The Archive (NYC Premiere)

Created and performed by Neta Pulvermacher

February 24, 25, and 26, 2025 at 7:30 PM | Center for Jewish History | 15 W. 16th St. | NYC

When the last person who remembers is gone, whole worlds disappear forever. What remains?

The Leo Baeck Institute is proud to present the New York City premiere of The Archive, a simultaneously intimate and epic one-woman show by choreographer and performer Neta Pulvermacher. In The Archive Pulvermacher explores her German-Jewish family history and follows traces to Berlin and Frankfurt, once her family’s home. This funny and deeply moving work inhabits a post-memory archival landscape, bringing to light long forgotten characters, voices and narratives through song, dance, and storytelling.

Before the show, the audience is invited to peruse Pulvermacher’s titular “archive” – the documents, photographs, letters, and artifacts that she discovered when her her parents, Leopold Pulvermacher and Frieda Fleischer, passed away.

This special performance finds particular resonance at the Leo Baeck Institute and the Center for Jewish History, where Pulvermacher’s archive will share space with millions of documents from other families in the Institute’s vast collections. In our current era of global upheaval, this meditation on memory and history and their role in understanding our world becomes increasingly urgent and relevant.

The Archive originally premiered as a site-specific work for four dancers at the Jerusalem Leo Baeck Institute in July 2023. Following the October 7th attack, two of the original cast members were drafted into military service, and the piece was reimagined as a solo performance for Frankfurt's KFW Stiftung – Villa 102 (March 2024) and Tel Aviv's Suzanne Dellal Center (June/July 2024).

The New York premiere of The Archive is made possible by the generous support of the Arnhold Family, Mary and Saul Sanders, and Joel and Carol Levy.

“This haunting exploration of memory and history will resonate with you long after you leave the theater. In these turbulent times, it's not just a show, it's a must-see experience.”

—Nira Perry, Saloona, July 2024