{"id":35694,"date":"2020-11-13T03:51:23","date_gmt":"2020-11-13T11:51:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=35694"},"modified":"2020-11-11T20:32:45","modified_gmt":"2020-11-12T04:32:45","slug":"a-diverse-chutzpah-lineup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2020\/11\/13\/a-diverse-chutzpah-lineup\/","title":{"rendered":"A diverse Chutzpah! lineup"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ben Caplan opens this year\u2019s Chutzpah! Festival Nov. 21.\u00a0<\/strong>(photo from Chutzpah!)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

In the last issue of the Jewish Independent<\/em>, Chutzpah! Festival artistic managing director Jessica Mann Gutteridge, festival host and stand-up performer Iris Bahr and event comedy closers Jess Salomon and Eman El-Husseini, aka the El-Salomons, were featured<\/a>. This week, the JI<\/em> offers a glimpse into the rest of the lineup, by order of appearance.<\/p>\n

Musician Ben Caplan opens the festival on Nov. 21 with a recorded performance. Before the recent COVID restrictions, the show was to be presented live from the Rothstein Theatre.<\/p>\n

Caplan was on stage here back in January, bringing Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story<\/em> \u2013 which is based on the true story of two Jewish Romanian refugees coming to Canada in 1908 \u2013 to the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival (jewishindependent.ca\/searching-for-a-safe-harbour<\/a>). This show, Caplan will be performing songs from his album Old Stock<\/em>, which is adapted from this music-theatre work.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe story of Chaim and Chaya, and, by extension, that of a great number of immigrants and refugees who have come to Canada, is full of a great many hardships and tribulations,\u201d said Caplan when asked what lessons from their experience might be relevant in COVID times. \u201cTheir story is not free from conflict, both with the outer world, with each other and with themselves. What we see in their story is that, through perseverance, they are able to cross the narrow bridge of their precarity into a sweeter time. It is a nice reminder that no matter how dark things get, there are always brighter moments ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Last Chutzpah! Festival, former Vancouverite Tamara Micner performed her one-woman show Holocaust Brunch<\/em> here. On Nov. 22, she\u2019s offering a first peek at a new work-in-progress from her current hometown, London, England.<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
Tamara Micner in Old Friends<\/em>. (photo by Sam Micner)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cOld Friends<\/em> is very much in the early days \u2013 I would say it\u2019s in kindergarten,\u201d admitted Micner. \u201cI\u2019ve been working on it this year and the Chutzpah! Festival streaming will be the first time I perform some of the piece with a public audience. I don\u2019t know exactly what the performance will look like or exactly what will be in it. It\u2019s \u2018nervciting\u2019! I look forward to sharing some of the work with Chutzpah! audiences and doing a Q&A afterwards to speak more about the show. I\u2019m hoping and aiming to present the full show in 2021.\u201d<\/p>\n

A key inspiration for Old Friends<\/em> is the music of Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, and their relationship.<\/p>\n

\u201cI find Simon and Garfunkel\u2019s music comforting and uplifting\u2026. The combination of Paul\u2019s songwriting, Art\u2019s voice and their harmonies are beautiful,\u201d said Micner. \u201cI also find the themes in their music resonant at this time \u2013 including loneliness, isolation, hope and a yearning for connection\u2026. I\u2019m also intrigued by the on-again, off-again nature of their relationship and the Jewishness in that \u2013 how we have a tendency to cling to each other, leave each other, not talk for years, but not be able to fully stay apart or let go. There\u2019s a lot to mine in that, I think \u2013 where that comes from, what it\u2019s about and how we can free ourselves from that cycle.\u201d<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Also on Nov. 22, New York-based playwright Rokhl Kafrissen shares her new work-in-progress.<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
Rokhl Kafrissen\u2019s Shtumer Shabes<\/em> stars a drag performer as the Yiddish Theatre diva. (photo from Chutzpah!)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cShtumer Shabes<\/em> [Silent Shabbat<\/em>] opens in the year 2000,\u201d said Kafrissen. \u201cA performance studies grad student named Jess is writing about the heyday of Yiddish theatre in Poland in the 1930s. Jess is studying what she calls the \u2018hybrid potentialities of interwar Yiddish performance practices.\u2019 How did Jews use their art to embody binaries like Yiddish and Polish, Jew and Catholic, urban and rural, capitalist and socialist? She argues that The Dybbuk<\/em> is the ultimate expression of that hybridity.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs the play opens, Jess stumbles into the chance to interview an honest-to-goodness Warsaw Yiddish diva. It turns out that Sonja, a 90-something veteran of the Polish-Yiddish stage, is living in her neighbourhood. Jess comes to believe that Sonja possesses a \u2018lost\u2019 play script: Shtumer Shabes<\/em>. Her encounter with Sonja is also her opportunity to write history. But Jess is confronted by the elusiveness of \u2018plain facts\u2019 and the cost of writing history. For me, the encounter between Jess and Sonja represents two competing ways of understanding the past, through scholarship and through art.\u201d<\/p>\n

Imagining Sonja\u2019s world wasn\u2019t hard for Kafrissen, as she knows well Yiddish theatre, past and present, and the standard Yiddish reference sources. However, she did struggle with her protectiveness of the Yiddish past and her obligation as a journalist \u201cto the people and productions I\u2019ve been reading about, an obligation to tell their stories accurately and respectfully.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut, at some point, my inner journalist has to be thanked politely and shown the door,\u201d she said. \u201cIf you\u2019re going to write historically informed fiction (which is what I consider this piece), you have to be comfortable going beyond the facts. It gets even trickier because part of Sonja\u2019s backstory \u2026 is flashback to the war, when she was imprisoned in the Warsaw Ghetto. I know enough about the Warsaw Ghetto to invent a plausible scenario. But depicting it feels daunting. The potential for kitsch or melodrama is high. My characters grapple with extremely sensitive issues, including allegations of collaboration with the Germans. It was important to me that if I was going to include such provocative topics, I had to stick closely to historical fact and stay within the realm of the possible. My characters would not be saints or holy martyrs, but real people, caught in the worst possible circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cast as Sonja is Shane Baker, who Kafrissen has known since she worked with him in 2009 on his one-man show The Big Bupkis: A Complete Gentile\u2019s Guide to Yiddish Vaudeville<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI quickly became a big admirer of Shane\u2019s work,\u201d she said. \u201cHe can go from the highest brow, as with his translation of Waiting for Godot <\/em>into Yiddish, all the way to the lowest brow, as with his vaudeville show\u2026. In the last few years, Shane had been working on a drag character called Miss Mitzi Manna. She was inspired in part by his close friendships with the last generation of Yiddish theatre grandes dames. So, when I got a 14th Street Y LABA Fellowship in 2019, I decided to write a play with a role for Shane in drag as my yearlong fellowship project. I knew from the beginning that the role wasn\u2019t written for Mitzi Manna per se, but Shane\u2019s development of the character was a huge inspiration. Writing the role of Sonja with a drag character in mind opened up a kind of playfulness and experimentation for me. Drag is such a dramatically rich device. It heightens our awareness of the artifice of theatre and interrogates the mimetic nature of theatre itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

A staged reading of Shtumer Shabes<\/em> was supposed to have taken place last in April. \u201cUnfortunately,\u201d said Kafrissen, \u201cthat coincided with the world as we knew it collapsing. As I get ready to present excerpts from the play for the Chutzpah! Festival, I can see a tiny sliver of silver lining. Even with the pandemic, I\u2019ve managed to sneak in some actor time in the last couple months, as well as getting thoughtful feedback on the script from folks both within my artistic circle and outside. The script is now so much better than the version I had in the spring, so I tell myself maybe it\u2019s better that I didn\u2019t present that earlier draft to the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Dybbuk<\/em> by S. Ansky infuses Shtumer Shabes<\/em>: Jess is obsessed with The Dybbuk<\/em> and it\u2019s why she went to grad school; and \u201cSonja\u2019s career on the Warsaw Yiddish stage was tied up with the phenomenal, real world success of The Dybbuk<\/em>,\u201d said Kafrissen. \u201cIt was with a Dybbuk<\/em> monologue that she auditioned for Yiddish drama school and the role of Leah (the young woman possessed by the dybbuk) was always her dream.\u201d<\/p>\n

This year marks the 100th anniversary both of Ansky\u2019s death in November 1920 and the premi\u00e8re of the Yiddish version of the play a month later. \u201cI love the idea of having our Chutzpah! program serve as Sonja\u2019s final tribute to Ansky and his creation,\u201d said Kafrissen.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
Ella Rothschild\u2019s Pigulim<\/em> unfolds against the backdrop of a meal at a long dining table. (photo by Efrat Mazor)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Death \u2026 and life are at the centre of Israeli choreographer Ella Rothschild\u2019s Pigulim,<\/em> which is described as \u201ca cultural narrative [that] unfolds against the backdrop of a meal at a long dining table where three characters suffer from unbearable loneliness and battle their way between life and death. Each character travels between their individual materialistic being and their consciousness, revealing their essential humanity in relation to existence and the quest for happiness.\u201d A pre-recorded performance of the work will be shown at the Chutzpah! Festival on Nov. 23.<\/p>\n

In the summer of 2019, Rothschild was selected as one of the first artists-in-residence at Suzanne Dellal Centre. She started Pigulim<\/em> there and continued researching it in \u201cother places in the world with different scenarios and different cast members.\u201d This year, back at the centre, the piece premi\u00e8red in its video version.<\/p>\n

Pigul<\/em> (pigulim, pl.) \u201cdescribes a law from the Jewish tradition,\u201d explained Rothschild. \u201cIt refers to a sacrifice that was prohibited to be eaten because of a forbidden thought that the priest (kohain<\/em>) had in the moment he was making the sacrifice. It can mean abomination or loathsome, and it\u2019s not a word used in everyday Hebrew. The idea that a thought can change reality has a direct connection to what I tried to present in Pigulim<\/em>. If the thought one can have determines the reality of another entity, how much from our consciousness is being present in our reality and our society?<\/p>\n

\u201cAnother aspect of choosing this particular name is another gap that unravels between the sound of the word and its meaning. Pigulim has a nice way of rolling in the mouth. The letters are round and when you pronounce it, it almost sounds like a name of a rare flower \u2013 but the meaning of it is the opposite. It contains strong emotions and gravity. Once more, it holds this gap between what we experience and the reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

This gap \u2013 \u201ca certain detachment between our body and mind\u201d \u2013 is something with which we must live, said Rothschild, and its loneliness is not changed by \u201chow many people are surrounding you in the space.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs I see it and experience it, it is a state of being, not only of certain individuals but as a mass society,\u201d she said. \u201cI have learnt, through working with others, more about how this gap appears and how we perceive it. We behave inside these structures that are determined for us and, yes, it leaves a gap or an absence that we don\u2019t really understand, or we will forever try to make sense of.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, there is more than just absence. \u201cI did find out that we share more than we think,\u201d she said. \u201cWe share beauty, laughter, sadness and grief. We cry from the same things and we worry and we fear. But we also love. And that is an overwhelming thing to share.\u201d<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Israeli pianist and composer Guy Mintus \u2013 whose solo concert will be live-streamed on Nov. 24 \u2013 is about to release his third album with the Guy Mintus Trio: A Gershwin Playground<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Mintus\u2019s study of piano didn\u2019t follow a traditional path. \u201cI didn\u2019t start with classical piano,\u201d he said. \u201cI started on a little keyboard my parents got me, not an acoustic piano even, and I was studying a very mixed repertoire of adapted arrangements for beginning keyboard players. Among that repertoire were the Beatles, Israeli pop songs, Fiddler on the Roof<\/em> and … two [George] Gershwin tunes: \u2018It Ain\u2019t Necessarily So\u2019 and \u2018Summertime.\u2019 When I started playing those, my\u00a0father handed me the Porgy and Bess<\/em> album of Ella [Fitzgerald] and Louis [Armstrong]. That totally blew my mind and I started trying to emulate the arrangements on my keyboard (which had the ability to switch between different sound samples).<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
Guy Mintus will play songs from his upcoming album, which celebrates George Gershwin\u2019s music. (photo by Ella Barak)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cTo me, these songs are timeless \u2013 musically and lyrically. They\u2019re very rich and have a strong musical character but yet they remain very open and flexible to let you in and bring yourself into them. The lyrics also mostly speak of things that will always be relevant. It\u2019s not by accident that generations and generations of jazz musicians have been interpreting Gershwin.\u201d<\/p>\n

One aspect of the music\u2019s continued importance is that, \u201cunfortunately, we\u2019re constantly reminded by these horrific events that keep happening that racism is still very much around; that the colour of your skin can easily become a disadvantage right off the bat,\u201d said Mintus. \u201cWhen I\u2019m thinking of Gershwin, I\u2019m also considering his background as a Jewish-American composer coming from a family of immigrants. Of all things he could be fascinated by, he was fascinated by Black American music and ended up writing the first jazz opera bringing this marginalized music to the heart of the consensus. More than that, he wouldn\u2019t allow Porgy and Bess<\/em> to be premi\u00e8red at the Met Opera because, at the time, they wouldn\u2019t allow Black performers. He made it mandatory that, if Porgy and Bess<\/em> is ever performed, main roles have to be performed by Black people. Now, Porgy and Bess<\/em> has its controversies in regards to race and representation but I believe in the essence of its coming from a place of great respect to the incredible culture its getting inspiration from.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that the Jewish and African-American communities actually share quite a lot in common,\u201d he continued. \u201cThere\u2019s certainly a collective trauma we\u2019re each dealing with. To me, Gershwin was standing right in the middle of that \u2013 in \u2018Rhapsody in Blue\u2019 (which is on the album, as well, in a solo version) you literally have a meeting point between klezmer and the blues. I want to echo that connection, which is still very relevant to me, through my own lens as an Israeli who lived, studied and worked in New York. It\u2019s important to give back, acknowledge and show respect where it\u2019s due. Last July, the trio and I did an online fundraiser concert called Gershwin Global. It was in order to raise funds for the Jazz Foundation, who takes care of elderly musicians and emergency cases. This music comes from people who gave their lives to it \u2013 if we benefit from it, we\u2019ve got to find a way to also give back to its source.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new album will be launched on Nov. 27 and, given COVID, touring it is not an option. Nonetheless, Mintus said it is worthwhile to put it out anyway. \u201cLife goes on, music goes on and, in my opinion, it\u2019s as relevant, if not more, to release new music in this period,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

With the internet, there are many ways to connect with people all over the world, he added. \u201cThis poses a creative challenge how to find interesting, experiential ways to share this music with the world; how to share the story behind the album. Each single has a unique artwork, there are videos, a bunch of online live events that are planned \u2013 all of this is going to be available through my Facebook page (facebook.com\/guymintusmusic<\/a>). The fact that I\u2019m not switching countries so often as normal allows me a different kind of focus and attention on how to turn this release process into the most fun, meaningful and creative process it can be.\u201d<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
Racheal Prince and Brandon Lee Alley in Hourglass<\/em> by Idan Cohen. (photo by Theo Bell)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Chutzpah! artist-in-residence this year is choreographer Idan Cohen (Ne. Sans opera and dance). The world premi\u00e8re of his Hourglass<\/em>, which is presented by RBC, will be performed and live-streamed from the Rothstein Theatre on Nov. 25.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoth the residency and this opportunity to present at Chutzpah! are the best things that could have happened to me during a time when artists are facing difficult challenges,\u201d Cohen told the Independent<\/em>. \u201cI believe with all my heart in the strength and importance of the arts for a healthy society. It is not a luxury but a necessity, especially within a specific culture. Judaism is not just a common history or a set of beliefs, but a diverse culture that needs to be ever-evolving, reinterpreted and recreated, respecting and learning from our common past while creating a shared future. Having Jessica [Mann Gutteridge] share some of the same core values, and acknowledge the importance of going forward with the festival this year, has been such an empowering force for me and my collaborators during these past few months.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hourglass<\/em> is an exploration of aging set to music by Philip Glass. It is a duet with former Ballet BC company dancer Racheal Prince and returning Ballet BC company dancer Brandon Lee Alley.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs dance artists,\u201d said Cohen, \u201cour focus is on our most intimate tool and instrument: the human body. When that body is extremely intelligent and qualified, as Racheal\u2019s and Brandon\u2019s bodies are, true magic happens on stage. It\u2019s like an ancient fairytale told to you as a child: it represents both the past and the future, it\u2019s exciting and haunting, and it teaches you something valuable through the most basic elements of storytelling. No need for fireworks or special effects.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor this edition of the festival, we are presenting 30 minutes of dance to four out of 20 \u00e9tudes composed by Glass played by the conductor and celebrated pianist Leslie Dala (Vancouver Opera, Bach Choir). Leslie was actually the one who first presented the idea of this project to me, and dancing and working with him has been a most gratifying experience. There are linear elements in the piece, but Glass\u2019s music marries the abstract and the linear, the romantic and the intellectual, in a way that not many composers are able to do, and that\u2019s what makes it so unique.<\/p>\n

\u201cRacheal and Brandon, who are young yet mature and highly experienced dancers, can embody different physical states in such a fascinating way,\u201d said Cohen. \u201cThey had a significant role in our exploration of the theme of aging and time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Being a real-life couple means that Prince and Alley have been able to rehearse together safely during COVID, and the Rothstein Theatre is large enough for them to work with Cohen at a safe distance. \u201cSince Leslie is also dancing (!) in the piece,\u201d added Cohen, \u201cwe had to adapt in order to keep everyone safe, which is, of course, the priority. This has definitely been a great learning experience, and an immensely gratifying one.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Chutzpah! Festival runs Nov. 21-28. For tickets, which start at $18, visit chutzpahfestival.com<\/a> or call 604-257-5145.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ben Caplan opens this year\u2019s Chutzpah! Festival Nov. 21.\u00a0(photo from Chutzpah!) In the last issue of the Jewish Independent, Chutzpah! Festival artistic managing director Jessica Mann Gutteridge, festival host and stand-up performer Iris Bahr and event comedy closers Jess Salomon and Eman El-Husseini, aka the El-Salomons, were featured. This week, the JI offers a glimpse […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35700,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[785],"tags":[9577,19957,573,5278,3119,19892,8112,3036,6540,19956,19891,175,3302,6208],"class_list":["post-35694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-performing-arts","tag-ben-caplan","tag-brandon-lee-alley","tag-chutzpah-festival","tag-comedy","tag-dance","tag-guy-mintus","tag-idan-cohen","tag-music","tag-opera","tag-racheal-prince","tag-rokhl-kafrissen","tag-rothstein-theatre","tag-tamara-micner","tag-theatre"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}