Event
15.12.2024

The Landscape of Opatów. Female Voices / Di landszaft fun Apt. Di kojles fun di frojen

We invite you to an event at the intersection of art, activism and performance, in which two Jewish artists, Maria Ka and Betty Q, reveal the herstories of women from pre-war Opatów. The performative action accompanying the exhibition "(post)JEWISH… Shtetl Opatów Through the Eyes of Mayer Kirshenblatt" reclaims Yiddish language as a natural element of everyday life in the shtetl of Opatów and situates it as a modern means of communication and artistic expression.

What role do female figures play in Mayer Kirshenblatt’s visual narrative? How can the perspective of the women of Opatów resonate through the expressions of contemporary Jewish female artists? Can a language—often associated exclusively with the past in general consciousness—become a medium for connecting contemporary audiences with the history of the pre-war community? What meanings do painting and still images carry, and what does the motion that unfolds in relation to them signify?

Two artists, Betty Q and Maria Ka, will invite a group of people interested in exploring Yiddish, music, and working with the body to join them in creating a two-part experimental artistic expression within the exhibition space. The project will consist of two études—one choreographic and one musical. Betty Q is a burlesque performer, choreographer, and feminist activist; Maria Ka is a composer, lyricist, and singer who works in the aesthetics of electropop and punk. The first will develop the choreographic layer, focusing on the individual and collective body in relation to Kirshenblatt’s paintings and the exhibition’s architecture. The second will create the musical layer and Yiddish texts inspired by the female figures featured in the exhibition.

The team behind the project Landscape of Opatów. The Voices of Women / Di landshaft fun apt. Di koyles fun di froyen / די לאַנדשאַפֿט פֿון אַפּט. די קולות פֿון די פֿרויען:

Maria Ka – a lyricist, composer, vocalist, and pianist who creates original Yiddish music. She is a three-time audience award winner at the ‘Bubbe Awards’ contest in Brazil. Her work fuses Yiddish with alternative, electro, punk, and electropop genres. Maria integrates women’s stories and perspectives into the main historical narrative. She has performed at major Jewish culture festivals in Poland and worldwide. Her albums were reviewed in, i.a., The Times of Israel, The Forward and Tablet. Maria graduated in Jewish Studies and psychology from the Jagiellonian University. 

Betty Q – graduated from the Pedagogy Department, specializing in socio-cultural animation (University of Warsaw, 2010). She is a performer and pioneer of Polish burlesque, choreographer, and feminist. She directed a project of performative reading entitled Bez Okładek (Without Covers). She was a resident artist at Berlin's Jews! Jews! Jews! Cabaret of MinoriTEASE (and a winner of 2024 Berlin Club Commission Award). Betty is a former Polish Director of the Education Department at the Sochnut (Jewish Agency). She also completed Jewish educational leadership programs: Minyanim and Tarbut Fellowship.

Performing:

  • Betty Q, Maria Ka, Elżbieta Balano, Barbara Baranowska, Małgorzata Berwid, Katarzyna Górska, Urszula Iwińska, Irena Klein, Jolanta Nałęcz-Jawecka, Justyna Orlińska, Katarzyna Pawluk, Edyta Pawłowska,  Dagmara Siwczyk, Alicja Wasiak, Agnieszka Witkowska.

Ewa Chomicka – curator, POLIN Museum.

Alicja Kaczmarek-Poławska – producer, POLIN Museum.