Former LABA Fellow Alex Weiser writes about Zionist leader Theodor Herzl’s legacy–and about using this legacy as the basis for a new opera. Early one evening last Spring, I entered a classroom on the 4th floor at the 14th Street Y to find a big table in the center filled with all sorts of my
Current LABA fellow Mark Katz describes his time working on Michael Dukakis’s 1988 presidential campaign. Election Day. November 1, 1988. A crisp sunny Boston day, maybe 45 degrees. If memory serves, it was a Tuesday. And because I has spend the previous twelve months as a campaign staffer who set an alarm clock for 5 am and
Current LABA fellow Jared Hoffman discusses which club he’d want to be a member of. This summer, I heard a phrase come out of my mouth that gave me pause. I was eating lasagna at a restaurant called Elegante (it was not particularly elegant) on the Rockaways with my friend Jen and her daughter. Somehow
Dear Friends, Welcome to a new year of LABA. A new year of ancient questions. A new year of investigating the laughter and the angst of HUMOR. From birth to death, pain complicates life–and humor, like a good analgesic, makes it palatable. I look forward to introducing our 2019-2020 LABA fellows: Charlie Buckholtz, Charles Gershman, Jared Hoffman, Mark Katz, Anna
Two Midwestern Jews walk into LABA. One for an interview in June 2019. The other for a LABA study session she’s been invited to check out. Both leave their LABA interactions changed and thoroughly hooked on LABA. Laura Newmark, the new Director of LABA, will remember that first night as a highlight of her early time
LABA fellow Dmitri Barcomi describes his work-in-progress, Necrophoresis, a collaboration with writer-choreographer Seth Majnoon, as “a cross-medium dance-theater piece exploring the death rituals of ants and the life of Anna Freud.” LABA Contributing Editor Amy Handelsman discussed the work with Barcomi. You can see the theater piece at LABAlive III: LIFE + DEATH at the
LABA fellow Ilana Sichel contemplates life and death and writing. In the past half hour, I have gotten up from my desk to get cookies, decided they weren’t the right type of cookie, then got up a minute later to get another kind. I have felt a slight chill and decided that I can’t sit
Composer Alex Weiser, a current LABA fellow, is also director of Public Programs at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York City. His new album, and all the days were purple will be released on April 12 by Cantaloupe Music. Weiser set Yiddish and English poems to music to create an absorbing and
By Mariano Wainsztein Born in Argentina and raised in Israel, LABA fellow Mariano Wainsztein is now a New York-based composer. He and his band the Ivankas will perform at LABAlive 2: LIFE + DEATH, Thursday, April 18th, 7.30pm at The Theater at the 14th Street Y. Get your tickets now. The Ivankas current song-cycle is
When I started the LABA fellowship in September, I had no idea how intensely personal the topic of “Life and Death” would become: on November 7th, Juris Jurjevics, my husband of almost 20 years, died without warning. (Read his New York Times obituary here.) I’d like to thank the LABA cohort and staff for their warmth and concern over the past