National Yiddish Theatre - Folksbiene Presents GHETTO TANGO Today

Songwriters who defied the Nazi-Occupation, GHETTO TANGO, the theatrical concert of their collective music, to be presented Off Broadway by THE NATIONAL YIDDISH THEATRE - FOLKSBIENE and MUSEUM OF JEWISH HERITAGE today, MARCH 10.

The acclaimed musical chronology of occupied Europe's underground music culture, GHETTO TANGO features songs created and sung in the Ghetto cabarets of Nazi-occupied Europe to sustain its residents, will be seen in a one-performance only engagement Off Broadway, co-presented by The National Yiddish Theatre - Folksbiene and the Museum of Jewish Heritage, today, March 10, at 2:30pm, at the Museum of Jewish Heritage -- A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, 36 Battery Place.

This stirring concert, co-created by Zalmen Mlotek and the late Adrienne Cooper, is filled with songs of the theatres and cabarets that continued to thrive, against all odds, in the ghettos of Poland and Lithuania. The exclusive engagement commemorates the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

Joining Mlotek, the concert's music director and pianist, are two performers who represent the next generation of accomplished Yiddish performers -- Daniella Rabbani, and Avram Mlotek.

Zalmen Mlotek, Folksbiene's artistic director, says, "GHETTO TANGO is an exhilarating journey through the songs and music of spiritual resistance --songs sung in the camps, ghettos, and DP camps that helped to raise spirits, in that special way that music can. It brought sustenance, hope, and some relief in those terrible times. What's also special for me is hearing it now interpreted and performed by two vibrant young people in their 20's, which was the age of most of the composers and poets featured in GHETTO TANGO.'"

"Ghetto Tango" is based on Mlotek and Cooper's 2000 album. The songs themselves were passed down from hand to hand, committed to memory, and buried in milk cans in the Warsaw and Vilna Ghettos.

Reflecting diverse influences, the music is both rooted in European Jewish folk and liturgical traditions, and also in operetta, American ragtime, film, and tango. The themes range from satirical and elegiac, to political and personal, to angry and heartsick.

Tickets are $20, $15 for Museum and Folksbiene members, and $10 for students. Tickets are available online at www.mjhnyc.org or by calling the Museum box office at (646) 437-4202.

For more info visit: http://folksbiene.wix.com/ghetto-tango or www.nationalyiddishtheatre.org.

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