Performing Arts

Who knew that "Hava Nagila" could be "sexy" ... or "racy"...?  Lauren Rose (formerly Lauren Goldberg), a Jewess from the UK, has given this familiar (and perhaps tiresome) traditional Hebrew folk song a somewhat dirty, teeny-bopper twist. 

Ever seen women with headscarves doing Vaudeville? Last week's Forward featured an article about Atara, an association of Torah observant artists whose new mission is to bring Orthodox female artists and performers together to nurture their creative expression -- be it through theatre, music, art, spoken word, etc. -- within a halachic framework. 

Yesterday I finally got to see Making Trouble, the film produced by the Jewish Women's Archive, on the big screen. After sold-out shows at film festivals around the country (plus Jerusalem!), Making Trouble made its Boston premiere as part of the Boston Jewish Film Festival. Though I've seen the film several times, and in various versions, it was exciting to see it in a theater, with a big audience.

I always have an ear out for new music, especially music that brings together sounds and styles from different parts of the world. Two of my favorites include the music of the Afro-Celt Sound System and Rebbe Soul, both of which are quite innovative and energizing.

I was 14 when the movie Dirty Dancing came out, and I was utterly entranced. I loved watching the frizzy-haired Jewish girl not only prove her sexiness and get the guy but also change the people around her. At the time, I didn’t think much about the Jewish subtext of the movie – I just knew that it felt familiar and relevant in some way.

What does a 4'11'' Yiddish theatre gender-bender have to do with a brassy woman in blackface? Making Trouble!

Check out the official website for Making Trouble, the new full-length documentary film about Jewish women comedians, produced by the Jewish Women's Archive.

Be sure to view the trailer, sign-up for our film newsletter, and tune in to film screenings in your neck of the woods. Happy laughing!

Over the past few months, the media has been flooded with articles about women in comedy. Jewish women in particular have been in spotlight with Sarah Silverman’s sky-rocketing ratings, Comedian Cory Kahaney’s “The J.A.P. Show: Princesses of Comedy” and Judy Gold’s one-woman show “25 Questions for a Jewish Mother.” Indeed, these women know how to keep us laughing. And yet, why aren’t there more of them?

Most of the time, harsh world realities leave us feeling powerless. Violence, illness, prejudice, and war cause us to ask: does our work really matter? Artists might be confronted with this question more often than others. When families can’t put food on the table, Art may seem irrelevant. But modern dance pioneer, Anna Sokolow, reminds us that nothing could be further from the truth.

Cartoonist Miriam Engelberg, whose best-known work found humor in her fight against breast cancer, died last Tuesday in her San Francisco home at the age of 48.

Engelberg’s book, Cancer Made Me a Shallower Person, was published earlier this year. The book details the painful experience of going through cancer treatment but in the end, Engelberg has her readers laughing.

That’s what writer David Marchese is looking for, according to the article he wrote last week for Salon.com. He laments the fact that long gone are the hip male Jews of the 60s and 70s like Dustin Hoffman, Bob Dylan, Gene Simmons, Starsky and James Caan (to name just a few). These were Jewish men who came across as tough and multi-layered and complicated in a way that made us love them.

When Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic, basically a filmed version of Sarah’s comedy act, came out in theaters last year, I didn’t see it. I knew nothing about her brand of comedy, and was hardly willing to commit to being trapped in a theater for two hours. But a bunch of friends recommended it, so I decided to check it out when it came to video.