She is alone, a performance by Michelle Levy

About

She is alone stems from the series Ruins of Achelach, a body of research, performance, and artifact mined from rational and irrational sources scanning the history of Jewish Poland and immigrant life in NY to serve as a growing, living document of lost female ancestors.

A chance trip for Michelle Levy near the Czech border of Poland sparked a vivid déjà vu related to her grandmother. Since then, a seemingly invisible hand has led Michelle on a path of genealogical inquiry, back and forth across the ocean, memory, time, and the internet, investigating the limits of what can be uncovered from spaces left unavailable to us. Her latest, most stirring discovery—the survival testimony of a cousin who intrepidly navigated around the holocaust at the age Michelle is now. No other record of this woman exists beyond this testimony, recorded in Krakow at the end the war. The introductory notation written by a third party in the upper margin begins, “She is alone…”

Michelle had been looking for something else when her unknown cousin’s story found her, powerfully demonstrating that history does not rest and the past continues to uproot itself.There is urgency to share and learn from this story, yet this is a sensitive practice—much of her story remains illegible and omitted through layers of translation, as its passed from one interpreter to the next.

Who was this woman?

Note: audience members will be invited to join the interpretation process. Participation is encouraged, but not mandatory.