Left to right, Susan Skemp, Ken Charko and James E. Taylor are making a movie about Dunbar Theatre’s history. (photo by 5U54N & J4M35 Productions)
To celebrate Dunbar Theatre’s 80th anniversary, the theatre is making a short film about its history to enter into film festivals around the world and for film and music awards in Canada. One of the goals is to raise awareness of the theatre, one of the few independent theatres still around.
“Our short film will showcase all eight decades the theatre has been playing movies for the Dunbar community. With the use of old movie clips, newsreels, actors, models, music and their resident ghost, Delores, we intend on making a very entertaining film,” said Susan Skemp (producer, writer and songwriter) in an email to the Independent.
The production team includes Skemp, Ken Charko (executive producer and owner of the Dunbar Theatre) and James E. Taylor (director, writer, editor). One of the many participants in putting together the film is Jewish community member Adam Abrams, who will voice one of the newsreels.
“I came up with the idea to make the film last December when Ken Charko and I were discussing what to do to celebrate the theatre’s 80th,” Skemp explained. She said she suggested making a movie about a movie theatre and Charko liked the idea; then Taylor joined the production team as director.
“We have assembled a wonderful group of people and I have likened us to Orson Welles and his Mercury Players group,” said Skemp.
“My idea for the script really came from the theatre and the people from the community who have passed through its doors and the films that have played on the screen. Even though the film is a history of the theatre, our goal is to make it as entertaining as possible,” she stressed. “The fact that the theatre has a ghost helps.”
The crowdfunding goal to bring the film to fruition is $20,000. Contributions to the fundraiser at fundrazr.com/campaigns/fxGG2 come with different perks for each donation level: from a DVD and an invitation to a red-carpet screening ($25), to those items plus two tickets to any film at the Dunbar ($100), to a film credit as an associate producer ($500), to listing as a producer ($2,500).
A son’s fascination with diggers has led to many other farm-related and animal designs. (photo by Shula Klinger)
When our son, Joel, started to talk, most of what he said was, digger, referring to the large machines that dig earth, so I started drawing them for him. Soon, he became passionate about tractors, so I started drawing those, too – because, like you, I would bend over backwards to meet my child’s needs.
Our Joel has always known his mind. And he has always known that his mother will turn herself into a pretzel when it comes to his education. I also learned how to draw forklifts, dump trucks and specialized mining equipment: road headers, skid steers and face shovels. Essential knowledge for every pretzel-shaped mother.
After several months and hundreds of diggers later, I had a box full of cut-out vehicles. I bought colored card stock and cut out what I hoped were the last 12 diggers. I framed them in an old IKEA frame and put it in Joel’s room, intending to hang it later.
Joel had his own plans, of course. It turns out that 2-year-olds aren’t particularly worried about hanging pictures at the proper height. Instead, his picture sat on the floor where he could poke the glass, name the vehicles and chatter at length to his pictures.
Having thought of his picture as something colorful to fill a spot on his wall, I soon learned that it was a bunch of other things: a teaching aid, a prompt for language development and a favorite companion. It was a comfort, a reflection of his passions and his developing identity. And, sure, it was in his bedroom sometimes, but mainly it traveled to whichever room he was playing in. I never did hang it up.
The diggers were followed by new designs for other families, and countless hours of conversation with them about art. I learned that very young children have strong opinions about shape, color and which medium is best for their project. I learned how art appreciation plays a role in family relationships that is just as significant as the time we spend on outings or reading together. It’s spiritual time, like meditating together, or contemplating abstract ideas, from the biggest ideas to why spiders are able to climb on ceilings without falling off.
The photos I received of toddlers teaching infant siblings about their art showed me that images can be a catalyst for extraordinary reactions in even the youngest kids. I also had my mind changed about what kinds of art children wanted. When a mother asked me if I offered custom versions of my posters, I hesitated. When I realized that she wanted a copy of diggers, “but in girl colors,” I got to work.
When choosing art for our children, there is much more to the decision than meets the eye. Of course, we want the content and color scheme to appeal to our young connoisseurs. We hope that it will complement the design of the room that surrounds it. But, as we see and hear how children respond to this art, it reminds us, as parents, that our own eyes need to open as wide as theirs.
Art appreciation is a kind of literacy and it can lead to explorations of identity, of self-expression, of relationship to and with others. It can elicit feelings of pride in ownership, feelings of attachment and a sense of agency. As she looks at an image, a child’s gaze can be curious, critical, contented, peaceful, excited, inspired. A child may be solving problems, learning about the world or checking his understanding of an issue. Indeed, they have the same types of reactions as adults. Art can engage, stimulate and challenge young minds, which is why we need to take care when choosing pieces for children’s spaces.
Megan Zeni and Kelly Johnson are dedicated to creating fun, educational spaces for children. Both former teachers, their company, Room to Play, helps families make the most of their homes, to create spaces that are stimulating without being cluttered or overwhelming. “Art sets the tone in room; colors, patterns and textures can have a calming or energizing impact,” explained Zeni.
These are all elements to consider, especially as we remember that the art we’re choosing may be the last thing a child looks at as his eyes close at night. Here are some things to think about when choosing or making art for young children:
Children have favorite colors from a very early age.
What do they care about?
Does the art fill a wall and strike a chord?
Does it inspire the child to touch it, talk to it?
Does it spark a conversation between your child and you or a sibling?
Questions to think about and ask your child, to encourage a sense of attachment and ownership of the art, include:
What do you see? What do I see?
Which colors do you see?
How many…?
Which element is the biggest? Which is the smallest?
Should we frame it?
Where should we hang it? Should we bother?
Shula Klinger is an author, illustrator and journalist living in North Vancouver.
Gwen Epstein is the second on right in this photo of Sister Suffragette, performed by Razzmatap. The troupe’s upcoming show at the Rothstein has already sold out. (photo from Razzmatap)
The audience at the Norman Rothstein Theatre on June 27 will be treated to a uniquely entertaining show – The Best of Razzmatap.
The local amateur tap ensemble’s members are all women, among them representatives of diverse professions – from a judge, to a teacher, to a physical therapist – and a range of ages, from 40s to 80s. Founder, director and choreographer Jan Kainer talked to the Independent about the group’s roots.
“When my daughter was 7, I started a little class with some of her friends, so she would have an opportunity to tap dance. One class grew to several classes at Kerrisdale Community Centre and, in about 1987, I added an adult class. It was just for fun and fitness. After about six months of class, I asked the adults if they wanted to participate in a Christmas concert. Only one person was willing but, by yearend, the group had worked up the courage to dance in public, and they never looked back…. After we started doing performances and competitions, we decided we needed a name. Everyone put in suggestions, and we voted on Razzmatap.”
The initial core members are still with the ensemble, and several new members have joined through the years, explained Kainer. “The dancers’ average age is 65,” she said. “Our oldest dancer is 86, and I do have to take her health and strength into consideration. I choreograph around the strengths of the dancers in the group, so it forces me to work at making the dances interesting.”
A multiple-award-winning troupe, the upcoming show at the Rothstein, like many Razzmatap events, is already sold out. Kainer thinks the group’s success is largely due to her dancers’ obvious delight on stage. “My group has learned over the years how to tell a story and how to express the joy they feel when dancing. I think it shows.”
One of the dancers, Gwen Epstein, shared her enthusiasm with the JI. “Our teacher Jan Kainer is wonderful,” Epstein said. “When she works on new dances, she tries to give everyone a small solo, to showcase what the individual dancers do best, but, most of the time, we dance as a group, and everyone participates in almost everything.”
Epstein joined Razzmatap about 20 years ago but, like Kainer, she has danced most of her life. “I always liked dancing,” she said. “My mom was a ballet teacher. Of course, I started with ballet classes but I liked tap dance better.”
She took tap dancing lessons until high school, then took a break from her late teens to early 20s. When she got married, she resumed dancing and never stopped, not while raising her three children and not while working full time as a microbiologist.
“I was with a couple of different groups for awhile,” she remembered. “When my daughter was 6, I took her to tap dancing lessons and learned that the teacher also had an adult group. I joined it. It was Razzmatap.”
According to Epstein, the group participates in several tap dance competitions every year and usually wins. “We like to compete,” she explained. “We’ve competed in B.C. and in Germany. We also traveled to New York, Chicago and San Francisco for workshops. We danced in Tap on Broadway in New York. It was fun.”
Everything connected to her favorite group is fun for her. “Tap dance is such a happy activity. The music is lively. You dance and you think of Fred Astaire and Singing in the Rain. You want to smile. Even though none of us is very young, dancing makes us feel young. People come to rehearsals and complain – my knee hurts, my back aches, my feet are sore, some wear knee braces – but then we start dancing and we dance.”
The group usually rehearses twice a week for two hours, but now they have increased to three times a week in preparation for the new show, and everyone is excited. “Everyone has to come to the rehearsals,” she said. “We’re all very enthusiastic about the coming show.”
In the June 27 performance, Epstein will appear in nine dances out of 10, but her favorite is the one where she gets to reminisce on stage – in dance, of course. “I perform in my mom’s clothing in that dance, and it makes me think of her. This dance is very important to me, especially now, when she passed away.”
Each dance of Razzmatap is a story, told in music and movement. Some pieces have serious historical connotations, while others invoke a vague sense of nostalgia or memories of bygone eras. Of course, to create the right ambience for such dances, the performers need multiple props.
“We make all our props ourselves,”
Epstein said. “One dance needed human-sized man puppets as our dancing partners. Another needed suitcases. And then there are costumes. Of course, Jan sets the tone, like the color or sequins, but we make them.”
Epstein has quite a collection of costumes by now, from 20 years’ worth of dancing. “I keep them all in labeled boxes. It’s interesting when we have to travel with all of them.”
Epstein enjoys all aspects of performing: the spotlight, the music, the public. “Before the show, you’re nervous, but after, you feel such a thrill,” she said. “And the audience loves our shows. They are smiling, laughing…. I like entertaining people. When I was young, I didn’t think to make dance a career. I still think it’s nice to have a good job and a hobby you love, but if I had another chance, I might have chosen to be a professional dancer.”
Olga Livshinis a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].
There are a few remarkable things that one notices when looking at the press material for Scratch, which is being presented by Theatre Plexus at Havana Theatre until June 13.
First, the play itself. Part of the story is in its title, which refers to the protagonist, a teenage girl who loses her mother at the same time as she is dealing with an egregious case of head lice. The other part is in the script by Charlotte Corbeil-Coleman: the original mounting of the production by Toronto’s Factory Theatre in 2008 was nominated for the Dora Mavor Moore Award for outstanding new play.
Second, Theatre Plexus. A relatively new company, it has gathered a small but experienced cast and production team for this show, its third.
“Theatre Plexus started somewhat organically, born out of the necessity of having an umbrella under which to put my personal projects,” explained actor and producer Caitlin McCarthy. “The first show I produced in Vancouver was 8 Girls Without Boyfriends in 2013, but it wasn’t until the following year when I applied for the Vancouver Fringe that I came up with the name. I was performing a show I had written, called Saudade. It occurred to me that I had a mandate (personal and professional): it was important to me to produce work with a strong female voice, and I preferred intimate theatre spaces. I know a staggering number of talented female actors who just don’t get stage time in Vancouver as often as they should, and I want to help remedy that. Scratch has four women in it out of a cast of six, and these women have scenes together that aren’t just related to a male protagonist. In fact, it’s a young, female protagonist.”
McCarthy plays that young protagonist, Anna, and it was one of the aspects that drew her to the play.
“I picked up a copy of Scratch because I liked some of the monologues – as an actor, I am always looking for good Canadian monologues, and Charlotte Corbeil-Coleman is based in Toronto. I was struck by how tender the play is – and how it presents grief from multiple angles. I also like that the play has a sense of humor and, though it is a play about loss, it is ultimately uplifting. Also, as I mentioned, there are four women in it (and, of course, two wonderful men) and I am an unapologetic feminist when it comes to choosing and casting plays.”
The co-producer of Scratch is Stephanie Izsak, who is also playing the character of Madelyn. Izsak is one of the many members of the production team affiliated with Langara College’s professional theatre training program, Studio 58. This is another remarkable aspect of the local production.
“Steph and I knew each other from Studio,” explained McCarthy of the connections, “and we approached the incredible Genevieve Fleming to be our director – I had gone to school with her…. Eileen Barrett did go to Studio, but I knew her from a playwriting group, Genevieve had seen a lot of Markian’s [Markian Tarasiuk] work while he was a student, we all knew David Bloom as the solo show teacher, and Jeff [Elrick] was recommended by the faculty as he’s still a student. So yes, there is a Studio 58 community to easily draw from, but we didn’t exclusively cast from a Studio pool. I feel so lucky to have Tamara McCarthy and Flo Barrett on board – now that I know them, they will definitely be part of the community I try to work with!”
The process from idea through casting to opening night on June 4 has taken some time, said McCarthy. “Steph approached me two years ago to work together, and I thought of Scratch as a project we could do. It took us a long time to find a venue we liked before we decided on the Havana. I wish there were more independent venues in Vancouver! The lack of space in this city has certainly given rise to some very creative site-specific theatre, but I wish there were more small, traditional theatre spaces to do plays.
“Once we booked the Havana (back in November), it all started to fall into place. We assembled this wonderful group of like-minded artists who felt like the play resonated with them, and we got everything in order for rehearsals to start.”
One of those artists is the aforementioned Bloom, who is a playwright, director, actor, producer and teacher, with a wide range of theatre and television credits, and a Jessie award for Palace of the End with co-directors Katrina Dunn and Mindy Parfitt.
“When Genevieve Fleming asked me to be in Scratch, I said yes very quickly because I liked the writing, and I knew that several scenes would be challenging to play,” Bloom told the Independent. “The other reason I said yes, though, was that I like and admire all the people involved in the project. Four of them are former students and our stage-manager/lighting designer is still one of my students. Theatre Plexus is a fledgling theatre company whose mandate is to do intimate plays with a strong female voice, in small spaces. I’m working with a great group of smart, talented people. How could I possibly say no?”
Bloom said he got into acting “by accident” in Grade 10, as a favor to a teacher.
“In elementary school, I had written and performed sketches with friends,” he explained, “but by high school, I had decided to be a writer; acting was not on my radar. Our drama teacher was short on men for a production of Twelfth Night and he asked me to take on the small role of Sebastian. I was not a popular kid, and I got laughs and applause. It was like catnip to me. I felt a rush during those two performances stronger than any drug. The truth is, I got into acting for exactly the wrong reason: ego gratification. I’ve never had that feeling quite like that again, and it’s no longer what I look for from theatre.
“At a certain point in my 20s, I came to believe in theatre as a spiritual/humanist practice. (The history of the art form has often been deeply entwined with various societies’ religious practices, as well as a way of channeling difficult, dangerous and thrilling ideas.) One of my more embarrassingly naive statements in my early 20s was, ‘Acting is like a priesthood. It’s like practise for being human!’ I understand how ridiculous and self-important that sounds. Luckily for my mental health, I’m also drawn to theatre’s ability to skewer pomposity, especially in myself. There’s something very freeing about being willing to look like an idiot in front of thousands of people.”
“There’s a sense of community that happens when a group of people with limited resources decide to work together to make a performance. It’s intimate and intoxicating.”
Bloom produced his first production at 17. “Nobody had told me that I couldn’t do it, so I did. I’ve continued in that vein ever since. I’d fall in love with the idea of a show, invite friends to my house to talk about it, and the group would create its own momentum that drove us to produce shows in crappy little spaces (the Firehall before it was a theatre, on the set of other people’s shows at midnight, whatever was available). There’s a sense of community that happens when a group of people with limited resources decide to work together to make a performance. It’s intimate and intoxicating. The people involved develop a sense that they’re part of something bigger than themselves. Like most human endeavors, it’s an illusion,” he said, referring to Waiting for Godot, which examines human beings’ need to try to “create meaning for themselves in a meaningless universe.”
This need led Bloom, among other things, to start his own company. “Humans are social animals and we crave a sense of belonging; we need to believe our lives are meaningful. As a result, we’re easily manipulated (street gangs, political parties and xenophobic movements all manipulate that need). It’s also a source of community, sacrifice and some of the best qualities of humanity. I bonded with a group of people who shared my obsession and formed the Grinning Dragon Theatre Company in 1991. We changed our name to Felix Culpa about 15 years ago. Latin for “happy fault,” it is a reference to eating from the forbidden tree of knowledge (my co-director Linda Quibell is a very lapsed Catholic). The focus of the company’s work is the power of language and its unique ability to explore complex subjects such as morality, beauty and the subjective nature of truth.”
Bloom said he has been teaching since 2000, and it suits him “to a T.” The students have to create a one-person show and perform it before they graduate from Studio 58. “I feel blessed to have this job,” said Bloom. “It means that once a week, eight months a year, I have to think about what theatre is, how many different forms it can take and also how to solve specific challenges brought up by the imagination of wonderfully talented young minds. They regularly do work that astounds me. Then they go out into the world and, within a few years, many of them are far more successful than I am. I guess there’s a kind of legacy in that. Also, for awhile, they think I’m really smart, and that brings me right back to the egocentric pleasures that got me into the profession in the first place.”
A member of the Jewish community, Bloom described his family as “secular, intellectual, socially conscious.” He said, “My father is one of Canada’s great physicists. His sisters are, respectively, a mathematician who devoted most of her career to studying how math is taught (not well, in her opinion) and a school principal who pioneered methods of working with disabled children. They grew up on St. Urbain Street and other streets in that Montreal neighborhood, and they all went to Baron Byng High School.
“My father doesn’t remember Mordecai Richler from the school, but when my aunt met him, Richler remembered my father, something I get a kick out of. Long before I read The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, my father had told me all the stories in the first chapter about ‘Flanders Field’ high school (for example, the teacher who would start each year asking the students, ‘How does a Jew write the letter S?’ and then draw a $ on the blackboard).
“Much of my work is an attempt to understand how human beings can treat each other so vilely. I am often attracted to artistic work that goes to very dark places. I’m also drawn to stories about people who are not accepted by mainstream society, whether they be Jews, queers, radical thinkers, dissidents, melancholics, eccentrics, Muslims, the list goes on.”
“It’s a little morbid,” continued Bloom, “but I first felt deeply Jewish watching an episode about the Holocaust on the amazing BBC documentary series World at War. I realized that Hitler wouldn’t care that we weren’t religious, didn’t follow the dietary laws, that my mother had converted when she married my father. Something about being the ‘other’ landed for me that afternoon and I was stricken. On many levels, the rest of my life has been colored by that. Much of my work is an attempt to understand how human beings can treat each other so vilely. I am often attracted to artistic work that goes to very dark places. I’m also drawn to stories about people who are not accepted by mainstream society, whether they be Jews, queers, radical thinkers, dissidents, melancholics, eccentrics, Muslims, the list goes on.
“My father told me that his mother sent him off to school every day with the admonition, ‘Ask some good questions!’ He explained to me that you would get the best out of your teachers if you challenged them and their ideas. It was acceptable, even essential, to challenge intellectual (and other) authorities because it would make them work harder. I was often a trial to my teachers, as you might imagine, but the best of them had a deep impact on me.
“There is a long history (one might say a talmudic history) of Jews being argumentative, especially with people we love. I consider myself part of that tradition. I love that about us as a people, and I love our love of literacy and our tendency to be stubborn and tenacious. But my instinct to challenge extends to challenging actions of myself, my fellow Jews, the state of Israel and the whole patriarchal, monotheistic basis of the religion…. There are probably many Jews who would not consider me a ‘real’ Jew,” he concluded, “but I believe myself to be true to our culture and the values of intellectual and spiritual inquisitiveness that have made us simultaneously unpopular and essential around the world for thousands of years.”
Tickets for Scratch are $18, with Saturday matinées $10, and are available at brownpapertickets.com. Partnering with Theatre Plexus on the production is the Living Through Loss Counseling Society of British Columbia. “All of the proceeds collected will go to counseling and group therapy for women at risk,” said McCarthy. “It’s very important for me as a producer to question what my contribution is to society – larger than just the theatre community. Grief is such a central part of this story and an inevitable part of human life and I believe this play has the potential to unite people in processing a very universal experience. Because what else is theatre for than to witness our own humanity and bring us closer together?” LTLCS will be holding a talk-back on Tuesday, June 9.
Dance Centre’s 12 Minutes Max features works from five up-and-coming choreographers on June 12. Pictured here is Con8 Collective: Charlotte Newman, left, and Georgina Alpen. (photo by Andy White)
An abundance of riches. Scotiabank Dance Centre’s 12 Minutes Max on June 12 showcases the talents of five up-and-coming choreographers – three of whom have Jewish community connections.
Started in 1994, 12 Minutes Max was redesigned and relaunched last year, “with a strong focus on choreographic development, critical feedback and dialogue.” In a season, there are three modules and the June show features artists selected from these sessions, with each performance lasting 12 minutes or less. Among the artists featured are Caitlin Griffin, Charlotte Newman (Con8 Collective) and Naomi Brand.
Griffin was featured in the JI last August for a piece that was influenced by her time in Israel in 2013 with the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company, as part of its Dance Journey (Masa) program.
An exploration of the impact of war on women, what was then called The Way They Walked Through the World featured three dancers, and pairs of army boots played a central role. In 12 Minutes Max, Griffin’s work is performed by Delphine Leroux and set to Bach’s Klavierbüchlein für Wilhelm Friedemann.
“The work has evolved significantly from last September’s showing in several ways,” Griffin told the JI. “The process I went through of collecting choreographic material and experimenting with the boots has distilled my areas of interest and inspired new curiosity about the themes of conflict and femininity. While I am still working with the boots in other offshoot projects, in this incarnation, here or there focuses on the established movement vocabulary, transplanted into a classical music environment without boots. It has become a study of the potential within the movement. It is the development of one layer of my continued interest in the material.”
Griffin said The Way They Walked “served as an invaluable project to create a sketch of my interests and goals in this stage of my artistic development. Since then, I have been selecting small seeds from within that larger sketch and developing them into their own short solos. Ultimately, I may use them in combination in a more developed, longer work, but for now I am learning a lot by seeing them as individual studies to explore and cultivate my creative process.”
Con8 Collective’s Newman is new to the JI. Born and raised in Seattle, she moved to Vancouver to study at Simon Fraser University, graduating last year with a BFA in dance. She told the JI that she hopes to call Vancouver home “for the foreseeable future.”
Con8’s contribution to 12 Minutes Max is Vanilla to the Touch. Created and performed by co-artistic directors Newman and Georgina (Gina) Alpen, in collaboration with Robert Azevedo and Elliott Vaughan, it is described as “a quick-thinking, tongue-in-cheek look at growing up in West Coast suburbia, pulling from experiences of bras, boys, rolled-over jeans, juice boxes and more.”
“Like many young girls, I started dancing around the age of 3 and simply never stopped,” Newman said about the beginnings of her career. “In the past 20 years, I have had amazing opportunities to work with varying groups of dancers, in the context of performances, festivals, site-specific creation, music videos and more. I am especially passionate about choreography. I love investigating movement through the lens of our own physical limitations and strongly believe in the power of sharing ideas, concepts and questions through sharing movement.”
Newman said she “grew up with many cultural connections to Judaism.”
“I have many fond childhood memories of Chanuka dinners of endless latkes, Passovers with friends and Shabbat dinners at my grandparents’ house,” she shared. “Only in the past few years, having moved away from my family and many of these rituals I took for granted, have I become more cognizant and questioning of this identity – how do I want to bring Judaism into my own life? On this journey of exploring my own Jewish heritage, I had the amazing opportunity to join in the gift of Taglit-Birthright on a 10-day trip to Israel in May of 2014. The trip was eye-opening, thought-provoking, inspiring and pushed me to continue investigating how Jewish culture fits into my life as young adult – a question I’m still answering.”
She’s also exploring dance, of course, and its manifold permutations and meanings.
“Con8 is a play on the word ‘connate,’ meaning existing from birth and uniting to form a single entity,” she explained. “Gina and I feel these definitions truly encompass the collective’s artistic values – we strive to constantly explore through an innate creativity and unite the collective’s collaborators to make a stronger body of work as one.
“We also embraced the idea of a ‘con,’ meaning a confidence trick. Throughout our choreographic process, we often explore physical games, tricks and rules that lead to very specific movement choices and rhythms, leading to secrets within the performance that the audience will never see.
“Among many similarities,” she concluded, “we share the same birthday – May 8.”
Con8 leans toward “extremely detailed and stylized pedestrian movement that has been brought into the framework of dance performance,” said Newman. “Tight unison, rhythmical timing and a playful attack to serious movement exploration complement this movement vocabulary.”
She said, “Vanilla to the Touch began months ago as a radically different idea. With each new process, Gina and I use rehearsal space as a blank slate – in the beginning of a process, no idea is knocked down and, in a few minutes, we’ll be tossing out ideas one after the other as fast as we can. This process leads to hours of ultimately discarded material, many physically impossible and improbable proposals, and the usual bruises and bumps. We feed off of the other’s energy so hungrily, every rehearsal feels like play. In the midst of this process – around late February – we realized we had about four hours of movement to mold into 12 minutes, thus beginning the second phase of trying on, molding or discarding existing movement as we narrow our vision.
“In Vanilla to the Touch, as we are both performing the entire time, we relied on the eyes of collaborators for their outside perspectives and questions. Through the constant process of cutting, reconstructing and questioning, each movement has a meaning and each phrase was chosen with an exact specificity in mind.”
Unlike Newman, fellow Jewish community member Brand didn’t start dancing at a very young age.
“I danced a bit recreationally and in my teens was a part of a dance group run by a contemporary dancer who focused on modern dance and contact improvisation and got us choreographing on each other,” she explained. “I didn’t take a ballet class until I was 18 and so I often feel that I came to dance technique late.
“My interests in dance have always been diverse. A mentor of mine instilled in me early the importance of having a wide range of skills in order to increase your chances of being successful in the art form and so I have pursued dancing, performing, choreography, teaching and writing in order to have many avenues. I attended the dance program at the University of Calgary, where I earned my BA and an MFA in choreography, and where I also taught for a number of years after graduating.”
Originally from Toronto, Brand said, “I grew up with a secular Jewish identity. I recognized early on that a disproportionate number of artists, writers and progressive thinkers that I admired were Jewish, and that there was a connection between Jewish culture and creative thinking. My parents raised me with very strong values for learning, encouraging me to ask lots of questions and be curious, and also for social justice, family and community, values that I attribute to Judaism. These are values that have permeated my work as a dance artist. I try very consciously to make work that speaks to the relationship between the individual and the community. In my teaching practice, I encourage students to be inquisitive and inclusive, and use dance as a metaphor for how we could be in the world.”
Brand moved to Calgary when she was 19. After 10 years in the city – where she was a recipient of the 2012 Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Arts Awards Foundation’s emerging artist award – she said, “I was looking for a change, new opportunities and challenges, and so I relocated to Vancouver in 2013.”
For 12 Minutes Max, Brand is presenting Re:play, performed by Walter Kubanek and Hilary Maxwell. It is described as “an intricate duet that looks at action and reaction in the space between two bodies.”
In addition to being a choreographer, Brand is a writer, as well. “I think that my process in writing and in choreographing are very similar,” she said. “A lot of my training has been as an improviser and so I am most comfortable in the initial stages of generating ideas, jotting things down and spewing material out. Both choreographing and writing are about problem-solving to me. Once I have material to work with, it is about piecing things together, arranging, rearranging and searching for some kind of logic in what I have created. It’s like figuring out a puzzle, when at first you see a perhaps incompressible mass of ideas, words or moments and, then, through playing around with it, a structure or logic reveals itself. I rarely know what exactly it is that I want to say until it is made.”
Brand is also on the board of the Training Society of Vancouver, which has as its focus the quality and sustainability of contemporary dance.
“The field of dance is changing just as culture is changing,” she said. “What it means to be a professional dance artist today is completely different from previous generations, where the company structure was pervasive. Nowadays, everyone has to forge their own path and, in Vancouver, I see many fabulous examples of dancers with tons of drive pursuing their work and making their own opportunities. I have always been interested in being connected to dance from numerous different angles, as a performer, teacher, choreography, writer, advocate and administrator. For me, this diversity keeps me interested and engaged and able to keep perspective on my work.”
12 Minutes Max is at the Dance Centre, 677 Davie St., on June 12, 8 p.m. Tickets ($28/$22) are available from Tickets Tonight, 604-684-2787 or ticketstonight.ca. For more information on all the performers and works featured, visit thedancecentre.ca.
The current double show at the Sidney and Gertrude Zack Gallery has its origins in the two artists’ friendship. “I met with Greg Scalamogna through a mutual friend,” said Miran Elbakyan, an artist-blacksmith and one of the two participants in the show. “I liked his technique – his lines are plastic-like metal.”
“We have similar philosophy in our works,” Scalamogna elaborated. “Miran’s lines flow like paint. We don’t restrict ourselves, [we] let our materials speak.”
The flowing lines and dynamic energy in both Scalamogna’s paintings and Elbakyan’s sculptures gave birth to the show’s title, Flow, but, aside from that, the two artists are very different, almost opposite in their approaches and subject matter.
While Elbakyan deals with fire and iron, creating tangible objects – sculptures, balconies, staircase rails, wrought-iron gates and other usable items – Scalamogna, a painter, concentrates on water in all its guises. Tame or wild, abstract or real, his waves and waterfalls inhabit the cool bluish-grey palette. His paintings reflect the artist’s fluid personality and his love for water. “I love boating and fishing,” he said with a smile.
Like his beloved water, Scalamogna traveled around the world, flowing in and out of adventures, before settling in British Columbia. He took his first trip when he was 19, a student of the Ontario College of Art and Design.
“I wanted to go to some place sunny,” he recalled. “I bought an air ticket to the Dominican Republic and exchanged my Canadian money at the airport before boarding the plane, but they made a mistake and gave me Mexican money instead of Dominican. Nobody in the Dominican Republic wanted to touch that money.”
As a result, he found himself alone in a foreign country without a cent. Young and proud as only a 19-year-old can be, he didn’t call home and ask his mother for help. “I wanted to do it myself,” he said. To earn some money, so he at least wouldn’t starve, he started painting tourists’ portraits on the beach. He also sold all his spare clothes for the price of a meal or two, and made friends with local people.
“They were poor but they helped me, took care of me,” said Scalamogna. “They were very generous. I couldn’t pay for a hotel, so one guy offered me to spend nights in his home.”
The trip was a success in the end. He made it, paying for his first independent vacation with his art, victoriously returning home a week later. He even brought back souvenirs for his family; he bartered for them with his portraits. “Since then, I wasn’t afraid. I knew I could make it anywhere. I could take on the world.”
Scalamogna spent his last year of college studying in Florence, Italy, and afterwards backpacked across Europe with his artistic portfolio, visiting museums and art galleries, finding work wherever he could. He had a few exhibitions abroad before returning home.
However, like water, which never stands still, he soon felt the urge to move again. This time, he took a bus across Canada. For several years, he lived and worked in Banff, but eventually settled here – the ocean enchanted him.
“I’m an expressionist,” he said. “Nature inspires me. I take photos when I’m on the water, fishing, but my photos are only starting points for my paintings. The photos bring back memories and feelings; they reference a certain time and emotion. There is no visual similarity.”
His paintings also reflect his daily existence. “They are commentaries on my life, my job, my relationships, people around me,” he said. A few years ago, when he was living in Tofino, his paintings were filled with vibrant colors and exploratory energy, with frantic tides and glittering sunsets. Some of them are part of the Zack Gallery show, instantly recognizable, but most of the pieces on display are from his latter Vancouver period. The paintings became calmer and quieter, as if seen through the veil of Vancouver’s rain. “I’m older now, more subtle,” he said.
Like his friend, Elbakyan traveled. He moved from Armenia to Israel and, from there, to Canada, prompted as much by political climate as by other considerations. Like Scalamogna, he, too, found a welcome home here, in British Columbia, and this exhibition is his third appearance at the Zack. “It is always nice to show my art here and get some feedback,” he said, although he admitted that he doesn’t like selling his sculptures.
“I’d rather sell home décor,” he said. “I’m always sorry to see my sculptures go. They are all unique. Even if I try to make a second copy, it has no inspiration in it. The first is always the best.”
The only artist-blacksmith on the B.C. mainland and one of the very few in Canada, Elbakyan is in high demand for those who are not satisfied with mass production, who want an original fence around their house or a one-of-a-kind balcony or some funky furnishing.
Recently, he branched out into the movie industry. His latest movie, Seventh Son, released in December 2014, is a medieval fantasy. “I made swords and shields for it,” he said, “and everything else of metal that their lab couldn’t produce. I also played a smith at a fair. It was fun.”
Janie Respitz’s fascination with Yiddish, its history and its role in Jewish culture grew naturally. “My grandparents spoke Yiddish at home,” she said in an interview with the Independent from her home in Montreal. “I knew Yiddish songs and expressions. I went to a Jewish school through elementary and high school and the more I learned about Yiddish, the more I loved it. By university, I took it quite seriously.”
She immersed herself in the language, digging out the stories and songs, their roots and their creators. After finishing a master’s in Jewish studies, she dedicated her life to teaching others what she loves best: aspects of Jewish culture, including Yiddish literature and traditional music.
Like Yiddish, the musical part of her identity grew organically, from a hobby to a second career. “I always liked music,” she said. “I never set out to be a professional singer but I liked to sing and play my guitar. When I was a teenager, my grandma once invited me to sing some Yiddish songs for a group of her friends. They liked it. Some of them invited me to sing for their friends and so on. It just happened.”
Forty years have passed since that modest beginning. Now, Respitz performs professionally, and people enjoy her concerts across Canada and abroad. “I never look for engagements,” she said. “They find me. I performed in New York, South America, Israel and, of course, everywhere in Canada.”
Yiddish language, Jewish culture and traditional music go hand in hand in all her presentations, encompassing academia and stage. She is a champion of Jewish folklore.
Any venue is good, as long as there is interest, she said, be it an auditorium at McGill University or a seniors seminar at a small community centre. She often incorporates songs into her lectures and workshops and sometimes even brings her guitar to her university classes. “I would come to give a lecture, and then people would ask me to sing,” she explained.
“I like teaching culture and history through songs. For example, if I give a lecture about a Jewish lifecycle, there are songs for every occasion, for weddings and babies, joyful and sad. You don’t have to understand every word in Yiddish to appreciate these songs.”
She said she realizes that Yiddish and the cultural milieu associated with it are things of the past, like Latin, but that doesn’t diminish her enthusiasm. “Of course, Yiddish will never become a spoken tongue again. It was a language of Eastern European Jews for hundreds of years, but that era ended with the Holocaust. Now, it serves those who want to know about our heritage.”
The revival of interest in Yiddish has been going on in Europe and America for awhile. “Among my students are people of all ages and demographics,” she said of the public’s interest in the language. “People want to learn Yiddish for various reasons: out of curiosity, to preserve the memory of their grandparents, to learn history. Some non-Jewish people also want to learn it. And why not? Some Jewish people want to study Chinese. Why not the opposite? I know one Japanese man who wants to translate Sholem Aleichem into Japanese; he studied Yiddish. Students from such diverse backgrounds make for a dynamic learning environment.”
Respitz endeavors to make every lecture and new course as engaging as possible for students, no matter their background. Spurred by her inquisitive nature, she conducts research about Jewish traditions, the history of people and places and, of course, Yiddish songs. “I try to find out who wrote them, when, why, where. The biographies of the poets and musicians. Who survived? Who perished in the Holocaust? If we don’t preserve those songs and poems now, they might disappear forever.”
At times, an entirely new course springs from her research. “I have a course on Russian Yiddish culture after the revolution. They had so many wonderful poets there.” She even speaks a bit of Russian. “To study Eastern European Jews, you almost have to know Russian.” Her sprinkling of Russian helped her when she traveled to Russia in 1981 on a trip organized by Canadian Jewish Congress.
“A group of us went to help the Russian Jewish refuseniks,” she recalled. “We talked to them about everything Jewish, celebrated Rosh Hashana together, sang and danced. Some of them knew English, others could speak Yiddish or Hebrew, which they learned secretly. It was forbidden by their government then. I know Yiddish and Hebrew, English, of course, plus my rudimentary Russian. We could communicate very well. It was such fun. Unfortunately, we had to cut our trip short. There were some troubles with the KGB, so we had to return home a few days earlier than expected.”
Even though she never visited Russia again, she often helps Russian Jewish immigrants in Montreal. “I introduce them to the Jewish culture through the community centre, and it’s very gratifying. They want to know everything – from holidays to traditional food – and it wasn’t always possible in Russia.”
Another country with deep Jewish roots is Poland, and Respitz recently returned from a journey there. “I went to Poland as an educator with a mission from Montreal’s CJA. My role was to bring the elements of 1,000 years of Jewish history in Poland to life.”
She visited several cities during the trip. “It was a thrill to stand in front of ohel Peretz [the tomb of Yitskhok Leybush Peretz, known as I.L. Peretz] at the Okapowa Cemetery in Warsaw and talk about this great writer and tell one of his stories. Playing my guitar and singing, while our group danced in the historic, beautifully restored Lancut Synagogue, was a true testament to the fact that we are still here. Particularly moving for me was to stand in front of the home of great Yiddish folk poet Mordecai Gebirtig in Krakow and sing his songs. It was truly an unforgettable experience.”
As she is an ardent partisan of everything Jewish, it’s no surprise she participates in KlezKanada, the Montreal annual festival of Jewish arts and music. KlezKanada’s goal is “to foster Jewish cultural and artistic creativity worldwide as both an ethnic heritage and a constantly evolving contemporary culture and identity.” Respitz’s songs and her magnetic presentations fit perfectly into such an atmosphere.
Vancouver Jewish community member Celia Brauer met Respitz at KlezKanada and was impressed. Brauer told the Independent, “Every year, for the last five years, I’ve gone to KlezKanada. I grew up in Montreal, speaking Yiddish. Yiddish is a rich language from our past. It gives us a taste of what was, a glimpse into the world that existed before. The trips to the festival felt like good shots of my ancestral culture. In the last two years, Janie taught a workshop there. I went to her workshops. She is very charismatic, has great knowledge of Yiddish and Jewish culture, music, writers. Nothing like that has ever been presented in Vancouver, and I thought that many people from our community might be interested in her stories. I wanted to bring her here.”
Brauer contacted the Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture and the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver and, together, they made Respitz’s visit possible.
Respitz will be in Vancouver on June 4, 5 and 7 with presentations at the Peretz Centre and the JCCGV. For tickets, visit janierespitz.wordpress.com.
Olga Livshinis a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].
Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen came under a barrage of criticism in 2006 for writing that Israel was a mistake. Almost a decade after the controversy, he has come back with Israel: Is It Good for the Jews? (Simon & Schuster, 2014), in which he acknowledges that “mistake” may have been the wrong word and explains what he intended to say.
Cohen admits that he could not think of another word to reflect the missteps in Israel’s history. He believes that early Zionists were mistaken to think the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine was the answer to antisemitism. Also, Israel in its 67 years has made mistakes; for example, he believes it was a blunder not to banish all Palestinians in 1948, and that it was a huge error to become an occupying power after 1967.
Those are hot topics to debate, especially after the recent election in Israel. But how are they related to the provocative question posed by the title? Cohen never makes a connection. He pays little attention to contemporary Israel and its relationship to Jews around the world. The title does not reflect the book that he wrote.
A provocative book title may be good for promotion and sales. It’s disappointing for readers who are familiar with his reputation and expect more from his book. Cohen is a syndicated columnist who has received awards for his investigative reporting. Israel: Is It Good for the Jews? was nominated for a Jewish Book Council award.
So, let’s ignore the title and look at the book for what it is. Cohen has written a brief history of antisemitism leading up to the creation of the state, an account of the early days of Israel and a quixotic account of some current events. He includes an 11-page index of books about Israel and the Jewish world that provide the anecdotes and profiles for his work.
However, even here, Cohen stumbles. With a deft pen, he fills the page with clever turns of phrases but, at times, his comments seem simply glib. His sweeping statements do not always make sense. He occasionally drifts sideways, making it difficult to follow what he is saying as he weaves his way through history.
At the outset, he makes it clear that he is not questioning Israel’s right to exist when he voices criticism of the country. He offers his credentials as a staunch supporter of Israel who loves and admires the country. He then begins his journey through the vitriolic world of antisemitism, paying special attention to leading figures who are not normally considered to be antisemites, and to the diabolical attacks against Jews in Europe that stretched far beyond Nazi Germany.
No one will challenge Cohen when he says that those who thought a Jewish homeland would end antisemitism were wrong. Creating a nation of Jews in the midst of Arab Muslim countries has produced a century of warfare and terrorism. Hatred of the Jews persists. He provides ample evidence that shows how the antisemitism of medieval and 20th-century Europe, with its pogroms and death camps, has morphed into aggressive anti-Zionism, spreading like an unruly virus throughout the Arab Muslim countries.
Cohen also shows how mistaken early Zionists were when they assumed that the Arab Middle East would politely make way for European Jews.
He writes that the Zionist dreamers meant no harm to the Arab residents. They intended to bring a European way of life to their new homeland. They sometimes thought, innocently, that the new country would benefit the Arabs as well as the Jews. Cohen says they were mistaken. But, as he notes, Palestinian resentment of Jewish immigration has been vocal and often violent since the 1930s.
Despite the harsh reception, the early immigrants came with their European morals. Ethnic cleansing and massive population shifts were common in other countries at that time, but founding father David Ben-Gurion and others refused to accept the expulsion of all Palestinians. The Palestinians became “collateral damage” to the fight for a new country. Cohen contends that the harm done to Palestinians was necessary, if the state was to be built, and could have been far worse.
He refers to the expulsion of 14 million ethnic Germans from their homes in countries outside Germany. The world shrugged as they were sent back to their ancestral homeland. The transfers were uncontroversial government policy in several European countries at that time. Similarly, in India and in Russia. He maintains that Israel could have done something similar.
Cohen links the decision to leave most Palestinians in their homes inside the country to the current situation, where Israel is now “two nations in one land.” He says that the occupation of the West Bank territories has further weakened the country. The occupation is “lighting the slow-burning demographic fuse that ensures that Jews will not be the majority in the Jewish homeland.”
He is extremely pessimistic about the country’s future. “To say Israel should survive is to accept ethnic cleansing,” he writes with a tone of despair.
Viewing the country from a left-wing perspective, Cohen contends that Israel has lost its purpose. The withering Jewish populations in Europe and the Islamic world have diminished the necessity of a safe haven for Jews. Meanwhile, Jews in North America are increasingly assimilated or indifferent to the country.
Israel has also lost its moral compass and “cannot distinguish the bell of reasonable criticism from the bell of hateful antisemitism,” he writes.
Cohen predicts things will only get “worse” for Israel. War or the constant threat of war will degrade Jewish Israel; secular Jews will leave Israel. The country – a land for a hated people and a despised religion – will become a gated community in the Arabian Desert. Time is not Israel’s ally. Echoing Israeli journalist Ari Shavit, Cohen believes that, sooner or later, the Jews will run out of miracles.
Robert Matas, a Vancouver-based writer, is a former journalist with the Globe and Mail. This review was originally published on the Isaac Waldman Jewish Public Library website and is reprinted here with permission. To reserve this book or any other, call 604-257-5181 or email [email protected]. To view the catalogue, visit jccgv.com and click on Isaac Waldman library.
Luc Roderique as Usnavi and Sharon Crandall as Abuela Claudia in Arts Club’s In the Heights. (photo by David Cooper)
Even before the musical starts, the set draws you in. Then the music, the lighting, the actors, the choreography. It’s not that any one of these aspects is better than the other in Arts Club’s In the Heights, now playing at the Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage. This is merely their order of appearance.
Ted Roberts has created three storefronts and an apartment with a backdrop of the George Washington Bridge. The sun comes up – thanks to Marsha Sibthorpe – as a graffiti artist plies his trade. He’s listening to music, but it takes awhile to realize that there’s a live band “living” above the bodega – directed by Ken Cormier, the music is such a part of the scene that you don’t really notice it until you find yourself moving to it, or the actors start to move to it. Enter Lisa Stevens’ choreography. It, too, is subtle, occurring in bits and bursts with a few professionally trained dancers who raise the quality across the board.
While other critics have found the music and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda and book by Quiara Alegría Hudes (who, according to the program, is of Puerto Rican and Jewish descent) wanting, I don’t need to be intellectually challenged when I go the theatre, and I don’t generally expect musicals to portray gritty realism, so I thoroughly enjoyed In the Heights. It was a refreshingly different cultural setting from other musicals and plays I’ve seen in Vancouver, and that made it easier for me to lose myself in it. While I’ll admit to drifting a bit near the end of the first half, the predictability of the story was a comfort, rather than an obstacle to my enjoyment.
There are two main plotlines. One centres around the bodega owner, Usnavi. He is a reluctant entrepreneur, having taken over the business when his parents died. He dreams of returning to the Dominican Republic, but feels duty-bound to keep the bodega going, and he’s also got to think about his sidekick cousin, the wise-cracking Sonny, who helps him out at the store. Not only that but (of course?) he’s torn about leaving, as he is madly in love – but too shy initially to approach – Vanessa, who works at next door’s soon-to-be-closing hair salon.
The other plotline focuses on Nina. Returning home to Washington Heights from Stanford University, she is the pride of the neighborhood, yet she has fallen short. Having to work two jobs has caused her grades to fall and she’s lost her scholarship. Her parents’ car-service business is barely keeping afloat, so there’s no money to be had there. In addition to the tensions that arise when Nina tells her parents the truth about her school situation, there is the not-so-small matter of her being in love with Benny, who, while trusted by her parents, for whom he has worked for years, is not Hispanic.
There is also a heat wave, a blackout and a death, and poverty, gentrification and other social issues are hinted at, however, none of these underlying elements rises to the foreground. In the Heights is light, fun fare and I, for one, won’t complain about that. The actors all do a great job at spitting out their lyrics clearly, staying on key and dancing in step; the musicians hit all the right notes. I left the Stanley in a better mood than I arrived, and that, to me, means it was a musical worth seeing.
In the Heights is on stage until June 7. For tickets and information, visit artsclub.com.
From the JI pages
Lisa Stevens, the choreographer and assistant director of In the Heights, grew up in Vancouver, and readers of the Jewish Independent / Jewish Western Bulletin have followed some of the highlights of her career, even her pre-career.
She was part of the Grade 1 classes being fêted at the Shalom Yeladim celebration led by Rabbi Wilfred Solomon and Dr. Sheldon Cherry that welcomed the young students enrolled at Beth Israel School and Talmud Torah in 1973, and she shared her bat mitzvah on May 30, 1980, at Beth Israel with Lisa Goldman. She was winning dance competitions by 1977 and teaching by 1986, when she was reported to be “the youngest choreographer in Canada,” at age 18.
Stevens opened her own dance studio in 1987 and her students were winning awards by 1992. In 1993, two of them “beat out 3,000 dancers to win the national finals (duo category) of the Sega Video Dance Contest.”
Off to London, England, in 1996, the JWB also caught up with her once she’d moved to New York. Stevens returns regularly to Vancouver to work on productions here and, no doubt, to visit family and friends. On more than one occasion, she’s taken time to chat with the paper and for that, we are appreciative.
Eran Riklis, director of Dancing Arabs. (photo from Mongrel Media)
Dancing Arabs, which was part of the most recent Vancouver Jewish Film Festival, has its general release on May 15. A multilayered coming-of-age story, the screenplay is by Sayed Kashua, who wrote the novels on which it is based, and it is directed by Eran Riklis.
While called Dancing Arabs, the film is a combination of Dancing Arabs and Second Person Singular, two novels with very different tones.
“I read a first draft that Sayed wrote before I joined the project and it was much more Dancing Arabs and it was much more kind of a comedy,” Riklis told the Independent in a phone interview. But that changed. The first part of the movie, “which was almost pure Italian comedy,” became a way to draw in the audience, “maybe taking away any preconceptions or resistance that an audience might have when it comes to see a film, where it has all the opinions in the world about the Arabs, and this and that.”
Riklis wanted the audience “to fall in love with the character and then, when the film changes its tone and it gradually becomes more and more dramatic … you can’t walk away because you love this character and you want to root for him, you want to join him on his journey.”
With the novel Dancing Arabs being autobiographical, Riklis said he had to remind Kashua that the film was a different entity. It was about Eyad, “and even though there are reflections of reality, the grandmother and the father, whatever it is, it still is a new life, which is true of almost any film that deals with a real story at least partly.”
The challenge was “to do something which is at once meaningful and yet communicative, and striving to reach a wider audience. For me,” said Riklis, “all my films, or most of my films, deal with, let’s say, not easy issues, but I always try to … remember that this has to be a good story.”
Reaction to his films has varied. “If you look at The Syrian Bride, for instance, it had a very warm reception everywhere, both in Israel and worldwide. Lemon Tree was very tough in Israel because it was a little bit too close to home, and then really about sensitive issues, and yet it was probably my biggest success worldwide.” The response everywhere to Dancing Arabs has been “very emotional,” he said, which makes him happy because it means people “understand that this film comes from a place of respect and love and honoring the subject, as complicated as it is, but nobody’s trying to manipulate you here. There is a manipulation in the sense of filmmaking because that’s what filmmaking is about, but I think, emotionally speaking and intellectually speaking, this is a democratic film: it’s like, here are the facts, here’s the situation, here’s a story, here’s the person … and you judge for yourself.”
“… here we’re talking … about a minority that is 20 percent of the country. That’s 1.6 million people…. This is a major thing and, not only that, they’re not in Afghanistan, they’re living right in the middle of the country, next to us, amongst us, with us, and yet they’re invisible.”
When asked what sets Dancing Arabs apart from his other films about the region, Riklis said, they “have dealt with either the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or the regional conflicts or the Druze conflict, whatever, but here we’re talking … about a minority that is 20 percent of the country. That’s 1.6 million people. It’s not like you have some people living on the hillside with two camels. This is a major thing and, not only that, they’re not in Afghanistan, they’re living right in the middle of the country, next to us, amongst us, with us, and yet they’re invisible.”
The novels’ treatment of an internal conflict within Israel “was something that I felt was close to home,” said Riklis. “It’s important enough, and it’s getting more important by the minute. I can see what has happened between the time I shot the film and now. The internal tensions and the growing gap within Israeli society, both within the Jewish one and between the Jews and Arabs inside the country, I felt it’s time to shed a light.”
Riklis and Kashua worked on the script for about a year, on and off, not only because of the material but because they were both busy. Kashua was not involved in the filming process.
“In a strange way, even though it was not an easy film to make on many levels, when I look at it now, I feel it was one of my easiest films,” said Riklis. “That’s because, emotionally, I was so much into it. People ask me, how can you create an Arab family? Well, first of all, I had Sayed writing, so it comes from a very authentic place, but also, once you step in, you say, well, this grandmother is my grandmother, this father could be my father. It’s very easy for me … well, not easy, but, I go back to using respect and knowledge and making sure you get your facts right, at least emotionally, then it’s not so difficult for me because when I watch people, when I look at people, I don’t see color and race, not even age, I don’t really care.”
As with many books, much of the action in Kashua’s novels takes place in the protagonist’s mind. “I think the answer is simplicity,” said Riklis about transforming that style of writing to the screen. “It’s almost like just tell the story, just go with your characters, put them in interesting situations, make sure that every situation is a step forward.
“At the end of the day, I think a director, and almost everybody, is a slave to the story in terms of making sure the story keeps being interesting, keeps being reflective, keeps moving forward.”
“One thing I’ve discovered – but it’s me and another million directors, I think, or at least the good directors have realized – that every inch on the screen is significant. You can sometimes convey 10 pages of text by the color of a shirt. There are so many elements that you put together and I’m really careful with that in terms of what a person is wearing … what’s his environment and what other people are doing and what he’s looking at. And then you have the camera, the kind of lens that you choose and the lighting. There are so many elements that support you but also mean that you have to take responsibility and make sure that they really serve the story. At the end of the day, I think a director, and almost everybody, is a slave to the story in terms of making sure the story keeps being interesting, keeps being reflective, keeps moving forward.”
Music plays a big role in both books, and also in the film.
“It’s funny,” said Riklis, “because there were a lot of things in the script where it was like, ‘Naomi [Eyad’s Jewish girlfriend] and Eyad go to a concert in a club in Jerusalem,’ and we didn’t dig into it…. Then I found myself Googling myself to death to find what was popular in the late ’80s in Israel.” He came upon a song from a controversial rock opera, with explicit lyrics about rape and the Palestinians, and it became “a totally different scene. Suddenly, it’s emotional, and suddenly Naomi’s not feeling comfortable and Eyad is not feeling comfortable, and it has its own message and it’s brutal, and yet it’s not.
“Same thing went with, for instance, Joy Division, ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart,’ which came from me.” Riklis had seen Control, a film about the British band. He said, “Ian Curtis, the lead singer, was epileptic and used to collapse on stage and at some point couldn’t take it anymore and committed suicide at a very young age – I felt, wow, this is the song for Yonatan, this is exactly a reflection of Yonatan’s life.” A peer who Eyad helps with his schoolwork and eventually befriends, Yonatan has muscular dystrophy.
There were other sound choices, as well. For example, where the script says Naomi and Eyad go to a movie, “I realized that following the scene where Eyad carries Yonatan to the bathroom, which is a very emotional scene, and he carries him almost like it’s a very Christian or Jewish image … my next cut I knew was Naomi and Eyad at the cinema and I didn’t want to see a clip from a movie, I wanted to listen to it. Then I said, OK, what’s appropriate here?… I thought about Wings of Desire, the Wim Wenders film, which in Hebrew is called Angels of Berlin. I said, what we need now, what Yonatan needs now, maybe Eyad as well, is an angel to protect him and to maybe keep him alive. And so I said, maybe it would be beautiful if they [are] listen[ing] to this monologue from the film, the beautiful voice of Bruno Ganz. Even though it’s in German, it’s just purely emotional.
“That’s the way I work,” said Riklis. Whether it’s the music, films “or even the news clips that you see in the movie, they always give you another layer. For example, Eyad comes to Edna’s and Yonatan’s house for the first time and he’s left alone in the living room. On television, there’s a report about a suicide terrorist who drove a bus into a ravine and dozens were killed.… The reality outside is on TV and yet he goes to the window and he watches and he hears the Arab prayers coming from the Old City. It’s almost like he’s looking at his own [life], like his older life is calling him back. And yet, he’s in this fancy apartment in west Jerusalem.”
Riklis admitted, “It’s interesting, I think, when people see the film for the second time – they discover so many things they haven’t seen the first time.”