DANCE

Waning Gibbous Moon in Gemini (working title)

A work-in-process dance piece investigating our relationship with time and each other.

We will listen and move inward; We will align with the moon; We will re/member a world without genocide; Our bodies will know what time it is.

"The following are considered incompetent witnesses: gamblers with dice, usurers, pigeon breeders, those who trade in the produce of the Sabbatical year, and also slaves. The rule is that all evidence that cannot be received from a woman cannot be received from any of these."

"If we are to reinvestigate the decisions of the tribunal of Rabbon Gamaliel, we must also reinvestigate the decisions of all the tribunals of justice which have existed from the time of Moses till the present day."Mishnah Treatise Rosh Hashanah Chapters 1 & 2

*Dancers/Collaborators: Nico Maimon, Frances Sedayao
Photo: Hillary Goidell

DANCE

from dust we came

What wisdom do the urges/reactions/reflexes of the body that come before thought and rationalization have to offer us? “From dust we came,” a piece that blends choreography with improvisation, explores these questions throughout the arc of evolution and developmental pathways, inviting audience members to journey into a sci-fi interpretation of our not so distant past to gain new perspectives towards our present and future.

"The earth being unformed and void, with darkness over the face of the deep and a wind of God hovering over the water." Genesis 1:1

PRAYERPERFORMANCE

The Anti-Destroyer: לֹא־יַשְׁחִית

A multimedia, participatory prayerformance exploring the misappropriation of nightly Jewish invocations of the Divine as Anti-Destroyer toward destructive ends. Through witnessing misappropriation, we will reappropriate, and turn the invocation of anti-destruction back on ourselves and our community, calling upon the Jewish people to become the very image of the Divine Anti-Destroyer ourselves.

וְהוּא רַחוּם יְכַפֵּר עָוֹן וְלֹא־יַשְׁחִית וְהִרְבָּה לְהָשִׁיב אַפּוֹ וְלֹא־יָעִיר כָּל־חֲמָתוֹ: יְהֹוָה הוֹשִׁיעָה הַמֶּֽלֶךְ יַעֲנֵֽנוּ בְיוֹם־קָרְאֵֽנוּ:

The one who is Compassion, Forgiving Wrongoing, The Anti-Destroyer, increasingly withholding anger and not arousing rage. Divine One, the One who Rescues, Sovereign, who will answer us the day we choose to call.

Siddur Ashkenaz, Maariv

MUSIC PERFORMANCE

Twilight Songs

Lullabies and words of comfort inspired by the liminal time between day and night. A meditation on transitions and thresholds – the emotional and spiritual experience of being in-between, the sensation of both loss and potential. Music of surrender, falling, possible rest, trust, being held in waning light.

"Twilight is a period of uncertainty. It is uncertain whether it consists of both day and night, it is uncertain whether it is completely day, and it is uncertain whether it is completely night." Shabbat 34b:2

ART

ממעמקים  From The Depths 

Milk And Honey

A textile painting and installation that praises motherhood and maps maternal lineage. Greatly inspired by the Song Of Songs, the works grapples with love, lust, loss, and all the sensations that follow it.

"I sleep, but my heart waketh; Hark! my beloved knocketh: 'Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled; for my head is filled with dew, my locks with the drops of the night." Song of Songs

ART

Night Remedies

A photographic installation that invites us to notice shifting cycles and states. Our beacon is a night-blooming flower, drawing attention to the infusions of daytime and moonlight, poison and cure, discernment and hallucination. Like Brugmansia blossoms whose fragrance grows intoxicating at dusk, we and our bodies, nestled within the world’s often tortuous systems, also recalibrate in search of attunement.

“And I said that darkness will envelop me; night for me is light.” Bereshit Rabbah 11:2

PRINT MEDIA & AUDIO STORYTELLING

Stories and Broadsides

A small collection of broadsides made on the Firehouse letterpress that muse on the connection between time and the moon, and amplifying the stories we tell under the cover of night.

“Formerly, evidence of the appearance of the new moon was received from anyone, but when the heretics corrupted the witnesses, it was ordained that evidence should be received only of those whose good character was well known.” Mishnah Treatise Rosh Hashanah

POETRY

These Are the Stories and the Dreams

Poems that honor the history of pain but also seek to break free of it. Poems that take the materials of a family and a community and try to set them to music.

"Was it of this figure, or of that?" Mishnah Treatise Rosh Hashanah Chapter 2

FILM

The 50th 

The celebration of a 50th birthday two years early as a full-hearted plunge into the constellations of love and family, open marriage, queerness, and cancer. 

"Arise, wail out in the night, at the beginning of the watches; pour out your heart like water ." Babylonian Talmud, Tamid 32b

FICTION

The Dead Mother: A Novel

Inspired by our study of Jacob wrestling with the angel, The Dead Mother is a literary thriller about faith, sex, loneliness, and a mind locked in bloody battle with itself. When Lily finds a very strange book that seems to have the right advice for every situation she encounters, at first it seems like a stroke of remarkable luck; but soon she finds herself shut out of her own perfectly orchestrated life and must fight her way back in.

“And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.” Genesis 32:24

ART + AUDIO

Rearrangements: For Isabel and Aparna (Part 1)

We are three mothers at different stages of parenting from different cultures who share a love of the night sky.

This will be the first installment of recorded conversations with Dr. Isabel Trecco Hawkins and Dr. Aparna Venkatesan and myself. Made with additional support from The Space Program SF.

“Night for me is light." Bereshit Rabbah 11:2