{"id":18005,"date":"2012-03-02T06:13:47","date_gmt":"2012-03-02T13:13:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=18005"},"modified":"2012-03-04T06:40:29","modified_gmt":"2012-03-04T13:40:29","slug":"antigone-rising-in-jerusalem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=18005","title":{"rendered":"Antigone Rising in Jerusalem"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Antigone Rising - Beit Mazya, Jerusalem\/Photo: Ayelet Dekel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI\u2019m in the Holyland ladies,\u201d Kristen Henderson called out to her fellow band members onstage at Beit Mazya in Jerusalem. Antigone Rising<\/a>, an all-female rock band toured in Israel from February 21 \u2013 23, 2012 as Art Envoys, an initiative sponsored by the U.S. State Department. Antigone Rising \u2013 sisters Kristen Henderson (bass) and Cathy Hendreson (lead guitar), along with Nini Camps (lead singer) and Dena Tauriello (drums) \u2013 has toured with The Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, The Allman Brothers Band, Lucinda Williams and The Bangles among many others. They have a terrific new album just out, 23Red; hearing them perform the songs live in Jerusalem was an exhilarating and moving experience.<\/p>\n

The band\u2019s whirlwind tour included a concert for Bedouin and Jewish high school students in Beer Sheva, workshops for kids at Beit Issie Shapiro conducted by drummer (and certified therapist) Dena, concerts in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Kadima Zoran, a concert for Jewish and Arab students in Jaffa as well as concerts and workshops in the West Bank.<\/p>\n

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Tarantina\/Photo: Ayelet Dekel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Opening the concert at Beit Mazya was Tarantina<\/a>, an all-female Jerusalem indie band that performs original material in Hebrew. Eti Bibi \u2013 guitar and vocals, Din Aharony \u2013 bass and vocals, Sigal Nahum \u2013 lead guitar and vocals, and Noa Segal got the evening going in a good direction with songs like Asurim, and Ani Afa.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell I\u2019ve been mixing hope and doubt\/I\u2019ve been changing and I don\u2019t know how,\u201d hearing Antigone Rising felt like home to me from the first song they sang: \u201cEverywhere is Home.\u201d I love all kinds of music, but these are the sounds I grew up on, rock with a strong bluesy current running through it, and Antigone Rising knows how to deliver.<\/p>\n

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Kristen Henderson\/Photo: Ayelet Dekel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Founding member Kristen Henderson said that they chose the name while in college, after reading Sophocles\u2019 Antigone, \u201cWe were inspired by her actions\u2026she was the first woman in recorded history to stand up and be strong and say: I\u2019m not taking any crap.\u201d It was a hard-rocking set with some great blues guitar and lots of energy, with the audience joining in for a chorus or two. Noting that female rock bands are still something of a rare breed, Kristen recalled their recent tour with The Bangles, saying, \u201cThey thought they were blazing the trail and that there would be more female bands by now\u2026I\u2019m not sure what\u2019s happening on planet Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Antigone Rising are inspiring in their music and they way they walk the walk and show it can all be done \u2013 raising children, writing music, performing and touring. They closed the show with a beautiful song \u201cBorrowed Time\u201d that Nini said is about the legacy we leave \u2013 \u201cWhat do we leave for our children, what you take from your ancestors,\u201d and Kristen added, \u201cWe\u2019re all just here for a little bit of time.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Nini Camps\/Photo: Ayelet Dekel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After the concert, I joined the throng of people crowding the band and talked to Nini about the band\u2019s tour in Israel. What did they think about coming to Israel?<\/p>\n

\u201cMy first thought was \u2013 it will never happen. There\u2019s too much politics, too many moving parts to make it happen,\u201d Nini replied, \u201cThen we started getting more information and more people started getting involved and it seemed like there was more interest, as opposed to just an idea, and we took a moment, we got together and we said: Look, how do you feel about this?<\/p>\n

I have a son at home and Kristen has a boy and a girl, two little babies and I thought is this good? and that was honest \u2026but the more we thought about it, the more we realized this is the opportunity of a lifetime. You know the climate in our world is very unstable, but you know, there\u2019s areas where there\u2019s a wealth of history, culture and life that you just gotta go, you gotta take a chance, and this is one of those places. It didn\u2019t take us very long. Within 5 or 10 minutes we were saying – There\u2019s no way we won\u2019t do this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although this was only the second day of the band\u2019s visit, they had already had an opportunity to experience the diversity of Israel\u2019s cultural mix. Nini said, \u201cThis morning we played at a community center with a mixed group of kids, brought from different areas. There was a young woman who was covered completely next to a girl that looked very western. It\u2019s such a cultural blend within a small area that it\u2019s ecstatic, it\u2019s really overwhelming. I\u2019m meeting people, I\u2019m talking to people\u2026 there\u2019s so much that separates us, and yet there\u2019s really nothing that separates us. We\u2019re the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

Follow Antigone Rising on their website<\/a>, and on their facebook page<\/a>.
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\u201cI\u2019m in the Holyland ladies,\u201d Kristen Henderson called out to her fellow band members onstage at Beit Mazya in Jerusalem. Antigone Rising, an all-female rock band toured in Israel from February 21 \u2013 23, 2012 as Art Envoys, an initiative sponsored by the U.S. State Department. Antigone Rising \u2013 sisters Kristen Henderson (bass) and Cathy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18005\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}