The Fear of Emptiness | A multiple-identity collective solo

Tuesday | 08.07.25 | 20:00 | Sitting show, approximately 50 minutes | Hall 4 – Machol Shalem, HaParsa – Center for the Performing Arts, Beit Rami Levy Plus (former Rav-Chen cinema), Haparsa Street 3, Talpiot, Jerusalem

In Latin it is called “horror vacui”, and in Greek “kenophobia” – the fear of emptiness, or the fear of empty spaces. This philosophical idea is attributed to Aristotle, who stated that “nature abhors a vacuum” and that empty space will always strive to be filled. In a special performance for the Manofim Festival 2025, the musician and creator Roy Rieck explores this urge through a live combination of music and video art, marking the release of his new album “The Fear of Emptiness,” which is being launched alongside a film and dozens of music videos he created. In an extreme period where the fear of empty space is only increasing and intensifying, so does the uncontrollable urge to fill it, to document the moment, and to leave traces in nothingness. In the performance, Rieck will oscillate between performing songs with a band in an intimate atmosphere and a visual-cinematic celebration that will accompany the songs with humor and self-reflection about meaning amid the chaos of personal crises, national upheavals, and questions about relationships, parenthood, migration, and identity.

Roy Rieck, one of the most fascinating multidisciplinary figures in the independent music scene in Israel, began his journey by traveling to Mississippi without any musical background to learn the blues harmonica. He later formed the band “The Collective” – one of the more prominent bands in the local independent music scene. The band has performed at major festivals around the world and has recorded albums that received acclaim with Grammy-winning producers, among others the masterpiece album “Exercise in Awakening,” recorded with Shlomi Shaban. At the same time, Rieck also became a sought-after music video director and initiated large-scale cultural projects, including “The Second Wave” during the coronavirus pandemic and “First Light” after October 7th. Currently, alongside the release of the new film-album (featuring over seventy musicians and creators) “The Fear of Emptiness,” which the performance is based on, Rieck is also working on creating music videos for songs left behind by the late musician Aner Shapira, and this work resonates as well within the current performance. Two artists who also participate in his new album will join him in the performance: Tomer Yeshayahu, a close creative partner (and the subject of Rieck’s film “Lake of Lemon,” which aired on Kan 11), and Daniel Rubin, a leading creator in the Israeli indie scene. Together with a band assembled specifically for this project, they have created a performance where the empty space is filled with meaning, in the tension between loneliness and community and between the individual and the collective.