Baggage Claims is a one hour spoken and musical work, to quote from its playbill, “of klezmer tales, unlucky men, swollen hearts, the burdens of anxiety and doing one’s bit”. It crosses borders: personal/political, historical/theatrical, prosaic/poetic, conflict/reconciliation, truth-telling/myth-making. The accompanying music Russell Goldflam plays with his klezmer band Rusty & the Infidels elaborates and embroiders the text, framing the stories in a cultural context and amplifying their emotional pull.

I have lived in Mparntwe/Alice Springs for most of my life, having chosen to move beyond the pale of the Perth Jewish community I grew up in. About twenty years ago a couple of my musical mates talked me into forming a klezmer outfit: Rusty & the Infidels we called ourselves. In our on-stage schtick I’d boast about being the only Jew in the band. Over the years, between pieces, I started to tell bits and pieces of stories about my background: the trip to Australia, fragments of family myth, childhood memories… Eventually, the bits of schtick started to stick together and grew into Baggage Claims, which has been performed to the delight of audiences in Alice Springs, Adelaide and Darwin, now complete with screened images to illustrate the stories.

Duration: 1 hour with no interval