“Doikayt” project in Kraków, Poland led by University of Nevada, Reno at Lake Tahoe faculty Julie Weitz. Konrad Obidzinski
Silken costumes of cobalt blue and yellow gold contrast with the gray cobblestone streets of Kraków, Poland. A line of marching performance artists and local participants each hold up yellow foam hands, not dissimilar to those used to cheer on American football teams, as they stream between the stone walls of a synagogue built in the early 1400s. An enormous quilt made of old Jewish prayer shawls is held aloft in the middle of the street, pulled by the wind as the performers make their way down the road.
At the front of each of these vibrant productions is visual artist and University of Nevada, Reno at Lake Tahoe Low-Residency MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts faculty member Julie Weitz. Weitz recently received a Fulbright Scholar Award to reanimate Yiddish folktales in eastern Europe, bringing to life the mythical figures of Yiddish folklore and Jewish mysticism that saturated Jewish culture across Europe prior to the Holocaust. The project, called “Doikayt,” was first installed and performed during the Jewish Cultural Festival in Kraków last summer. Weitz’s Fulbright funding will support further installations through 2024.
“For me, embodying Yiddish folkloric characters is like entering a portal to the past,” Weitz said in an essay she wrote about “Doikayt” for Ayin Press. “As I engage with the spirit of a lost world, I forge a connection between past and present, helping to heal deep and everpresent wounds.”
“Doikayt,” which means “hereness” in Yiddish, explores human connection to place and its influence on personal identity. Weitz hopes the recovery and reinterpretation of these folktales will serve as a model for the reclamation of the many cultures and languages lost to the Diaspora — to displacement and to ethnic violence.
Each winter and summer, Weitz returns to Tahoe for the MFA program’s 10-day residency where students and faculty live and study together at the Wayne L. Prim campus. “The student-teacher relationship is just so close,” she said. “We form these deep connections in a very beautiful place. We’re still connected virtually during the year, but we have these 10 days that are so precious in winter and summer, and they really become generators for what students will do for the months in between.”
Weitz, who is based in Los Angeles, has been faculty in the MFA program for eight years, incorporating the breadth of her experience and expertise into her teaching. Her internationally exhibited work has been featured in Artforum, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and other top publications.
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