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A Rube Goldberg machine comes to life — literally — in a new dance piece
(New York Jewish Week) — Are we humans all parts of a meticulously crafted machine? Or are we independent beings, chaotically disrupting one another’s trajectories through time and space? Is there a difference between intentional and unintentional impact? Does it matter whether our movements are prompted by internal or external forces?
These are just some of the questions that surfaced as I watched footage of “Rube G. — the Consequence of Action,” a new work by acclaimed New York-based choreographer and dancer Jody Oberfelder. The piece — at once whimsical and thoughtful — explores the mechanical motions inherent in a classic “Rube Goldberg machine” (a chain-reaction contraption that typically involves levers swinging, cogs twirling, bits and bobs knocking each other on predetermined courses) as expressed through the human form.
Over four years in the making, the piece will make its debut March 4 at the Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center in Lower Manhattan. It will be performed for three consecutive weekends, culminating in a gala event on March 19.
The genesis of this 50-minute piece began four years ago, when musician Frank London of The Klezmatics was organizing an event celebrating 15 Jewish thinkers and creators — from philosopher Hannah Arendt to composer Morton Feldman — at the New York Public Library. Oberfelder, a director, choreographer and filmmaker dedicated to site-specific works that “expand how one experiences dance,” was invited to create a piece inspired by the work of Rube Goldberg (1883-1970), the Jewish cartoonist who drew his eponymous machines starting with Collier’s Weekly magazine in 1929. According to the Rube Goldberg Institute for Innovation and Creativity, these machines “solve simple problems in the most ridiculously inefficient way possible.” A classic example is the “Self Operating Napkin,” which wipes an eater’s face by using a combination of strings, counterweights and even a scythe.
Oberfelder was intrigued and, initially, a bit surprised by the assignment. “[Frank] said, ‘God, you’re Rube Goldberg! This is perfect for you!’ But it wasn’t until I started going deeply into research that I realized [he was right],” Oberfelder told the New York Jewish Week.
Oberfeld has had a long and illustrious career: She’s danced with and for the likes of composer Meredith Monk and choreographer Sally Silvers, and has traveled the world as a performer, guest choreographer and lecturer, from the University of Hawaii to London’s Victoria and Albert Museum. Still, this new prompt captivated her. “I realized we’ve been living the Rube Goldberg life all along,” she said, referencing the ways in which people are all tied together, an intricate array of human cogs. Soon, she was hooked on the ideas behind Goldberg’s fanciful genius.
An iconic Rube Goldberg cartoon, the “Self Operating Napkin,” was featured on a U.S. postal stamp honoring the cartoonist. (Rube Goldberg Inc.)
The resulting piece for the NYPL event was, according to Oberfelder, “a four-minute blast” that explores this idea. “We were running through the audience,” she told me, remembering that first dive into the world of order and chaos that is Goldberg’s philosophy. “[It seems like] a whole lot of something for nothing. But it is something — the joy of the moment to moment, while a marble is rolling down a slide, knowing that it [was there] and it worked.”
After that initial performance, Oberfelder wanted to explore more but, of course, the pandemic soon swept away any performance plans. Inventive as ever, she took the ideas she’d workshopped for London and created a second iteration: a film that combined over 300 clips of dancers responding to prompts like “spin” and “pop up.” Dancers and laypeople the world over, despite the social isolation, came together into a global Rube Goldberg machine.
Eventually, as COVID-19 restrictions lifted and the world began to open up, she took her new understanding of the themes and translated the film into a site-specific work that showed at Roulette, a Brooklyn theater, in 2021. That work was really the proto version of this newest take. It had the playfulness, the fun, the tumbling, the twirling. It wasn’t quite there, though. Not yet.
The piece explores big questions, including, as Oberfeld said: “What would a Rube Goldberg machine look like if it was performed by humans?” (Courtesy)
With “Rube G. — the Consequence of Action,” Oberfelder digs even deeper into her big idea — that everything we do is both influenced by others and influences others in both predictable and unforeseeable ways. To her, this idea has a philosophical connection to Judaism: “Everything here on earth happens and [it’s our lot] to live it to the fullest,” she said, adding that “the way in which we help each other along” is part of a Jewish ethos.
In the current iteration, four performers (including, briefly, Oberfelder herself) move in the space with a curious mix of clumsy and graceful motions. They are the machine — pushing, pulling, whirling in tandem — but their gestures seem, at times, independently determined. Are we all simply reacting to the actions of our peers? I wondered, as I watched one dancer dribble another one across the space like a basketball. Or do we have a choice in the matter?
While the dancers on stage explore the relationship one human has with another, a wild card, in the form of improvised audience participation, is added to the mix. Viewers who attend a performance of “Rube G. — the Consequence of Action,” may, at times, be called to interact with and define the direction of the piece. This element of the unknown will be folded into a meticulously planned piece which, like a Goldberg Machine, has a zillion moving parts that all seem random but somehow fall perfectly into place.
“During COVID, I got to a point where I was really analyzing the nature of performance and what I missed about it,” Oberfelder said. “What I felt was lacking was the effervescence of people coming together with different ideas to present something new…. I’ve tried to create an environment where we’re all here.” To Oberfelder, “all of us” includes the audience — and maybe people everywhere, too.
“It’s sort of like singing in the shower,” she added. “It’s nice, and it’s a great release. But actually, I would like these vibrations to go past my bathroom walls.” To that end, she’s brought her work to a simple space (“it’s just a big white box studio with very simple lighting”) and is welcoming audience members into the dance. As a result, each performance will be one-of-a-kind.
“What would a Rube Goldberg machine look like if it was performed by humans?” Oberfelder wondered aloud when we spoke, mulling over the various possible iterations. Now is our chance to find out.
“Rube G. — the Consequence of Action,” will be performed at The Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center, inside the Gibney Dance Center, at 280 Broadway on March 4-5, March 11-12 and March 18 at 7:30 p.m. A gala performance will be held on March 19 at 6:30 p.m. and will include post-performance food, drinks and a live auction. For tickets (from $15) and info, click here.
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The post A Rube Goldberg machine comes to life — literally — in a new dance piece appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Why the Super Bowl antisemitism ad uses a familiar slur
To the editors:
The sticky note cruelly slapped on a high school student’s backpack didn’t have to say “Dirty Jew.”
It could have been any one of dozens of other antisemitic slurs, and believe me, throughout my life and current line of work, I’ve seen and heard them all. At the Blue Square Alliance Against Hate, our Command Center closely tracks the spread of antisemitism online, in all its pernicious forms.
In his piece for the Forward about our new Super Bowl ad, PJ Grisar argues that the ad misses the mark by using “Dirty Jew,” characterizing it as old-fashioned and out of touch with the heavily coded, meme-driven ways students typically express antisemitism today.
We’ve seen all of those slurs gaining traction among younger people that Grisar gave as examples of how kids hate today.
But we didn’t pull “Dirty Jew” out of the history books. In creating the ad, the Blue Square Alliance made a conscious decision to follow the research. Our decisions are based on data, from the one billion social media posts we analyze daily, to our semi-annual 7,000-participant survey on American sentiment toward Jews and antisemitism, to our multi-stage audience testing that is foundational to our creative development.
Here’s the hard data: With nearly 500 million social media impressions since 2023, “Dirty Jew” is a slur that has managed to penetrate all corners of American discourse. Worse yet, its usage online has increased by 174% in the past three years, growing at a significantly higher rate than other slurs. And sadly, the last few years have seen more than a few disturbing and real incidents of the scenario in the ad play out in real life. In U.S. high schools. Right now. Not 1950.
This data-guided approach drove our selection of “Dirty Jew” among all the possible antisemitic slurs as the one to appear on the sticky note. Even though at first glance this phraseology may seem dated, it’s actually timeless and ubiquitous — scarily — and is even outpacing other slurs in frequency of use.
So, whether you’re a Boomer, Millennial or Gen Z, there’s no subtlety to what this ad is showing you: this is antisemitism, pure and simple. And, as Grisar acknowledges in his piece, the challenge of storytelling within a 30-second ad window requires a clear, unambiguous message. In that short time, clarity beats complexity.
It was also important to us to use the high school setting and focus our ad on a younger demographic because that is where we have seen the most concerning trends in antisemitism data. Our most recent survey data shows that Gen Z is three times more likely to witness antisemitism than older generations, and yet nearly twice as likely to say it is not a problem.
At the heart of this campaign is Blue Square Alliance’s dedication to addressing another data point: more than 100 million Americans say they are unengaged in the collective effort to stand up against anti-Jewish hate. We have spent the past few years closely studying this segment, and our surveys show that unengaged Americans often don’t know Jewish Americans, they aren’t familiar with antisemitism (their news feeds and social feeds don’t share the awful stories that we all know too well), and they don’t think antisemitism is a significant problem. Importantly, they don’t feel personal or societal pressure to be an ally.
That’s exactly why we’re using the Super Bowl — a cultural touchstone for the entire country — to raise awareness and model allyship. We test all of our ads, including “Sticky Note” and our earlier ads like “Tony,” specifically with this target audience. What we’re seeing is promising.
Among the unengaged, exposure to our messaging measurably shifts attitudes: viewers become 36% more familiar with recent antisemitic incidents and 41% more likely to see antisemitism as a major problem in the United States. And the impact doesn’t stop at awareness — it moves people to act. After seeing our ads, unengaged viewers are 27% more likely to say they would speak up when they witness antisemitism.
And our work to cultivate allies extends far beyond the television screen. We complement our social media, outdoor and audio campaigns with on-the-ground bridge-building to strengthen connections with Americans across communities and reach those who have not yet been meaningfully involved in this issue. Over the past year, we’ve expanded our programs to bring more people into the conversation, like our partnership with UNCF and Hillel International, now on a 14-stop “Unity Dinner” tour, to connect Black and Jewish students on campuses nationwide. And last fall, we joined with the Appeal of Conscience Foundation to launch “Stand Up Sunday,” an interfaith effort that mobilized hundreds of thousands of congregants across the nation to reject antisemitism and all faith-based hate.
Our founder, Robert Kraft, created the Blue Square Alliance Against Hate in 2019 because he recognized that reversing the rise in antisemitism would require both awareness and empathy.
With “Sticky Note,” we’re showing what it means to be an upstander and giving Americans a clear, accessible way to step off the sidelines. We won’t simply win over the unengaged through displays of toughness and bravado alone, as some people have suggested. To reach the unengaged majority, you have to meet them where they are — not where we, as a deeply committed Jewish community, already stand.
The post Why the Super Bowl antisemitism ad uses a familiar slur appeared first on The Forward.
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Amid Iran Standoff, Witkoff and Kushner Pose Aboard USS Abraham Lincoln Aircraft Carrier
Steve Witkoff (R) aboard the aircraft carrier Lincoln. Photo via i24 / social media used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law
i24 News – Special US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner visited on Saturday the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier.
The duo, who led the US in the indirect nuclear talks with Iran on Friday, visited the aircraft carrier at the invitation of US Central Command chief, Adm. Brad Cooper.
The carrier arrived in the region last week as part of a US “armada” amid rising tensions with the Islamic regime of Iran. It is stationed in the Arabian Sea.
The visit came hours after US President Donald Trump stated that while the talks went well, “But I think Iran looks like they want to make a deal very badly, as they should. Last time, they decided maybe not to do it, but I think they probably feel differently. We’ll see what the deal is. It’ll be different than last time. And we have a big armada. We have a big fleet heading in that direction. It’ll be there pretty soon. So we’ll see how that works out.”
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Pentagon Says It Will Cut Academic Ties With Harvard University
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth arrives to administer the oath to U.S. Army National Guard soldiers during a re-enlistment ceremony at the base of the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 6, 2026. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth said on Friday his department was ending professional military education, fellowships, and certificate programs with Harvard University, marking the Trump administration’s latest escalation against the school.
President Donald Trump’s administration has cracked down on top US universities, including Harvard, over a range of issues such as pro-Palestinian protests against US ally Israel’s assault on Gaza, diversity programs, transgender policies and climate initiatives.
“Starting now and beginning in the 2026-27 school year, I am discontinuing all graduate level Professional Military Education (PME), all fellowships and certificate programs between Harvard University and the War Department for active duty service members,” Hegseth, who himself holds a master’s degree in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School, said on X.
The policy will apply to service members enrolling in future programs while those currently enrolled will be allowed to finish their courses, Hegseth said.
He also added that the Pentagon will evaluate similar relationships with other universities in the coming weeks.
Rights advocates have raised free speech, academic freedom and due process concerns over the government’s actions against universities.
A Harvard spokesperson directed Reuters to a page on the history of the university’s ties with the US military that says Harvard has played a “significant role” in America’s military traditions since the nation’s founding.
TRUMP-HARVARD TENSIONS CONTINUE
The university has previously sued the Trump administration over the government’s attempt to freeze federal funding.
Hegseth accused Harvard of “hate America activism,” also calling the university antisemitic in a reference to pro-Palestinian protests.
Protesters, including some Jewish groups, say the government wrongly equates criticism of Israel’s assault on Gaza with antisemitism and advocacy for Palestinian rights with support for extremism.
Harvard has condemned discrimination on campus. Its antisemitism and Islamophobia task forces found last year that Jews and Muslims faced bigotry after the start of Israel’s war in Gaza following an October 2023 Hamas attack.
Trump’s attempts to freeze federal funds for Harvard have faced legal resistance and the two sides have failed to reach a deal thus far.
Trump said this week his administration was seeking $1 billion from Harvard to settle probes into school policies.
Some Ivy League schools have reached agreements with the Trump administration and accepted certain government demands. Columbia University has agreed to pay more than $220 million to the government while Brown University has agreed to pay $50 million to support local workforce development.