Arabesque, is a current, very popular Kennedy Center showcase of theater and dance, sounds and tastes from over 20 Arab countries. With events taking place over the course of weeks, it is widely seen as a landmark for the representation of Arab culture in the United States.
The festival has spawned a flurry of related events. With so many Arab artists, dancers, and poets coming into town, local organizations and institutions have been setting up events to take advantage of their presence. Some of the side events have been in unexpected places.

Click here to watch more PBS videos from the Arabesque festival
The Brookings Institution’s Saban Center for Middle East Policy held one such offshoot event, a panel with leading Arab American poets and cultural workers. They discussed “creative expression” in the Arab world.

The Saban Center, which was founded by an Israeli-American businessmen and directed by Martin Indyk, a former director of research at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, is not known for Arab sympathies. That’s what made the event surprising.

Brookings is one of the most influential and oldest think tanks in Washington. Its stated mission is to “provide innovative and practical recommendations that advance three broad goals: strengthen American democracy; foster the economic and social welfare, security and opportunity of all Americans; and secure a more open, safe, prosperous and cooperative international system.”

Media often describe Brookings as a left-of-center institution.

A fashion display of traditional Arab garb at the entrance of the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. “Arabesque: Arts of the Arab World” was the largest ever Arab arts festival in the U.S. PHOTOS: TAAN

This panel, however, focused on intra-Arab debate about the role of art and the artist, and where they fit into politics.
The moderator, Tamara Cofman Wittes, a Senior Fellow at Saban, introduced the panel. She said the “arts can be a sector, can be a force for freedom.” Its importance is that it reflects “aspirations of groups of people who don’t necessarily get heard by policymakers.”

Adila Laidi-Hanieh, a cultural critic and editor of the collection “Palestine: We lack for Nothing Here,” spoke of artists as capturing their own “hopes, aspirations, and critiques.”

Laidi-Hanieh is of Algerian background and served for years as the director of the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center. The Center is a Ramallah-based non-governmental, non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of arts and culture in Palestine.

She also discussed the importance of the folklore arts in Palestine in the 1970s and 80s. The resurgence of traditional arts there reinforced ideas of “self-reliance” and facilitated individualized politicization.

A man sifts through items at a “souk” in the Kennedy Center modeled after traditional Arab World markets.

One of the panelists staked out a position against valuing “folklore,” which he saw as more modern than truly traditional. Khaled Mattawa, a poet and professor of Creative Writing at the University of Michigan, argued it is an “invented” appeal to the past, with which to instill a “sense of glory.”
Mattawa, originally from Libya, also attacked the popular Arabic poetry contest show, “Poet of the Million.” He called it, “Rush Limbaugh in rhyme,” referring to the populist right-wing radio host. He argued the show promoted “feel-good classical… nationalism.”

Arabic pop culture, he commented, is intellectually empty, nothing more than the “perpetual production of bimbos, male and female.”

Chandeliers hang for sale in a Kennedy Center “souk” during the three week Arabesque arts festival.

Basma El-Husseiny, a leading cultural organizer in the region, called the arts one of the most “independent sectors in the region.” Since the mid-1990s, at least, arts groups and supporters have built a base, creating distance between the arts and the tradition of governmental management.
El-Husseiny founded the Cairo-based Al Mawred Al Thaqafy, a cultural resource center.

The result of this independence is that even those artists who are not “talking politically, are behaving politically.” She reported that the arts are growing in popularity.

A crowd walks through a Kennedy Center Opera House hall after a Moroccan performance on March 8.

Suheir Hammad also spoke. She shared her thoughts on the impact of the Israel Gaza offensive, and the “dominant narrative of the occupation.” Among artists, Israel’s actions “inspire retort or silence,” she said.
For the circle of artists she corresponds with, “each person has a new timeline, before Gaza and after.”

This demonstrates how artists interact with the events around them, one of the underlying themes of the panel. Hammad, a spoken word artist famous for her spot on Russell Simmons’ Def Poetry Jam on HBO and her eloquent writings on September 11th, infuses her works with politics.

As for the future of arts in the region, she said, “watch out for the kids.” She cited the numerous YouTube videos coming from Arab youth as a sign of bubbling artistic expression. Technology and globalization are producing interesting interactions. She met hip-hop artists in France who buy their beats from “Hizbullah guys in South Lebanon.”

While the panel covered a wide range of issues, lacking some narrow focus, it was clearly informative and entertaining. That it was sponsored by an influential institution in Washington, D.C. may speak to larger changes in the political discourse, an opening perhaps. Arabesque is either helping this or a symptom of it.