Monthly Archives: October 2015

Shaanan Streett on Israeli Culture and Music

A discussion of Israeli culture and music with Shaanan Streett

Friday, October 30 at 4:00 p.m.
Kohlberg Hall 228
Swarthmore College (Directions)

Shaanan Streett is one of the most influential and respected cultural voices in Israel today. He is a singer and songwriter for Israeli band Hadag Nahash (“The Sticker Song”). Streett has released 7 albums with the band, as well as 2 albums of his own. He is a screenplay writer (“The Wonders”), a former columnist (Time out Israel), a peace and social activist (who founded The One Shekel Festival), and a lifelong Jerusalemite in a land where nearly the entire cultural scene has migrated to Tel Aviv.

As part of his talk, Shaanan will share with audiences what he sees as the strengths and flaws of Israel today. Through subtitled video clips he will go on to analyze and share the meanings of the lyrics and where he draws from in his writing. Following each clip, questions will be taken from the audience.

While Israel’s art and culture scene has largely moved to Tel Aviv, Shaanan remains one of the most recognizable faces in Jerusalem. Far from leaving, he owns a bar in the Shuk, has written about it for National Geographic and other publications, his children attend a joint Jewish-Arab school and, time and again, has chosen to stay in spite of the difficulties it brings. In the microcosm of Jerusalem, Shaanan will show and discuss where the lines are drawn and how culture crosses those lines. Shaanan will discuss his life as a member of Israel’s leftist political scene.

This event is organized by Swarthmore Students for Israel  and co-sponsored by the History, Political Science, and Peace and Conflict Studies Departments.

 

 

Gamelan Semara Santi looking for dancers!

Swarthmore’s Gamelan Semara Santi (Indonesian Percussion Orchestra) is looking for dancers Balinese Dance solicitation Fall 2015to accompany their music! No experience necessary!

Balinese dance is taught by Latifah Alsegaf and I Nyoman Suadin for four Sundays during the fall semester.
November 1st, November 8th, and November 15th from 2-5PM and December 6th (final rehearsal) 10AM-2PM. Final performance is Sunday December 6th at 3PM.

Please email Tom Whitman, Chair of Music and Dance, if you are interested in this opportunity (twhitma1@swarthmore.edu).

Gamelan Semara Santi looking for dancers!

Swarthmore’s Gamelan Semara Santi (Indonesian Percussion Orchestra) is looking for dancers Balinese Dance solicitation Fall 2015to accompany their music! No experience necessary!

Balinese dance is taught by Latifah Alsegaf and I Nyoman Suadin for four Sundays during the fall semester.
November 1st, November 8th, and November 15th from 2-5PM and December 6th (final rehearsal) 10AM-2PM. Final performance is Sunday December 6th at 3PM.

Please email Tom Whitman, Chair of Music and Dance, if you are interested in this opportunity (twhitma1@swarthmore.edu).

Production Ensemble 2015: A BRIGHT ROOM CALLED DAY (11/13-11/15)

Poster Bright Room Called DayAbout the Play
“We live in Berlin. It’s 1932. I feel relatively safe, ” says Agnes Eggling as she and her friends watch Adolf Hitler’s rise to power from the relative safety of her Berlin apartment. Meanwhile, Zillah, who lives in 2015, can’t help but notice some terrifying parallels with current day politics and Weimar Germany. Tony Kushner’s A BRIGHT ROOM CALLED DAY is “unabashedly political, thought-provoking, a little scary, and frequently a good deal of theatrical fun.”

About the Playwright
Tony Kushner was born in New York City in 1956. He is a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, best known for his 1993 two-part epic Angel in America, as well as the screenplay for the 2012 film Lincoln. President Obama awarded him the National Medal of Arts in 2013.

LPAC Pearson-Hall Theatre

8PM Friday 11/13
2PM & 8PM Saturday 11/14
2PM Sunday 11/15

Directed by K. Elizabeth Stevens, Set & Media Design by Jorge Cousineau, Costume Design by Laila Swanson.

Window on the Work: Balletfleming (10/28/15 @ 11:30AM)

The Swarthmore Project for 2015 will host Christopher Fleming and Balletfleming in the LPAC Boyer Dance Studio this Wednesday!WOTWBalletFleming

This is a master class and followed by a performance with Balletfleming.

As a member of the New York City Ballet, Mr. Fleming danced Principal roles in works by George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins and Peter Martins. He also headed a group of soloists and principals from the New York City Ballet, which toured Europe with his choreography as well as that of George Balanchine. With Mr. Balanchine’s encouragement he embarked on a career as a choreographer and received a fellowship from the National Choreographic Institute under the Direction of Barbara Weisberger. Mr. Fleming served as the Artistic Director of the Compañia Colombiana de Ballet at the Teatro Colon in Bogota, Colombia from 1985 to 1990. He was named Artistic Director of Bay Ballet Theatre in Tampa, Florida in 1993. For ten years he served as Assistant Director and Resident Choreographer for The Rock School for Dance Education. He has choreographed a broad variety of works appearing in the repertoire of a number of different companies. Included are traditional full-length works such as The Nutcracker (four different productions) and Romeo And Juliet (on three different companies) as well as original full-length works Gaspar and Dracula.

Window on the Work: Balletfleming (10/28/15 @ 11:30AM)

The Swarthmore Project for 2015 will host Christopher Fleming and Balletfleming in the LPAC Boyer Dance Studio this Wednesday!WOTWBalletFleming

This is a master class and followed by a performance with Balletfleming.

As a member of the New York City Ballet, Mr. Fleming danced Principal roles in works by George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins and Peter Martins. He also headed a group of soloists and principals from the New York City Ballet, which toured Europe with his choreography as well as that of George Balanchine. With Mr. Balanchine’s encouragement he embarked on a career as a choreographer and received a fellowship from the National Choreographic Institute under the Direction of Barbara Weisberger. Mr. Fleming served as the Artistic Director of the Compañia Colombiana de Ballet at the Teatro Colon in Bogota, Colombia from 1985 to 1990. He was named Artistic Director of Bay Ballet Theatre in Tampa, Florida in 1993. For ten years he served as Assistant Director and Resident Choreographer for The Rock School for Dance Education. He has choreographed a broad variety of works appearing in the repertoire of a number of different companies. Included are traditional full-length works such as The Nutcracker (four different productions) and Romeo And Juliet (on three different companies) as well as original full-length works Gaspar and Dracula.

Ultra-Nationalism and the Divinity of Bureaucracy in Israel

Mizrahi Mothers, Wrapped in the Flag of Israel: Ultra-Nationalism and the Divinity of Bureaucracy in Israel

ASmadar Lavie
Professor of Anthropology
University of California, Berkeley

Thursday, October 29, 2015
4:30 p.m.
Scheuer Room, Kohlberg Hall, Swarthmore College (directions)

LavieWrapped

Israeli-American anthropologist Smadar Lavie will discuss her new book, “Wrapped in the Flag of Israel: Mizrahi Single Mothers and Bureaucratic Torture.” The Mizrahim are the Jews from North Africa and the Middle East who comprise Israel’s majority Jewish population. They suffer from systematic discrimination by Israel’s Ashkenazi Jews who drive Israeli policymaking. Lavie’s is the first English language ethnography about single mothers in the Middle East. This is one of the very few ethnographies about single mothers outside North America. The book explores Israel’s intra-Jewish racial and ethnic conflicts from a feminist perspective. It analyzes how the plight of Mizrahi single mothers relates to Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories, as well as its tensions with Iran and other neighboring Arab countries. Lavie uncovers the conundrum of loving and staying loyal to a state that
uses its bureaucratic system to repeatedly inflict pain on its
non-European majority who, despite this pain, is willing to sacrifice
their lives for what they conceive of as the state’s security.

Equating bureaucratic entanglements with pain—what, arguably, can be seen as torture, Smadar Lavie explores the conundrum of loving and staying loyal to a state that repeatedly inflicts pain on its
non-European Jewish women citizens through its bureaucratic system. The book presents a model of bureaucracy as divine cosmology and posits that Israeli State bureaucracy is based on a theological essence that fuses the categories of religion, gender, and race into the foundation of citizenship.

SmadarLavie1

Dr. Smadar Lavie

Sponsored by Peace and Conflict Studies, and Gender and Sexuality Studies

Lost Pianos?

What’s up with those pianos on campus?

CHOPIN WITHOUT PIANO, is a radically original theater production that comes to the US from Poland in October for its North American debut. Replacing the piano parts of Fryderyk Chopin’s two piano concertos with penetrating dramatic monologues, the work is staged by Michał Zadara, the most distinguished Polish director-playwright of his generation, and the consummate actress Barbara Wysocka, the founders of the acclaimed Polish theater company CENTRALA. Wysocka is expertly accompanied by The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, who will be led by conductor Bassem Akiki from the Warsaw National Opera. In this transformative work, Wysocka hijacks the piano with her physical, virtuoso performance and proceeds to explore cultural, political, and philosophical tensions of the composer’s time that feel strikingly contemporary. Performed in Polish with English supertitles, this new form of concert theater captures the composer as a dynamic living presence within the full force of his music. During CENTRALA’s 2-week residency at Swarthmore College outside Philadelphia, CHOPIN WITHOUT PIANO will premiere on Saturday, October 24, 2015 in Lang Concert Hall on the Swarthmore campus. The production then moves to FringeArts in Philadelphia for four performances, October 28 through 31.

Go to: www.chopinwithoutpiano.com to find out more and follow the show on social media:

The Facebook Event Page is CHOPIN WITHOUT PIANO
https://www.facebook.com/chopinwithoutpiano?fref=ts&ref=br_tf

We look forward to seeing your pics, video, comments and questions all about this exciting production and the Lost Pianos appearing around Philly and the Swarthmore College campus.

Twitter hashtag #chopinwithoutpiano.

Instagram: https://instagram.com/chopinwithoutpiano/….

Have you found a Lost Piano? Take your selfies with any or all of them, or any pianos you can find. Just send your photos through Instagram by tagging them #chopinwithoutpiano. Your photo will show up directly under the header #chopinwithoutpiano. New pics are updated every 30 minutes.

Video: We’re eager to see your Lost Pianos videos. Upload your own Lost Pianos video to Vimeo by taking these 2 special steps: Under “Privacy” make sure “Anyone” can watch “Anywhere”, then click “Share”. Send us the embed link to your video to jtmclucas13@gmail.com to be uploaded to www.chopinwithoutpiano.com

Cooper presents: CHOPIN WITHOUT PIANO

Postcard Chopin without PianoUp next from the Cooper Series:
CHOPIN WITHOUT PIANO
Created by CENTRALA (Warsaw)
Directed by Michał Zadara ‘99
Text by Barbara Wysocka and Michał Zadara
Performed with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia
Conducted by Bassem Akiki
Performances in Polish with English supertitles

On-Campus Performance: CHOPIN WITHOUT PIANO
Saturday, Oct. 24, 8 pm
Lang Concert Hall
Free and open to the public without advance reservation
For information: 610-690-3489 or concertmanager@swarthmore.edu

Philadelphia Performances: CHOPIN WITHOUT PIANO
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Oct. 28-30, 8 pm nightly
Saturday, Oct. 31, 2 pm (with roundtable discussion afterwards)
FringeArts, 140 N. Columbus Blvd, Philadelphia
$25 general admission/$15 Student and 25-and-under
For tickets: FringeArts.com/215-413-1318

Michał Zadara and Barbara Wysocka are among the pre-eminent Polish theater artists of their generation, and are active internationally in both theater and opera. Zadara, who first studied theater and directing at Swarthmore, has emerged as Poland’s most significant and innovative director of the Polish classical and contemporary repertory. Wysocka’s accomplished acting and directing career was preceded by eight years of classical violin training in Germany. Together they founded CENTRALA to create works that cross traditional lines of performance and artistic practice.

Chopin Without Piano is a large-scale performance piece in which the piano parts for Fryderyk Chopin’s two piano concertos (Opus 11 in E minor and Opus 21 in F minor) are replaced by Wysocka performing a virtuosic monologue in Polish with English supertitles. Wysocka captures Chopin as a dynamic living presence, using fragments of the composer’s letters, biographies, and commentaries on his work. The orchestral scores will be performed by the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, led by Bassem Akiki, a leading Polish conductor affiliated with Warsaw’s National Opera, who is making his American debut. Chopin Without Piano presents new possibilities for theater and music to intersect in performance, and reveals how classical composers and music remain alive and relevant for us today.

Considered a contemporary classic in Poland, Chopin Without Piano has been successfully performed in both concert venues and theaters. The performances of Chopin Without Piano in Swarthmore and Philadelphia mark the first international tour of the work, and will be followed by an engagement at Arts Emerson in Boston.

INTERACTIVE PANEL DISCUSSION:
“Chopin’s Voice: Chopin’s Music in Performance”
Sunday, Oct. 25, 3 pm
Lang Concert Hall
Participants: Michał Zadara, Barbara Wysocka, Bassem Akiki, Jeffrey Kallberg (University of Pennsylvania), David Kasusic (Occidental College)
Moderator: Barbara Milewski (Swarthmore College)

INTERACTIVE PANEL DISCUSSION:
“Chopin’s Body: Chopin as Theater”
Saturday, Oct. 31, 4:15 pm
FringeArts, 140 N. Columbus Blvd, Philadelphia
Participants: Michał Zadara, Barbara Wysocka, Bassem Akiki, Tamara Trojanowska (University of Toronto), Tom Sellar (Yale School of Drama)
Moderator: Allen Kuharski (Swarthmore College)

WORKSHOPS & MASTER CLASSES
Week of Oct. 19-23
Michał Zadara and Barbara Wysocka will lead a series of workshops with interested theater students on a schedule to be announced in October.

Bassem Akiki, together with Zadara and Wysocka, will lead a master class and discussion with the Swarthmore College Orchestra on Thursday, Oct. 22.

Major support for Chopin Without Piano has been provided by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, with additional support from the William J. Cooper Foundation, and the Adam Mickiewicz Institute (Warsaw). Chopin Without Piano at Swarthmore is presented by the Departments of Theater and Music & Dance, and is co-sponsored by the Dance Program and the Departments of English Literature, Political Science, and Modern Languages & Literatures.