Art Kibbutz NYC’s First-Ever Shofar FlashMob Created Public Art Happening
17 Cities Worldwide Participate Digital Rosh Hashana Card Is Fashioned from Footage
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Eszter Margit artkibbutznyc@gmail.com
New York, NY (September 19, 2011) -- Art Kibbutz NYC’s first public event – the global Shofar FlashMob – took place in seventeen cities around the world, creating the glorious cacophony envisioned by its founders…and then some.
From the United States to Europe to Israel and beyond established and emerging artists gathered together with creative volunteers in the week before Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, to sound the Shofar in places both urban and rural, traditional and off-the-beaten-track.
See footage from the central location, across from Lincoln Center in New York City, athttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWaT90wjU4Q. Links to other sites appear at the bottom of this release.
“The Shofar FlashMob was like a Midrash,” states Eszter Margit, founder of Art Kibbutz NYC, a Budapest native now based in Manhattan “Everyone interpreted the sound of the Shofar their own way. The participants also greatly differed in each location – with some even opposing each other in intention, style, approach and modality. Yet these discrete spiritual public art actions were performed simultaneously by people who would never meet otherwise or would be willing to work together.”
The central NYC Shofar FlashMob proved so successful that it was necessary to create two consecutive blowings at the Lincoln Center location for eager latecomers. The jazzy flashmob at the JCC in Manhattan and the Jerusalem Shofar FlashMob at the Ben-Yehuda pedestrian mall both featured Rav Abraham Isaac HaCohen Kook's Shofar poem, performed by Rabbi Yitzhak Marmorstein, Jake Marmer, Rabbi Greg Wall and Jordan Hirsch.
In Budapest organizers sounded bicycle bells to raise awareness about the CarFree World Day, in San Francisco they blew on a hill with sound instruments, in Chicago volunteers gathered by the Cubs before a game, while in Brooklyn organizers blew a gigantic, scary blast as part of an exhibition opening about terror.
Like all great art, the Shofar FlashMob became a text of infinite meaning, imparting insight and texture to the beholder and participant alike. There were myriad interpretations of what was taking place. No two experiences were quite alike.
At the public art project there was sound, there was spirit, there was community but there was so much more. The sight of people gathering to sound the ancient ram’s horn stopped passers-by in their tracks, fulfilling the Shofar’s truest functions: creating energy, awareness and intentional community.
“Our Shofar FlashMob demanded that attention be paid…and it was,” said Shira Dicker, a New York writer who developed the concept of the Shofar FlashMob. “The prospect of merging the ancient ritual of sounding the Shofar with a 21st century urban invention – FlashMobs – was irresistible to me and evidently to the thousands of people who participated around the world. This was tangible, audible, visual art-in-action.”
“As our mission is to celebrate the 21st century Jewish experience -- connecting one community with another, creating a glorious and multifaceted, international cultural tapestry -- I cannot think of a more exciting first event than a worldwide Shofar FlashMob,” added Margit. “These projects happened simultaneously by people who would never meet otherwise. But art allows us to access something deep inside that weaves participants at each location into a global community.”
In addition to New York City, footage from Shofar FlashMobs in Jerusalem (Israel), Budapest (Hungary), Tbilisi (Georgia), Kiev (Ukraine), Gomel (Belarus), Chicago (Illinois), Milwakee (Wisconsin), San Francisco (California), Oakland (California), Las Vegas (Nevada), Los Angeles (California), Tulsa (Oklahoma), Wolcott (Vermont), Salem (Massachusetts), and St. Louis (Missouri) will comprise the edgy Rosh Hashana art video greeting – to be completed by September 20th.
Members of the Press: For photos and footage of Shofar FlashMobs around the world, to request anecdotes, interviews or further information about the Shofar FlashMob and Art Kibbutz NYC please contact Eszter Margit at artkibbutznyc@gmail.com or Shira Dicker at
shira.dicker@sd-media.com or visit http://www.artkibbutz.org or http://www.shofarflashmob.com.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Eszter Margit artkibbutznyc@gmail.com
New York, NY (September 19, 2011) -- Art Kibbutz NYC’s first public event – the global Shofar FlashMob – took place in seventeen cities around the world, creating the glorious cacophony envisioned by its founders…and then some.
From the United States to Europe to Israel and beyond established and emerging artists gathered together with creative volunteers in the week before Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, to sound the Shofar in places both urban and rural, traditional and off-the-beaten-track.
See footage from the central location, across from Lincoln Center in New York City, athttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWaT90wjU4Q. Links to other sites appear at the bottom of this release.
“The Shofar FlashMob was like a Midrash,” states Eszter Margit, founder of Art Kibbutz NYC, a Budapest native now based in Manhattan “Everyone interpreted the sound of the Shofar their own way. The participants also greatly differed in each location – with some even opposing each other in intention, style, approach and modality. Yet these discrete spiritual public art actions were performed simultaneously by people who would never meet otherwise or would be willing to work together.”
The central NYC Shofar FlashMob proved so successful that it was necessary to create two consecutive blowings at the Lincoln Center location for eager latecomers. The jazzy flashmob at the JCC in Manhattan and the Jerusalem Shofar FlashMob at the Ben-Yehuda pedestrian mall both featured Rav Abraham Isaac HaCohen Kook's Shofar poem, performed by Rabbi Yitzhak Marmorstein, Jake Marmer, Rabbi Greg Wall and Jordan Hirsch.
In Budapest organizers sounded bicycle bells to raise awareness about the CarFree World Day, in San Francisco they blew on a hill with sound instruments, in Chicago volunteers gathered by the Cubs before a game, while in Brooklyn organizers blew a gigantic, scary blast as part of an exhibition opening about terror.
Like all great art, the Shofar FlashMob became a text of infinite meaning, imparting insight and texture to the beholder and participant alike. There were myriad interpretations of what was taking place. No two experiences were quite alike.
At the public art project there was sound, there was spirit, there was community but there was so much more. The sight of people gathering to sound the ancient ram’s horn stopped passers-by in their tracks, fulfilling the Shofar’s truest functions: creating energy, awareness and intentional community.
“Our Shofar FlashMob demanded that attention be paid…and it was,” said Shira Dicker, a New York writer who developed the concept of the Shofar FlashMob. “The prospect of merging the ancient ritual of sounding the Shofar with a 21st century urban invention – FlashMobs – was irresistible to me and evidently to the thousands of people who participated around the world. This was tangible, audible, visual art-in-action.”
“As our mission is to celebrate the 21st century Jewish experience -- connecting one community with another, creating a glorious and multifaceted, international cultural tapestry -- I cannot think of a more exciting first event than a worldwide Shofar FlashMob,” added Margit. “These projects happened simultaneously by people who would never meet otherwise. But art allows us to access something deep inside that weaves participants at each location into a global community.”
In addition to New York City, footage from Shofar FlashMobs in Jerusalem (Israel), Budapest (Hungary), Tbilisi (Georgia), Kiev (Ukraine), Gomel (Belarus), Chicago (Illinois), Milwakee (Wisconsin), San Francisco (California), Oakland (California), Las Vegas (Nevada), Los Angeles (California), Tulsa (Oklahoma), Wolcott (Vermont), Salem (Massachusetts), and St. Louis (Missouri) will comprise the edgy Rosh Hashana art video greeting – to be completed by September 20th.
Members of the Press: For photos and footage of Shofar FlashMobs around the world, to request anecdotes, interviews or further information about the Shofar FlashMob and Art Kibbutz NYC please contact Eszter Margit at artkibbutznyc@gmail.com or Shira Dicker at
shira.dicker@sd-media.com or visit http://www.artkibbutz.org or http://www.shofarflashmob.com.
Raw footage - recording of some of the locations
Media Appearances
Huffington Post 20/09/2011 Religion Section Worldwide Shofar FlashMob Video
EJewishPhilantrophy 20/09/2011 The Viral Shofar
Baltimore Jewish Times Weird News Alert: Shofar FlashMobs 20/09/2011
Israel National News - Arutz Sheva 18/09/2011Huffington Post 20/09/2011 Religion Section Worldwide Shofar FlashMob Video
Jerusalem Post - 18/09/2011 and earlier Jerusalem Post By Lahav Harkov 01/09/2011
Culture Shuk of the Foundation for Jewish Culture
JBlog Central - Israel Forum 18/09/2011
Broadway World Monday, September 12, 2011; Posted: 09:09 AM - by BWW News Desk
Szombat, Hungarian Jewish Weekly, Villamcsordulet Sofarral.
EJewishPhilantrophy September 12, 2011 eJP
Forward August 30, 2011, 2:49pm, Shofar Flash Mob Set for September 18 By Renee Ghert-Zand
JBlog Central 2011-09-11 10:37pm -07:00T
FaceShuk Sep 12 2011
Jerusalem BluePrint Top Stories, Worldwide Shofar FlashMob by: Blueprint Staff Monday Sep 12 2011
New York Blueprint Top Story Blue Scoop: Worldwide Shofar FlashMob by: Blueprint Staff Monday Sep 12 2011
EJewishPhilantrophy 20/09/2011 The Viral Shofar
Baltimore Jewish Times Weird News Alert: Shofar FlashMobs 20/09/2011
Israel National News - Arutz Sheva 18/09/2011Huffington Post 20/09/2011 Religion Section Worldwide Shofar FlashMob Video
Jerusalem Post - 18/09/2011 and earlier Jerusalem Post By Lahav Harkov 01/09/2011
Culture Shuk of the Foundation for Jewish Culture
JBlog Central - Israel Forum 18/09/2011
Broadway World Monday, September 12, 2011; Posted: 09:09 AM - by BWW News Desk
Szombat, Hungarian Jewish Weekly, Villamcsordulet Sofarral.
EJewishPhilantrophy September 12, 2011 eJP
Forward August 30, 2011, 2:49pm, Shofar Flash Mob Set for September 18 By Renee Ghert-Zand
JBlog Central 2011-09-11 10:37pm -07:00T
FaceShuk Sep 12 2011
Jerusalem BluePrint Top Stories, Worldwide Shofar FlashMob by: Blueprint Staff Monday Sep 12 2011
New York Blueprint Top Story Blue Scoop: Worldwide Shofar FlashMob by: Blueprint Staff Monday Sep 12 2011
Press Release
Art Kibbutz NYC Organizes
First-Ever Elul Shofar FlashMob
September 18, 2011
Global Event Features Synchronized Sounding of the Shofar
Creating a Blast Heard Around the World
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Shira Dicker (shira.dicker@sd-media.com)
Art Kibbutz NYC Organizes
First-Ever Elul Shofar FlashMob
September 18, 2011
September 14, 2011 (New York, NY) -- Art Kibbutz NYC announces a unique global project at the nexus of sound, spirit and technology.
On September 18th, the organization will host the greatest Shofar-blowing event since Sinai, a worldwide art performance that takes the Jewish tradition of sounding the Shofar daily during the Hebrew month of Elul (which precedes the Jewish High Holidays) and gives it a 21st century, postmodern twist.
Join a large group of artists and creative volunteers on September 18th who will blow the Shofar together at designated public spaces around the world for two minutes as a call for teshuvah (spiritual return). This is the first-ever FlashMob utilizing a Shofar. Each participating location will be synchronized with other FlashMob locations, globally.
This spiritual public art event will be documented and incorporated into a Rosh Hashana electronic greeting card, orchestrated by a composer. At press time, world-class musicians and artists are starting to join the project, so check the website (http://shofarflashmob.weebly.com) for new developments daily.
Traditionally a ram’s horn, the Shofar was used in Biblical times for many purposes, including announcing the new moon (thus the new month), to herald the commencement of the festivals and in battle. Today the Shofar is sounded at times of Jewish celebration such as Rosh Hashana (Jewish New Year) and during the holiest day of Yom Kippur.
The Shofar FlashMob is the first project of Art Kibbutz NYC. Founded this year by author and impresario Patricia Eszter Margit, Art Kibbutz NYC aims to be the home for stimulating, promoting and producing diverse, innovative, and pluralistic Jewish expression by creating an intentional community of talented international artists. “As our mission is to celebrate the 21st century Jewish experience -- connecting one community with another, creating a glorious and multifaceted global cultural tapestry -- I cannot think of a more exciting first event than a worldwide Shofar FlashMob.”
By bringing together different cultural contexts, the Shofar FlashMob provides the public and the artists with the chance to learn how to sound the Shofar as well as to ponder its very nature, she adds.
“What is the Shofar? Is it a musical instrument? A ritual object? A siren? A tool for creation? G-d’s sound on Sinai? A relic from ancient times? All of these above?”
András Böröcz, artistic director of the project adds, “the Shofar FlashMob also explores the places this primal tool could occupy in our contemporary, urban environment. Is it going to be funny, irritating, cool, spiritual, absurd, critical or deeply communal when hundreds blast their horns in a modernistic milieu?”
Art Kibbutz NYC’s Shofar FlashMob will take place on Sunday, September 18th. The central site is close to Manhattan’s Lincoln Center at 2:30 p.m. sharp. From this location, the participants will form a Shofar procession up Broadway to the JCC in Manhattan, at the corner of Amsterdam Avenue and 76th Street where programs will commence at 3:30…all related to the Shofar, including an experimental jazzy shofar blast and a free, Rosh Hashana themed concert with Sway Machinery. The September 18th event is just one component of the project, whose spiritual director is Rabbi Greg Wall of the Sixth Street Synagogue, Hasidic New Wave and other bands. Rabbi Wall is posting teachings about the month of Elul from an artistic and spiritual perspective via the project website, Twitter, Youtube and Facebook. The Elul Shofar FlashMob Twitter teachings are meant as an interactive function. Anyone is free to add their teachings and artwork by using the markers #ShofarFlashMob and @ArtKibbutzNY.
For further information about Art Kibbutz NYCs Elul Shofar FlashMob, to participate or to suggest a location, please visit http://shofarflashmob.weebly.com.
There are specific instructions if you wish to participate in the 2:30 Shofar Flash Mob close to Lincoln Center or at 3:30pm at the JCC in Manhattan so please visit http://shofarflashmob.weebly.com. In addition to Manhattan, there are various other sites around New York City…as well as globally, including San Francisco (California), Budapest (Hungary), Tbilisi (Georgia), Tulsa (Oklahoma), Kiev (Ukraine), St-Louis (Missouri), Brooklyn & Chinatown (NYC) and Jerusalem (Israel).
MEMBERS OF THE PRESS: contact Shira Dicker at shira.dicker@sd-media.com or 917.403.3989. Please visit http://www.artkibbutz.org/.
Featured artists:
Saxophonist Rabbi Greg Wall has performed and recorded with Hasidic New Wave, Greg Wall Trio, The Wall/London Band, Neshama Carlebach, the Hi-Tops, Greg Wall's Unity Orchestra, Greg Wall’s Later Prophets, Ayn Sof Arkestra, Jazz Talmud Quartet, and has made many session appearances for record dates and film scores. His compositions for dance, jazz orchestra, and electronica have been widely performed and recorded. Greg performs frequently at top venues throughout North America and Europe and has been featured at many major festivals. Greg is equally fluent in the jazz and world music idioms and recently premiered his Unity Orchestra, a pan cultural ensemble featuring 8 musicians from 5 continents. He is the rabbi of the Sixth Street Synagogue and the spiritual leader of the Shofar FlashMob.
The Shofar FlashMob is visually directed by András Böröcz, founder of two non-profits, Alma on Dobbin, NYC and 2B Galley in Budapest. He is a Brooklyn-based artist working in numerous mediums, in sculpture, drawing, installation, multi-media performance and book arts. Böröcz’s artwork addresses personal history through the boundaries between objects of daily life and art. He also creates works based on Jewish themes & Judaica, such as his version of Purim noisemakers or his more recent installation of suspended Torah pointers or Yads. Böröcz frequently collaborates with musicians, architects, writers and artists. He has exhibited extensively throughout Europe, the US and in South Africa, and is included in numerous institutional and private collections internationally.
The Sway Machinery -a Brooklyn-based collective that performs a cosmopolitan amalgam inspired by ancient Jewish Cantorial music, blues, afro-beat and rock - will give a free Rosh-Hashana themed concert for Art Kibbutz NYC at the JCC in Manhattan. Their new album, which features Timbuktu vocal superstar Khaira Arby, builds on the success of Sway Machinery's previous recording Hidden Melodies Revealed that garnered critical praise from the Village Voice, SPIN and Very Short List, among others. The Sway Machinery consists of Lockwood (guitar and vocals, Balkan Beat Box), and some members of AntiBalas, also known from the Fela! musical on Broadway.
Further artists include: HaOrot, Jake Marmer (Mimaakim), Evan Kleinman (Punk Jews).
About Art Kibbutz NYC
There are more than 1,000 artists colonies in the world today, but none of them are Jewish. African, Indian or feminist artist groups have their own communities, but only since New York City has become a safe haven for artists to explore and celebrate what it means to be a Jewishly oriented artist in the 21st century did the need arise for a Jewish artistic community.
Much of the work that has had a profound impact on contemporary culture has been nurtured in famous artist colonies by Jewish artists such as Mark Rothko, Etgar Keret, Gary Steingart, Michael Chabon, Philip Glass, Roy Lichtenstein, Helene Aylon, Bernard Malamud, Phillip Roth, Bob Dylan, Woody Allen, Larry Rivers, and Jonathan Safran Foer. Imagine what might have happened at a Jewish residency with all of those acclaimed Jewish artists.
Imagine a community where an award-winning Russian fiction writer is creating his next historical bestseller; an Argentinean sculptor is constructing a natural statue inspired in collaboration with a Jewish environmental organization; an Indian-American painter is creating blue angels based on Biblical stories; a Yemenite composer is collaborating with an Israeli modern dance group on a new composition based on Kabbalah; an American filmmaker is working with a major Jewish human rights and social justice organization on filming Jewish responses to hunger. While the Shofar FlashMob will provide a first encounter with the Shofar and the month of Elul, Art Kibbutz NYC intends to create more in-depth residency experiences for artists to explore and develop serious productions related to Jewish themes of interest.
In an economy where not only emerging artists, but often even accomplished artists are unable to make ends meet, Art Kibbutz NYC can offer a solution to the most expensive part of the creative process. A home, where Jewish arts organizations can bring their outstanding artists on retreats and place more emphasis on bringing them together in community. An environment, where emerging local artists can exchange experiences with internationally known masters, where advanced and beginner, young and old, religious and secular artists of various disciplines engage in dialogue about the most relevant issues of our times.
About FlashMobs
A flash mob is a group of people who mobilize on short notice to perform a collective action. Howard Rheingold, in his 2002 book, dubbed them "smart mobs," noting that they "consist of people who are able to act in concert even if they don’t know each other.
First-Ever Elul Shofar FlashMob
September 18, 2011
Global Event Features Synchronized Sounding of the Shofar
Creating a Blast Heard Around the World
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Shira Dicker (shira.dicker@sd-media.com)
Art Kibbutz NYC Organizes
First-Ever Elul Shofar FlashMob
September 18, 2011
September 14, 2011 (New York, NY) -- Art Kibbutz NYC announces a unique global project at the nexus of sound, spirit and technology.
On September 18th, the organization will host the greatest Shofar-blowing event since Sinai, a worldwide art performance that takes the Jewish tradition of sounding the Shofar daily during the Hebrew month of Elul (which precedes the Jewish High Holidays) and gives it a 21st century, postmodern twist.
Join a large group of artists and creative volunteers on September 18th who will blow the Shofar together at designated public spaces around the world for two minutes as a call for teshuvah (spiritual return). This is the first-ever FlashMob utilizing a Shofar. Each participating location will be synchronized with other FlashMob locations, globally.
This spiritual public art event will be documented and incorporated into a Rosh Hashana electronic greeting card, orchestrated by a composer. At press time, world-class musicians and artists are starting to join the project, so check the website (http://shofarflashmob.weebly.com) for new developments daily.
Traditionally a ram’s horn, the Shofar was used in Biblical times for many purposes, including announcing the new moon (thus the new month), to herald the commencement of the festivals and in battle. Today the Shofar is sounded at times of Jewish celebration such as Rosh Hashana (Jewish New Year) and during the holiest day of Yom Kippur.
The Shofar FlashMob is the first project of Art Kibbutz NYC. Founded this year by author and impresario Patricia Eszter Margit, Art Kibbutz NYC aims to be the home for stimulating, promoting and producing diverse, innovative, and pluralistic Jewish expression by creating an intentional community of talented international artists. “As our mission is to celebrate the 21st century Jewish experience -- connecting one community with another, creating a glorious and multifaceted global cultural tapestry -- I cannot think of a more exciting first event than a worldwide Shofar FlashMob.”
By bringing together different cultural contexts, the Shofar FlashMob provides the public and the artists with the chance to learn how to sound the Shofar as well as to ponder its very nature, she adds.
“What is the Shofar? Is it a musical instrument? A ritual object? A siren? A tool for creation? G-d’s sound on Sinai? A relic from ancient times? All of these above?”
András Böröcz, artistic director of the project adds, “the Shofar FlashMob also explores the places this primal tool could occupy in our contemporary, urban environment. Is it going to be funny, irritating, cool, spiritual, absurd, critical or deeply communal when hundreds blast their horns in a modernistic milieu?”
Art Kibbutz NYC’s Shofar FlashMob will take place on Sunday, September 18th. The central site is close to Manhattan’s Lincoln Center at 2:30 p.m. sharp. From this location, the participants will form a Shofar procession up Broadway to the JCC in Manhattan, at the corner of Amsterdam Avenue and 76th Street where programs will commence at 3:30…all related to the Shofar, including an experimental jazzy shofar blast and a free, Rosh Hashana themed concert with Sway Machinery. The September 18th event is just one component of the project, whose spiritual director is Rabbi Greg Wall of the Sixth Street Synagogue, Hasidic New Wave and other bands. Rabbi Wall is posting teachings about the month of Elul from an artistic and spiritual perspective via the project website, Twitter, Youtube and Facebook. The Elul Shofar FlashMob Twitter teachings are meant as an interactive function. Anyone is free to add their teachings and artwork by using the markers #ShofarFlashMob and @ArtKibbutzNY.
For further information about Art Kibbutz NYCs Elul Shofar FlashMob, to participate or to suggest a location, please visit http://shofarflashmob.weebly.com.
There are specific instructions if you wish to participate in the 2:30 Shofar Flash Mob close to Lincoln Center or at 3:30pm at the JCC in Manhattan so please visit http://shofarflashmob.weebly.com. In addition to Manhattan, there are various other sites around New York City…as well as globally, including San Francisco (California), Budapest (Hungary), Tbilisi (Georgia), Tulsa (Oklahoma), Kiev (Ukraine), St-Louis (Missouri), Brooklyn & Chinatown (NYC) and Jerusalem (Israel).
MEMBERS OF THE PRESS: contact Shira Dicker at shira.dicker@sd-media.com or 917.403.3989. Please visit http://www.artkibbutz.org/.
Featured artists:
Saxophonist Rabbi Greg Wall has performed and recorded with Hasidic New Wave, Greg Wall Trio, The Wall/London Band, Neshama Carlebach, the Hi-Tops, Greg Wall's Unity Orchestra, Greg Wall’s Later Prophets, Ayn Sof Arkestra, Jazz Talmud Quartet, and has made many session appearances for record dates and film scores. His compositions for dance, jazz orchestra, and electronica have been widely performed and recorded. Greg performs frequently at top venues throughout North America and Europe and has been featured at many major festivals. Greg is equally fluent in the jazz and world music idioms and recently premiered his Unity Orchestra, a pan cultural ensemble featuring 8 musicians from 5 continents. He is the rabbi of the Sixth Street Synagogue and the spiritual leader of the Shofar FlashMob.
The Shofar FlashMob is visually directed by András Böröcz, founder of two non-profits, Alma on Dobbin, NYC and 2B Galley in Budapest. He is a Brooklyn-based artist working in numerous mediums, in sculpture, drawing, installation, multi-media performance and book arts. Böröcz’s artwork addresses personal history through the boundaries between objects of daily life and art. He also creates works based on Jewish themes & Judaica, such as his version of Purim noisemakers or his more recent installation of suspended Torah pointers or Yads. Böröcz frequently collaborates with musicians, architects, writers and artists. He has exhibited extensively throughout Europe, the US and in South Africa, and is included in numerous institutional and private collections internationally.
The Sway Machinery -a Brooklyn-based collective that performs a cosmopolitan amalgam inspired by ancient Jewish Cantorial music, blues, afro-beat and rock - will give a free Rosh-Hashana themed concert for Art Kibbutz NYC at the JCC in Manhattan. Their new album, which features Timbuktu vocal superstar Khaira Arby, builds on the success of Sway Machinery's previous recording Hidden Melodies Revealed that garnered critical praise from the Village Voice, SPIN and Very Short List, among others. The Sway Machinery consists of Lockwood (guitar and vocals, Balkan Beat Box), and some members of AntiBalas, also known from the Fela! musical on Broadway.
Further artists include: HaOrot, Jake Marmer (Mimaakim), Evan Kleinman (Punk Jews).
About Art Kibbutz NYC
There are more than 1,000 artists colonies in the world today, but none of them are Jewish. African, Indian or feminist artist groups have their own communities, but only since New York City has become a safe haven for artists to explore and celebrate what it means to be a Jewishly oriented artist in the 21st century did the need arise for a Jewish artistic community.
Much of the work that has had a profound impact on contemporary culture has been nurtured in famous artist colonies by Jewish artists such as Mark Rothko, Etgar Keret, Gary Steingart, Michael Chabon, Philip Glass, Roy Lichtenstein, Helene Aylon, Bernard Malamud, Phillip Roth, Bob Dylan, Woody Allen, Larry Rivers, and Jonathan Safran Foer. Imagine what might have happened at a Jewish residency with all of those acclaimed Jewish artists.
Imagine a community where an award-winning Russian fiction writer is creating his next historical bestseller; an Argentinean sculptor is constructing a natural statue inspired in collaboration with a Jewish environmental organization; an Indian-American painter is creating blue angels based on Biblical stories; a Yemenite composer is collaborating with an Israeli modern dance group on a new composition based on Kabbalah; an American filmmaker is working with a major Jewish human rights and social justice organization on filming Jewish responses to hunger. While the Shofar FlashMob will provide a first encounter with the Shofar and the month of Elul, Art Kibbutz NYC intends to create more in-depth residency experiences for artists to explore and develop serious productions related to Jewish themes of interest.
In an economy where not only emerging artists, but often even accomplished artists are unable to make ends meet, Art Kibbutz NYC can offer a solution to the most expensive part of the creative process. A home, where Jewish arts organizations can bring their outstanding artists on retreats and place more emphasis on bringing them together in community. An environment, where emerging local artists can exchange experiences with internationally known masters, where advanced and beginner, young and old, religious and secular artists of various disciplines engage in dialogue about the most relevant issues of our times.
About FlashMobs
A flash mob is a group of people who mobilize on short notice to perform a collective action. Howard Rheingold, in his 2002 book, dubbed them "smart mobs," noting that they "consist of people who are able to act in concert even if they don’t know each other.
