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HEADLINERS // FILM SERIES // MUSIC SERIES // AUTHORS SERIES // ACADEMIC & OPEN SPACE FORUM SERIES // SPECIAL PERFORMANCE SERIES // ART INSTALLATIONS & ONGOING ENTERTAINMENT // NEW CJM EXHIBITION AND TOURS AT DAWN //

HEADLINING PERFORMANCES

DENGUE FEVER

Dengue Fever

An exclusive, one-night-only, Bay Area performance with Cambodian American psychedelic pop sensation, Dengue Fever.

Dengue Fever's psychedelic take on the Cambodian pop sounds of the 60s makes them one of rock'n'roll's most unique success stories. They draw enthusiastic crowds from LA to the UK, from Maui to Moscow, and leave critics rummaging through their thesauruses looking for new superlatives to describe their sound. Amazon.com named their album, Escape From Dragon House, the #1 international release for 2005. In England, Mojo named Escape to their Top 10 World Music releases of 2006. In January 2008, Dengue Fever released the eagerly anticipated "Venus On Earth", their third full-length CD featuring eleven new original tracks.

http://www.myspace.com/denguefevermusic


A CONVERSATION WITH JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Jonathan Safran Foer

Author of the international bestseller Everything Is Illuminated, which was published when he was only 25, Jonathan Safran Foer has emerged as one of the most exciting writers of this generation. Everything Is Illuminated was hailed as the "Debut of the decade," and translated into 35 languages. The novel won numerous awards, including the Guardian First Book Prize, the National Jewish Book Award, and the New York Public Library Young Lions Prize. It was also made into a film, with Elijah Wood playing Mr. Foer. His second novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close also became an international bestseller. It received the "Literature for Life Award," the Victoria and Albert Museum Award, and the Prix des libraries du Quebec, and was shortlisted for the International IMPAC prize. Rolling Stone named Mr. Foer one of its "People of the Year," and Granta recently included him on its list of the "25 Best Young Writers in America." In addition to his novels, Mr. Foer has had stories published in The New Yorker, The Paris Review and Conjunctions. Mr. Foer is currently at work on two forthcoming books that are sure to have everyone talking.

http://www.harrywalker.com/speakers_pitch.cfm?Spea_ID=856

BENYA KRIK with Live Original Score
A classic Jewish silent film accompanied by an original score composed and performed exclusively for DAWN.
(90 min: USSR)

Dawn '08 and the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival co-host a unique, live performance of an original score commissioned exclusively for the evening in front of the 1926 Jewish Silent Film, Benya Krik.

The seamy Jewish underworld of Odessa is the setting for Isaac Babel's story based on the life of gangster king Mishka Yaponchik "("Mike the Jap") Vinnitsky. Murder is a way of life for Benya and his gang. They profit from their criminal activities until the Russian Revolution, and the local commissar assigns them "emergency revictualing patrol," making them a "revolutionary" regiment complete with tattooed red stars. But this new post backfires for Benya as he finds himself enshared in a Bolshevik trap.

Directed by Vladimir Vilner, silent film w/English intertitles; restoration by National Center For Jewish Film

Film program curated by the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

http://sfjff.org

DAWN '08 FILM SERIES

Outside the Box/Work in Progress
Outside the Box is a feature-length documentary that traces director Lacey Schwartz's upbringing in a white Jewish family, her discovery at eighteen that her biological father is Black and her personal exploration of her dual identity and family secrets while examining her connection to one of the most interesting and least understood subcultures in America, Black Jews.

Introduction to short will be given by Outside the Box's Executive Producer of Marketing Lisa Cleff.

http://www.goldglassproductions.com

Dawn '08 will include an ongoing film series throughout the evening of premiere feature films, premiere shorts and works in progress.

BENYA KRIK with Live Original Score
See details above.


SONS OF SAKHNIN UNITED (WEST COAST PREMIERE)
(84 minutes, USA)

Sons of Sakhnin United

This critically acclaimed documentary film covers the quixotic journey of B'Nei Sakhnin, the first Arab soccer team to become champions of Israel. It is a story of a ramshackle town and its beloved football team consisting of Arabs and Jews whose unprecedented success, against all the odds, gave the one in five Israelis who are Arab a platform to speak to the rest of the Jewish state. The team's biggest challenge was surviving long enough in the spotlight to work out what to say.

Discussion following film with Producer Michael Cohen:

A Deaf, Dumb + Blind, Dionysian Films, Reboot Films production. Produced by Roger Bennett, Alexander H. Browne, Michael Cohen. Executive producers, Barry Tatleman, Danzansky Investment Partners. Co-producer, Patrick Gambuti Jr. Directed by Christopher Browne. Co-director, Alexander H. Browne.

http://www.deafdumbandblind.net/

SHORT FILM SCREENING OF OFFICIAL SELECTIONS FROM THE 2008 TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL
Films to be announced closer to the event date.

THE PITY CARD
Film program curated by WHOLPHIN

Is the best place for a first date really the Holocaust Museum? Pity Card, an original TV pilot created by Bob Odenkirk (Mr. Show), follows its two lead characters Derek and Simon as they explore this unfathomable question.

Directed by Bob Odenkirk
Featuring Derek Waters and Simon Helberg

Wholphin is a DVD magazine series from McSweeney's, lovingly encoded with unique and ponderable films designed to make you feel the way we felt when we learned that dolphins and whales sometimes, you know, do it. Each issue of Wholphin contains a variety of extraordinary short films, docs, instructional videos, foreign sitcoms, and other cinema hybrids that deserve to be seen on very expensive televisions.

http://www.wholphindvd.com/

Lalo's Jerusalem
2007, USA, 12 min.

Directed by: Ed "Lalo" Baraona and Sam Ball

Like many San Franciscans, Ed "Lalo" Baraona is growing up at the intersection of Salvadoran and American identity. But at 13, he learned that his great grandmother was a Jew who fled to El Salvador from Nazi Germany. Fifty years later, in El Salvador's civil war, most of the men in her life "disappeared." Now, at 18, on his first trip away from home, Lalo catches an unexpected glimpse of adulthood.

"Lalo's Jerusalem" was produced by Citizen Film for the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival's New Jewish Filmmaking Project (NJFP).

Mandatory Service
2008, 19 minutes

Directed by: Jessica Habie.

The cultural impact of Israeli society's militarization has both catalyzed and stifled the creativity in the country. Mandatory Service asks a series of often ignored questions about how forced military service – and resistance to it – influences Israeli artists' efforts to re-civilianize the consciousness of Israeli society. **Winner 2008 Tribeca Film Festival Short Documentary Competition*

DAWN '08 MUSIC SERIES

DENGUE FEVER
See details above.

BENYA KRIK WITH LIVE ORIGINAL SCORE
See details above.

DJs and additional performers to be announced closer to date.


YOSSI FINE

Yossi Fine

Whether as a producer, arranger or bassist, Yossi Fine's unique and undeniable talents have made him one of the most in demand names throughout a number of different genres.. His most recent project comes in the form of Live from Jerusalem, an album of his solo bass performance recorded during last year's tour of Israel. Funky and deep at times, Yossi creates multiple loops live on stage and then layers the brief samples over top of each other: all free style and 100% improvised, engaging audiences worldwide by building the energy in the room with sheer sonic waves.

http://yossifine.com/

DAWN '08 AUTHOR SERIES

A CONVERSATION WITH JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER
See details above

http://www.harrywalker.com/speakers_pitch.cfm?Spea_ID=856


A READING WITH ADAM MANSBACH

Adam Mansbach

Adam Mansbach's latest novel, The End of the Jews, is an ambitious and affecting family drama and a sweeping tour of race, religion, art and identity in 20th century America. Mansbach's previous novel is the critically-acclaimed bestseller Angry Black White Boy, a satire about race, whiteness and hip hop that is currently taught at more than forty universities across the country. A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of 2005, Angry Black White Boy is currently in development as a feature film.

http://www.adammansbach.com/


A READING WITH STEPHEN ELLIOTT

Stephen Elliot

Israel/Palestine - 2001/2006, a slideshow and reading featuring Stephen Elliott. Stephen Elliott is the author of six books including the novel Happy Baby, a finalist for the New York Library Young Lion's Award and a best book of the year in The Village Voice, Salon.com, and the Journal News. His work has been featured in The New York Times, Esquire, the San Francisco Chronicle, Best American Non-Required Reading 2005 and 2007, Best Sex Writing, and Best American Erotica. His 2001 Israeli travelogue, A Month Without Rest, was published in The Sun Magazine and his 2006 travelogue, The New New Middle East, first appeared in The Believer.

http://www.stephenelliott.com/

DAWN '08 SPECIAL PERFORMANCE SERIES

JEWS AT 33RPM: AN ALBUM COVER TOUR OF JEWISH HISTORY
with Josh Kun

Welcome to a very different history of Jews in America. Welcome to the world of the Jewish album cover.

You will meet psychedelic Jewish folk gods, groovy disco cantors who wore turtleneck sweaters, Korean singers who knew every word of "Exodus," mambo wizards who held court in the Catskills, jazz legends who did Fiddler on the Roof medleys, Chasidic prog-rockers, and Jews who made funk albums about slavery. There are albums for Jewish suburban house parties and albums for Jewish aerobics and albums for Jewish wars and albums for Jewish death.

Josh Kun is an Associate Professor in the Annenberg School of Communication and the Department of American Studies and Ethnicity at USC where he directs The Popular Music Project at The Norman Lear Center. He is the author of Audiotopia: Music, Race, and America and co-author with Roger Bennett of And You Shall Know Us By The Trail Of Our Vinyl: The Jewish Past as Told By The Records We've Loved and Lost. He is a contributor to The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and Los Angeles Magazine and also co-runs the non-profit Jewish record label Reboot Stereophonic.

RE"JEW"VENATE
with Heaping Portion

Heaping Portions is a moody, modern take on the weekly Jewish storytelling tradition of sharing the Torah portion. Heaping Portions challenges some of the country's top writers and actors to find ways to make the ancient text relevant to current day themes. Edgy, provocative and even a little sexy, this week's Torah portion The Book of Ruth, has inspired our essayists to explore the idea of INSIDERS/OUTSIDERS, paying homage to the story of Ruth herself. From Los Angeles come our performers: Josh Radnor of How I Met Your Mother, Jill Soloway, writer/producer of Six Feet Under, indie film director Julie Hermelin and journalist Christopher Noxon. All of this is surrounded by the awesome musical musings of Yossi Fine.

JOSH RADNOR
Currently stars in the hit CBS comedy "How I Met Your Mother." He starred on Broadway as the title character in "The Graduate" opposite Kathleen Turner, as well as Off-Broadway and regionally. His film and television credits include ABC's "The Court," with Sally Field, "Judging Amy," "Welcome to New York," "Miss Match," "ER," "Six Feet Under," "Law & Order," as well as the Oscar-winning "Not Another Teen Movie."

JULIE HERMELIN
Julie Hermelin is an award winning short film and music video director, with videos for Moby, Sarah Mclachlan, and Ben Folds. As a performer, Julie can be seen in the Paul Thomas Anderson film, "Punchdrunk Love" playing one of Adam Sandler's sisters and appeared in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

JILL SOLOWAY
Jill Soloway is a writer in Los Angeles and has worked in television for ten years, most notably as a writer and co-executive producer on Six Feet Under. Recently, she's written on Grey's Anatomy, Tell Me You Love Me and Dirty Sexy Money.

YOSSI FINE
Whether as a producer, arranger or bassist, Yossi Fine's unique and undeniable talents have made him one of the most in demand names throughout a number of different genres.. His most recent project comes in the form of Live from Jerusalem, an album of his solo bass performance recorded during last year's tour of Israel. Funky and deep at times, Yossi creates multiple loops live on stage and then layers the brief samples over top of each other: all free style and 100% improvised, engaging audiences worldwide by building the energy in the room with sheer sonic waves.

CHRIS NOXON
Christopher Noxon is an author, journalist and Jew-adjacent goy. He's the author of the comic sociology Rejuvenile: Kickball, Cartoons, Cupcakes and the Reinvention of the American Grown Up, which was featured in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today and Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report." At present, he writes the Family Life column for Reuters and works as music supervisor on the Showtime series Weeds. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, television writer/producer Jenji Kohan, and their three children.

GUIDED DOCENT TOURS OF THE CONTEMPORARY JEWISH MUSEUM
with Ronna and Beverly!

Ronna and Beverly

The best-selling co-authors of You'll Do A Little Better Next Time; A Guide to Marriage and Re-marriage for Jewish Singles volunteer as docents for one night only. Don't miss their guided tours of the museum's fabulous new facilities. Please be on time!

For a preview of what you can expect watch their videos at RonnaAndBeverly.com. You could laugh. It wouldn't kill you.

Jessica Chaffin (Ronna) appears regularly on Nickelodeon's "Zoey 101". She is also a writer on the Nickelodeon show "The Mighty B." She performs at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in Los Angeles and New York.

Jamie Denbo (Beverly) appears regularly on CBS's "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson". She was a series regular on the FOX sitcom, "Happy Hour" and has also appeared on "Reno 911", "Sex & the City" and "Late Night with Conan O'Brien". She teaches and performs at the Upright Citizens Brigade in Los Angeles and New York.

Dawn '08 Ritual: I-Vow-Now
Dawn '08 will present I-Vow-Now, a midnight ritual marking the sacred tradition in which the sky opens up at midnight on Shavuot, the night of Revelation, offering an opportunity for a personal renewal of vows between the Divine and the Human. The Dawn '08 rendition will explore ones own personal vows that each of us are invited to renew tonight.Through spoken word, live music, video projections and audience interaction, we will enable all participants to renew their vows and mark the moment of midnight in a new sacred space at the Museum that will thus be inaugurated.

ANGRY WHITE BLACK BOY, an experimental play based on the novel
A hybridized performance style that combines theatrical storytelling, poetry, freestyle and versed rapping with beatboxing, ballet and hip-hop dance.


DAN WOLF

Dan Wolf

Dan Wolf is an actor, rapper, playwright, a founder of the hip-hop band Felonious, and a Resident Artist at Intersection for the Arts. His play with Tommy Shepherd Beatbox: A Raparetta is written entirely in versed rap and his play Stateless, a hip-hop music infused piece balancing German and Jewish history with the racism in the Jewish and African American experience.

www.dan-wolf.com

LETTER TO UNCLE MORRIS
written and performed by Aaron Davidman, Traveling Jewish Theatre

Part stand-up, part midrash, part family squabble, Letter to Uncle Morris is a twenty-five minute epistolary rant on creativity and Jewish identity.

Aaron Davidman is an actor, director and playwright and artistic director of Traveling Jewish Theatre.

DAWN '08 ACADEMIC/OPEN SPACE DISCUSSION FORUM SERIES

TRANS AND TRANCE AT HAR SINAI
with Rachel Biale, Bay Area Regional Director of Progressive Jewish Alliance.

The scene at the giving of the Torah at Har Sinai (Mount Sinai), which we celebrate at Shavu'ot, is rife with crossing of boundaries including those of gender and sexuality. In this text-based workshop we will wrestle with gender bending and transgender possibilities in the Jewish tradition's conception of Torah and the relationship of God and the people of Israel.

Rachel Biale is the author of Women and Jewish Law and two books for parents and children in a series titled "Let's Make a Book about It" My Pet Died and We Are Moving. She is the Bay Area Regional Director of the Progressive Jewish Alliance

www.pjalliance.org

THIEVERY, TRESPASSING AND HARLOTRY ON HIGH: RABBINIC TALES OF DECEIT AT MOUNT SINAI
with Rabbi Jonathan Jaffe from Congregation Emanu-El.

As the Sinai moment presents the pinnacle of the Torah's narrative, our tradition has created layers of mythology surrounding Moses' 40 days removed from the community. How is it that during this crowning moment of our people's history that such malfeasance is suggested? We will look at several of the more fantastic midrashim (rabbinic tales) and discuss what lessons they have to offer us today.

Jonathan Jaffe is an assistant rabbi at Congregation Emanu-El.. He has also served as Education Director for Temple Beth Torah of Fremont and taught at the San Francisco Bureau of Jewish Education and Congregation Sherith Israel.

http://www.emanuelsf.org

CORRELATING IMAGES WITH THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
with Rabbi Micah Hyman from Congregation Beth Shalom.

Explore a diverse range of traditional Jewish imagery through contemporary photography, installation, and painting. This session will present a range of visual perspectives and interpretations relating to the Ten Commandments, encouraging discussion of the role of visual culture in understanding and creating new meaning of the biblical laws

Micah Hyman is the Rabbi of Congregation Beth Sholom. A native of Southern California, Rabbi Hyman received rabbinic ordination and a master's degree in Jewish art from the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. He has served several Jewish museums in New York, Chicago, Jerusalem, Morocco, and Los Angeles.

http://www.bethsholomsf.org/

INSTANT BOOK CLUB with the BOOK OF RUTH
with the Bureau of Jewish Education's Jewish Community Library.

Always wanted to be in a book club, but don't have time for an ongoing group? Now is your chance to join a one-night-only book club at Dawn ‘08 to read and discuss short stories as a group.

http://www.bjesf.org/

NOT YOUR BUBBE'S BORDERS: AMERICA, IMMIGRATION, AND YOU
with Sarah Leiber Church, Program Director of Progressive Jewish Alliance.

As the immigration debate rages nationally, what's a Jew to do? What can we learn from our communal retelling of "wandering in the desert" as it applies to today? In the wee hours of Shavuot morning, join PJA for a playful exploration of immigrant stories, labor rights, and the kitchen sink.

Sarah Leiber Church is the Bay Area Program Director for the Progressive Jewish Alliance. She also currently serves as a member of the San Francisco Sweatfree Procurement Advisory Group and as the Vice President of Sweatfree Communities, a national anti-sweatshop network.

www.pjalliance.org

CONFESSIONS OF A TEFILLIN SUPERMODEL

Annie Leibovitz

With Dorothy Richman, Rabbi Martin A. Ballonoff Rabbi-in-Residence at Berkeley Hillel

Annie Leibovitz took my picture ten years ago, and everyone still wants to know what it was like. This is my answer.

ONGOING ENTERTAINMENT/ ART INSTALLATIONS/ SOCIAL BREAKS

STUMP THE RABBI
Do you have a burning question to ask a Rabbi or want to run by some of your own self knowledge on text? What is the meaning of life? What does this all mean anyways? Now is your chance to ask some of the Bay Area's most esteemed Rabbis any question you want or try out your rabbinical knowledge at the "Stump the Rabbi" Booth.


(RE) VELATION
by Ari Y Kelman and Ben Brown

Moses

An interactive, multi-media installation that mimics and re-imagines the experience of standing at Mt. Sinai. Participants are invited to edit or alter the text of the original 613 mitzvot, record their own readings of them, and experience them broadcast and projected in space.

Ari Y Kelman is an assistant professor of American Studies at the University of California at Davis, He is the author of "Station Identification: a cultural history of Yiddish radio," and the editor of a forthcoming volume of the work of cartoonist Milt Gross.

Ben Brown is known online as the Internet Rock star. He makes things that encourage people to play together.

If you want to check out the 613 commandments, funny and serious. go to:
http://revelation.xoxco.com

SMASHING
by Tiffany Shlain and Ken Goldberg

"Smashing" An interactive installation with video and sound, based on the breaking of glass in Kristallnacht and the Jewish wedding ceremony.

Tiffany Shlain is an award-winning filmmaker, founder of The Webby Awards, co-founder of International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences

http://www.tiffanyshlain.com/

Ken Goldberg is an artist, professor of engineering, and director of the Berkeley Center for New Media at UC Berkeley.

http://goldberg.berkeley.edu/


CJM OPENING EXHIBITION TOURS AT DAWN//

CJM Opening Exhibit

BE AMONG THE FIRST TO SEE THE CONTEMPORARY JEWISH MUSEUM'S OPENING EXHIBITIONS!
SCHEDULED TOURS FROM 8-11:00 PM

Matthew Ritchie, Day One, 2008 (installation rendering); Interactive digital animation, acrylic and marker on wall; Commissioned for In the Beginning: Artists Respond to Genesis, Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco. Image courtesy of the artist and Andrea Rosen Gallery. Copyright Matthew Ritchie.

EXHIBITION ON VIEW: IN THE BEGINNING: ARTISTS RESPOND TO GENESIS
—Second Floor Gallery— (8-11 PM)
See bold and provocative new site-specific installations from seven internationally renowned artists, who reconsider the text of Genesis and their own ideas about our origins. With historic works and contemporary commentaries set in dialogue with these unique installations, In the Beginning considers a range of cultural, artistic, and scientific interpretations of Genesis. Take part in conversational exhibition tours of In the Beginning, starting at 8:30, 9:15, 10:15 PM and other times throughout the evening.

In the Beginning: Artists Respond to Genesis is generously supported by The Shenson Foundation in memory of Ben and A. Jess Shenson; Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation; and the National Endowment for the Arts. Support for the multi-media installation, Genesis Now, is provided by the John Templeton Foundation.

EXHIBITION ON VIEW: FROM THE NEW YORKER TO SHREK: THE ART OF WILLIAM STEIG
—First Floor Gallery— (8-11 PM)
View original drawings by William Steig ranging from New Yorker cartoons, to his more personal symbolic works, to illustrations from Steig's children's books including Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, Doctor De Soto, Gorky Rises, and Shrek! ("fear" in Yiddish). Once you've spent some time pondering the human condition, curl up with a favorite children's book and be transported to Steig's worlds of ogres, mice dentists, and flying frogs. Tours of the Art of William Steig begin at 9:00 and 10:00 PM and other times throughout the evening.

From The New Yorker to Shrek: The Art of William Steig was organized by The Jewish Museum, New York, and was made possible, in part, by the Eugene and Emily Grant Family Foundation and the Skirball Fund for American Jewish Life Exhibitions.

EXHIBITION ON VIEW: "BEING JEWISH": A BAY AREA PORTRAIT
—Education Center—
What does it mean to "be Jewish" in the Bay Area? A collage of photographs, assembled through a community-wide call for photos, provides a backdrop for a display of historic and contemporary objects reflecting Jewish lifecycle events, holidays, and ritual, all with a Bay Area twist.

ARCHITECTURAL CELL PHONE TOUR
Learn about the unique architecture of the Contemporary Jewish Museum through a cell phone tour. Call 415.294.3605.

The Architectural Cell Phone Tour is sponsored by Pacific Gas and Electric Company.

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