FORMATION
Sculpture and Installation

A visual exploration of the primary entities, “Mother letters”, which Jewish mysticism holds as the syntax of the universe; giving birth to all form and matter and making the ephemeral embodied.

“Three Mothers, Alef-Mem-Shin—In the World are Air, Water, Fire. The heavens were created first from Fire, and the earth is created from Water, and the Air decides between the fire and the water.”

Sefer Yetzirah

The G.O.A.T.
Music and Theater

THE G.O.A.T. is a series of theatrical hip hop songs and monologues that explore the act of creation - the impulse to fill a blank page with the swirling thoughts of our existence, the ego it demands, and the wake it leaves behind.

“... everything that has been formed and everything that will be formed … carved with voice, hewn with breath, fixed in the mouth …”

Sefer Yetzirah

GALGAL
Dance

Galgal (גלגל) is an embodied exploration of the mystical significance of the Hebrew Aleph Bet. Sefer Yetzirah tells us that everything in the universe emerges through a wheel of 22 letters, each spoke a channel for cosmic forces which together encompass the full spectrum of creation. In this piece, dancers embody these divine forms, exploring multiplicity within unity and unity within multiplicity.

“Three Mothers — Aleph (א), Mem (מ), Shin (ש) — in the body-soul; the head was created from fire, the belly from water, and the chest, from air, balancing between them.”

Sefer Yetzirah 3:8

YOUR NAME IN THREE VERSIONS
Monologue

Kevin Smokler has a first name from one part of the world and a last name from thousands of miles away. He looked into their history and how they merged to become his own.

"In the Temple, one says the name as it is written and in the city with a nickname.”

Mishnash Sotah 7:6

DAVAR
Painting

DAVAR explores the power of name, word, and letter as the structural core of creation and manifestation.

The title comes from the Hebrew Davar (דָּבָר), a term that means both "word" and "thing" without distinguishing between the two. It reflects a conception of language embedded in the Jewish people's story of creation, in which the world originates through speech

“Twenty-two letters: (G-d) carved them, hewed them, weighed them, exchanged them, combined them, and formed them the being of everything- everything that has been formed and everything that will be formed.”

Sefer Yetzirah

To Make Clarity & Order
Painting

Children set in a minimalist landscape build and weave a world into form. Their materials and structures are metaphors for names. As their world grows and shapes boundaries are created. Through a series of large 22”x 30” watercolor paintings I explore the idea that the act of naming builds the world as we know it and as the world becomes defined, it becomes limited.

“Now the earth was unformed and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep… and G_d said: Let there be light! And there was light…G_d separated the light from the darkness. G_d called the light: Day, and the darkness he called: Night. There was setting, there was dawning: day one.”

Genesis

FIELD NOTES FROM A LESBIAN RABBI AT A CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY
Monologue

I consider how being a rabbi in this day and age has meant something new for me in these last lonely years situated in a Catholic university. Over the last near decade, I have come to recognize Jewish blessings and particularly heart- wrenching challenges I could never have imaged were possible in this time in history.

“When I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?”

“I Will Be What I Will Be.”

Genesis

10 Creations Stories
Graphic Narrative

In this hand-drawn, digitally-adapted comic, the ten sefirot are mapped onto the body of the author, each becoming a portal to a personal story about creation: biological, technological, and artistic.

“Lilith responded, “We are equal to each other inasmuch as we are both from the earth.”

Alpha-Beta de-Ben Dirca (ca. 8th-10th centuries)

I can walk beside You in company
Dance

A 30 minute contemporary dance duet. As we grow and evolve as individuals, we are tasked with figuring out how we grow. It is a journey that takes a lifetime. Rituals are created, affirmations are listed, and mysterious forces help us decide the person we will eventually become.

“They said to him: ‘This human,what is his nature?’ He said to them: ‘His wisdom is greater than yours.’ “

Bereshit Rabbah 17:4