Art Kibbutz NYC announces a unique global project at the nexus of sound, spirit and technology.
Join a large group of artists and creative volunteers on September 18th who will blow the Shofar together at designated public spaces around the world for two minutes as a call for teshuvah (spiritual return). This is the first-ever FlashMob utilizing a Shofar. Each participating location will be synchronized with other FlashMob locations, globally.
This spiritual public art event will be documented and incorporated into a Rosh Hashana electronic greeting card, orchestrated by a composer. At press time, world-class musicians and artists are starting to join the project, so check the website (http://shofarflashmob.weebly.com) for new developments daily.By bringing together different cultural contexts, the Shofar FlashMob provides the public and the artists with the chance to learn how to sound the Shofar as well as to ponder its very nature, she adds.
"What is the Shofar? Is it a musical instrument? A ritual object? A siren? A tool for creation? G-d's sound on Sinai? A relic from ancient times? All of these above?"András Böröcz, artistic director of the project adds, "the Shofar FlashMob also explores the places this primal tool could occupy in our contemporary, urban environment. Is it going to be funny, irritating, cool, spiritual, absurd, critical or deeply communal when hundreds blast their horns in a modernistic milieu?"Art Kibbutz NYC's Shofar FlashMob will take place on Sunday, September 18th. The central site is Manhattan's Lincoln Center at 2:30 p.M. Sharp. From this location, the participants will form a Shofar procession up Broadway to the JCC in Manhattan, at the corner of Amsterdam Avenue and 76th Street where programs will commence at 3:30...all related to the Shofar. The September 18th event is just one component of the project, whose spiritual director is Rabbi Greg Wall of the Sixth Street Synagogue, Hasidic New Wave and other bands. Rabbi Wall is posting teachings about the month of Elul from an artistic and spiritual perspective via the project website, Twitter, Youtube and Facebook. The Elul Shofar FlashMob Twitter teachings are meant as an interactive function. Anyone is free to add their teachings and artwork by using the markers #ShofarFlashMob and @ArtKibbutzNY.For further information about Art Kibbutz NYCs Elul Shofar FlashMob, to participate or to suggest a location, please visit http://shofarflashmob.weebly.com.There are specific instructions if you wish to participate in the 2:30 Shofar Flash Mob at Lincoln Center or at 3:30pm at the JCC in Manhattan so please visit http://shofarflashmob.weebly.com. In addition to Manhattan, there are various other sites around New York City...as well as globally, including Budapest, Tbilisi, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oregon, Antwerp, Chicago, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Featured artists:Much of the work that has had a profound impact on contemporary culture has been nurtured in famous artist colonies by Jewish artists such as Mark Rothko, Etgar Keret, Gary Steingart, Michael Chabon, Philip Glass, Roy Lichtenstein, Helene Aylon, Bernard Malamud, Phillip Roth, Bob Dylan, Woody Allen, Larry Rivers, and Jonathan Safran Foer. Imagine what might have happened at a Jewish residency with all of those acclaimed Jewish artists.
Imagine a community where an award-winning Russian fiction writer is creating his next historical bestseller; an Argentinean sculptor is constructing a natural statue inspired in collaboration with a Jewish environmental organization; an Indian-American painter is creating blue angels based on Biblical stories; a Yemenite composer is collaborating with an Israeli Modern Dance Group on a new composition based on Kabbalah; an American filmmaker is working with a major Jewish human rights and social justice organization on filming Jewish responses to hunger. While the Shofar FlashMob will provide a first encounter with the Shofar and the month of Elul, Art Kibbutz NYC intends to create more in-depth residency experiences for artists to explore and develop serious productions related to Jewish themes of interest.
In an economy where not only emerging artists, but often even accomplished artists are unable to make ends meet, Art Kibbutz NYC can offer a solution to the most expensive part of the creative process. A home, where Jewish arts organizations can bring their outstanding artists on retreats and place more emphasis on bringing them together in community. An environment, where emerging local artists can exchange experiences with internationally known masters, where advanced and beginner, young and old, religious and secular artists of various disciplines engage in dialogue about the most relevant issues of our times. About FlashMobsVideos