Black Ox Orkestar
Black Ox Orkestar was a quartet of musicians from Montreal, Quebec who played European Jewish folk music.
Black Ox Orkestar | |
---|---|
Origin | Montreal, Quebec, Canada |
Years active | 2000–2005 |
Labels | Constellation Records (Canada) |
Members | Thierry Amar Scott Levine Gilmore Gabriel Levine Jessica Moss |
History
They formed in the summer of 2000 to explore their common Jewish heritage through music, which was entirely acoustic and sung in Yiddish.[1] Constellation Records released their first album, Ver Tanzt?, in 2004.[2][3] They played their last show in 2005.[4] Their final album, Nisht Azoy, was released in 2006 and recorded in Montreal's Hotel2Tango studio)[5][6]
Following the band's break-up, Thierry Amar (contrabass) joined Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band. Scott Levine Gilmore (vocals, cymbalom, guitar, mandolin, saz, violin, percussion) joined Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band and Land of Kush (with composer Sam Shalabi). He played in Luftmentsch Fareyn (with Josh Dolgin, and was a founding member of Le Petit Théâtre de l'Absolu, a puppet theatre that toured through Israel and the West Bank in 2003. Gabriel Levine (clarinet, guitar) played in Sackville, and Land of Kush and the Wild Lawns. He worked in Vermont for the Bread and Puppet Theater, and was a co-founder of Le Petit Théâtre de l'Absolu. Jessica Moss (violin) plays in Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band, and has played with Broken Social Scene.
Discography
- Ver Tanzt? (Constellation Records, 2004)
- Nisht Azoy (Constellation Records, 2006)
Le Petit Théâtre de l'Absolu
Le Petit Théâtre de l'Absolu was a Puppetry theater troupe founded in Montreal, and active from 2001 to 2005.[7] It was co-founded by Gabriel Levine and Scott Levine Gilmore of Black Ox Orkestar. The theater's work consisted of Toy theater shows based on revolutionary history, performed in Canada, the U.S., France, and Spain. Levine's work broadly departs from a recontextualization of traditional and vernacular forms of performance, reinventing and reimagining performance genres articulated via contemporary social concerns. Levine had previously worked in Vermont for the Bread and Puppet Theater in the late 1990s.
Early work includes Paris in the 19th Century Part 3: Demolition Polka and Part 4: La Commune. In 2001, Le Petit Theatre de L'Absolu performed at the Chicago Cultural Center as part of Puppetropolis,[8] a two-week, city-sponsored festival of puppet theater.[9]
In the autumn of 2003, the theatre toured their children's show, The Rooster and the King, through the occupied Palestinian territories, performing in schools, community centres, and refugee camps. This tour included a performance at the Palestinian National Theatre in Jerusalem as part of the 13th international Puppet Festival, in September 2005. The alt.theatre journal described their work as "activist puppet theatre ... using history to rekindle revolutionary flames and tackle contemporary social issues."[10]
Also in 2005, Le Petit Theatre de l’Absolu performed as part of the 7th Toy Theatre Festival, held at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn, New York. Steve Abrams writes that they performed "Birds of the Coming Storm, directed by Hermine Ortega, [which] offered stories of seven anarchist demonstrators in 19th-century Chicago who were executed for protesting factory working conditions."[11] Birds of the Coming Storm dealt with the events of Chicago's Haymarket affair.
References
- "Black Ox Orkestar". cstrecords.com. Constellation Records. Retrieved 2021-09-06.
- Davidow, Ari. "Black Ox Orkestar / Ver Tanzt?, May 2004". klezmershack.com. Klezmer Shack.
- Cober-Lake, Justin. "Black Ox Orkestar: Ver Tanzt?, June 2004". popmatters.com. PopMatters. Retrieved 2021-09-06.
- Margasak, Peter; Hopper, Jessica. "Silver Mt. Zion, Black Ox Orkestar". chicagoreader.com. Chicago Reader. Retrieved 2021-09-06.
- Shaul, Aaron. "Black Ox Orkestar Nisht Azoy". ink19.com. Ink 19 Magazine. Retrieved 2021-09-06.
- Funk, P. "Black Ox Orkestar Nisht Azoy". tinymixtapes.com. Tiny Mix Tapes. Retrieved 2021-09-06.
- "Le Petit Théâtre de l'Absolu". 27 August 2003.
- "Puppetropolis Chicago". chicagoreader.com. Chicago Reader. Retrieved 23 March 2022.
- Christiansen, Richard (16 June 2001). "Puppets on parade Hugo & Ines dazzle crowd with innovative imagery". Chicago Tribune. p. 5.2.
- Tembeck, Tamar (2003). "Bridging Art with Activism: In Conversation with Gabriel Levine of Le Petit Théâtre de l'Absolu". Alt.theatre. 2 (4): 6–7.
- Abrams, Steve (2005-07-01). "On Stage: Seventh Toy Theatre Festival". The Puppetry Journal. 56 (4): 17.