Arts & Culture – Page 150

Chua and Rubenfeld attempt to explain success

Jews are the quintessential successful minority group by any economic measure. They are disproportionately represented in the top rankings in business, finance, the arts, scientific research, architecture, medicine and law.

Likewise, Mormons and new immigrants to the United States from China, Cuba, India, Lebanon, Nigeria and Iran make the A-list in several sectors of the economy. Meanwhile, black Americans and other groups are stuck in poverty with high unemployment and poor education.

Those are bold statements that many will dismiss as thoughtless stereotypes. But are the generalizations baseless?

The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America (Penguin Press, 2014) is an exploration into the murky world of these sweeping statements. Amy Chua, the “tiger mom” who gained notoriety for her harsh approach to child-rearing, teams up with her accomplished husband Jed Rubenfeld to investigate some of the reasons why some groups rise to the top of their fields, become wealthy and win awards while others seem to be stuck in a rut.

They look for similarities in the lives of numerous celebrities, corporate leaders and ordinary folks, both those who have done well and those who have failed. They dissect statistics from census tracks that identify highest income and medium household net worth for different ages within several racial, cultural and religious groups. They count CEOs and CFOs, the percentage of students at Harvard and other Ivy League schools, and the winners of Nobel Prizes, as well as cultural awards such as Pulitzers and Academy Awards. They slice and dice the numbers in numerous ways and come out with specific cultural traits – a set of values and beliefs, habits and practices – that they conclude are similar among all the overachieving groups.

• Disproportionately successful groups have a deeply internalized belief in the specialness or superiority of their group, rooted in theology, history or a social hierarchy from their homeland.

• Members of the group have a feeling of insecurity and anxiety about losing whatever they have. They feel what they do is never good enough.

• Those that succeed emphasize discipline and controlling impulses. They stand up to temptation and persevere despite difficulties.

The authors conclude that people grappling with a superiority complex and deep insecurities are often consumed with resentments that push them to overachieve. The chip-on-the-shoulder attitude feeds their ambition and creates an “I’ll show them” mentality. Impulse control mixed with strong ambition yields a toughness and resilience. Members of the group who succeed found virtue in enduring hardships, deferring gratification and standing up to adversity.

There is some truth in what they write. The biographies of prominent Jewish figures often include anecdotes reflecting those traits. Although Jews are “Chosen People,” they are haunted, at least in the world of Philip Roth and Woody Allen, by insecurities stemming from unrelenting parental pressure and social scorn, real and imagined. Impulse control has been foundational to Judaism religion, with its 613 injunctions, and its countless prescriptions for a traditional Jewish way of life. It is those forces that Chua and Rubenfeld say converge to produce success.

Jewish overachievers are not the only ones. Chua and Rubenfeld find parallels with the traits of the disproportionate number of Mormons who are top executives of Fortune 500 companies, with Asian American students with the highest grades (but reportedly the lowest self-esteem of any racial group), and Cubans in Miami who have become millionaires and hold a disproportionate number of managerial and professional positions in the city, and dominate local politics. Other immigrant groups under similar pressures also do well.

But such sweeping statements set off alarms. Caustic reviews since the book was released earlier this year dismissed their conclusions as racist, faulty social science and, some may say even worse, dull prose. Reviewers attacked Chua and Rubenfeld, two Yale University law professors, for sloppy thinking and loose use of language.

Chua and Rubenfeld are accustomed to public attention, although usually of a different sort. Chua was on Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world after the release of her book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother in 2011. Rubenfeld has written two international bestselling novels and two books on constitutional law.

They challenge those who assume equality is always beneficial. They suggest that promoting self-esteem, instant gratification and excessive freedom in parenting may be counter-productive.

Clearly frustrated by the response to their new book, Chua and Rubenfeld have said their work has been misunderstood and misrepresented. They believe they have been aggressively attacked because their conclusions run counter to contemporary political correctness. They challenge those who assume equality is always beneficial. They suggest that promoting self-esteem, instant gratification and excessive freedom in parenting may be counter-productive.

They attribute the uproar over the book also to an aversion to talk about opinions about various cultural, ethnic and religious groups doing significantly better than others, views that are often expressed privately but not in a public forum.

They got that right. It’s a minefield filled with explosive emotions and ugly name-calling. However, they are right in insisting that the overheated rhetoric contributes nothing to an understanding of the subject. We should not avoid discussion of hot issues, especially those that have given rise to some of the worst atrocities in the world. Chua and Rubenfeld raise matters that should engage society in dispassionate debate.

So let’s turn the spotlight on their generalizations about cultural traits to see whether they stand up.

Chua and Rubenfeld try to inoculate their conclusions from criticism with 78 pages of notes and listing the names of 50 research assistants who worked with them. They claim statements about economic performance and cultural attitudes are backed up by empirical, historical or sociological evidence. “But when there are differences between groups, we will come out and say so,” they write.

They look at characteristics of those struggling in poverty and at a variety of explanations for their situation, such as IQ levels. They conclude that the disparities between rich and poor cannot be explained by these alternatives.

They also note the transitory nature of the accomplishments achieved through the sense of superiority, insecurities and hard work. Success wipes out insecurity and eases assimilation; equality undermines personal ambition. They conclude that traits that helped disproportionately successful groups rarely survive beyond the first two generations.

They downplay the impact of politics, social institutions and education. Personal responsibility plays virtually no role in their theories. Factors that have nothing to do with religion, culture or race, such as the lack of opportunity, discrimination and the devastating impact of economic forces, are minimized. Chua and Rubenfeld gloss over examples that do not fit their theories.

Despite their extensive references to research, the book reads as if Chua and Rubenfeld started with conclusions and then went out to find evidence to back up what they wanted to say. Focusing on cultural traits has blinded them to other influences. They downplay the impact of politics, social institutions and education. Personal responsibility plays virtually no role in their theories. Factors that have nothing to do with religion, culture or race, such as the lack of opportunity, discrimination and the devastating impact of economic forces, are minimized. Chua and Rubenfeld gloss over examples that do not fit their theories. Are they cherry-picking results and leaving out conflicting evidence? An answer to that question will be left to the experts in the field.

Anticipating probably the most controversial attack, the charge of racism, the authors write they are identifying psychological attitudes, not characteristics from birth. They acknowledge that significant differences exist within every racial, cultural and religious group. Even the subgroups they identify were not monolithic. But, they say, that did not make the culture traits less real or powerful.

They also anticipate critics who say the traits they celebrate often do not lead to happiness. They acknowledge that the attributes of success come with their own distinctive pathology that misshaped lives. Deeply insecure people were often neurotic and a sense of superiority led to arrogance and easily morphed into racism. They concede that the “triple package” might not be a recipe for happiness. Indeed, the rewards of the triple package were mostly financial. However, they posit that material success can lay the foundation for a happier life.

So, what are we left with after so many qualifications? As pop sociology, the book provides numerous provocative sparks for conversation around the Shabbat table. They identify some traits of some people who have achieved much. But many would insist their glib generalizations are just plain wrong. At times, they seem to give the strongest arguments against their own conclusions. And, even if you accept what they say, it is doubtful that many parents would want their children to follow the direction that Chua and Rubenfeld have set out.

Media consultant Robert Matas, a former Globe and Mail journalist, still reads books. The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America is available at the Isaac Waldman Jewish Public Library. 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.

PhD research sparks fiction

Shirley Graetz’s She Wrote on Clay (Hadley Rille Books, 2013) is so intriguing, so mesmerizing, so unique, so well-written, I could not put it down!

Graetz was born in Dusseldorf, Germany. She came to study at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and never left Israel. Her master’s degree and her doctorate are in ancient Near Eastern studies, and she is a licensed tour guide and a teacher, married and mother of three young children.

She explains that, while conducting her PhD research at Ben-Gurion University in 2011, she was working on letters written by women who were naditu, monastic women who lived around 1800 BCE, about the time of Abraham, in Mesopotamia (ancient Iraq).

She had never written fiction before but, she says, “The women started to talk to me in my head. I had just given birth to my third child (the other two were 2 and 4), it was the second year of my PhD, but I sat down and wrote for three days. It was as if the story wrote itself.”

The texts were originally in cuneiform on clay tablets, in Akkadian, an ancient language. Some of these women were scribes. They lived in the equivalent of a walled compound called a gagu, but each woman had her own house or room. They all came from wealthy families, and there were different gagus in different cities. By becoming a naditu, each woman foreswore marriage and children, but her family provided her with food and clothing. However, the women had to be successful in business in order to remain financially independent.

The most prominent gagu was in Sippar, Meospotamia, a city on the banks of the Euphrates River, from which we have the most texts.

The novel revolves around 16-year-old Iltani, whose goal in life is to become a scribe. The best way to achieve this is to become a naditu and go to a gagu, which she will do in three months; her aunt and a childhood friend also live there. Her father has paid a naditu there to teach her to be a scribe. Once she enters, she will not visit her family for two years.

When she enters, there is a ceremony as she leaves her family and is welcomed by the priests, the making of temple offerings and her initiation. Her life then begins, and this forms the bulk of the book – focusing on her day-to-day life, the process of learning to be a scribe, her relationships with her aunt and friend, as well as conflicts within the gagu and her other relationships, until she is 25, already nine years in the gagu.

The surprising turns add much to the enjoyment of this read, and the meticulous details described about the home life, the clothes, the food, the customs in Sippar, are also part of the fascination of this story about what I would call “feminist women of 4,000 years ago.”

Sybil Kaplan is a foreign correspondent, lecturer, book reviewer and food writer in Jerusalem. She has compiled nine kosher cookbooks. She leads weekly walks in English in the Jewish produce market, Machaneh Yehudah, and writes the restaurant features for Janglo, the oldest, largest website in Israel for English-speakers.

Learning from tragedy

It was Aug. 9, 2001. I was in Jerusalem after 19 years absence, to attend a convention and do research on a memoir, Witness to History: Ten Years as a Woman Foreign Correspondent in Israel (still unpublished). I was staying at the Sheraton (now the Leonardo). I left the hotel to meet my good friend and personal guide, Pat (z”l). She and I were going to the Bible Lands Museum for a reunion with a mutual acquaintance. All the traffic from the hotel down King George into town was blocked. We heard there had been a terrorist attack, but decided to go on with our plans.

Later, when we returned to the hotel, national board members were waiting for us and told us to go and call our families and tell them we were OK. One by one, Hadassah women came in with stories of having been on Ben Yehudah … of hearing an explosion and ambulances. It was the Sbarro restaurant terrorist attack.

***

Dr. Zieva Dauber Konvisser is a fellow of the Institute for Social Innovation at Fielding Graduate University in California. In 2003, she was at the Israel Centre for the Treatment of Psychotrauma in Jerusalem, beginning research on the “possibility of post-traumatic growth coexisting with post-traumatic stress.” Earlier this year, her book Living Beyond Terrorism (Gefen Publishing, 2014) was published.

Founding director of the centre, Prof. Danny Brom, writes in the book’s foreword that Konvisser contributes to “the study of politically motivated violence by documenting many of the challenges that confront people who experience such violence and by elucidating the many ways people find to overcome the horrors of their encounter with deadly violence. Equally, this book contributes to the development of the concept of post-traumatic growth.”

Konvisser herself explains in the preface that the focus of this book is on “resilience or recovery and post-traumatic growth.”

Konvisser is a second-generation Holocaust survivor, having lost more than 30 relatives in Vilna. During a trip to Israel in 2002, she reflected how survivors of terrorist bombings moved beyond their traumas. Subsequently, she visited Israel eight times between 2004 and 2010 to speak with such survivors.

She spoke with 24 survivors in 2004, who made up the research study sample for her doctoral dissertation, then revisited them in 2007, interviewed seven more plus 15 Arab Israelis. In 2013, she again asked them to reflect upon and describe changes in “their family, work, health and/or outlook in life since the previous interviews. The result is 36 stories as told by 48 survivors and family members with 33 incidents described.

The book is a tribute “to those who survived attacks with or without disability or loss, as well as family members of those who perished…. By telling and retelling their stories, we celebrate their lives as people – as human beings.”

Among the most amazing aspects of the book is one of the three appendices, which lists 58 organizations supporting terror survivors and families. There is also a glossary and a selected bibliography.

This is a very difficult book to read. Every story is upsetting and painful, whether one has personally experienced a terrorist attack, is related to someone or is acquainted with a victim. However, Konvisser notes 12 qualities common to these survivors, which could be “cultivate[d] to master any crisis.” These include:

• They struggle, confront and ultimately integrate painful thoughts and emotions.

• They adjust their future expectations to fit their new reality.

• They call on their inner strength, core beliefs and values.

• They are helped to move forward by strength gained from their past experiences and prior adversity.

• They are helped by spirituality or grappling with fundamental existential questions.

• They stay healthy and focus on their fitness level.

• They are creative, find the silver lining and give back, moving forward with action.

• They stay connected and seek outside resources to help them through rough times.

• They tell their stories and try to make sense of their lives.

• They are hopeful, optimistic and celebrate life.

May we all learn from their experiences.

VIFF screens humanity’s best/worst

Ilya Kabakov is the subject of Amei Wallach’s lya and Emilia Kabakov: Enter Here. (photo from VIFF)

This year’s Vancouver International Film Festival (Sept. 25-Oct. 10) will take viewers on a rollercoaster ride, if the films reviewed by the Independent this week are any indication. We went from soaring heights of imagination and freedom with Ilya and Emilia Kabakov: Enter Here to the music-filled yet poverty-ridden streets of Jakarta in Jalanan to the horrifyingly shallow depths where evil is normal in The Decent One.

“What interests me is where is the border between reality and the dream,” says artist Ilya Kabakov in Enter Here. With this film that the Jewish Independent has sponsored at VIFF, Amei Wallach follows Ilya and his wife and partner Emilia Kabakov in the months leading to a massive retrospective in Moscow in 2008. She captures the couple’s personalities: Ilya, with his mind anywhere but on earth, still traumatized by his life – and that of his mother, who led a very difficult existence – in the Soviet Union, which he escaped in 1987, and Emilia, the organizer, fearless. The exhibit marked his first return to Russia, and there is trepidation about how it will be received, and how he will handle his memories.

Kabakov’s paintings and installations are unbelievable. They inspire contemplation and awe at their scope and creativity. Most of the ones highlighted in the documentary critique what Russia would have been – and seemingly has become again – to live in: the surveillance, distrust, harshness, bureaucracy. His works are influenced by various events and people, including his mother who, at his behest, wrote a diary when she was in her 80s.

In his New York studio, Kabakov reflects on three types of losers: mankind in principle, his feelings about himself despite his self-acknowledged success, and his reaction to Russia. He describes Russia as “permanent rainy,” and speaks of life there as “two-faced,” the public front and the personal. As a non-state-sponsored artist, he created much work, but only exhibited twice in his home country. For Kabakov, for whom the museum is akin to the church, “The last haven of our history and our spirit,” this alone would have been reason to flee. For the many around the world who have glimpsed his great mind through his work, we’re very lucky he did.

***

photo - Of the 12 million people living in Indonesia’s capital city, some 7,000 earn their living as buskers, according to the film, and Jalanan follows the lives of three of them – Boni, Ho and Tuti – over a five-year period. — Of the 12 million people living in Indonesia’s capital city, some 7,000 earn their living as buskers, according to the film, and Jalanan follows the lives of three of them – Boni, Ho and Tuti – over a five-year period. *(photo from VIFF)*

Director Daniel Ziv obviously fell in love with the street musicians he profiles in Jalanan. Their aspirations, energy, passion, kindness, and resilience – he communicates all of it, such that you almost don’t notice it’s a documentary about poverty, development, corruption, and the treatment of women, the place of art in society, and other such weighty subject matter.

Of the 12 million people living in Indonesia’s capital city, some 7,000 earn their living as buskers, according to the film, and Jalanan follows the lives of three of them – Boni, Ho and Tuti – over a five-year period. In the face of hardship, the troubadours remain optimistic and driven to create and share their music. Nothing gets them down: Boni and his family are evicted from their 10-year “home” under a bridge, Ho gets jailed for just being on the streets and Tuti is unable to live with any of her three children.

As writes Ziv in a director’s statement, “This isn’t the type of documentary that feeds off tragedy … this is not about thousands of lives being threatened … this isn’t even about the poorest of the poor. Rather, Jalanan traces the lives of a forgotten, marginalized community that slips through society’s cracks. The dilemmas and conflicts here represent a huge segment of urban population in the developing world…. This film is meant to give them a voice, to raise awareness for their conditions and struggle.”

Ziv takes the awareness beyond the film, with a campaign to raise money to buy homes for Boni, Ho and Tuti: fundrazr.com/campaigns/dgEM6.

***

photo - Vanessa Lapa’s The Decent One is based on personal letters, documents and photographs that were found in the Himmlers’ home by U.S. soldiers in 1945 — Vanessa Lapa’s The Decent One is based on personal letters, documents and photographs that were found in the Himmlers’ home by U.S. soldiers in 1945. (photo from VIFF)

And then, there is a person like Heinrich Himmler, who could write home to his family with love and affection while on a trip visiting concentration camps. Vanessa Lapa’s The Decent One is based on personal letters, documents and photographs that were found in the Himmlers’ home by U.S. soldiers in 1945, but which weren’t handed over to the military authorities. They became the property of Lapa’s father somehow, and she has used them to make this documentary.

The Decent One is very stylized. Voice actors read the letters, diary entries and documents from Himmler, his wife, daughter, mistress and others, archival footage has sound effects and/or music added, and benign-sounding excerpts from the writings are juxtaposed against brutal images. Viewers follow Himmler from a young age to his rise in the Nazi party and through much of the war. The cumulative effect is powerful. The most upsetting and scary conclusion is that understanding evil is nigh impossible.

Artist via camera lens

Michael Seelig is donating the proceeds of his photography exhibit to the Zack Gallery. (photo by Olga Livshin)

Every one of Michael Seelig’s photographs reflects a place, its character, its soul. He doesn’t enhance the images in any way. Photoshop’s magic is not for him. He even scoffs at cropping. “I might crop a tiny bit for the printing, just the edges,” he said in an interview with the Independent. “That’s my real challenge – to get every frame right.”

His approach to photography is that of an artist. And, he also paints, although unlike his photos, Seelig doesn’t sell his paintings. “They are for family and friends. I never exhibited them,” he said. “My paintings are mostly watercolors. The compositions are similar to my photographs – urban, for the most part – but they are different, too, depending on my mood, often architectural but less precise than photos, less angular. You have to allow the paints to run, to find their own way.”

Seelig’s solo exhibit Traces opened on Sept. 4 at the Zack Gallery. It is a fundraiser for the gallery. “I’m lucky to be able to donate this show to the gallery and the JCC [Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver],” he said. “My wife and I have been supporters of this important institution in Vancouver for many years. We donated time and money, worked as volunteers at various points. I think maybe some people will buy prints of my photographs because the proceeds would benefit the JCC.”

Seelig took most of the photographs during his travels, and he has traveled extensively, especially after he retired. “We live part of every year in Israel,” he explained. “Everything is close there – Europe and Asia.”

Many people travel and take photos, but not everybody can produce a body of photography worthy of an exhibition. Arriving on location is just a matter of buying a plane ticket, but finding uncommon angles and perspectives takes inspiration and a creative eye.

“I took the photo of the historical buildings in Budapest from the opposite roof,” he said about one of the images. “The view from there was outstanding, but I had to find the perfect spot for this shot. I’m interested in details and, for this shot, I wanted to align the lamp post with the border between the two buildings.”

Another of his images, a majestic panorama of Turkish mountains with an air balloon as a focal point, he took from an ascending balloon. “The view was spectacular, the juxtaposition of a thousands-year-old landscape and the bright modern balloon.” He couldn’t have gotten such an impressive shot any other way.

“That’s what I like about photography,” he said. “I’m always looking for things to photograph but, as a rule, panoramas don’t interest me.” Instead, he admitted his fascination with urban details.

As a professional architect, he taught urban planning and design at the University of British Columbia for 30 years and he frequently used his city photos for his lectures. “When I travel, I always have a camera with me, but not in Vancouver, not now. Before I retired, though, I photographed Vancouver for my PowerPoint presentations. I had a lecture on benches in the city, another one on traffic lights. Signs in Vancouver – the images were fantastic. None of those signs exists anymore, which is a pity. I have those photos somewhere.”

None of his Vancouver photos are on display in the gallery. Some pictures, however, represent highly unusual urban elements, like a stairway on a blank wall in India or wall paintings in Italy, which look like abstract canvasses. Others, Seelig took in nature, but the lines and correlations of light and shadow evoke man-made formations. Boulders, for example, pile haphazardly against a blindingly blue sky in Israel, like a modernist sculpture, although no human arranged them. The eerie composition was created by sun, sand and wind.

In one image, trees strain up in parallel lines in the forests of America or Turkey, lovely pastel patterns in yellow and green.

“I love trees,” said Seelig. “In this show, there are four different kinds of trees.” One tree in particular, an ancient terebinth growing in an Israeli desert among the rocks, seems surreal, almost sentient. The colors of the photo are muted silver and gold, bleached by the relentless sun, as the old gnarled tree contemplates the mysteries of the universe. It doesn’t feel like people should exist anywhere near it.

“I have been taking photos for many years,” said Seelig. “Before, they were either for my paintings, although I never copied them, not directly, just to remember something I saw, or I took photos for my teaching. In the last 15 years, I do a lot more photography.”

Seelig’s photos are available in limited editions of five only. Each one will last a long time, as he produces his prints not on photo paper but on archival metallic paper and mounted to aluminum.

Traces runs until Sept. 28.

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

Rounding out Bard season

From left to right, Anousha Alamian, Shawn Macdonald and Anton Lipovetsky in Equivocation. (photo by David Blue)

From Midsummer Night’s Dream and Cymbeline, reviewed last month, the Independent moves to Bard on the Beach’s other two offerings this season: The Tempest and Equivocation.

There is only one word to describe this production of The Tempest: fantastic. It is a remounting of the 2008 show, which debuted on the studio stage under the direction of Meg Roe. That was a sublime production and I did not think it could get any better. But, I was wrong. Roe’s second time around, with the move to the big stage, has elevated this “storm” to new heights and makes it the must-see show of the Bard quartet.

Allan Morgan and Jennifer Lines reprise their 2008 roles, as Prospero and Ariel, respectively. Six years on, both have gained a maturity that infuses their acting and takes them to the top of their games. It is their relationship that is very much front and centre in this tale. Morgan is a stern but loving father and, ultimately, a benevolent Prospero, and Lines, with her lovely singing voice, is a charming Ariel, Prospero’s fairy servant.

photo - Allan Morgan as Prospero in The Tempest — Allan Morgan as Prospero in The Tempest. *(photo by David Blue)*

Todd Thomson’s portrayal of the leashed, animal-like slave Caliban is visceral, as he evolves from crawling subjugation to upright manhood. Miranda’s (Lily Beaudoin) and Ferdinand’s (Daniel Doheny) innocent young love is so touchingly portrayed that even the heart of the biggest cynic in the audience will melt. However, it is Luisa Jojic and Naomi Wright, as the tippling sisters Trincula and Stephana, who blast this production into the stratosphere. Their metamorphosis from sophisticated, well-heeled ladies to bedraggled strumpets, as they troll the island with Thomson (with whom Wright gives new meaning to the concept of a foot fetish) and their funky pas de deux are worth the price of admission. This comedy is juxtaposed against the darker side of the production, Prospero’s struggle – enslavement or freedom, revenge or forgiveness, love or hate.

As in Midsummer, the visuals give this production its moxie: the seashell stage frame, Christine Reimer’s fabulous costumes (Ariel’s gigantic wings, First Nations-inspired raven masks, creatures on stilts with flowing robes, white-frocked cross-dressers) and Gerald King’s lighting, especially for the sparkly wedding scene. Add to the mix original music (composed by Roe’s husband, Alessandro Juliani) played by a string quartet prominently seated on stage and you have a recipe for success. There are Jessies on the horizon for this production. As Prospero says in his iconic line, “We are such stuff as dreams are made on.” And this dream has wings.

For the Shakespeare, history and political buffs out there, Equivocation will provide a cerebral workout and, with its plain language, a respite from the Bard’s iambic pentameter.

While Shakespeare was a prolific writer, little is known about the man himself. Bill Cain, a Jesuit priest and founder of the Boston Shakespeare Company, takes up the gauntlet to provide us with some insights into Shakespeare’s character in this thought-provoking play set in 1606 and centred around the Gunpowder Plot to blow up Parliament and assassinate King James I and his family.

The plan foiled and the conspirators sentenced to death, Prime Minister Robert Cecil approaches “Shagspeare” to write the government’s version of what happened. Shag is conflicted (as he says, “I don’t do current events”) about whether to write his patron’s propaganda or tell the truth, at great risk to himself and his merry group of thespians, the King’s Men. To equivocate – use unclear language to deceive or mislead – or not to equivocate, that becomes the question.

Shag’s decision process and his troupe’s rehearsals weave their way through other storylines: the strained relationship between Shag and his daughter, Judith, the surviving twin (his son, Hamnet, died at the age of 11) and the rivalry between the two acting Richards, veteran Burbage and young Sharpe.

Cain teases us with multiple references to Shakespeare’s works (so brush up on your Shakespeare before seeing this!), along with plays within a play (a much-loved Bard device) and some spicy, contemporary language. Oh, and there are a couple of beheadings, too.

Six actors comprise the cast and all but Shag (Bob Frazer) and his daughter Judith (Rachel Cairns) play multiple roles.

Gerry Mackay is Burbage as well as Garnet, the Jesuit priest and the alleged mastermind behind the plot, who defines equivocation as, “a way to tell the truth in difficult times.” Jewish community member Anton Lipovetsky shines in his two major roles of a co-conspirator and the wacky King James (played with a darn good Scottish accent). Anousha Alamian creeps us out as the Machiavellian Cecil and Shawn Macdonald does Armin and Sir Edward Coke, along with a lovely Lady Macbeth. The whole cast is strong, seamlessly moving in and out of their various roles and this is very much an ensemble success story (ably directed by Michael Shamata) but particular mention must be made of the performances of Frazer, Mackay and Lipovetsky.

The set is stark and the costumes simple. The only time color really appears on stage, apart from the language, is during Macbeth, in which the actors are resplendent in colorful plaid shawls. This color versus black and white juxtaposition is a metaphor for Shag’s conundrum, to tell the truth or to color it. And, by the way, what is truth?

Tova Kornfeld is a Vancouver freelance writer and lawyer.

Garay’s 20 years, with 20 dancers, 20 places

Left to right, Michelle Lui, Bevin Poole and Vanessa Goodman. (photo by David Cooper)

Dancers Dancing and SFU Woodward’s present the world première of 20.20.20, in which audiences will not just see, but feel the city come to life onstage. At the Goldcorp Centre for the Arts Sept. 24-27, the show captures the atmosphere of urban Vancouver in all of its complexities from a unique lens.

Celebrating 20 years of working in Vancouver, choreographer Judith Garay looks at 20 intersections in the city to set 20 dancers in motion – inspired by interactions of architecture, pigeons, overpasses, green spaces, mountain views, skateboards and especially the people, old and young. Contrast and contradiction drive the work to be physically exhilarating and thoughtful, prosaic and emotionally charged.

The artists – including Jewish community member Vanessa Goodman – have dug their heels into the world of Vancouver, and brought their experiences and observations back to the studio, where it has been a process of using pedestrian research and full-body articulation to create beauty in otherwise overlooked aspects of city life. The synergy of their work is expressed organically in the process, as the dancers have felt charged by the city itself. They expect a similar visceral reaction for audiences.

As the team continues to organically replicate the city life to stage, they have been surprised in how the process is revealing Vancouver. Contrasts keep resurfacing, like urban and green, rich and poor, young and old and the infamous weather that changes a sky of grey clouds to one of blinding sun. These balances reflect the ever-evolving city from day to day, and naturally beg for a creative portrayal that is full of movement and life.

With music by Stefan Smulovitz, lighting by John Carter and costumes by Margaret Jenkins, 20.20.20 steers away from a traditional tour of Vancouver, instead providing multiple ways to emotionally experience the city. Performances at the Goldcorp Centre, 149 West Hastings St., are at 8 p.m. Tickets are available online at sfuwoodwards.ca or dancersdancing.com.

Milton Berle inspired today’s comedians

Maury Wills, Milton Berle, Jimmy Piersall and Willie Mays in a salute to baseball on the television program The Hollywood Palace in 1967. (photo from ABC Television via Wikimedia Commons)

Today’s comedy superstars, especially those whose careers are driven by television, may very well owe their success to pioneering Jewish entertainer Milton Berle.

Born Mendel Berlinger in Manhattan in 1908, Berle became America’s first small-screen star. Aptly nicknamed “Mr. Television,” he influenced and helped promote the work of hundreds of younger comics.

A 1943 publicity photo of Milton Berle. (photo from EBay via Wikimedia Commons)

“Milton Berle was deceptively successful and very Jewish,” said Lawrence Epstein, author of The Haunted Smile: The Story of Jewish Comedians in America, published in 2002, the year Berle died. “His success came about because early television sets were mostly sold in wealthier urban areas, with Jews and gentile urbanites accustomed to and appreciative of Jewish humor. So, Berle’s quick talking, his high-speed jokes, his dressing in outlandish costumes and his sprinkling of Yiddishisms all played well. Ironically, it was Berle’s success with those urban audiences that propelled the sales of televisions around the nation.”

Epstein explained that once televisions reached the rural areas of America, viewers “took a look at [Berle] and said he spoke so fast they couldn’t understand him, and that he wasn’t funny, and [they asked], ‘What was that foreign language?’”

He said, “That is why Berle’s television career was meteoric. It burned brightly but briefly.”

Berle’s close friend Lou Zigman, a Los Angeles-based labor lawyer and Brooklyn native, disagrees with Epstein’s use of the word “meteoric,” arguing that Berle never burned out like a meteor does. Berle kept performing, assisting other comics, giving to charities and spreading Jewish culture until his death, and he was even performing card tricks as a hospital patient at age 90, according to Zigman.

“I asked Milton how come all the gentiles knew Yiddish humor,” Zigman said in an interview. “He answered that the great majority of comedians and writers in those early years were Jewish. That’s why it spread, and our culture spread, all over the country.”

At age 5, Berle won an amateur talent contest and appeared as a child actor in silent films. He became a vaudevillian at age 12 in a revival of the musical comedy Florodora in Atlantic City, N.J., and was hired by producer Jack White in 1933 to star in Poppin’ the Cork, a musical comedy concerning the repealing of Prohibition. From 1934-36, Berle was heard frequently on The Rudy Vallee Hour radio show and attracted publicity as a regular on The Gillette Original Community Sing, a Sunday night comedy-variety radio program broadcast on CBS. Then came the Milton Berle Show, a variety format he would revive for his television debut.

Taking pianos to the streets

Sean Pacey dabbles at the keys in Burnaby, near the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts. (photo from Sean Pacey)

Keeping a business afloat for more than four decades is accomplishment enough, but to keep it in the family is especially noteworthy. “My grandfather and his oldest son started the shop in the 1970s,” said Sean Pacey, the current owner of Pacey’s Pianos on Broadway. “In the 1980s, my father took over. When I was 18, my father gave me the keys and walked away.”

The young Pacey was well qualified for the job. “My mom has a small manufacturing business, and I helped her since I was 11,” he recalled. “I’d come home from school and answer the phones. At 13, I started working at tradeshows, representing her company all over the world. We traveled to Germany, China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong and many cities in North America.”

Later, already the owner of the piano shop, Pacey got his diploma in business and marketing from the University of British Columbia.

It’s been a little over a dozen years since he accepted the keys to Pacey’s Pianos. In that time, he has expanded the company, and it offers more services and events than it did in his grandfather’s and father’s days, including charitable enterprises. One of these charities is Support Piano, the Vancouver version of Street Piano.

The Street Piano movement started in 2008 in England and has spread worldwide. More than a thousand pianos have been installed outdoors in 45 cities across the globe. Anyone who wants can play them. Some impromptu players are professional musicians, others are children learning to play or adults who learned in the past but, for various reasons, abandoned their music. The freely available pianos entice many hidden musicians out of the woodwork.

Vancouver picked up the initiative last year, when City Studio installed three instruments in public spaces during the summer. This year, the number has increased manifold: City Studio installed 10 pianos, and Pacey partnered with the studio, donating 12 more pianos for the project. However, he wasn’t satisfied with simply leaving a piano on a street corner. He wanted communities to unite around the instruments, to claim ownership of their urban landscape and its music.

“We engaged in similar projects since 2009 but not on such a scale,” he said. “For this project, we decided to match each piano we installed with a certain group we wanted to showcase. Every opening was a musical event. The involved group painted the piano, and there was a concert by a professional musician.… For me, it is a strictly nonprofit venture; it is about doing something beautiful.”

Pacey’s sponsorship groups came from all over Metro Vancouver and included neighborhood kids from a summer camp, seniors with mental disabilities and terminally ill children. “We picked iconic locations that meant something to us,” he explained. “I had a dream to have my instruments everywhere – in a public park, on a lake shore, on a mountain, under the Skytrain, at a music festival.”

He made his dream come true. The pianos with his shop’s mark are standing on Grouse Mountain and under the Skytrain station in Surrey. They offer their black and white keys to anyone who wants to play in Richmond and East Vancouver, Burnaby and Squamish. One of his pianos allows pianists to entertain visitors beside the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver.

“I drive through the spots of our pianos and, everywhere, people are playing. It’s amazing,” he said.

To inspire more participants, Pacey organized a video competition. “People play our pianos, film themselves and upload their videos on our website. We’re going to select a winner and award him or her $400 plus an opportunity to play with the Lions Gate Sinfonia.”

For Pacey, the project is a collaboration between the city, the people and the music world, and his pianos are conduits of connection. He drew performers for the opening and closing ceremonies for each instrument from the wide pool of professional piano players. Some of them are his personal friends, others he met through his shop or his several musical charities.

Philanthropy plays an important role in Pacey’s life. He wants to give to the community, so he contributes much to various nonprofits – and not just money or his pianos but his time and energy, too. He sits on the boards of several local organizations, including Lions Gate Sinfonia Orchestra.

His “baby” charity is the Piano Teachers Federation, which he founded in 2009. “I wanted to make it easier for piano teachers and students to find each other, to find the right fit,” he explained.

The database of the federation is extensive and covers many areas of the city. He personally interviewed every teacher member before adding him or her to the database. Some of them played during the opening ceremonies of Support Pianos, and other members will play at the closings.

“Our Facebook page for Support Pianos already has over 1,500 likes,” he said. “And it’s only been since the beginning of July.”

The pianos are going to grace their public locations until the end of September. “We’ll have a closing ceremony for each one,” he said, “before we collect them. If any of the instruments are in good condition, we might reuse them next summer.”

To learn more – and to upload a video submission – check out supportpiano.com.

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

Israel trip inspires choreographer

Crystal Wills in rehearsal for The Way They Walked Through the World. The work includes the use of more than 300 pairs of army boots. (photo by Christie Wood)

The female experience of war. This part of the description of choreographer Caitlin Griffin’s The Way They Walked Through the World – a contemporary dance piece set to première at the Scotiabank Dance Centre’s open house on Sept. 13 – particularly intrigues me.

Despite the number of conflicts taking place around the world, images of women are few and far between, except for the odd photo, in which the subject(s) is either screaming out in anguish or quietly wiping tears in mourning. Other images come to mind with more thought, but not many, and words also have fallen short in helping me understand my feelings about the violence in general, but my concern and sadness over the situation in Israel specifically. Perhaps a dance performance, its physicality, its abstract nature, will allow me to process some of the emotions that have, to this point, eluded identification, expression.

I have known Griffin for several years. I don’t know her well, but well enough to know that she is a very talented dancer and teacher – and a mensch. When she told me that she was applying to a program at Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company, I was thrilled. When she came back from five months in Israel with a new work in progress, one inspired by her time there, I knew I would want to see it once it was ready to be shared publicly. Fortunately, while I missed an earlier version that was performed at the Firehall Arts Centre’s BC Buds showcase in May, a good friend attended. She was impressed, not only with the performance, but with Griffin; so much so that she connected me to Griffin, not knowing that I already knew her. When I asked Griffin to send me some information on The Way They Walked, she included the following:

“The preliminary movement vocabulary [for the work] was created there [in Israel], as a personal answer to the questions I began to ask myself after seeing armed conflict in a new immediate perspective. I was inspired by the maturity of the young Israelis preparing to serve, and by the strength of Israeli mothers whose realities included the conscription of their children. I was struck by the intense beauty of life framed by conflict.”

It was only weeks later that Israel and Hamas went to war.

“The current conflict has definitely hit close to home for me, as I still have several friends living in Israel who send updates regularly,” shared Griffin in a recent interview with the Independent. “The changes that have happened within the work aren’t at all to do with the content … or message of the work, but a general change in tone – almost a sadness, a level of more raw exposure. I think the work has lost a bit of its naivety.”

photo - Kibbutz Ga’aton, where KCDC’s International Dance Village is located — Kibbutz Ga’aton, where Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company’s International Dance Village is located. *(photo by Caitlin Griffin)*

The Way They Walked has been an ongoing project since Griffin was in Israel in the first part of 2013.

“Some of the solos that are featured in the show in its current form were created from single images that came to me while living on the kibbutz,” she said, referring to Kibbutz Ga’aton, where KCDC’s International Dance Village is located. “Most of the imagery in the work was born in the studios after long days of rehearsals, while processing the overwhelming stimuli of my new surroundings. It has taken many months to explore those images and find out what was so intriguing to me about them. It’s been a process of uncovering what happens before and after these images in the dance, and how to frame them to resonate with an audience.”

Griffin, who is not Jewish, discovered KCDC online, and applied to its Dance Journey (Masa) program, which, explains the website, offers dancers 18-35 years old from around the world the “opportunity for professional development while dancing side by side with KCDC dancers [and] learning from one of the leading dance companies in the world.”

“I learned about the long-term immersive environment available to young performers and decided it was something that fit what I was looking for creatively and personally,” she explained. “I began writing grants and researching ways to make it a possibility. It took just over a year to gather the necessary resources, and to heal a broken foot I had sustained in the meantime. In 2012, I was awarded a professional development grant to attend the program from the British Columbia Arts Council. I successfully wrapped up a crowd-funding campaign that brought over 65 individuals and in-kind corporate sponsors together and, a few short months later, I was on a plane to Tel Aviv.

“I attended the program from February 2013 to June 2013, along with 24 other young artists from across the globe. The experience of living in the Galilee Dance Village, surrounded by other equally passionate and determined artists has changed everything for me. The friends I made continue to support me personally and professionally. In fact, much of the rehearsal footage from The Way They Walked has made its way to these friends – in Mexico, in Italy, in the U.S., who have all informed the direction of this work and inspired pieces of it along the way.”

Performing in The Way They Walked are Delphine Leroux, Crystal Wills and Heather Dotto. Griffin first worked closely with them in 2011, when MOVE: the company performed in the 13th International Festival of Dance and Music in Bangkok, in celebration of 50 years of Thai-Canadian relations.

Leroux, Wills and Dotto “have been absolutely integral” to The Way They Walked, said Griffin. “These are some of the most supportive and lovely artists I have had the pleasure of sharing a studio with. To date, my professional choreographic experience has been exclusively creating on myself, which is an entirely different process than directing three dancers of world-class calibre. Each of them has contributed not only their artistic expertise to the process, but has shared ideas about the work that have informed its direction. They have breathed life into something that at one time was an idea and some simple movements and pictures in my head.”

The Way They Walked has undergone several phases of development so far.

“We are currently working under Restless Production’s Project CPR5, which is a choreographic research opportunity run by Claire French, providing rehearsal space and guidance to emerging choreographers,” said Griffin, describing French as “an invaluable mentor during this process, and it is with her whom we have been working the most closely.”

In addition to the show at the Firehall, the group also had rehearsals in May and June through the Dance Centre’s 12 Minutes Max program.

Griffin said the piece will continue to evolve, as long as she feels there’s something to say with it. “I am thrilled to have the opportunity to showcase the work at this phase and will be welcoming audience feedback from the Dance Centre open house event in September to take on into the next, yet-to-be-determined developmental phase,” she said. “My hopes are that audience members can find something to relate to, coming from inside the work. Whether it’s reacting directly to a dancer’s actions, an image we create, a sound, a relationship between the dancers. To give people a chance to escape even for a moment into an atmosphere that we created would be a big success.”

Griffin, who was born in Toronto, grew up in Oakville, Ont. Dancing since the age of 4, she said she “realized it was a career option around 13 years of age.” Her family was “extraordinarily supportive … instilling in me the ideals of equality, family, hard work and creativity.”

“I have given some consideration to returning to a more traditional academic path, but honestly have never been fulfilled in the same way with any of my brief explorations into other fields. My passionate curiosity lies within the processes of performing, creating and teaching dance.”

“I had considered alternate careers and educational opportunities,” she admitted. “After graduating from high school with outstanding academic excellence, I deferred my acceptances from the science programs at Queen’s University and a scholarship from Guelph University to pursue my continued dance training with the Goh Ballet Academy in Vancouver. I have given some consideration to returning to a more traditional academic path, but honestly have never been fulfilled in the same way with any of my brief explorations into other fields. My passionate curiosity lies within the processes of performing, creating and teaching dance.”

Griffin was among the performers at the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Olympic Games. In rehearsal, she said, “Witnessing k.d. lang’s ‘Hallelujah’ to a near empty stadium in the days leading up to the event was hauntingly beautiful, and is one of my most treasured memories.” Another is teaching a ballet class to her peers in the Masa program, “with several of the KCDC company members in attendance. This is a teaching highlight for sure, though I have many highlights from my teaching career that are simply moments of understanding lighting the faces of my students. When I can teach someone that dance and well-being can go hand in hand, that’s a highlight.”

As to the future? Following the performance at the Dance Centre open house, Griffin said, “I will be headed to Montreal to dance with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal’s annual production of Casse-Nosisette. In December, I will be accompanying Team Canada West to Poland for the International Dance Organization’s World Dance Championships. I’m not sure what’s in store after this, but I’m excited to find out!”

***

The Way They Walked Through the World premières as part of the Restless Productions CPR5 showcase at the Scotiabank Dance Centre’s open house on Sept.13, at 4 p.m., in conjunction with other performances. Updates on the work can be found at facebook.com/caitlingriffincpr5.