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"Inspiration2Dance" school dedicates Benefit Summer Ball to Sandblast

5/19/2017

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We are so thrilled to announce that London's exclusive dance studio Inspiration 2 Dance has just announced that they'll be dedicating their upcoming fundraiser SUMMER SIZZLE Dance & BBQ Party 2017 next June 24 in London to Sandblast. THANK YOU!!

Our connection with Inspiration 2 Dance comes from our Founding Director Danielle Smith, who's really passionate about dancing and has had a close relationship with the school since late 2015.


Sandblast has decided to pledge all funds raised through the SUMMER SIZZLE Dance to the music and English education project Stave House in the Sahara, which has just finished their very successful second stage with over 25 children passing their certified Stave House Level 1 Music Awards. Congratulations! During its third stage (Sep 2017-May 2018), Sandblast will be the main sponsor of the project, so we need all the help we can get to make it a reality! For that, we've just set up a new JustGiving fundraising campaign. Check it out!
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Stave House in the Sahara finishes its second stage

5/12/2017

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Our partner project Stave House in the Sahara has just finished its second stage with a fabulous End Of Year Party in which the children have performed a few songs and had some sweet treats to celebrate a very successful year. Over 25 students have recently passed their Stave House Level 1 Music Awards, which will be fully certified by the London College of Music (University of West London) through Stave House. Congratulations!! How exciting!

Sandblast is now in conversation with Stave House in the Sahara to provide sponsorship for their third stage, which will begin in September 2017. Stay tuned for updates!
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Pass it on!

10/3/2016

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Sandblast recently received a wonderful donation of a stunning Gibson electric guitar from a stranger, a man from Yorkshire, who prefers to remain anonymous. He wanted to share this guitar with others and give back some of the joy music has given him throughout his life. He chose to give the guitar to Sandblast after reading our statement of how his donation would benefit Saharawis in the refugee camps. 

This generous gesture has truly touched and inspired us.  In fact it inspired us so much that we decided to launch a campaign to get more guitar donations for the Saharawi refugee camps. The campaign is called PASS IT ON and operates on the belief that there are many other strangers out there and friends, of course, who would like to share with us something that can make a difference.
SO if you have a spare guitar you can share with the Saharawi refugees, please PASS IT ON. But we don't want to limit what you can give to only material things. If you have music skills that can benefit some of the musicians and music teachers we work with, PASS IT ON! Or if you are a music producer, a band manager, a music promoter with a yearning for adventure and want to share your experience, PASS IT ON!  And if you want to get involved but don’t have anything to donate, at the moment, you can always make a monetary contribution however small or big to help us with running costs.

You can click on the link below to donate and win your own copy of the Studio-Live-recorded song Standing Man, by singer-songwriter Pia de Keyser. Life is enhanced when you share; PASS IT ON!
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Newsletter September 2016

9/14/2016

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Greetings from Sandblast,

Hope you have had an enjoyable summer and feel recharged again to enjoy the active months ahead. We are now back in action and in this issue will highlight exciting news and developments since our Mid-summer Western Sahara Festival, in July, along with upcoming events which you shouldn’t miss.
OUR NEWS
Standing Man EP now available!
We are thrilled to announce that the Standing Man EP, recorded in the camps by singer-songwriter Pia de Keyser, is finally ready to be heard by the world.

Standing Man refers to the Moroccan soldiers that have been standing on the 2700km-long military wall in Western Sahara for 30 years. It was recorded at the Studio-Live equipped studio of the Saharawi National Music School by our very own Studio-Live-trained sound engineers. Read more.
Aziza Brahim in concert at Union Chapel on Sept 22
Leading international Saharawi singer Aziza Brahim is back to the UK with beautiful songs from her latest album Abbar El Hammada. Sandblast was the first organization to invite Aziza to the UK in 2007. She also headlined the launch of our Studio-Live project at The Roundhouse in 2012. We are proud to be part of her journey in becoming an outstanding cultural ambassador for the Saharawi cause of self-determination. Click to book tickets
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Stave House in the Sahara back to the refugee camps
We are very excited that our colleague Violeta Ruano will be returning to the Saharawi refugee camps for 3 months in October for the second stage of the early music education project Stave House in the Sahara. There is still time to become a sponsor of one of the children for only £30. Interested?

Sandblast is delighted to be one of the main partners of this project. We are deeply grateful to Ruth Travers from Stave House for generously donating the programme to the camps and to The London College of Music which has supported the project in various ways.  These partnerships along with some amazing support we've received from individual donors has made it possible for things to happen and develop. We're also thrilled to announce that Oxfam Solidarité (Belgium) have recently given €2500 to refurbish a room to create a music-making space for children, in the camp of Boujdour,  in support of Stave House in the Sahara. Read more

Fundraising and Run the Sahara 
2016 has been spectacular fundraising year for Sandblast. In total, we have raised nearly £30,000 for our project work in the Saharawi refugee camps. This has been thanks to the amazing efforts of our 2016 Run the Sahara runners and also to the generosity of donors who have shown support for our projects  in the camps, which currently are:

Saharawi Artivism Fund (SAF), Studio-Live Local and Stave House in the Sahara.

We now have a nice group of runners coming together for the 2017 Run the Sahara race in the Algerian Sahara next February. We hope to recruit at least 5 more people to join before the registration deadline on December 15. Please help us spread the word!. And if you are a former particpant, we would love you to encourage others to join us in 2017.

​Donations and Van hunting
This year has also been a great year for music equipment donations made in support of Studio-Live Local. We got a mint-shaped 24-track Tascam mobile recording studio in July and in early September a lovely electric guitar from David in Yorkshire.
 
Our next big mission is to get all the donations of the past 18 months transported in a donated or second-hand van, down to the camps, by the end of this year. If anyone loves these kinds of ventures and would like to help us please get in touch. We really need it!

Olive Branch Arts Cabaret Extravaganza on Sept 18
Come along for this fun night of fund-raising for their work with youth, women and theatre in the Saharawi refugee camps. Click here to book tickets
 
Music of Exile film teaser
Have you heard of the upcoming film Music of Exile from the Saharawi of Western Sahara? Directed and recorded by Katch Holmes it will be featured at WOMEX '16 in Santiago de Compostela (Spain) next Oct 21. Click on the pic to watch a short teaser and get inspired by the revolutionary history of Saharawi music!
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Studio-Live track "Standing Man" now available

9/12/2016

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We are thrilled that the fabulous Standing Man track by Pia de Keyser, done in collaboration with Saharawi artists in the camps, is finally ready to be heard by the world. 

You can now listen to a 30 second teaser of the track below. The Standing Man track has been kindly donated to Sandblast by Pia, to help us with our on-going fundraising efforts for Studio-Live.

If you would like to download the the entire 6-minute-long song, we ask that you please make a donation for it, so we can support locally-run recording studios to become up and running in two of the Saharawi refugee camps in Boujdour and Smara in the next 12 months. These studios will be run entirely by our Studio-Live-trained sound engineers. Hurray! We don't want to tell you how much to donate; that will be for you to decide. What we are sure of is you will love what you hear! 

To donate: 
http://campaign.justgiving.com/charity/sandblast/studiolivelocal

Please send us an email to info@sandblast-arts.org after you've made the donation and we'll send you the full track.


The story of the Standing Man recording:
Composed and sung by the super-talented Pia de Keyser, this song refers to the Moroccan soldiers that have been standing on the 2700km-long military wall in Western Sahara for over 30 years. It was recorded in the refugee camps in February 2015 by local sound engineer trainee, Shaia Wali, at the Saharawi National Music School in a Studio-Live equipped studio. Shaia was trained over a year period in a Studio-Live programme of sound-recording workshops delivered by the tireless and dedicated Sara McGuinness, who teaches at the London College of Music. Shaia was assisted by Rasha Shaheen, a music teacher visiting the camps for the first time, who also participated in Run the Sahara in 2015.  See below the wonderfully quirky fast-paced video she did of the week-long recording session with Pia. 

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Projects in the Saharawi Refugee Camps

6/27/2016

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THIS SATURDAY July 2nd we have so many exciting activities prepared for our Mid-summer Western Sahara Festival (Hundred Years Gallery, E2 8JD, 4-9.30pm).

Among them we'll present two exciting projects in the Saharawi refugee camps:
  1. We will be launching Run the Sahara 2017, known internationally as the SaharaMarathon, which takes place annually in February. Through this fundraising and awareness raising event, UK participants raise funds for Sandblast’s music and youth projects in the refugee camps. The Run the Sahara 2017 launch will feature testimonials from former participants.
  2. A presentation of the exciting Stave House in the Sahara pilot project will be made by ethnomusicologist and music teacher Violeta Ruano. She leads the project together with three Saharawi teaching trainees to implement music education in English in the Saharawi primary schools in the refugee camps. She is working in close collaboration with Ruth Travers, the creator of the Stave House music-learning system based on characterisation & storytelling. 

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Music & Poetry for/by the Saharawis

6/27/2016

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THIS SATURDAY July 2nd we have so many exciting activities prepared for our Mid-summer Western Sahara Festival (Hundred Years Gallery, E2 8JD, 4-9.30pm).

To chill out at the end, the evening will conclude with a collaborative performance of two artists who have both been to the Saharawi refugee camps. Poet Sam Berkson will recite original poems and translated Saharawi poems from his poetry book “Settled Wanderers” accompanied by darbouka player Karim Delalli playing irresistible Algerian beats. Here is a teaser from their previous collaboration at Sandblast Benefit Concert last February 6 at the Bolivar Hall in London.



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Programme: Mid-summer Western Sahara Festival

6/16/2016

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Programme

4pm - Welcome
4.15pm - English premiere "Battalion to my Beat" (Eimi Imanishi, 14')
4.30pm - Run the Sahara 2017 launch
5pm - Stave House in the Sahara presentation
6pm - BREAK
6.15pm - English premiere "The Desert of the Desert" (Samir Abujambra, 84')
8pm - Run the Sahara 2017 testimonies
8.30pm - Music and poetry by Sam Berkson and Karim Dellali
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40 years since the death of Polisario founder

6/9/2016

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TODAY it is 40 years since the death of El Uali Mustapha Sayed, the founder of the Polisario Front and its Secretary General just before the recently deceased Mohamed Abdelaziz.

At Sandblast we'd like to commemorate El Uali's life, deeds and death in the battlefield by sharing the article 'Shaheed El Uali Band and Beyond: 40 Years of Resistance Music in Western Sahara', written by our Project Leader Violeta Ruano​ about Shaheed El Uali, the first Saharawi national band, which was created in the Saharawi refugee camps and named after him shortly after his death! 
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Stave House in the Sahara launches on Feb 27!

2/19/2016

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On the eve of Run the Sahara 2016 week (the team travels tomorrow!), we're thrilled to let you know about Stave House in the Sahara, a fantastic new early music education project that is starting NEXT WEEK in the Saharawi refugee camps. We're so excited!!

You can check out their objectives, methodology, resources and much more on their new website and blog here; and don't forget to sign up to their newsletter for updates if you're interested!

Stave House in the Sahara will be launching next Feb 27th at the Galleywood Heritage Centre in Essex with a super fun school concert. Are you around?
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