Women who have grown up in religious homes that adhere to the prohibition of kol ishah, which prevents women from singing in front of mixed audiences, and women who have taken that behavior upon themselves as they became (more) religious, could not have guessed at the changes that would evolve, leading to a whole new world that 20 years ago was not even a twinkle in the eye of religious “wishful thinking” female performing artists.
Today, there is another way—the opportunity (and for some, a mission) to perform for women only. These opportunities have mushroomed exponentially in the last decade.
A women’s organization serving shomer Shabbos performing artists, called ATARA: The Association for Torah & the Arts, will be celebrating this phenomenon by hosting an evening for women in an Off-Broadway theater in Manhattan, at its annual conference, which takes place February 10–12. A Shabbaton will be hosted by the Woodmere community on February 10–11. Leil Shabbos (Friday night) there will be a community-wide “Oneg for the Arts” at Congregation Aish Kodesh at 8:45 p.m., which will include improv, zemiros, comedy, and Torah. A Saturday-night performance will be held at the Jewish Music Café, Park Slope: 401 9th Street in Brooklyn. Sunday classes from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. take place at Shetler Studios, 244 W. 54th Street, 12th floor. The program is open to Jewish women of all communities.
The group represents trained performing artists—many of whom became shomer Shabbos after gaining experience in professional entertainment industries—who now have difficulty finding work accommodating their religious choices, and gifted performing artists who emerged from religious backgrounds. These artists seek material that won’t contradict their religious beliefs, which often results in them creating their own work. ATARA seeks to promote and increase skills development, the creation of new work, and performance opportunities for these gifted individuals, who include composers, choreographers, theater directors, filmmakers, actors, and vocalists.
The main performance event will take place at the Actors Temple Theater at 337 West 47th Street, for an “Off-Broadway” performance experience, and at Shetler Studios in midtown, where ATARA members and visiting artists will conduct master classes in dance, songwriting, improv acting, puppetry, drumming, dance, and the spiritual power of music—for women only. There will also be a panel discussion on “What is Jewish Theater?” at 11:00 a.m. on Sunday. The panelists will be joined by Toby Klein Greenwald, artistic director of the Raise Your Spirits Theatre of Israel, via Skype. Klein Greenwald is a contributor to the Five Towns Jewish Times and a board member of ATARA.
This will mark the fifth year that artistically talented religious women will gather in Manhattan from across North America to meet and support each other. There will be opera vocalists from Seattle, Chicago, and Brooklyn. Young women in the first year of the Tzohar Seminary for Chassidus and the Arts, of Pittsburgh, will be attending. Amy Gordon Guterson, founder and director of Tzohar, grew up in Woodmere and is on the board of ATARA. She says, “What I am seeing is that we, Torah observant Jewish women, were given our talents in order to forge a new path together. The old ways of either doing art without a spiritual focus, or living a Jewish life devoid of creativity will soon, with G‑d’s help, be a thing of the past!”
Among the artists will be Robin Garbose of Kol Neshama Productions, creator of the films A Light from Greytowers and The Heart That Sings, singer Elana Greenspan of Passaic, NJ, Reina Potaznik, a hip-hop choreographer, and Yocheved Polonsky, director of the Creative Learning Institute of Dance in Cleveland. There will be a duet in the roles of Yocheved and Bitia in Patrick Leonard‘s The Ten Commandments, accompanied by other weekend participants on violin, cello, flute, electric guitar, and drums; the original rock music of Esther Freeman, a Chabad musician from Florida; Shaindel Antelis, a Bruria graduate; and several all-women’s bands newly formed this year.
Esther Leah Marchette, a former cantor and songwriter from Boston, will debut her first new material written since 1985. The 2009 dance troupe from Washington Heights, Nishmat HaTzafon, has developed a method of teaching Midrash through dance, and will be leading a workshop on the topic as one of the sessions on Sunday.
Director Miriam Leah Droz says, “It’s not enough to have a place to perform, to be able to sing Italian opera for women only. As artists we must develop our skills to the point of excellence; as creative individuals we must push boundaries and discover the yet unknown; as observant Jews we must find ways to do this in adherence to halachah; and as Jews we must ask, ‘What difference can we make in the world? What healing can we bring, what inspiration?’”
For the first time, there will be a designated Junior ATARA performance, featuring talented emerging songwriters and dancers under the age of 14. A panel discussion on “Arts Education in the Orthodox Community” will feature Amy Guterson, founder of the Tzohar Seminary, filmmaker Robin Garbose, founder of Kol Neshama, a summer performing arts training program for girls, dancer Rivka Nahari, director of the Brooklyn Jewish Dance Studio, and others.
For more information, contact Miriam Droz at 917-686-1211 or drozmr@yahoo.com. Tickets for the Sunday night performance are available for $20, $35, and $59 at www.atarawinter2012.eventbrite.com. The full schedule is available at www.artsandtorah.org. Find ATARA on Facebook at www.facebook.com/groups/artsandtorah. Make a tax-deductible contribution to ATARA at IndieGoGo.com. For involvement, contact conference@artsandtorah.org.