Lilit Lesser and Jack Clearwater

Statement

Lilit Lesser and Jack Clearwater are an artistic duo working across theatre, film, cabaret and live art.

Lilit (They / Them) is a cabaret artist, writer, actor and translator.

Jack (He / Him) is a director, writer, theatre maker and cabaret artist.

Our intertwined practice includes projects with the cross-form arts group Clearwater Collective, as well as Marisa Carnesky’s Radical Cabaret School and NMBC Ritual Laboratory.

At GlogauAIR we are developing ‘LILIT’, a new performance piece centred around the mythic Jewish demon Lilith.

Invoking Lilit in these spaces, we work within a cabaret tradition to hold a filthy mirror up to the monster/goddess binary, and go beyond it to ask: what does it mean to embody a being created by humans to make sense of abyssal darkness? We are concerned with the many hearts of Lilit as a powerful autonomous being in their own right – one who lives in the unliveable, one who dances in the ruined temple, one who through whom we may heal even knowing our wounds will never close. One to whom queerness and disability feel inextricably bound. One who crouches at the edges of our vision, bearing witness.

GlogauAIR Project

‘LILIT’ is a myth we are making to deal with darkness.

‘LILIT’ is the floor of the theatre being painted under your feet…

‘LILIT’ is a multi-disciplinary performance following Lilit, a darkness-dwelling mythic figure tied to the Jewish diaspora.

Described in ancient texts as a “dweller in waste places,” Lilit is a being who thrives in desolation. In our reimagining, Lilit’s immortal presence is (re)animated across space and time: Ancient Demonexx. Modern day Diva. Bringer of judgement who wields a flaming sword. In these many forms they navigate a string of waste places: clawing for change in the acid light of an U-Bahn platform, singing Polish tango in a 30s cabaret club, slumping over a table as their landlady sweeps and entrails thaw in the icebox, conducting self-surgery in the back of a scab-red Nissan Micra.

Combining cabaret forms of lip-sync, drag, subversion and song with live translation, video, physical performance and spoken word, ‘LILIT’ engages with themes of freedom from persecution, freedom within a disabled and queer body, the destructive irony of cisheteropatriarchy, and the importance of legacy and folklore.

All spoken through the throat of an immortal, queer, Jewish demon.

CV Summary

Lilit —

• Recent theatre
• 2022, Bea, HOW TO BUILD A WAX FIGURE, Vault Festival/Pleasance Theatre
• 2021, Bird/Joan, THE WEIGHT OF THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD (Queer Lates), Royal Court Theatre
• 2021, Bassia, THE DYBBUK, Almeida Theatre, Audrey Sheffield
• 2021, Malcom, MACBETH, Bridge Theatre, Nicholas Hytner (postponed to 2022)
• 2020, Satan, SOMETHING SEXY IS HAPPENING IN EDEN, November Theatre
• Cabaret/live art/dramaturgy/design
• 2021, Dramaturgy/Set and Costume design for “ANA,” Cabaret by Jack Clearwater, St George’s Garrison Church
• 2019-21, Writer/director/performer of LILIT, and PERSEPHONE THE TERMITE QUEEN, multilingual cabaret/live art works
• 2019 – TOO ROMANTIC TO FORGET, a live art performance in collaboration with Emile Burgoyne and Chelsea School of Art London
• (2019) ‘The Labours of Heracles’ by NMBC Ritual Laboratory
• A re-working of the classic myth using live music, movement, ritual and collective participation
• Silver Building, New River Studios, Somerset House
• (Writer / Director / Devisor / Performer)
• Recent film
• 2021, Feature Film, Angie, MEDUSA DELUXE, BBC/BFI/MUBI, Tom Hardiman
• 2020, Lead role in Feature Film, Adèle, “EN PASSANT,” PY Films Inc, David Walter Hall
• 2018, Lead role in Feature Film, Tulip, “TO NOWHERE,” After Everything Entertainment, Sian Astor-Lewis (Winner Best Feature in British Independent Film Awards, Paris Independent Film Awards, and for which Lilit won Best Actor at London Rocks Film Festival)
• 2018 – THE ODYSSEY, a short art film with Emile Burgoyne at Chelsea School of Art
• Translation (French/Spanish to English)
• 2017, Translation of “The Encounter” by Simon McBurney/Complicité from English into Spanish in collaboration with Cristina Rivas-Darriba
• 2016, Translation of article on Commerzbank, published in Jeune Afrique
• Registered Kató Translator for Translators Without Borders.
• Translation of feminist periodicals with Mother Tongues Collective at the Feminist Library.
• Training includes: National Youth Theatre of GB, Ecole Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq and Dr Marisa Carnesky’s Radical Cabaret School.

Jack —

• (2020 – 22) ‘LILIT’ by Lilit Lesser
• Cabaret / theatre work reanimating the Jewish demon Lilith
• Tramshed Theatre, Pure Imagination Cabaret Night
• (Co-Director / Dramaturg / Sound Designer / Performer)
• (2020) ‘ANA’;
• Cabaret solo invoking The Patron Saint of Anorexia Nervosa
• Tramshed Theatre @ St George’s Garrison Church
• (Writer / Performer)
• (2020) ‘David’;
• Cabaret solo exploring machine consciousness / A.I
• Tramshed Theatre, Bar Wotever, The Glory, Cabaret Playroom, Duckie
• (Writer / Performer)
• (2019) ‘The Labours of Heracles’ by NMBC Ritual Laboratory
• A re-working of the classic myth using live music, movement, ritual and collective participation
• Silver Building, New River Studios, Somerset House
• (Writer / Director / Devisor / Performer)
• (2018 /19) ‘Dark Suit and Lavender Shirt, Standing’ by Jack Clearwater; Egon Schiele
• A multi-disciplinary work about the life of Viennese expressionist artist Egon Schiele
• The Point Eastleigh, Chelsea Theatre, TEDxRoyalCentralSchool, The Royal Academy of Arts
• (Writer / Director / Performer)
• (2019) ‘Elements’ Poetry and Ritual Production
• Poetry and ritual work exploring the classical elements; Earth, Water, Fire, Air
• St Mary’s Arches Putney, Somerset House
• (Writer / Performer)
• (2016/17) ‘An Archangel’ by Jack Clearwater; Isaac Haines
• A live art solo show exploring architect Isaac Haines’ ambitious obsession with order
• The Archivist, Dalston, The Room Above, Bristol
• (Writer / Director / Performer)
• (2015) ‘Chrysalis’ (Scratch) by Jack Clearwater; Chris
• A clown work exploring the experience of males with eating disorders
• Stanley Halls Invention Theatre Festival
• (Devisor / Writer / Performer)

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