FORMATION
Sculpture and Installation

A visual exploration of the primary entities, “Mother letters”, which Jewish mysticism holds as the syntax of the universe; giving birth to all form and matter and making the ephemeral embodied.

“Three Mothers, Alef-Mem-Shin—In the World are Air, Water, Fire. The heavens were created first from Fire, and the earth is created from Water, and the Air decides between the fire and the water.”

Sefer Yetzirah

The G.O.A.T.
Music and Theater

THE G.O.A.T. is a series of theatrical hip hop songs and monologues that explore the act of creation - the impulse to fill a blank page with the swirling thoughts of our existence, the ego it demands, and the wake it leaves behind.

“... everything that has been formed and everything that will be formed … carved with voice, hewn with breath, fixed in the mouth …”

Sefer Yetzirah

GALGAL
Dance

With this piece I ask: what deeper dimensions might we access by embodying this wisdom through dance?

We explore multiplicity within unity and unity within multiplicity — a core Judaic principle manifest as letter forms all the way down. We conjure the characters of the mother letters א מ ש in our bodies to feel the truth of all the cosmos existing within us and our existence as one with all the cosmos.

“And so it is that all creation and all speech emerges from one name.”

Sefer Yetzirah

YOUR NAME IN THREE VERSIONS
Monologue

Kevin Smokler has a first name from one part of the world and a last name from thousands of miles away. He looked into their history and how they merged to become his own.

"In the Temple, one says the name as it is written and in the city with a nickname.”

Mishnash Sotah 7:6

DAVAR
Painting

DAVAR explores the power of name, word, and letter as the structural core of creation and manifestation.

The title comes from the Hebrew Davar (דָּבָר), a term that means both "word" and "thing" without distinguishing between the two. It reflects a conception of language embedded in the Jewish people's story of creation, in which the world originates through speech

“Twenty-two letters: (G-d) carved them, hewed them, weighed them, exchanged them, combined them, and formed them the being of everything- everything that has been formed and everything that will be formed.”

Sefer Yetzirah

Through a series of paintings I explored this dynamic relationship between creation and limitation.

FIELD NOTES FROM A LESBIAN RABBI AT A CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY
Monologue

I consider how being a rabbi in this day and age has meant something new for me in these last lonely years situated in a Catholic university. Over the last near decade, I have come to recognize Jewish blessings and particularly heart- wrenching challenges I could never have imaged were possible in this time in history.

“When I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?”

“I Will Be What I Will Be.”

Genesis

RIVER and reflection
Film

A short film screening with an accompanying zine in development that reflects on the transformative power of names.

“God said to Abraham, ‘As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. And I will bless her…”

Genesis

I can walk beside You in company
Dance

“They said to him: ‘This human,what is his nature?’ He said to them: ‘His wisdom is greater than yours.’ “

Bereshit Rabbah 17:4