Exploring Art, Community, and Resilience Across Time

Since its founding, Aviva Arts has been cultivating spaces where art, embodiment, and social consciousness meet. This timeline traces a journey of performances, workshops, rituals, and community gatherings that center healing, creative expression, and cultural dialogue.

From intimate circles to large-scale collaborations, each offering reflects a commitment to exploring identity, resilience, and collective care through the arts. Rooted in interdisciplinary practice and guided by values of justice and inclusion, Aviva Arts continues to bring together artists and communities across geographies to imagine and embody new possibilities.

This is not only a record of what has been created, but a living archive of connection, resistance, and transformation.

━━━ 2022

⏺ October 8, 2022

Public performance and tea salon of (dis)Place[d], the little-known history of Iraqi Jews at Jewish Community Center San Francisco, Kanbar Hall. Produced in partnership with JCCSF (in-person)

⏺ October 20, 2022

(dis)Place[d]the little-known history of Iraqi Jews,  tour on Olivia Cruises lesbian cruise ship company on the Mediterranean Sea (out of Athens, Greece) (in-person)

⏺ November 19, 2022

Burning Wild, Burning Free climate justice and wellness workshop at 13 Moons Studio in Redstone, Colorado. Led by Deborah and Noor Adabachi (In-person)

⏺ December 2022

Winter Wonders Fundraising Campaign live and digital events:

• Nov 13th: Dia de los Muertos Shadow Box workshop-Nicky Martinez (online)

• Nov 20th: Cultivating Creative Rituals-Vidhu Singh, PhD, Lindsay Barr (online)

• Dec 4th: Being in the Shadow and the Light with Yiyo Ornelas and Pamela Hollings (in-person), San Francisco

• Dec 11th: MENA Tea Salon and Story Circle with Noor and Deborah (in-person), San Francisco

━━━ 2023

⏺ March 18, 2023

Burning Wild Work in Progress performance and community ritual at 3 Girls Theatre’s New Works Festival, Z Below, San Francisco (in-person)

⏺ April, 2023

Joy Practice: online digital arts wellness series. Attended globally by folks from four continents (online)

⏺ May 13, 2023

TOUR/New Growth: Burning Wild on the Land. A family-friendly event about post-catastrophe fire ecology. Participants observed forest resiliency up close! Community walk, fire ritual and mini-garden composting teach-in. Lunch included. In Sonoma County, California (in-person)

⏺ July 2, 2023

Joy Practice: Stories in Nature, an intergenerational community event featuring storytelling circles, food and nature walks (in-person)

⏺ October 1, 2023

StoryBody: embodied performance practice for authentic expression, Joe Goode Annex (In-person)

⏺ October 28, 2023

Ofrendas Dia de los Muertosancestral healing  workshop with Nicky Martinez (online)

⏺ November 29, 2023

Gaza Monologues International Day of Solidarity with Palestine readings by Ashtar Theatre of Ramallah a Co-Production with Golden Thread (zoom)

⏺ December 10, 2023

Aviva Arts Fundraiser: Burning Bright: Glow of Resilience, Sound Healing with Manaar, candle ceremony and silent auction, Red Poppy Art House, SF (in-person)

━━━ 2024

⏺ February 11, 2024

Expressive Arts Poetry workshop with Vidhu Singh, PhD. (online)

⏺ Spring, 2024

Filming and editing of Burning Wild Part III documentary video triptych

⏺ April 30, 2024

Community Listening Circle: facilitated discussion for a Season for Palestine in collaboration with Golden Thread, Potrero Stage (in-person)

⏺ May 13, 2024

Eleven Reflections Community Roundtable, Brava Center for Women  (in-person)

⏺ May 10, 17, 24, 2024

At the Intersection: Embodied Jewish Dialogue 3-Session Series (online) with hosts Marina Pardes and Deborah Eliezer exploring embodied practice in the face of intersectional conflict for SWANA, Sephardic and anyone questioning belief systems

⏺ September 15, 2024

Women’s Work In Troubled Times, a work in progress showing of performance, poetry, rants and reflections by SWANA women and Queer artists. The event will be held at Red Poppy Art House, who is co-producing the event and features Andrea Assaf, Manaar Azreik, Amal Bisharat, Deborah Eliezer, Mama Ganuush, and Dina Pozen.

⏺ October 5- 6, 2024

Eleven Reflections: San Francisco is part of a new national series of performance works about Arabs in a post 9/11 America devised by Andrea Assaf, and co-produced by Golden Thread Productions, Brava for Women Center and Art2Action in collaboration with Aviva Arts. Aviva Arts will offer wellness support to the cohort and participate in the artistic devising process. 11 Reflections is a cross-cultural, cross-organizational multimedia performance that will feature Lubana al Quntar, acclaimed Syrian opera singer and Eylem Basaldi, Turkish composer and violinist and local artists including Deborah Eliezer.

⏺ October 19, 2024

Burning Wild interactive performance, Green Benefit Dogpatch, SF (in-person) Sold-out interdisciplinary performances culminating a 4-year world-premiere project centering Arab American climate catastrophe.

━━━ 2025

⏺ January-May, 2025

InternalCoalition Building with MENA Theatermakers Alliance,  Golden Thread and individual artists)

⏺ May 1, 2025

Aviva Arts/Golden Thread Story Circlewhich followed the play AZAD: the rabbit and the wolf, SF (in-person)

⏺ May 31, 2025

AudioBodyembodied workshop, Joe Goode Annex, a decolonizing embodied liberatory practice using movement, written word and recorded audio composition (in-person)

⏺ June 15, 2025

AudioBodyembodied workshopat the National Institute for Directing & Ensemble Creation, a BIPOC leadership summit by invitation from Art2Action and Pangea Theater (in-person)

⏺ August 11, 2025

Seven Jewish Children by Caryl Churchill, a live staged reading at Joe Good Annex, SF and community sharing circle. Performers: Lena Sibony, Shayna Howlett, Chelsea Gregory and Debórah Eliezer  (in-person)

⏺ September 27-28, 2025

Collaborative partner for 24 Hrs for Palestine (Part 2) produced by Art2Action and Golden Thread. 24 hours of livestreamed artists and centering Palestine

⏺ October 2, 2025

Decolonizing the Heart: Resilience Practice for Challenging Times Theme: Forgiveness on Yom Kippur.  Facilitated by Debórah Eliezer and special guest Katie Kaestner offering a unique spiritual space for anyone grieving and seeking community who may feel excluded or isolated from other spiritual communities/traditional Jewish worship which is predominantly pro-zionist in nature.  Attended by folks from four different countries.  (online)

⏺ October 28, 2025

Queer Rites of Passage, a space to embrace queer liberation through mutual support. Participants are invited to imagine a Queer Rite of Passage that centers their identity and celebrates Queerness for societal healing and individual freedom.

⏺ November 2, 2025

Post-Performance Community Circle w/Expressive Arts, facilitated by Vidhu Singh, PhD, at Z Space, SF,  in collaboration with Golden Thread’s world premiere of Pilgrimage

⏺ November 16, 2025

Decolonizing the Heart: Resilience Practice for Challenging Times Theme: Resistance & Flow, facilitated by Debórah Eliezer with guest Maya Kosover

⏺ Fall 2025

New play creation: writing and team collaboration for SWITCH, a play about growing up Arab American and the hidden codes used to survive in a white-dominated world. Written by Debórah Eliezer, Directed by Amal Bisharat, Dramaturgy: Denmo Ibrahim

⏺ December 14, 2025

Power of Poetry - Deeper Roots, Wider Branches: Community Gathering, Poetry Jam & Fundraiser, at a personal home in West Oakland, CA. A celebratory event of solidarity and word sustenance to uplift and create community. Raffles, Global Live Performance and craft cocktails (hybrid: live and online)

━━━ 2026

⏺ January 12, 2026

Solidarity Circle (online)A chance to gather in community, be seen, share and grieve. Meditation and arts practice.

⏺ April 19,2026

Resonance: Nature Play at Three Springs Farm - One day workshop in nature to reset your nervous system through nature walks, meditation, creative play and community lunch. Facilitated by Pamela Hollings/Spring of Rites and Deborah Eliezer

⏺ May 3, 10 and 17, 2026

Decolonizing the Heart Series: With Saed Mansour, Amal Bisharat and Gabriel Cortez, online

⏺ June, 2026

SWITCH work in progress showing,  a  presentation of new work and discussion of the material and themes. Production partner: Golden Thread, MEEM collective with Director/Musician Amal Bisharat, Composer Bahar Royaee,  Dramaturg Denmo Ibrahim and  Writer/Performer Deborah Eliezer

•••