When Souls Stick is a contemporary Jewish folk tale exhibition of how non-conscious objects come to life through mystical encounters, making bonds through human attachments. In our tale, the Dybbuk (of air) Golem (of earth), Ziz (of wind) and Leviathan (the water) join in a familial affair, connected yet estranged, woven through the sharing of space. Through activated encounters, demons and angels appear.

Here and then exists simultaneously in the present as it is retold, rehearsed, reshaped. Through archiving Jewish folktales, studying incantation bowls and Jewish households from the Aramaic period to now, When Soul Stick collages and interprets Jewish history and mysticism to discuss the human impulse throughout time, to imbue matter with souls and purposes.

The audience was asked to engage and move through the installation, the workshops and performances, following the Anti-Zionist diasporic concept of Doikayt, translated from Yiddish as “hereness.”

Videos filmed by Parinda Mai, edited by Jess Bass, with production assistance by Julia González and Rob Sohmer.

Performances by Jasmine Lupe Mendoza Carrasco, Hannah Mira Friedland and Zachary Nicol, choreographed by Gabriel Chalfin-Piney

Workshops led by Rebecca Beachy, Adam Gottlieb, Lily Homer and Gabriel Chalfin-Piney

Ceramics by local ceramacist and  naturally dyed garments by Liz Mortensen of Laila Textiles