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About Charming Hostess

The Ginzburg Geography
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Lift Me Up In These Hard Times
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Teraphim
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The Bowls Project
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gramaphone dynamo Gramophone &Dynamo
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CURRENT PROJECTS

chohosmiles

CHARMING HOSTESS PRESENTS: THE GINZBURG GEOGRAPHY

The Ginzburg Geography is drawn from the life and work of Natalia and Leone Ginzburg, Italian Jews famous for anti-fascist resistance and intellectual brilliance. It is a sonic map focusing on where they lived together: Turin, Pizzoli, and Rome. Our map refers to specific physical locations, but also resonates with the actions and relationships associated with those places, allowing a sense-memory of places in time. Much of the information in our map comes from the Ginzburgs’ writing on place.

sefer raziel amulet

The map of The Ginzburg Geography is new and traditional music drawings from the Italian regions of Piemonte, Abruzzo and Rome; from Italian Jewish liturgy, the oldest and most remote in Europe; and from Italian anti-fascist songs–work chants and resistance anthems. This iteration of The Ginzburg Geography is in concert form. It will soon be presented as an immersive performance that maps not only the journeys of the Ginzburgs, but also those of visitor participants, creating a sonic forest of maps to walk among, listen to, and add to.

 

 

CHARMING HOSTESS PRESENTS: LIFT ME UP IN THESE HARD TIMES

Lift Me Up In These Hard TimesThis music is primarily songs that were first recorded during The Great Depression.

In those tough times, people needed songs that expressed the hardship in their lives and also helped them transcend it. These songs drew from Anglo and African traditions as they sprouted in American soil.

Now referred to as “old-time music,” this is some of the most relevant and satisfying repertoire that can be played at this point in history.

We all need a little uplift right about now…

 

 

CHARMING HOSTESS PRESENTS: TERAPHIM

An Installation by Jewlia Eisenberg with Charming Hostess Meridian Gallery, San Francisco, CA December 2012.

Jewlia Eisenberg's installation, TERAPHIM, has transformed the third floor of Meridian Gallery into a place of multimedia installation, ritual, and music performance. Join us at Teraphim in a space rich with new artifacts, ancient text, film, idols, music, exploratory praxis (hepatoscopy, belomancy), interaction and contemplation. sefer raziel amulet

Teraphim are house-gods: mysterious figures used for home spirit practice in the ancient Near East. They may be the earthly manifestation of deified ancestors, or aphysical representative of gods on earth. They are objects of power, consultedprimarily for divining the future, but also to establish authority within a family. They are used by heavy hitters like Rachel and Mikhal in the Hebrew Bible.

The constellation of thought around teraphim embraces fun, fear and fascination. From this fascination, the installation Teraphim was born: a cosmopolitan spirit space, ancient and modern, dynamic and peaceful, playful and thoughtful, where there is room for variety both in divine expression and human participation. Eisenberg and Charming Hostess will be in the space for conversation, divination and consternation on Thursdays in December. Come on by!

 

CHARMING HOSTESS PRESENTS: THE BOWLS PROJECT

More thrills and chills from the brilliant mind of Jewlia Eisenberg and her amazing ensemble Charming Hostess. Based on inscriptions from Babylonian Jewish amulets known as “demon bowls,” The Bowls Project sings of sex, ritual and secrets of the home.

Demon bowls deal with mysticism and magic, angels and demons, and the trials and joys of domestic life and love. Especially audible are the voices of Babylonian women: their relationships, desires and dreams. Weaving together these amulet texts with sefer raziel amuletBabylonian devotional songs, apocalyptic American folk music, and a radical take on spiritual power, The Bowls Project marks the deepest and most creative work by Charming Hostess yet.

Charming Hostess is a music ensemble at the intersection of voice, text and diaspora consciousness. Founded by Jewlia Eisenberg in 1998, the mission of Charming Hostess is to make lovely noise about complex ideas. They are known for their whirl of eerie harmony, hot rhythm, and radical smarts. Their music is based on the sounding body: voices and winds, handclaps and heartbeats, sex-breath and silence. Previous recordings include Sarajevo Blues (Tzadik, 2005), settings of Bosnian resistance poetry, and Trilectic (Tzadik, 2002), a look at the political-erotic world of Walter Benjamin. File under: APOCALYPTIC-INTIMATE

YBCA Bowls

The Bowls Project CD is released simultaneously with The Bowls Project: Secrets of the Apocalyptic Intimate, at Yerba Buena Center for Arts in San Francisco, July 6-August 22. This interactive sound sculpture/immersive performance installation is an international collaboration created by Charming Hostess with videographer Shezad Dawood and architect Michael Ramage. An ecstatic investigation into sex, magic and secrets of the home, The Bowls Project takes place within a stunning masterwork of ancient-meets-modern design: a towering double vaulted masonry dome by celebrated architect Michael Ramage. The dome is a place to share a secret and listen to the anonymous secrets of others, listen to live music on Thursdays, participate in ritual on Fridays, encounter embodied text on Sundays, and dig on the apocalyptic intimate whenever YBCA is open. Come and be welcome!

Bowl Nippur Owlhead

BUILDING THE BOWLS VIDEO

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Charming Hostess

 

Read: THE BOWLS PROJECT

Eyes >> 1. Text from The Bowls Project
over glasses >>
2. Jewlia's Notes on The Bowls Project
Ramage Small >>
3. Interview with Bowls Project Architect, Mike Ramage

reviews >> 4. Fave Reviews, various


 

Participate: THE BOWLS PROJECT

GolemGolemGolemGolemGolemGolemGolemGolemGolem Be a part of The Bowls Project: Send us a secret!

Here’s how.GolemGolemGolemGolemGolemGolemGolem

 

 


what's next?Programming: See summer events at THE BOWLS PROJECT

Summer events include: Shamanistic Shabbat, medieval madrigals, butoh on the dome, African diaspora braiding to beatbox, Philippiana animist rituals, body musict and more. check it out.

 

four bowls


Gramophone and Dynamo

Gramophone and Dynamo interprets songs of the cafe aman with a focus on the intersection of rebetika and Salonikan Jewish music.

Known as “the Jerusalem of the Balkans,” Salonika (Thessaloniki) was for two millennia home to one of the largest and most vibrant Jewish communities in the world. The folk music of Salonika is spectacular—it sings of tragic history and bawdy drunks, gritty sex and highbrow romance. Rebetika music originated in the cafes, prisons, and hash dens of Constantinople and Smyrna. With the forced immigration of two million Greek-speaking refugees from Asia Minor in 1922, cafes aman in Greek port cities like Salonika became centers of rebetika.

The 1930s cafe aman was a meeting place for working people and underworld types. The musicians performing there were Greeks, Jews, Slavs, Turks, and, Vlachs. The culture of the cafe aman was anti-authoritarian and non-conformist: the music that came out of it synthesized Turkish scales, Balkan meters, Hebrew chant, and words in Greek, Turkish and Ladino. Gramophone and Dynamo is part of this hybrid tradition, drawing from both the violent, sexy rebetika music sung by Jewish women like Roza Eskenazi and Stella Haskil, and on the romantic and funny Sephardic folk music with its roots in Spain, North Africa and the Balkans.


 

COMPOSER
Jewlia Eisenberg: See more about Charming Hostess Founder, bandleader, and composer. Complete CV.

CONTACT

AnMarie Rodgers, Wrangler

BOOKING

booking@charminghostess.us



   
Copyright 2006 Charming Hostess

Last updated February 8, 2014

choho@charminghostess.us Charming Hostess