Silk Road House: A Cultural and Educational Center   Welcome! Silk Road House is a non-profit organization created to promote and support an impressive array of diverse ethnic cultural traditions. The main goals of the Silk Road House are: to create a center for the collection of pertinent cultural and historical information to provide a place where creative activities can bring to life the traditions of the Silk Road here in United States to celebrate the Silk Road's tradition of hospitality Silk Road House symbolizes the connections, communications and bonds between peoples and cultures united by the Silk Road concept, and at the same time, a real network of the modern day contacts between those peoples and cultures. The Silk Road House is a welcoming cultural center where everyone who might be interested could find a wide range of accurate information concerning the history, culture, and everyday life of Silk Road countries.   A word of appreciation...   Our special and deepest thanks go to those who have made an array of donations to Silk Road House – by money, various things, books, time, skill or all these together... Among these generous individuals are (in alphabetical order): Ruth Abrass Navruz Avloni Shirchin Baatar Hanna Bailey Elena Balashova Alexander Bapa Natalie Bondar Kathleen Braunstein Genrietta Bykin Maria Bykin JoAnn Conrad Dieter Christensen Wayne Eastep Patrick Hayes David Hooson Karen Folger Jacobs Anait Khudanazarova Jack Kollmann Robert E. Lee Cariadne Margaret Mackenzie Semion and Ludmila Mirkin Scott Morgan Aiman and Mairbek Mussipov Elmira and Werdana Mussipov Zhanara Nauryzbaeva Karen Nelsen Joan E. Norvelle Beket Nurzhanov James O.Bailey Vadim Ryvkin Ernar Sagatov Turburam Sandagdorj Martin Schwartz Chris and Steve Shaw Zhuldyz and Lloyd Shimabukuro Elizabeth Shedd Tatiana Shubin Omerjan and Aygul Siddik John Sommer Kemal Sonmez Tenzin Tsophel Orna Uranchimeg-Tsultem Bayan Tulegenova Leonid Urjuk Santo K. van Ess Albina Yerzhanova Joanne Yoshimura ...as well as anonymous private donors, the SilkRoad Foundation and the Open Society Institute. Our cordial thanks to all of you! - Board of Directors of Silk Road House

Current Events SRH presents the exhibit: THE WORLD PATTERN: ETCHINGS BY CHRISTOPHER CASTLE, a British-born visual artist and composer. He exhibits his paintings and prints widely in the U.S. and Europe. His painting and etching studio is in Emeryville. The exhibit includes twelve patterns that are related to the Silk Road. All works are available for purchase. The price list is at SRH and by email castle.art@sbcglobal.net upon request. February 21, Sunday, 1-3pm SRH welcomes a unique dance and slide presentation, "Dancing through Uyghur Autonomous Xinjiang", by Tara Catherine Pandeya. Tara is an international performing artist, teacher and choreographer who specializes in Central Asian dance forms. In addition to choreography, adult dance classes and workshops, Tara also works with several award winning arts education programs in the Bay Area. Most recently, she completed a four month dance residency in Uyghur Autonomous Xinjiang, China. Along with studying Uyghur, Kazakh and Uzbek dance at the Xinjiang Arts Institute, she conducted dance research with traditional artists and was also fortunate to travel to the Takla Makan desert capturing footage of traditional 'meshureb' (community dance and music). At SRH, she will be presenting some dance and pictures from her Uyghur trip. February 28, Sunday, 2-4pm In 2010, Silk Road House presents: Documentary Films of Central Asia: Two Epochs of National Identity Formation The Silk Road House of Berkeley continues the screening of rare Central Asian films. The new DVD collection is the second part of the project initiated by the Open Society Institute. If the first part of the collection included ten feature films – two films from each Central Asian country – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, then the second part includes seventy documentary films from the entire region. Both DVD collections have been prepared by Gulnara Abikeyeva, director of Public Fund “Center of Central Asian Cinematography”. The aim of the project was to present to the world community the films of Central Asia of two periods -- the Soviet 1960s “Thaw” period as well as the 1990s period of Independence, which was more fruitful in the documentary sense. Those films are hardly known abroad. Ten films of the first part of the project, introduced and commented on by Alma Kunanbaeva, were shown at the Silk Road House in Berkeley during the last year. This year Alma Kunanbaeva will be screening the documentary part of the project. Screenings with discussions will take place at SRH by Saturdays at 5pm according to the following schedule: February 6 – The Kazakhstani documentary films of the 1960-80s February 20 – Documentary films of Kyrgyzstan of the 1960-70s February 27 - Documentary films of Uzbekistan of the 1960-80s March 6 - Documentary films of Tajikistan of the 1960-80s (beginning with a unique film of 1929) March 13 - Documentary films of Turkmenistan of the 1970-80s April 10 - The Kazakhstani documentary films of the 1990s April 17 - Documentary films of Kyrgyzstan of the 1990s April 24 - Documentary films of Uzbekistan of the 1990s and 2000s May 1 - Documentary films of Tajikistan of the 1990s and 2000s May 8 - Documentary films of Turkmenistan of the 1990s (Films of Velmurad Ovezov) A complete list of films is here. All films have English subtitles. All events are free and open to the public. These screenings became possible thanks to a generous gift of the Open Society Institute, Budapest.