Arts Commission funds Jewish Arts Month

By JEWISH REVIEW

article created on: 2010-02-15T00:00:00

The Pre-JAM Slam kick-off for Jewish Arts Month, a new collaborative festival of the arts, will be held at the Mittleman Jewish Community Center at 7 p.m., Feb. 24.

The Oregon Arts Commission awarded the MJCC a $4,200 Arts Build Communities grant to organize and promote Jewish Arts Month in Portland. JAM will reach hundreds of people at venues throughout the Portland community through art, music, theater and the spoken word. Additionally, MJCC Chief Executive Officer Lisa Horowitz offered the center’s facility and staff support.

JAM is a collaborative effort between various Jewish and secular cultural arts agencies including the MJCC, The Multnomah County Library, Portland Center Stage, Jewish TheatreCollaborative, Triangle Productions, Oregon Jewish Museum and the Elements Gallery and Hot Shop, among others.

Eddy Shuldman, JAM director and chair of ORA: Northwest Jewish Artists, imagined an arts festival that would involve collaboration between various local Jewish and secular cultural arts agencies.

“Stories can be told through spoken and written words, images and sound; they play an essential role in all cultures,” said Shuldman. “We are known as ‘the people of the book’ but we are also a people of music and art, film and theater.

“We have successfully assimilated in America and, because of that, it is easy to lose touch with our traditions and values. Judaism is often viewed through a lens of stereotyped images and expectations. Through the arts, I think we can begin to displace those Hollywood clichés.”

JAM will begin Feb. 24 with a “Pre-JAM Slam” celebration at the MJCC, beginning at 7 p.m. and featuring an official city proclamation to launch the festival. Jennifer Yocum will attend as a representative of Mayor Sam Adam’s office to deliver the proclamation. Brian Wagner with the Oregon Arts Commission will also be present, along with numerous, artists, musicians, actors and theater directors.

Art exhibits will accompany several theater productions: including Sarah Horowitz’s “Yiddish Alphabet” and Shelley Jordon’s animated painting “Family History” at the Portland Center Stage’s production of “The Chosen.”

Renata Dollinger’s oil paintings of shtetl life will be on display at Coho Theater with Triangle Productions’ one-woman play “Rose,” starring Wendy Westerwelle.

The Jewish Theater Collaborative will present “Kindertransport” at Artists Repertory Theatre. (See story below.)

“Fugue: Exile, Emigration and Displacement,” a photography and poetry exhibit by Friderike Heuer will be featured in the ART Alder Stage lobby.

ORA: Northwest Jewish Artists have an exhibit called “LIGHT” at the Elements Gallery and “Hot Shop” March 4-12. There will also be a weeklong exhibit at the MJCC.

JAM will present Joanne Greenberg, best-known author of “I Never Promised You a Rose Garden,” in an intimate adult storytelling event at Oregon Jewish Museum. After lecturing about her novels at Reed College and the University of Oregon, Greenberg will tell Jewish stories intended for mature audiences on Feb. 28 at 7 p.m. Her stories will include “A Corpse Bride;” “The Jewish Orpheus and Eurydice” and “The Litvak Eulogy.”

Music concerts at the MJCC will feature V’Chaverim, an eclectic klezmer band, on March 11 at 7 p.m., and Amy Shapiro and Jeff Olenick, an evening of folk and theatrical music, on March 18 at 7. p.m.

Shelley Jordon will present “An Artist’s Journey” (or…”How a middle-aged Jew Reinvented Herself”), a lecture and screening at The Oregon Jewish Museum.

Numerous other activities also fall within Jewish Arts Month and can be found on its master calendar northwestjewishartists.org/JAMschedule2010.html). These include the Sholom Aleichem Conference at Congregation Neveh Shalom, the Jewish Film Festival, and the Women’s Seder led by Cantor Ida Rae Cahana.

Also, the Yuval Ron Ensemble: Mystical Music of the Middle East—Concert for Unity will perform at the First Unitarian Church in downtown Portland. At Havurah Shalom, A “Fah-bring’-in!” and CD Release Party honoring Rabbi Aryeh Hirschfield, zt”l will take place on March 21 at 5:30 p.m. to benefit the Southwest Community Health Center and P’nai Or of Portland.

At Portland Jewish Academy, fifth- and sixth-grade students will participate in a workshop at the Hillsdale Library on April 21 from 3:30-5:30 p.m. Family Heirloom Art, Celebrating Family Stories and Creating a Family Tree will be led by artist Lisa Kagan. The workshop is free, multi-generational and open to the public.