The rock opera "Mami" was written by Hillel Mittelpunkt and was first performed in 1986 by "Tzavta" theater in Tel Aviv. The songs and the plot deal with political issues that were relevant then still are now, like the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, the discrimination against residents of southern Israel and Israeli militarism. The plot revolves around a girl, Mami, from a small town in the south. Her husband is injured in a military action and becomes disabled. In order to deal with their hardships, they move to Tel-Aviv, where Mami takes on a waiting job in a local bohemian pub. She survives a rape attempt by a group of seven Palestinian waiters who work with her, and consequently starts to work in a brothel. There she meets professor Kopmashin, who upgrades her mind using a machine and gives her a new image – “Mami Superstar”, a popular and successful character. She soon becomes the prime minister of Israel and leads a fascist militaristic agenda. She leads Israel to an unnecessary war and loses it. Following a public inquiry, she is ordered to return to the southern town she came from, along with her husband.

 

I chose to design a costume for Mami’s character in the scene where she is reborn, after Professor Kopmashin’s transformation. In this scene she becomes a star who manages to sweep the entire nation. I chose to refer to modern-day Israel and not to Israel of the 1980s. Accordingly, I wondered what would be different about the play if was written today. Unfortunately, not much has changed in Israel. It seems that the issues we dealt with as a society remain relevant forty years later, and some of them have even radicalized over the years. Israel of the 2018s is much more ultranationalist than it was, with what I perceive as an abuse of national symbols. With that in mind, I chose the Israeli flag as the main focus of the outfit. It represents it appropriation of the flag in favor of Mami’s ideology and so she wears it from head to toe. The silhouette was inspired by Beyoncé's costume in her performance "Homecoming" and by costumes of other contemporary pop singers. The colors, of course, are blue and white.