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A site-specific performance exploring memory, myth, and the human shadow
GOLEM is an ongoing artistic research project that combines wordless theatre, film, historical sites, and performance.
Inspired by one of the earliest recorded Golem traditions from Chełm in eastern Poland, the project approaches the legend not simply as folklore, but as if it were a remembered event—one that has left traces in landscape, architecture, and cultural memory.
Rather than reconstructing history, GOLEM explores how theatre can make memory physically present.
About the Project
About the Project
GOLEM is a site-specific, non-verbal performance created for historic synagogues.
The work combines movement, silence, sound, light,
documentary film, and authentic historical spaces into a
single theatrical experience.
At the center of the project lies a simple question:
Can an old myth still help us understand ourselves
in a new way?
Instead of presenting the Golem as a monster from legend, the performance draws on Carl Jung's concept of the Shadow—the hidden part of the personality that shapes human behavior while remaining largely unconscious. In this interpretation, the creation of the Golem becomes a metaphor for confronting, forming, and taking responsibility for the parts of ourselves we would rather not see.
The performance contains no spoken language. It relies on archetypal images, physical action, rhythm, silence, and the presence of the audience, seeking a form of
communication that can exist across cultures.
Memory, Place and Clay
Memory, Place and Clay
GOLEM is also a theatre of memory.
Before each performance, the project returns to places connected with the historical tradition surrounding Rabbi Elijah Baal Shem of Chełm, who, according to some of the earliest written accounts, created the Golem in the XVII century.
Clay is collected from these landscapes and appears in the performance itself.
The same material that belongs to the geography of the legend becomes part of the theatrical event—not as a historical proof, but as a tangible witness to memory.
Its texture, weight, and presence create a physical connection between the audience, the landscape, and the story being told.
The project treats the legend as though it once happened somewhere between history and myth. Theatre does not attempt to verify the story; it allows the audience to encounter it as a living possibility.
Why Historic Synagogues?
Why Historic Synagogues?
Historic synagogues are not used simply as performance
venues.
They are places where architecture, silence, absence, and memory become active elements of the work.
The performance is created specifically for these spaces,
allowing their acoustics, proportions, and history to shape
the experience as much as the actor, sound, and light.
The building itself becomes another performer.
Artistic Research
Artistic Research
GOLEM develops simultaneously as an artistic practice and a research project.
Each performance explores how archetypal images, embodied experience, and historical places influence the
audience beyond verbal interpretation.
The project continues through performances, audience research, academic writing, and artist talks,
investigating how theatre can become a space where myth, memory, and embodied experience meet.
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