Chutzpah! – Jewish Independent

Bahr’s many personas

Writer and comedian Iris Bahr performs at the Rothstein Theatre on Nov. 12 and 13, as part of the Chutzpah! Festival. (photo by Gail Hadini)

Award-winning writer, actor, director and producer Iris Bahr delves into serious issues using humour – and by being someone other than herself. She will bring some of her many characters to the Rothstein Theatre stage Nov. 12 and 13 as part of the Chutzpah! Festival.

Bahr hosts the weekly podcast X-RAE, as alter ego Rae Lynn Caspar White. In her one-woman show DAI (enough), she portrays 11 different characters in a Tel Aviv coffee shop. In her comedy series Svetlana, which ran for a couple of seasons, she starred as the Russian prostitute and political consultant. These are but a few examples of the personas she has created.

“I think I was about 6 years old,” Bahr told the Independent about when she did her first impression. “My family went on a trip to Italy and I began to imitate the tour guide, who kept going on and on in a heavy Italian accent about ‘marble from Carrera’ and so, for years after that, I would always be asked to ‘perform my Italian woman’ when my parents had company over.”

Using the example of the character of Rae Lynn, Bahr explained how an alter ego allows for a better conversation.

“I host my X-RAE podcast in character because I find it puts people at ease and they open up about topics they wouldn’t otherwise,” she said. “Rae Lynn flips from highbrow to lowbrow in a heartbeat and talks openly and outrageously about parenting, marriage and various R-rated topics. During my interview with Lawrence O’Donnell, for example, we veered from Marxism to Penn Gillette’s sex parties in a single breath.”

A magna cum laude graduate of Brown University, in Providence, R.I., Bahr studied neuropsychology, and has done brain research, as well as cancer research.

“I think I gravitated towards neuroscience because the inner workings of the brain fascinate me and I’m equal parts cerebral and highly emotional, and so that translates into all my work,” she explained. “I have a splintered identity, but not in a 50-50 kind of way – I actually feel 100% American and 100% Israeli at all times and that feeling of connection yet constant alienation lends itself to me inhabiting different characters and being able to truly commit to different viewpoints.”

Bahr was born and raised in the Bronx but moved to Israel as a teenager, staying there through military service; she still has family there. Her latest satire, The Olive Tree, about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, recently had a soldout reading in New York and is set to open in spring of next year. DAI came to the stage in 2006 and audiences have included the United Nations, in 2007.

“I was invited to perform the show for over 100 ambassadors and delegates and the experience was unforgettable,” she said. “They were highly attentive and laughed at all the right moments, which I was not sure was going to happen. I felt like a diplomat for a day.”

Bahr said she wrote DAI “to communicate the intricacy and complexity of life in Israel, the inner conflicts prevalent in Israeli society, and how they are affected by living under constant threat of suicide bombings/sudden death, which, as any Israeli will tell you, instil not a feeling of helplessness but a vibrancy and love for life. On the flip side, is how that very fact is perceived by visiting outsiders and Palestinians affected by the conflict. The characters we meet in the café – from all walks of life, ideological spectrums and backgrounds – have no idea their lives will be ending abruptly [by a suicide bomber] and so their monologues range from outrageously humourous, vengeful, disillusioned and more.”

She first performed DAI at Baruch College in New York City, “as part of a festival sponsored by the Culture Project,” she said. “I had no idea it would get picked up immediately for a commercial run, and so that was a phenomenal development.

“A lot has changed since I first wrote DAI, in terms of how the conflict is manifesting itself on both sides, and yet the situation has sadly stayed the same. Thankfully, suicide bombings seem to be a thing of the past, but my dear childhood friend and father of four was stabbed to death only last year while out shopping, the Palestinian plight has not improved and the political climate is worse than ever. Nevertheless, the characters in DAI have sustained their relevancy; my German character talks about rising antisemitism in modern-day Germany, for example; my Israeli former military man talks of his son who doesn’t want to serve in the military; and the snooty ex-pat woman who lives in New York City, well, those types of women only seem to multiply by the minute.”

She stressed, “The play is not a polemic – it is a collection of social observations that speak from many different viewpoints. The piece aims to entertain, offer a visceral theatrical experience and, hopefully, also illuminate and enlighten. Thankfully, it has been warmly received amongst extremely ‘pro-Israel’ audiences and also ‘pro-Palestinian’-leaning crowds both in Europe and here in America. Of course, certain right-wingers think it’s too leftist and left-wingers think it’s too right, which is all I could really hope for as a piece about humanity.”

For tickets to see Bahr perform at Chutzpah!, and for more festival offerings, visit chutzpahfestival.com.

Dancing to Beethoven

ProArteDanza’s The 9th will première in Vancouver before heading home to Toronto. (photo by Alexander Antonijevic)

Ten years after its conception, ProArteDanza’s The 9th, a full-length contemporary dance performance, will have its world première in Vancouver at the Chutzpah! Festival Oct. 26-28.

“We were originally planning to première it in Toronto for November,” Roberto Campanella, co-artistic director of ProArteDanza, told the Independent in a phone interview. “We’re opening in Toronto Nov. 6, which is a week-and-a-half after Chutzpah! And then Mary-Louise [Albert] called and said, ‘How do you feel about bringing The 9th here?’ And I said, ‘Well, it would not be a bad idea for everybody involved to have that opportunity…. We love being at Chutzpah! We’ve been before, we have a longtime relationship with Mary-Louise.” (Albert is artistic managing director of Chutzpah!)

Campanella created The 9th with ProArteDanza co-artistic director Robert Glumbek in collaboration with the dancers. Inspired by Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and performed to the score, the show has four movements and is about 70 minutes long, with no intermission.

Each dance movement was created and mounted on its own: the first, then the third, the second and, finally, the fourth, which the company performed this past June in Trois-Rivières, Que., for the festival called Dansencore. Regarding the full-length work, Campanella said “it’s one thing to put on one movement at a time separately, and we’re realizing it’s a completely different beast because we have to also layer [each movement] with the concept of a wall or, in this case, the symbol of the Berlin Wall, so it’s taking almost a different life for me and for Robert…. And it’s only eight dancers and it’s going to be incredibly physical and athletic and intense, so we also have to distribute our dancers in a way that we don’t kill them in the first movement.”

Ten years ago, Dansencore commissioned Campanella and Glumbek to create the first movement. At the time, the festival was celebrating its 15th anniversary, as well as the establishment of Trois-Rivières, with Beethoven’s Ninth, said Campanella. “The idea was that there were different choreographers allocated for the four different movements … and we put the whole thing together probably in one day or two with the live orchestra and the live choir, so it was a mega-super-project. It all came together then.

“What we decided to do, with the permission, of course, of the festival, we said, ‘Can we present out first movement only for our company, ProArteDanza?’ We were granted permission and we presented just the movement itself as part of a mixed program the year after, or the same year, here in Toronto. Then we looked at each other, Robert and I, and said, ‘Why don’t we do a long version of it? Why don’t we continue? But let’s take our time. Why don’t we continue on the same path we’re doing, a movement at a time, we present it, we look at it and see what comes out of it?’

“And then, in 2010, I was in Berlin shooting a movie and I had a few days off,” continued Campanella. “I went to the Berlin Wall, which is essentially rubble, it’s just bricks, there isn’t much, but there are these audio-visual stations, where you can put headphones on and have a look at old footage of when they were building it; it’s pretty much the history of the wall. And there was one image that still, I would say, hit the spot, which was these two families on [opposite] sides of the wall waving at each other, probably they were related to each other … and the waving at each other was different from one side of the wall and the other. And then I thought, could it be that this [image] is actually our Ninth Symphony concept? So, I talked to Robert and I said, ‘Can we explore that and see where it goes?’ And that’s when the ball started rolling for us, but always maintaining the idea that we were not going to present the whole thing until we had all the four movements done and presented.”

The timing of The 9th’s completion comes with a few coincidences, said Campanella. Most notably, the final concert date, in Toronto, is Nov. 9 and, he said, “Nov. 9, 1989, is the actual day of the fall of the Berlin Wall,” so the show will occur exactly 30 years after the wall’s fall. He also noted that ProArteDanza’s show, which is called The 9th, ends on the ninth and that, at the 1989 celebration of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Leonard Bernstein conducted the Ninth Symphony.

For Campanella, the fall of the Berlin Wall is “about freedom, it’s about brotherhood, it’s about unity and diversity, celebrating all of that.”

In addition to the challenges of portraying these concepts, Campanella said it’s been fascinating to reimagine the movements that were created in the early years.

“We look at what we did 10 years ago and we cringe,” he said. When he and Glumbek watched videos of the piece, “you should have heard us, we were thinking, ‘Who choreographed that?’”

The pair have broken through many artistic walls since then in their respective careers, said Campanella, that they decided “this is not us anymore and so we are going to revisit it, reassess it, reevaluate what we’ve done and why.”

He pointed out that the original first movement was also created by a different cast. “There is only, I think, one [dancer] left who’s done everything. So, there are things that are born with a certain cast but there is a turnover of cast, [so] it will inevitably take a different direction naturally, as well as us being different now than 10 years ago.”

Part of what’s great about dance, he said, “is that you have the ability to remount things. A painting, once it’s done, it’s done. You’re going to hang it somewhere and you’ll look at it; it’s done, it’s over. For us, we have that ability to remount and re-look at it and say, ‘Who am I now that’s going to be in this current version of it?’ So, it’s been a very fascinating process.”

Campanella said, in creating The 9th, he and Glumbek “took our time because we really wanted to respect first and foremost the score of this magnificent piece of artwork,” referring to Beethoven’s composition.

In The 9th, more than one version of the symphony is used. Of those that were not chosen, Campanella said, “some of the versions are what we think are excruciatingly slow for us. Maybe they are amazing versions for musicians, for the experts, [but] they’re not conducive to the physical movement part of it.”

For tickets to The 9th, visit chutzpahfestival.com.

Gotta Sing! marks 25

Simone Osborne, left, Tiffany Rivera and Matthew Rossoff are just three of the alumni who will help Gotta Sing! Gotta Dance! celebrate on Nov. 10 at the Rothstein Theatre. (photos from the artists)

“I never thought that Gotta Sing! Gotta Dance! would be so popular and I certainly didn’t think that I would still be involved 25 years later. I love these kids and being involved!” Perry Ehrlich told the Independent.

Ehrlich created the musical theatre summer camp at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver in 1995. Its first quarter-century will be celebrated at the Rothstein Theatre Nov. 10, with 3:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. shows, as part of this year’s Chutzpah! Festival.

“The two shows,” said Ehrlich, “feature opera sensation Simone Osborne, currently living in Germany, who was the youngest winner of the Metropolitan Opera theatre auditions; Matthew Rossoff, from New York and Toronto, who was dance captain for Jesus Christ Superstar on Broadway; Tiffany Rivera, a pop, jazz and soul singer; faculty members Advah Soudack, who just toured Canada in the hit play Glory, and Meghan Anderssen, star of Annie Get Your Gun and Thoroughly Modern Millie at Theatre Under the Stars); my daughter, Lisa Ehrlich Kesselman, winner of the PNE Star Discovery and National Youth Talent Search; Erik Ioannidis, star of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat [at Theatre Under the Stars]; vocalist Andrew Robb; singer and bassist Benjamin Millman; and, of course, my ShowStoppers troupe, who performed with Eric Church and Barry Manilow at Rogers Arena, with the legendary troupe Foreigner at Hard Rock Casino Theatre, [on] Canada Day at Canada Place, [and] singing the anthems for the Canucks and at the PNE.

“Everyone – and I mean everyone, including the kids who will narrate the shows – participated in Gotta Sing! Gotta Dance! in the past. And Wendy Bross Stuart will be on stage with them!”

Since Gotta Sing! Gotta Dance! began, Erhlich said “four things have changed.

“One, the kids are now older. In year one, we accepted 6-year-olds. Now, the youngest are 9 or 10 and over 70% are in high school.

“Two, the curriculum for Gotta Sing! Gotta Dance! has become more intensive each year; the levels of singing, dancing and acting is at an all-time high.

“Three, there has been a great social dynamic among the kids that has increased over the years. I hear over and over again that kids have met lifelong friends at Gotta Sing! Gotta Dance!

“And, four, I am thrilled by the number of non-Jewish kids who participate in the program and love being at the JCC. In early years, I had to explain security and what it means to be Jewish. No more.”

For tickets to the 25th anniversary tribute and other Chutzpah! shows, visit chutzpahfestival.com.

The future requires chutzpah

Inbal Arieli recently published the book Chutzpah: Why Israel is a Hub of Innovation and Entrepreneurship. (photo by Micha Loubaton)

Inbal Arieli has always been fascinated by what motivates and drives people, as well as what blocks their paths. “Throughout my career, which was mainly as a business executive, I always kept an eye on the human factor,” Arieli told the Independent. “And so, the businesses I started were somehow all related to that.”

Arieli, who is also a lawyer, is the owner and co-chief executive officer of Israeli start-up accelerator Synthesis. The company provides leadership assessment, as well as business training and development, in Israel, Canada and the United States.

“It is about the effect of the most critical skills that I think anyone should have today,” said Arieli about her recently published book Chutzpah: Why Israel is a Hub of Innovation and Entrepreneurship. “These are, according to the World Economic Forum, the skills which are required in the future, for anyone, regardless of your profession or future position. These are basic life skills – of critical thinking, decision-making, taking on initiative, etc., etc. There’s a long list of soft skills. The book is about these skills.

“What’s still interesting to me is, when looking at these skills, thinking about the future – the future of my kids, the future of the entrepreneurs here in Israel, the future of the job market in the world – about how can one practise these skills.

“The book shows the journey of a typical Israeli child from a very young age, as young as 3 or 4, until after military [age], young adult.”

In Chutzpah, Arieli shows how, in the five stages of childhood – infancy, childhood, adolescence, military service and then the big trip after the military – Israeli culture and society have produced principles, a framework and settings to foster these skills.

The book is not about Israel in and of itself. It is designed to help readers develop their own set of skills using the Israeli experience as an analogy.

Chutzpah (audacity), an ingrained trait, is very much nurtured in Israeli kids from a young age, said Arieli.

“From a very young age, chutzpah comes into play everywhere and anywhere,” she said. “Most of those skills, Israeli education and mindset … I think of them like muscles we all possess … only here, in Israel, we have access to the best gyms to practise these muscles.

“When you play at the playground, at age 3 or 4, the fact that you stand for your own opinion and find your own way of using the slide – an example I give in the book – that, in a sense, is a little bit of chutzpah. You don’t necessarily follow guidelines or practices. You bring your own personality [into your decisions and actions] at a very, very young age. So, it starts then, and then it fills up as we grow up here.”

Arieli sees Israeli society as being very open to giving freedom to everyone’s chutzpah – encouraging kids to exercise their chutzpah muscle, to be risk-takers, to stand out from the crowd, encouraging individualism along with a strong sense of collectivism. “Definitely, the framework that exists here, the environment, so many social structures are helping the muscles to remain developed and strong,” she said.

Chutzpah can be viewed as either negative or positive, and can be used in a positive or negative way. In Hebrew, one can differentiate between the two, depending on where the accent is placed. Arieli does not think it is important to differentiate between the two concepts of chutzpah. Rather, she contends that, just like any other muscle, the use of it needs to be calculated.

“Chutzpah is not a button you can press on or off,” she said. “It’s a mindset. In the context of innovation or entrepreneurship, I think it’s a very positive thing. And so are the other skills, ideas or principles spoken about in the book. I think it’s all a matter of finding the right balance between using them or not using them, and when to use them. What’s right for certain stages is less relevant for other stages.

“More than anything, I think it’s the combination of having these skills along with other skills is what’s optimal. But, I also think it’s very challenging to create an innovative society or an innovative team or group of people without allowing them to have a little bit of chutzpah.”

According to Arieli, just teaching kids how to work in today’s job market is a recipe for failure, as we have little knowledge of what work will even look like in their generation. The one and only thing we know for sure is that the future job market is uncertain. As such, the only way to prepare children is to equip them with the ability to be highly innovative and creative thinkers, capable of taking on initiatives by shaking things up and changing things.

“I wish for my kids that they will have as much chutzpah as possible when thinking about their future,” said Arieli. “They’ll have to reinvent themselves during their career several times and I want them to be proactive in that.”

Another trait Arieli talks about in Chutzpah is balagan (mess or chaos).

“Anyone who has visited Israel knows what I’m talking about – be it traffic, on the playground, in restaurants – everything is really chaotic here,” said Arieli. “But, that chaos, balagan, propels us toward new order, allowing us to rise every time from that balagan.”

Another factor Arieli discusses in her book is teamwork and “how Israeli society, while sometimes divided, at its core, has a galvanizing mechanism rooted in survival, through our culture … what we endured as a people and our mandatory army service … all of which unite us like no other nation on earth.”

For more information about Arieli or her book, visit inbalarieli.com.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Chutzpah! hosts Bernhard

Sandra Bernhard is at the Vogue on Halloween night, as part of the Chutzpah! Festival. (photo by Brian Ziegler)

“When I was a little kid, I had three older brothers and I got a lot of attention for being cute and funny, and I’ve always had an ability to comment on situations as they unfolded in front of me,” said veteran performer Sandra Bernhard in a phone interview with the Jewish Independent. “I think that’s what kept it going all these years – I find it entirely hilarious when you’re in the middle of something and you’re able to pull it apart and bring the most humour out of it, or the most outrage, and that’s always been the most interesting part of what I do.”

Bernhard is bringing her critically acclaimed show Quick Sand to the Vogue Theatre on Oct. 31 as part of the Chutzpah! Festival, which runs Oct. 24-Nov. 24. The comedian, actor, author and radio host is known for her outspokenness. She said it’s second nature for her to say what’s on her mind. “By being funny and being a character, which I’ve always been,” she said, “that gave me the access to say things that other people wouldn’t say necessarily, or that wouldn’t be heard.”

Bernhard’s daily radio show, Sandyland, which is on SiriusXM’s Radio Andy channel (created by Andy Cohen), earned her a Gracie Award, an honour given by the Alliance for Women in Media to “recognize exemplary programming created by women, for women and about women in all facets of media and entertainment.” Bernhard also stars as Nurse Judy in the award-winning, boundary-pushing show Pose on FX Networks, about “the legends, icons and ferocious house mothers of New York’s underground ball culture, a movement that first gained notice in the 1980s.”

Bernhard has countless film and television credits, has created and performed several one-woman shows, recorded a few albums and performed with or opened for many artists. She also has written three books.

While she knew from a young age that she wanted to be a performer, it wasn’t until her late teens that the goal started to become a reality.

“I moved to L.A. in the mid-’70s, when I was 18, 19,” she said. “I became a manicurist in Beverly Hills, so I had a day gig, but I didn’t really know how I was going to jump into the waters, because I also wanted to be a singer. I really wanted to be an entertainer, the whole package.

“And then I met up with a group of friends and they thought I was hysterical and then there was this woman I met who, I did her nails and she was a cabaret singer and she would go to the open mic nights and she said, ‘You’re really funny. I know you want to sing, but put your material together and I’ll take you to these open mic nights.’ She took me to one and then I met my friend Paul Mooney and my friend Lotus Weinstock the first night I got up and they took me under their wings. And that’s how I started – I literally fell into it, because I was a natural, and then I started doing the hard work, which was getting up night after night after night to do my act, and I honed my act and the material and then, eventually, I got good at it.”

One of the reasons she remains popular and her material fresh is because she keeps working at it, “finding different ways into it. For me,” she said, “the most important thing is being as authentic as I can, year to year, day to day, because you do change, you evolve as a person, you want to peel the layers of the onion away and get deeper into your core as an artist, as a performer, and I think that’s what continues to inspire you and make you a better performer.”

Describing her style as “edgy, funny, strong, no nonsense, but funny nonsense,” she said, “I don’t feel like I have to really temper anything because you shed your skin as you go along, and certain things just don’t work anymore.”

Born in Flint, Mich., and raised in Scottsdale, Ariz., Bernhard was bat mitzvahed, but, she said, “My father, I don’t think he related to being Jewish much at all, except maybe culturally, and my grandparents – my grandfather went to shul every day but I think that was a little bit later in life. When he came over here from Russia, everybody was busy trying to make a living. And, of course, people ended up in some small towns here and there, and you didn’t always have time for your religion and your traditions.”

Nonetheless, Bernhard said, “I find a certain amount of meditative escape just going to Shabbat and hearing the music and the songs I grew up with, and I like the community. Whether it’s the High Holidays or staying for kiddush and eating a bowl of cholent, there’s something very visceral about it. It connects me with who I was as a kid and my grandparents…. There’s all that emotion, it’s vivid and visceral and it’s just a nice place to calm down and go into and have a little bit of a break from the day to day.”

Saying that she’s “thrilled to be coming back to Vancouver,” Bernhard said the Oct. 31 performance will be “a fun night.” Accompanied by the Sandyland Squad Band, she will combine music, comedy and social commentary in Quick Sand, which, she said, offers “endless amounts of room” for her to go off script.

“I’m always prepared to jump off if something happens or inspires me or the thought process, my mind, and that’s the way it’s always been for me,” she said. “But I also have very set pieces that you want to be able to fall back on and have that continuity to the show, so that you’re not standing up there just talking about a bunch of silliness. I want people to walk away having been entertained.”

For tickets to Bernhard and other Chutzpah! shows, visit chutzpahfestival.com.

Mary-Louise Albert: Bidding adieu to Chutzpah!

Mary-Louise Albert was not only a dancer in the first-ever Chutzpah! Festival, but its poster model (see image below).

As the 19th annual Chutzpah! Festival approaches, ready to embrace its new season – no longer a spring festival but a fall one – it will have to loosen its embrace on its artistic managing director, Mary-Louise Albert. After 15 years heading Chutzpah!, this is her last. Albert is moving on to the next part of her creative and personal journey, and the Jewish Independent spoke to her about the festival, its legacy and what might lie ahead for her.

JI: What do you think the main impact of the Chutzpah! Festival has been for the Jewish and general communities and the relationship between the two?

MA: Presenting and facilitating the growth of professional performing arts is an exciting and multi-layered approach to uniting communities. I am very proud that we have brought the festival to a point of national and international recognition, as well as being one of the flagship Jewish festivals in North America.

Through the insistence of high standards and by supporting new work, the festival has increased an understanding and appreciation of programming that embraces an eclectic range that is Jewish arts and culture, in particular from a Canadian perspective. Expanding on this programming, Jewish and non-Jewish artists share our stages, increasing our ability to bring many Canadian and North American premières to Lower Mainland audiences. Seeing, over the past 15 years, audiences from all walks of life and backgrounds embracing the festival is particularly rewarding.

JI: Have you accomplished what you set out to do when you took over the festival 15 years ago?

MA: Yes, which feels very satisfying to be able to say. I wanted the festival to not only survive but thrive in a very competitive local and national performing arts scene, which is tricky given a cultural umbrella. This meant attaining an international standard – not just a couple of high-profile shows, but across the board. It also meant the dance and music programming had to expand, which has in particular allowed for funding opportunities and artist growth.

An area I’m very proud of is connecting urban and rural communities through creation residencies. Many B.C.-based Chutzpah! artists have had creation residencies in both the North Island region and in the Norman and Annette Rothstein Theatre, resulting in world premières, with these productions going on to tour nationally and internationally. For example, this year, Geoff Berner, T.J. Dawe, Toby Berner, Tallulah Winkelman and Jack Garten will be Chutzpah! artists-in-residence for a week in Sointula, Malcolm Island, where they will perform as well. Chutzpah! will be sending UNA dance company from New York City to perform in Sointula, Port McNeil and in Alert Bay with the N’amgis nation directly before their Vancouver performances, which is a rare and meaningful opportunity for all involved. Sharing artistic wealth with underserved regions of B.C. is and has been an important aspect of the festival for the past few years. It is also in keeping with the times.

image - Chutzpah! 2001 poster featuring Mary-Louise Albert — Chutzpah! 2001 poster featuring Mary-Louise Albert.

JI: In a couple of interviews I’ve read, you speak about how your training and working as a dancer was helpful to you in running Chutzpah! Could you speak a bit to that?

MA: I was trained in ballet and contemporary, danced professionally for 20 years and, within this time period, became a mother of two children. I was 45 when I stopped performing and, through support from the Dancers Transition Resource Centre, embarked on a new adventure of being the oldest “kid” in the class for a few years at Capilano U and BCIT’s Business School.

I was then hired by Gerry Zipursky [then-executive director of the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver, which is home to the Rothstein Theatre] and an inquisitive hiring committee (who I will always be grateful to) … and embarked on this job where I needed to come in running and move things forward. All this took stamina, tunnel vision, a somewhat sharp brain (and elbows), nerviness, flexibility and passion – things that a combination of dance training and a professional dance career prepares you for.

JI: In relation to Chutzpah!, what are one or two of your “I’m most proud of” moments?

MA: There are so many that I am proud of, but I would have to say the festival has been a trailblazer in presenting Israeli artists – and often in their first Canadian or North American appearances. Artists such as the Idan Raichel Project, Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company, Batsheva Dance Company, Balkan Beat Box, Yemen Blues, Idan Sharabi, Roy Assaf, Avishai Cohen Quartet, Itamar Borochov Quartet, Dudu Tassa, Diwan Saz, Maria Kong, Baladino, Victoria Hana, David Broza and Mira Awad, A-WA and many more. And continuing this year with AvevA, Yemen Blues, Guy Mintus Trio, and Rami Kleinstein.

As well, I’m very proud of the growth of the dance and music programming and how this growth has affected positively and in a multi-faceted way the artistic development of many artists.

JI: What’s next for you?

MA: I live in both Burnaby and in Sointula on Malcolm Island. Development of contemporary dance, rural B.C. and social causes are beckoning. At 64, I still have a bit of “oomph” left to pursue.

JI: If there is anything else you’d like to add, please do.

MA: I’m honoured and thankful to have worked with so many excellent professional colleagues in the arts world and at the JCC in accomplishing the festival’s achievements, as well as working with some wonderful volunteers. However, there are two volunteers in particular who I want to give a special thank you to. People with integrity and grace who have stuck by me and the festival from the very beginning – Harriet Wolfe and Lloyd Baron.”

Glimpse of 19th festival

Sandra Bernhard performs at the Chutzpah! Festival Oct. 31. (photo by J. Graham)

The Chutzpah! Festival returns during a new late-fall time period – from Oct. 24 to Nov. 24 – with performances at the Rothstein Theatre, Vogue Theatre, Rickshaw Theatre and the WISE Hall. Here are some of this year’s offerings.

Opening night, Oct. 24: Multi-award-winning, London-based songwriter, broadcaster and musical storyteller Daniel Cainer performs the Canadian première of his internationally acclaimed Gefilte Fish and Chips. Based on personal stories of what it’s like to be Jewish – and British – then and now, it includes travelers’ tales, feuding tailors, a naughty rabbi, family fables, and foibles. All of the human condition is here, lovingly and intelligently depicted in a remarkable collection of stories in song.

photo - Sandra Bernhard — Sandra Bernhard *(photo by J. Graham)*

Quick Sand, Oct. 31: Sandra Bernhard is always three steps ahead of the crowd. She has to be. She’s “quick sand.” In these fast-paced times, a lady can’t stop moving. You never know what you might encounter next in this fun house world we’re living in. So, performing with a three-piece band, Bernhard takes control, bringing a mélange of musings, music and whimsy – “never boring, j’adoring” is her motto, covering the waterfront of the outrageous, quotidian and glamorous.

The Trombonik Returns to New Chelm, Nov. 1: Taking inspiration from the traditional comic tales of Jewish folklore about Chelm, songwriter Geoff Berner and writer, performer and satirist T.J. Dawe, along with friends Toby Berner, Tallulah Winkelman and Jack Garten, present a klezmer musical set in Depression-era Saskatchewan.

A wandering con artist posing as a rabbi becomes entangled in the Prohibition-era whiskey trade. This production combines the social critique of Berner’s decades of activist songcraft with the comedic zaniness of Mel Brooks. Following this performance is a celebratory full-on drinking, dancing Klezmer Punk performance with Berner and his co-conspirators, along with special guest and renowned clarinetist Michael Winograd, to mark the release of Berner’s new CD, Grand Hotel Cosmopolis.

The Diary of Anne Frank LatinX, Nov. 6-9: Everyone knows the story of Anne Frank, the Jewish teenager hidden away while Nazis hunted down Jews during the Holocaust. One American-Jewish director, Stan Zimmerman, adds a modern-day twist to the production, which will see its Canadian première at Chutzpah! Zimmerman said, “When I learned there are over a dozen Safe Houses in the L.A. area hiding Latinx families from ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], it got me wondering – How do these families survive with so little money and needing to remain in the shadows? How do they not lose hope? What are their lives like on a day-to-day basis? Do they see the parallels to Anne’s story?”

DAI (enough), Nov. 12-13: Iris Bahr is an award-winning writer, actor, director, producer and host of the hit podcast X-RAE and she is bringing her critically acclaimed, award-winning solo show DAI (enough) to Vancouver.

AvevA, Nov. 14: Chutzpah! presents the West Coast première of Ethiopian-Israeli singer and songwriter Aveva Dese. A rising star in the Israeli music scene, AvevA’s music fuses traditional Ethiopian sounds and groove with her soul-pop songs; she sings powerfully in both English and Amharic about society, freedom and love. Opening for AvevA is B.C.-based Leila Neverland with Mountain Sound.

Closing night, Nov. 24: Celebrates a week-long inclusion project of sharing, exploring and creating through art. Internationally renowned disability and mental health advocate and stand-up comedian Pamela Schuller and Brooklyn-based professional dancers and choreographers Troy Ogilvie and Rebecca Margolick will perform stand-up and solo dance work, respectively, in a shared evening of dance and comedy. The show will also present Ogilvie and Margolick’s new movement dance work created, directed and performed with members and guests of the inclusion community of the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver.

In addition to these and many other shows, the Chutzpah! Festival will pay tribute to the JCCGV and celebrate the 25th anniversary of its long-standing and renowned musical theatre summer camp created by Perry Ehrlich – Gotta Sing! Gotta Dance!; present a Shticks & Giggles comedy night with local comedians Ivan Decker, John Cullen, Lisa Person, Yisrael Shurack and others; and host multiple workshops as well as creation residencies for artists in dance and theatre in urban and rural B.C. settings.

Festival tickets range from $24 to $60 and are available at chutzpahfestival.com or 604-257-5145.

Fiery fusion of musical styles

Lyla Canté’s Cristian Puig, left, and Cantor Alty Weinreb. (photo from Chutzpah!)

The best creative ideas often come when you least expect them. This was certainly the case for Lyla Canté, which performs on March 9 as part of the Chutzpah! Festival.

“In the summer of 2012, I walked into a New York City SoHo bar,” Cantor Alty Weinreb told the Independent. He and flamenco guitarist Cristian Puig are Lyla Canté’s front men.

“The room was steamy, hot and teeming with people. I heard the sounds of a guitarist, dancer and singer, and felt the intense passion coming from the stage,” Weinreb recalled. “The guitar is preening and screaming. I was floored by what he was doing without a pick. I hadn’t seen an acoustic guitar played like that. This was raw, urgent and beautiful. I had an epiphany. I started singing Sephardic and (Shlomo) Carlebach melodies over these tunes and they’re working.

“After the show, I approached the guitarist – Cristian Puig – and met with him to see if our musical styles could mesh. They did. We started performing ballads as a duo at chuppah ceremonies [weddings]. We then began arranging dance tunes and added some wonderful musicians: a Cuban percussionist, a blues electric guitarist and a rock-and-roll bassist. The happy result became Lyla Canté, which combines the Hebrew word for ‘night’ and the Spanish word for ‘song.’ We now perform our music at concerts, festivals and private parties internationally.”

While both musicians are based in New York, it was an unlikely encounter, given the men’s diverse backgrounds.

Puig was born in Buenos Aires; his parents also flamenco artists. He began studying classical guitar at 19, in addition to flamenco guitar with his father, before branching out into various other styles. He plays with and has co-founded various groups, and he composes both for himself as a solo performer and for different flamenco companies. He also teaches, composes music for film and works as a flamenco singer.

Weinreb, on the other hand, was raised in New York City in a strict Orthodox, Jewish family, where, he said, “secular music was off limits.”

“As a child,” he said, “the sound of my synagogue’s cantor was some of the first music I remember hearing. Listening to these cantors wail with yearning left an impression on me – this is how a Jew sings.

“Years later, I had another watershed musical moment. Hearing James Brown for the first time felt like a rhythmic ‘burning bush.’

“For the past 20 years, I’ve been cantor at High Holiday services and chuppah ceremonies across the United States. I currently sing with the Simcha All-Stars (jazz klezmer) and Cuban Jewish All-Stars (Cuban klezmer). I teach drums and percussion to children.”

As to where Lyla Canté fits into their busy schedules, Weinreb explained, “The creative process generally starts with me writing an arrangement idea for a song. I then play it for Cristian, who puts it through his blender, which turns it into something else. We then take it to the full group, where it’s further transformed.”

From their solo work and collaborations, it is obvious that both Weinreb and Puig are drawn to the concept of fusion.

“Since I love many different styles of music, I naturally incorporate them into the music I write and arrange,” said Weinreb. “Also, I don’t want to copy all the wonderful Jewish music that I love (including Jewish fusion). By being true to my musical myself, I can’t help but be original. Like everyone alive, I’m blessed with unique experiences and influences.”

Puig said his idea of “fusion is to have a musical style (flamenco, for me) and take elements of other musical cultures and experiment.”

About whether the Judeo-Spanish element changes the traditional flamenco melodies and/or rhythms, Puig said, “It does not really change my approach much, since the flamenco art is a mix of different cultures, among them Jewish. Many melodies and harmonies are similar in both Jewish and flamenco music.”

As for how flamenco influences traditional Jewish melodies and rhythms, Weinreb said, “Flamenco adds a tremendous musical and historical component to our music. Flamenco, which has deep Jewish roots (and Arabic, Gypsy, Moorish and Roman), is really the intersection of Eastern and Western Jewish culture.

“Paco De Lucia, considered the greatest flamenco guitarist in recorded history, said he discovered ancient Sephardic music transcriptions in Spain and was struck by the profound influence Jewish music has had on flamenco music.

“Musically, Cristian’s flamenco guitar adds a fiery energy to our music with its immediacy and earthiness. He then can turn on a dime and be heartbreakingly beautiful as well. I’m fortunate and grateful to play with him.”

Lyla Canté performs March 9, 8 p.m., at Rothstein Theatre. For tickets ($29.47-$36.46), call 604-257-5145 or visit chutzpahfestival.com. In addition to other musical offerings, the festival also features dance, theatre and comedy.

Singing around the world

Maya Avraham will perform on March 7 at Rothstein Theatre, as part of the Chutzpah! Festival. (photo from Chutzpah!)

With two highly praised albums under her belt and a third one in the works, Maya Avraham has come a long way from Rishon LeZion and her days as a backup singer. All her experiences have made her the talented and entertaining artist she is today, as Chutzpah! Festival audiences will see for themselves on March 7.

Avraham told the Independent that she will be coming with two of her band members and two musicians who live in Los Angeles. “From there,” she said, “we’re flying out to Vancouver to perform at the Chutzpah! Festival.”

Avraham has been performing since she was a teenager.

“At 14, I was in a band called Kol Rishon [First Voice] in my hometown,” she said. “And, at the same time, I also sang in my school band. There, I realized how much I enjoy singing and performing. We performed at all festive events in Rishon LeZion.

“I began private singing lessons at age 16,” she continued. “Already, from a young age, the atmosphere at home was musical – we heard Egyptian music and Yemenite.

“At 16, I joined the Moroccan band Sahara, which performed at major family events throughout the country. With them, I was exposed to the Moroccan music that I still listen to and am influenced by today.”

In the Israel Defence Forces, Avraham was in the army’s music ensemble, where she was a singer and also responsible for the ensemble’s schedule. “Of course, we performed all around the country, and I gained more experience,” she said. “In this group was also where I met Moran Gamliel who, eventually, wrote and composed the song ‘Lama’ [‘Why’] with Adam Perry.”

“Lama” was Avraham’s first single.

“In addition to my involvement with the band Sahara, I was also a backup singer in different studios across the country and sang with various artists who recorded albums,” explained Avraham. “In my work as a studio singer who does vocals and harmonies, I gained a lot of professionalism and accuracy. At one point, I was singing backup vocals for the album of a singer named Amir Benayoun. Amir decided to write me songs and I sent them to Helicon, the company with which he was signed. As a result, the manager of Helicon chose to sign me and we started working on the first album. That was at age 23 and I was with Helicon for five years before I ended the contract.”

It was also at 23 that Avraham met fellow Israeli musician Idan Raichel.

“While searching for musical materials for my first album after I signed with Helicon,” she said, “I had the privilege of meeting with Idan Raichel about a song he wrote for his album that he wanted me to sing. So we met. After the success of the song, Idan approached me and wanted me to be part of his project. I agreed, and started the path to my own career by being part of a larger project, called the Idan Raichel Project, which was a success worldwide.

“Working with Idan was very enriching musically and professionally. I learned a lot from him and I was privileged to work with other talented people who were also part of the group. During the many performances in Israel and abroad, I got to know a lot of talented musicians and I was always learning, gaining knowledge and experience from, for example, singers like Martha Gómez and Shoshana Damari.

“I was part of the project for 12 years and the experiences were many,” she said. “Every performance we did or country we visited, we received a lot of respect and admiration, and I am certain it also shaped and strengthened my own personal career.

“The album Rak Ratzit Ahava [All You Wanted Was Love] came out when I was signed with Helicon and the album La Yom Haze Chikiti [This is the Day I’ve Waited For] came out recently, produced by Rafi [Refael] Krispin of Ze-Nihal.”

In a 2016 interview with French magazine TipTopTelAviv, Avraham said she was nine months pregnant when she met Raichel. Two months after her second daughter was born, she said, “Idan telephoned me and asked me to leave for the United States [for a tour], which was to begin a month later. I agreed and my husband stayed with the kids!”

Avraham and her husband have four kids now: Ruth, 12, Jonathan, 10, Tamar, 5, and Hadas, 3.

“Throughout the years with the project, when I toured abroad, I always had help along the way from my parents and my husband,” Avraham told the Independent. “They’re good kids, so it’s easier to trust that everything will be fine and the support from home is important, assuring me that everything is in order. Of course, you always have to come back with gifts.”

Avraham said she is happy and excited about coming to Vancouver. According to the Chutzpah! website, she and her band will be performing her own hits, songs she sang with the Idan Raichel Project and some of her favourite covers.

Maya Avraham Band performs March 7, 8 p.m., at Rothstein Theatre. For tickets ($29.47-$36.46), call 604-257-5145 or visit chutzpahfestival.com. Other music offerings include the Klezmatics 30th Anniversary Tour (Feb. 23), David Broza and Mira Awad (Feb. 28), Marbin with the band MNGWA opening (March 3), Shalom Hanoch with Moshe Levi (March 8), Lyla Canté (March 9) and Landon Braverman and Friends (April 2). The festival also features dance, theatre and comedy.

Wrestling with complexities

In Wrestling Jerusalem, which is at Chutzpah! March 1 and 2, Aaron Davidman tries to understand the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. (photo by Ken Friedman)

Most of us have an opinion on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But how many of us have listened to others’ perspectives, really considered them and tried to understand them? Aaron Davidman has. And he will share his emotional and thought-provoking journey with Chutzpah! Festival audiences March 1 and 2.

Written and performed by Davidman, Wrestling Jerusalem, directed by Michael John Garcés, is Davidman’s personal journey, as an American Jew, to understand a situation that is often polarizing and over-simplified. The play gives voice to 17 different characters – all performed by Davidman – who represent the breadth, depth and complexity of the conflict; its political, religious and cultural aspects.

As personal as it is, however, Davidman was commissioned to write the play by Ari Roth, who, in 2007, was the artistic director of Theatre J, which is based in Washington, D.C. After 18 years with Theatre J, Roth founded Mosaic Theatre Company, also in Washington, in 2014, and is still its artistic director.

“He asked me to write a solo performance piece investigating the deaths of Rachel Corrie and Daniel Pearl and reflect on the public conversation in America about the Israel-Palestine issue,” Davidman told the Independent about the commission. “The play started there and, as I developed it, it became much more personal and those two subjects no longer relevant to my investigation, which became about the multiple perspectives and competing narratives at the heart of the conflict.”

Davidman is not only a playwright and actor, but also a director and producer. He received a master of fine arts in creative writing and playwriting from San Francisco State University and is a graduate of the University of Michigan; he received his theatrical training at Carnegie Mellon University.

Davidman was raised in Berkeley, Calif., he said, “by Jewish-identified but not religious parents, with a social justice context.”

In an interview with CJN, when Wrestling Jerusalem had its Canadian première in Toronto in November, Davidman said he “fell in love with Israel as a Jewish homeland” when he first visited the country, in 1993, at age 25. “I spent six months living there and had a really incredible spiritual and Jewish identity-forming experience. That story is in the play,” he told CJN.

In the process of researching, writing and performing Wrestling Jerusalem, Davidman told the Independent, “My views about the importance of engagement have deepened, as has my conviction that understanding the ‘other’ is a vital part of the process of reconciliation.”

The play, which premièred in 2014, has also been made into a feature film, directed by Dylan Kussman, which was released in 2016.

“The transcendent themes of the piece remain front and centre now more than ever in a world that is growing only more polarized,” said Davidman. “This piece stands for understanding multiplicity and complexity as humanity’s best chance to live together.”

To facilitate understanding, talk-backs often take place after performances.

“We try to have community conversation – I prefer that term to ‘talk-back’ – after performances and screenings because the piece opens people up,” Davidman said. “They’ve just had a fairly unique experience concerning this topic and there is hunger to process it. It’s a densely written piece and unpacking it and allowing people to hear where they each are coming from in response has proven to be very useful and moving.”

As for advice for people wanting to try and move the public – or even personal – discussion to a more nuanced or empathetic space, Davidman said, “Listen deeply. Don’t know so much. Try to connect.”

Wrestling Jerusalem is at Rothstein Theatre March 1-2, 8 p.m., with audience conversations after both performances, featuring Rabbi Dan Moskovitz of Temple Sholom and Aaron Davidman. For tickets ($29.47-$36.46), call 604-257-5145 or visit chutzpahfestival.com. The festival’s other theatre offering combines Cree storytelling, Chekhovian character drama and comedy, performed by Edmonton-based, award-winning improv troupe Folk Lordz – Todd Houseman and Ben Gorodetsky of Rapid Fire Theatre – on Feb. 22, 8 p.m., at Rothstein Theatre. The festival also features dance, music and comedy.