PROJECTS

Hudson, America
A documentary     
by Zuzka Kurtz and Geoffrey Hug

Hudson, America Project was self-financed and was filmed by a professional film crew who followed our stellar subjects: Ramisa, Mahmuda, Sharmin, Farzana, Jahed and Siddique.

» Purchase Educational/Institutional DVD and Digital Site License

Hudson, America was supported by:
NYFA, New York Foundation for the Arts
NYSCA, The NY State Council for the Arts
The Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation
Micol Schejola Foundation
Renee and Carl Landegger Foundation
Charles and Edith Roth Foundation
And the generous contributions of friends and family

Thanks for your support,
Love,
Zuzka Kurtz

 

Pictures from the project.

 
 
 
 
 
 
Linda Mussmann and her wife Claudia Bruce, founders of TSL.
Noshin and Raffia Tasnim.
Ramisa Tasnim family in an interview Raffia Tasnim, Mohammad Ali, Sayida Akhter and Noshin in Hudson NY.
A room with a view.
At the Islamic Art Galleries Metropolitan Museum of Art.
At BuzzFeed Headquarter.
At City Bakery with owner Maury Rubin.
Farzana and Ramisa .
Farzana and Ramisa NYC subway.
Ramisa Farzana and Sharmin.
Ramisa and Farzana on the move.
Sharmin, Farzana and Ramisa Union Sq NYC.
Siddique and Jahed.
The Hudson Project gang.
The Hudson Project gang shooting in Julie Azuma's loft .
With Nabiha Sayed Assistant General Counsel at BuzzFeed.
With Navina Haidar Curator of Islamic Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC
Seated: Farzana Akhtar, Ramisa Tasnim, Mahmuda Alam,
W/back to camera Jahed Miah, Saddique Ahmed and Sharmin Akhtar
Left standing: Geoff Hug Right: Devin Pinckard
Siddique Ahmed and Jahed Miah
Mahmuda, Farzana, Ramisa and Jahed
Jahed, Ramisa, Farzana and Mahmuda
 

BLADE #1   2015
Award winning documentary shot and produced in NYC
 
By Zuzka Kurtz and Geoff Hug
 
» Pay per view

» View on youtube

on the set for Blade No. 1 
on the set for Blade No. 1 
on the set for Blade No. 1 

MY INNER SOLE:

My Inner Sole the Performance, created and directed by Zuzka Kurtz, Theatre Row, THe Lion Theatre, 410 W 42 Str., NYC, December 14-18, 2010, Cynthia Adler-Actor, Karthryn Grody-Actor, Wendy Osserman, Choreographer and Dnace, Music by Mac Gollehon-Trombone and rTumpet, Iva Bittova, Adriene Cooper & Kristin Nordeval, Pepper Fajans-Dancer, Puppeteer and Theatrical Designer, Kenji-Actor, Christine Shallenberg-Lighting DesignerMY INNER SOLE The Performance is the second part of a trilogy and follows MY INNER SOLE - (The Art Installation, exhibited in 2009 in Healdsburg CA. )

Premiered in The Lion Theater, Theater Row in 2010

18 Skeletons are the backdrop to 18 seamless scenes shifting in a dream like sequence. A narrator (actor Cynthia Adler) unfolds painful memories from a mother, a Holocaust survivor, to her daughter as she grows up. Confronting both women is Aunt Hinda, a survivor herself, (actor Kathryn Grody) who desperately clings to life with gusto and refuses to look back. A Japanese man clad in a Kimono (Kenji Nakano) enters ceremonially adding and removing skeletons. A nude doll with a mask dances with a long train of sheer red fabric (choreographer Wendy Osserman) to the tunes of a Yiddish tango. A tattooed Puppeteer (dancer Pepper Fajans) appears in a tender dance with a life size skeleton. A musician (Mac Gollehon) crosses the stage into the audience playing the trumpet over Indian chants. A duet "The Blood Line", (Wendy Osserman and Pepper Fajans) closes this autobiographical piece as the voice of the narrator (Adler as Kurtz) reverberate over the lounge music: "Narrative has a very slow metabolism, if it is a bedtime story, it will be chewed from generation to generation, it will have many lives, it will affect our judgment, it will affect our life".... The performance was followed by


View full performance, length 51:49 min

Download performance program.

Download review of My Inner Sole The Performance from the Jewish Daily Forward.

* * * * *

MY INNER SOLE - WORKSHOP RETREAT
HILLSDALE, NY August 2010
photography Michael Hnatov www.mhnatov.com

* * * * *

ZUZKA KURTZ - MY INNER SOLE

SLAUGHTERHOUSESPACE


Healdsburg, Ca. 95448
www.slaughterhousespace.com
info@slaughterhousespace.com

Download review of exhibition "My Inner Sole" at Slaughterhouse Space by Mary Lanier Slaughterhouse Space, (PDF file).

Download exhibition brochure from "My Inner Sole" installation at Slaughterhouse Space, (PDF file).

An exploration of the artist’s familial memory that takes form through the interaction of sculpture, video and textual elements. My Inner Sole uses common objects, shoes and cloth, to unravel the stories that were passed down to Kurtz by her mother, a concentration camp survivor. Kurtz’s surreal tableau reimagines her inherited experience of loss.

The project was installed in its first incarnation at SlaughterhouseSpace in Healdsburg, California, from June 27 to August 17, 2009. It included an original score by Kristin Norderval and videos made in collaboration with Steve Kimelman and Liz Magic Laser. A live performance is also in the works. The project is intended to extend and reconfigure these components with new ones depending on its spatial and cultural site.


 
* * * * *

Threading
Zuzka Kurtz in collaboration with Liz Magic Laser
Single channel video
17 minutes
2009

Shifting between hands sewing with a needle and then with a machine, the artist’s voice recounts her family’s narrative. Her stories oscillate from porous to particular. The hands seem to emerge from the viewer’s point of view, implicating the onlooker in the narrative’s subjectivity.

VIEW VIDEO EXCERPT


My Inner Sole
Written by Zuzka Kurtz
Foreward by Mary Lanier
Design by Oriana Reich
First edition book, forty pages, ISBN 978-0-615-29026-3
2009
 
The book chronicles the cast of eighteen skeletal characters that participate in the sculptural installation.
 
book is available for purchase for $35
please inquire at zuzkakurtz18@gmail.com
 

To purchase - $35  plus $5 shipping for the US


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

website and all content © 2009-2023 Zuzka Kurtz     zuzkakurtz18@gmail.com      18 Street Productions     zuzkzkurtz.com