“Onions & Mushrooms” A Dancer’s Story
SPEAKER: Jennifer Gwirtz
“Onions & Mushrooms” A Dancer’s Story
SPEAKER: Jennifer Gwirtz
“Onions & Mushrooms” is a new work-in-progress for the stage that explores Jewish memory, layers and the marginalized bodies of older women. As a dancer over fifty-five, who is directing a cast that is also older, one of the most interesting parts of this process have been to explore the beauty, possibilities and challenges of elder female dancing bodies in a Jewish context. This talk will also include a video presentation.
Registration required.
$5 admission, or free for members. Members, watch your email inbox for your special promo code to claim your free tickets.
For accommodation related to a disability please contact Anya Ballinger at education@bentoncountymuseums.org
If you are interested in sponsoring a future lecture series at the museum, please contact Brenna Destito Chapman at development@bentoncountymuseums.org
About the presenter
Jennifer Gwirtz is a dance artist, performer, director and educator living in Portland, Oregon, who has been making and directing performance for more than two decades.
The daughter of two Philadelphia area vocal music teachers who attended Jewish day school until her late teens, Jennifer rebelled and became a dancer. She earned her MFA from San Francisco Art Institute and became part of the Bay Area art and performance scene for two decades. In the 1990s she created theatrical, movement-based experiments that challenged assumptions about performance, performing nationally and internationally. She co-founded/directed Right Brain Performancelab, a genre-straddling hybrid performance troupe that performed from 1999 until 2017. Since arriving in Portland in 2016 she has begun to reexamine her Jewish identity in her work. Her groundbreaking performance, “Kol b’Isha/Voice Within Woman,” premiered at Portland’s Performance Works Northwest in 2022.
