“Dorfman, Kahan Collaboration Bears Emotionally Charged Fruit”

Carolyn Dorfman and company join forces with Norwegian, Jewish actress/vocalist, Bente Kahan in an evening of dance, music and theater that embraces the best of Dorfman and Kahan’s individual repertoires and cabaret-style intimacy and features their newest collaboration. SILENT ECHOES, is an integration of Dorfman’s tour de force, Cat’s Cradle, Kahan’s powerful one woman theater piece, Voices of Theresienstadt, new chorography, live music and text.They blur the lines between art forms as they continue their individual and collective explorations of their common heritage and vision.

Performing with CDDC, Kahan becomes the “weaver of tales” alternating between her own songbook of Ladino, Yiddish, English, German music and work from Dorfman’s own Jewish Legacy Project, where with depth, humor and reverence, she draws on history, philosophy, traditions, gestures, music and liturgy to create work that is honestly personal yet powerfully universal.

Consummate storytellers, they dip into the historical “cauldron” of faith, survival and renewal to reveal a celebrated body of work that honors their Eastern European Jewish heritage and reveals their inner worlds as children of survivors of the Holocaust.

“Together, they are creating works that are charged — emotionally and intellectually.Kahan’s rich, tender renderings mingled fear with hope, despair with a communal caring.”DAILY GAZETTE

“With those songs as the foundation, Dorfman, whose parents were survivors of the Holocaust, made plain Kahan’s undercurrent of sadness with unflinching tableaux — a woman caught in a snare, bodies collapsing after chores and cheery vaudevillian skits that ended by dropping dead. “DAILY GAZETTE

Full program details available upon request

Bente Kahan was born in Oslo, Norway in 1958, trained as an actor in Tel-Aviv and New York and began her career in the classical theatres of Habima, Israel’s national theatre, and Nationaltheatret in Norway. In 1990, she founded Teater Dybbuk – Oslo whose aim is to convey Jewish-European culture and history through drama and music. In addition to full-scale works, Ms. Kahan often appears alone with her guitar or collaborates with European klezmer bands such as Gjertrud’s Gypsy Orchestra (Norway), Di Gojim (The Netherlands), Jowel Klezmorim (Germany), Sabbath Hela Veckan (Sweden) and Chudoba (Poland). Bente Kahan tours internationally and is repeatedly called upon to perform in connection with official commemorations paying homage to the victims of the Holocaust. Her work unfailingly receives critical praise by newspapers and audiences alike. Ms. Kahan is a major force in the cultural and Jewish communities of Wrøcław, Poland. The FBK foundation she established in 2006 aims to present Jewish culture and history to a large audience primarily in Wrøcław and Lower Silesia, Poland, and to renovate and preserve Jewish heritage in the region. Its first major project is to complete the renovation of “The White Stork Synagogue” in Wrøcław, a historical building from 1829, which Ms. Kahan was appointed Director of in 2005. After renovation, the Synagogue will include a Jewish Museum devoted to the history of the Jews of Wrøcław and the preservation of the rich heritage of the city’s decimated Jewish community. The Wrøcław Center for Jewish Culture and Education, also located in the Synagogue and administrated by FBK, organizes cultural and educational events year around, serving as a house for learning and culture, a place for tolerance and understanding and existing as a vital Jewish heart in the middle of Europe. In 2006, Bente Kahan received the Wrøcław Mayor’s Prize for her work.