Kaddish

Jerusalem-based composer and sound artist Shaul Dahan creates an ecstatic sonic space in his performances by melting analog synthesizers that produce random and unstable electrical circuits with texts of prayers from the world of religious worship. Dahan deconstructs and reconstructs the structured text patterns and blends them into a modular system that plays itself from silence to chaos and back again, requiring real-time responses from the performer.

The performance will take place as part of the exhibition “Feathers and Fur,” which is displayed at the Koresh 14 gallery in memory of the artist Ori Zeev Segal, who passed away last year (curated by Vered Hadad and Mia Sharabani). At the center of the performance is the Kaddish prayer – a Jewish text in Aramaic that is recited at funerals and memorials, and is therefore connected to mourning, memory, and commemoration. The Kaddish will serve as a textual and musical basis for the performance, which will be a tribute to the melodies of Yossele Rosenblatt and Marina Harloff, and will explore the deconstruction of the prayer’s words and the impact of the text on the entire sound system. Through music, and connecting to objects and works in the exhibition itself, the performance aims to provide an additional layer to remembrance, mourning, and the living and complex presence of Segal’s memory – between absence and presence and between voice and matter.