Read about the Drisha Arts Fellowships Program in The Jewish Week and in the Forward.
Description
The Drisha's Arts Fellowships Program aims to revitalize the Jewish community by producing Jewishly knowledgeable artists. Women who are creative writers, visual artists, musicians, and performers are invited to apply. Drisha encourages the Arts Fellows to integrate their work with their Jewish learning and experience.
Arts Fellows who learn full time at Drisha receive a tuition waiver and a stipend. Arts Fellows who learn part time receive a tuition waiver and a financial award at the end of their year of learning.
Artists come from a range of diverse backgrounds in Jewish learning and have the opportunity to select a group of classes appropriate to their level. Some artists take skill-based classes in Biblical Hebrew and Bible. Those with a more extensive background in learning may join our Beit Midrash program and study Talmud and halakha as well as Bible.
In addition to committing to a select group of regular Drisha classes, all of the arts fellows attend a dynamic text class once a week designed to enrich their work and deepen their relationship with the Torah. This class also gives fellows the opportunity to spend time in the Beit Midrash (library) doing research for independent projects.
Arts fellows meet at "salons" twice a month to share and discuss their work. Arts Fellows also present their work to the Drisha community throughout the year, and perform, read, or showcase their work at an event that takes place in June.
2007-2008 Arts Fellow and poet Carly Sachs has written:
This year it dawned on me that until I arrived at Drisha I had never found this type of community in all of my writing or Jewish experiences. I was always the lone writer or the lone Jew depending on which group I found myself in. Being at Drisha has strengthened my passion for integrating who I am as a Jew into my writing. Drisha has given me a rich context that inspires and informs my poetry. I'm very grateful to be part of this kind of program where we are encouraged to share our passions, fears, processes, and help each other as we learn and grow as Jews and as artists. As a writer, I'm very excited to be learning Biblical Hebrew which allows me, finally, to engage in texts that I would have otherwise thought were closed to me. |
Drisha Arts Fellows 2008-09
Etta
Abramson graduated with honors from Toronto's York University with a BA in Theatre Studies, finishing an undergraduate degree that included one year at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. Etta is writing a one-woman show about Serach bat-Asher entitled The Consistency of Flour, which she recently presented as a work in progress at the JCC in Manhattan. Etta is a vocalist and a first-class honors student with the Royal Conservatory of Music. She founded and directed York University's first Hebrew a cappella choir, Kol Neshama. Etta has worked as an arts educator for the past three summers at BIMA, a Jewish arts program for high school students, where she taught interpretation of Jewish texts through drama. Etta teaches Chumash at Beit Rabban and Torah cantillation at Drisha. This is Etta's second year learning at Drisha as an arts fellow.
Rena Bannett, a visual artist, is a full-time student in the Drisha Scholars' Circle. She holds degrees in Biochemistry and Physiology from Bar Ilan University and has worked as an educator and consultant in various aspects of education including art, biology, Hebrew language, Judaic studies, and library and research skills. She worked as a media specialist at Rabbi Pesach Raymon Yeshiva (RPRY) and as a coach for drawing and painting at the Academy of Art of Highland Park. While at RPRY, she developed a library curriculum to complement the students' classroom learning for both Judaic and General Studies, served as the coordinator of the Binat HaLev Committee, a grass-roots group dedicated to improving social and emotional intelligence skills in staff and students, as well as developed programs for students to make theme oriented group art. She works with a variety of media: works on paper and canvas including pencil, ink, watercolor, oil and collage, relief type works in paperboard, fabric, ceramic and metal. Rena has also constructed silver jewelry in a variety of Judaic and abstract designs and has a line of silver, button and paper jewelry.
Elana Bell is the recipient of a 2008-2009 Jerome Foundation grant in Literature and was selected as the winner of the 2004 Stephen Dunn Poetry Award. She holds a MFA in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College and has been a featured poet at Bar 13, the NuYorican Poets Cafe, Hunter College, Teachers and Writers Collaborative, The Bowery Poetry Club, Cornelia Street Café, the Bronx Council on the Arts' First Wednesday Series, and at the Indian Institute for Advanced Studies in Simla, India. Her poems have appeared in Words and Images Magazine, Houston Poetry Festival Journal, Parse, Clamor, and Poetz.com. Elana serves as the writer-in-residence for the Bronx Academy of Letters, and sings with the a cappella trio, Saheli. This is her second year as a Drisha fellow.
Lise Brown attended the Berklee School of Music where she was an arranging major and performer on flute and saxophone. She has performed with Celia Cruz, Mongo Santa Maria, and many other luminaries on the Latin music scene including the Harp Band, an all-women Latin jazz band featuring a concert harp. She is the band leader of Big Bandemonium, which is a nine piece band featuring her own original tunes and arrangements. She has performed at many music festivals and camps throughout the U.S. including Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, Old Songs Folk Festival, Swannanoa Gathering, Pinewoods, and Dance Flurry Festival. Most recently, she has been performing, arranging and writing klezmer and Jewish music. She plays in a traditional format and incorporates Jewish music into contra dance, swing, and Latin music. Her work can be heard on recent recordings including "The Big Bang," "Between Two Worlds," and "A Little Shop of Horas." This is Lise's second year learning at Drisha as an arts fellow.
Miriam Leah Droz - producer, actor, and singer - has a BA in English and Theater from Barnard College and an MA in Jewish Studies from Touro College. She performed and trained in Pennsylvania in musical theatre, and now creates opportunities for religious Jewish women to perform in the New York area. She is founder and director of ATARA (Torah and the Arts), a professional organization for Torah observant artists. This is Miriam Leah's second year learning at Drisha as an arts fellow.
Nicole Fix is a writer and the founding member of Page 73 Productions, an award winning, New York-based theater company. Nicole received a merit award from Summer Literary Seminars Kenya and is a grant recipient of the Elizabeth George Foundation. Her work is forthcoming in Thieves Jargon. She holds an MFA from the Yale School of Drama and a BFA from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. She is currently writing a short-fiction collection.
Carol Hamoy, a visual artist who works with mixed media and installation, has studied at the Newark School of Fine Art and the Art Students’ League. She uses lace, fabric, ribbons, feathers, thread, beads, photographic images, and other intimate objects arranged in and on boxes, clothing and other containers. Her work has been shown in many group exhibitions and she has had solo exhibitions in numerous galleries including, most recently, the Opalka Gallery, The Jewish Museum of Florida, Hebrew Union College Museum, and the Mizel Museum. She has received grants and fellowships from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, the Artists’ Fellowship Inc., the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture and other foundations and residencies. She is currently working on a visual arts project called “Valued Above Rubies.”
Carol Kay worked as a learning specialist and educational consultant. She developed a visual/story based program to develop handwriting and phonics skills for kindergarten and first grade children as well as a poetry writing workshop for fourth graders, which she implemented over a 14 year period at four elementary schools. She studied sculpture and painting with Akiba Emanuel for 10 years and sculpture and collage with Leslie Dor for 7 years in addition to taking courses at the Westchester Art Workshop and the Art Students League. She has worked in clay, bronze, stone and mixed media including foam, wax, wood, and found objects from nature. Her work has been shown in a number of group exhibitions.
Dages Keates is a professional dancer and choreographer. She received her BA in dance from Bard College after attending Interlochen Arts Academy. She has most recently been seen in venues such as Saint Mark's Church, Construction Company, Dance Across Borders, and Bulldog Studios in works by choreographers Susan Osberg, Noemie Lafrance, and The High Cliff Project, of which she is a founding member. Dages is also a board-certified Holistic Health Counselor (American Association of Drugless Practitioners) and is the founder and director of Delicious Dialogues. This is Dages’ second year learning at Drisha as an arts fellow.
Lori Leifer is a vocalist, musician, and composer. She received her BA from the University of Utah and has studied at Medreshet Rachel v’Chaya College of Jerusalem. She performs regularly at Girls Night On, sings with Nishmat Hatzafon, and is a member of the Nashir Chorale Group and the Jewish People’s Philharmonic Choir. Her repertoire includes a diverse arrangement of songs influenced by Yiddish folk songs, lullabies, and Hebrew liturgical music.
Bronwen Mullin received her BA from Sarah Lawrence College in 2006 with a concentration in Music/Theater and Judaic Studies. Bronwen's plays "There's Glass in the Sandbox" and "Tasting the Apple" have appeared in the Philadelphia Fringe Festivals of 2000 and 2001. Bronwen has composed original music for numerous theater pieces, including Axis Mundi (Downstage Theater), Speak Truth to Power (in collaboration with Pan Asian Repetertory director Ernest Abuba), Caryl Churchill's Fen and Vinegar Thom (Sarah Lawrence College), and The Mary Trilogy (Mir Productions). She is the author of three original One-Act musicals based on the poetry of Shel Silverstein (currently being developed for the New York Fringe Festival 2009). In 2005 Bronwen attended the Conservative Yeshiva of Israel where she studied Midrash and Aggadic literature. She is currently working on projects using theater and music as tools for the psychological exegesis of classical Jewish texts and stories.
Debra Nussbaum Cohen is an award-winning journalist, essayist and non-fiction author, as well as a jewelry designer and mother of three. For close to two decades she worked as a reporter at The New York Jewish Week and Jewish Telegraphic Agency, where she wrote stories on Jewish identity, spirituality and philanthropy. She has also contributed articles to The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, New York magazine, The Village Voice and innumerable other Jewish and general publications. She has been recognized as an outstanding journalist eight times with awards from the American Jewish Press Association and the New York Press Association. She also won a grant from the Lilly Endowment to write a series of articles about women in ministry. That series was carried by the New York Times Syndicate and picked up by newspapers around the country. Debra is the author of Celebrating Your New Jewish Daughter: Creating Jewish Ways to Welcome Baby Girls into the Covenant (Jewish Lights Press). Debra has also contributed to several other books, including those on Jewish ritual and spiritual growth, on explaining Judaism to Christians, and on September 11th, 2001. Debra also designs and creates jewelry, from pearls and semi-precious gems, which she sells at craft fairs.
Nicole Raphael received her BA in Theatre from Smith College and her MA from The Actor’s Studio. She is the Artistic Director of The Mesaper Theatre, dedicated to producing Jewish themed plays. As an actor, she has appeared in the independent feature film, House of Women, and has appeared in numerous theatre productions including Glyn Maxwell’s Wolfpit with The Phoenix Theatre Ensemble, The New World Theatre Project’s production of Carcass, and Bonnie Culver’s award winning play, Sniper. She played the role of Anne Frank three times (Meadow Brook Theatre, New American Theater, and Penobscot Theatre); Juliet twice (New American Theater and Riverside Shakespeare Festival.); and Alice in You Can't Take It With You at The Arkansas Repertory Theatre. She spent two summers at The Shadowland Theatre playing in the British farces, Perfect Wedding and What the Butler Saw. She tours in Ellen W. Kaplan’s With Dream Awakened Eyes, a one-woman play about the German Jewish painter, Charlotte Salomon. She was invited as a guest artist at Manhattan Day School where she held the workshop "Anne Frank in Performance" and also ran a theatre club for students at Ramaz Lower School which culminated in "A Shabbos Play". She is currently in The Folksbiene Yiddish Theatre’s production of Gimpl Tam adapted from the short story by Isaac Bashevis Singer. This is Nicole’s second year learning at Drisha as an arts fellow.
Carly
Sachs has an MFA in Creative Writing from The New School University. She has taught creative writing at George Washington University among other places. Her book of poems, the steam sequence won the 2006 Washington Writers' Publishing House first book prize, and she is the editor of the anthology of poems, the why and later (deep cleveland press, 2007). She is currently at work promoting creative healing and community for those affected by rape and sexual assault. Her poems have recently appeared in nextbook.org and PresentTense. Read Carly's blog.
Tamar Sidi, a dancer, received her degree in dance from Orot Yisrael College in Israel, where she participated in numerous performances, including two solos pieces. She was accepted into the Ministry of Education for Excellence Program in Israel where she taught dance for several years. Also a singer, she often incorporates song into her dance. She has choreographed dances for children as well as adults.
Eliza Slavet (Fall 2008) is a creative non-fiction writer and scholar. She received a BA in English Literature and an MM from Yale and a PhD in Literature from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). She currently teaches at NYU's Gallatin School of Individualized Study. In her book, Racial Fever: Freud and the Jewish Question (Fordham University Press, Fall 2009) she explores Freud’s theory of Jewishness as a racial theory of memory, particularly as he developed it in his final book Moses and Monotheism. In her current project, Genealogies of Mosaic Memory, she follows the lead of Freud and many other artists who have creatively re-written the story of Exodus to explore how it may be possible to creatively and responsibly read the Bible, both as literature and as history. In addition, over the last nine years, she has created, re-written and re-edited a Haggadah (which many people call the "Haggadah for the Wicked and the Wandering").
Heather Stoltz is a visual artist with an MA in Jewish Women’s Studies from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America and a BA in Jewish Studies and BS in Mechanical Engineering from Lafayette College. She is a fiber artist whose quilted wall hangings feature themes from classic Jewish texts. She was an Artist-in Residence for the National Havurah Committee in the summer of 2008, where she taught the class “Translating Text into Textile.” Her work has been exhibited at many venues including JOFA’s 10th Anniversary International Conference and the International Quilt Festival in Houston, TX and was also recently featured in Creative Quilting: The Journal Quilt Project and Zeek Magazine.
Samantha Verrone
has been designing textiles and printing fabric for over 25 years. She lived in Florence, Italy where she honed her skills in screen-printing, batik, IKAT painting, resist dyeing and special techniques like appliqué and weaving. She also designed and executed two women’s-wear collections: POSTI SACRI (Sacred Places) and PLANET EARTH. Upon returning to the United States, she began painting backgrounds and sets for television and film while continuing to make clothing, accessories and fabrics for home furnishings for private clients. Commissions have included challah covers, Torah mantles, wimples, Megillat Esther scroll covers, matzah bags, tallit/tefillin bags, Simchat Bat and Brit Milah gowns to name a few. Her many Judaic exhibitions have included “Living in the Moment: A Celebration of Jewish Time,” Hebrew Union College, New York and Cincinnati; Judaica Exhibition at the University of Wisconsin Gallery of Design; and UJA Federation Exhibition: Passover. A retrospective of her work was exhibited at the Synagogue for the Arts in Tribeca.
Jaime Wynn is a painter and Jewish educator. She recently completed her MA in education at the American Jewish University where she was also active in family and arts education. Jaime was trained as a community muralist at Precita Eyes Mural Arts Center of San Francsico and has directed and participated in over 40 mural projects in the Bay Area, Israel and Russia. She has studied at Yeshivat Hadar in New York and the WUJS Institute, Arad, Israel.
Highlights from 2007-08
The 2007-8 Drisha Arts Fellows performed and presented their work at the JCC
in Manhattan on June 16th, 2008 to a packed audience of 250 people (the
event was sold out), and the visual artists displayed their work at the gallery
during a reception before and after the event. The performances included poetry,
a clip from a film, two solo performances, dance, and music.
The evening began with the thrilling collaboration between musician Basya
Schechter, dancer and choreographer Dages Keates, and poet Carly Sachs, who was
quoted in The Jewish Week:
"[Poetry] is my form. I’m so concerned with the page, a tiny world not
much bigger than a napkin," she says in light of her recent collaboration
with performing artists. "Moses breaks the tablets and the letters fly off;
that’s what it’s like to collaborate." The result is that, from an initial
idea, a completely new and different experience is born.
The Jewish Week, which published a front page article about the event and
the Drisha Arts Fellowships Program, also wrote about Etta Abramson - writer,
actor, singer, and arts educator - who is in the advanced learning program at
Drisha (the Beit Midrash program) and has deepened her work since she came to
Drisha: Etta "is grappling with Jewish texts, finding new meanings in ancient
words and stories." The article also mentions Etta's one woman show, which
came out of her studies at Drisha: "After months spent learning Gemara and
halacha at Drisha Abramson chose as the subject of a new solo performance piece
the biblical figure Serach bat Asher." Etta is now teaching cantillation at
Drisha, Chumash at Beit Raban, interpretation of Jewish texts through Drama at
BIMA, and is continuing to develop and perform her one-woman show on Serach.
The Jewish Week also wrote about arts fellow Laura Wiessen:
For documentary filmmaker Laura Wiessen, whose new film focuses on
converts to Judaism, her study at Drisha helped provide a deeper
understanding of the conversion process. The lesson she learned from those
making the long journey to a Jewish life, she says, is that "each person has
the right to read the text and argue with it, struggle with it." Wiessen is
now working on how to weave Jewish text into the film; it will certainly be
found in accompanying educational materials, she said.
The Drisha Arts Fellowships Program helped nurture the dancer Anna Schon both
Jewishly and professionally; Anna was the focus of a piece in
The Forward
in July, 2008:
One of this year’s arts fellows at Drisha, a Torah study center for women
that is located on New York’s City’s Upper West Side, is a 23-year-old
Barnard College graduate named Anna Schon. As a product of the Modern
Orthodox day schools, she blends into the student body easily….But when she
is not studying the Prophets or the talmudic laws about transactions in the
tractate Bava Kama, Schon leads a very different kind of life. She is an
active member of four New York dance companies - an unusual profession for
an observant Jew, since many performances take place on the Sabbath, and
since, according to the laws of tsniut (modesty), dancing with or performing
before unrelated members of the opposite sex is not permitted. Although
Schon struggles with these competing impulses - her passion for dance and
her commitment to traditional Judaism - this has not deterred her from
embracing both worlds wholeheartedly.
The professional lives of visual artists, such as Lia Lynn Rosen and Sonia
Gordon-Walinsky, expanded as a result of learning at Drisha. Lia moved to New
York City for the year from New Mexico to learn for a year at Drisha. While in
New York she presented her work at various venues including at an event hosted
by
Lilith, the Skirball Center, and JTS. She also brought her learning
back to the Jewish community of New Mexico and continues to educate people
there.
The Jewish Week wrote:
As one of only three visual artists in the Drisha program, Lia Lynn Rosen
combines Jewish elements with European and Native American artistic
traditions of ceramic art. She also brings a unique perspective as a Jewish
woman living in Albuquerque, N.M.. Her work consists mainly of ritual
objects, chanukiot, ceremonial goblets and prayer bowls for anything from a
wedding to breast cancer survival, as well as mezuzot and an indigo women’s
tallit-poncho. Her Web site, ClayKodesh.com, is "making a holy place for the
visual, ceremonial arts," Rosen said. "My work is more about the ceremonial,
the practice and prayer, tradition than halacha." Rosen’s work is also
creating "grounded-ness" for Judaism. "This is a way to say we have a
corporeal culture that’s going to last," she said. "Living in the Southwest,
the people who made pottery stayed in one place, creating. Now it’s as if we
have a landed past." Rosen sees herself as continuing the long Jewish
tradition of "taking from where I live," adding Jewish calligraphy to the
art methods she observes in her surroundings. As an artist-educator, Rosen
will use the knowledge she gained at the Drisha program in her work with
students from kindergarten through 12th grade, and even beyond if she is
hired as director of education at her local synagogue. "I want to teach what
I’ve learned. You can teach Hebrew, Talmud, through the arts," she said. She
sees her work as "keruv [Jewish outreach] through art." This month, she
returns to the East Coast to teach a course about Pueblo pottery at New
Jersey’s Montclair Art Museum.
One of the most exciting things that have come out of the Drisha Arts Program
is the explosive collaborations between students.
The Jewish Week wrote
that poet Carly Sachs (who moved to New York from DC to attend the Drisha Arts
Fellowships Program)
worked with two other fellows - dancer and choreographer Dages Keates and
composer Basya Schechter - in a work that incorporated passages from the
steam sequence [her award winning book of poems] along with music and
dance.
Last year’s program was so nurturing and successful that eight fellows have
returned. (See bios of 2008-9 fellows below).
The Jewish Week
wrote:
Sachs reports that her experience at Drisha was so moving and helpful to
her work that she’s applied to extend the fellowship another year. "It’s not
often that you look around the room and see so much talent and energy.
"That’s why I want to stay."
Drisha Arts Fellows 2007-08
Nancy Abraham is a singer and composer. She teaches
Hebrew, Jewish Studies, and cantilation at the Westchester-Fairfield
Hebrew Academy and
at the Westchester Reform Temple. She is in training to be a cantor
with the Renewal Movement. She received a BA from Tufts University
in French Studies and an MA in Education from Sarah Lawrence College.
She has studied at Cambridge University and at the WUJS Institute in
Arad, Israel.
Etta Abramson
Elana Bell
Lise Brown
Miriam Leah Droz
Amy Gottlieb is a fiction writer and poet. She has a BA from Clark University and an MA in comparative literature from The University of Chicago. Her short fiction, essays, and poetry have been published in
Lilith, Forward, Puerto del Sol, Other Voices, PresenTense, Nashim, Zeek (forthcoming), and elsewhere. She is a recipient of a 2008 Bronx Council on the Arts BRIO Award for poetry. She was nominated for a GE Foundation Younger Writers Award in fiction and held a residency at Dorland Mountain Arts Colony. She works as director of publications for the Rabbinical Assembly and editorial director of Aviv Press. This is her second year as a Drisha Arts Fellow.
Sarah Heller received her BA from Bard College and her MFA in poetry
from NYU. She currently works as the Executive Director of the Authors
League Fund. She has work published or forthcoming in
Painted Bride
Quarterly, Pembroke Magazine, RealPoetik, The Temple/El Templo, Thin
Air, and
Hayloft, and she is on the board of directors of Nightboat
Books. She has received fellowships or awards from the MacDowell
Colony, Virginia Council for the Creative Arts, Vermont Studio Center,
and the Soul Mountain Retreat. She was the recipient of the Nadya
Aisenberg Fellowship at the MacDowell Colony for 2005-2006.
Susan Kaplow received a doctorate from Columbia University in history
and has taught at Empire State College and The University at Albany. In
her thirties, she made a career shift, returning for an MSW at SUNY/Albany. She
has been in full-time private practice since 1983. Kaplow is a jewelry
maker who has studied with various teachers at the JCC in Manhattan.
She works with both metal smithing and glass fusing, creating pieces
that include images from Jewish tradition.
Dages Keates
Nicole Raphael
Lia Lynn Rosen is
a potter and art educator specializing in custom-made ceremonial clay
objects. Her work fuses traditional
Jewish aesthetics,
ancient pueblo pottery, and evolving women’s rituals. She earned
an MA in Art and Art Education at Columbia Teachers College, and she
is a licensed K-12 Art teacher and works as a consultant with schools,
museums, arts organizations and congregations. She teaches at the Manhattan
Jewish Community Center.
Carly
Sachs
Anna Schön has a BA in dance and European History from Barnard
College. She also studied African dance in South Africa. Anna is currently
dancing with Michel Koukaou and Reggie Wilson, and has danced with
Gabri Christa, Danielle Gwirtzman, and Ori Flomin in the past.
Basya
Schechter is
a Drisha Arts Fellow for the second year in a row. She grew up in Boro
Park
and received her BA in English Literature
from Barnard College. Schechter is the band leader of
Pharaoh's
Daughter,
which blends a psychedelic sensibility and a pan-Mediterranean sensuality.
She leads her band through swirling Hasidic chants, Mizrachi, and Sephardi
folk-rock, and spiritual stylings filtered through percussion, flute,
strings and electronica. Her sound has been cultivated by her Hasidic
music background and a series of trips to the Middle East, Africa,
Israel, Egypt, Central Africa, Turkey, Kurdistan and Greece.
Pharaoh's
Daughter has toured extensively through the U.S., Eastern and
Western Europe, as well as Greece and the United Kingdom, and has had
the honor
of debuting at Central Park's Summer Stage series. The band has played
on such prestigious stages as Lincoln Center's Damrosch Park and Queen
Elizabeth Hall in London. Over the past two years, she was the recipient
of numerous compositional and project grants from the New York State
Council of the Arts, American Composers Forum, and the American Music
Center. She collaborated with educator and Sephardic composer, Galeet
Dardashti, and visual artist, Siona Bengamin, on a song cycle recording
project of compositions about biblical women. She is now recording
Pharaoh's Daughter's fifth album,
Hagar.
Joelle Wallach (Fall
2007) grew up in Morocco and now lives in New York City where she composes
music for orchestra,
chamber
ensembles,
choruses, solo
voices, and instruments. She earned bachelors and masters degrees at
Sarah Lawrence College and Columbia University. Her String Quartet
was the American Composers Alliance nominee for a Pulitzer Prize in
Music. The New York Philharmonic Ensembles premiered her octet, “From
the Forest of Chimneys,” written to celebrate their 10th anniversary;
and the New York Choral Society commissioned her secular oratorio, “Toward
a Time of Renewal,” to commemorate their 35th Anniversary Season
in Carnegie Hall. Wallach's ballet, “Glancing Below,” a
Juilliard Dance Theater showcase production, was commissioned by the
Carlisle Project, premiered in Philadelphia, and quickly became part
of the repertory of the Hartford Ballet. Her choral work, “On
the Beach at Night Alone,” won first prize in the Inter-American
Music Awards. The Manhattan School of Music, where she studied with
John Corigliano, granted her its first doctorate in composition. She
is a pre-concert lecturer for the New York Philharmonic where she speaks
on a broad range of musical subjects.
Sonia Gordon-Walinsky is a Judaic artist working in New York City. She
creates original ketubot and artistic renderings of blessings, prayers,
and verses from Tanakh and other Jewish texts. Her unique artwork
is an integral component of life cycle experiences, deepening and enriching
the meaning of these events as well as promoting a spiritual process
of learning, reflection and growth. She is a graduate of List College,
the Joint Program between Columbia University and The Jewish Theological
Seminary where she earned a BA in American History and in Jewish literature
with a focus on liturgy.
Laura Wiessen is a writer, producer and filmmaker
whose work has appeared on such networks as PBS, MSNBC, The History
Channel, and Bravo. She
has a BA from Wesleyan University, and she earned a Master's Degree
in History from the University of Chicago. She has spent the
last two years living in Jerusalem, where she wrote for the Jerusalem
Post and Israel21c.org while researching two upcoming documentary projects.
Highlights from 2006-07
Drisha launched the Arts Fellowships Initiative in the fall
of 2006 attracting eight women artists – writers and poets, a musician,
an actress, a dancer, and an arts educator and calligrapher – to
develop skills to interpret classical Jewish texts.
“We're committed to providing equal access to the study of classical
Jewish texts,” said Rabbi David Silber, founder and dean of Drisha
Institute. “The arts fellowships further extend the learning
opportunities to the arts community, and deepen the knowledge base
in Jewish education and leadership.”
With the help of a tuition waiver and funding, artists such as calligrapher
and arts educator, Barbara Ashkenas, are taking time off from busy
schedules to strengthen their knowledge of Judaism, to nourish their
spiritual lives, and to develop their craft. Barbara Ashkenas has written:
Being a member of the Drisha Arts Fellowships Initiative has
been an amazing educational experience. I have been privileged
to attend classes in Biblical Hebrew, Parshat HaShavua, two Talmud
courses week, a weekly Halacha class on organ donation , two Tanach
courses—Shmuel I and Exodus—Mishpatim and a Parshanut
class on the Joseph narrative.
The quality of the learning has been exceptional. Biblical Hebrew, taught by
Rabbi Yitzhak Berger, has come alive through Berger’s wit and creative
memory devices that help us remember grammatical rules. He also incorporates
readings from the Parsha and The Book of Esther enriching our textual learning
experience.
What has really been an important part of the experience is the interactions
with my fellow students. I find it interesting and exciting to be in an environment
that allows me to study with people from different backgrounds, ages and stages
of life. |
Basya Schechter, musician and composer and the band leader of Pharaoh’s
Daughter, recently wrote:
| Learning at Drisha has given me access to texts and ways of approaching
meaning and commentary that translates into working with my musical
projects. One of my projects includes songs about marginal Biblical
women, such as Hagar and Tamar, and integrating commentaries into
the compositions. A second project involves composing hip-hop music
around Biblical texts and collaborating with rappers, who will
give new and time-relevant commentary and scenarios to these words.
The last project is ethno-musicological, bringing the messages
of Pirkei Avot—in the form of a collage of Talmudic style
conversations from various cultures—to different ethnic communities
as a way of finding moral commonalities.“ |
Drisha artists such as Mara Friedman are role models for those in the
Jewish community who may struggle to blend a love of Judaism with a
passion for the arts. Mara, a dancer and educator, has said:
| The most important thing that I have found at Drisha is the supportive
community. Everyone seems very interested in the work of the artists
and in finding ways to make connections between the texts that
we learn at Drisha and art, more specifically (in my case) dance. With
the help and enthusiasm from my peers, I decided to make a dance
curriculum connecting movement and prayer. I will begin by teaching
a lesson with a Drisha student from the Scholars Circle program
to high school students this winter. |
Mara teaches regular dance classes to children at a number of Upper
West Side synagogues and has developed an educational Jewish movement
program,
Wiggling Book Worms, that has achieved great success and is
widely praised (
www.wigglingbookworms.com).
Many of the artists who study at Drisha are already serious practitioners
of their particular craft, motivated, and accomplished. They are beginning
to make an impact on the arts world. Drisha Arts Fellow, poet and essayist,
Eve Grubin, author of the book of poems,
Morning Prayer (The Sheep
Meadow Press, 2005), wrote:
| Following the publication of Morning Prayer, I gave
readings at several venues including the Folger Shakespeare Library,
Auburn Theological Seminary, Barnard College, and NYU. I was able
to discuss the Jewish textual issues that inform my writing with
genuine fluency. I would not have been able to speak with such
confidence about Jewish subjects if it were not for my learning
at Drisha. I am looking forward to growing even more from the intellectual
and spiritual nourishment that Drisha provides and, in turn, I
hope to nourish the Jewish community and the larger world with
what I am learning at Drisha. |
Drisha Arts Fellows and Arts Award Recipients,
2006-07
Barbara Ashkenas (Drisha Arts Fellow
2006-07) has a BS in Elementary Education from Ohio State University
and an MAT in Art Education from Manhattanville College. She was an
adjunct professor at Housatonic Community College and was educational
outreach coordinator at the Stamford Center for the Arts. An art educator
and calligrapher, she has taught at SAR High School in Riverdale, at
Jewish summer camps and at adult workshops. She created the “Learning
for Peace” program at Congregation Agudath Sholom with Rabbi Daniel
Cohen to promote peace through Jewish study.
Mara Friedman (Drisha Arts Award Recipient 2006-07)
has a BA from the Jewish Theological Seminary and Columbia University
in Modern Jewish Studies and Creative Writing and Literature. She also
has an MS from Pace University in Teaching. She taught dance in public
schools for three years, and she has worked as a Hebrew school teacher
at the Sutton Place Synagogue, and founded the Wiggling Bookworms, a
dance and creative movement program for children.
Eve Grubin (Drisha Arts Fellow 2006-07) has an MFA
from Sarah Lawrence College in poetry. She teaches poetry at The New
School and at the City College of New York, and she will be The Marvin
and Edward Kaplan Lecturer in Jewish Studies at City College in the
spring of 2007. Her book of poems, Morning Prayer, was published by
The Sheep Meadow Press in 2005.
Deborah Jaffe (Drisha Arts Award Recipient Fall 2006)
has a BA in English Literature and Rhetoric from Binghamton University
and an MFA in Acting from The Actor's Studio Drama School at The New
School. She has acted off-Broadway with the Pearl Theatre Company and
the Abingdon Theatre Company (where she is a member), and in several
other theatres in New York City. She works at the Teva Learning Center,
has taught Hebrew School, and tutors Bar/Bat Mitzvah students. She
is
currently working on a one-woman show about the Bar/Bat mitzvah tutoring
experience.
Janet R. Kirchheimer (Drisha Arts Award Recipient 2006-07)
has a BS from Central Connecticut State College. A poet and essayist,
her work has appeared in Potomac Review, Lilith, Main Street, and Natural
Bridge, among other publications. She is completing a poetry manuscript
about her family and the Holocaust, and she was a finalist in the Portlandia
and the Concrete Wolf Chapbook contests. She is Director of Community
Development and Assistant to the President of CLAL. Janet leads the
Poetry Shmooze at The Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, and teaches
adults and teens at various synagogues using Jewish texts and creative
writing exercises.
Adrienne Query (Drisha Arts Fellow 2006-07) has a BA
in English and an MFA in poetry from Chatham College. She is the recipient
of the Beatrice Lewis Award for Creative Writing and the Academy of
American Poets' Walt Whitman Award. Her chapbook, After Eden, was released
by Zabadou Books in May of 2006. Her undergraduate critical thesis focused
on the "new midrash" of contemporary poetry.
Basya Schechter (Drisha Arts Award Recipient 2006-07)
has a BA in English Literature from Barnard College. She is the band
leader of Pharaoh's Daughter. She is a musician at B'nai Jeshurun, and
the music teacher at The Brotherhood Synagogue where she also leads
the Alef Bet Club. She is collaborating with educator and Sephardic
composer, Galeet Dardashti, and visual artist, Siona Bengamin, on a
song cycle recording project of compositions about biblical women.
Samantha Shapiro (Drisha Arts Award Recipient 2006-07)
has a BA in Literature and History from Washington University, St. Louis.
She was a volunteer for the American Jewish Society for Service, and
helped build community centers in Louisiana. She has written for The
Forward, Ha'aretz, Slate, The Jerusalem Report, and other publications.
She is currently a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine,
and is working on a book of essays about Sukkot.
