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Statement
of Significance Project History The first incarnation of Awake Zion was a research paper in graduate school at NYU. Exploring the black hermeneutics of the Old Testament, I started to research Rastafarian practices and found curious similarities between Rasta "livity" (lifestyle) and certain orthodox Jewish rituals. During the search-almost inadvertently-I encountered and began to document a distinctive musical culture: where Jewish liturgy was being played in a reggae style; where traditional Jewish klezmer and Jamaican ska were fused; where an album such as Reggae Passover exists, and the Sukkah Jam is an annual event. Within my graduate career courses in ethnomusicology, music criticism and cultural writing became forums where I could experiment with these ideas, which seemed to teeter between musical ethnography and some sort of cultural gonzo journalism. Attending dub sessions, sound clashes, dancehall concerts and live band shows in New York, I've tapped myself into the scene as a regular, and my personal immersion into the different reggae scenes in New York allowed me to spend concerted time with the various players to understand differences, subtleties, modes of conduct-the culture of the music. Throughout the history of the project, my artistic goal has been to open up a dialogue about two worlds that would not ordinarily be a part of one concentric discussion; to look at the different layers and possibilities of relationships in the historical fabric of both cultures; to look at what happens when their symbols are shared, and to tell the story of such a sharing through the music. I immediately began to see that coverage of reggae would be best appreciated in the context of the sensory experience that the music creates, and decided that the documentary medium could intensify the listening, more alive and illustrative than words on paper alone. Two years later, after traveling from the Sierra Nevada Mountains to Manhattan, Ithaca, New Brunswick, Newton, Westchester and Los Angeles, following musicians who somehow spoke to the Jewish-reggae connection, I edited a 45-minute version, which has been screened as a work-in-progress locally in New York. I also found myself in the unique and unlikely position of hosting Jewish-flavored-Jamaican-style sound system events…a flavor, it seemed, people were curious about. Since Awake Zion's first preview screenings in New York in the fall of 2003, interest has come from, the International Black Film Festival, the Blackfilm.com Documentary Series, the Beta Israel of North America Film Festival, the Miami Jewish Film Festival, the Boston Jewish Film Festival, The San Diego Jewish Film Festival, The Hong Kong Jewish Film Festival, and an upcoming international film festival called "Exodus: Films of the Black and Jewish Diasporas." The documentary was officially invited to screen as a work-in-progress the Museum of Science in Miami (March 2004), at the Washington DC Jewish Film Festival (April 2004) and at the Montreal Jewish Film Festival (May 2004). Awake Zion recently received the Honorable Mention for Documentary Short at the Black Point Film Festival in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin (April 2004). This summer, Awake Zion will also be screened as a work-in-progress at the 2004 San Francisco Jewish Film Festival and later this fall at The Brooklyn Public Library. Awake Zion recently traveled to Israel and Jamaica, fundamental destinations in this study (each for its own reason) that give the project and journey a profound culmination: a sense of roots. Footage from both trips will be incorporated into the working cut, with the goal of expanding Awake Zion to feature length by the fall of 2004. |
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