Each year, it is our custom to turn our gaze to the night sky and discover prophecies, images, and reflections for the impending Autumn Cult. The heavens are adorned with wondrous expressions of creative processes: worlds obliterated in violent explosions, birthing new generations of materials in the cosmos; clouds where star nurseries flourish; and, of course, black holes, steeped in their secrets and gothic promises.
This year, the upward glance reveals ballistic downpours and the resolute flight of war machines. The stars are veiled by black clouds of despair and soot. If only we could cleanse our vision of fear and helplessness. However, this is a time of terror and the collapse of language. The images are coerced, and imagination feels nearly neutralized under the weight of disillusionment which the future may conceal.
We have little to offer in further descriptions of pain and bleeding. We will not attempt to justify the existence of this festival with these opening words, nor will we declare about “the vital role of culture during wartime.” On the contrary, artistic action contracts and trembles in the face of suffering.
We are producing this festival for the same reason that the Squill grows.
We strive to avoid being crushed between escapism and activism, yet we agree to sip from the strange blend of pain and beauty, violence and compassion. In the biological clock of the HaZira Theatre, autumn brings with it the Autumn Cult. As the world outside becomes increasingly colder, it is time to return from the summer’s events to the intimacy of the halls, moving from the blinding brightness of summer into the darkness of the stage. This is the epicenter of our activity in the HaZira Theatre, the moment in the year to ignite the metaphorical flame that will accompany us into the next season.
Autumn is a season of twilight, perfectly suited to our work in HaZira: interdisciplinary art—art of twilight. It is also the time when the city’s schools commence their annual cycle, this is an opportunity to witness vital art that is echoing the voice of the moment, and to be filled with the spirit of intrigue as the academic year begins.
We invite you to witness several events within the festival and experience the unfolding of the Autumn Cult and its energy accumulating from night to night.
Autumn Cult 2024 offers a complex experience. It is not a festival of encouragement or celebration. It is a festival of fierce storms performed by intense, dedicated artists. Some develop their works through confrontation, friction, and struggle—within personal, internal, political, and historical realities. Others grapple with Western civilization trying to shatter its identity characteristics. Some strive to undermine phenomena in an attempt to momentarily capture a fragment of the sublime.
