Would you mind giving us an insight into what your show/event/performance is?
Our Other Organ is a performance lecture in which I theatrically dissect a living body in search of a new human organ, I claim discovering—the place where racism lives inside us, and from where it grows into our actions, beliefs and political systems.
The performance begins like an anatomical lecture, but gradually the body on the table becomes personal, historical and political. I explore antisemitism and the ways it has shaped Jewish and Israeli identity. Gradually moving through my own family history, and other Jewish thinkers and sceintists, leading to the complicated emergence of Zionism as a remedy to persecution and trauma. But it has also developed into a system capable of violence, domination and genocide… all dormant within this Other Organ.
At the heart of the work is a difficult and deeply personal question: how can the experience of being a victim exist inside the same body as the capacity to dominate and oppress others?
The performance moves between anatomy, autobiography, political history and dark humour. There is fake blood, but the real dissection is of the stories we inherit—and of the systems of violence we may find ourselves repeating, even when we believe we are trying to escape them.
Tell us about the creative team and the process involved?
The performance was created by me, Boaz Barkan. I am the artistic director of NoLands, an interdisciplinary performance company. It is performed together with Joel Degerfeldt, whose living body becomes the anatomical landscape of the work, while I take on the role of lecturer, surgeon and perhaps a slightly morbid guide.
As an Israeli living abroad, with strong political views on the Israeli apartheid regime and a family history rooted in the Holocaust, I feel a deep need to find ways of influencing and expanding the conversation around antisemitism and, especially, Zionism.
My background in dance and psychology became an important starting point for the work. The project began through a collaboration with Medical Museion in Copenhagen, where it was first performed in the museum’s historic anatomical theatre. That space had a profound influence on the performance. We became fascinated by the authority of the medical lecture: one person stands beside a body, points to it and explains what is normal, what is abnormal and what everything means. I began to understand that anatomical lectures have always had a performative dimension. They are not only performances of science, but also of culture, power and ideology.
The process involved research into anatomy, antisemitism, Zionism, racism and own Jewish intelectual history. We worked through writing, physical improvisation and the gradual invention of this fictional organ. The main challenge was to keep the political questions alive in the body and in the theatre, rather than allowing the work to become a conventional lecture or a straightforward political statement.
How does it feel coming to (back to) the Fringe?
It feels exciting, vulnerable and a little terrifying—which is probably exactly the right combination for the Fringe. I am glad to be coming as part of #DANISH. That framework makes it possible to present the work with the attention, context and proper preparation it needs.
The performance has already been shown in museums, galleries, theatres and festivals across Denmark, but bringing it to Edinburgh places it within a much larger international conversation. The work deals with antisemitism, Zionism, Israeli identity, oppression and genocide—subjects that have only become more urgent, painful and difficult in recent years.
I am very curious to see what happens when the performance meets audiences with different political experiences and personal histories. I do not expect everyone to agree with it, and that is not really the point. I hope the Fringe can be a place where difficult and contradictory material is allowed to remain difficult and contradictory.
Summerhall feels like a very safe and thoughtful place to present the work, and that feeling has been confirmed by the level of engagement, care and preparation around the production.
With shows from all over the world at the Fringe, what sets yours apart?
You get to watch a living body being theatrically dissected in an attempt to find the organ responsible for racism. So that is perhaps already a little unusual.
The performance combines the structure of a medical lecture with autobiography, visual performance, political thinking and dark humour. It does not treat racism as something that only belongs to terrible people somewhere else. It asks how fear, victimhood and the desire for survival become embedded in all of us—and how those experiences can later be transformed into structures of domination.
Visually, the production is very simple: a body, a table, two architectural lamps, a few instruments and some fake blood. But from these materials, an entire political anatomy begins to appear.
On that, is there anything in the production or production team’s backgrounds which influences the way the show is performed or told?
Very much. I was born and raised in Israel and have lived in Denmark since 2004. I am Jewish, and my grandparents were Holocaust survivors. I grew up with the Holocaust not as something belonging only to history books, but as something present in the emotional life of my family and in the political stories around me. As an Israeli, I served in the military, in a non-combative unit, but I got to see this system of domination and occupation. I was raised as a zionist.
My background is also in dance, somatic practice, visual performance and hospital clowning. Because of that, I tend to approach political questions through the body, through images and through slightly strange physical situations, rather than only through explanation.
Humour is also very important, and has a long history in Jewish trauma healing. It creates a space around difficult material and allows the audience to come closer to it without making the subject itself less serious.
The work comes from inside Jewish and Israeli identity, but it also tries to look critically at that identity. I am not examining Zionism or antisemitism from a safe distance. I am trying to understand the histories and contradictions that are living inside my own body.
Is there anything specific you’re hoping the audience will take away?
I hope the audience leaves with more questions than answers—but with questions that feel personal and physically alive. Questions such as: How has racism affected my inner life? Where do I feel inferior or superior? How do these forces shape the way I move through the world and relate to other people?
The performance asks us not to divide the world too quickly into victims and oppressors, innocent bodies and guilty bodies. A person, a community or a nation can carry a real history of persecution while also becoming capable of inflicting violence and even developing genocidal tendencies. Recognising this does not erase that history. Instead, it asks what we do with our suffering, and what kinds of structures we build around it.
I also hope people begin to think about racism not only as an opinion or ideology, but as something embodied—a mixture of emotions, behaviors, inherited stories and assumptions about whose life matters.
Your Ideal audience is in attendance, who’s watching? Or more importantly – who isn’t…?
My ideal audience would probably include people who do not usually sit together: Jewish people, Palestinians, Israelis, people affected by racism, activists, people suspicious of political theatre and people who believe they already know what the performance is going to say.
I especially hope the work reaches people who are open to a story that holds together the contradictory experiences of victimhood and oppression within Jewish and Israeli history. I believe many people are looking for ways to understand Zionism and Israeli history through a more complex, critical and self-reflective lens. My hope is that the performance does not simply tell people what to think, but gives them a fuller and more nuanced way of engaging with these histories.
The people who may not come are perhaps those who feel that the title or description already tells them whether the work is for them or against them. Those are exactly the people I would most like to invite. The performance is not asking anyone to give up their history. It is asking what else we might begin to notice when we look at how that history continues to live in the body.
It’s an intense month, so where you’re able, how do you plan to relax, and are there any other shows you intend to see or want to recommend?
I will probaly do a lot of physical practice and silent reflecting to keep my emotional focus. And I will probably go on many walks in the beautiful nature and streets of Edinbrugh.
I also hope to see as much work as possible, especially performances that take formal or political risks. I am not sure which perfromance I can recommned, right now, sorry! But I will be looking out for smaller international companies and independent artists. One of the best things about the Fringe is walking into a room without knowing exactly what kind of work you will see.
Our Other Organ runs at Venue 26, Anatomy Lecture Theatre at Summerhall
Runs: 18th -31st August at 16:15pm
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