This is the first in a three-part series that focuses on the art and craft of storytelling. The workshops can be taken independantly and in this first workshop the focus is on Family Stories. Cassandra Sagan is an ordained Maggid, a Jewish teacher/preacher/storyteller through the lineage of Reb Zalman Schacter-Shalomi z”l all the way back to the Baal Shem Tov. She has devoted her life to helping others access and express creative brilliance through story, poetry, song, and InterPlay, which she calls “play as a spiritual practice.”
Cassandra is a designated Leitzah Kedushah, Holy Clown, on the faculty of JSE, the Jewish Spiritual Education Maggid-Educator Training Program where she teaches Personal Narrative and InterPlay Torah study. She has hosted, taught, and told stories at local schools, libraries, synagogues, churches, and travels around the country to teach and tell. Cassandra shares, “I’m a student of Kabbalah and a mosaic artist and I love to make beauty out of brokenness. Through Story we enter the timeless realm, we can lift up/redeem joy from the past and transform the present and the future. Breishit b’ra Elohim: in a beginning, God starts creating. When we engage our creativity, we begin to know God, which is the goal of Judaism. When we tell our story, through words or silence or song or art, we make a tikkun, we help to repair this world. What’s not to love?”
Chai Baby + PJ Library Indoor Playground
For parents/caregivers and their children up to 5 years old. Play. Meet friends. Run. Have a Kosher snack. Sing + listen to stories. Have a blast!
Second Wednesday of each month
September 12
October 10
November 14
December 12
Free and open to the community.
In partnership with PJ Library, Chai Baby, Portland Jewish Academy
Israel Film Series
Calling all filmgoers! Join us for an array of Israeli films focusing on the topic of homelessness. A discussion with Q&A will follow each film, please see film details for specifics. Films to be announced soon!
Lost Boys of Portlandia
Wednesday, October 10
7:00 pm
Meet local Israeli filmmaker, Nili Yosha and Executive Director for Outside the Frame. In a riff on Peter Pan, homeless youth of Portland debate if and how to return to mainstream society while creating their own film version of the iconic story.
Diplomat
Tuesday, October 16
7:00 pm
The Hotel Diplomat in Jerusalem was once a five-star hotel. For nearly 20 years it is home to 600 immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Never having integrated into Israeli society, its residents have created their own little island, secluded from the outside world.
Zrubavel
Tuesday, October 30
7:00 pm
The personal dramas of the immigrant Zrubavel family and the universal intergenerational cultural struggles that come with assimilation are depicted in this first feature film made by Ethiopian Israelis.
Purchase tickets at oregonjcc.org/film
In partnership with the Institute for Judaic Studies
(Photo courtesy of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center)
Jewish playwright/two-time cancer survivor Valerie David’s sassy solo show The Pink Hulk comes to Portland in October.
The Pink Hulk, an award-winning solo show from New York City, will be making its Portland debut in the Come Inside Festival.
Valerie David, the actress and playwright behind The Pink Hulk, is of both Sephardic and Ashkenazi descent, and her Jewish humor and sassiness are featured in her show.
As a two-time cancer survivor, Valerie shares her experience with compassion and humor. The cancer community has connected with her show across the globe, and it has been receiving rave reviews and multiple awards, as Valerie has been touring the United States and Europe over the past two years. The play has been impacting audiences with its message of hope and empowerment. And there is plenty of humor in her show.
Valerie has also performed in 24 festivals, and at Rhode Island College’s Nursing Department, her show acted as an educational tool for students, nurses, faculty and staff, revealing what a cancer patient goes through in Valerie’s honest and humorous portrayal. She was just a finalist in the New York New Works Festival in Manhattan and won the WOW Award “for the show that inspired awe in audiences with its creativity, humour and content” for her performance at the Gothenburg Fringe Festival in Sweden.
COME INSIDE FESTIVAL PRESENTS:
The Pink Hulk: One Woman’s Journey to Find the Superhero Within
Written and Performed by Valerie David
Directed by Padraic Lillis
SCHEDULE—Audience talkbacks to follow
Wednesday, Oct. 10, at 7 pm
Friday, Oct. 12, at 5 pm
Saturday, Oct. 13, at 4 pm
Sunday, Oct.14, at 6 pm
CoHo Theater
2257 NW Raleigh Street
Portland, OR 97210
Tickets are $15 online and $20 at the door.
https://www.merctickets.com/events/57361194/the-pink-hulk-oct-10-14
60-minute solo show with mature content
Synopsis:
Now battling breast cancer after fighting off lymphoma, Valerie does something most people facing cancer for the second time in their life probably wouldn’t think of doing. With a fear that she might lose “the girls”, she takes them out for one last hurrah. And does Valerie succeed? Is there a “happy ending”? Come see the show to find out! This sexy, adventurous solo show follows Valerie’s journey to seek her own “hulk-like” strength to find her superhero within. An empowering and true story of inspiration!
“The joy of this performance is in the honesty and the openness and the wonderfully warm and inclusive woman that is Valerie David…Ms. David has the kind of infectious spirit and deeply inspiring story that needs more than a one-woman show…how about a series?” – Los Angeles Review—NoHoArtsDistrict
“There is clearly nothing about Valerie that isn’t exceptional. The Pink Hulk is a triumph of the one-woman show format. The Pink Hulk is the apogee of cancer narratives; the zenith, the apex. You can’t get much better than this.” – DC Metro Theater Arts
Nosh + Drash with Rabbi Eve Posen
A monthly discussion covering a wide range of topics that draw on our experiences.
Thursday, September 13
Topic: Rosh Hashanah Learning
Thursday, October 11
Topic: Noah and the Flood: Then and Now
Thursday, November 8
Topic: The Torah of Thanksgiving
Thursday, December 13
Topic: Texts of Inspiration
Free and open to the community.
In partnership with Congregation Neveh Shalom
Hike to support Novel Interventions in Children’s Healthcare, a program of OHSU to reduce costs and improve care and health in our most vulnerable youth.
This 18-week course is taught by members of The Oregon Board of Rabbis, representing a variety of Jewish affiliations. A carefully constructed curriculum includes Jewish history, life cycle events, holidays, ritual and daily practice, theology, study of Torah and contemporary Jewish America. While not a conversion class, most OBR members consider it a prerequisite for students beginning study for conversion. Classes 7-9 pm, Thursdays, at rotating Portland area synagogues.
In honor of National Coming Out Day, a Wider Bridge is bringing Captain Ofer Erez to Portland. Ofer is the first transgender service member to rank as an officer in the Israeli Defense Forces. During his army service Ofer led an historical change with regard to the army’s regulations on enlisting trans-gender soldiers and was an advisor on LGBTQ-related issues in the IDF and an adviser to the US and Canadian armies on inclusivity. This past spring Ofer completed his service with the IDF and became the CEO of the Jerusalem Open House, a long time LGBTQ community center in Jerusalem and the organizer of the Jerusalem March for Pride and Tolerance.
The Jerusalem Open House is one of seven LGBTQ grantees in Israel funded by a Wider Bridge with the generous support of over 1000 members across North America.
Doors open at 5:30 pm, show starts at 7. Come early to eat, come to drink, come to soak in the view from the lakeside deck … and come to laugh ’til you cry!
Lake Theater’s beer and wine lists represent the best in the industry, and are curated with care; and their cocktails feature seasonal ingredients mixed with never-bottom-shelf spirits. And the pizzas! New York style! Food and drink can be enjoyed in the theater.
The theater features cabaret-style seating on the main floor and traditional velvet seating in the balcony. We can bring the show to almost 100 people at a time!
Designed by celebrated local architect Richard Sundeleaf, the Lake Theater first opened its doors in 1940, charging 25¢ for admission.
(Photo by Pedro Greig)
White Bird welcomes Australian contemporary circus company, Circa, with their program HUMANS.
After an absence of five years, White Bird is delighted to present the return of the world-famous Australian contemporary circus company, Circa, with the West Coast premiere of their astonishing new work HUMANS. Since 2004, from its base in Brisbane, Australia, Circa has toured the world—performing in 39 countries to over a million people. As was the case in Portland in 2013, with their White Bird debut, Circa’s movement-based circus works have been greeted with standing ovations, rave reviews and sold-out houses across six continents. Under the direction of circus visionary Yaron Lifschitz, Circa’s HUMANS features an ensemble of 10 exceptional, multi-skilled circus artists whose physicality and artistry are put to the test in Lifschitz’ newest work.
Yaron Lifschitz
An article in the Australian Jewish News says: Lifschitz looks back on his career with lots of pride, as do his Jewish parents who may initially have preferred him to be a doctor.
Circa is at the forefront of the new wave of contemporary Australian circus—pioneering how extreme physicality can create powerful and moving performances. Circa pushes the boundaries of the art form, blurs the lines between movement, dance, theatre and circus, and leads the way with a diverse range of thrilling creations that ‘redraw the limits to which circus can aspire“ (The Age).
Over the course of 70 nail-biting minutes, HUMANS explores the limits of human physicality and perseverance. The stage remains stripped bare as the vulnerability of the artists is left exposed throughout this thrilling work. Seamlessly moving from one breathtaking acrobatic act to the next, HUMANS challenges both the artists and the audience members to answer the questions “what does it mean to be human? How can you express the very essence of this experience with your body, with the group and with the audience? Where are your limits, what extraordinary things can you achieve and how can you find grace in your inevitable defeat?” Lifschitz uses this work to report on what it means to be human. “In our limitations are our possibilities,” he says. It is “precisely because we are human that our physical achievements acquire dignity, meaning and poetry. It is in connection to our vulnerability that our strength finds its true articulation.”
In its glowing review, The Guardian (UK) sums up the power and beauty of HUMANS: “Circa’s brand new production Humans is the five-star favorite: a clear demonstration of the artistry of circus and its potential to draw together multiple theatrical forms. What I adored was its fluid take on humanity and gender roles: women caught men falling backwards; men leapt towards and were caught by men. As the ensemble moved themselves into sculptural, abstract shapes, reaching higher to the ceiling for the denouement, I felt moved by their vulnerable, collective humanity.”
Circa’s Artistic Director Yaron Lifschitz is a graduate of the University of New South Wales, University of Queensland, and National Institute of Dramatic Arts (NIDA), where he was the youngest director ever accepted into its prestigious graduate director’s course. Since graduating, Yaron has directed over 60 productions including large-scale events, opera, theatre, physical theatre, and circus. His work has been seen in 39 countries and across six continents by over one million people and has won numerous awards including six Helpmann awards and the Australia Council Theatre Award. He is currently Artistic Director and CEO of Circa, and was the Creative Director of Festival 2018: the arts and cultural program of the 21st Commonwealth Games. In 2018, Yaron directed four new Circa creations, and a new production of Idomeneo which opened in Lisbon at The Teatro Nacional de São Carlos.
White Bird’s 21st season (2018-19) is supported by the Regional Arts & Culture Council, including support from the City of Portland, Multnomah County and the Arts Education & Access Fund; Work for Art; The James F. and Marion L. Miller Foundation, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, and Oregon Arts Commission.