Avital Raz
Unnatural Cycles
— A Ghost Story
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Updated 8 February 2024
Presented by The Lowry + Word of Warning as a WTF
There’s a growing dark cloud above the Rosenberg house.
Two women — one dead, one alive — need to reconcile their differences to remove it, and let in new life…
A nuanced exploration of infertility, faith, and what it means to bear the weight of inherited generational trauma.
Ticketing
Pay What You Decide: £15/£10/£5/£0
Book: online or call The Lowry on 0343 208 6000
Time: Wednesday 3 May 2023, 8pm (no interval, ends about 9pm)
Location: The Lowry (Aldridge Studio), Pier 8, Salford Quays, M50 3AZ
Access
Age Advisory: 14+ (parent/guardian/carer discretion).
Content Warnings: may disturb, please click here for specific warnings.
Features: spoken & sung text, live composed music and soundscape, pre-recorded film and videography.
Queries: please contact The Lowry, 0161 876 2183 or access@thelowry.com
About
Unnatural Cycles — A Ghost Story emerged from a dream in which Avital met her Grandmother, followed by a year of listening to old cassettes in which she was interviewed about her experiences surviving the Jewish Holocaust.
Drawing on personal experiences to be told in song, live-looped audio, and film, Unnatural Cycles holds the weight of present and generational trauma in the body of a woman reckoning with inherited pain and the desire to bear a child.
Artist
Jerusalem-born singer-songwriter Avital Raz has made a name for herself singing politically engaging, strikingly original, and fearless songs — to emerge as a distinctive and truly individual voice that speaks with a very real and potent self-expression.
Avital studied at Jerusalem’s School of Visual Theatre, before embarking on a 20-year career as a singer-songwriter and musician. After completing degrees in Western Classical singing and composition in Jerusalem, she relocated to Varanasi (India) to study the sacred art of Dhrupad singing for six years under Professor Ritwik Sanyal. She’s released seven albums of her own music, and performed with acclaimed world music band Rafiki Jazz for three years.
Her first solo theatre show My Jerusalem — a politically charged tale derived from a song — was commissioned by hÅb & Contact for Works Ahead 2019; an accompanying feature-length documentary Your Jerusalem was commissioned by Journeys Festival International and created with Chris Davis in 2020.
Reviews
★★★★ Distinctive, compulsive, and truly individual… remarkable, life-affirming work.
— The Reviews Hub on Unnatural Cycles
Extraordinary piece of storytelling… Relentlessly bleak, yet totally compelling… A dreamlike, other-wordly space
— Rotherham Advertiser on Unnatural Cycles
Nothing short of astonishing
— Mark Perkins, Exposed Magazine on My Jerusalem
As perceptive of the personal as she is the political
— Now Then Magazine on My Jerusalem
Revels in its power to challenge perceptions + prejudice… Nags at how the wider world may view Jewish women, and pulls back this woman’s reality
— LouReviews on My Jerusalem
Credits
Written, performed, original music by Avital Raz
Directed by Gillian Lees
Dramaturgy by Peader Kirk & Gillian Lees
Videography by Chris Davis
Header Image by Darren Andrews
Commissioned by Sheffield Theatres, Contact, Lancaster Arts.
Supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.
Websites
avitalraz.com · Fb avitalrazmusic · Insta avital.raz · @avitalraz · #UnnaturalCycles