The COJECO BluePrint Fellowship
2011-2012
Central Park: An Original Musical Story
A musical, performed by talented children from the Russian Jewish community, with songs composed by BluePrint Fellow Dina Pruzhansky based on poems by masters like Samuil Marshak, Renata Mucha and others. Two performances of the Musical (one in Russian and one in English) took place on March 17, 2014 at JCC Manhattan. Both of the shows […]
Dina Pruzhansky is a Russian-Israeli pianist and composer based in New York. After winning a number of nationwide music competition in her native country Azerbaijan, she moved to Israel. Since 2006, Ms. Pruzhansky resides in New York City. An alumna from Mannes College for Music, she has appeared in solo and chamber music recitals throughout the United States, Russia, Israel, Belgium and Germany, and has shared the stage with many leading artists, including the soloists of the Metropolitan and San Francisco opera houses and the soloists of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. New York City recital venues include Merkin Hall, Le Poisson Rouge, Steinway Hall, Bechstein Piano Center, Union Club, the Yamaha Piano Salon, Scandinavia House, The Ukrainian Institute, the Russian Permanent Mission to the U.N. and others.
ChaiLighter
ChaiLighter is a program that enables Jewish young adult/professionals traveling to Israel with an opportunity to create a customized extension.
Biana Lupa has been working in the Jewish communal world for five years with organizations such as RAJE, Hillel at Baruch and the Jewish Community Council of Greater Coney Island. Biana received her Master’s Degree in Public Administration (non-profit concentration) from Bernard M. Baruch College and a cum laude Bachelor’s Degree in International Criminal Justice and Government from John Jay College of Criminal Justice. She has always been a service-oriented individual who enjoys helping others. Biana has received several awards and honors, most notably, the John Jay Scholarship and Service Award, and a certificate of appreciation in recognition of ongoing support of the Russian Jewish Heritage in New York. She is also being honored as a dedicated alumnus at the RAJE Annual Dinner on March 15, 2012. Aside from volunteering, in her spare time, she enjoys traveling, reading, and being a published writer.
Ghost of The Ancient City
A painting exhibition of modern-day Jerusalem.
Originally from Minsk, Belarus, Tanya Levina is a Brooklyn based painter. Her artistic inclinations showed at a very young age as she started compulsively drawing on every surface in sight including books, walls and papers around the house. As she grew older, Tanya gave up defacing household property and started using drawing and painting as an outlet for documenting surroundings and expressing affection for things she liked, especially horses. To this day horses remain a dominant theme in her work. Tanya often sets her subjects in extremely colorful, exaggerated and slightly surrealistic settings, drawing inspiration from her surroundings, travel experiences, as well as works by Dali, Klimt and Monet. Her artwork can be found at www.tanyalevina.com
Aside from painting, Tanya studied Economics at Brandeis University, and after a couple of stints at various strategy consulting firms landed as a Research Manager at Scholastic.
Marlo: Jewish [En]Lightning
Marlo: Book One: Jewish [En]Lightning is the second book in Chicago-headquartered Urban Pop Art Projects’ publishing imprint Urban Pop Art Books. New York artist/ videographer/ author Aleks Degtyarev expertly navigates his id to deconstruct a complicated identity: that of the post-Soviet child immigrant all grown up. Navigating questions about identity often sidelined by urges to just […]
Aleks Degtyarev could be described as a story teller. Aleks has been passionately involved in the media world for over 10 years. Among a diversified skill set his main focus has always been producing, filming and editing, combined with education. As a multi-disciplinary artist, Aleks grounds all his work from a writer’s background sealing it with his knowledge of poetry and philosophy. Working with actors/talent as a director, he is not afraid to get in front of the lens and expose his own vulnerability. Aleks believes that everyone has a great story to tell and he searches out ways to inspire his collaborators to tell their stories. His major focus is honest media that has transformative potential, seeking to strengthen communities, and evolving communication.
Speak Memory
Speak Memory is an exhibition of four COJECO Blueprint Fellowship: Katya Meykson, Irina Sheynfeld, Tanya Levina and Yuliya Levit. This show explores Russian-Jewish immigrant identity, artists ties to the historic past, and the connection to our roots that we feel in everyday lives. February 28, 2013 at Columbia / Barnard Kraft Center Auditorium Show opening included […]
Originally from Minsk, Belarus, Tanya Levina is a Brooklyn based painter. Her artistic inclinations showed at a very young age as she started compulsively drawing on every surface in sight including books, walls and papers around the house. As she grew older, Tanya gave up defacing household property and started using drawing and painting as an outlet for documenting surroundings and expressing affection for things she liked, especially horses. To this day horses remain a dominant theme in her work. Tanya often sets her subjects in extremely colorful, exaggerated and slightly surrealistic settings, drawing inspiration from her surroundings, travel experiences, as well as works by Dali, Klimt and Monet. Her artwork can be found at www.tanyalevina.com
Aside from painting, Tanya studied Economics at Brandeis University, and after a couple of stints at various strategy consulting firms landed as a Research Manager at Scholastic.
Yuliya was born in Moscow in 1979 and graduated from RGGU with degree in IT in 2001. She moved to New York, along with all my family: my parents, my 84 year old grandfather, two of my 83 year old grandmothers, our dog, our cat, a violin, a guitar, my father’s bike and sewing machine that same year. Ever since she can remember she was interested in the link between the photo and a story, but she got serious about photography only 9 years ago. I currently reside in New York and work as a professional photographer. See her work at www.ylevit.com
Nadya Meykson and Victoria Schwartzman plan to make a recoding of contemporary Russian-Jewish emigre composers. The recording will include works that are rarely heard and which they feel deserve to be introduced to a wider audience. The recording will be followed by two public concerts.
Nadya Meykson moved to the US in 1996 from Moscow. She holds a Master’s Degree in Music from the Eastman School of Music. She has performed in venues such as Weill Recital Hall at the Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Millennium Stage at The Kennedy Center, The Bohemian National Hall, The State Kremlin Palace Concert Hall, All-Union House of Composers in Moscow and The Glinka State Central Museum of Musical Culture in Moscow.
Nadya has appeared as soloist with OSSIA Orchestra, Shoals Symphony Orchestra, Tuscaloosa Symphony Orchestra and Alabama Youth Symphony Orchestra. She has won various prizes, including Concert Festival, Noel Levine, First Prize at Ray Dunmyer Youth Concerto Competition, and First Prize at Shoals Symphony Orchestra Young Artist Competition.
Irina Sheynfeld is an artist, illustrator and designer born in Odessa, Ukraine, where she studied painting at the Odessa College of Art. Upon arriving to New York, Irina earned her BFA from Parsons School of Design and MFA from School of Visual Arts. She worked as a designer and illustrator for The Wall Street Journal, Time Warner and Oxygen Media. For several years Irina illustrated a weekly column for Editor and Publisher magazine. Irina just had her first solo show at Tagine Gallery in NYC and her work could be currently seen at Amsterdam Art Gallery and at Iridium Jazz Club. She was one of the winners of the Printmaking Completion and recipient of the New Media Award for the best web design.
Spoils of War: Ode to a Refusenik Mother
“Spoils of War: Ode to a Refusenik Mother” was originally published by Tablet Magazine on June 6, 2012 (bit.ly/spoilspoem), and the panels illustrating the poem were exhibited at New York City’s National Arts Club through the Russian American Foundation’s Russian Heritage Month. The poem is accompanied by a spoken word track over a mix tape in […]
Margarita Korol is an urban pop artist, designer, and writer in New York City producing media in the publishing and public worlds including art directing, editing, and illustrating for several online and print magazines. Her writing, illustrations, paintings, and arts and culture propaganda are vibrant expressions of urban progress in directed contexts.
Born the week of Chernobyl in Ukraine to refuseniks, Korol’s focus on empowering individuals in disadvantaged struggles against their political systems is an ongoing theme in her work. Her most recent exhibit for Brooklyn’s ArtOnBrighton exhibition on the Coney Island/ Brighton Beach boardwalk featured a series of propaganda posters directed to the area’s SovJew immigrant community in Korol’s generation. Previously, Propaglasnost: The Transparency Projects series was on view at NYC’s KGB Bar May and June 2011. Meanwhile, her Berlin Wall installation Die Mauer is housed at Chicago’s DANK-Haus German Cultural Center.
Strange Pilgrims No More
“Strange Pilgrims No More” is a collective portraits of Jewish women who emigrated to the US from the former Soviet Union. Like all women, we struggle to overcome the unique challenges of our time; our struggle to balance work and home, children and career, love and marriage, past and present. We want it all, but […]
Irina Sheynfeld is an artist, illustrator and designer born in Odessa, Ukraine, where she studied painting at the Odessa College of Art. Upon arriving to New York, Irina earned her BFA from Parsons School of Design and MFA from School of Visual Arts. She worked as a designer and illustrator for The Wall Street Journal, Time Warner and Oxygen Media. For several years Irina illustrated a weekly column for Editor and Publisher magazine. Irina just had her first solo show at Tagine Gallery in NYC and her work could be currently seen at Amsterdam Art Gallery and at Iridium Jazz Club. She was one of the winners of the Printmaking Completion and recipient of the New Media Award for the best web design.
