Cynthia Ramsay – Page 81

Next gen of theatre artists

From Nov. 12-15, Rumble Theatre’s Tremors presents three different plays – Trainspotting by Harry Gibson, The 4th Graders Present an Unnamed Love-Suicide by Sean Graney and This is War by Hannah Moscovitch. They will take place simultaneously in different parts of the Russian Hall. After each night’s performances, the entertainment will continue, with an after-party to which everyone is invited.

Part of Rumble Theatre’s mission is to foster “meaningful interactions between emerging and established artists,” and Tremors does just that. From start to finish, each of the plays is mounted by a group of relative newcomers to the professional theatre world. Knowing Rumble Theatre either directly or indirectly through colleagues, both Andrew Cohen and Naomi Vogt leapt at the opportunity to be involved when the call for artists went out.

photo - Andrew Cohen — Andrew Cohen is doing sound design for *Trainspotting*. *(photo from Rumble Theatre)*

“I have been interested in music composition and sound design for a long time,” said Cohen. “When I watch – or hear – a show, the moments I can connect to most are the ones where the sound is used to mirror the action onstage. I’m excited to have started exploring and establishing myself as a composer and designer in addition to performing.”

Cohen will be in charge of sound design for Trainspotting. “I submitted to Stephen Drover, artistic director of Rumble Theatre not knowing which plays were being mounted,” he said. “When we all submitted, we were asked which types of shows we were interested in working on and why. They paired all the designers and directors with their respective shows based on similar theatrical esthetics and tastes.”

Rumble’s mandate to mentor newcomers means that “all Tremors artists are assigned mentors, who are helping us to navigate this challenging material,” said Vogt, who was a student ambassador for the organization in her final year of theatre school.

“I promoted Rumble Theatre’s work, especially their phenomenal show Penelope, and co-produced a 48-hour play-building experiment called The Crockpot, which featured one representative from Vancouver’s theatre training facilities: UBC, Studio 58, Douglas, Capilano, Trinity Western and SFU. The goal of the project was to inspire students at these schools to connect with each other. There’s a tendency among theatre students to work only with their peers, even after graduation. It’s important to maintain those contacts from school, but it’s also important to expand into the larger community of Vancouver artists.”

Vogt will be acting in The 4th Graders, which “is about a class of fourth-grade students who honor their classmate Johnny with a play he wrote, following his suicide,” she explained. “The play details Johnny’s version of the series of events that led to his suicide. I play Rachel, an unpopular 10-year-old who is bullied for being overweight. Rachel and Johnny were ‘boyfriend/girlfriend,’ but Rachel ends the relationship because she believes she’s not deserving of Johnny’s love. The 4th Graders Present an Unnamed Love-Suicide is dark, but it’s so hilarious, too. It explores serious themes of love, betrayal and revenge, but through the lens of a 9-year-old, which I hope resonates with audience members of all ages.

Her past experience should help in her portrayal.

“I started performing in elementary school,” she explained, “when I was given special permission to dramatize Shel Silverstein poems during ‘reading hour’ with a friend. We weren’t popular girls, but our classmates thought our skits were funny – plus, we got out of reading hour! We kept going, eventually developing a sketch series of Oprah Winfrey Show parodies, which we’d perform almost daily to our Grade 4 classmates. I, an overgrown poofy-haired 8-year-old, played Oprah. My friend Allison, a tiny bespectacled thing, played our various idols: Michael Jordan, Michael Jackson, Shania Twain and others. We were a hit.”

Naomi Vogt plays Rachel The 4th Graders Present an Unnamed Love-Suicide. (photo from Rumble Theatre)

It was then that Vogt knew she wanted to be an actor. “It offered some respect and acknowledgment I otherwise didn’t receive in the social arena,” she said. “I knew it was a job grown-ups had, so I thought, ‘Perfect, got that whole what-do-you-want-to-be-when-you-grow-up business sorted. I’m going to take acting classes, hang up some Destiny’s Child posters and things are going to fall into place for me.’ Obviously, a career in the arts is different than my fourth-grade mind dreamed it would be. I’ve only just transitioned into the professional world, and things are difficult sometimes, but my grade school dream is still alive!”

Flourishing, actually. Vogt just completed the bachelor of fine arts acting program at the University of British Columbia, where she won the Evelyn Harden Award. “It’s an award that the UBC theatre faculty gives to a graduating theatre student and, happily, it accompanies a cheque,” she explained. “It’s made available annually through the generosity of Dr. Evelyn Harden. I was so grateful to be the recipient among my class and it helped me make it through my final year.”

Vogt also expressed gratitude for her connection to the Jewish community. “Like theatre,” she said, “my affiliation with Judaism gave me a cultural anchor. In the rocky seas of adolescence, I knew I was a Jewish theatre nerd and, whenever I felt lame, ostracized or unusual, I could feel confident about those two things. It’s still a big part of my life, and so it features pretty largely in my improv and sketch comedy. I often find myself muttering broken Hebrew prayers or referencing Jewish holidays or practices onstage.”

Describing herself as a “‘character’ type within a pool of ingénues,” Vogt said she “often played one of the following roles: old women, very old women, and men. And, I honestly wouldn’t have it any other way. I’m unusual, so I get to play interesting people. For example, in my final show at UBC, I had the fantastic opportunity to play the murderous king Pere Ubu in an all-female version of Alfred Jarry’s masterpiece Ubu Roi, and I couldn’t have asked for a weirder, bigger, more joyful undertaking.”

Cohen, who has been featured in the Jewish Independent on more than one occasion, is also engaged in several interesting and meaningful undertakings. He was in the JI just a few months ago, when he was interviewed about his involvement as part of the faculty of Gotta Sing! Gotta Dance!, which celebrated its 20th anniversary this past summer.

Over the last couple of years, Cohen said he has spent most of his time out of Vancouver, performing in plays and musicals in Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto and Halifax.

“I spent several months traveling around the Americas to work with the Broadway organization Artists Striving to End Poverty. They commissioned me to direct and musically arrange an international music video featuring some of the students from their schools around the world, and some of their celebrity teachers (like cast members from Netflix’s Orange is the New Black, HBO’s Looking, Wicked’s Kristin Chenoweth and others).

“Most recently, I have been working on re-imagining and rearranging the Joni Mitchell canon for a new show co-created with my beautiful, talented fiancé Anna Kuman. Our show, Circle Game, for the Untitled Theatre Company, was developed as part of the inaugural residency with Capilano University. Anna and I are excited to have been granted another development residence, this time with a professional theatre company in the city. We are also very excited to have New York and Stratford director Robert McQueen helm our next workshop.”

Cohen is part of the tech team for Firehall Arts Centre’s presentation of Urinetown, which runs until Nov. 29. This month, he also “will be workshopping a new musical with Axis Theatre that tours around Western Canada in the new year. Following that will be the next development phase of my show Circle Game…. And then, next summer, I will be playing Judas in the Arts Club Theatre’s production of Godspell. After that, I’ve booked the biggest, most exciting gig of my life: marrying the incredible Anna Kuman!”

As for Vogt, she said about her future plans, “It’s scary to be released out of the safety of theatre school, but it’s exciting to work in the professional community, too. I’m teaching with the Vancouver Youth Theatre right now, which is especially fun because I took their classes as a child. I’m also experimenting with physical theatre and puppetry and, right now, I’m taking a clowning class with the remarkable Gina Bastone. Traveling is a big part of my immediate plans, too – I’m hoping to go to Israel in the spring. But, until then, feel free to hire me!”

Tickets for Tremors ($15 for each play) can be purchased via rumble.org. Since the plays take place simultaneously, it is only possible to see one play per night.

Zeruya Shalev opens Jewish Book Fest

Zeruya Shalev (photo by Naomi Tokatly)

In The Remains of Love, her latest novel to be translated into English, Zeruya Shalev once again explores (and crosses) intimate emotional boundaries. In this novel, however, she also overtly explores territory that she has actively resisted – Israel, where she was born and still lives.

“In my previous works, I avoided relating to the Israeli reality in a straightforward way,” Shalev told the Independent in an email interview. “The readers could have sensed it only indirectly – through the reckless pace, the intensity and perhaps even the pessimism. In this book, however, I felt an urge to open more windows to the Israeli reality – such as the history of the kibbutz and the burning issues of human rights. Each book has its own needs. Many issues that did not fit right in the previous books with the previous protagonists found themselves fitting perfectly into this one and its characters; this is because the Israeli reality affects them in a deeper and a more profound manner. And yet, still I am wrestling with the dominance of this reality, and try not to let it take over my books – it’s enough that it controls my life.”

Shalev included a winking emoticon after this last comment, indicating that the remark should be taken with a grain of salt, or at least not as seriously as it reads. She has an engaging manner and a sense of humor, which comes through in her writing (amid the serious, emotional and provocative material) and especially in interviews (there are several available on YouTube). In addition to her talent as a writer – her novels are critically acclaimed and have garnered various awards – Shalev is a thoughtful, friendly and relaxed interviewee. She is a great choice to launch this year’s Cherie Smith JCCGV Jewish Book Festival on Nov. 22.

The Remains of Love (Bloomsbury, 2013) centres around a dying woman, Hemda Horovitz, and her two adult children, who each have families, foibles and problems of their own. Her favorite, Avner, is a human rights lawyer; he is questioning everything about his life, whether he has made a dent in the inequality and injustice in the world, as well as his relationship with his wife and sons. Hemda’s daughter, Dina, has devoted herself to her own daughter, Nitzan – giving her the love she never received from Hemda – but, like most teenagers, Nitzan is pulling away, so Dina looks to adopting a child to fill the void, even though her husband and daughter are against it.

The focus on three protagonists required a change in style for Shalev.

“In my previous novels, I concentrated on one protagonist, and followed her stream of consciousness in the first person, which creates immediate intimacy,” she explained. “The first person traps the readers in the inner world of the character, and even when he or she depicts other characters, they often seem like a projection of his or her own qualities. In this book, I wandered between three minds, three streams of consciousness, and the third person enables me much space and flexibility. At first, I was afraid that the third person might hurt the intimacy of the voice, but in retrospect it seems (or at least I hope) it didn’t. The first person is completely monogamous, and the third person gives you more freedom, which I and my protagonists needed for this book.”

The literal translation of the novel’s title is “the shards of life.” In the French version – and perhaps in other languages, too – chayyim is translated as “life.” However, Philip Simpson, who does a skilled job of translating the book’s content, style and emotion, chooses the word “love.”

“The French title of the book is more loyal to the original title in Hebrew (The Remains of Life) than the English one,” acknowledged Shalev. “Yet my English publisher (in the U.K. and U.S.A.) turned to me and explained that this name does not possess enough beauty and lyric in English; I therefore agreed to change it. We tried together to find a new title that would fit the themes in the book, and also be of poetic value, and this is how we got to this name. It is indeed interesting to realize how easily one can substitute the word ‘life’ for the word ‘love.’ All three protagonists of this book are indeed longing for love, all are experiencing it as a drug-of-life, each in their own unique way. Life without love seems to them tasteless, and they are all willing to go a long way to find it; not only in the footsteps of romantic love, but the love for a child, a brother, for life itself.”

Shalev’s Vancouver visit is part of a tour that begins in Houston and which also stops in Detroit, New York and Chicago.

“Unlike the dozens of tours I have done in Europe, I haven’t had many professional visits in the U.S. and Canada,” she said. “I am very much looking forward, especially to seeing Vancouver, which I heard is amazingly beautiful. As someone who has lived her entire life in a warm and desert land, I admire the cold weather, the mountains and lakes.”

Hopefully, she also likes rain.

***

The Sol & Shirley Kort Author Series will feature Zeruya Shalev in conversation with the Globe’s Marsha Lederman on Nov. 22, 7:30 p.m., in the Rothstein Theatre. Tickets ($20) are available from ticketpeak.com/jccgv or the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver, in person or by calling 604-257-5111. For the full Cherie Smith JCCGV Jewish Book Festival lineup, visit jewishbookfestival.ca.

Preparing for her next role

In Late Company, Kerry Sandomirsky and Michael Kopsa are a couple who has lost a son to bullying. (photo by David Cooper)

“One year after a tragedy, two couples sit down to dinner. Far from finding the closure they seek, the dinner strips bare their good intentions to reveal layers of parental, sexual and political hypocrisy.”

So begins the promotional material for the award-winning play Late Company, being presented by Touchstone Theatre later this month. It continues, “Loosely based on the true story of the son of a Tory politician who killed himself after being extensively bullied, Late Company imagines what a restorative justice dinner held a year later might have looked like between the parents of a dead gay son, his chief tormentor and that boy’s parents.”

Kerry Sandomirsky takes on the role of the grieving mother. She spoke with the Jewish Independent about the part – and other topics – via email.

JI: The subject matter – and small cast – of Late Company combine to make what seems like a very heavy, intense role. How do you prepare for such roles in general and this one in particular, especially as a mother yourself?

KS: I put my attention on the things that are important to the character, and the world starts to inform you via synchronicity. I was riding on a bus to Kerrisdale and I saw an ad above me for the Josh Platzer Society. It’s for teen suicide prevention and awareness. I contacted them and I’m now communicating with a mother who lost her son. I am also using their recommended reading list for research.

At the same time, my character is a sculptor so I’m reading a biography of Barbara Hepworth.

Earlier this year, I did a similar maternal role in Clybourne Park for the Citadel Theatre in Edmonton. When it comes to intense parts, your nervous system doesn’t know that the grief on stage isn’t real, so there’s a cost. Your adrenal system gets depleted. Being a mom, you have to guard against the play contaminating your life.

I got through Clybourne Park by exercising every day and not drinking any wine. Maybe for this one I’ll have to do the opposite.

JI: The last time the JI spoke with you was in 2011, before The Philanderer. At that time, you were returning to the stage after a two-plus-year hiatus to recover from a head injury. In what ways did that period of being away from theatre change your work/life?

KS: I became a teacher at Studio 58, I accepted an offer to direct, and I decided to take more holidays! I also gave myself permission to be a writer. I turned down playing Cleopatra for Bard on the Beach and instead attended SFU Writers Studio to work with Ivan E. Coyote. After that, I was chosen to go to the Banff Playwrights Colony to work on my one-woman play called Wobble.

JI: Your directorial debut (… didn’t see that coming) was a Pick of the Fringe this year. What were some of the highlights and challenges of directing? Can you see yourself doing more directing?

KS: It was a delight to direct one of my favorite people on the planet, Beverley Elliott, and we had Bill Costin doing our music. So, it was a privilege being in the same room with that much talent for almost a month. I’d definitely do it again. I loved not having to learn all those lines.

JI: When I met you at a recent Museum of Vancouver event, you mentioned having just filmed with Denys Arcand. Is there anything about that you can share?

KS: When you work with someone that gifted, there’s no fear on the set. There’s no ego. There’s just creative collaboration. Denys Arcand and the director Adad Hannah both welcomed input from their actors. Denys is quick to laugh. He was a joy to be around.

JI: What are some of the projects on which you’re currently working?

KS: I want to finish writing Wobble. And, of course, doing another new Canadian play is always fulfilling. I dream of collaborating with Crystal Pite. I’m not a dancer, but I did a workshop with her anyway. I was a troll among the whippets. And I’m hoping to work with Jovanni Sy, the new artistic director of Gateway Theatre. I met him at the Playwrights Colony. He’s a great addition to our Vancouver theatre community.

JI: In what part of the process from idea to stage is Wobble?

KS: Katrina Dunn, the director of Late Company, came to Banff and helped me workshop it. We’ve got a solid first draft. I value her intelligence, her feminism and her compassion. As the artistic director of Touchstone Theatre, she champions new Canadian work. The playwright for Late Company, Jordan Tannahill, just got nominated for a Governor General’s Award, but Katrina chose do a play by him long before that. Her instincts are superb. This will be our fifth production together. It’s a treat to be directed by her.

***

Late Company is at the Cultch, Vancity Culture Lab, 1895 Venables St., from Nov. 21-30, 8 p.m. (Tuesdays to Sundays), plus Nov. 22, 29 and 30, 2 p.m. There is a two-for-one preview Nov. 20, 8 p.m. Tickets ($27/$22) are available from the Cultch, 604-251-1363 or tickets.thecultch.com.

Bigger, better Broken Sex Doll

Co-creator Andy Thompson directs the sci-fi musical that is being remounted at the Cultch’s York Theatre Nov. 12-22. (photo from the Virutal Stage)

Broken Sex Doll is back. A hit at the Cultch in 2013, it ventured out to Halifax for the 2014 Magnetic North Festival, and returns to Vancouver Nov. 12-22, where it will play at the Cultch’s York Theatre as part of a national tour. The production will then head to the Yukon for four shows, returning to the Lower Mainland for a run at Coquitlam’s Evergreen Cultural Centre (Dec. 16-20).

Produced by the Virtual Stage, the sci-fi musical is the creation of Jewish community members Andy Thompson (director, book, lyrics) and Anton Lipovetsky (composer). The new production is being billed as “bigger and better.”

“We have a new set. A new lighting design. New costumes. Re-tooled songs. Some new performers. And the script has been tinkered with a little bit,” the award-winning director and writer Thompson told the Independent. “Refining a show is not something you always get to do, so the process feels somewhat luxurious. Rolling up our sleeves together and chiseling out details on a show like this is a lot of fun. Just today we were refining choreography and songs to a level of detail rarely explored in the rehearsal process. Often in the past I have found myself relieved just to get a show on its feet, but where we are currently at with Broken Sex Doll is altogether different. And installing it at the gorgeous York Theatre has been such an honor and delight.”

About the challenges and benefits of remounting a production, Thompson said, “This has been a wonderful opportunity to take another look at the show and make refinements, with the experience and knowledge gleaned from previous incarnations of what worked and what could be improved upon. The challenges vary from the artistic to the technical. My aim with this production is to raise the bar as high as I possibly can and produce as close to a Broadway-calibre musical as possible. Making the show tourable has also been a significant challenge.”

Broken Sex Doll comes with a content warning, and the evening performances are for audiences 19 and older. But is it as risqué as the title makes it sound?

“I think that depends on your perspective,” said Thompson. “It could be ‘too much’ for some and ‘not enough’ for others. For example, I chose not to include any nudity in excess of a male bum or two. Female nudity was off the table. I knew anything more than what we’re doing could cause discomfort within some audience members, ‘taking them out’ of the experience of the story. It’s a fine line that I’m walking. In the world of the show, social morality as we know it has more or less collapsed. And, while that’s been freeing to me a playwright to explore, I know that there are certain lines that, when crossed, are counterproductive. Pushing the boundaries in the rehearsal process was a hoot, to say the least. There’s a lot of simulated sex in the show. And, if done ‘tastefully’ on stage, sex can be entertaining. And even hilarious.”

The 2013 incarnation of Broken Sex Doll garnered seven Jessie Richardson Theatre Award nominations, including outstanding production and outstanding direction for Thompson, who is also an award-winning actor, filmmaker and teacher.

Born and raised in Chillwack, the Studio 58 graduate is founder of the Virtual Stage. Another of his sci-fi (and Jessie-nominated) creations is The Zombie Syndrome, “in which audience members with smartphones are endowed as elite agents on a mission to save the world from a deadly zombie plague.” The Virtual Stage-produced annual event, which began in 2012, generated a 2013 sequel called The Zombie Syndrome: On Death Island.

Broken Sex Doll opens at York Theatre, 639 Commercial Dr., on Nov. 12, 8 p.m. It runs Nov. 13-16, 18-22, 8 p.m.; and Nov. 15, 16, 22, 2 p.m. All 8 p.m. performances are 19+ only. There are Q&A sessions after the Nov. 13, 16 (2 p.m.) and 18 shows. Tickets (starting at $19) are available from 604-251-1363 or tickets.thecultch.com.

Teaching self-defence

Jonathan Fader, left, and his business partner Borhan Jiang show a class at Urban Tactics Krav Maga how to disarm an attacker who has a knife. (photo by Albert Law)

When Jonathan Fader copied the Jewish Independent on an open letter that he posted online in mid-August, Operation Protective Edge was winding down. Noting the sometimes violent antisemitism that it had evoked in places around the world – including in some protests that took place in Canada – he stressed the need for members of the Jewish community to know self-defence. Since then, there have been two terrorist attacks on Canadian soil.

In the letter, he wrote, “I am asking you to please take it seriously and find your local krav maga gym and start learning to protect yourself. If there is none near by, at the very least find the most comparable style, just learn something!”

Intrigued, the Jewish Independent visited the Richmond location of Urban Tactics Krav Maga, Inc., in September. Fader and his business partner, Borhan Jiang, who has been featured in the Independent on more than one occasion, also have a Burnaby site.

Raised in a somewhat observant household, Fader, 27, said he nonetheless “didn’t really identify with being a Jew.” He describes himself as secular, and doesn’t “believe in religion but, of course, if the world is going to call me a Jew … I might as well accept it, and I’m a proud to represent the culture, but I’ll do it realistically…. I support Israel and what it does because, realistically, that’s just the way it is, but I have criticisms like anyone else.”

From 2009-2011, Fader lived in Israel. He went there for the purpose of joining the Israel Defence Forces, and he served in the 424th infantry battalion in the Givati regiment.

“When I came back, I literally did nothing,” he said. He had some savings and, “I was just living with my parents, living off of [my savings] for like five months. I did nothing.”

He spoke about some of the difficulties soldiers have in returning to civilian life. In his opinion, the “reason that they’re so slow to deal with PTSD and depression in Israel is because it’s less apparent, as everyone does the army and, when you go home, people understand, and you have people to talk to. So, the rates are much lower, but there … [are] still suicides and still depression…. But, when you come back here,” he said, referring to Canada, “you don’t have the support of your family or your friends because nobody understands what it’s like,” even if PTSD is more recognized.

He acknowledged that, as a result of the work of veterans here, “more PTSD and depression is being dealt with now and in the North American armies at least.” Once an “invisible group of people,” he said soldiers have become more vocal. If you look at the Canadian army, they now are starting to put psychiatrists actively in duty, he said.

For these and other reasons, Fader is studying psychology at Kwantlen Polytechnic University College. “I find that psychology really helps me understand everything, from marketing to trends to people, just everything,” he said, attributing the effectiveness of krav maga as a system of self-defence to the fact that “it’s working off of real psychology, action-reaction rate, fight or flight.”

He noted about Urban Tactics’ clients, “Interesting thing about that is, when we first started, we figured it was going be all young guys … but that wasn’t the case.… For the first year, it was predominantly males age 30 to 50 with families who wanted to protect the family.”

In general, Canadians don’t understand “what self-defence is and when aggression is appropriate, when violence is appropriate,” said Fader. Noting that women tend to be more vulnerable, he said, to defend yourself successfully, “you need to be able to hit hard and fast, and really be willing to damage the person who is attacking.”

photo - Krav maga instructor Jonathan Fader prepares to get out of a choke hold — Krav maga instructor Jonathan Fader prepares to get out of a choke hold. (photo by Victor Totten Photography)

People here have the idea that you should never hit back and that you can talk yourself out of every situation, he said. And, he agrees, to a point: the first step for self-defence is to avoid the conflict completely, to not put yourself in a position where you might end up being in danger. However, if you do end up in trouble, you need to be able to assess whether talk will be enough because, “if you think you’re in danger, you need to attack first … because [with] action versus reaction, reaction is always slower…. [In] proper self-defence, it is absolutely OK to strike first.”

He gave the example of a person walking through an alley at night and being attacked. First, he noted, the choice to walk down the alley was probably not a good one, “and you have to take some of the blame now because that’s a grand scheme self-defence: Why are you there? If you go there thinking nothing is going to happen, that’s ridiculous.” But, now that you’re in trouble, he said, if you have the chance to run, “it’s OK to run, it’s OK to avoid the situation.” If you can’t run, then you have to act first if possible, “because if you wait, you could be knocked out … [so] kick him in the groin, go for his eyes … push, run.”

A good instructor, said Fader, will drill it into your head to avoid a situation, then teach you some basic techniques. But still, all the technique in the world won’t help you if “you’re not willing to hit that guy in the groin, go for his eyes, go for his throat,” he said.

Krav maga isn’t a fitness class. “I’m not teaching cardio kickboxing,” said Fader, “but the thing is that you need to be in some physical capability in order to legitimately defend yourself against a violent attack…. You have to be able to move correctly. Some people who are … limited in what they can do but they mentally are willing to hit hard, hit fast, will be OK, reasonably, if they’re up against a trained attacker…. We don’t teach fitness but you will get in shape … but I don’t care if you lose five pounds – I want you to know that you can defend yourself.”

The fact that both he and Jiang have trained in Israel sets Urban Tactics apart from other places that offer krav maga, said Fader. “The fact that we understand both cultures – North American and Israeli – is what truly makes us different.” While most martial arts will teach you techniques that will help you stay upright during a conflict, if you do fall to the ground, and if your opponent has a weapon or an accomplice, “going to the ground is the worst possible thing you can do, even if you’re a Brazilian jiu jitsu black belt.… We teach ground stuff, but it’s about everything you can do to get up.”

In the end, said Fader, the techniques he teaches focus on reality, how people react in a physically threatening situation. “How do you need to deal with it, what’s the strategy? It’s a constant assessment. We don’t just do a move and stop [in our instruction]. We always make sure, Are your hands still up? Are you paying attention? Are you looking around arbitrarily or are you actually actively scanning?” Proper training, he said, will teach you how to continually assess your situation, as every second counts.

Fader acknowledged that he may lose in a boxing match or a karate bout that only allows certain types of hits, but “in a street fight, I’m going to beat this guy because I’m playing by no rules. I do whatever I have to do.”

For more information about self-defence courses and Urban Tactics, visit urbantacticscanada.com.

L-E-V: Part of the changing world

Israel’s L-E-V is at the Playhouse Nov. 14-15. (photo by Gadi Dagon)

It feels like it’s all been leading up to this. In 2009, Israel’s Batsheva Dance Company performed at DanceHouse. In 2013, Norway’s Carte Blanche brought Corps de Walk, a work commissioned from former Batsheva dancer and choreographer Sharon Eyal and her partner Gai Behar, to DanceHouse. And, in two weeks, Eyal and Behar’s own troupe, L-E-V, will be at DanceHouse to perform House, a piece originally imagined for Batsheva.

The multiple-award-winning Eyal danced with Batsheva from 1990 until 2008, served as its associate artistic director from 2003-2004 and as house choreographer from 2005-2012. She began choreographing works for other companies in 2009, including Killer Pig (2009) and Corps de Walk (2011) for Carte Blanche. Eyal and Behar launched L-E-V in 2013, with musician, drummer and DJ Ori Lichtik an integral part of the creative team.

“I first saw the work of Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar in 2011 at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival [in Becket, Mass.], and it was unlike anything else I have seen before – and I have seen a lot of dance,” said Jim Smith, producer at DanceHouse, in an interview with the Independent.

“When L-E-V had its U.S. debut, the New York Times referred to House as ‘a Hieronymous Bosch painting of an extraterrestrial rave.’ Visually, you can see these two very contrasting images at play together.

“I think the work being created by Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar is very much of our time, as they appear to represent a cross-disciplinary confluence of movement, music, lighting, fashion, art and technology. And this very much appears to be part of the changing world around us.”

DanceHouse, which has “has taken on presenting larger scale dance works (i.e. larger number of performers and/or work requiring a significant level of technical support) that are recognized to be touring internationally,” presents “a mix of both Canadian and international companies and artists,” said Smith. “We are part of a larger national dance touring network that includes such organizations as Danse Danse in Montreal, the National Arts Centre in Ottawa and Harborfront in Toronto.”

Before its arrival in Vancouver on this fall tour, L-E-V will have performed House in Mexico (Guanajuato, Mérida and León), Calgary and Ottawa. After Vancouver, it heads to Los Angeles.

The blurb on the DanceHouse website reads: “With a sensibility seen here in 2013’s Corps de Walk, House’s fiercely talented dancers move with expressive precision as they explore what a house truly is: a home, a club, an asylum, a way station.”

House was first commissioned by the Batsheva Dance Company in 2011. It has developed since then.

“Changes always happen in the piece; it can only be an eye, movement or breathing, but there will always be more layers and renewals,” Eyal told the Independent. “The work is dynamic and alive, so is the music. You can always grow and add a new dimension, it is our fun. It’s not like in a museum – the ones who make it are people and each moment they feel something new.”

A combination of “a lot of talent” and “exhausting work alongside endless happiness,” L-E-V is seeing success. “The company is currently touring many places in the world and receives recognition and a lot of love,” said Eyal.

“In terms of the dancers, we began with eight dancers and reduced it to six. Now we have become more exact and effective. The dancers are wonderful and do not cease to amaze, develop and become more sophisticated. Each one of them is a different star in heaven.”

“The opportunity to present the work of Eyal with her own company of dancers is a way of giving a great range of exposure to her for Vancouver audiences,” said Smith. “She is of a generation and stage of development in her career as such dance artists as Barak Marshall, Wayne McGregor, Benjamin Millepied, Hofesh Shechter, and even Vancouver’s own Crystal Pite, all of whom are making big waves in the international world of dance, and all of whom have been presented on the DanceHouse stage in the past.

“In a relatively short time since leaving Batsheva, Eyal has enjoyed a meteoric rise both as a choreographer for hire and also with her new company of dancers, many of whom are ex-Batsheva dancers. In 2013, Eyal’s company made its North American debut [with House] at Jacob’s Pillow and this past summer was programmed at the prestigious Montpellier Danse festival in France.”

DanceHouse generally presents four productions a season at the Vancouver Playhouse and one in partnership with other presenters at the Fei and Milton Wong Experimental Theatre at Simon Fraser University, explained Smith.

“DanceHouse aims to reflect the range and diversity of the different stylistic approaches being seen in the development of dance as an art form. In many ways, we think about DanceHouse as providing a window on the international world of dance – with dance being a reflection on the world we live – like other art forms.”

House is at the Vancouver Playhouse Nov. 14 and 15, 8 p.m., with a pre-show talk at 7:15 p.m. For more information and tickets, as well as information on other DanceHouse offerings, visit dancehouse.ca.

Spielberg opens film festival

Roberta Grossman (director), left, and Nancy Spielberg (producer) on the Duxford set of Above and Beyond. (photo from playmountproductions.com)

On Nov. 6, the 26th annual Vancouver Jewish Film Festival begins with the Canadian première of Above and Beyond, about a mainly American group of pilots, veterans of the Second World War, who fought for Israel in 1948. As part of Machal (foreign volunteers), “this ragtag band of brothers not only turned the tide of the war, preventing the possible annihilation of Israel at the very moment of its birth, they also laid the groundwork for the Israeli Air Force.”

Directed by Roberta Grossman, the 96-minute documentary was produced by Nancy Spielberg, who will be in Vancouver for the screening. Spielberg took the time to speak with the Independent via email in anticipation of her visit.

JI: What was it about the Machalniks’ experiences, in particular those of the air force pilots, that you found so compelling that you not only wanted to make a documentary but are following up Above and Beyond with a feature film version?

NS: First of all, we focused on pilots because, frankly, pilots are a lot sexier than infantry! There’s a romantic, tough, swagger, daring, live-on-the-edge, sweep-you-off-your-feet personality that felt bigger than life. I was so curious why these WWII pilots survived their tour of duty for the good ol’ US of A and then turned around and risked their lives for another country, and I was surprised that most of them were not at all Zionistic.

What drives a person to risk everything to save another person in need? Would I do that? Would you? Do we still do that as Americans? Is it part of that generation? Is it part of the American psyche? I was intrigued by their motivation and then I was swept off my feet by their charm and their chutzpah! The “adventures” that took place along the way and during their time in Israel make for great storytelling.

JI: What will a feature film be able to communicate that the documentary could not, or did not?

NS: I do hope that a feature film (dramatization) will communicate the same messages that we hope the doc does – how far does one go to help a brother in need? With a dramatization, we have more freedom to embellish the pilots’ stories and capers that we may have had to reduce in the doc or discard altogether. There are so many details and wild antics that could not be included in the doc but we’d love to explore in the dramatization.

JI: Near the end of Above and Beyond, you ask Coleman Goldstein whether he thought Israel would survive in tough times. What prompted the question and what was your reaction to his response, that, yes, it would survive, as “Israel’s an article of faith”? What is your answer to the question, and is it different now than it would have been when you asked it, given the most recent Israel-Hamas conflict (and the antisemitism it exposed) and as the U.S.-led fight against IS continues?

NS: We asked every pilot we interviewed whether he thought Israel had a fighting chance, or whether he thought he might not make it out alive. George Lichter said, “I thought we would lose….” We were surprised at Coleman’s answer because he was a very pragmatic, matter-of-fact gentleman, and he responded from his heart, as many of the pilots we interviewed did. Maybe they’ve become “softies” in their golden years, but there was a lot of emotion in our interviews.

My personal answer is that I am a spiritual person, and I agree with Coleman and Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion who, in 1956, said, “In Israel, in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles.” I need to hold on to that thought and belief in spite of the latest Israel-Hamas war and the antisemitism that has, once again, reared its ugly head.

JI: How does Israel and Judaism or Jewish culture fit into your life, and what would you tell North American Jewish youth today who, if polling is any indication, aren’t as connected to the Jewish state or Jewish practice as previous generations?

NS: I grew up in Phoenix, Ariz., where our family was the only Jewish family in the neighborhood (who didn’t always take too kindly to us). We were three-times-a-year Jews – Pesach, Yom Kippur and Chanukah. Outside of that, we were gastronomical Jews with a love for Yiddish and Russian melodies.

When I was in fifth grade, I started to go to a Jewish day school, which prompted me to come home and tell my mom that we needed to start keeping kosher so that I could have school friends over for play dates. Slowly, we evolved into kosher and Sabbath observance. When I was 19, I decided to leave UCLA and spend time on a kibbutz in Israel with my sister. That was it! I fell head over heels. I found a home that I didn’t know I was even missing. From that time on, I’ve been involved in Israel, Judaism and Jewish culture. My children went to Jewish schools and Jewish camps. In fact, my 26-year-old, Jessy Katz, has been living in Israel for two years. When I say to her, “I miss you, come home!” She says, “I am home.”

One of my main motivations in making this film is to reach out to the North American Jewish youth who feel very disconnected in the hopes that this film will be a much-needed shot in the arm of Jewish pride. I’m hoping that they will find a connection and take a fresh look at Israel and how it plays an integral part in being a Jew.

Above and Beyond screens at Fifth Avenue Cinemas on Nov. 6, 7 p.m. For more information about the film, visit playmountproductions.com. For the full schedule and tickets for this year’s Vancouver Jewish Film Festival, which runs Nov. 6-13, visit vjff.org.

Maya Tenzer joins Ballet BC’s 29th

Maya Tenzer joins Ballet BC for its 2014/15 season. (photo by Michael Slobodian)

Earlier this year, Ballet BC welcomed five new company members, bringing the total to 14, and four new apprentices. Now part of this intimate group is Maya Tenzer, who has joined the company as an apprentice for its 29th season, which begins Nov. 6 with No. 29.

No. 29 features the world première of White Act by Fernando Hernando Magadan, the Ballet BC première of An Instant by Lesley Telford and the reprisal of A.U.R.A. by Jacopo Godani.

“With this program, we will have commissioned 29 new works over the past five years by dance makers from around the world,” said Emily Molnar, Ballet BC artistic director, in a press release. “No. 29 is an evening that will showcase a dynamic and versatile range of dance while offering an engaging experience for audiences. It will grab you, excite you and challenge your ideas of ballet.”

Tenzer, 20, should fit in well with Ballet BC, which prides itself on being “grounded in the rigor and artistry of classical ballet, with an emphasis on innovation and the immediacy of the 21st century.” She joins the company from Arts Umbrella, with whom she studied and worked – with countless choreographers – from age 10.

“I was led to Arts Umbrella through a friend who did the summer intensive there and loved it,” Tenzer told the Independent. “I had begun to dance one year before in Paris, France, where my family had been living for the year. I started out taking one class a week, but I knew the following year I wanted to be doing more. In the many years to come of my training at Arts Umbrella, the school became my home and provided me with invaluable training. At Arts Umbrella, I was given the tools to joy and success in dance and in the world.”

She also trained at the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance. In a four-week summer intensive, she said, “I danced six days a week with demanding classes and a high level of commitment always demanded. The training there was vital to me. I was exposed to Gaga (a movement language created by Ohad Naharin, the director of Batsheva Dance Company in Tel Aviv) and all the studios there have no mirrors, so I learned to love the freedom of not having the mirror as a distraction while dancing. I felt my individuality and ownership as a dancer take off while there.”

Locally, Tenzer apprenticed, in 2013, with choreographer Justine A. Chambers in the creation of Sphinx, “a solo created in collaboration with contemporary gamelan composer, Michael Tenzer,” according to Chambers’ website.

“For that project, being an apprentice meant acting as a body Justine could look at her movement on,” Tenzer told the JI. “It sometimes meant developing movement with her, and it was above all an amazing opportunity to work alongside Justine, who is an intelligent and generous artist.

“Also, Michael Tenzer is my father! Both my parents are music teachers – my dad at UBC and my mom at Suncrest Elementary School in Burnaby. The creative arts have always been an irreplaceable part of my daily life.”

As has Judaism, “in bringing together … family in a special way. I was never strongly religious but I love the bonds that the traditions of Judaism have made for me,” she said.

On the international front, Tenzer has toured with Arts Umbrella Dance Company, an experience she described as “a joy.”

“I thrive on the relentless schedule and the new experiences,” she said. “Last year, we spent one week in Holland and one week in Italy, taking workshops, rehearsing with NDT (Netherlands Dance Theatre), and preparing our own show. Being tired was a constant but, often, being at your end can be a catalyst for the best kinds of change and improvement.”

And that brings us back to Ballet BC. “Being an apprentice means I have the same schedule and opportunities to work with the incredible people that come to Ballet BC, but that often I will be an understudy for a piece instead of dancing in the first cast,” she explained. “This gives me a chance to learn from the artists of Ballet BC as they work to create the powerful art we see onstage.”

Tenzer spoke of dance as allowing her to connect body and mind. “To practise aligning the two daily, as my job, is a gift and an inspiration,” she said. “The environment at Ballet BC is supportive of being vulnerable and taking risks in order to enter new territory, and this is exciting and a privilege to be a part of.”

No. 29 is at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre Nov. 6-8, 8 p.m. Tickets range from $30 to $80 (including service charges) and can be purchased from Ticketmaster at 1-855-985-2787 or ticketmaster.ca.

Memoir more than family history

Alison Pick (photo by Emma-Lee Photography)

Award-winning author and poet Alison Pick comes to Vancouver later this month to participate in two panels at the Vancouver Writers Fest, one of which is already sold out.

As a teenager, Pick discovered that her father’s parents were Jewish. As she tells a rabbi in the first chapter of her memoir, Between Gods (Doubleday Canada), “My grandparents escaped Czechoslovakia in 1939. They bribed a Nazi for visas, came to Canada and renounced their Judaism. They spent their lives posing as Christians…. As a kid I was forbidden from discussing it. But now I’m going back and asking questions.”

In her 30s, struggling with depression, about to be married, and writing the novel that would become Far to Go, Between Gods is about Pick’s life during this period in which she lays claim to her Jewish identity. She spoke with the Jewish Independent via email.

JI: The title of the book is Between Gods. With what vision of God did you begin your spiritual/cultural journey, and how now do you grapple with or appreciate God/Source? Did your concepts/beliefs change when you had a child?

AP: Between Gods tells the story of my conversion from Christianity to Judaism. That said, the conversion was mostly cultural for me – an attempt to reclaim my family’s hidden Judaism. My personal concept of God, ironically, is probably most Buddhist in nature: the idea that there is a presence larger than us; that is it benign or even loving. It seems to me there is something akin to an energy field, and that we can choose to ignore it or to engage with it, and that, in engaging with it, we foster our relationship with it. I like the image of two hands. One is moving, grasping, reaching, touching – that hand is the ego, or the personality. The other hand remains still – it is the witness, both personal and theological.

These concepts didn’t change when I had a child, although I am very conscious of fostering a sense of the divine for and with her. The most important part of our week is Friday evening, when we have Shabbat dinner – seeing her take that for granted (in the best kind of way) is hugely gratifying.

JI: In the acknowledgements, you note that you’ve taken artistic liberty with some of the details, but still, it must have been difficult to write about family, friends. From where came the desire to write such a book at this point in your life?

AP: It didn’t really feel like a choice. Between Gods began as a set of notes I was taking at the same time as I was writing Far to Go. At first I thought the two projects were the same book – then it became clear that they were different. By the time I had finished writing Far to Go, I had converted to Judaism. I just knew that Between Gods was the next book I had to write. As a writer, you have to trust where the artistic energy lays, and so my practice is comprised at least partially of listening to what wants to be written as opposed to what my ego wants to write.

JI: Reading the memoir, your frustration with the conversion “policy” is completely understandable. With the distance of time, how do you feel about it?

AP: I had difficulty converting to Reform Judaism in Toronto because my fiancé was not Jewish. At the time, it was hard to not take this personally, to not feel rejected. It still, in retrospect, seems odd to me that I was already half Jewish and yet encountered many more obstacles than the other women in my class who were engaged to Jewish men. That said, I do see the very clear benefits that having an entirely Jewish nuclear family offers, not just individually, of course, but collectively. My experience made me more compassionate towards others, in that way that our personal suffering always shines a light on the suffering of the world, and has influenced my decisions around how to practise Judaism with my daughter – we are involved in communities that are inclusive and progressive while at the same time honoring tradition.

JI: Why did you choose, in a memoir mainly about your becoming Jewish, to also write so openly about your struggle with depression?

AP: It seemed to me that the two were intimately related. The more I learned about my family background the more I began to think that my depression was something inherited and that, in some ways, it was the result of the legacy of the Holocaust. I’m not saying that the relationship was directly causal, but that the two things fed off each other, culminating in an existential darkness.

JI: The absence of your mother and sister in the memoir is felt, even though they are mentioned, you share that they were supportive and you address why they don’t figure more prominently. The rabbi was concerned with creating an interfaith nuclear family, but extending this concern, how has your family’s being Jewish fit in/worked with your larger family (and even friends)?

AP: It was a conscious decision to not include very much of my mother, although you’re not the first person to say they would have liked more of her. She was generally extremely supportive, as was my sister. I have heard many other conversion stories in which at least one member of the potential convert’s family was upset, or at least in which the family dynamic was fraught. I experienced none of that. My mother, my sister, and my extended family and friends have really been behind me. Of course, I had many in-depth conversations along the way, but all of them had positive outcomes.

At the Writers Fest, which takes place Oct. 21-26 on Granville Island, Alison Pick participates in two panels about writing based on personal experience, one of which – Writing Back to the Self on Oct. 24 – still had tickets for sale at press time. In addition to Pick, Jewish community members participating in the festival include Cory Doctorow, Esther Freud, Herman Koch, Christopher Levenson, Daniel Leviton and Tom Rachman. For tickets: vancouvertix.com, 604-629-8849 or the box office at 1398 Cartwright St.

My Rabbi – about us, not others

Joel Bernbaum and Kayvon Kelly are good friends who’ve drifted apart in My Rabbi. (photo by Derek Ford)

Religion, family, even something as innocuous as a book club or a sports team – any group to which we belong creates an “us” and a “them.” Conversely, for most of us, not belonging anywhere, with anyone, leads to feelings of isolation, desperation. Finding space for “the other,” being secure in oneself, these basic building blocks of healthy relationships, are at the core of My Rabbi.

When interviewed last month by the Jewish Independent (jewishindependent.ca/at-foundation-of-my-rabbi-is-friendship) co-creators Kayvon Kelly and Joel Bernbaum expressed the hope that their two-man play would raise more questions than it answers. It certainly does.

The opening scene shows both men praying, Arya (played by Kelly) on his knees to Allah, Jacob (Bernbaum) adorned in tallit and tefillin to Hashem. Arya and Jacob are not religious extremists, however. Both have turned to religion in part because of the relationship they had with their respective fathers, they are both seeking meaning, but both still live in Canada, by choice – in Toronto no less, one of Canada’s most multicultural cities – Jacob a Conservative rabbi, Arya still searching. They have drifted apart by the time the play begins and, when they happen to bump into each other again, the timing could not be worse – a synagogue in Toronto has just been bombed.

This awkward reintroduction leads to a reunion over coffee and flashbacks to earlier, happier days of their friendship. Frat-boy humor offers breathing room in this intense 60-minute play, as, in addition to the current-day tensions, we see Arya and Jacob interacting with their fathers (each played by the other actor) in some emotional, identity-defining scenes. We witness how/why Jacob becomes a rabbi with a strong sense of religious affiliation and Arya becomes more of a lost soul, his sense of identity not as clear.

There is little female presence in this play. We find out that, while Arya’s father was Muslim, his mother was Catholic, but other than sexist jokes at the pub about bar conquests, and catching up on the latest girlfriend status, women don’t play a large role in these men’s lives.

The easiest assumption to make between this play and the larger world is that it is a commentary on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or the larger “clash of civilizations” between extremist Islam and the rest of Islam and the West. However, these characters could belong to any group (religious or not) that leans to the insular.

And, it’s not really about this group versus that group, but about human beings in general, how a question asked at the wrong moment can end a years-long friendship, how selfish we can be in our own fear. It’s about how we relate to each other, our susceptibility to outside forces, our evaluation of our self-worth.

While based on Kelly and Bernbaum’s own cultural backgrounds, it almost would have been nice if they had chosen characters that didn’t already come with so much baggage. As the discussion after a Victoria show proved, we come to the play – as we come to anything else – with our own preconceptions, and even though the play is intended to elicit openness, some will find it hard to empathize with Jacob (i.e. Jews) or Arya (i.e. Muslims). There is such a strong human tendency, it seems, to lay blame.

The title of the play doesn’t help in this regard, as it sets viewers’ expectations higher for the rabbi. And, it’s misleading, as the play is not more about Jacob than Arya, Judaism over Islam. It’s about two friends, any two friends, and it would be a shame if the play were considered relevant only to the Middle East conflict or how Jews and Muslims as groups may interact. Kelly and Bernbaum are asking us to consider our own personal motivations, actions and reactions, and are asking us to put ourselves not only in Jacob and Arya’s places and consider what we would have done, but what we – not someone else – should have done.

My Rabbi is at Firehall Arts Centre from Oct. 7-18.