Arts Fellowship 2009 - 2010

 

Read more about the Arts Fellowship Program. Read highlights from 2011-12, 2010-11, 2008-9, 2007-8, 2006-7
Download Arts Fellowship Application


The end of year presentation for 2009-10, A Letter Unread, was held at Drisha Institute on Sunday, May 16, 2010. The majority of works presented were inspired by a text they studied in the Artists' Beit Midrash this year- Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Berakhot 55a. Information about this text can be found on pages 2 and 3 of the program (click here). Audience members were treated to live performances of musical theater and storytelling, short stories and poetry. They were guided through the classrooms to see exhibits of new art work and listen as artists discussed their work and its relationship to selected texts.

 Click here to view the program.

 

 About the Artists  

Trisha Arlin received a BA in Theater from Antioch College in 1975 and MFA in Film (Screenwriting) in 1997 from Columbia University School of the Arts.  As a playwright in Seattle in the ‘70s and early eighties, Trisha had readings, workshops and productions at various theaters. In 1984, she moved to New York City, in large part to find her way back to her Jewishness and then to Judaism.  Trisha now works as a freelance writer and editor. In 1998, Trisha found her community, Kolot Chayeinu/Voices of our Lives in Brooklyn NY. She edits their journal, VOICES.  From 2003 to 2005, she wrote and performed her one-woman show, THINGS I HAVE BELIEVED IN, directed by Arthur Strimling. 

 

Rena Bannett, a visual artist, is a graduate of the Drisha Scholars Circle and currently studies in Yeshivat Maharat. She holds degrees in Biochemistry and Physiology from Bar Ilan University and has worked as an educator and consultant in various aspects of education including art, biology, Hebrew language, Judaic studies, and library and research skills. She worked as a media specialist at Rabbi Pesach Raymon Yeshiva (RPRY) and as a coach for drawing and painting at the Academy of Art of Highland Park. While at RPRY, she developed a library curriculum to complement the students' classroom learning for both Judaic and General Studies, served as the coordinator of the Binat HaLev Committee, a grass-roots group dedicated to improving social and emotional intelligence skills in staff and students, as well as developed programs for students to make theme oriented group art. She works with a variety of media: works on paper and canvas including pencil, ink, watercolor, oil and collage, relief type works in paperboard, fabric, ceramic and metal. Rena has also constructed silver jewelry in a variety of Judaic and abstract designs and has a line of silver, button and paper jewelry.

 

Nicole Fix is a second year arts fellow at Drisha.  Her fiction has appeared in print and online journals and is featured in the current issue of Post Road Magazine.  She was awarded a fellowship from Summer Literary Seminars and is a grant recipient of the Elizabeth George Foundation.  She is the founding editor of HALLPASS, a new print and online literary journal, scheduled to launch late 2010.  Nicole holds a BFA from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and an MFA from the Yale School of Drama.  She is presently working to complete her first novel.

 

 

Tanya Fredman is an artist, world traveler, teacher, African and ballet dancer, and perpetual student.  Originally from St. Louis, MO, Tanya graduated Brandeis University summa cum laude with a degree in Studio Art in 2008.  In 2008-2009 she worked as an art educator at the Yemin Orde Youth Village in Israel and the Agahozo Shalom Youth Village in Rwanda. Tanya seeks to share the tremendous power of art as a form of expression and as a tool in uniting communities.  Her medium of choice is oil paint and through her expressive, vibrant portraits she aims to explore the depths of humanity and diversity of experiences through the stories of individuals.  She is also a community artist, and has directed public art projects in Massachusetts, New York, Israel, and Rwanda.  In addition to learning at Drisha as an arts fellow this year, Tanya teaches at the Abraham Joshua Heschel High School where she is the Edy Rauch Memorial Artist-in-Residence. 

 

Adina Gerver, a freelance writer and editor, is a member of the Drisha Institute's Scholars Circle. She spent 2008-2009 studying at the Pardes Institute and the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem and previously served as assistant director of the Skirball Center for Adult Jewish Learning and program officer at the Covenant Foundation. Adina enjoys writing creative non-fiction about Jewish texts (especially as they intersection with contemporary social issues), mental health and prayer, and gender as a lens for exploring religious and ethnic identities. She has a B.A. in History and Women's Studies from Harvard University, and has previously studied at Midreshet Lindenbaum and Yeshivat Hadar.

 

Michal Hutler-Silver was born in Los Angeles. She is completing a Masters in Liberal Studies from Brooklyn College and studied photography at NYU. She has shown her series 'The Rabbis' at the International Center for Photography in 2004. 'Fairytales' NYU, 2005.  'Submissions', NYU, 2005. 'Kaporot' (Video Installation), Storefront Forefront, 2005. 'Veils', NYU, 2006. 'Jewish Women  Etz Jacob Congregation, LA, 2008, BU, 2009 and 2010, UCLA. She published 'Women and Hair Covering' in 2009.

 

Sara Levi is a visual artist and art educator. In 2007, she graduated from JMU with a BFA in Graphic Design and Licensure in Art Education. She combined her love of art and identity exploration at the JCCNV where she used art to advertise, develop and teach Jewish outreach to multiple generations. Drisha's Art Fellowship provides an environment of discussion and critique which, Levi enjoys and uses to stimulate her personal artwork.

 

 

Bronwen Mullin received her BA from Sarah Lawrence College in 2006 with a concentration in Music/Theater and Judaic Studies. Bronwen's plays "There's Glass in the Sandbox" and "Tasting the Apple" have appeared in the Philadelphia Fringe Festivals of 2000 and 2001. Bronwen has composed original music for numerous theater pieces, including Axis Mundi (Downstage Theater), Speak Truth to Power (in collaboration with Pan Asian Repetertory director Ernest Abuba), Caryl Churchill's Fen and Vinegar Thom (Sarah Lawrence College), and The Mary Trilogy (Mir Productions). She is the author of three original One-Act musicals based on the poetry of Shel Silverstein (currently being developed for the New York Fringe Festival 2009). In 2005 Bronwen attended the Conservative Yeshiva of Israel where she studied Midrash and Aggadic literature. She is currently working on projects using theater and music as tools for the psychological exegesis of classical Jewish texts and stories.

 

Rachel Ravitz received her BA in Theater from the University of Massachusets in Amherst. She is a singer and an ordained maggidah (storyteller)in the lineage of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach. She developed and has presentedher one-woman show, *A Song of Ascents: A Spiritual Journey back to Judaism, throughout the country. She co-writes and performs original Jewish music both solo and with her husband, Matti, and they are currently recording a CD. Rachel is grateful and excited to be studying at Drisha Institute for Jewish Education. 

 

 

Emily Stern's poetry and song are imbued with a joyous and intense conceptual devotion. She is a graduate of The Stella Adler Studio of Acting, where she received her BFA from The Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. She is currently writing her first play. 

 

 

 

Miriam Waltz received her Masters of Architecture from Princeton University following undergraduate studies in architecture at Cambridge University and work at Studio Daniel Libeskind in New York. Her continuing research addresses the nature of the relationship between Inside and Outside and how this can inform meaningful interactions between form, materials, spaces, places, structures and people that create our built environments. She is fascinated with the concept of ‘Leftovers’: how can one exploit a wasteful situation and convert it into a fruitful one? How can one make the whole equal more than the sum of its parts?

 

 

 

For more information about applying to or supporting the program, please contact Lori Leifer, Arts Fellowship Coordinator.

 Download Arts Fellowship Application.

 

 Read more about the Arts Fellowship Program. Read highlights from 2011-12, 2010-11, 2008-9, 2007-8, 2006-7