Rediscovering Jewish Music and Theatre
Performing the Jewish Archive is a three year Arts and Humanities Research Council funded large grant working to explore hidden archives, uncover and perform lost works, and create a legacy for the future. The project is led by Dr Stephen Muirfrom the University of Leeds.
Manuscript of ‘Chad Gadja’
Dr Muir says ‘This project's objective is to bring recently rediscovered musical, theatrical and literary works by Jewish artists back to the attention of scholars and the public, and to stimulate the creation of new works based on archives.’
Now at the half way point in the grant, the project is hosting a festival, Out of the Shadows: rediscovering Jewish music and theatre (Opens in a new window) including performances and exhibitions in Leeds and York of varied works – many thought previously to have been lost.
Highlights of the festival include: The Smoke of Home – A recently rediscovered play written in the Terezín ghetto near Prague in the Second World War. The venue for the performance of– Clifford’s Tower in York– is as historically bleak as the play’s origins.
In 1190 a royal castle on top of the distinctive earthen mound where Clifford’s Tower now stands was the refuge chosen by the city’s Jewish population as they sought to escape a wave of anti-Semitic riots sweeping the country. Besieged, most of the Jews chose to commit suicide – the survivors were killed by a murderous mob.
“It is especially appropriate that The Smoke of Home, a powerful historical drama, is being performed in York’s iconic Clifford’s Tower – the scene of such a dreadful episode in our history,” said Dr Muir .
The Smoke of Home (Dým domova), written by Czech Jews Zdeněk Eliáš and Jiří Stein in 1943, is the first event of a series of performances in York and Leeds between April and June 2016.
“Out of the Shadows promises to be a poignant and uplifting programme of events celebrating the lives and achievements of Jewish artists in times of both adversity and freedom, with pieces once thought lost or languishing “in the shadows”, now brought back into the light,” said Dr Muir, a Senior Lecturer in Musicology and Performance in the University of Leeds’ School of Music (Opens in a new window).
Other highlights include the Nash Ensemble, the Grammy-nominated New Budapest Orpheum Society, and other internationally-renowned performers. The programme includes cabaret, theatre, piano music by a 12-year-old prodigy from the Warsaw ghetto, chamber music, song, and an exhibition of children’s drawings from the Terezín ghetto.
The Smoke of Home, an allegory set in the Thirty Years War, is a rare opportunity to see a live theatrical performance in Clifford’s Tower, which is managed by English Heritage. It will be performed by University of York students, directed by alumnus Joe Lichtenstein. One of these performances will be live streamed from 7.30pm on 16 April via The Smoke of Home event page (Opens in a new window).
Performing the Jewish archive is funded under the AHRC's Care for the Future ‘Thinking Forward through the Past’ theme. The theme aims to generate new understandings of the relationship between the past and the future, and the challenges and opportunities of the present.
Source: Arts and Humanities Research Council
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