Thursday, June 13 at 7:00pm
334 Amsterdam Avenue
New York, New York 10023
Drisha's Art Fellow musings on Talmud in Sanhedrin, Perek 'Chelek' (Share in the World to Come).
7-8 PM wine/cheese reception to view the visual art
8-9 PM live performances.
About the Artists
Chaya Bender is very excited to be able to share her music for her second year as a Drisha Arts Fellow. The program has truly enriched her understanding of the text she studies by allowing her a way to express the learning musically. Chaya is a guitarist, lyricist, singer, and producer. She has been featured on three albums: Live (and Jade), 2006; Syllabolical, 2009; and Degrees of Freedom, 2012. Her biggest project has been creating and co-producing the "Folk-Stage" as part of the Leonard Bernstein Festival of the Creative Arts in the Spring of 2010 and 2011. Performers and EmCees included Livingston Taylor (brother of James Taylor), Sarah Jarosz (now a "Top 50" artist and Grammy Nominee), and Geoff Bartley (Godfather of the Cambridge folk scene). This year, Chaya will work to push herself out of her comfort zone to create a cohesive performance piece. Chaya hopes that you enjoy listening to her music as much as she enjoys creating it.
Michelle Bentsman received her BA from the University of Chicago in 2012, with a major in Fundamentals: Issues & Texts and a minor in Visual Arts. Her primary coursework focused on the intersection between aesthetics and ethics, which in turn informed her art-making practice. Her work is heavily influenced by public art, surrealism, and Fyodor Dostoevsky. She has constructed a 3-dimensional zoetrope with a team of artists at Redmoon Theater, painted and installed murals upon trees across the her college campus for the annual Festival of the Arts, designed and directed a team of students in the painting of a local school mural in Buenos Aires, garnered Uncommon Funding to throw a Graffiti Festival on her college campus, and curated art and music exhibitions in Hyde Park. She has contributed as an illustrator and writer for the Hypocrite Reader, a literary journal based in New York City, and as an editor and cover artist for Makom, the University of Chicago's undergraduate journal of Jewish thought. She is delighted to continue intensive textual work at Drisha, chipping away at the treasury of the Jewish cannon. Her interests this year revolve around re-contextualizing the body as understood through Jewish mortality literature.
Brooke Borg is a New York born artist and educator. She holds a BA from Bard College and an MFA from the University of Barcelona. Her multi-dimensional art projects explore gaps and boundaries in human relationships, and often involve careful “performative interview” research with subjects, which she then filters into visual works, mainly drawing and video. She has exhibited at multiple international film festivals, museums and galleries, and even the world-renowned stage at Palau de la Musica in Barcelona, Spain. She received the 2009 Barcelona Producció Award and a summer residency at the Hangar Centre for Visual Art Production in 2010. In Barcelona she created the program Language and Art, teaching young people English through poetry and illustration (2006-2011). She currently works with Manhattan and Brooklyn schools as an Artist Educator, engaging youth with art making as a means to understand broader themes. Additionally, she creates custom ketubot for couples who seek a personalized representation of their hopes for the future. Read more about Brooke at www.brookeborg.com.
Jina Davidovich holds a BA in English Literature, with focuses in Poetry and Women's Studies from Yeshiva University's Stern College for Women. She is now pursuing her MA in Bible from Bernard Revel School of Judaic Studies at Yeshiva University. During her tenure at Stern, Jina had the opportunity to organize and execute Yeshiva University's Model United Nations conference as Secretary General, serve as Treasurer to the Student Council, tutor at the Writing Center, and participate in the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance's (JOFA) On-Campus Fellowship. Jina's passions have always centered on language, learning, and love of text. This direction led Jina to participate in the Drisha College Immersion June Program in 2011, which began Jina's long relationship with Drisha. In the year after graduation, Jina was selected to participate in Drisha's Beit Midrash program and Arts Fellowship, where she furthered her textual skills, knowledge of ancient and modern Jewish ideas, and fostered her poetry. Currently, Jina works as a Program Associate in the Office of Educational Resources and Organizational Development at UJA-Federation of NY, and plans to attend law school in the near future. She plans to continue writing, learning, and being an active member of her Jewish community.
Chamutal Gallin began dancing ballet and modern dance at the age of 14 under the tutelage of Nina Timofeeva and her daughter Nadia. She majored in dance at the Arts Emunah high school for women in Jerusalem where she choreographed a number of works. Chamutal is also an actor and played in three productions including "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at the age of 9 "The Government Inspector" as Nicole by Nikolai Gogol, "Korczak's Children" as EVA (by The Jerusalem English Speaking Theater) at the ages of 13 and 14, respectively. Chamutal began playing the cello at the age of 15. In fact, in 2010 she was accepted into the Music Academy but changed course to focus on dance. In 2011 she joined the first intensive dance program at Kolben dance in Jerusalem and is now a proud Arts Fellow at the Drisha Institute. In addition to dance and music, Chamutal loves to paint, sing and do collage work.
Coretta Garlow is a visual artist. She studied painting at Brandeis University.
Rabbi Joanne Yocheved Heiligman has created a style of fabric collage using piecing, quilting, applique and embroidery to bring to life Jewish celebrations and Biblical texts. Her work is a visual commentary on Jewish text, prayer and practice. She seeks to inspire the viewer to read the text in a new and inspiring way. She has exhibited in the American Visionary Art Museum and the Ratner Museum, and had one-woman shows at the Hoffberger Gallery at Baltimore Hebrew Congregation and at Temple Emanuel in Kensington, MD.
Devorah Levine received her Bachelors in the Education of Arts, from Emunah College for women, located in Jerusalem, Israel. She also received four years of professional art training at Emunah's high school for the Arts. Her main focus is portraiture art, with which she attempts to portray one's inner psychology along with their outer appearance. Her portraits have been strongly influenced by artists such as Gustav Klimt, Frida Kahlo and Lucian Freud. She also focuses on Performance art and Video art, which fuses between her Fine Arts training and Performing Art's background in dance, song and theater. Her strongest fascination is infusing art with the depth of Judaism; researching how Judaism affects the inner self and what it means to people throughout their everyday lives.
Sydney Schiff graduated from Princeton University (AB History of Science, Certificate in Dance) and currently dances and choreographs in the NYC area. In addition to showing work as Artistic Director of Sydney Schiff Dance Project | Perpetual Metamorphosis and as choreographer/performer with Meta-Phys Ed, she has worked with Patricia Hoffbauer, Rebecca Lazier, Emily Faulkner and Pedro Jimenez, among others, and is currently an apprentice with Zvidance. In 2010, she premiered an evening length work, Context Preconstructed, which explored the relationship between concert modern dance, traditional Judaism and the female dancing body. In 2012, she choreographed and performed in Prokfiev/Pushkin's Eugene Onegin with the Princeton University Ballroom Club, the Princeton Symphony Orchestra and the Princeton University Glee Club. She most recently choreographed and performed in CHALOM: A Dream Opera, which premiered at the New York International Fringe Festival August 2012. CHALOM featured performances by several noteworthy Drisha Arts Fellow Alumnae including librettist and composer Bronwen Mullin, who is currently a Rabbinical candidate at the Jewish Theological Seminary. For information about upcoming projects, please visit www.sydneyschiffdanceproject.com.
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