"Mikvah Girls" is a an experimental play, incorporating a series of vignettes examining the sexual, social and ideological struggles of a group of Yeshiva girls coming of age in the 1990’s. In "Mikva Girls", a series of narratives, choreographed movements and musical chants meditate upon the codes of female Jewish ritual dress, prayer and sexual awakening. "Mikvah Girls" is set at the Rehovot School, where a clique of friends, Minna, Malkha and Andrea, navigate the trials of being a teenager and the hypocrisy of religious virtuosity all within a school day. They struggle to find their own identities within the conflicting forces of their Yeshiva’s religious dogma and Nineties era youth subcultures. The historical biographies of Jewish female iconoclasts Simone Weil and Andrea Dworkin informs the play's themes of counter-cultural resistance and protest. Through feminist chants and dance rituals, the girls rebel against archaic religious female codes, (Tsniut "Modesty") that regulate both their body and sense of self. The vignettes contain absurdist humor and an eclectic soundtrack collaging children's showtunes, Ashkenazi melodies, punk rock riffs and analog electronics. The performance demonstrates the fragility of religious codes in opposition to the power of women's resistance and drive at the threshold of the new millennium.
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