CHAMBERS OF CHAMBERS // ELMA
A visual interdisciplinary BEIT MIDRASH following Nameless Women in the Bible, by the Pathos Mathos Company.
“I need only insist on listening to myself, to hear the secret dialogue of the creation in its chamre of chambres… and as long as even one drawing, concealed in the depths of the soul, is missing and unexecuted, the duty still remains upon the work of art to reveal it…”
Abraham Isaac Kook
Pathos Mathos, the multidisciplinary group of artists, studies the stories of four biblical nameless women – Jephthah's Daughter, The Righteous Woman of Sodom, The Concubine from the Hill, and The Sorceress of Ein Dor – and invites the audience to a personal, artistic, and experiential journey following voices unheard in the cultural and interpretive space.
Out of the personal readinof each artist and the encounter between the artists and the audience arise sharp, loud, and clear voices, faces and names of mythological characters striving to pave a new way and inspire a change that will shed a new light over them and us.
The name – on the one hand a means for recognition, on the other hand a means for possession – takes and changes form – political, personal, social, and artistic – through the performative work in several media in parallel: performance, dance, poetry, music, video-art, new media and art.
Each and every one of the myths has its own unique format, challenging the relationship with the audience, and inviting the spectator to take part in the sermon, which takes place anew each evening, and affect the act of creation.
The Chambre of Chambres project aspires to respond to both the apparent and concealed realities, through a correspondence with local mythology, and holds a dialogue with mythical ideas which left their marks on Jewish society in general, and Israeli society in particular. Concepts, images, and insights that were formulated for us, internalized, and linger within our personal and public memory pool.
During the months December-March 2015, the company held in Tel Aviv 4 visual MIDRASHIM , which were supported by the Rabinowitz fund for arts, and 929 projec . The events were open to the public, in alternative spaces, as site specific events.
This experimental concept invited the audience to enter the company’s chamber of chambres, mediated by each space and the reality it is loaded with, in order to study together with the artists from the very beginning of the process, using our tools, in dialogue, through personal stories touching the biblical characters, and through the performative and visual investigation which wrapped the experience.
Following the first stage of the series of events that took place in Tel Aviv, the company was invited to develop the next stage and present it at the Elma art center in Zichron Yaakov. The event was modified to specifically fit the new venue.
At Elma, the group held a series of follow-up performances, in which the audience was given the chance to join a pilgrimage to the four women:
Midrash/Gate no.1: The Medium is the Message - in the wake of the Sorceress of Ein Dor
"Be not afraid; for what seest thou" , Samuel 28:13.
Midrash/Gate no.2: Hashtag Jephthah's Daughter – in the wake of Jephthah's Daughter
"And it was a custom in Israel" , Judges|11:39.
Midrash/Gate no.3: You are Hereby Dissected for me - in the wake of the concubine from the Hill
"And it was so, that all that saw it said: Such a thing hath not happened nor been seen from the day that the children of Israel came up out of the land of Egypt unto this day" , Judges | 19:30.
Midrash/Gate no.4: The Righteous Woman of Sodom – in the wake of Lot's Wife
"But his wife looked back from behind him" , Genesis |19: 26.
Credits
Directed by: Lilacd Dekel-Avneri
Artists and Participants: Eran Hadas, Lihi Chen, Hila Lahav, Maya Weinberg, Michal Weinberg, Zohar Meidan, Keren Katz, Assi Meshullam, Lilach Ben Ami, Adaya Godlevsky, Shachaf Dekel, Yotam Izraeli, Noa Sarig, Lani Shahaff | Dramaturgy: Yotam Izraeli and Maya Arad Yasur | Dramaturgy of the space: Lihi Chen | Lighting: Rotem Elroy | Production managers: Lee Shati , Shlomit leshem and Itay Plaut
Photography: Shachaf Dekel | Cinematography: Stanislav Levor | Editing: Eitan Buganim.
With the collaboration of Elma Arts Complex.
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