MIME

MCB-TV-12684

Dybbuks

In Yiddish mythology dybbuks are the unresolved souls who seek to nd form through living bodies. Dybbuks is a Chamber Made work, conceived and directed by Samara Hersch, that evokes the many ways that the dead inhabit female bodies through language, voice, memory and desire. Dybbuks is a contemporary theatre and music work created by Hersch and collaborators including composer Max Lyandvert and designer Paul Jackson, together with performers, a local Yiddish choir of inter generational women and four female musicians. Part performance, part concert, part exorcism, Dybbuks combines mythic stories, traditional Yiddish songs with contemporary composition to present a feminist reimagining of S. Ansky’s iconic Dybbuk story. Through original and traditional text, music, song and image, Dybbuks deconstructs ideas of the possessed female body, exposes the complex rite of passage a young girl undergoes in order to become a woman, evoking the many ways that women across generations continue to embody, preserve and revive the dead. In doing so the work challenges the voiceless-ness of women across history.