Milk is the immaculate visualization of life, hope, and survival, but in Milk, it is the metaphor of death, violence, and loss. A powerful dance/theatre piece by Palestinian director Bashar Murkus, founder and art director of the Khashabi Theatre in Haifa, Israel.
The show is the modern tragedy of a woman, a mother, that questions grief. Says Murkus: “I assume that losing a child in Gaza or in Paris isn’t that different in terms of pain for a mother. Comparing or quantifying are not my goals. What matters is to understand how we process loss.” The stage supports a minimal set: a black padded floor absorbs lights and muffles sounds. Enter mourning women: their white tears are milk, the same milk they’d nurse their children with, hadn’t they lost them. Enter medical mannequins. Death and life are all about the set. Women will show the ancient power to transform the unspeak- able. From black to white, it all turns into pure visual poetry thanks to the pervasive presence of living milk.
