's notions of who belongs to Near Eastern cultures.\n"People tend to focus and they say, 'Well, it's the Middle East,'" she said. "The idea is that culture is a place of intersection and people, you know, grouped in next to each other (that) get historically identified with each other. So the Arabo-Islamic (or Near Eastern) world has Africans, North Africans, Indonesians, Asians, Indians, Pakistanis -- they're a huge group that includes this part of the world. \nThe third and final goal of the group, Spector said, is to create a "communal model" to put on the event. It will give several different departments and groups their own tasks to bring to the festival, creating a "much larger event than people might normally anticipate." \nThe festival, sponsored by the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, will showcase a broad array of performances and lectures around Bloomington. \nSome of the on-campus events include a screening of the film "The Twilight," directed by Mohammad Rasulof, at 7 p.m. Thursday in Swain East; a book exhibit in the IU Fine Arts Library from Feb. 1 to Feb. 18; and an art exhibit by Najjar Abdul Musawwir at the Foster Living-Learning Center at 7 p.m. Feb. 5.\nSpector said there are two important reasons to celebrate Middle Eastern culture. \n"Given our current political and historical climate, I think it's very necessary for the public to become better informed about Middle Eastern culture and to realize how complex it really is," she said. "I think, personally, on another level, (it's important for people to be) learning about each other, period."\nSpector said that learning about one culture could have a domino effect that could encourage the public to begin learning about many different cultures and ultimately "open up the whole world." \nAll events are free and open to the public, except for the performances of the Windfall Dancers and the Bloomington music group, Salaam, at the John Waldron Arts Center. For more information, visit www.indiana.edu/~nelcmesp/event.htm.