Be transported through time and space when the Chutzpah! Festival (Nov. 1–10) offers a chance for their audience to say what they think without hurting any feelings.
Since 2001, the Chutzpah! Festival has showcased Jewish communities’ creative work – dance, music, theatre, and comedy – in every form. This celebration allows people in the Lower Mainland to get silly while delving into the cultural richness and realities of the Jewish communities, past and present.
Two performers featured among the various acts this year, include Ukrainian band Kommuna Lux and New York Times best-selling Canadian Yiddishist Michael Wex’s The Last Night at the Cabaret Yitesh.
From the streets of Odesa to the world stage
Kicking off the festival, Kommuna Lux takes the stage at The Pearl on Granville Street on Nov. 2. As part of its multi-country tour, spanning North America and Europe, Kommuna Lux brings to the Chutzpah! Festival the unique sounds and rhythms of Odesa. This multicultural, coastal city is Ukraine’s third most populous city.
Since their inception in 2014, Kommuna Lux has sought to formalize a new sound specific to their city, which they dub ‘Odesa Gangsta Folk’ – an ode to their city of origin.
“Like every port city, Odesa is a melting pot of different groups: Jewish, Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Romanian, [and more],” explains Viktor Lykhodko, the band’s manager. “This music was created on the street; it’s about the street life of our city: how people live, how they behave, how they trade with each other, and make relations.”
For Kommuna Lux, celebrating togetherness and the beauty of community is more than implied through their genre: it is the band’s raison d’être, which they have reaffirmed in light of recent events.
Since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the band has leveraged its performances to raise awareness and advocate for the Ukrainians whose homes have been turned into trenches. In doing so, the group hopes to foster continued attention and support for the Ukrainian cause.
“People should not forget about what’s going on,” says Lykhodko. “Of course, life goes on, [it] continues. But, we should do our best, every one of us, to help people as quickly as possible and [in a way that] will save the most lives.”
At the festival, Kommuna Lux will collect donations in support of the victims of the invasion.
“We have a project with the Rotary Club: about a bench for burn victims in a hospital in Kramatorsk – a city about 50 kilometers from the front line,” says Lykhodko. “Every donation will go directly to support these victims.”
Reliving the cosmopolitan
For the last two nights of Chutzpah! (Nov. 9 and 10), an international cast will perform The Last Night at the Cabaret Yitesh (di letste nakht baym yitesh).
The performance offers a glimpse into the joy, sorrow, and courage of the 1930s performers – after being informed by the local censor’s office that their next show would be their last – moments before they depart from pre-war Poland. In an act of resistance, the performers seize their last night at the cabaret to assert their artistic liberty by performing a variety of hits, including censored material.
The play – rooted in its historical context and interwoven with its playwright’s unique style – was originally commissioned by the Yiddish Summer Festival.
“About six years ago I got a call saying, ‘2019 is going to be the 100th anniversary of the Weimar Republic in Germany. Could you put together a Weimar-era Yiddish Kaveri for us?’” Wex recalls.
As a champion of the Yiddish culture, he took on the challenge: sifting through what remaining material was available from the era.
The material demanded the finesse – more than historical accuracy – to transport the relatable wit, Wex explains, of the 1930s cabaret to an audience over half a century later.
“I started looking into the surviving material. Some of it is very good, but much of it… would be like watching Saturday Night Live,” Wex points out, “or a show like that, 60 years from now, without knowing anything about contemporary politics.”
Through the piece, Wex reveals the vibrance of the Yiddish culture that is often forgotten, and challenges the narratives he encountered in his youth.
“Yiddish culture was a lot more cosmopolitan than people realize. When I was young, and certainly the generation before me, Yiddish had a very bad reputation,” he recalls. “[Yiddish] marked you out as an outsider.”
For more information on the Chutzpah! Festival, please visit: www.chutzpahfestival.com