Gartal and the AGLA NY present:

“An Evening of Literary Pride”
June 20th, 2009
6 PM

LGBT Community Services Center – Room 410
208 W. 13th Street (between 7th and 8th Avenues)
New York, NY 10011
212 620-7310 / http://www.gaycenter.org
Subways: ACE, 1239 to 14th Street
Suggested Donation $5

RSVP and get more information on the Facebook Event Page

Readings by:
David Ciminello
Amy Ouzoonian
Aaron Poochigian
Margarita Shalina
Hrag Vartanian

More about the writers after the jump.

Continue reading →

Please join us and meet fellow LGBT Armenian Americans and help us plan and discuss future projects/events for the coming year. The AGLA NY meeting is this Friday November 14 at 8PM at the Center.

AGLA NY Meeting
Friday, November 14, 2008 at 8pm
LGBT Community Center
208 W. 13th Street, NY, NY

For all those that are interested, we typically go out to eat or for drinks afterwards and we look forward to seeing you on Friday!

Join AGLA NY Members at the 2008 NYC Pride Parade on Sunday June 29th.

A group of AGLA NY Members will be meeting at Noon (12PM) on Sunday at the northwest corner of 5th Ave and 12th St, in front of the Forbes magazine building.

For more info on the meetup please visit the event info page at aglany.org

http://www.nycpride.org/home

Gay Rights and the Politics of 2008
Wednesday, June 18, 7:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m.
Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Auditorium, Sheila C. Johnson Design Center, 66 Fifth Avenue
Admission: $8; free to all students and New School faculty, staff, and alumni with ID

Efforts to overcome discrimination based on sexual orientation have been part of a more generalized agenda of civil rights. These efforts have been played out in the streets, in major institutions, and in the courts. What do the politics of statewide elections and the presidential race of 2008 tell us about efforts to remedy the effects of discrimination on gays, lesbians and transgendered individuals?

We have invited speakers who have dealt with issues of marriage and the family, employment, health and well-being to assess electoral politics and the interests of a gay constituency.

Moderator, Christopher Atamian, writer, producer, filmmaker and President of the Armenian Gay and Lesbian Association – New York, will be joined by Judith Stacey, professor of Social and Cultural Analysis, Sociology Department, NYU Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality and author of In the Name of the Family: rethinking family values in the postmodern age; Shannon Minter, legal director of The National Center for Gay Rights; and Richard Goldstein, journalist and author of The Attack Queers: Liberal Society and the Gay Right.

Sponsored by the Wolfson Center for National Affairs in partnership with the Alliant International University’s Rockway Institute for Science and LGBT Public Policy

For more information visit: http://www.newschool.edu/news/index.aspx#events

AGLA NY will be sponsoring a monthly support group focusing on issues around coming out. The goal of the group is to foster an environment where AGLA members can discuss concerns about coming out to family, friends, co-workers and fellow members of other communities.  Even when we have come out to most people in our lives, certain parts of our lives are still lived in the closet, with fear and shame.  Our hope is that by creating a strong community where our stories and worries are heard and accepted we can move forward in our process, wherever we may be. 
 
One’s participation in the group and group discussions will remain entirely confidential.  Each participant will be asked to respect the privacy of the group and not share what was discussed outside the group: what we talk about in here stays in here.
 
Meetings will take place at the LGBT center in the Greenwich Village on a monthly basis and will last an hour.  Please extend the invitation to other members of the NY/NJ area Armenian community that may not have access to this posting.

The next meeting will be April 16th at 7-8PM in the LGTB Center in New York, NY
For more info visit the AGLA NY event listing page at http://aglany.org/Default.aspx?pageId=40442

Please come out and support a great singer from Armenia, Gor
Mkhitarian. There will be other AGLANY members at the concert and we
plan to go grab a bite or drink afterwards. Details are as follows:

GOR Mkhitarian to perform in New York City at The Bitter End May 6th

Come experience something new and slightly exotic…

He’s been called everything from Armenia’s Bob Dylan to an apostle for a new generation of Armenian singers. Known simply as Gor, the former lead singer of the hit Armenian Rock band Lav Eli, has carved a successful career as a soloist in Armenia, Europe and the United States.

Gor’s music is marked by a versatile lyricism, as much in his native Armenian folk songs, as in the sensitive rock ballads that he has crafted in both English and Armenian. Gor himself cites Dylan, Sting, Simon and Garfunkel and Rouben Hakhvardian as his most direct influences.

The two New York City concerts coincide with the release of Gor’s sixth CD “United Fantasies: Exit Ahead.”

So bring a friend, and enjoy some great rock ballads—Armenian style!

Gor appears at the famed club, The Bitter End at 8pm.

The Bitter End is located at 147 Bleecker Street (betw. Thompson and
LaGuardia). http://www.bitterend.com

Tickets available on line at www.itsmyseat.com for $12 or at the door
for $15.

For more information about Gor, please go to http://www.gormusic.com

While 2008 is shaping up to be the biggest year yet for AGLA NY, we wanted to take a quick look back at a few of the events from the past year.

Here are just some of the events hosted by AGLA NY in 2007.

1/8/07 – AGLA NY’s Annual Armenian Christmas Party
Twenty members of AGLA New York and their friends celebrated Armenian Christmas on January 8th at the LGBT Community Center on West 13th Street. There was great Middle Eastern food, as well as amazing duduk and oud playing by way of musicians extraordinaire Souren Baronian and Haig Manoukian Everyone was happy to be celebrating this two-thousand year-old tradition together. Some people even got up and danced! Hoopa!

3/30/07 – Lecture on Armenian Poet Daniel Varoujan
On March 30th at the LGBT Center, Columbia University Professor of Armenian Studies Marc lectured to a rapt audience of thirty people about Armenian poet Daniel Varoujan. His presentation, entitled “Daniel Varoujan, Poet of Mourning” concentrated on Varoujan’s haunting poem “Vahakn,” which is the name of the Armenian god of thunder. It was a difficult but brilliant exposition on the poet’s relationship to religion, Nietzsche and ultimately, Armenian culture. Varoujan was a leading exponent of “Poetic Paganism” and was brutally murdered by the Young Turkish regime in 1915 at the onset of the Armenian Genocide. The lecture coincided with the release in French of Nichanian’s new book “Entre l”art et le Témoignage: Littératures Arméniennes au XXème Siècle, Le Deuil de la Philologie” (MetisPresses, Geneva, 2006), the second volume in his trilogy “Writers of Disaster.” One member of the audience commented afterwards: ”My mother used to recite Varoujan. I wish she could have heard this lecture tonight. Fascinating.”

6/25/07 – AGLA NY Marches in the NYC Gay Pride Parade
On Sunday, June 25th, ten members of AGLA NY were cheered on by a rowdy crowd and an occasional Armenian along 5th Avenue as they marched under the AGLA New York/HyeQ banner in the 2007 Gay Pride Parade. Sandwiched between a lesbian party float, the Russian LGBT Organization and the Anti-Circumcision Society (yup, you heard right), the HyeQ’s were well-placed to enjoy their fifth time as participants in this seminal LGBT event. Next year, we are working on creating an even bigger impact. So get ready! We are forming a Pride Committee to plan for next year, so anyone interested please attend an upcoming meeting, we’d love your help and input!

8/9/07 – Screening of Bebo: Pocorn and Armenian Films
Christopher Atamian screened Bebo, the first Armenian sound feature film on August 9th to an enthusiastic audience of 30. The screening was preceded by a reading about its director Hamo Bek Nazarov and the film’s main themes, and was followed by a short Q&A session. Atamian is currently working on a book of film criticism called “Deconstructing Ararat: Armenian Identity and Film.”

To be notified of future AGLA NY Events please register on our new website at http://aglany.org