Arts & Culture

Six Jewish musical journeys

Amber Woods and Gary Cohen are the musical duo Kouskous. They were among the speakers in the six-part Journeys in Jewish Music series. (photo from Kouskous)

In ordinary times, the Victoria Jewish Community Choir meets in person at the synagogue building of Congregation Emanu-El. Unable to do so during the pandemic, the choir has instead been offering Zoom presentations on a diverse array of Jewish music.

Throughout the spring, the six-part Journeys in Jewish Music series, funded by the Jewish Federation of Victoria and Vancouver Island, has brought in an audience from around the world. It has featured talks on biblical cantillation by Vancouver’s Moshe Denburg; the songs of Sefarad, with Prof. Judith Cohen of the University of Toronto; Chassidic meditative melodies (niggunim) with Emanu-El’s Rabbi Matt Ponak; and Sing a New Song to G-d: New Prayer Compositions, with Rabbi Hanna Tiferet Siegel, who lives on Hornby Island. The last event in the series, which takes place June 20, will see Denburg return, to speak on the topic The Way of the Klezmer: Klezmer and Yiddish Song.

The Jewish Independent attended the May 23 musical voyage, which was guided by Gary Cohen and Amber Woods, who form the Victoria-based duo Kouskous. It explored Mizrahi music and how it differs from other Jewish musical styles. To demonstrate this, Cohen and Woods took the liturgical song “Lecha Dodi” and sang it with Ashkenazi, Sephardi and Mizrahi interpretations.

“In general, we see the Mizrahi world being divided into three major geographical blocks: North Africa, Turkey and the Middle Eastern (Arabic) countries,” said Cohen.

Following their expulsion from Spain in 1492, Sephardi Jews migrated to many countries in Europe, as well as going to North Africa, Greece, Turkey and Middle Eastern/Arabic countries. “Wherever Jews went, they blended their own musical traditions with those of the countries to which they moved. For example, the Sephardim combined their own musical style with Moroccan rhythms, Arabic instrumentation and Middle Eastern vocal expressions,” he explained.

“The Sephardim in Turkey and Greece often incorporate odd-metered rhythms such as 7/8, 9/8 in their music. In addition to traditional Arabic instruments, Greek instruments like the bouzouki were commonly used,” Cohen said.

Sephardi musicians who moved to Middle Eastern/Arabic countries were heavily influenced by Arabic musical styles, including “a wide melodic range, as well as vocal and instrumental embellishments,” he said. “Lyrics were often in Arabic, Hebrew or Judeo-Arabic.”

Throughout the presentation, Cohen and Woods performed some musical selections – including a few hot and spicy numbers – from the aforementioned genres for the assembled Zoom audience.

Carol Sokoloff, who co-directs the Victoria Jewish Community Choir with Kenny Seidman, is the person who came up with the idea for the lecture series.

“It has been so well-received it seems natural to repeat it and I hope to do that in the fall, going deeper into many of the subjects, as well as exploring new territory, such as Jewish composers of popular songs, Jewish women’s music, the music of the hidden Jews of Spain and Portugal, cantorial traditions and more,” Sokoloff told the Independent.

“Jewish music has so many flavours and is so rich and varied we have only begun to scratch the surface. Through our conversations, we are learning about other people with knowledge to share and, so far, everyone has been very generous in their enthusiasm for this series,” she said.

The shift from live venues to Zoom since the start of the pandemic has allowed the choir to expand its audience outside of Victoria.

“The series has been wonderful in that people who never knew about the Victoria Jewish Community Choir are now aware of us,” said Sokoloff, “and I believe that, when we finally can meet again to sing together, we shall likely attract many new members or new audiences for our performances and concerts. So, the series has allowed the choir to weather this challenging period and likely emerge stronger than ever! I think it has also generally increased interest in Jewish music in our region as well – all very happy outcomes.”

In non-pandemic times, the choir sings a variety of Jewish music: Psalms and prayers in Hebrew and Aramaic, niggunim, Yiddish songs, Sephardi music in Judeo-Spanish, Israeli songs, Broadway tunes, Yemenite music and contemporary compositions. For more information or to support the choir, send an email to [email protected] or visit their Facebook page, where you can also learn how to receive the link for the June 20, 7:30 p.m., talk.

Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.

Artwork flies, returns home

Suzy Birstein in her studio, with works featured in her solo exhibit Tsipora, now at the Zack Gallery. (photo from Suzy Birstein)

Suzy Birstein’s Hebrew name – Tsipora – means bird. The artist’s new show, Tsipora: A Place to Land, which opened at the Zack Gallery on May 20, expatiates on her name’s meaning and its connection to the winged creatures of the sky.

“I love feeling like an exotic bird,” Birstein told the Independent. “I like bringing colour and joy to the people who visit my shows.”

Birstein’s art is bursting with bright hues and glitter. Both her sculptures and her paintings seem to aspire to one purpose only: to instil gladness in people’s hearts, which feels especially important during COVID and all its associated hardships and anxieties.

“The show’s idea was born out of a personal tragedy,” said Birstein. “A few years ago, one of my close friends passed away. I grieved but I knew I didn’t really lose her. She stayed right there, always with me, like a bird on my shoulder, and I thought: what a wonderful concept. I decided to create a series of sculptures of women, with birds incorporated into the whole in different ways.”

Almost every sculpture in the show has a bird. Sometimes, it is a tiny golden bird peeking from behind a woman’s shoulder or hiding in her skirt. Sometimes, it is an elaborate hair ornament. And, sometimes, it is implied rather than shown. But the idea of a bird is always there.

“When I started this series in 2017, my thoughts were all about freedom and travels – flying like a bird,” Birstein said. “I’ve always liked to travel and visited many countries: Europe, Asia, Mexico. I like seeing something new every day.”

Accordingly, the first few sculptures of her new series were reminiscent of her travels, their dark texture a reference to the ancient sacred sites she had visited. Their diaphanous tutus a playful metaphor of dance and flight, a symbol of the weightless grace of a ballerina.

“In 2020, I was planning to travel to the south of France, with a show scheduled in Cannes, when the pandemic hit, and all travel stopped,” Birstein said. After that, the focus of her art changed, becoming more home-oriented.

“Instead of flight, my sculptures became about nesting,” she said. “I couldn’t teach anymore because of the pandemic, didn’t teach for a year due to the school closures, so I took the opportunity and the time to indulge in self-exploration. I asked myself: what is beautiful? And my answer was: birth. And rebirth. Each sculpture I made during that time was of a pregnant woman. Not flights anymore but home and harmony.”

Many sculptures also have mirror fragments embedded in them, making them festive, shining. “The mirror shards help me bridge the inner world of a woman, her home and soul, with the outer world of traveling and flying,” Birstein said.

The show includes not only sculptures but several paintings as well. “The sculptures always come first,” she explained. “They are inspirations for my paintings. After a sculpture is ready, I sometimes paint it: like another version of the sculpture, an exploration of a unique perspective. It is a different experience – working on a flat surface with no fear of breaking the fragile pottery. I don’t use a brush. I paint with a tiny palette and my fingers. It feels almost like working with liquid clay.”

Clay was the medium that catapulted her into the art world, and she feels a deep affinity for it.

“When I was a child,” she recalled, “I couldn’t draw realistically. I thought I couldn’t be an artist. I danced and I modeled for artists. I was about 22 when I started working as an artist model full-time for an art school in Toronto. The administration of the school offered me any art classes I wanted for free, and I decided to try pottery. Clay spoke to me. I also took up weaving and fibre art and liked it. Later, when we moved to Vancouver because of my husband’s work, I wanted to take more art classes. There was no fibre art school at the time, but I enrolled in Emily Carr as a sculptor. They accepted me on the basis of my portfolio – the pieces I created in Toronto.”

Birstein uses white clay for her pieces and paints them before she fires them. “Sometimes, this process has several iterations,” she mused. “I paint the sculpture. Then I fire it, but firing is unpredictable. Colours might burn out or melt into each other in unexpected ways. Then I paint the piece again, maybe add some elements. Fire again. Some pieces take five or six times in the kiln before I know they are ready, but I don’t do perfect. I make mistakes sometimes and then play with my mistakes. I love quirkiness and imperfections.”

It helps that she owns her own kiln. “My kiln is in my basement,” she said. “It was a wedding present from my parents. They knew pottery made me happy.”

It is significant that the most important tool of her art was a gift to celebrate her family.

“I feel free like a bird in my art, but only because I have such strong support from my husband,” said Birstein. “I have stability in my life, a safe place to return, a secure home, and that allows me my freedom of artistic flight.”

That’s why the only image in the show with a man in it is her husband’s portrait.

“I was looking at all those sculptures and paintings of pregnant women in this series and thought: who made them pregnant? There must have been a man,” she said.

“It depicts my husband and my art,” said Birstein of the portrait painting, which features a man standing beside a sculpture of a pregnant woman.

The show Tsipora runs until June 27. In addition to being able to book a walk-through of the exhibit with the gallery, people can arrange a personalized tour with the artist via her website, suzybirstein.com, or by calling her at 778-877-7943.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].

Superstein plays at jazz fest

Andrea Superstein performs July 4 from Pyatt Hall during this year’s TD Vancouver International Jazz Festival, which starts June 25. (photo from Wendy D Photography)

Vancouver vocalist, composer and arranger Andrea Superstein has a new song out. It’s cheerful, upbeat. And she will perform “Every Little Step,” which was released in March, live for the first time at this year’s TD Vancouver International Jazz Festival, which starts June 25 and runs to July 4.

“‘Every Little Step’ was my saving grace during the pandemic,” Superstein told the Independent. “I wrote it at a time when I was feeling really overwhelmed by the uncertainty that living through a pandemic brings. I was emotionally exhausted from listening to the daily press conferences and I just needed something good. I received a Digital Originals grant from the Canada Council for the Arts and that was the impetus.

“The song was inspired by the beautiful landscapes of B.C., which I experienced on a family camping trip to Nelson,” she explained. “We live in such a beautiful place and being able to spend so much time in nature really saved me during the pandemic. In a way, it’s my homage to B.C.”

Of course, Superstein couldn’t meet in-person with musicians to workshop the composition, so, she said, “I had this crazy idea to reach out to musicians across Canada (some of whom I’d worked with before and others who to this day I still haven’t met in person) to write, arrange, record and make a music video completely in isolation. It was wild! We didn’t have one rehearsal – we didn’t even have a group Zoom meeting. Elizabeth Shepherd and I wrote and arranged the song together over Zoom and we communicated some ideas to each specific player and they self-recorded (audio and video) from their home studios. And we made a super-fun music video for it, as well.

“The more I think about it, I can’t even believe what we accomplished. I love the song so much! The vibe is a super feel good ’90s groove but, symbolically, it was so meaningful because, despite all being trapped at home, we found a way to be together in this weird virtual way. It was transformative for me.”

On the video, Superstein and Shepherd’s song is performed by them, with Superstein on vocals, Shepherd on keys, Carlie Howell on bass, Isaac Neto on guitar, Colin Kingsmore on drums and Liam MacDonald on percussion. For the jazz festival performance, Superstein will be joined by Chris Gestrin (keys), Nino DiPasquale (drums) and Jodi Proznick (bass).

“I’m so happy to be playing with them,” said Superstein. “They each offer such a unique perspective to the music and they’re all wonderful humans!”

The show is on July 4, 7 p.m., at Pyatt Hall and will be streamed on Coastal Jazz & Blues Society’s YouTube channel, she said. “Regarding a possible audience,” she added, “the festival is closely monitoring all provincial health orders and will make a decision on indoor audiences after the next provincial health update on June 15.”

Superstein is looking forward to being able to perform live again.

“I miss that special relationship that is forged during live performance,” she said. “There is something truly magical about collectively experiencing a moment in time that can never be recreated. That being said, I am blown away by the digital innovation that has emerged during the last year-and-a-half to keep the arts alive, and I attended some amazing concerts and theatre this year.

“As for me, it’s been relatively quiet on the performance front. I did a livestream concert through Or Shalom’s Light in Winter series in early 2021, which was so incredible. Other than a few other small things, I’ve been keeping it pretty low key, slowly working away at composing new music and taking my time with life.”

Playing at the jazz festival, she said, “I think it will be an incredible way to give momentum to many of the creative ideas I’ve been sitting with these past two years and a great chance for music lovers to reconnect, seeing as it’s been some time since my last performance.”

The last time that the Independent interviewed Superstein was in January 2020, just before the pandemic hit in full force. Among other things, she spoke about her then-new album, Worlds Apart, which she had described to CBC as having the themes of “the pain of being in a one-sided relationship, the loneliness of technology, and positivity in times of destruction.”

“As an artist, I like to observe life and then transform those observations into stories. I think this was helpful for me at the beginning of the pandemic because my curiosity was heightened, there was so much unknown,” she explained. “I found that to be both scary and exhilarating. I was also trying to figure out how to homeschool a 5-year-old while teaching full-time online without completely unraveling. So, creativity, flexibility and leaning in helped me survive most of 2020. Those are definitely skills that I use a lot as an artist. Truthfully, though, I don’t think anything could have prepared us for the pandemic.”

In addition to the new song “Every Little Step,” Superstein has started working on a new album, which she is hoping to release in late 2022.

“It’s a huge undertaking,” she shared, “with lots of moving parts, culminating in a multimedia performance. It will showcase collaborations with Elizabeth Shepherd, whom I treasure, and my dear friend Ayelet Rose Gottlieb (who you have featured before), among others. There’s also upcoming opportunities for non-musicians to be involved in the process, so people can stay in touch with me over social media if they want to know when and where that’s happening.”

As for her upcoming performance, she said, “In terms of what people can expect from the show, we’ll be doing some brand-new arrangements and compositions, a few gems from Worlds Apart, as well as a few old favourites. Like a true Superstein show, I’m going to take the audience on a sonic journey, whether that’s direct from Pyatt Hall or from their living rooms, it’s going to be a celebration!

For tickets ($11) to Superstein’s July 4 concert or any of the jazz festival’s more than 100 virtual events, visit coastaljazz.ca. There will be performances by local artists, as well as streams from New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Amsterdam and Paris; free online workshops; club performances; and a continued partnership with North Shore Jazz. All streams will be available until midnight on July 6.

Dancing online and onstage

For this year’s Dancing on the Edge, Alexis Fletcher and Ted Littlemore perform together in a work created and directed by Vanessa Goodman. (photo by Sylvain Senez)

This year’s Dancing on the Edge contemporary dance festival features a lineup of online and onstage live performances, including Tuning, a new duet created and directed by Jewish community member Vanessa Goodman. And Tara Cheyenne Performance is among the artists who will be presenting films (details TBA).

During its July 8-17 run, the festival will present more than 30 shows, with artists from across Canada. On offer will be some specially curated digital programming with recorded performances, premières of dance films, dance discussions, outdoor live performances in the Firehall Arts Centre’s courtyard, for very limited audiences with safety precautions in place, and theatre performances with limited capacity, if permitted, in the centre.

photo - Ted Littlemore — Ted Littlemore *(photo by Wendy D Photography)*

Commissioned by dance artist Alexis Fletcher, Tuning will be performed by Fletcher, artist in residence at Ballet BC, and Ted Littlemore, aka Mila Dramatic in the drag community. The new work focuses on how people tune to one another. In Tuning, the performers create a live sonic and physical atmosphere using their voices to amplify the conversations of the body.

Festival producer Donna Spencer also announced seven DOTE-commissioned projects, which will première at this year’s festival. Companies/choreographers presenting commissioned works include Ouro Collective, Raven Spirit Dance, Billy Marchenski, Immigrant Lessons, Generous Mess, Rob Kitsos and Meredith Kalaman. “We were thrilled to have offered this incentive, knowing that these commissions have enabled artists to keep creating new work during this challenging time for all,” said Spencer.

Keep an eye on dancingontheedge.org for performance and ticket updates.

– Courtesy Dancing on the Edge

Pride trumps bigotry

Writer Ben M. Freeman (PR photo)

Antisemitism is not a Jewish problem, writes Ben M. Freeman in his new book Jewish Pride. “It is a non-Jewish problem that has an impact upon Jews.”

Freeman is a young Scottish Jew whose book projects some of the lessons of his coming out as a gay man onto the experiences of Jews dealing with the internalizing of others’ expectations and prejudices. He speaks of “passing,” of how a member of some minority groups can identify as a member of the majority.

“There are those who describe the ability of some LGBTQ+ people and some Jews to pass as a ‘privilege,’” he writes. “However, from my experience, this is a specific form of oppression itself.”

Freeman insists that the book is not about antisemitism, but rather its opposite: Jewish pride. But, perhaps by necessity, antisemitism plays a big role.

“Our journey is not about fighting antisemitism. That is the non-Jewish world’s journey,” he writes. “The Jewish journey is one of self-discovery, self-acceptance and self-love – in the name of collective pride.”

In the same way that antisemites have gone some distance to characterize who and what Jews are, anti-Zionists have stolen the word Zionism and redefined it to their perverse definitions, he suggests.

Above all, the fact that so many of the perpetrators of antisemitism are unfamiliar with its history is precisely the reason people can exhibit antisemitism while claiming – often haughtily – to be free of it.

“Due to a lack of education about both the conflict and Jewish history, most people are not armed with the knowledge to understand the connection between anti-Zionist rhetoric and historical antisemitism,” he argues. For example, the recurring libel that Israelis harvest organs from unsuspecting victims is a modern variation on the ancient blood libel – but people ignorant of that catastrophic history do not see their complicity as they perpetuate outlandish allegations. Likewise, the depiction of Israel as a unique embodiment of evil in the world mirrors the ancient projection on Jewish people of society’s fears and false narratives of evildoing.

He discusses how the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s Working Definition of Antisemitism has led to a whole new wave of arguments around what is and is not anti-Jewish bigotry.

The British sociologist David Hirsh created the “Livingstone Formulation,” named after the former mayor of London, Ken Livingstone. It encapsulates the pretzel logic in which expressions of concern about antisemitism are met with a refusal to engage and a counter-accusation that the charge of antisemitism is made up as a conspiracy to silence legitimate criticism of Israel, as a “weaponization of antisemitism for political ends.”

This was in clear view during the spate of overt antisemitism that engulfed the Labour Party in the U.K. under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn. Concerns about rampant Jew-baiting and unconcealed antisemitism were, Freeman writes, routinely dismissed as a “smear campaign against Jeremy.” It was, in short, bullies crying that they are being bullied.

Freeman points out the core problem for Jews in the evolving interpretations of hierarchical discrimination.

“There is a view of racism that suggests it is prejudice plus power, which implies that only those in positions of power over others can be racist,” he writes. “This definition leads to the notion that most forms of racism and prejudice are ‘punching down’ and that only marginalized groups with less or no power are being oppressed. While this experience is true for certain communities, this specific definition of racism, combined with exaggerated antisemitic perceptions of Jewish power and privilege, can be particularly dangerous for Jews. It thus lends to the erasure of the Jewish experience and of antisemitism as a legitimate form of prejudice. It can also allow those on the left – and some marginalized groups – to actively target us as representatives of elite power structures.”

Freeman’s core message is that Jews, like LGBTQ+ people, need to overcome the negative programming with which they are bombarded by the larger world.

“Jewish people have been in a dysfunctional relationship with the non-Jewish world for over 2,000 years,” he writes. “To be accepted, we have tried, over and over again, to change who we are.… In our thousands of years of history, has this sacrifice ever worked? No…. This cycle has to stop. The way to stop this abusive, destructive and exhausting cycle is to turn to ourselves for that acceptance and love.”

One might have hoped that a book on this subject would glance at the remarkable reversal of homophobia in most parts of the Western world in recent years, how that progress was achieved and how the lessons from that experience might be repurposed to fight antisemitism. But that, perhaps, is a future tome for Freeman or someone else to undertake.

Crackin’ Out online exhibit

A still from the documentary Crackin’ Out: The Ronnie Tessler Rodeo Collection, showing photographer Ronnie Tessler. The documentary was directed by Sarah Genge and produced by the Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia.

The Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia is currently hosting Crackin’ Out, an online exhibit of photographs of rural Western Canadian rodeo from 1976 to 1980 by Ronnie Tessler, along with a short documentary by director Sarah Genge. In rodeo, the term “crackin’ out” means “the beginning of the new season, breaking out of the chute, or even breaking out new chaps.”

“These explosive words epitomize for me the spirit of rodeo and the cowboy way of life,” Tessler explained.

The idea to shoot the images began as a “fun photo expedition” to Williams Lake Rodeo in 1976 by four friends who were members of a photography group, the Vancouver Image Exhibition Workshop, which is known for bringing in acclaimed guest artists.

The group worked together for a year and, with the permission of the Canadian Cowboys Association, produced an exhibit at the Finals Rodeo in Edmonton in 1977. Tessler worked independently for the next two years, documenting life at rodeos throughout the west, from British Columbia to Manitoba and into the northwest corner of the United States. Aspiring for objectivity, she realized it was not attainable.

“I wanted to know more about the cowboys, what went on behind the chutes and on the road and what motivated them to take on the challenges they did unsupported by a team or steady income,” Tessler said.

The exhibit takes the viewer not only to the action, the cowboys riding – and falling – but also to the personal and the life surrounding the event: the preparations, the traditions, the camaraderie and the love. The photos evoke an emblematic sense of a particular era in Western Canadian life.

Grouped into three chapters – “Before the Rodeo,” “The Rodeo” and “After the Rodeo” – each photograph is accompanied by stories, observations and explanations from Tessler that encapsulate the feeling that existed the moment each image was taken.

photo - A novice rider at the John Quintana Bull-riding School in Oregon, 1978. Photo taken by Ronnie Tessler. Part of the Crackin’ Out online exhibit — A novice rider at the John Quintana Bull-riding School in Oregon, 1978. Photo taken by Ronnie Tessler. Part of the Crackin’ Out online exhibit.

These images are what photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, who is referred to in the exhibit, called “the decisive moment.” Or, as scholar John Suler, also quoted in the exhibit, described as “the moment when the visual and psychological elements of people in a real-life scene spontaneously and briefly come together in perfect resonance to express the essence of that situation.”

Rodeo was the first large, thematic body of work that Tessler did. Every project she undertook, she said, began when she “noticed themes coming out on my contact sheets and felt there was something I wanted to pursue. Each took about three years.”

Tessler’s Crackin’ Out was followed by her next major work, Israeli Suite, which was photographed over several visits to Israel. There was no similarity between these bodies of work and her last large project was different still – Jewish life in the West Kootenays.

As for the Jewish connections to the rodeo exhibit, Tessler observed, “I didn’t meet another Jew the entire time and did not encounter or make use of any specific Jewish values while doing the work. Many cowboys knew I was Jewish, and one asked what I was doing photographing a bull-riding school instead of watching Shoah on TV every night. I did enjoy the uniqueness of being an urban, Jewish woman with a family ‘goin’ down the road,’ putting myself on the line to record another way of life.”

Genge’s documentary Crackin’ Out: The Ronnie Tessler Rodeo Collection is part of the exhibit. It expands on the legacy of Tessler’s photography by exploring a multitude of perspectives on rodeo from such people as a stock contractor, a curator, a child of rodeo, a cowboy, an artist and a professor, as well as the archives intern who processed the collection.

“One photograph does not illustrate one idea. By speaking with eight different people, my aim was to bring their collection of voices together to elucidate an ever-shifting narrative of an image,” Genge said. “This film offers a brief glance at some of the distinct and disparate angles that create a multifaceted and, at times, conflicted understanding of Western Canadian rodeo.

“I endeavoured with this film to present aspects of rodeo frequently left untold, specifically its importance to Indigenous people, women and LGBTQ+ communities. It should be noted that, much like Tessler’s inherent presence in capturing these photographs, my subjectivity in curating them is unavoidable,” she added. “I am an unreliable witness who, six months ago, had never set foot at a rodeo, so my bias as an outsider is present throughout.”

The exhibit, which can be found at jewishmuseum.ca/exhibit/crackin-out, also features an hour-long video of its April 21 launch, which includes discussions with Tessler and Genge.

Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.

Dementia in film, the sequel

Lance Henriksen, left, and Viggo Mortensen in Falling. (photo from indiewire.com)

In February 2016, the Jewish Independent published my column “Dementia, cinema’s darling,” in which I reviewed seven films about people struggling with dementia. Well, here we go again! This pandemic year has seen the release of four extraordinary films that feature people struggling with the symptoms of dementia, those with the illness and those who are close to them.

These films opened my eyes not only to the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease, but also how the affected persons perceive what is happening around them and how that altered reality affects loved ones and family members. After having watched these four unique films, I feel like I have taken a course in how dementia evolves, and how it feels to suffer through the gradual deterioration of the self. I have been shocked, educated and enriched by these moving works of art.

Falling (2021): Viggo Mortensen writes, directs and stars in this lacerating drama about a son dealing with his father’s mental decline. Lance Henriksen plays the father Willis, a foul-tempered, bigoted man, filled with intolerance and invective. His meanness is hard to watch. The flashbacks inform us of the subdued menace of Willis, they scrape your senses like sandpaper. John, the son (Mortensen), must call on all his reserves of patience, understanding and love to withstand the onslaught. (I watched it on TIFF Bell Lightbox, but do a Google search to see where it is streaming now.)

The Father (2021): French writer and first-time director Florian Zeller presents a frightening new angle with this movie, which aims to mirror the confusion and discomfort of encroaching dementia. Anthony Hopkins, 83 years old, takes us from the realm of sympathy to empathy. It is disturbing and brilliant. Hopkins, as the father, nails the way in which people learn to cover for their mental mistakes. The supporting cast is excellent, and Hopkins won the best-actor Oscar for his depiction of a mind in decline. (It is on TIFF, but do a Google search.)

Supernova (2020): Stanley Tucci and Colin Firth dazzle as a couple facing their fears. Tusker and Sam have been together for decades. The careers of both have been put on hold because Tusker has been diagnosed with early-onset dementia. They set out on a road trip. Harry Macqueen, the director, has created a drama about love and mortality. The northern English scenery is stunning, as are the performances of these two people stoically accepting mortality. (It is on TIFF and is also accessible on Apple TV+ and perhaps elsewhere.)

image - Martine Chevallier, left, and Barbara Sukowa in Two of Us — Martine Chevallier, left, and Barbara Sukowa in Two of Us. *(photo from Magnolia Pictures)*

Two of Us (2021): An older lesbian couple is met with unexpected devastation in the aching romantic drama by Filippo Meneghetti. Nina (German actress Barbara Sukowa) and Madeleine (Martine Chevallier) have waited decades to love one another freely. They are preparing to leave France for new beginnings in Rome. First, Madeleine must come out to her children before realizing her dream, but tragedy strikes before she can speak her truth. Sukowa is ferociously great as a woman whose devotion is as fierce as her determination to drag her lover into a more honest life. This is a film of profound intimacy between two people. In French with English subtitles. (It is available at TIFF Bell Lightbox.)

Dolores Luber, a retired psychotherapist and psychology teacher, is editor-in-chief of Jewish Seniors Alliance’s Senior Line magazine. She works out four times a week, studies Modern Hebrew twice a week, and is constantly reading books and watching movies. Her motto is “Never underestimate an old lady who can deadlift you.”

Making a film during COVID

Kamil Whaley-Kalaora stars as the title character in Malka Martz-Oberlander’s David Michael Frankel Feinstein-Goldberg and the Unbarmitzvah. (screenshot)

It was a rainy day near the beginning of the pandemic. Sourdough was in the oven, Zoom was new and fun and spirits were higher. That’s when I found out I’d won the Earl Parker Award and I’d get to make my film for the Edmonton Jewish Film Festival. Little did I know I would have to go through months of hurdles, Plan B ideas and cast my entire family to get my film made.

A few months prior, my mom had passed me the Jewish Independent and showed me the notice for a film award at the Edmonton Jewish Film Festival. At the time, I was co-directing a musical, directing a film and finishing my applications for universities, so I didn’t think much of it. But, I am very glad I eventually picked up that notice and applied to the competition because it changed the course of my path.

image - The Community Calendar announcement in the Jewish Independent about the Edmonton Jewish Film Festival’s Earl Parker Award — The Community Calendar announcement in the Jewish Independent about the Edmonton Jewish Film Festival’s Earl Parker Award.

Last year was tough in a thousand ways. The pandemic hit everyone differently and, no doubt, we will all have lifelong effects because of it. When I originally pitched my film, David Michael Frankel Feinstein-Goldberg and the Unbarmitzvah, in 2020, I had a vision that could only have been actualized pre-pandemic. I adapted it and changed things to meet the constraints of the circumstances and I truly did my best to pull it off in a safe way for the entire cast and crew. One of the changes I had to make was to cast solely from within my bubble and community, which was not what I had originally planned to do.

screenshot - Malka Martz-Oberlander — Malka Martz-Oberlander *(screenshot)*

I normally cast my films through Vancouver Actor’s Guide, UBC ACTRA and Facebook film & TV pages, but, instead, I ended up casting my parents as two of the main characters. As much as they are incredibly charismatic and intelligent people, they’re both doctors, not actors the stature of a Leonardo DiCaprio. So, performing was a big challenge for them and, vice versa, for me directing them. That being said, it was a fantastic experience for me to learn how to produce a film under circumstances that many filmmakers haven’t had to face.

In the early stages, I had a few moments when I felt selfish and embarrassed to want to make films during a literal plague. How could I have the chutzpah to be making dumb little comedy films while millions of people have died and more are dying? Why should I worry if my lenses are going to work for a scene while people are saying goodbye to their loved ones on iPads?

But then it dawned on me just how much we rely on art and story for our own sanity. We tell our children stories from the moment they are born, and we offer and receive stories to our last day on earth. We humans are, at our core, storytelling creatures. In moments of darkness we turn, time and time again, to art to save us. We are drawn to an astonishing multitude of fictions – on pages, on stages and on screens; stories of murder, love, war, conspiracies; stories fictional and true.

We are obsessed with story, but our obsession runs deeper than we think. We can walk away from our books and our screens, but story is like gravity: an inescapable force field that influences everything, but is so omnipresent that we hardly notice it. We’re social creatures and, with the added challenge of isolation, art has become a tool for staying connected with one another.

I’m now finishing up my first year at film school, in Capilano University’s Motion Picture Arts Program, where I have been learning invaluable skills and refining my knowledge and abilities in writing, directing and producing. With the vaccination rollout well underway and more knowledge and experience of how to safely work together in-person, I am ready to see what’s next for film and storytelling. I hope you are, too.

My film David Michael Frankel Feinstein-Goldberg and the Unbarmitzvah screened at the Edmonton Jewish Film Festival on May 2 and I will be speaking on a panel of past Earl Parker Award winners on May 9, 11 a.m., on Zoom (meeting ID 846 7697 0846). To view the film, visit jewishedmonton.org/festival-news; after the festival, it will be publicly available on Vimeo.

Malka Martz-Oberlander is a 19-year-old screenwriter, film and theatre director and actress, currently “squatting” at her parents’ house in Vancouver, the unceded territories of the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh and Musqueam peoples. Her website is malkamo.wixsite.com/film. She thanks the Edmonton Jewish Film Festival and the Earl Parker Award for their kindness and generosity in making David Michael Frankel Feinstein-Goldberg and the Unbarmitzvah possible during such an unpredictable time for artists.

Interactive history tour

To find out more about the history of Made in BC – Dance on Tour and its network of artists, visitors to madeinbc.org/history-project just have to hover over one of the images displayed and click on it. (screenshot)

It is easy, in Metro Vancouver, to take certain things for granted, such as access to live theatre, music and dance. But the pandemic, with its limits on social gatherings, has given urbanites an inkling of what smaller communities regularly experience. The relative scarcity of live performance in places like Prince George and Revelstoke is one reason that Made in BC – Dance on Tour was created in 2006. It is unfortunate, then, that Made in BC’s 15th anniversary falls in a time of travel and other restrictions. But that hasn’t stopped the organization from celebrating, and innovatively so.

Made in BC (MiBC) has collaborated with artist and graphic recorder Adriana Contreras to create an interactive online illustrated map “offering viewers the opportunity to take a visual and audio trip through the last 15 years of work, celebrating the numerous artists, presenters and community members that have been a part of this history.” Among these artists are Jewish community members Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg (Tara Cheyenne Performance), Amber Funk Barton (the.response), Naomi Brand (All Bodies Dance Project) and Vanessa Goodman (Action at a Distance).

“Especially in an art form that is so ephemeral, documentation is important not only for our personal memories, but for the history of the organizations and communities that we work with,” Brand told the Independent. “These kinds of records are really valuable for us to learn from what has happened before and to remember the accomplishments and discoveries that came before us. The map is a beautiful and creative way to write our history in the present while it is still relatively fresh in the bodies and memories of those who participated in it.

She added, “The field of contemporary dance in Canada is small enough that most of us are connected through a few degrees of separation that can be traced through our lineage of teachers, mentors and collaborators…. The map project represents all of that visually across the geography of this province.”

Cheyenne Friedenberg also spoke about the ephemeral, or temporary, nature of dance, making it hard to keep track of accomplishments.

“We spend much of our time and energy justifying and fighting for our art and art-making, it’s no wonder many of us don’t take time to reflect or celebrate the wake behind the boat,” she said. “It’s also very important to take note of what artists have brought to communities around the province and how these communities have influenced the art and the art makers. We are an ecosystem and it benefits all of us to appreciate how we have grown and developed as an artistic community. I know my work has been greatly influenced by my relationships across the province. I know folks who started making their own work after seeing a show or taking a workshop. I think part of the reason I’m still making work is because I feel part of this artistic ecosystem that is ever-evolving.”

Made in BC statistics show that, over the past 15 years, MiBC “has provided opportunities for over 50 dance companies incorporating over 200 dance artists to tour their work, reaching over 20,000 people around the province. And over 30,000 people have participated in and experienced the joy of other community-engaged dance activities, beyond the theatre.”

“MiBC as a network is about fostering relationships between artists, presenters, audiences and new communities,” said Brand. “As dance artists, we work with living, breathing, feeling people as our material (as opposed to clay, or an instrument, or paint brushes). This human-to-human, personal interaction is so important to what we do in the studio, as well as through emails and Zoom these days. We’re lucky to have an organization like MiBC that supports artists and has brought so many incredible experiences to communities across the province.”

Brand recalled one experience in particular. “In 2017,” she said, “my colleague Sarah Lapp and I did a residency through Made in BC at the Rotary Centre for the Arts (RCA) in Kelowna. It was our first experience touring with our company All Bodies Dance Project and bringing our artistic practice to a new community. We met such beautiful, courageous and lovely participants in the weeklong workshop and learned a lot about ourselves through sharing what we do with a new community. That residency had a huge impact on Sarah, who actually ended up relocating to Kelowna a year or so later, and beginning an integrated dance project in partnership with RCA with a collaborator that she met during that residency.”

Cheyenne Friedenberg first toured with MiBC in 2009, when the organization selected her first full-length solo work, bANGER, to tour along with Day Helesic’s piece Surge.

“I had toured a lot in the U.S., across Canada and Europe, but this was my first real experience taking my own work around the province,” said Cheyenne Friedenberg. “I was, and continue to be, very interested in connecting with the land and the people closer to home. Why have we as a culture believed touring Europe is more prestigious than touring the West Coast? It’s not. Since that first tour in 2009, I have toured, taught, created and learned around B.C. over half a dozen times and I can’t wait to get back out here!”

She said it was hard to pick just one MiBC experience that was especially impactful or memorable, so she offered two:

“1) Smithers, 2012: after seeing my solo Goggles, a couple (who are now my friends) were so taken by seeing me and my family (who I tour with) taking questions and, probably, breast-feeding after the show, that they decided to have a baby and continue to make art.

“2) Dolly Alfredson, a Wet’suwet’en language speaker and teacher shared many post-show thoughts with me, all in Wet’suwet’en. It felt very special. This was after my show I can’t remember the word for ‘ I can’t remember,’ in 2018.”

Contreras, who collaborated with MiBC in collecting and communicating these types of recollections from the dance artists, said her favourite part of the process was listening to all the stories, “getting a glimpse at a special moment in time from the many artists I had the pleasure to work with in part.”

It was Jane Gabriels, executive director of MiBC, who invited Contreras – in spring of 2020 – to be part of the 15th anniversary history project.

“I had just left my full-time job as director of programming and communications with New Performance Works Society to work as an independent graphic recorder, illustrator and designer,” Contreras told the Independent. “This was also around the time that COVID-19 was declared a pandemic and the province went on lockdown. Needless to say, this project was a bright light in a very uncertain moment.”

On the project, she worked closely with Gabriels, as well as Debora Gordon, MiBC manager of community dance connectors, statistics and promotions, and Zahra Shahab, a dance artist and choreographer who was the 2019 creative residency artist at MiBC.

“The process was one of collective discovery and experimentation,” said Contreras. “I knew that MiBC has a vast archive documenting the work of all the artists that have been part of its programs, but I wanted to go back to the essence, the aspect that makes MiBC so unique, the unifying element of supporting B.C.-based artists to present their work and connect with communities throughout the province; bring contemporary dance to audiences that don’t often get to experience it.

“During my time as an arts administrator supporting dance artists,” she continued, “I had heard many anecdotes and memorable stories that happened during MiBC tours. Many of these occurred in the theatre, others in the liminal space, on the road. Many others in everyday occurrences that nurtured community. We decided that these were the stories we wanted to highlight.

“MiBC reached out to artists and asked if they wanted to share their stories, which were audio-recorded to be featured on the website. We then chose an object to represent each of the stories, and those are the elements you see in the drawing, one for each artist or collective.”

She added, “Creating this work reminded me why I love the performing arts so much, and I can’t wait to sit in a theatre and experience live dance, theatre and music again.”

In the meantime, dance enthusiasts can take a virtual audiovisual trip through the province at madeinbc.org/history-project.

From a singular perspective

Barb Choit’s “Ravenous Appetite and Boundless Energy” features a chimney swift that can only be recognized as such from one vantage point. (photo from Barb Choit)

Last October, in a year that could be considered one of the worst in history for artists overall, Vancouver artist Barb Choit completed a large public art project in Oakville, Ont. “Ravenous Appetite and Boundless Energy” is the image of a bird, a chimney swift, created from hand-drawn, coloured, lead-glass tubing filled with neon. It is installed in the Oakville Trafalgar Community Centre.

“Most public art projects are by invitation only. However, for this one, I responded to an open call put out by the Town of Oakville,” Choit told the Independent in an email interview. “With this process, the first step is to send a letter of interest describing your qualifications and approach. From that, a public art jury selects a smaller group of artists to create a design for an artwork, which is called a ‘concept proposal.’ Each artist makes a presentation of their proposal and one is selected to create their proposed project.”

Winning the competition, it took her one-and-a-half years to convert her original idea into the final installation, a bird in flight, soaring just under the ceiling of the community centre.

The chimney swift has special significance for the Oakville community, said Choit. “The work responds to the transformation of the adjacent, abandoned Oakville High School into a habitat for a colony of chimney swifts, a threatened migratory bird. Every year, residents of all backgrounds come to watch birds roost in the chimneys of the former school. The community’s galvanization around birdwatching inspired me to represent the chimney swift as an ‘artifact’ of the culture and spirit of Oakville.”

In Choit’s installation, visitors to the centre can only see a bird in the design from a certain perspective. If they look at it from other positions, all they see is a wriggle, written in shining neon.

photo - The sculpture appears abstract to viewers moving through the space. Yet, from a specific vantage point, a representation of a bird appears — The sculpture appears abstract to viewers moving through the space. Yet, from a specific vantage point, a representation of a bird appears. *(photo from Barb Choit)*

“For ‘Ravenous,’” she explained, “I used a display strategy employed by science and nature museums to spark the viewers’ interest in the natural world – an optical illusion, anamorphosis. It is a visual illusion in which an object is distorted so that it can only be recognized from a specific vantage point. The sculpture appears abstract to viewers moving through the space. Yet, from a specific vantage point, a representation of a bird appears. Many people find optical illusions particularly engaging. Creating a visually striking piece was crucial to engaging a multi-generational community. And the glowing yellow form complemented the space for which I was designing the work.”

The word “illusion” suits the chimney swift as a species. According to Wikipedia, during flight, the birds often appear to beat their wings asynchronously, but photographic and stroboscopic studies have shown that they beat them in unison. The illusion that they do otherwise is heightened by their speedy and erratic flying, with many rapid changes of direction.

Choit’s choice of medium for this work necessitated collaboration with the manufacturers of the neon-filled tube.

“Different projects require a different balance between collaboration and delegation,” she said. “My recent project uses neon, which requires a type of industrial fabrication that includes hazardous materials and live electricity. It wouldn’t be practical or advisable for me to carry out this part of the fabrication myself. However, one needs a grasp of how materials work in order to create a feasible design and communicate with fabricators.”

She compared it to the architectural process. “In order to design and build a successful building, an architect does not show up at the building site with a hammer and nails,” she noted. “However, she must know how a building is constructed, as well as the properties and possibilities of the materials used.”

As she has done for other works, Choit did extensive research for this installation.

“People know me for my photographic work, but I have worked in most mediums at one point or another,” she said. “Within my work, I look at how communities and individuals imbue objects with meaning. Most of my major projects involve cultivating collections and working with archives. I explore this theme in a variety of media, such as photography, installation, performance and sculpture. Recently, I have had commissions for 2-D and 3-D public artworks.”

photo - Artist Barb Choit — Artist Barb Choit *(photo from Barb Choit)*

Choit’s interest in collections is longstanding. She has a master of arts in critical and curatorial studies from Columbia University in New York. “At Columbia, I researched institutional frameworks for art,” she said. “I wrote my thesis on the history of collecting. This area of academic research still drives my work as an artist.”

Public art is a relatively new area for Choit and she is exploring the possibilities. “I primarily make works to be shown in galleries; it is only recently that I have moved into public art. I like public art because the projects can be much more ambitious than something that would be purchased by an individual. However, I still enjoy making smaller works that can be appreciated privately and I am open to larger site-specific commissions to be installed in privately owned buildings and outdoor spaces.”

She is planning to do more work in the public sector, despite the challenges. “Usually, public art projects are by invitation. There are also a few websites that list opportunities for artists to submit their qualifications, with the intention of being shortlisted to create a proposal for a specific project,” she said, noting the need to be wary of fraud.

“Artists need to be careful of websites that list art opportunities because there are dubious organizations out there to exploit them,” she said. “For example, some art ‘opportunities’ ask artists to pay a fee to be considered for a project. Artists should never pay a fee to have someone look at their work.

“Also, some organizations solicit full proposals from artists. Creating a proposal is an immense amount of work and a highly specialized skill. For legitimate public art calls, artists who are shortlisted to create a proposal are paid a fee for this work. I discourage any artist (or anyone, for that matter) from engaging professionally with an organization that expects unpaid work.”

Among Choit’s previous public works is the photographic project “Campaign,” a billboard series commissioned by the Capture Photography Festival in Vancouver in 2017. “It was a series of outdoor billboards based on my 2015 photography project where I remade Andy Warhol’s shoe Polaroids from the 1980s. I documented a collection of vintage women’s shoes using discontinued instant film and a vintage Polaroid camera from the era.”

Despite her extensive education, experience and obvious talent, Choit considers luck as one of the best ingredients for artistic success.

“Luck is crucial,” she said. “It is not necessarily about chance but infrastructure – family and community support, education, healthcare, even freedom of expression, can be just as crucial as talent and skill.”

Learn more at Choit’s website, barbchoit.com.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].