She is alone. April 30 @ NURTUREart.
She is alone.
performance lecture with participation
Sunday, April 30, 4:00 pm
Please join me on April 30th at NURTURE art for She is alone, a new chapter from Ruins of Achelach -- a body of research, performance, and artifact, ignited by a déjà vu experienced in a field in Central Europe, creating a growing, living document of lost female ancestors. A seemingly invisible hand continues to lead me on a path of genealogical inquiry, back and forth across the ocean, memory, and time, mining rational and irrational sources to investigate the limits of what can be uncovered from spaces left unavailable to us. My latest, most stirring discovery is the survival testimony of a cousin who intrepidly navigated the holocaust at the age I am now. No record of her exists beyond this testimony, recorded in Krakow at the end the war. The introductory notation written by a third party in the upper margin begins, “She is alone…”
I had been looking for something else when my unknown cousin's story found me, powerfully demonstrating that history does not rest and the past continues to uproot itself. There is urgency to share and learn from this story, yet this is a sensitive practice -- much remains illegible and omitted through layers of translation, as its passed from one interpreter to the next.
Who was this woman?
Note: audience members will be invited to join the interpretation process. Participation is encouraged, but not mandatory.
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She is alone is possible thanks to the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw, Asylum Arts + POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, Patrycja Dołowy, Bartek Remisko, Elisabeth Smolarz, and Michelle's grandmother, Rae.
Ruins of Achelach began as a one-hour theatrical presentation created by Michelle Levy, and developed with and directed by Sarah Cameron Sunde. It was presented by Dixon Place, and Theaterlab, New York City.