The point of departure for the show were photographs, films and audio recordings documenting national ceremonies celebrated in Israel. The outcome was a diagnosis of a society living in fear of its safety, deliberating on its painful past and trying to build its present-day identity. The trademark of Winter Family are hallucinatory, musical shows successfully presented in galleries, clubs and at festivals all around the world.
‘Jerusalem Cast Lead’ why the title?
Because the names of the military operations are cinically poetic.The Israeli military operation in Gaza began in 2009 during Hanukkah, ‘cast lead’ is a phrase taken from a children song, sung for the jewish festivity. Also because Jerusalem is called ‘city of gold’, when for our eyes it’s more like a city of cast lead.
Winter FamilyA young woman from Jerusalem guides the public on a journey of sound, visuals and texts through the Israeli society. The pain, memory and courage are celebrated everywhere, the codes and symbols are stretched to exhaustion. The songs, speeches, dances and sirens are omnipresent from birth to death of individuals, who are taken hostage become actors in a dazzling and macabre collective hallucination and jump into a violent, national & sad whirlwind.Israel accelerates its desperate and futile headlong: the emotional dictatorship.
Winter Family repeat and translate the specific procedures used by the Israeli regime on its own population. Finally, and beyond the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Winter Family question the manipulation of individuals until their total blindness.
In 2008, while the simultaneous anniversaries of both the state of Israel and the 'reunification' of Jerusalem, the French-Israeli experimental music duo Winter Family recorded in Jerusalem the sound piece 'Jerusalem Syndrome' Commissioned by the national French radio ‘France Culture’ and broadcasted on May 2009. Ruth Rosenthal and Xavier Klaine then decided to develop and deepen the work by creating A documentary theater performance.
The premiere of the show was in Paris on June 2011 at the 104 as part of Impatience Festival (l'Odeon-Ataliers Berthier-104-Télérama). Winter Family won the prize of the jury for best show.
Winter Family
Ruth Rosenthal and Xavier Klaine met in 2004 in Jaffa, Israel. Ruth is an israeli artist, Xavier is a french musician. Winter Family propose musical shows successfully presented in galleries, clubs and at festivals all around the world. They published two albums. their sound creation was also the starting point of Jerusalem Cast Lead, which is their first stage performance. The artists filmed and recorded national ceremonies and celebrations in Israel in order to create the performance about, what they call, “emotional dictatorship”. songs, speeches, dances and sirens are omnipresent from birth to death of individuals, who are taken hostage become actors in a dazzling and macabre collective hallucination and jump into a violent, national & sad whirlwind. The show is an original combination of documentary theatre, choreography and installation, a diagnosis of society that accelerates its desperate and futile headlong: the emotional dictatorship.
original idea, recorded, directed & designed by: Winter Family (Rosenthal & Klaine) with Ruth Rosenthal
sound & video: Xavier Klaine
light design and technical director: Julienne Rochereau
sound engineer: Sébastien Tondo
additional voices: Yael Karavan & Jean-Baptiste Duchenne (version française), Tamar Cohen & Brian Gempp (english version)
artistic collaboration: Yael Perlman