She pronounces it “Namaaajjh,” like a French perfume,
but’s it’s really the National Museum of American Jewish History (initials
NMAJH), and she is Martha Graham Cracker, local performance artist who, as
artist in residence, created and performed a cabaret based on her encounters
with the museum exhibits.
For a few nights this week, the fifth floor exhibit space of
NMAJH was transformed into Martha’s cabaret. Scattered on table tops were items
from her personal collection—rubber bands, a sausage, an oversized powder puff.
Many are used or explained during the performance as Martha brings us into her
skewed world in which she had encounters with famous Jewish composers through
history, particularly Leonard Bernstein, with whom she had “a limited
engagement.”
Starting last year the museum created an artist in residence
program, OPEN for Interpretation, inviting local cutting-edge artists
to, as Martha’s collaborator and Musical Director Andrew Nelson put it, “run
amok in the museum.” The intention was to give visitors a new way of looking at
the exhibits. After all, museum exhibits are static, it’s what the visitor
brings to them that makes an impact.
“Our goal was to invite creative thinkers
into the museum to produce creative work,” says Emily August, Director of
Public Programs. “The artists’ job is to find
something that resonates with them in the Museum and bring it to life for our
visitors in new and perhaps unexpected ways through their unique artistic
lens. The content is inherently Jewish, although the artists may
not be.”
