Center Stage will bring seven ensembles from Morocco, Pakistan and Vietnam to the U.S. for month-long tours from June-December 2014, connecting artists with diverse communities across the country. Residencies will include performances, workshops, discussions, people-to-people exchanges, and community gatherings. Keep up with Center Stage on Facebook and on Twitter and at www.centerstageUS.org.

Season 2 Ensembles

• Arabesque (Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam): Tradition-inflected contemporary dance evokes the rhythms of rural Vietnamese life re-imagined in an increasingly cosmopolitan present in The Mist;
• Fleur d’Orange (Casablanca, Morocco): Riveting solo movement by choreographer-dancer Hind Benali and high-energy live chaabi music trace the complexities of gender and identity;
• Hoba Hoba Spirit (Casablanca, Morocco): Offbeat and rebellious Marocc’n roll from one of the Maghreb’s best bands;
• Khumariyaan (Peshawar, Pakistan): Transfixing, get-up-and-dance, hyper-folk jams with deep Pushtoon roots;
• Poor Rich Boy (Lahore, Pakistan): Artful indie rock exposes the inner life of urban Pakistan with enigmatic lyrics, ukes, guitars and the occasional kazoo;
• Ribab Fusion (Agadir, Morocco): A big dose of Amazigh funk powered by a single (ribab) string; and
• Tri Minh Quartet (Hanoi, Vietnam): Sophisticated avant soundscapes binds electronica, European instruments, traditional Vietnamese zithers, and drums.

Season 1 Ensembles

In its first season in 2012, Center Stage reached more than 63,000 audience members in 49 communities across 28 states from Maine to California. In addition to passionate and engaging performances—including opening concerts that packed The Kennedy Center with jubilant listeners—ten ensembles from Haiti, Indonesia, and Pakistan gave workshops, jammed with local musicians, and enjoyed a good old community potluck or two.

Center Stage encourages concentric circles of interaction, whether it’s artists chatting with new acquaintances at a local school or tweeting about their experiences for friends and fans back home. “When you hit that positive interaction with the audience,” reflects 2012 Center Stage artist Ali Hamza of noori (Lahore, Pakistan), “it’s not about where I come from or where you come from; it’s about what we share. It’s about what we share in a fundamentally human way.”

• Arieb Azhar (Islamabad, Pakistan): Azhar leads a quartet of acoustic musicians in an eclectic mix of urban and folk-based songs grounded in Sufi and other humanist poetries from the subcontinent and Europe.
• BélO (Pétion-Ville, Haiti): A socially conscious singer-songwriter with a sophisticated sound, BélO and his band deliver a high-energy mix of Jazz, Worldbeat, Rock, Reggae and Afro-Haitian traditional rhythm known as Ragganga.
• Compagnie de Danse Jean-René Delsoin (Pétion-Ville, Haiti): Delsoin’s outstanding, vibrant dancers and drummers embody choreography that captures Haiti now --- raw and refined, spiritual, powerful, and precarious.
• Jogja Hip Hop Foundation (Yogyakarta, Indonesia): This sharp Javanese rap collective promotes tolerance and pluralism with hooks that meld global rhythms, gamelan music, ancient Javanese poetry and literature.
• Nan Jombang (Padang, Indonesia): Percussive, persuasive and explosive modern dance.
• noori (Lahore, Pakistan): One of Pakistan’s top pop bands, helped define Sufi-rock.
• Papermoon Puppet Theatre (Yogyakarta, Indonesia): In a country with world-renowned puppetry traditions, the young, expert artists of Papermoon are extending the form and creating works that imaginatively explore identity, society and Indonesia’s recent past.
• Ti-Coca & Wanga-Nègès (Port-au-Prince, Haiti): Masters of Haiti’s acoustic twoubadou (troubadour) tradition.
• Very Live (Karachi, Pakistan): The comedic trailblazers insist on pushing boundaries in a place where stand-up was virtually unknown as a performance genre.
• Zeb & Haniya (Lahore, Pakistan): This acclaimed singer-song writing duo paved the way for many female musicians active on the Pakistani music scene today.