Senese-Grossberg’s At the End of the World Illuminates Jewish

ARTS & CULTURE

March 11, 2022 Established 1874 Volume 151, Number 14

Senese-Grossberg’s At the End of the World Illuminates Jewish Identity, Hope in the Face of Apocalypse

Sierra Colbert

Senior Staff Writer “How do we live when we feel like everything is being destroyed?”

This is the question College fourth-year Zoe Senese-Grossberg has spent the last few years reflecting on while writing and directing their play, At the End of the World. Written during the pandemic, the play was initially produced as a radio play but premiered on stage for the first time Thursday in the Wilder Main Space, where it will run through Sunday.

In Nov. 2019, Senese-Grossberg had a discussion with a friend about fears surrounding the end of

At the End of the World, a play written and directed by College fourth-year Zoe Senese-Grossberg, opened Thursday in Wilder Main Space. Photo courtesy of Clarissa Heart the world, and soon after, she began writing the sky said. “To value these connections that we have play which would ultimately become a two-and-a- even though sometimes things feel so hopeless.” half year endeavor. At the End of the World is set Pelofsky’s castmates expressed similar thoughts in New York City in 1938 and follows the lives of on the play’s impact. College second-year Noa three characters: Ezra Lavinsky/Edward Llewelyn, Shapiro-Tamir plays Ezra’s cousin Freyda, whose Freyda Lavinsky, and Julia Ford, who grapple with apartment serves as the backdrop for much of the questions of identity and family in the wake of an play. antisemetic attack. “It’s a really beautiful play that, to me, speaks College fourth-year Justin Pelofsky, who plays about how people struggle to connect with one anEdward/Ezra, feels that despite the dark material other and with other people in a time of tragedy,” of the play, it ultimately offers audiences a message Shapiro-Tamir said. “Especially one that is outside of community and hope. the realm of control of these people.” “I think, really importantly, the connection we As it explores the vitality of human connection, have to our loved ones, and how much that matters, At the End of the World also examines the experi… I think that that’s sort of a big message,” Pelof- ences associated with holding Jewish identity in See Student Play, page 13

Dance Majors Jewel Cameron and Analise LaRiviere to Perform in Capstone Recitals

Jocelyn Blockinger Senior Staff Writer

On March 11 and 12, fourth-year Dance majors Jewel Cameron and Analise LaRiviere will perform their capstone dance recitals in Warner Main Space. LaRiviere’s piece is titled Au Milieu and Cameron’s, Dance Stories. While the performances are the culmination of LaRiviere and Cameron’s dance careers at Oberlin, both performers also hope to communicate their love and dedication to the College’s Dance department.

A labor of love that has taken months of preparation, the show is being put on with the help of a grant from XARTS, an Oberlin fund created to support the development and execution of collaborative, multi-disciplinary artistic projects. When asked about their preparative creative processes, LaRiviere and Cameron discussed the vital transformation of their choreographic skills.

“This is very different from other shows because it’s not as much sitting back as it can be with other departments’ shows with a lot of shorter dances all by different people,” Cameron said. “This is almost an hour of my own choreography, which is like nothing I’ve ever done before. So it was a little bit daunting. But it was a wonderful experience. I feel like I learned a lot.”

Both Cameron and LaRiviere used experimental ideas to help form their final outcome. While LaRiviere prefers to showcase her work in non-trditional spaces, she highlighted the sentimental aspect of showcasing her capstone project in Warner Main Space.

“I’ve always been interested in site-specific dance, which is dance that happens outside of a regular stage theater,” LaRiviere said. “But in my heart of hearts, I knew that I needed to dance my senior show in Main Space, which is just such a gorgeous, beautiful space that holds such a place in my heart.”

LaRiviere chose to create an installation for her performance. A series of decorated cloth-like pieces will be draped around the stage for the duration of her performance, transforming the traditional stage in Warner into an otherworldly space.

“I was craving a new and interesting space to create and move in,” LaRiviere said. “The installation mainly consists of large sheets of cheesecloth

ON THE RECORD Allegra Hyde, Professor of Creative Writing, Author of New Novel Eleutheria

Allegra Hyde

Courtesy of Tanya Rosen-Jones

Lilyanna D’Amato Arts & Culture Editor

Assistant Professor of Creative Writing Allegra Hyde released her debut novel Eleutheria last Tuesday. Grappling with issues surrounding political activism, systemic corruption, and climate change, the novel follows 22-year-old Willa Marks as she flies to the Bahamian island of Eleutheria to flee heartbreak and join a group of ecowarriors. Much of Hyde’s previous work, including her short story collection Of This New World, deals with the scope of climate change and themes of utopianism. Hyde’s writing has been featured in anthologies like The Best American Travel Writing, Best Women’s Travel Writing, Best of the Net, and The Best Small Fictions and her work has also appeared in Tin House, American Short Fiction, The Kenyon Review, New England Review, and The Threepenny Review. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What was your initial goal when you started working on Eleutheria?

When I started thinking about writing a novel, I knew I wanted to write about climate change. I am a believer that every person has some sphere of influence, some skill they can contribute. And since I’m a writer, I felt like, “Okay, the thing I can contribute to the movement for a sustainable future is to write about it.” I wanted to use fiction as a space to imagine what it would look like to try to solve climate change instead of mostly ignoring it or just not doing anything. I wanted to use fiction as a space to draw connections between groups of people through time. That’s something I think that fiction is uniquely suited to do. That was the challenge that I set myself going into the project.

What was the writing process like for this novel?

Well, my story collection Of This New World was all about the utopian imagination, and the stories were written in a variety of genres. There were science fiction stories about a colony on Mars. There was historical fiction about a Shaker village. Each story was exploring different kinds of relationships: imagining a better world, losing a better world, trying to create a better world. That’s just been an ongoing fascination of mine. I think that actual intentional communities that are out there in the world, where people are stepping away from the mainstream to try to live differently, to try to problem solve — I admire the courage that it takes to do that. I also recognize that those intentional communities often run up against many challenges — humans are flawed, and living up to any ideal is really difficult. So I’ve always been really fascinated by that, and that showed up in my first book. There was one story in particular in that collection called “Shark Fishing,” also set in the Bahamas. It was the longest story in the collection, but it felt like there was more to say. So I used that short story as a springboard to also move forward with a novel. The novel isn’t an exact expansion of that story, but it did grow from that initial effort to talk about what I wanted to talk about.

It took me over five years to write this book. It was a long haul. Being a writer is also a constant struggle to figure out how I can give myself time to write while making sure that I have a place to live and food to eat. I was moving around a lot during that time, looking for opportunities. I lived in Bulgaria at one point. I lived in Houston for a while. But the writing process was just extensive research, reading about climate change — and people’s projections for climate change — reading about utopian communities, and research on the legacy of colonialism in the Bahamas. Also, learning about the patterns of idealism and exploitation that have played out in the Americas. It felt like 1,000 drafts. It took a long time to figure out the shape of the book, to figure out how to best position the material.

What do you want your readers to take away from the novel and your work as a whole?

I want readers to leave the book with a sense of the complicated legacy that has brought us to this moment. Climate change is vast and connected to so many other forces that have played out through history: white supremacy, colonialism, extractivist mentality, and misogyny. They’re all playing a part in bringing us to where the world is in this moment. That legacy has to be reckoned with and brought into consideration when we’re making plans for how we’re going to resolve the future, so I want readers to understand that history. But at the same time, I also hope that people leave the book with a sense of agency and optimism. This book was about balancing that reckoning with a sense of hope. That’s what I was trying to leave readers with. I don’t think you can just have one or the other; you need both of them. That’s where I was trying to go.

Who were your biggest influences when writing this book?

Amitav Ghosh’s The Great Derangement was really helpful. It talked about how literature could do a better job talking about climate change and imagining alternate scenarios for the future. I really took to heart the critiques Ghosh was making and used that as a touchstone. Another book that was a big influence on me was Dr. Micah White’s The End of Protest, which is a book about activism and how it needs to evolve in order to effectively address the crises of today. I found it really inspiring, and my novel is in many ways about social movements, activism, and the ethics of activism.

Hales Late Nighter Features Bowling, Billiards, Bands

Kathleen Kelleher Lilyanna D’Amato

Arts & Culture Editors

Hales Late Nighter, held this past Saturday at the Cat in the Cream, featured performances by Oberlin’s own MNGLW, the winner of the Cat’s Battle of the Bands, and DAISY, a Los Angeles-based R&B punk band. The event, which featured everything from face painting to bowling, is the largest event at the Cat every year.

College first-year Tabitha Bird, a manager at the Cat, helped organize the event. In the week before the show, they spent a lot of time coordinating with the bands, decorating the Cat, and setting up the different activities.

“We had a DJ and then we had the two bands, which were our main acts,” Bird said. “Then we had face painting off in the corner, and we had the bowling lanes open and billiards down the hall. There were some little pop-up activities too; people could bring stuff if they wanted. It was kind of open for everyone.”

Bird reported that nearly 350 people attended the event, a number only on par with Battle of the Bands and concerts featuring more popular, professional bands. Not only was the Late Nighter one of the busiest events of the year, Bird felt it also boasted one of the most engaged audiences. Photo courtesy of Tabitha Bird

“The crowd was really hype,” Bird said. “People were dancing everywhere. Lots of crowd-band interaction. I think Sehréa [N’dayu], the lead singer for MNGLW, had us all on the floor at one point. She told us to crouch and we crouched and danced, and then she told us to get back up and we stood up and danced. It was so fun.”

College first-year Max Grossman, the drummer for MNGLW, was excited to see so many people at the performance. The group’s set list included pieces by artists ranging from jazzy funk acts like Yussef Dayes and Hiatus Kaiyote to soulful vocalists like Sade and Beyoncé.

“I was a little worried about alienating the audience by playing kind of an obscure song selection,” Grossman said. “But afterwards, a bunch of people came up to us and were so complimentary. I just had so much fun, and DAISY, the band that we opened for, was really good too. I thought they were really nice people and really talented.”