Mosaic: Dances of Peace, Justice, Culture, and Conflict in the Middle East

On Sunday, Dec. 1, at 10:30 AM, the PEACE UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST (formerly known as First Congregational Church in Santa Cruz) will host a performance of Mosaic, a dance concert by Karl Schaffer about peace, justice, culture, and conflict in the Middle East. The performance will be followed by a discussion with the congregation led by Senior Minister Dave Grishaw-Jones. The title refers to the range of subjects that inspired the choreography, from the Palestinian/Israeli struggle to the mosaic tilings common in Middle Eastern art.

Included in Mosaic are several dances set to Jewish Diaspora and Arabic folk songs recorded by Santa Cruz world music group Zambra. The mathematics of Islamic tiling designs will be portrayed through live “video tessellations,” or video mosaics, of dancers.

Other dance works include:
“Machine Gun,” a tap dance to the rapid-fire machine gun sounds of a Jimi Hendrix song, about the relentless march of death of contemporary warfare.
“Into a Bar,” in which two dancers spar via popular online jokes about Palestinians and Israelis.
“The Mourning After” – a solo set to Bach depicting the loss of a child in war, performed by Maria Basile, co-director of sjDANCEco.
"Bombingham" - a solo by Karl Schaffer exploring his growing up Jewish in the Deep South during the civil rights era and his connecting of these experiences to the situation in Palestine and Israel.

Santa Cruzans from all walks of life are welcome to attend and experience the power of dance -- to inspire peacemaking and provoke conversation.