Performing Arts

New play honours Sugihara

Yukiko and Chiune Sugihara (photo from Firehall Arts Centre)

It is written in the Mishnah that, “If you save the life of one person, it is as if you save the entire world.” Chiune Sugihara saved 6,000 Jewish lives – 6,000 worlds – in the summer of 1940, despite the dangers of doing so to himself and his family.

A new play about Sugihara sees its world première at the Firehall Arts Centre this month. Written by Japanese-Canadian actor and playwright Manami Hara, Courage Now opens Nov. 19.

Contrary to his government’s strict instructions to not issue visas to Jewish refugees, Sugihara, the Japanese consul in Kaunas (Kovno), Lithuania, handwrote in a 30-day period more than 2,300 visas for Jews trying to escape from Europe via the Soviet Union to Japan. Sugihara was a husband, a father, a career diplomat, a linguist, but, above all, with his strict Samurai upbringing, he believed in respect for, and sanctity of, human life. As he said, “They were human beings and they needed help.”

Sugihara’s actions are responsible for more than 40,000 Jews being alive today. Yet, after the war, the Japanese government dismissed him from diplomatic service and treated him as a persona non grata. However, Israel has honoured his courage and his memory on three occasions – in 1985, by recognizing him as one of the Righteous Among the Nations at Yad Vashem; in 2016, by naming a street in Netanya after him; and, in October 2021, by dedicating Sugihara Square in Jerusalem.

In an interview with the Independent, playwright and actor Hara talked about the journey that led her to write Courage Now.

“About 12 years ago, my mentor from Studio 58, Jane Heyman, approached me and asked if I knew about Sugihara and I said that I did not. She told me his story, that her parents and uncle had been saved by him and that she would not be here if not for his actions. We talked about collaborating on a play. Her story and my being Japanese made it very personal for me, as I was very embarrassed by how the Japanese government treated him after 1945.”

Getting a play from conception to the stage is a long process.

“I heard that a Japanese playwright, Hiraishi Koichi, had written about Sugihara. I got a hold of his play, translated it into English and worked with Jane on it but it just did not seem dramatic enough,” said Hara. “I talked to Koichi and asked if I could adapt the play and he gave me permission. So, I researched the Jewish families who were Sugihara survivors and created more scenes. But it still did not seem to have the theatrical weight it needed to be a success so I put it away for a couple years, as I felt I had lost my vision.

“About five years ago, I traveled to Japan and had a chance to speak to Sugihara’s daughter-in-law and two of his grandchildren, which gave me a firsthand intimate look into his life and that of Yukiko, his wife. Then it dawned on me that the way to tell the story was from two female points of view, that of Yukiko and of a child survivor, Margaret. So, I went back to the story and after many years of writing drafts and workshopping, here we are.”

There are five characters in the play: Sugihara, Yukiko, a young Margaret, an adult Margaret (Jewish community member Advah Soudak) and young Margaret’s father (community member Amitai Marmorstein). Margaret is a fictional character, created from the stories of many survivors. Scenes are set up to move between the Lithuanian summer of 1940 and mid-1980s Vancouver, where an adult Margaret now lives.

Hara does double duty in this production, as the playwright and performing as Yukiko. “It is difficult to switch, wearing both hats, you feel like you have a split personality,” she acknowledged. “However, I take off my playwright hat and then I concentrate on my character in terms of what are her needs, where should I be focused and what is happening with the other characters. So, when I am on stage, I am the actor and I let the director take over from there. If he or the other actors see anything that needs tweaking or fixing, they will let me know. It is a very collaborative process. We are three weeks from opening and still finalizing many of the details.”

Hara sees her character as a spirited, stubborn, strong woman, not as stereotypically subservient, but rather as someone who also was idealistic and who was supportive of her husband in all that he did. “She knew the risk to her family and the sacrifice that would have to be made in carrying out her husband’s plan to save the Jewish refugees,” said Hara. “It is an amazing role and I am so honoured to be able to bring this story to Vancouver audiences. I hope the audience takes away that there is always hope, that there is always a way to find courage to walk towards that hope and one should never give up.”

Director Amiel Gladstone got involved in the project, having worked with Hara before.

“She was looking for the right kind of collaborative director for the show and she reached out to me because I work so much with new plays,” said Gladstone in a telephone interview with the Independent. “She told me that she had been hoping for a Jewish director…. I told her that my father was Jewish.”

As to the play, he said, “It is a memory play dealing with two women trying to piece together what happened to them years ago during those dark times. We had to create a space that includes both 1940 and present-day locations: a Japanese home and garden, a Jewish refugee apartment, the Kaunas consul office, a park, the train station, with all the locations in view at the same time. It becomes a dream world, where the actors move from set to set as they go back and forth in time. Itai Erdal’s lighting design will inform the audience as to the change in time and place.” (Erdal is also a member of the Jewish community.)

Soudack’s character, in her 50s, is going through a difficult separation and divorce. In an interview with the Independent, Soudack explained, “She realizes that she has a big hole in life, as she does not know what happened to her parents. She travels to Japan to seek out Sugihara and to ask about her father but learns that Sugihara is dead (he died in 1986) so she looks to Yukiko for answers. At the same time, Yukiko is also going back and remembering that time through her interaction with Margaret.”

Soudack had to grapple with capturing the essence of Margaret’s psychological issues, including post-traumatic stress disorder.

“She has broken pieces of memory that she wants to fit together. She has had a difficult life,” said Soudack. “It must have been terrifying to be leaving your family, everything you know and being put on a train and sent off on your own. She has a lot of anger, sadness and abandonment and betrayal issues. She does not form close loving relationships very easily, as she learned that people closest to her disappear. She has to work through all this as she seeks the truth.”

Working with Hara has been a treat, said Soudack. “It is fabulous with the playwright right there so, when a question comes up, she can give us the explanation. It is a beautiful sense of collaboration, respect, joy and appreciation of what she wrote and it is a gift to be right there with her working through this project.”

As to being a Jewish actor in this role, she said, “As a Jewish person, you grow up with the Holocaust and the plight of the Jews – it is so part of our DNA that, when you come across a story and people that you never heard of, it makes you have such gratitude and respect for these non-Jewish heroes who, in the face of so much antisemitism, still found the courage to do the right thing. If I could meet Mr. Sugihara, I would hug him, look him in his eyes and thank him for his bravery and courage.”

Courage Now runs to Dec. 4. For tickets, visit firehallartscentre.ca or call the box office, 604-689-0926.

Tova Kornfeld is a Vancouver freelance writer and lawyer.

A crush leads to new career

Liz Glazer headlines the Nov. 24 Chutzpah! event Celebrating Queer Jewish Comedy. (photo from Chutzpah!)

Lawyer-turned-comedian Liz Glazer shares the Rothstein Theatre stage Nov. 24 with the Holy Sisters, Israeli drag queens Ziona Patriot and Talula Bonet, in the Chutzpah! Festival event Celebrating Queer Jewish Comedy. The evening is hosted by multidisciplinary artist and performer Yenta, whose alter ego is Stuart B. Meyers.

Based in New Jersey, Glazer is an award-winning comedian. Before taking to the stage as a career – and engaging in other creative endeavours, including acting and writing – she was a tenured law professor.

Of comedy, Glazer said, “I never intended to get into it. I had a crush on a woman who asked if I ever thought of doing comedy (no) and said she would put me on her show (to which I initially also said no, then realized she would probably be at her own show, so I said yes). I loved it so much from that first performance, and I think what I loved about it wasn’t even the laughs or attention or even that this woman I had a crush on was in the audience, though all of those things were nice, but that all I had to be to do it was me.

“I enjoyed teaching law, but there was always something about it where I had to fit what I wanted to say or write about into a framework of legal analysis. I had to have the topic of whatever I was saying or writing be the law, not just my own life, because there would eventually be something like a bar exam. When I did comedy, all I needed to talk about was myself. Though I should note: after all of my shows there are exams, so audience members should be prepared for that.”

Glazer’s first comedy performance was on March 5, 2013. She admitted to having been “a wreck.”

“I wrote stuff to say,” said Glazer, “but had the thankfully correct instinct that it wouldn’t connect with the audience or be funny or good, so I called a friend with experience performing comedy and she told me to just say something vulnerable to the audience at the beginning of my set.”

Thinking she got the message, she hung up before realizing she didn’t know how to be vulnerable.

“They don’t teach you how to do that in law school,” she said. “So, I paced around a bunch trying to think of something vulnerable to say, couldn’t really think of anything, then headed to my front door to leave for the show…. I see a package at my front door, and I hadn’t ordered anything.”

With time to spare before the show, Glazer brought the package inside. As she was about to open it, she said, “I realize[d] a trick to being vulnerable is not knowing the answer to something, and I didn’t know what was in the package, so perhaps the vulnerable thing I could do to start my set would be to open the package on stage. So I did.

“Turns out the package was from my mom, who had visited my apartment a couple weeks before and noticed that my white fluffy cat Mona – who would climb to the top of my closet – was shedding her white fluffy fur on my dark suits I would wear to teach class, making me look like a white fluffy law professor. My mom said I should buy vinyl suit covers … [but] knowing I wouldn’t, she ordered me three packs of six of them and sent them to me without my knowledge. So, my first set ever began with my opening this package on stage and explaining to the audience my relationship with my mother and my cat Mona, and how I’m a law professor who teaches class with white fluff all over my suits. And it worked! I think because, even though I had no idea how to do comedy, I couldn’t not be myself because I was genuinely reacting to what was in that package in the moment I opened it for the first time along with the audience. And/or because, as a rule, vinyl suit covers are very funny.”

Glazer no longer relies mainly on improvisation, but it still is an important part of her act.

“I do write a lot of jokes,” she said, “and much of my shows consist of prepared material but also improvising is everything, to quote the great Joan Rivers (in a very short interview I saw somewhere and am not sure where). Live comedy, whether it’s written down ahead of time or not is, by nature, dependent on interaction and connection with the audience which is, by nature, improvisational. So, to prepare for a show, I make sure I know what I want to say – sometimes a set of things and, more often, one big idea I want to get across – and I annoy my wife for a few hours repeating it aloud while she tries on clothes and asks me if I like them. And I try to meditate before [a show] because the key ingredient for me is clearing my focus so I can be present with the audience in the moment. That’s really the stuff. Connection and clarity.”

Glazer is married to Rabbi Karen Glazer Perolman, a spiritual leader at Congregation B’nai Jeshurun in Short Hills, N.J.

“I was raised going to Orthodox Jewish day school, a Conservative synagogue, and I’m now married to a Reform rabbi, so I think that makes me Chassidic,” Glazer joked. “I do talk about being Jewish in my comedy, and I do comedy for Jewish organizations and synagogues frequently. I talk about being married to a rabbi and, when I do comedy for Jewish audiences, I talk more extensively about my upbringing and how I learned in school all of these rules about what not to do, then lived in a house where we ate pepperoni pizza on trayf silverware on Shabbos.

“At an even deeper level,” she said, “my lineage consists of four out of four grandparents who survived the Holocaust. Not to brag, but it’s true. And I think of them constantly when I do comedy, especially when it’s explicitly about being Jewish and especially now as antisemitism is on the rise, unfortunately. There’s always a fearful part of me that wonders how much to talk about being Jewish in situations where there might be antisemitic people in the audience or if I post a video that may spark antisemitic comments, but I think of my grandparents in those moments, too. I think, if they survived for me to not be loudly Jewish, what was the point?”

Glazer doesn’t shy away from who she is or what challenging circumstances she has faced.

“I’m recording an album soon called Still Born Sorry, about grief and trauma and stillbirth (and it’s funny!) that will be an audio album available wherever you get your music and such, and also part of a documentary film about how I was supposed to record an album and have a baby last year, and neither of those came to fruition when I thought they would. That prior album was supposed to be called Born Sorry, and was postponed due to a stillbirth, so this one (the album and the documentary) will be called Still Born Sorry, which may be the best pun I definitely did not intend.”

In addition to the Nov. 24 performance at Chutzpah!, Glazer will be leading a two-hour workshop on the afternoon of Nov. 25. Participants will explore their “personal experiences, opinions and overbearing family members to find funny material to bring to the stage,” as well as setting up a “punchline joke structure and what it means to find a comedic voice.”

For anyone a little nervous about trying to seek out that voice, Glazer said, “I adore nervous people, so I really encourage especially those who are, to come to the workshop.”

Glazer encouraged readers to check out her website, dearlizglazer.com, and send her “a nice email! I would love to hear from you!”

For tickets to Glazer’s workshop and any Chutzpah! performance, visit chutzpahfestival.com.

Instilling a love of the arts

Merewyn Comeau and Raes Calvert in Th’owxiya: The Hungry Feast Dish, which is on the Chutzpah! stage Nov. 18-19. (photo by Javier Sotres)

For the first time, the Chutzpah! Festival, which was launched in 2001, is presenting programming specifically targeted to young people, families and educators. Dan and Claudia Zanes will be live in concert Nov. 13-14 and Joseph A. Dandurand’s Th’owxiya: The Hungry Feast Dish will be presented by Axis Theatre Nov. 18-19. Both events take place at the Rothstein Theatre.

“One of my first strategic goals when I joined Chutzpah! was to launch a programming stream for young people and families,” said Jessica Gutteridge, managing artistic director of the festival since 2020. “I have a background in theatre for young audiences, and this is an area of performing arts that I find very rich and interesting…. I think the best way to keep the performing arts vibrant into the future is to share exciting and stimulating arts experiences with young people so that they can grow into the audiences of tomorrow. And finding ways of sharing these experiences across generations makes for wonderful bonding between kids and their parents, grandparents, caregivers and mentors, but also gives the adults in the audience a memorable and enjoyable experience. I’m also a passionate proponent of arts education, so finding opportunities for teachers to bring performing arts into their teaching is meaningful to me.”

photo - Dan and Claudia Zanes will be live in concert Nov. 13-14 — Dan and Claudia Zanes will be live in concert Nov. 13-14. (photo by Xavier Plater)

Dan Zanes is a Grammy award-winning children’s performer and Claudia Zanes is a music therapist/jazz vocalist. The couple has been “making music with each other since the day they met in the fall of 2016.” Their Nov. 14 performance is for schools and the Nov. 13 show is open for all.

“Dan Zanes, to put it bluntly, was a key reason I survived the music playing in my children’s rooms when I had young kids,” said Gutteridge about her choice of performers for this program. “I think he’s just a spectacular musician and storyteller that all ages can enjoy, and his partnership with Claudia Zanes makes even more gorgeous and meaningful music. I appreciate that Dan and Claudia are committed to making their performances sensory-friendly and accessible, and in sharing messages of love, solidarity and social justice, that are timely and important.”

As with the concert, the Nov. 18 production of Th’owxiya is for schools and the Nov. 19 show welcomes everyone, with the caveat that the ogress might be scary to some young children. The play, recommended for ages 5 and up, recounts a Kwantlen First Nations tale, “the legend of the basket ogress, Th’owxiya, an old hungry spirit that inhabits a feast dish full of bountiful delicious foods, and sly Mouse (Kw’at’el), who is caught stealing cheese from this feast dish. To appease an angry Th’owxiya, Kw’at’el embarks on a journey to find two children for the ogress to eat, or else!” The work features “traditional Coast Salish and Sto:lo music, masks and imagery” and audiences will learn “how Raven (Sqeweqs), Bear (Spa:th) and Sasquatch (Sasq’ets) trick a hungry spirit and save Kw’at’el and their family from becoming the feast.”

Both the concert and the play run about an hour, and all performances take place at 11 a.m.

While the concert and play are two programs specifically aimed at young audiences, Gutteridge said many of the Chutzpah! performances “are appropriate for general audiences, and we hope that youth and teens in particular will join us for some of them. For example, Persian Jewish Cooking with Ayelet Latovich, Music at the Centre of the River, and the Joan Beckow Legacy Project – which will feature youth performers from Perry Ehrlich’s Showstoppers – are all programs that all ages can enjoy together. Programs like Jacqueline Saper’s presentation of her memoir of growing up Jewish in Tehran and the Site: Yizkor project may offer teens engaging ways of learning and contextualizing current events and history.”

In a similar vein, Gutteridge added, “Adults should feel just as welcome as kids to come and enjoy these shows – truly these are experiences that are relevant and enjoyable for all ages. If any families who would wish to join us for these events feel that their financial situation does not permit them to attend, please contact our box office. We have an allocation of tickets set aside so that cost is not a barrier to sharing these experiences with young people.”

For the full Chutzpah! lineup and tickets, visit chutzpahfestival.com.

Exploring youth, adulthood

Left to right: Stephen Aberle, David Bloom, Suzanne Ristic and Gustavo Fabres are among the cast of Western Gold Theatre’s production of Seventeen, which opens Nov. 4. (photo by Javier Sotres)

None of us can go back in time and relive – or revise – our lives. But Matthew Whittet’s play Seventeen, which opens Nov. 4 at PAL Studio Theatre, offers audiences an idea of what that journey might look and feel like, with veteran stage actors playing the roles of present-day teenagers. Two of those actors are members of the Jewish community and they spoke with the Independent about some of the memories the show has roused.

Stephen Aberle plays the character of Tom, and David Bloom the part of Mike, two of the “kids” hanging out at a school playground after the end of the last day of school. One description of the play states, “It is the casting that gives the play its original twist. Older actors bring to it their own life experience and invest it with an extra layer of hope and sadness, striking the ideal balance between imitation of the freewheeling exuberance of youth and intimations of the future that faces these carousing teens.”

“There’s no improv in the show, but we are – with the playwright’s permission – adjusting some of the vocabulary,” explained Aberle. “The play was written and first performed in Australia and subsequently adapted for a British production, and now we’re readapting it to set it in East Van.

“It’s written to be performed by senior actors, with the stipulation that the company engage a youth advisory council of teenaged consultants,” he continued. “The three young folx Western Gold has found have been invaluable in helping us old codgers get into the bodies and minds and culture of being teenagers in 2022, working with us on everything from cussing and slang to clothing choices, hairstyles, posture and movement – and how to hold our phones.

“We’ve all of us been 17 … however many decades ago, and I think we all bring our memories of those days to our work. I know I’m personally finding lots of moments that snap me right back to the heady, emotionally buffeting, thrilling, infuriating days of high school: understandings, misunderstandings, love requited or unrequited, and nights in parks with like-minded friends in various altered states.”

“This show has me thinking a lot about my two closest male friends from high school,” said Bloom. “With both of them, the friendship came with spikes. One was weirdly competitive with his close friends and the other had a sharpshooter’s ability to be acutely nasty – and his nastiness usually contained a precise awareness of your greatest weaknesses and insecurities. It was like you had to keep proving your love by putting up with some really abrasive behaviour. They were also both brilliant and witty and incredibly fun to be around. I feel like I’m channeling a lot of their teenage bravado in my performance as Mike, as well as my own teenage (and continuing) insecurities and often spectacularly inappropriate behaviour. Pain and love come out in weird ways in this show, and that feels really human to me.”

Bloom said he’s known several people involved in the production for decades. “I first worked with Stephen Aberle on a touring kids show when I was 15 or 16, 1976ish,” he said. “There’s an ease and generosity in this cast of pros that makes going to work a real pleasure.”

As interesting and fun as recalling the teen years may be, Aberle said he’d probably decline any opportunity to be so young again.

“Leave youth to the young and let us silverbacks go to our deserved rest and make way for the next cohort,” he said.

On a more serious level, he shared a meditation by Rabbi Chaim Stern from the old Reform Gates of Repentance Machzor (High Holiday prayerbook).

“If some messenger were to come to us with the offer that death should be overthrown, but with the one inseparable condition that birth should also cease; if the existing generation were given the chance to live forever, but on the clear understanding that never again would there be a child, or a youth, or first love, never again new persons with new hopes, new ideas, new achievements; ourselves for always and never any others – could the answer be in doubt?” Aberle quoted.

The meditation includes the plea for divine help “to fulfil the promise that is in each of us, and so to conduct ourselves that, generations hence, it will be true to say of us: the world is better because, for a brief space, they lived in it.”

Western Gold Theatre’s production of Seventeen previews Nov. 3, opens Nov. 4 and runs to Nov. 20. For tickets, visit westerngoldtheatre.org.

Explore Persian culture

Arash Khakpour and Alexis Fletcher première All my being is a dark verse (working title) Nov. 9-10 at the Rothstein Theatre. (photo by Peter Smida)

This year’s Chutzpah! Festival, which takes place Nov. 3-24, highlights Persian culture. The decision to feature Persian artists and stories – which was made well before the protests that erupted in Iran after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of the country’s morality police last month – seems even more important and relevant now.

“When the festival was offered the opportunity to support the creation of a new dance work by Alexis Fletcher in collaboration with Arash Khakpour, two Vancouver artists I admire and enjoy working with, I began to explore the resonances between Persian artists and stories of both Jewish and Muslim background,” Jessica Gutteridge, Chutzpah! artistic managing director, told the Independent. “These communities are culturally rich and have been intertwined for a very long time, while at the same time in lesser and greater political tension over the course of history. The festival’s mandate includes exploring what Jewish culture has in common with non-Jewish communities, and bringing artists of different backgrounds into conversation, so I thought it would be interesting to pull on this thread and bring Jewish and non-Jewish artists and culture into a themed programming thread.”

photo - On Nov. 14, Jacqueline Saper, author of From Miniskirt to Hijab: A Girl in Revolutionary Iran, will speak and answer questions about Jewish life in Iran pre- and post-Revolution — On Nov. 14, Jacqueline Saper, author of From Miniskirt to Hijab: A Girl in Revolutionary Iran, will speak and answer questions about Jewish life in Iran pre- and post-Revolution. *(photo by Beking Joassain)*

The two main programs of the thread are the Nov. 9-10 world première of Fletcher and Khakpour’s All my being is a dark verse (working title), which was developed through an artistic residency at the Norman and Annette Rothstein Theatre, and the Nov. 23 concert by Israeli singer, songwriter and actress Liraz Charhi.

Two digitally streamed programs round out the offerings. On Nov. 14, Jacqueline Saper, author of From Miniskirt to Hijab: A Girl in Revolutionary Iran, will speak and answer questions about Jewish life in Iran pre- and post-Revolution. And, on Nov. 21, Israeli chef Ayelet Latovich will present “a menu drawn from the Persian Jewish heritage of her mother’s family, which includes her grandmother, Kohrshid Hoshmand, a well-known and beloved figure in the Iranian community in Tel Aviv.”

“The festival has always provided public outreach opportunities, ranging from master classes to workshops to public conversations with artists,” said Gutteridge about these events. In addition to the Persian-themed outreach, Chutzpah! is partnering with rice & beans theatre’s DBLSPK program to offer a public workshop of Tamara Micner’s new Yiddish panto-in-progress, Yankl & Der Beanstalk.

photo - On Nov. 21, Israeli chef Ayelet Latovich will present a menu drawn from the Persian Jewish heritage of her mother’s family — On Nov. 21, Israeli chef Ayelet Latovich will present a menu drawn from the Persian Jewish heritage of her mother’s family. *(photo by Sarit Goffen)*

“We have a broad array of workshops to choose from as well,” Gutteridge continued. “David Buchbinder, Mark Rubin and Michael Ward-Bergeman will lead a creative workshop focused on making intercultural connections. Edith Tankus will bring clowning techniques for self-expression in a workshop tailored to parents and caregivers. Liz Glazer will lead a workshop on how to tap into your funny side and create comedy for the stage. And Maya Ciarrocchi will lead a series of workshops sharing the practice of Yizkor books as a means of remembering and mourning the lost people and places of our lives, that will lead into the final performance of the Site: Yizkor project.”

Life, love, longing, death

All my being is a dark verse is inspired by the poems of Forugh Farrokhzad (1934-1967), whose poetry was controversial enough in its expression of personal freedom to have been banned for almost a decade after the establishment of the Islamic republic in 1979. The project combines Farrokhzad’s poetry, the work of local artist Nargess Jalali Delia and the dance choreographed and performed by Fletcher and Khakpour. The shows will include a program of Persian storytelling curated by the Flame.

“I discovered Forugh’s poetry through Nargess, when I was helping her prepare for a visual art exhibit in 2020,” said Fletcher. “Nargess had a painting that captivated me, which I learned was inspired by Forugh’s beautiful poem, ‘Inaugurating the Garden.’ When I read the poem for the first time, I was moved to tears and felt so much of my own life inside Forugh’s words. From there, I started to research the work of this poet and felt viscerally connected to her work. When I began dreaming of creating a response through movement, I approached Arash – an artist I greatly admire and have always wanted to work with. We decided to create and perform together, and to bring together a mix of Persian and non-Persian artists to complete our team, including costume design, original music composition, lighting design, and translation work between Farsi and English.

“Both Arash and Nargess have welcomed me into their culture, language and their very personal connection with Forugh in the most generous of ways,” said Fletcher.

“I am excited to connect with an artist who comes from a completely different movement background from my own, and yet who shares so many of the same interests and curiosities about the place that dance holds in the world, what it can offer and how it can bring people together in unique ways,” said Khakpour.

“Growing up in Iran,” he continued, “I was reading Forugh’s poems at the young age of 11, even though I knew I wasn’t supposed to because her open-minded and dark-natured poems were not seen as ‘appropriate,’ and this experience had a profound effect on me. Forugh’s words were a revelation to read, something that someone wrote so many years ago and yet which seemed to speak directly to my fears and desires as if the words were both coming from me, and as if they were meant only for me.

“After moving to Canada at the age of 15,” he said, “I lost that connection to Forugh’s poetry, but now I am at a place that I feel the need to reconnect to her work again and integrate my love for her work, the knowledge and the sentiment it awakens in my dance practice.”

Currently, the pair are working with four of Farrokhzad’s poems: “The Wall,” “Reborn,” “Inaugurating the Garden” and “Window.”

“Forugh’s work is full of life, love and longing, yet full of death,” explained Khakpour. “I know from growing up in Iran that many people around me talked about her work as a forbidden reality, too forward, or too much – and the ways in which we should be talking, and the ways in which we should not be talking, as men and women. Forugh defied all of these binaries and all of this drew me to her magical poetry and body of work.

“As I was growing up, I have felt that similar feeling of defying the norms about myself, in terms of pursuing a dance career at all, as a man, which has many stigmas attached to it in my culture. I feel the same now as an artist at times.

“Forugh awakens the courage in us to be courageous,” he added. “This has always drawn me to Forugh’s work; her rigorous, rebellious nature has inspired many generations of artists since her death. Her writing, although being specific, is also timeless, transcends across cultures, and is full of humanity and love that goes beyond borders and ideologies. She longed for a world that could address and heal humanity’s pain.

“I think Alexis and I are drawn to Forugh and her work for these unapologetic tendencies and yet her humble nature of being, writing and expressing on the page. We strive for the same things in dance and choreography and long for a world that can address and heal its pain.”

“We both see dance as poetry in motion; a universal way of channeling poetry into the body and sharing that with the audience,” said Fletcher. “We believe this universality, along with the multidisciplinary and cross-cultural nature of this project, is a fertile ground that can draw new audiences to dance and connect different audiences to each other.”

Fletcher quoted from Rosanna Warren’s The Art of Translation: “The psychic health of an individual resides in the capacity to recognize and welcome the ‘Other.’” She explained that she and Khakpour “will use the act of translation as a practice of empathy; a way for artists and audiences to come together and lift the multiple veils of language, culture and ways of being that can obscure ‘the other,’ revealing the universality of our shared human experience, with language, visual art, dance and live performance as ways of ‘lifting the veil.’

“Expanding on the above,” she said, “we are curious about how we can use the practice of duet, including our partnership as performers, as a vehicle of exploration of ‘self’ and ‘other,’ and how this project can be a platform for this resonant conversation. This sparks our interest because, to execute duet skilfully and on an emotional level, one must delve into the other’s perspective more deeply…. We have the unique privilege of sharing this type of intimacy and connection with others as dancers because our bodies, especially in duet, are our physical and literal instruments: we must literally soften and yield our bodies and minds to give or receive the weight of another. We must take time to look into each other’s eyes and allow the other’s body to enter our private, personal space, learning what the impulses, dynamics, instincts and thought processes of that other person are. We must give each other patience and care for the relationship and choreography to work. We must acknowledge different subjective opinions and points of view. We feel that duet is a direct practice platform through which to investigate the myriad ways one can be in an empathic relationship with another.”

A dream come true

“Music in my life is the most important thing,” Charhi told the Independent. “When I started to create, to sing and to songwrite in Farsi, I knew that I had a message to be a little voice for the Iranian muted women. I knew that would be a continuation to the women from my family who are muted themselves. It wasn’t a question that I would do that. It’s not about me – I deeply feel I’m the pipe to tell a story.”

photo - Liraz Charhi gives a special concert on Nov. 23 at the Rothstein Theatre — Liraz Charhi gives a special concert on Nov. 23 at the Rothstein Theatre. *(photo by Shai Franco)*

On Oct. 7, Charhi releases her third album in Farsi. Called Roya – a vision, a fantasy, a dream – she recorded it with Iranian musicians in Istanbul. “It was an extremely emotional journey I cannot even express with words,” she said, “but we made a wonderful album with wonderful meaning and we all share the same dreams together.”

Charhi collaborated secretly with several Iranian artists – singers, writers, instrumentalists – on her second album in Farsi. Secrecy was necessary because of the political situation.

“Recording my album Zan (woman in Farsi) and collaborating with Iranian musicians was a dream come true,” she said. “I felt that I can give and be artistically freed, especially because I felt that we needed to meet and to create together. [That] we love each other with no boundaries is a fact we wanted to spread to the world. There are bridges we can build despite this crazy situation and we have the power to make a change.”

Charhi chose the name Zan for that album, she said, “because it’s all about women’s freedom I sing about. Struggling and, on the other hand, rejoicing, singing and dancing, making little by little resolution, which is very, very relevant to what’s going on today in Iran.”

Charhi’s first Iranian album was Naz, which, she said means “coquettish manners.” It has been described as a “rebellious soundtrack.”

“It’s about being a good Iranian woman, using all her charm and politeness to get what she wants from her man and still stay determined,” she explained.

Charhi’s parents emigrated to Israel in the 1970s, before the Islamic Revolution, and Israel is where Charhi was born, in Ramla, in 1978.

“My music is built out of layers of my heritage, Israeli and Iranian,” she said, “and so I knew always I wanted to use traditional Iranian instruments and to mix them with my psychedelic music that I love so much [from] the Iranian ’70s.”

She also has released two albums in Hebrew, one self-titled, the other Rak Lecha Mutar (Only You’re Allowed).

As an actress, Charhi garnered a nomination for best actress from the Israeli Film Academy for her role in the 2004 Israeli film Turn Left at the End of the World. She has acted in theatre, television and film, including playing the love interest of Phillip Seymour Hoffman in the movie A Late Quartet (2012), the role of Frida Kahlo in a production by the national theatre of Israel (2017) and an Israeli Mossad agent in the Israeli TV series Tehran (2020).

For the full Chutzpah! schedule and tickets, visit chutzpahfestival.com or call 604-257-5145.

Willkommen to the cabaret

Vicente Sandoval and Sylvia Zaradic are among the cast of Raincity Theatre Company’s Cabaret, which opens Oct. 15. (photo by Nicol Spinola)

Given the excellence of its previous two site-specific immersive musicals – Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and Company – it can be expected that Raincity Theatre Company’s Cabaret will be provocative and entertaining, a most memorable night.

For Cabaret, Raincity will create its own Kit Kat Klub at 191 Alexander St. in Gastown Oct. 15-Nov. 4.

Audiences will be transported to the sexy and somewhat scary fictional nightclub. The story centres around singer Sally Bowles (played by Jessie Award-winning Alex Gullason), who works at a sleazy establishment in Berlin. Set in 1931, the club’s “outrageous Emcee becomes a mirror reflecting a society spiralling toward disaster with the rise of Hitler’s Nazis.”

“Cabaret is a cautionary tale about the dangers of apathy in the face of hatred,” producer Kat Palmer told the Independent.

“Given the increasing surge in racism (particularly antisemitism) and homophobia, we can all learn a lesson from this show,” she said. “It is no secret that antisemitism increased during the COVID-19 pandemic – even close to home. I recall a recent case in Richmond, where a wooden post with the message ‘COVID is Jew World Order’ was found on a busy street. This eerily echoed much of the anti-Jewish Nazi propaganda that existed during the time our show is set.

“The time may come when Cabaret will seem like an artifact of a distant and unremembered past. But, sadly, we are nowhere near that point, and we are not likely to get there any time soon.”

For people concerned about being in an immersive performance of a musical with such dark elements, director Chris Adams said, “I would implore them to come anyway. I believe we learn, work and grow in the uncomfortable, but I can assure you, although the actors will be close, there is no audience participation and everyone will have a fantastic, intimate, view of the show.

“The other wonderful thing about a venue like this,” he added, “is seeing … your own version of the show, depending on what you are watching and where you are looking. We’ve created a world for you to witness, so come on out and embrace it.”

That said, Palmer, who is a member of the Jewish community, admitted, “Being a third generation survivor, this show has brought up some intergenerational trauma I was not prepared for. It has reaffirmed my commitment to continue to speak up for justice, speak up for diversity and speak up for tolerance. Most importantly, to speak up for those who had their voice taken much too soon – to remember the millions of lives lost and think about what I can say and do to make sure this never happens again.”

Fellow Jewish community member Michael Groberman also contributed to the production.

“Working with a researcher is invaluable,” said Adams of Groberman. “As a director, I can read and watch everything I can and everything I think will come up before rehearsals begin, however, there are always surprises in the room. And I think there should be surprises, actually. Being able to turn to Michael and ask questions as we go, as we work and as we create, allows us such freedom.”

“The musical from 1966 was based on the 1951 play I Am a Camera, which itself was based on a series of related short stories by the British writer Christopher Isherwood, whose fiction was autobiographical,” Groberman explained. “Like the narrator of his [novel] Goodbye to Berlin (1939), Isherwood traveled to Berlin in 1930 to enjoy the bars, cabarets and sexual openness of Weimar Berlin. He wrote at the start, ‘I am a camera.’ He was there to witness what he found, and to write about it.”

One of the aspects of the stage production that surprised Groberman was that Sally Bowles, as characterized by Isherwood, is actually a very bad singer and even worse performer. “I imagined the role demanded a Liza Minnelli performance, belted and big,” he said. “I was wrong.”

He also shared a 2021 interview in the Guardian with composer Fred Ebb, who talked about the original Broadway production. “It was Hal [Harold] Prince, the original director, who came up with the breakthrough idea that the songs of the Emcee, played directly to the audience, would be a metaphor for the soul of Germany as the Nazis rose to power,” said Groberman. “Prince also called it ‘a parable of contemporary morality,’ one that he saw as drawing parallels between the spiritual bankruptcy of Berlin in the 1920s and America in the 1960s. This ability to be continuously relevant, as much as its fabulous songs, keeps the show’s flame alive.”

What also keeps it relevant are the creative choices different productions make. “For example,” said Groberman, “one of the main characters, Cliff, has a sexuality that shifts from production to production. Why these directorial choices?”

As the director, Adams not only has to makes these types of decisions, but pragmatic ones, including how best to present the piece on a “thrust stage, or a three-quarter round,” where the audience sits on three sides of the stage.

“Above and beyond the stage itself, is, of course, the entire venue,” said Adams. “We have to move the Kit Kat dancers around the space and I had to find points in the script that lend themselves well to utilizing different areas of the venue. For instance, if the script mentions getting a drink at the bar, then the actors will go to the bar, the same bar the audience members just purchased a drink at. We learned early on, when producing and directing in unusual spaces, you cannot ignore them – you must embrace them.

“New this year for us is VIP seating with a VIP entrance, something we couldn’t have done at our previous venues,” added Adams. “This venue lends itself to the world we need it to be – seedy, dark, but beautiful, where the drinks can flow all night.”

VIP seating includes a complimentary drink and the most immersive experience audience members can have. Since the musical deals with adult subject matter, Raincity asks that “viewers under the age of 19 not purchase VIP seating” and notes that “children under the age of 12 are not permitted.”

For tickets to Cabaret, visit raincitytheatre.com.

From despair to hope

A scene from Clowns by Hofesh Shechter Company. (photo by Todd MacDonald)

Double Murder takes audiences on a journey from cynicism and violence to hope and healing. The double bill from the United Kingdom’s Hofesh Shechter Company features Clowns, described as “a macabre comedy of murder and desire,” and The Fix, “an antidote to the murderous, poisonous energy of Clowns,” which “brings a tender, fragile energy to the stage.”

Presented by DanceHouse at the Vancouver Playhouse Oct. 21 and 22, U.K.-based Israeli choreographer Hofesh Shechter told the Independent he is excited to share the works with audiences in North America.

photo - Hofesh Shechter — Hofesh Shechter *(photo by Hugo Glendinning)*

Clowns debuted at Nederlands Dans Theater 1 in 2016 and later was produced as a film and broadcast by the BBC. The Fix is a more recent piece. The company was in the middle of creating it when COVID hit and everything shut down, Shechter told the Independent. “And so we had this weird start/stop experience, where we sometimes could have two or three weeks of work, and again get shut in our homes for a few months. For me, it was a really interesting experience artistically. The work is about healing and about a communal effort, or the ability as a community, to heal ourselves and each other. The spirit of the time became a part of the energy of the work, and the craving for human contact and communication became even more urgent and relevant. There was a weird synergy between worldly events and The Fix, and I personally found it a very healing experience post-COVID.”

Hope plays a key role in the relationship between Double Murder’s two contrasting works.

“The energy of hope was something the dancers and myself discussed in the studio, months before COVID, as I knew I would like to create a balancing piece to Clowns,” said Shechter. “Clowns presents a rather sarcastic, somewhat hopeless world in perpetual power games. I was adamant to have another perspective in the evening on what the world can be, and we discussed in the studio that the most precious currency of our days must be ‘hope.’ It felt like an interesting and powerful direction to go to, and we embarked on trying to produce this energy through the means of movement and composition.”

photo - An image from The Fix by Hofesh Shechter Company — An image from The Fix by Hofesh Shechter Company. (photo by Todd MacDonald)

Shechter is also a musician and composer and his original scores interweave with his choreography, deepening his dances’ emotional impact.

“Creating new work for me is a chaotic process of releasing thoughts, feelings and ideas from the inside out,” he said. “Anything can be an idea, from a sketch of sound to a sketch of movement; lots of writing in my messy notebooks and recording sounds/music and experimenting in the studio. There is no particular order in which the elements are born – it is an organic, chaotic process of producing material, which is then followed by the process of editing and decision-making. The process of decision-making is complex, and does not always happen through the thinking mind, instincts have a big part in deciding which way to go.”

And his instincts have proven sound. In addition to choreographing for leading ensembles around the world, Shechter has choreographed for theatre, television and opera. His works have been performed internationally and Hofesh Shechter Company has won multiple awards. Shechter himself was awarded an honorary Order of the British Empire for his services to dance.

When asked about the courage it takes to be creative in the public sphere and whether it has become easier or harder as his career has progressed, Shechter told the Independent, “The level of difficulty of being publicly creative is not really dependent on external elects, such as time or external success. I find that the internal processes and thoughts or, in other words, the way I perceive my reality is what can make things tough – the expectations I might think are placed upon me and so on. All these are thoughts and, in truth, I cannot know or presume to know what people might be expecting. Therefore, I rather divert my inner thinking and process to what excites and inspires me – sharing my experiences, thoughts and feelings and sensations with people through the means of movements and sound. This communal sharing of experience is the most powerful aspect of performance for me, and a very fulfilling one as well.”

For tickets to Double Murder: Clowns/The Fix, visit dancehouse.ca or call 604-801-6225 during a weekday.

Ballet BC set to start season

Artists of Ballet BC in a previous presentation of Bedroom Folk by Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar. (photo by Cindi Wicklund)

Ballet BC will share five new commissions as well as beloved audience favourites in its 2022/23 season. From emerging, locally based voices to renowned choreographers with deep connections to the company, and from intimate creations to large-scale ensemble works, there is much to explore.

The season opens Nov. 3-5 with Overture/s, featuring a world première from Dutch sibling duo Imre and Marne van Opstal, co-produced by Finland’s Tero Saarinen Company, the return of Bedroom Folk from Israeli choreographers Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar, and Silent Tides, a work by Ballet BC artistic director Medhi Walerski.

The season continues with Horizon/s March 16-18. Vancouver-based Shay Kuebler and Czech choreographer Jiří Pokorný will each share a world première, new works exploring dichotomies within the human body and mind. Israel’s Adi Salant – former co-artistic director of the Batsheva Dance Company – will be back to share WHICH/ONE, originally commissioned for Ballet BC in 2019. Salant’s work is anchored by a deep sense of presence, navigating between explosive physicality and delicate scarcity. Set to musical excerpts from A Chorus Line, in addition to an original soundscape, the piece highlights the entire company and explores contrasting themes of human performance and mundanity.

The final program of the season, Wave/s, runs May 11-13. It features two world premières from two of today’s top visionaries in contemporary dance. Tel Aviv-based Roy Assaf shares his debut creation for the Ballet BC stage and Sweden’s Johan Inger returns to share an all-new work following the success of Walking Mad and B.R.I.S.A.

Lastly, Ballet BC welcomes Royal Winnipeg Ballet’s Nutcracker back to the Queen Elizabeth Theatre Dec. 9-11.

For tickets to any of the season’s offerings, visit balletbc.com.

– From balletbc.com

Many reasons to learn improv

Students Adrianne Fitch and Brian Nguyen, with instructor Irwin Levin behind them. Levin and Cass Freeman teach a free workshop on Sept. 13. (photo by Adam Abrams)

“When I teach a series of eight classes, I see people who are quite scared and nervous and sometimes very shy, and watch them become daring and playful improvisers towards the last class, and that is quite satisfying,” Cass Freeman told the Independent.

Freeman and her husband, Irwin Levin, are teaching an improv workshop with a focus on teamwork at Mount Pleasant Neighbourhood House Sept. 13. As well, Freeman is teaching a series at the Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre that runs eight Tuesday nights, starting Sept. 20.

“We really care about our students’ experiences,” said Freeman, who has taught improv comedy games on and off since the early 1990s. “We really want them to enjoy themselves and relax so they can be spontaneous. We rarely put people on the spot and, when we do, we coach them, so they don’t have to struggle up there alone.”

Freeman was an injured dancer when she found Vancouver Theatresports, now called the Improv Centre. “I saw them perform one night in the 1980s,” she said, “and I thought, ‘I can do that!’ So, I took a series of classes there and ended up performing in their first-ever Rookie Night. I was terrified, but I remember the audience endowing me as embarrassed, so I just hid behind the other players for a whole scene and did OK.

“Improv is such a positive form of theatre,” she added. “The people are really great, very playful and intelligent. I was quite a negative person in some ways, during my 20s especially. Improv really turned around my life. I was much more accepting of other people’s ideas. And I found the work to be really healing.”

Levin first heard about improv from Freeman. “I was doing standup comedy when I met Cass and found out that she was doing improv,” he said. “I was attracted to both Cass and improv simultaneously! (We met in 1994 and were married in 2000.) Now I will be taking a standup course as well as assisting Cass in improv workshops, so I will be getting the best of both comedy worlds.”

The couple has recently started their own improv business.

“We’d like to spread some playfulness, laughter and joy around our little corner of the world,” said Freeman about the venture. “We’d like to teach improv games for teamwork, stress reduction and creativity or just plain fun in as many different organizations as we can. People in the Jewish community have an amazing sense of humour, so we’d love to teach anyone in the community who is interested.”

Cass Freeman teaches an eight-class improv course at the Roundhouse this month, starting Sept. 20. (photo by Irwin Levin)

Freeman has worked as a freelance journalist in radio, television and print since 1987. Her first article in the Jewish Independent, which was then called the Jewish Western Bulletin, was in 1982 – about human rights activist Judy Feld Carr and her efforts over some 30 years to bring Jews out of Syria. Her most recent article was this past April, a profile of Vancouver Playback Theatre.

Local readers may also know Freeman’s name from The World According to Keith, a 2004 documentary for Bravo TV that she co-produced, about Theatresports creator and instructor Keith Johnstone.

“Keith Johnstone created Theatresports, along with his university students in Calgary, during the late 1970s,” explained Freeman. “He has also taught improv all over the world and there are now more than 150 theatre troupes who perform Theatresports and other formats he has created, like Maestro Impro and his favourite format, called the Life Game. You can see Maestro Impro at Tightrope Theatre in Vancouver.

“Keith trusted me to make a documentary about him because after I watched his righthand man, Dennis Cahill, do a weekend workshop in Calgary, he said to me, ‘You were great, you were like a fly on the wall. We’ve had other journalists here and they were quite obnoxious.’

“Keith became like a second father to me,” said Freeman. “My dad came from England and Keith has the same wicked British sense of humour. We still keep in touch and I have an autographed book from him that says, ‘Be average, Cassandra,’ since he noticed that when I was in his workshops that I tried too hard.”

Another memorable moment in her career came when she was teaching at the Vancouver School Board night school, which she did for about five years. “One night,” said Freeman, “the administrator called me into his office and said, ‘The instructor next door to you is complaining that his students can’t concentrate because your students are laughing too much.’ It was the best insult anyone has ever given me.”

Levin recalled a private workshop he and Freeman did this past July. “One of the students was so inspired,” said Levin, “he has decided to pursue a career in acting.”

But aspirations to be an actor are not the main reason to learn improv.

“Improv can relieve stress, reduce stage fright and improve self-esteem,” said Freeman. “Improv games encourage creativity, quick thinking and communication skills, and are a great tool for breaking the ice, having fun and building team spirit.”

She described improv as a team sport, with almost all the games being about supporting the other person or people onstage with you. This is why it’s a great way to get over stage fright, she said, “because the focus will rarely be on you alone, like it is in standup comedy.”

Freeman and Levin welcome people of all ages, backgrounds and abilities to take their classes, as well as members of the LGBTQ+ community. And, as mentioned previously, fellow members of the Jewish community.

“We’d love to hear someone say ‘oy!’ on our stage. Or any other Yiddish or Hebrew phrases,” said Freeman. “There aren’t many improvisers out there who are Jewish and we’d like to change that.”

There are also not many improv instructors who are Jewish, she said. Nor instructors who have a disability.

“I’m among the many people who have an invisible disability,” she shared. “I’ve had it since I was 19. The way it affects me today, a few decades later, is that I can’t stand in line on pavement and I can’t walk at all unless I’m wearing a very shock absorbing running shoe. So, when I teach, I have to wear runners. At our last workshop, nine out of the 14 people participating said they had something physically wrong with them. We are delighted to be able to teach people with varying physical abilities.”

The free team-focused workshop on Sept. 13, 6-7:30 p.m., is part of Mount Pleasant Neighbourhood House’s Generations Moving Together (GMT) program, which “encourage[s] community involvement, movement, learning and connection between younger and older generations.” To register for the workshop, contact GMT coordinator Daniela Gunn-Doerge at [email protected] or call 604-879-8208, ext. 225. (Refreshments are provided.)

The improv classes at the Roundhouse run on Tuesdays from Sept. 20 to Nov. 8, 6:30-8:30 p.m. It’s $160, but half price for people who have a Leisure Access Card. To register, click here or call the Roundhouse on Sept. 17 at 604-713-1800. Freeman and Levin can be reached at [email protected] or 604-872-4638.

At the Fringe this year …

Rita Sheena (photo by Kristine Cofsky)

After an acclaimed run at the Vancouver Fringe Festival in 2021 and the Edmonton and Montreal Fringes this year, Everybody Knows returns to its creator’s hometown and the Vancouver Fringe Festival. In this semiautobiographical, one-woman musical set to nine covers of Leonard Cohen songs, Rita Sheena creates a spiraling narrative using contemporary dance, post-modern quirk and the haunting melodies of First Aid Kit.

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photo - Jem Rolls — Jem Rolls *(PR photo)*

In 2015, Jem Rolls brought his one-man show about Hungarian Jewish physicist Leo Szilard, The Inventor of All Things, to the Vancouver Fringe Festival. This year, he’s back with another show about a forgotten Jewish nuclear physicist – Lise Meitner. The Walk in the Snow: The True Story of Lise Meitner explores how a shy Austrian, who only graduated high school at 23, opened so many doors and achieved so much; how she pushed against age-old sexism and murderous antisemitism; how she was the first or second woman through a whole series of doors; and how she was one of the very few physicists to refuse work on the bomb.

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photo - ira cooper — ira cooper *(photo from spectheatre.com)*

Vancouver-born, Jewish writer and performer ira cooper of Spec Theatre stars in the one-man show mr.coffeehead, which is arriving at the Vancouver Fringe Festival after a series of successful premières at the Winnipeg, Victoria, Edmonton and Montreal Fringes. In Montreal, the “foot-fueled, slapstick tragedy about bikepacking, dreaming big and giving up in your 30s,” which was written by cooper, was nominated for Outstanding Clown Show.

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For the whole Fringe lineup, including Katherine Matlashewski’s Disclosure (jewishindependent.ca/the-journey-to-healing), visit vancouverfringe.com.