Dance: The Archive by Neta Pulvermacher

Leo Baeck Institute is proud to present the North American premiere of The Archive by Neta Pulvermacher.

The performances will take place February 24, 25, and 26 at the Center for Jewish History.

Doors open at 7:30 for an "Abendbrot" reception and viewing of artifacts. Performance begins at 8:00.

When the last person who remembers is gone, whole worlds disappear forever. Israeli/American artist, choreographer and performer Neta Pulvermacher situates her riveting one woman show, The Archive, inside this perforated post-memory landscape. Exploring her German-Jewish family history, she constructs a jarring, funny and deeply moving performative journey that follows the traces to Frankfurt and Berlin – once her family’s home.

Pulvermacher sifts through documents, old pictures, and personal artifacts, conjuring up fragmented narratives, voices, and characters that emerge briefly, only to fade back into oblivion. Through research and memory, she combines real and imagined sites and events, blurring the lines between past and present, battling the gradual disappearance of memories.

For a moment, this pursuit of traces materializes in the Great Hall of NYC’s Center for Jewish History, a place of remembrance itself. As Pulvermacher navigates this layered landscape, she invites the audience to join her as she attempts to reconstruct a lost world. Especially in times of crisis, the questions of memory and history and their significance for understanding our world(s) become relevant and urgent.

Originally commissioned as a site-specific work for a quartet of dancers at the Leo Baeck Institute Jerusalem, The Archive was reimagined as a one-woman show for the KFW Stiftung Villa 102 in Frankfurt Germany (March 2024) and the Suzanne Dellal Center in Tel Aviv (June 2024). Following this North American premiere at the Center for Jewish History, Pulvermacher invites the audience to an artist talk.

Made possible in part by support from the Arnhold family and Mary and Saul Sanders.
About the artist
Neta Pulvermacher is a choreographer, dancer, performer and Professor of Dance who was born in Kibbutz Lehavot Habashan, Israel. She graduated from Juilliard in 1985. She earned an M.A. in Dance and Dance Education from Teachers College/Columbia University and an MFA in Dance from Hollins University. She is a professor at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance and the artistic director of the JAMD Ensemble. She returned to Israel in 2013 after 31 years of living and working in New York, when she was invited to become the Dean of Dance at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance.

Host or Publisher Leo Baeck Institute and Widen the Circle