By: Ori Lewis
JERUSALEM (REUTERS).- A disused Ottoman-era jail in Jerusalem has been taken over this month for performances of American composer Steve Reich’s “Different Trains” multimedia work that recounts the ferrying of Jews to the Nazi death camps. The antiquated building in Jerusalem’s walled Old City was built by Palestine’s Turkish Ottoman conquerors in the mid-19th century and later used by its British Mandate rulers, but the site has lain derelict for decades. The show, part of Jerusalem’s Season of Culture, was brought to the city by Stockholm’s Jewish Theatre that first staged it under the direction of Pia Forsgren in the Swedish capital in October 2008. Sweden’s Fleshquartet played electronic instruments in the cavernous hall to perform Reich’s work that debuted in 1988 and won a Grammy Award in 1990 for Best Contemporary Classical Composition. They added their own improvised sounds in a work they call “Tears Apart” on colourfully lit bulbous glass vessels in a dar