PREMIERED AT SPACE 124 AT PROJECT ARTAUD, SAN FRANCISCO, CA (2023)
CONCEPT:
Amy Lewis
TEXT:
Compiled and edited from list of references below
DIRECTION:
Dylan Russell
CHOREOGRAPHY:
Amy Lewis in collaboration with the dancers
WALTER BENJAMIN:
Tom Bleeker
GERSHOM SCHOLEM:
Allan Pleaner
DANCERS:
Derek DiMartini, Elijah Muñoz
ABOUT
No Form Other Than You, developed during a residency at SPACE 124, is a section of the project My Obsession with Hamletmachine. Heiner Müller refers to Walter Benjamin in Act 3 of Hamletmachine; in the stage directions he writes: “An angel, his face at the back of his head: Horatio.” This is a reference to Walter Benjamin’s Angel of History, described in his essay On the Concept of History. The research on Walter Benjamin, as part of the Hamletmachine project, led to an investigation into Benjamin’s friendship with Gershom Scholem. No Form Other Than You consists of text taken from their correspondence and Scholem’s writings about Benjamin and their friendship. Set with two actors and two dancers, No Form Other Than You places Benjamin and Scholem outside of the extraordinary work they are known for, and in the realm of the ordinary human dealing with real life problems.
REFERENCES
Benjamin, Walter. The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin, 1910-1940. University of Chicago Press, 1994.
Benjamin, Walter and Gershom Sholem. The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem, 1932-1940. 1st
American ed., Schoken Books, 1989.
Scholem, Gershom. On Jews and Judaism in Crisis. Schocken Books, 1987.
Scholem, Gershom. Walter Benjamin: The Story of a Friendship. Jewish Publication Society of America, c1981.
