The Archive

Leo Baeck Institute is proud to present the North American premiere of interdisciplinary performance The Archive by Neta Pulvermacher. The performances will take place February 24, 25, and 26 at the Center for Jewish History.

Doors open at 7:30 for an "Abendrot" reception and viewing of artifacts. Performance begins at 8:00.

When the last person who remembers is gone, whole worlds disappear forever. Israeli/American artist, choreographer and performer Neta Pulvermacher situates her riveting one woman show, The Archive, inside this perforated post-memory landscape. Exploring her German-Jewish family history, she constructs a jarring, funny and deeply moving performative journey that follows the traces to Frankfurt and Berlin – once her family’s home.

Pulvermacher sifts through documents, old pictures, and personal artifacts, conjuring up fragmented narratives, voices, and characters that emerge briefly, only to fade back into oblivion. Through research and memory, she combines real and imagined sites and events, blurring the lines between past and present, battling the gradual disappearance of memories.

For a moment, this pursuit of traces materializes in the Great Hall of NYC’s Center for Jewish History, a place of remembrance itself. As Pulvermacher navigates this layered landscape, she invites the audience to join her as she attempts to reconstruct a lost world. Especially in times of crisis, the questions of memory and history and their significance for understanding our world(s) become relevant and urgent.

Originally commissioned as a site-specific work for a quartet of dancers at the Leo Baeck Institute Jerusalem, The Archive was reimagined as a one-woman show for the KFW Stiftung Villa 102 in Frankfurt Germany (March 2024) and the Suzanne Dellal Center in Tel Aviv (June 2024). Following this North American premiere at the Center for Jewish History, Pulvermacher invites the audience to an artist talk and German “Abendbrot.”

Made possible in part by support from the Arnhold family and Mary and Saul Sanders.

About the artist

Neta Pulvermacher is an acclaimed Israeli/American choreographer, writer, dancer, and a Professor of Dance at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance (JAMD). She was born and raised in Kibbutz Lehavot Habashan in Northern Israel. After graduating from Juilliard in 1985, she spent 31 years living and working in New York before returning to Israel in 2013 to become Dean of Dance at JAMD.

As founder of the Neta Dance Company in New York, she created over 95 works for her company and for ballet and modern dance companies in the US and Israel. Her company was presented at major NYC venues such as the Joyce Theater, Dance Theater Workshop and the 92nd Street Y and toured extensively nationally and internationally. Her collaborations include work with musicians John Zorn, Anthony Coleman, the English rock band-XTC, Miri Ben Ari and David Broza, as well as choreography for Mira Nair's film "The Namesake". Her work has been supported by numerous foundations and fellowships and earned her a White House recognition. Most recently she was awarded the 2024 Arik Einstein prize for her choreographic work.

At the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, she directs the JAMD’s Ensemble and has pioneered large scale site and city specific projects entitled "Body, Dance, Site-Performance Meets City" featuring Israeli and Palestinian choreographers and dancers working together. Her recent works include "Public Parking" commissioned by the Israel Festival and "The Archive" which is being presented throughout Israel and in Frankfurt.