By Jenni Person, Artistic Director, The Open Tent
Arts Inside the Open Tent hosted the third annual Seder As Art program on April 2 and 9. Work in a variety of disciplines was presented by Randy Burman, Arlene Caplan, Grace Sherman, Stuart Sheldon, Ilisa Rosal, Tomas Loewy, Andrea Askowitz, Roger Abramson and Gisel Savdie
Photo courtesy of Diliana Alexander.
Photo courtesy of Diliana Alexander
The 28th Annual Miami International Film Festival rolls into theaters throughout Miami & Miami Beach from March 4-13, 2011. This year’s festival will showcase over 100 films from 40 countries in ten days. Today, executive director Jaie Laplante offers his thoughts on some of the Festival’s Jewish-themed films…
Intimate Grammar is noted Jewish-themed entrant in this year's Miami International Film Festival.
My best suggestion is Intimate Grammar, airing on Tuesday, March 8th. The film’s larger themes are about Israel’s “adolescence” – as it worked to figure out its identity in its 2nd decade after creation – the foregrounded story is of a young boy going through his own adolescent changes – and both the director and one of the stars will be here, I know it will be a lively q&a.
Ticketbuyers to Intimate Grammar are invited to a meet and greet with the director and star of the film prior to the Tuesday screening. Here’s more info…
Tuesday, March 8; 6:30pm-8:30pm; The Catalina Hotel and Beach Club, Rooftop Pool Deck
Join us as we celebrate Israeli Cinema and the Festival’s 2 award-winning Israeli titles – Intimate Grammar, winner of the Best Full-Length Feature Film at the 27th Jerusalem Film Festival, and Precious Life, winner of the Best Documentary award at the 2010 Israeli Film Academy’s Ophir Awards. Intimate Grammar director Nir Bergman and actress Orly Zilbershatz will be in attendance. Sponsored by the Consulate General of Israel to Florida and Puerto Rico
Other great films with Jewish themes are Precious Life and The Names of Love (the Jewish theme is more secondary here and about supporting characters) – also this latter film is selling out fast.
Tickets to the Miami International Film Festival range from $7-$25, depending on the film & attendee age. Click here to purchase & get more information.
By Jenni Person, Artistic Director, The Open Tent
Lip Schtick is coming! Last November we presented a literary program that reached deeply in a variety of ways at once through the presentation of a variety of voices. An evening of stories all centering in some way on Jewish experience, Lip Schtick provided laughs, familiar connections, and a colorful palette of Jewish identity.
Lip Schtick is presented in partnership with Lip Service, a literary program drawing loyal fans every other month to Books & Books in Coral Gables for rich line-up of stories from a broad range of South Floridians. Stories are selected through a submission process and workshopped prior to presentation which provides for a tightly prepared literary evening. It also presents an opportunity for participating writers to connect with each other, building our literary community.
To see video of last year’s stories click here, and to see this year’s stories, join us on Saturday, January 29 at 8pm at Design Within Reach on Lincoln Road next to Books & Books. Submissions for Lip Schtick are being accepted until January 14 – check out the Lip Service website for more info & submit stories.
On Saturday, Mar 13 Arts Inside The Open Tent presented Seder as Art, a visual arts experience promoting alternative access to the Passover experience. Held in the Design District, the event brought to together various artists to showcase their interpretations of seder. Click here to read Open Tent artistic director Jenni Person’s recap of the event and relive the fun with the slideshow below.
By Jenni Person, Artistic Director, The Open Tent
Seder As Art 2010 – What a wonderful gallery walk night – lucky us! Lots of people came out after two frozen/rained out months of gallery walks.
All the artists involved took risks. Michael Pertnoy’s video installation on a Darfuri exile going from Egypt to Israel challenged by stepping out of Jewish experience as the Maggid (the telling part of the seder), to parallel and investigate Jewish experience…as well as responsibility – with the central theme being that we have to remember that we were once slaves in Egypt and therefore not supposed to allow oppression to exist anywhere.
Photographer Tomas Loewy stepped away from his original plan to include prints and opted for what he called a visual installation, a looped slideshow of hundreds of appropriated images of all things Passover – from kids books to ritual items through time, to propaganda, and appropriated text applied to the wall like a frame to the slideshow with questions and research about Passover. The piece was called What Is The Haggadah Anyway? And Loewy said his seder element was the Haggadah – but it elicited thoughts about the Four Questions. Traditionally its role is as a big deal for the youngest – and all the depth and profound meaning and pedagogy behind that. But in fact it is the keystone of the Seder – it’s all about asking questions, with ”why is this night different from all other nights?”sSimply being the tip of the iceberg. I had a theatre teacher in college who used to always ask that question – jokingly referring to Passover, but referring to why we were on stage or why the audience was at the theatre that night, etc. It’s definitely something I still measure by in all my work.
Deb Sherman’s theatre piece was humorous and engaging. She created Exodus Abridged suggesting something antithetical to traditional seders that can go all night. What are you left with when you shorthand it?
Layered literally as expertly executed collage and mixed media , Toby Needler’s piece was incredible.– folding in images and language. Images of plagues from the Sarajevo Haggadah (which itself survived such plagues as the Inquisition and the Holocaust) make up a seder plate which is surrounded by contemporary challenges – or plagues. The idea of plagues and a plagued artifact making up the seder plate itself somewhat begs the question of why would you want plagues so close, in fact holding, that which you eat? There is a superstition among some Jews that teaches that it is very important not to lick the wine off your finger after using it to make drops of wine (representing blood) for each plague or you will eat the plagues. This reminds me of that.
Conceptual artist Stuart Sheldon’s piece was a joy. Creating a surface from about 20 matzah boxes, he framed a giant egg in celebration of the unanswered, ubiquitous egg.
The egg is the only thing on the seder plate that is not explained or even discussed in the Haggadah – leaving it to be pondered freeform – even the pondering of whether or not to ponder. It is said that it’s about spring and renewal, pagan remnants that also make it central in Easter, the cycle of life, round like the world, and then there are those who pass on the meaning
By Jenni Person, Artistic Director, The Open Tent
One of the most striking sentiments rising from the buzz at the annual Schmooze conference, a gathering of artists and arts professionals working Jewishly, was “At an economic time such as this, if you have to choose between being safe or taking a risk: take a risk,” with the idea being we have nothing to lose.
Having started our conversation with a stirring keynote address from Rabbi Irwin Kula of CLAL in which he centered on the idea of art for art’s sake and not for an external agenda related to numbers, this resonated as a call for unabashed artistic innovation and communal support for it. As much as I agree wholeheartedly in the idea of arts for art’s sake, something I live and breathe by, I also believe that inherent in art is an experience of identity and the possibility for community-building and social change. And Jewish culture in particular has a long history of a role in those things – from the centrality of liturgical music used to draw together a community in the beit knesset, the Hebrew term for synagogue that literally translates as “house of gathering,” to the Yiddish Theatre’s role in the Labor Movement to the current renaissance of Jewish culture that draws those even on the outermost fringes to a Matishayu show and its associated Shabbat Tent at, for example, Langerado.
And the art for art’s sake that paraded across the conference and its associated Oy!hoo Music Festival was indeed glorious. Choreographer Adam MacKinney of DNAWorks presented an excerpt from his multimedia piece HaMapah which explores his rich mixed family history mingling Jewish and African heritage. An accomplished dancer who has worked with a range of leading companies including Alvin Ailey, MacKinney has served as a US Embassy Culture Connect Envoy to South Africa. The piece combines documentary video, visual image, text and dance features an opportunity to watch MacKinney move, punctuating statements about expanding definitions of identity as he extends his long body throughout the space.
Another favorite of mine was Yiddish Princess, a Yiddish-singing classic punk band fronted by Sarah Gordon, a boisterous presence who couldn’t have been more generous with her energy and great pipes. The band’s tight, layered and dense sound is enhanced by the fluid and deeply soulful embodiment of Yiddish culture. Frontwoman Gordon’s substantial Yiddish literacy arises from the fact that she is of Yiddish culture royalty, indeed a Yiddish princess as the daughter of celebrated Yiddish singer Adrienne Cooper, who certainly holds the title of Yidddish Queen. Gordon was born and raised surrounded by this language and culture – exposed from birth to all of the great artists with whom her mother collaborates and jams around the country and the world, including some of the Princess’ own bandmates…when they are not luxuriating in punk.
Schmooze was also a nice opportunity to connect with artists who have been inside the Open Tent with us before including Susannah Pearlman of Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad who has some new tricks up her sleeve; and Frank London who played an incredible set with fellow Klezmer-maven and Klezmatics bandmate, Lorin Sklamberg that accentuated the fact that these guys simply breathe music. Another artist from past Open Tent seasons I ran into was Alicia Rabins, a band member of Golem who is now additionally touring with her new band Girls In Trouble, which released its first CD on JDub Records this fall. I was psyched to get to hear Girls In Trouble live for a second time because their sound is so fulfilling and their lyrics so compelling. The girls in trouble to which the band’s name refers are in fact women of the Torah and their gender-based struggles – the band itself being Rabin’s thesis project for her recent graduate work in Jewish studies. The band’s sound is informed by a similar neo-klezmer/gypsy-punk sound as Golem infused by rich middle eastern sounds that fill the space to embrace the listener seemingly in the place of the Biblical stories.
Other musical highlights of the Schmooze and Oy!hoo included the ever-exciting and eclectic Soulfarm and kosher Gospel king Jonathan Nelson who each put on great shows at the festival.
By Jenni Person, Artistic Director, The Open Tent
During last Passover 2009, Arts Inside The Open Tent presented an alternative, creative Passover Seder as Art, promoting alternative access to the Passover experience. In conjunction with its exhibition, Growing Up Comix: JT Waldman, in partnership with Art Center/South Florida, the Seder As Art tied-in the graphic novelist’s piece Four Children, originally commissioned by Nextbook, while engaging artists in a variety of media (performing, media and visual arts) with their own interpretations of parts of the Haggadah. Participating artists were Kevin Arrow Andrea Askowitz, Hannah Lasky, Zammy Migdal, Rhonda Mitrani, Carmel Ophir & Howard Davis, and JT Waldman.
Seder As Art stood out as a successful interdisciplinary art experience not only because it relied on the intermix of a variety of disciplines, but also because of its play between art and audience – an experiential reinterpretation of tradition. The project served as a virtual aesthetic Seder which took guests (otherwise known as on Second Saturday gallery night art enthusiasts prowling the Design District’s offerings) through aspects of the traditional Passover Seder from the memory and nostalgia referenced in a mixed-media installation, My Matzo by Zammy Migdal to through a literal figurative print of a halo-ed Elijah by Hannah Lasky. Like an actual Seder, the project prodded and struck deep to provoke questions and stirred guests to examine contemporary issues in the face of the historical story of the journey from the narrow place of oppression to redemption.
In addition to Waldman’s piece, the project included Four Questions, a video installation by Rhonda Mitrani that juxtaposed text, sound, and video footage to question if the contemporary condition of media image bombardment numbs us to the fact that the same issues of oppression still exist.
Kevin Arrow’s Untitled (Recipe Box) was to the naked eye purely nostalgia as an installation of a wooden recipe box out of which he pulled and arranged mostly handwritten recipes for standard Ashkenazi Jewish recipes such as stuffed cabbage, matzah brei and brisket. His artist statement connected it to memories of his grandmother’s cooking and stories of another life in an Odessa shtetl surviving Cossack rampages. The very image of the balabusta, a Yiddish term of endearment and praise for a skilled Jewish homemaker (the literal translation is “master of the house”), in the kitchen of Arrow’s more upwardly mobile American childhood ably and abundantly providing for two generations of family served as a strong symbol of redemption. As the producer of this project I was fortunate to also hear another story of redemption. Arrow spoke of his acquisition of the box, discovered amongst a gutter full of discards. As he perused the refuse he came across hand-notated books and such treasures that it seemed someone else perceived of as trash. Thankfully Arrow redeemed some books, including cookbooks and the recipe box from annihilation giving it a new life amongst his own palette and in our installation.
On Dec 10, The Open Tent partnered with Birthright Israel to present a Hanukkah Soiree at South Beach’s Burger & Beer. Highlights included performances by Michelle Citrin and Jacob Jeffries, an open bar and Hanukkah nibbles. Relive the fun with the photo recap below.
Miami Beach
By Jenni Person, Artistic Director, The Open Tent
On Saturday, November 7 I had one of those extraordinary days that reminds me why I do what I do.
In preparation for Oy-Le!, our first Sleepless Night presentation (we did two), I spent the afternoon at the rehearsal/jam session of Heavy Shteltl Klezmer and Siempre Flamenco – five musicians who came together to fuse their unique, culturally-specific sounds. It was inspiring to see this small group of strangers walk into a room together, set up their instruments and equipment and proceed to connect through music. Like small talk at a cocktail party, pitch and rhythm mingled, musicians smiling at each other and laughing at points when musical phrases landed in mutually favorable places in the audio-sphere of our make-shift rehearsal room at Temple Emanu-el on Miami Beach.
Two hours later we were on our way to the Lummus Park Mainstage at 8th Street and the ocean where our juxtaposed jam was to take the stage at 6:30. It was a total thrill to be amongst the Sleepless Night hullabaloo right there on Ocean Drive, surrounded by arts enthusiasts and the anticipation of all the wondrous things that were to come throughout the night. With the first downbeat of Oy-Le! the small crowd that had been waiting swelled to double and triple its size as people were drawn to the unique sound resulting from the layering of Klezmer and Flamenco. Young and old, Jewish and non, Miamian and tourist, danced along to the rich rhythms which proved doubly familiar and accessible. The audience had a blast – but at the center of this joy was that of the musicians who shared the stage and shared the music from within themselves.
After the show I raced with a volunteer and a mic stand up the beach to Lincoln Road for our 8pm presentation of Lip Schtick in partnership with Lip Service hosted by Books & Books and Design Within Reach. What a buzz awaited us as audience streamed in for our show. Again, we welcomed an incredibly diverse audience – this time all having come out for compelling stories of contemporary Jewish experience. And compelling it was as voices soared into hearts – despite a sound system glitch that rendered my mic-stand-schlepping useless. The solid line-up of writers sharing their words about their names, their families, their stomachs, and all by way of connecting to their Jewish identity was as gloriously diverse as the enthusiastic audience. They were young and old, gay and straight, kosher and treyf.
The words that got put out there – tightly woven text relaying this broad variety of Jewish identity and experience – provided access points for everyone. And it was again the resulting incredibly joyful energy of artists and audience that was so dense you could practically see it. If you missed it, all the pieces can be viewed online via YouTube at the Lip Service site (not yet posted).
