THE GREAT DOMINATRIX
a short film, live performance and photograph
2018
The Great Dominatrix, 1-channel HD video, 5:40m, 2018
In The Great Dominatrix, Weitz satirizes contemporary political power through her performance as a golem in Hasidic drag, merging Chaplin-esque physicality with layered cultural and historical references. She mounts an inflatable globe in a charged performance of dominance and spectacle. The film critiques both authoritarian leadership and the enduring antisemitic trope of Jewish global control, while reimagining the sci-fi figure of Yiddish folklore as unruly, seductive, and subversive.
The film has been screened, performed, and exhibited at the 92nd St Y (New York City), The Jewish Museum (Augsburg, DE), Spring Break Art Fair (Los Angeles), Los Angeles Metaphysical Library (Los Angeles), The Holland Project(Reno), Experiments in Cinema Festival (Albuquerque), and Coaxial Arts Foundation (Los Angeles). In 2018, Weitz first performed The Great Dominatrix at Blue Roof Studios in Los Angeles, commissioned by Los Angeles Nomadic Division, curated by Irina Gusin. In 2021, scholar Dr. Hannah Schwadron published an academic essay on the film titled “Redressing Power through Hasidic Drag: Julie Weitz in My Golem as the Great Dominatrix,” featured in *Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies.
The Great Dominatrix, film still, 2018
Refashioning herself as a femme dominatrix in repurposed religious garb and exaggerated Jewish signifiers, the artist revises constructions of the folk golem figure.
Hannah Schwadron, Shofar magazine
My Golem as The Great Dominatrix, archival inkjet print, variable dimensions, 2018
The Great Dominatrix, live performance commissioned by L.A.N.D., Los Angeles, CA, 2018
The Great Dominatrix, live performance commissioned by L.A.N.D., Los Angeles, CA, 2018