The Guest Curator is a new position at FRFF.
Why have a Guest Curator? Frozen River Film Festival is a small organization. Currently, there are only two salaried staff positions: a full-time Managing Director and part-time Assistant Director. With such a small staff, efforts at diversifying the group of people involved in decision-making about the organization can be difficult, as funds are so limited. FRFF is committed to paying working creatives for their labor, and creating a part-time, contracted Guest Curator position is a step towards growing our organization to eventually support additional staff members.
FRFF is honored to be working with Sharon Mansur as our first Guest Curator. Sharon was a natural fit for this position, as she is not only local to Winona, but has also worked with FRFF in the past as a volunteer and season staff person, but has an incredible track record as a working artist. She is a creative powerhouse and will be crucial to helping FRFF mold this role and position the organization to open it up to other creatives in the future. In its first iteration, the Guest Curator position will be active November 2021 through April 2022. The Guest Curator will be involved in not only programming the festival, but will shape some of the educational offerings FRFF has during the festival, teach a workshop, and assist in connecting FRFF with community stakeholders.
Are you interested in supporting the Guest Curator position? Please consider making a donation here.
About our 2021-2022 Guest Curator
Sharon Mansur (she/her) is an Arab/SWANA American experimental dance and interdisciplinary artist, educator, curator, community mover and shaker. She is based in the Mississippi river town of Keoxa/Winona, Mni Sota Makoce/MN, Dakota land.
Mansur's creative practice integrates improvisational techniques, somatic practices, site responsive actions, and interdisciplinary collaborations. Ongoing research includes her Lebanese heritage, the complex nature of identity, and the subtle dialogue between private and public layers of self and environment. Mansur's dance performances, visual installations and screendance projects have been presented throughout the United States, as well as in Argentina, Bulgaria, Canada, Ecuador, Germany, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Lebanon, Mexico, Norway and the UK. She received a Best Performance Award at the Mirror Mountain Film Festival (Canada) in 2015 for her variation on residue dance film in collaboration with video artist Brian Harris, and was also featured in the 2018 WomenCinemakers Biennale magazine.
Her most recent dance film, 1001 Arab Futures, created in collaboration with co-directors Yara Boustany, Andrea Shaker and Mette Loulou von Kohl, and Sydney Swanson as director of photography, premiered during the McKnight Foundation Dance Fellows’ SOLO showcase at the Cowles Center for Dance & the Performing Arts in Minneapolis in September. Sharon is also the curator of SHIFT~ experimental performance salons to support local collaborative art sharings and conversations, and Artistic Director of The Cedar Tree Project, an artistic platform amplifying artists from the Arab diaspora, encouraging awareness and empathy through artistic and cultural exchange. Sharon is a 2021-22 Springboard for the Arts Creative Economy Fellow, and is currently an adjunct dance professor at St. Mary's University.
My creative practice is rooted in tender and deeply cherished relationships with other artists and creative folx. I offer audiences immersive art experiences, and they are invited to dive deep and make themselves at home. I make art because that is the essential way in which I grapple with inherent mysteries and ambiguities in life. I am passionate about resilient and evolving ways to share and support art in my communities.
— Sharon Mansur
Resource List
Below is a list of resources complied by Sharon Mansur.
These are informational only, and do not necessarily reflect the views or mission of FRFF.
WHAT IS SWANA? (Southwest Asia and North Africa)
https://swanaalliance.com/about
https://www.dance.nyc/programs/jcomm/blog/2019/02/Middle-Eastern-Arab-Why-That-Matters-
and-more/
PALESTINIAN SOLIDARITY
What is the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) Movement for Palestine Liberation?
https://bdsmovement.net/what-is-bds
Minnesota for Palestine Coalition: https://mn4palestine.org
Jewish Voices for Peace: jewishvoiceforpeace.org
Twin Cities chapter: https://www.facebook.com/jvptc/
Coulee Region Coalition for Palestinian Rights: https://m.facebook.com/CouleeRegionCPR/
SWANA/ARAB ARTISTS/ORGANIZATIONS
Mni Sota Makoce/MN based:
Cedar Tree Project (directed by Sharon Mansur): www.cedartreeproject.org
Mizna: www.mizna.org
New Arab American Theater Works: https://www.newarabamericantheaterworks.org
Leila Awadallah: www.leilaawadallah.com/
Andrea Shaker: https://andreashaker.com
National:
Arab American National Museum: www.aanm.org
Radius of Arab American Writers: https://arabamericanwriters.org/
MENA (Middle Eastern and North African) Theatre Makers Alliance: https://
www.menatheatre.org
Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies: https://lebanesestudies.ncsu.edu
Meryl Murman: https://www.merylmurman.me
Leyya Mona Tawil: https://www.danceelixirlive.org/leyya-mona-tawil.html
Mette Loulou von Kohl: www.metteloulouvonkohl.com
LEBANON RELIEF
Lebanon Needs: https://www.lebanonneeds.org
Lebanon Relief Fund: www.brightfunds.org/funds/lebanon-relief-fund
Food Blessed: https://foodblessed.org
Beitel Baraka: https://beitelbaraka.org
Lebanese Red Cross: www.redcross.org.lb
Lebanese Food Bank: https://lebanesefoodbank.org
Aleb Lebanon: www.aleb.world
Embrace Lebanon: https://embracelebanon.org
ANERA: https://www.anera.org/
SWANA EDUCATION & CIVIC ENGAGEMENT
Arab American Action Network: https://aaan.org
Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee: https://www.adc.org
Arab American Civic Council: https://aaciviccouncil.org
SWANA Alliance: https://www.swanaalliance.org/educational-resources
National Network for Arab American Communities:
https://www.nnaac.org/advocacy_and_civic_engagement
ACCESS (Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services):
www.accesscommunity.org/