About ZACHOR:
ZACHOR is an ongoing project series, which seeks to preserve the words of WWII Holocaust Survivors through dance. ZACHOR creates opportunities for diverse groups of artists and audiences to study and reflect on these testimonies in a non-religious setting. Director Rachel Linsky strongly believes that thorough Holocaust education, especially when explored through the universal language of movement, has the power to bring people together to find common goals that bridge pre-existing divisions.
Current Projects
In October, Rachel Linsky was chosen as one of the 2022-23 Community Creative Fellows with Jewish Arts Collaborative & Combined Jewish Philanthropies! This 9-month fellowship is a unique and immersive opportunity for artists looking to explore Jewish identity through art, and expand their capacity for community engagement through the creative process.
Inspired by Mieczyslaw Weinberg, a Jewish-Polish composer who created brilliant classical compositions with clear Jewish (Klezmer) themes, Rachel has taken a deep research dive into Klezmer music and Yiddish dance. At 20 years old, when the Nazis invaded, Weinberg fled to the Soviet Union and was the only member of his family to survive the Holocaust. With his music, he kept alive a whole world of his family and culture that had perished. On account of antisemitism in the Soviet Union, his work received heavy pushback, which prevented it from reaching the level of global recognition it should have had. With the research being done under this fellowship, Rachel will be creating contemporary dance with these same Jewish themes as a way to honor Weinberg’s story, celebrate the influences he kept alive in his work, and attempt to restore a small piece of his deserved legacy.
If you want to learn more, check out the 20-minute interview with JArts below. You can also watch Rachel’s first "Mini Vlog'' on Instagram for a peek behind the scenes into what this research has looked like over the past few months! The research will culminate into a new dance film to one of Weinberg’s works being filmed in June of 2023.
Inspired by Mieczyslaw Weinberg, a Jewish-Polish composer who created brilliant classical compositions with clear Jewish (Klezmer) themes, Rachel has taken a deep research dive into Klezmer music and Yiddish dance. At 20 years old, when the Nazis invaded, Weinberg fled to the Soviet Union and was the only member of his family to survive the Holocaust. With his music, he kept alive a whole world of his family and culture that had perished. On account of antisemitism in the Soviet Union, his work received heavy pushback, which prevented it from reaching the level of global recognition it should have had. With the research being done under this fellowship, Rachel will be creating contemporary dance with these same Jewish themes as a way to honor Weinberg’s story, celebrate the influences he kept alive in his work, and attempt to restore a small piece of his deserved legacy.
If you want to learn more, check out the 20-minute interview with JArts below. You can also watch Rachel’s first "Mini Vlog'' on Instagram for a peek behind the scenes into what this research has looked like over the past few months! The research will culminate into a new dance film to one of Weinberg’s works being filmed in June of 2023.
Get Involved!Join choreographer Rachel Linsky for an inside look into her creative process. Workshop participants will learn more about Weinberg’s story, explore Yiddish folk dances, and learn contemporary phrase work inspired by those themes. Open to intermediate and advances dancers ages 14+. This workshop is free, but space is limited so please Register in advance to secure your spot!
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Past Projects
Hidden
In addition to ZACHOR’s cast of professional dancers, Hidden features a cohort of teenage dancers who participated in a free, week-long “Embodied Holocaust Education” workshop through ZACHOR. Throughout the week students took classes in contemporary technique and improvisation and discussed Holocaust survivor Aaron Elster’s memoir as well as the importance of keeping these testimonies alive today. They then worked collaboratively to build a 5-minute piece of choreography inspired by Aaron’s story and their reflections, that serves as the ending to this work.
Uncovering, presented in February of 2021 was a community workshop series with undergraduate and recent graduate performing arts students (theater and dance) that launched our research into Aaron Elster's story for Hidden. Uncovering was a virtual presentation of short solos inspired by memories from Aaron's testimony that most resonated with the workshop participants. This workshop series was critical in shaping ZACHOR's collaborative creative process and developing a method to embody and engage critically while studying these important testimonies.
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Hidden is the culmination of a multi-faceted research project that has included multiple community workshops, dance film, and now live performance. This evening-length contemporary dance work is inspired by the story of Holocaust survivor Aaron Elster, who survived at the mercy of a Polish family who kept him hidden in their attic for two years. Hidden has been developed through a highly collaborative creative process geared towards creating a resonant and embodied Holocaust education experience for the artists involved in the work. This piece tackles the pressing question of what the future of Holocaust education might look like, especially in this pivotal time where so few survivors are left to tell their stories first-hand. CLICK HERE to see a compilation of clips from the live performance.
Hidden premiered as a dance film in September of 2021. The choreography in the film served as a launching point to be developed further into our live performance. The film was created in residence at Chelsea Theatre Works with videography by Olivia Moon Photography.
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Hidden premiered live at the Boston Center for the Arts in October of 2022 and is now ready to be shared further with more communities! The development of this was was supported by Combined Jewish Philanthropies Arts & Culture Community Impact Grant Fund, The Beker Foundation, The City of Boston Opportunity Fund, The Russell J. Efros Foundation, and by New Work New England of the New England Foundation for the Arts, made possible with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Seedlings Foundation, the Fund for the Arts at NEFA, the American Rescue Plan, Anonymous Foundation, and from individual donors.
"Schulhoff"
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This contemporary dance work seeks to revive and honor the music of Erwin Schulhoff, a Jewish composer and Holocaust victim. A radical and innovative artist of his time, Schulhoff was one of the first European musicians to incorporate jazz into classical music forms such as symphonies and concertos. The Nazis deemed jazz and all forms of modern art a threat to their ideology and sought to completely erase from history the work of Schulhoff and many other artistic trailblazers. This performance celebrates the survival and legacy of Schulhoff’s music while investigating the Nazis' ban on art forms that embraced freedom of expression and created pathways to share new ideas, voices, and perspectives. Thank you to all who came out to see Schulhoff performed at The W-Gallery, New England Conservatory, and through CURE8 Cambridge at The Dance Complex! If you missed it, check out the digital version of Schulhoff complete with digital research boards and performance recording HERE. |
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"Selection"
"Do I Want to Remember?"
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Do I Want to Remember is a Contemporary Dance piece utilizing words of Holocaust Survivor, Alexander Kimel. This work premiered as part of Yom Hashoah programming at Elon University in North Carolina and was presented at the Huntington Avenue Theatre as part of Boston Contemporary Dance Festival in 2019. |
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