Funding and Casting “Let My People Go”

As Louis and I finished lunch, we had agreed that we would be setting James Weldon Johnson’s poem with a combined company:  two dancers and a drummer from Louis’s company and two dancers and a cantor from the Avodah Dance Ensemble.  I would work on funding.  I would have plenty of time since it was May, and we were not planning to tour the piece until the winter of 1989, mainly for Black History Month.  I suggested that what would make it easiest would be if neither of us took a fee up front but rather if we were paid royalties from booking fees.  Thankfully Louis said “YES!!”

I left feeling excited knowing that this project was going to happen.  Now all I needed to do was get enough bookings with a deposit to cover the performers’ rehearsal pay.  While the Avodah Dance Ensemble didn’t have rehearsal pay during the first few years, once I relocated to the New York area in 1984 I always made it a practice to pay dancers for both rehearsals and performances even if it was just a small amount.

Once home, I began to create information to send to potential bookers for “Let My People Go.” The Board and I had decided that what would make this project unique, fulfilling our mission of bringing communities together, was that two communities needed to sponsor the program jointly, preferably representing both the Jewish and Black communities. A mailing was designed, phone calls made, and letters of agreement were signed, with 12 different performances planned!  While a few performances would be in the New York area, tours were booked to Ohio, Massachusetts, and Virginia.  We were pleased that some sites planned workshops, or were including a Question and Answer session as part of the program.  In one case we would be doing not only a public performance, but also a performance for a high school.  All rehearsal costs would be covered from the deposit fees from the bookings.

It was exciting to see how communities were working together to plan the event.  I’ll go into more detail about that in later blogs when I describe some of the unique events of touring.

Next job was to cast the Avodah part of the project.  Since there were four regular dancers (Beth Bardin, Kezia Gleckman, Susan Freeman Graubart, and Deborah Hanna) in the ensemble, and I totally adored and valued each of them, I gave much thought to which dancers to select for “Let My People Go.”  Since Susan was in rabbinic school at the time, recently married, and serving a congregation as Student Rabbi, I decided this would not be the ideal project for her at this time.  Beth Bardin was quite a lovely dancer but didn’t have as much experience with Avodah’s dramatic repertory as Kezia and Deborah had.  So Kezia and Deborah (who were also the senior members of the company) would be the two Avodah dancers to help develop “Let My People Go” and to perform in it the first year.

Kezia and Deborah practicing the Avodah piece “M’Chamocha” outdoors, summer 1988

 (Photo: JoAnne Tucker)

Let me introduce you to them.  The most fun way to do that is to share Kezia’s descriptions from the November 1988 Avodah Dance Ensemble Newsletter.  Kezia, as she explained, had recently “been designated editor of the Avodah Newsletter, by virtue of her well-known inability to refrain from commenting on everything she sees.”

Kezia Gleckman. Loves to point out that Avodah is exactly the kind of sane, intelligent, teamworking, joyful company she was repeatedly told she would never find.  Originally from Poughkeepsie, NY, counts as her greatest fortune that her parents love dance and have never said, “Why don’t you look for a real job instead?” The most balletically trained of the modern-minded company, confesses that she cries when she hears “Swan Lake” on the radio and suffers from visions of Sugar Plums. Certified and hoping to teach high school English someday, in the meantime reads children’s books to the company on tour and composes detailed limericks for nearly any occasion.  Detests yogurt (dancer’s staple); loves dessert for breakfast. Holds a Phi Beta Kappa English B.A. from Vassar College and a fine arts degree in Dance from Adelphi University.  Looked to by the company to discern counts or set timing in nearly any piece of music, her sense of direction is nearly hopeless, and she has been known to find herself momentarily lost in a building.

Deborah Hanna. Only quiet if meditating. Our wandering explorer; invokes perennial company sigh, “Where’s Deborah?”  Perhaps the company’s most natural diplomat, possesses an inimitable ability to wave at truck drivers and gain us entry to any highway lane.  Grinning eyes, mischievous mind, radiant smile. Holds B.A. in Liberal Studies from Stetson University in Florida and exaggerates her Southern accent when hospitably convenient. Trained by the Martha Graham School, performed with Pearl Lang and recently completed her second season with the Graham Company Ensemble at City Center.  Originally from West Virginia, wishes there were horses and farms in Manhattan; stares instead at glow-in-the-dark moon and stars on her wall, gifts from Avodah friends, of course.

And while I am quoting Kezia from the November ’88 newsletter I can’t resist including the paragraph she wrote about me!!

JoAnne Tucker.  Avodah Founder, Director, Choreographer.  The company is constantly amused by references to “Dr.” Tucker.  Despite her Ph.D., Juilliard background, Graham training, choreographic vision and 16 years of directing Avodah, JoAnne can only be described as delightfully unpretentious and the worst giggler of all.  Requires her dancers to be technically adept, intelligent, imaginative and nontemperamental and knows, just as successfully as how to direct, when not to direct.  Rarely misses a detail of company arrangements but on tour invariably forgets her own jewelry, stockings or shoes.  Quilts and embroiders impressively; speaks fluent computer. Claims that extensive association with us sometimes makes it difficult for her to identify with people her own age.  In light of our incredible maturity, we can’t imagine what she means.

OK, so now my challenge was to find a Cantor or Cantorial Student to help develop the piece and to tour with us.  By “Cantor” I mean a person who is part of the clergy team of a Reform Jewish congregation and particularly known for providing and leading the music in a service.  Having grown up in the Reform Movement — and with the company’s having an official residency at Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion’s New York Campus with its School of Sacred Music (“HUC”) — I knew just the person to ask.  Rabbi Larry Raphael, faculty member and Dean at HUC, as well as an Avodah Board member, had helped me before and even suggested to rabbinic and cantorial students that they seek me out when he knew they had an interest in dance.  Popping into his office on the 4^thfloor, I asked if he had anyone to recommend for the project, and sure enough he did.  He recommended Mark Childs, then a cantorial student with another year to go.  And indeed Mark was perfect for the role.  While he didn’t have a particular interest in dance he had a wonderfully strong and powerful voice and a good sense of drama.  Already I could imagine him chanting sections of Exodus.  So now it was time to get back to Louis and let him know I had cast Avodah’s half of “Let My People Go.”

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