Natalia Zukerman is the daughter of world-renowned violinist and flutist Pinchas and Eugenia Zukerman, and sister to famed opera singer Arianna Zukerman. She is a talented musician and accomplished artist who walks to the beat of her own, less classical drum. This weekend at Carnegie Stage, Natalia Zukerman will present her personal and inspiring one-woman show, The Women Who Rode Away.
For the last 20 years, Zukerman has been practicing her craft as a folk musician. In 2017, a fellow artist offered her an opportunity to create and perform a more theatrical styled solo piece, based on the recent ‘portrait songs’ she was writing. With the help of friend and New York City’s cell theater Artistic Director Kira Smiring, Zukerman crafted a story tied together by songs, slides and an autobiographical narrative. This was the foundation for what has now become The Women Who Rode Away.
When speaking with Zukerman last week, I asked her what it was like growing up in a house full of artists. She said, “Art and music were required at my house… I understood the world through music and art at a very young age.” Yet the necessary hours of solitude required to master an instrument and the uninspiring repetition of interpreting works arranged by others was not the kind of artistic experience Zukerman was seeking. “Finding my own voice took a little longer.” Also a visual artist, Zukerman says: “In drawing [I understood] that I could create my own reality, write my own stories. This was always way more interesting to me than trying to re-create something from the page.”
The Women Who Rode Away is an intimate portrait recounting Zukerman’s journey of finding her own voice through the stories of the women in her life that paved the way. After some of her performances, she’s invited her audience to reflect on or share their own stories, something she has found incredibly satisfying: “I’ve gotten to lead workshops around the show… and just be a witness of other people telling their stories. I think what it does is just grant permission to let those women come through them.” Join us on her journey at Carnegie Stage this weekend. You may just learn something about your own.
The Women Who Rode Away
January 30, 31 and February 1 @ 8pm
Carnegie Stage
Pittsburgh's alternative theater company
equal, diverse, inclusive