Jesters and Gestures: Performing Yiddish Culture from Silent Cinema to Avant-Garde Film presents West and East: A Film-Translation, a performance by by Sala-Manca Group :: November 16, 2009; 7:30 pm :: PFA Theater, 2575 Bancroft Way, Berkeley, CA.

This live performance and video by Argentinian-born, Jerusalem-based artists the Sala-Manca Group is an homage to Sidney Goldin and Ivan Abramson’s East and West and a study in cultural and linguistic translation. It tells the story of Yaakov, an Orthodox Jewish graffiti writer who travels to Vienna. Suspected of subversive activities, he is pursued by Moly, an agent of the Israeli intelligence service, who disguises herself as a young Orthodox man. The pair “unexpectedly” fall in love, forcing them to rethink their duties to their religion and to the state. West and East translates the comic subversiveness of Goldin and Abramson’s film to the contemporary moment. Sala-Manca’s work — performance pieces, installations, and print publications — “investigates issues of art and communication generally, such as the interrelation of art and memory, the role of the artist in the community, the interrelation of low-tech and high-tech aesthetics, and the poetics of translation — not only from one language to another, but also across cultures and media” (Jeffrey Shandler, Rutgers University).

Music by Yarden Erez. (Total program time: c. 60 mins, Video with live performance). Produced by Rites Institute - Vienna, the Center for Contemporary Art - Tel Aviv and Sala-Manca Group.