Nova, Bondi, Toledo & Seville
Nova Music Festival site. Photography Amir Chodorov
NOVA. 31/12/ 2025
Some three weeks in Israel ended with me dancing at the Nova Music Festival site, where the 7th October massacre happened. The site was created and conceived by photographer, Amir Chodorov. Amir and I drove to the site at 6.30am. Stopping along the way, we passed several roadside shelters where bodies had been stacked, as many as forty in one bunker.
On route, he told me about how he just started putting up plaques, talking with families, collecting their pictures and stories. He curated it so that each person who was murdered was placed prominently next to others that they knew, or had some connection with. Brothers and sisters, partners and friends all side by side. Families wanted their son or daughter to be shown in the way that remembered them best. Beautiful, joyful, spirited, alive.
Five kilometres from Gaza. I danced in the gaps between the posters, finding my solace and silence to grieve them respectfully in solitude. It was for Bondi too, the connection was deep. I told Amir I had been dancing and he said he wanted to photograph me. We moved to the bright ceramic red poppies, commissioned by Amir. Later, we moved to the DJ stage, I did some flamenco, making noise at Amir’s request. He said Matan’s mother would love it; he was into rhythm and flamenco was perfect.
One man nearby came over to watch. I asked, ‘do you dance?’ he replied, ‘no, I only rave’. I asked him to join me in rave together. We improvised and fell about having fun, it was perfect there was so much joy from the onlookers and I turned to Amir and said, ‘you need to have dance here’.
Amir posted the photos and videos, and the next day told me he received a lot of mixed messages from the families. Some were delighted, others were angry. They felt their sacred space had been violated.
Amir’s response to me was perfect. “This means there’s something here we have to do.” But to them he said “No. This site is for everyone, not just you. It’s for Jews worldwide”.
BONDI. 14/12 /2025
I arrived in Tel Aviv to experience an experimental flamenco festival, could it have been more fitting? The day after was my birthday, Saturday 13 December, there was a message from one of the guitarists. Did you hear about Bondi? Are your family ok? It was the 14ht in Sydney. Bondi had been attacked. We saw this coming. 11 dead. Then later, there were more. A little girl. This was my home beach, the family beach. It’s where my parents met, the Bondi Pavilion. The Bondi massacre turned everything on its head.
It was another week before I could process it all. Now in Jerusalem. First day I was heading to the wall, of course. But I sat on the end of the bed and cried. Unstoppably. Immoveable.
Arriving at the Kotel, I collected a small piece of paper from the kiosk and wrote ‘BONDI’. Once word. The women’s section was full. So many people. I have seen images when it was not, or perhaps because it was midday by now. It was a long time of pushing and manoeuvring bodies. The rocking, swaying, silent prayers, whispered prayers, children, wheelchairs. I got t the wall. But I was not there in full, so I reached my hand out and pressed it against the stones. That was ok. I placed my paper into the stones and stayed a while longer. Praying for Bondi.
Everyone I spoke to knew of it, of course. It was like it had happened to them. They knew about the government and riots at the Opera House, the burning of synagogues and childcare centres, the doxxing of artists (me included) and now this. They saw it coming too.
TOLEDO 9/ 1 / 2026
I’m almost certain that flamenco is closely linked to the music that the Sephardic Jews of Toledo made at that time. — Paco de Lucia, 2004.
This extra ordinary interview with Paco de Lucia revealed a doorway to me last year. I needed to go to this place he was in and I needed to know what he had found. In my quest for finding Jewish traces in flamenco, this was gold. This was Paco. Undisputed all-time master of flamenco guitar. How could this be ignored?
I located the filmmaker Manolo, who introduced me to Rafael, the manager of Toledo’s boutique hotel, Entre Dos Aguas, Paco’s former residence for his family and the place where he recorded his last album, Cositas Buenas. Rafael was kind, generous and overflowing with information. He treated me to a night in the casa, so I opted for Paco’s siesta room. What a delight. Coiled up inside the recording studio of Paco De Lucia, in the basement of his last private residence in ancient Toledo.
Toledo is full of Jewish history. Two of the three synagogues in Spain are here. The walls of the streets are lined with an energy that is ancient, Visigoths and Romans, Jews and Christians, then finally Muslim caliphate. The Reconquista took it back but by then Jewish history was erased. I still don’t know what Hebrew scores Paco had read, but he felt their presence too. Los Judios.
The next day, in the basement, the recording studio for Cositas Buenas, there were cd’s and records and I listened, imagined and danced, invoking the presence that once lived here. Good things indeed.
SEVILLE
Starting with intensive dancing in Seville for two months, I returned for a final week to this magical place, from where I started. Despite modern day massacres and ancient expulsions, Seville chooses to push its’ part in this history aside. The dungeon at Triana bridge, Castillo de San Jorge, is now the fabulously vibrant Triana market, which replaces any ruins below.
These were once a museum but even that has been shut down. Next to the market on the other side is Callejon de la Inquisition. A tiny lane leading to the Guadalquivir river.
Is that where they led them to the prison for questioning and torture? How did they get them across town to Plaza de San Francisco, where the public came to watch a ritualised event, the Auto de Fe? Where did they stash the ashes?
The decree of expulsion was officially cancelled in 1992. Cordoba’s Mueso Sefardi displays names and artefacts on the walls of its fervent past.
Sevilla, why must you hide? Beautiful orange-filled trees and over a balcony, I see a banner hanging. ‘Sefardies haced oir vuestra voz: denunciad la barbarie en Gaza por parte del gobierno Israeli’.
Sephardim make your voice heard: denounce the barbarity in Gaza by the Israeli Government.