This month for Live And Direct, we’re spotlighting three groups who are using music and art as tools to cross the dividing lines between people, places, or genres. Each group takes its own approach – bringing people closer through a musical melting pot, introducing the world to a unique local sound, or platforming artists who have crossed national borders themselves.
Event: On 15 July Anomalie Art Point is hosting Crossing Borders: Artistic Narratives of Migration, an event encompassing film, music, and an art exhibition featuring the work of artists who have crossed borders. There will be a screening of Charly Wai Feldman’s ‘Gegen den Strom’, a documentary following the story of criminalized refugee activist and humanitarian icon Sara Mardini, who will also be around for an exclusive Q&A session and is curating the afterparty that runs until well into the morning. For those who would rather come early, there will also be food served by Syrian restaurant Malakeh.
Release: Manila Community Radio (MCR) just released the new album DJ Love presents BUDOTS WORLD: Bawal Umiwas sa Sayawan!. It’s a gigantic 53-track compilation exploring Budots, a style of music that combines the influence of indigenous music from the Philippines with touches of neon-tinged trance, electro, and EDM. Proudly independent and dedicated to community building in Manila, across the Philippines, and beyond, we’re big fans of what MCR does and can highly recommend this introduction to a truly unique genre of music.
Initiative: For this month’s initiative, we’d like to wish a happy first birthday to our friends at the Berlin-based queer collective and event series Kudur. Brought together by a shared love of West Asian and Mediterranean pop musical cultures, Kudur is a collective with the concept of border crossing at the center of what they do. Get a taste of the Kudur sound by checking out past episodes of their residency on Refuge Worldwide, which are full of forgotten Turkish pop music gems, and keep an eye on their socials for details of their upcoming celebration.
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