At times your laughter is abruptly cut by a serious chill in spoken word or movement and your emotions will pool trying to make sense of how you’re supposed to feel.   - Pittsburgh in the Round
                                                                                                                                               

Queer, Jewish is a collection of dances and stories on the intersection of Queer and Jewish identity in diaspora. Ella-Gabriel Mason and collaborators explore queer and feminist themes in Jewish sacred texts, use folklore to embrace real and ideal queer bodies, and re-formulate ritual to birth a new futurist aesthetic.

The 90-minute work includes:

• personal stories of growing up Jewish in a rural conservative Christian town
• an embodiment of Barbra Streisand as gay and Jewish icon
• queer, feminist re-tellings of the stories of Lillith, Lot's wife, and Jeptha's daughter
• a rebirthing ritual based on the mythology of the Golem

Original Cast and Collaborators

Direction and Choreography by Ella-Gabriel Mason
Dramaturgy by Olivia Devorah Tucker
Text by Olivia Devorah Tucker and Ella-Gabriel Mason
Performances by Ru Emmons, Sarah Friedlander, Harry J. Hawkins IV, Ella-Gabriel Mason, Olivia Devorah Tucker, and Amelia Reuss
Music by slowdanger, Abe Hollow, and slowgroan
Lighting Design by Paige Borak
Costumes by Claire Steiner and Ella-Gabriel Mason

Premiere at Carnegie Stage in Carnegie PA in August 2019
with support from Off the Wall Productions and the Heinz Endowments Small Arts Initiative

Rather than shirking diaspora and the more modern concept of Diasporism, Mason and creative collaborators [. . .] embrace and reconceptualize the intertwining, symbiotic relationship between queerness, Jewishness, and diasporic existence. By reconceiving myth, queer and feminist narratives in Jewish sacred texts, and the real and imagined paradigm in which queer bodies exist, Queer, Jewish seeks to create a “future aesthetic” that upholds a dynamic, non-static sense of identity.  - Pittsburgh in the Round

“Tradition is an intergenerational artistic process,” says Mason. “In every generation I think we get to decide how we contribute to that artistic process. We get to look at what has been handed down, see what serves us and improve on it, carry it forward, add new things to it and reinterpret it. I find that really exciting and I see this dance work as one small way I and my cast get to engage in that artistic process.” - Pittsburgh Current