Month: October 2018

Guest Blog by Regina Ress: There Was Joy in their Feet: Jerusalem, 1973

JoAnne Tucker / / Guest Posts

Regina Ress is an award winning storyteller, actor, author, and educator who has performed and taught from Broadway to Brazil, in English and Spanish, in settings from grade schools to senior centers, prisons to  Carnegie Hall, homeless shelters to The White House.  She teaches applied storytelling at NYU and produces a long-running storytelling series at NYU’s Provincetown Playhouse. She is a founding Board member of Healing Voices-Personal Stories. www.reginaress.com

 

Following last week’s blog on creating Sabbath Woman, Regina sent me an email with this memory in response to its  image of “congregants filling the aisles with joyful dancing,” and men going out to greet the “Sabbath Bride.”  I asked her if she would share it as a guest blog.  I am delighted she agreed.  Regina and I have been dancing and collaborating together since we were six!

I went to Jerusalem in 1973 to visit my college friend Ian. I had no expectations, religious or otherwise, just the excitement and curiosity of seeing an old friend I hadn’t seen in seven years. I knew that when Ian had been released from the U.S. army three years before, he had walked from Germany to Jerusalem. Walking, we know, becomes sacred practice and perhaps even a form of dance when done with intension.

Ian picked me up at Lod Airport and drove me up to Jerusalem. He was living in a flat on the roof of an old apartment building near the Souk, the Market. We walked up several flights of concrete stairs, turning on the lights at each landing to find our way up the dark, winding passage. This was my first experience with electricity as a precious and expensive commodity. We came out on to the roof and there was a small structure built in the middle of it. Ian’s place! In the day time, the Middle Eastern Jewish women living in the building used the roof as a space to winnow and dry grains in large, flat baskets. I had entered a different world.

When we arrived, it was early evening. Ian said we had been invited to a party. As I had just emerged from a twelve hour, non-stop El Al flight from New York, I was exhausted. I said that he should go to the party. I needed to sleep.

Ian returned home about 1:00 AM and I awoke. My internal clock told me it was early evening and I was wide awake. In the years since college, our lives had taken many twists and turns; we had a lot of catching up to do. Around 3:00 AM, Ian asked, “Are you ready for an adventure?” Absolutely!

It was a Friday night, and the August full moon lit Jerusalem. My memory is of a shimmering, cream-colored city, quiet, with a big bright sky. I had no idea where we were going and didn’t ask. I knew nothing about Jerusalem, and had no preconceived notions, expectations, images. I asked no questions, but simply watched the play of the moonlight on the buildings.

We parked and began to walk. There was a wall and a gate and we entered. I realized we were in the Old City. I had never been in a walled city before. I felt a shift in the quality of the space, a shift, if you will, in the feeling of the stones themselves. The air, too, felt different, as if the molecules were packed, dense with emanations from the stones, filled with the history of the place.

We walked along narrow stone streets bordered by stone buildings. The moon sailed in the sky and we walked in silence. No traffic noise, no sirens, only the sound of shoe against stone. And no other people. Until, at some point in our journey through the labyrinth of the Old City, we began to be passed by men, men running along the narrow streets. They ran with expectation, not hurry, their long black coats, like capes, flapping after them as they ran. There was joy in their feet.

“Mazeh? What is this?” I asked. “Ah,” said my guide, “On Friday nights they run to be at the Wall for Shabbat. They are running to greet the Sabbath Queen.”

It was then that I understood that we were walking to the Western Wall. I hadn’t even thought about it being early Saturday morning, let alone understanding the significance of the pilgrimage we were making on that moonlit night. We were silent again. The closer we got to the Temple Mount, the closer it got to the dawn; the closer to dawn, the more men dressed in archaic black passed us, running to be at the Wall for the first moment of Sabbath light.

We arrived suddenly at an open space, a space lit by the huge, sinking, August moon. There were many people, many kinds of people, but all were there to be at the Wall as the sky changed from black and silver to pink, yellow, blue, to dawn.  It was like a dream. It was not a dream come true, for I had never dreamed of Jerusalem. This was a dream I was experiencing wide awake.

I stood there as the moon slid behind the old buildings and the world of color returned. I breathed the air warmed by the old stone walls and watched the many pilgrims to this ancient, holy place. It was there and it was then that I began my personal pilgrimage to the ancient holy place hidden deep within my heart. It was the beginning of a shift in my relationship to the sacred, to the way I would move upon the planet and through my own life.

A few days later, Ian took me to meet his spiritual teacher, the resident monk in a Zen Center on the Mount of Olives. As we sipped green tea, Ian told his teacher that I didn’t understand the Zen practice of sitting meditation. And, he added, “Regina feels guilty about not wanting to sit with us. Tell her it’s OK.” The monk turned to me and, in a deep, penetrating voice said,  “You don’t sit.You move.”

Not long after that trip to Jerusalem, I found my personal expression of a relationship to the sacred in ceremonial dance. Since then, in community and alone, I have danced in pine groves and cathedral crypts, on mountain slopes and Manhattan’s streets. And even my not so “sacred,”more celebratory dance is also, always, an expression of my relationship to a wider and deeper reality. And when I dance, wherever I dance, like those men running to greet the Sabbath Queen, there is joy in my feet.

Regina sadly leaving Israel.  It is early morning and she is on the way to the airport.

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Choreographing Based on Ritual and Research

JoAnne Tucker / / Avodah's Early History, Tallahassee

Spring 1974.  Excited by the strong response to our first piece “In Praise” I am eager to do another piece with Irving that would fit into the Sabbath Service.  Having a limited education in liturgy, I find myself reading and learning as much as I can.  I zero in on the Friday night candlelighting gesture of circling the flames and covering the eyes.  What does it mean? Where did it come from? I start experimenting, myself, with using the gesture when I light the candles.  (Now… to be upfront, I was not very observant and it was as much out of curiosity as any kind of spiritual desire or need that I found myself lighting the candles and saying the blessing on Friday night.)

I soon showed Irving the gesture, with much enthusiasm, one early evening in his backyard.  We decided to move forward on creating a piece related to welcoming the Sabbath. Research continued with the help of Rabbi Garfein. In fact, we dedicated the first performance, November 9, 1974 to him.  That was also the first official performance of The Avodah Dance Ensemble, a part of the newly formed Avodah, Inc. (See this earlier blog to learn more about this.)

As Irving and I researched the idea of welcoming the Sabbath the piece began to take shape into several sections.  Its opening was expressed in a statement we wrote about the piece for the first performance: “The image of Women, be she Mother, Daughter, or Grandmother, with eyes covered, praying over the Sabbath lights, while her family silently gathers around, inspired the dance and music of our new piece.”

I found the gesture of circling the flame and covering the eyes to be a very personal one and I imaged that each person did it in their own way with their own thoughts.  The piece opens with three women each doing the gesture in their own way and conveying their emotional response in movement.  They come together doing circular movement putting the hand gesture into the whole body and the feet. As I choreographed I realized I was drawing on my composition classes with Louis Horst in making sure each movement related to the theme I had introduced. Helen Tamiris’s use of gesture as a starting point was also a key influence. Long after the piece was no longer a part of the repertory, we often included the movement ritual of circling and covering the eyes as part of workshops.  Kezia has said about this, “In all the years I was in the company, I always loved and was intrigued by workshop participants’ explanations of how precisely they did the candlelighting gesture, where they had learned it, and what they thought of when doing it.”

In our research we learned that the Sabbath is often referred to as a bride and that a 16thcentury hymn still used in most services, “Lecha dodi likras kallah” expresses the notion of embracing the Sabbath as a bride and even of men dressing as a bridegroom going out to welcome the Sabbath.  As our piece evolved we introduced a dancer as the bride and a male dancer to embrace her in a duet.

Many years later, living in the New York area, I occasionally enjoyed attending Friday night services at B’nai Jeshurun and there following “Lecha dodi” congregants fill the aisles with joyful dancing.  But that was not at all what I grew up with and while some communities have begun to do this it is still pretty rare, at least in the United States.

So on Friday, November 9ththe Avodah Dance Ensemble gave its first official performance. The company consisted of five dancers. Judith Bloomberg, Hillary Gal and I opened as the three women. Corrine Levy was the bride with Jack Clark representing the bridegroom or man who greets the Sabbath.

Hillary Gal and I rehearsing “Sabbath Woman.” Photo by Tallahassee Democrat.

Living in Tallahassee near Florida State University’s excellent dance department I was able to draw dancers from there and take classes to keep myself in shape.  Dr. Nancy Smith, the head of the FSU dance department, was very welcoming and even helped by providing rehearsal space.

Reflecting back on those first few years in Tallahassee I realize I had come a long way from the first year as a faculty wife when I felt alone, unable to find a job. In fact in an article in the Tallahassee Democratdated September 1, 1974 I am quoted as saying “It was really bleak. I couldn’t find a job.  Nothing happened for a year, and I was going berserk.”

I did focus on writing my dissertation, and I was lucky that my major professor had moved from the University of Wisconsin to Florida State University’s Drama Department.  I was able to return to the University of Wisconsin and defend my dissertation in 1973 officially becoming Dr. Tucker. Now there were two Dr. Tucker’s in our household, Murray with his Ph.D. in Economics and I with mine in Theatre/Speech Communication.

I was also learning how to create my own opportunities and by the fall of 1974 I felt totally a part of the community with various dance projects besides Avodah and plans underway to build my own dance studio.

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First Out of Town Performance: “In Praise” in Pittsburgh

JoAnne Tucker / / Avodah's Early History

I grew up in the Jewish Reform Temple of Rodef Shalom in Pittsburgh when the esteemed scholar Dr. Solomon Freehof was the senior rabbi there.  As I mentioned earlier, his book had influenced the creation of In Praise.  He was a bit intimidating for me and it was the younger Rabbi, Dr. Walter Jacob, that I got to know as a teen at Rodef Shalom and who in fact married Murray and me. Rodef Shalom has had a prominent history in the development of Reform Judaism in the United States and here is a link where you can learn more.  At some point on a visit to Pittsburgh probably in the summer of 1973 I mentioned to Walter what I had been doing in Tallahassee and he suggested bringing In Praise to Pittsburgh.  Hum… that seemed really a neat option as the sanctuary of Rodef Shalom was inspiring and elegant and it would be a challenge to set our piece on the bema as part of a service.

One of Rodef Shalom’s weekly services was on Sunday morning and Walter suggested that as the ideal time to weave In Praise into the service. Since I still had dance contacts in Pittsburgh, I decided that I would use local dancers and Irving could work with the professional choir that sang regularly at Rodef Shalom.  During the summer of 1973 I had also spent time visiting my good friend and former Pittsburgher Lynne Wimmer, who had joined the Repertory Dance Company (RDT) in Salt Lake City, Utah upon her graduation from Juilliard in 1968.  I decided I wanted to take a two-week workshop RDT offered and do some hiking and hanging out with Lynne.

Before I continue with In Praise in Pittsburgh, let me give you a little bit of background on my friendship with Lynne.  Both of our families, along with Murray’s, belonged to a Swim Club in Pittsburgh and we hung at the pool.  Lynne and I got to know each other then and particularly when I had moved back to Pittsburgh to marry Murray following two years at Juilliard. Lynne was then going into her junior year.  She was very serious about her dancing and I suggested that she audition for Juilliard in her junior year and if accepted she could take summer school and skip her senior year. I knew this was possible since a classmate of mine, Martha Clarke, had done exactly that.  Anyway Lynne auditioned, got in and entered Juilliard that fall.  We have kept in contact over the years both as friends and dance collaborators.  There will be other blogs I will be writing in which Lynne plays an important part.

When a date was set with Rodef Shalom I reached out to Lynne to see if she could join me and perform in In Praise.  Since the date was in January when RDT was touring in the Midwest she was able to take a week’s leave of absence and perform with us.  I don’t remember how exactly I got the other five dancers, and I only recognize one other name:  Martha Amper, whom I had worked with quite a few years earlier when she was in high school. (I’ll definitely do a blog on the poetry program I did with her and 6 or 7 other students back in 1965.) Most likely, I reached out to my Pittsburgh modern dance teacher, Jeanne Beaman, and asked her for suggestions.  I had studied seriously with Jeanne all through high school and am deeply grateful to her for the strong training and inspiration I received from her.

It was great fun and challenging to spend the week in Pittsburgh working with the dancers, teaching them sections of In Praise, and making adjustments to the choreography to fit the bema which was long and narrow.  The sanctuary seats a total of 1200 (900 on the first floor and 300 in the balcony) and I was particularly aware of wanting to take in the full congregation during a quiet solo I did to the prayer “May the Words of My Mouth.”  Lynne helped me with the solo, coaching me to fully extend my hands in several key places. That really helped and in a receiving line after the performance (it’s a tradition that the Rabbis form this line and any invited guest speaker join them) a number of people asked to see my hands, remarking how big they looked on the bema.  THANK YOU LYNNE!! IT WORKED!!

JoAnne Tucker and Lynne Wimmer on the bema, in front of the ark at Rodef Shalom. Photo by Morris Berman for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

In a recent phone conversation with Lynne I asked her what she remembered about the performance. She shared that she had a funny feeling dancing on the bema, as she had grown up in a conservative congregation and it felt strange to be dancing on the bema as if on a stage.  Her comment did not surprise me at all and over the years the approach I had of integrating dance into the service was both welcomed and questioned.  Martha Graham’s classic comment that “wherever a dancer stands is holy ground” has resonated for me since I was a teenager and so why not dance on the bema.

Irving arrived mid-week and as he worked with the professional choir the piece began to flow together.  Choreographic changes and music timing were polished and in a letter following In Praise Dr. Jacob wrote, “Until I watched you work with the dancers individually in the morning and on Wednesday evening, I had no idea how much detailed preparation was necessary.”

Top picture: Irving playing the piano while we work out a musical coordination.

Bottom picture: Irving working with the professional musicians.

The costumes shown in the above picture of Lynne and me were just too busy for RodefShalom’s elegant sanctuary. Something simpler was needed and so white leotards with matching white skirts and beige tights underneath became the new costumes for the piece.  The male dancer wore a white tank top with brown tights.

Nice publicity in both the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette provided a filled sanctuary for our January 27thservice. I remember very vividly that as the music began for In Praise and we were in place in the aisles, the sun suddenly burst through the long stained glass windows providing the most amazing lighting.

A week later in the Jewish Chronicle, Milton K. Susman wrote about his experience, in his column entitled “As I See It” (February 7, 1974):

In these days when spiritual uplift is as rare as birdsong in January, one savors the experience at Rodef Shalom Temple last week when the Congregation offered a service in the guise of a dance cantata titled “In Praise.” It was a moving and meaningful occasion in that the cantata was a highly religious tableau without resort to religious formalism.

            “In Praise” infused the litanies of the “Shema,” “May the Words…” and “Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God…” with the grace and beauty of movement against a musical background that set the mood and etched every emotion.  This innovative approach to prayer has the virtues of perspective and the quickened pulse, for the observer can hardly escape the encompassing effects of sight and sound on those supplications that are as familiar to the worshipper as his living room.

            “In Praise” gives to prayer a whole new dimension of joyfulness and humility and for a lot of days to come the afterglow of Florida-based Dr. Irving Fleet’s music and Dr. JoAnne Tucker’s choreography (she is the daughter-in-law of former Pittsburgh sportscaster Joe Tucker) will remain as a kind of haunting benediction.

            Those who went and witnessed have to be grateful to the Alexander A. and Cecilia Bluestone Music Fund for making the cantata possible and to Dr. Walter Jacob, rabbi of Rodef Shalom, for surrendering his pulpit to a happening that was couched in velvet.

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“In Praise” – Integrating Dance into a Sabbath Service

JoAnne Tucker / / Avodah's Early History, Tallahassee

It is 1972.  I am sitting in a hospital room in Tallahassee, Florida visiting Irving who has recently been hit in the eye with a tennis ball.  His eyes are covered but he is alert and expected to be fine.  His wife Anita has called and suggested I visit him as she is off to some kind of meeting and thought he might enjoy company.  It is several weeks after Tradition and we haven’t gotten very far in any thoughts of what kind of musical we might collaborate on.

Irving asks me, “What do you think about God?”  I make a face and am glad his eyes are covered.  “I don’t think much about God,” I reply and then continue, explaining I don’t find much meaning in going to temple or sitting through most services.  It just doesn’t connect for me.  He suggests something like well… it is maybe the music that resonates for him.  Before the visit is over we have decided to explore parts of the service in music and dance.  Well that is a bit of a surprise for me… but I’m not opposed.

Over the next few weeks we begin to study the parts of the service, and we think the “Barchu”might be a good starting place.  We discuss the moments in our own lives where we feel close to “God.”  I find it is hard for me to write this 45 years later because my feminist nature no longer includes the word “God” in it.  Even the words “Goddess” or the Jewish word for the feminine side of God – the Shekhina – don’t really reflect my current thinking. Most likely I would express the idea that it is in dance, and in being an artist, that I connect to a deeper place in myself and to others.  That said… let me get back to sharing where I was at in 1972.

It soon became apparent that the ideal premiere of our dance/music “cantata” based on key parts of the traditional Jewish service would be for the dedication of a new sanctuary for Temple Israel planned for the following spring.  That would give us plenty of time to develop the piece and to rehearse with members of the congregation and community.  Together we developed a libretto and then Irving got busy writing the music and I got busy choreographing.

It had been quite a while since I had performed so I soon began taking classes again. Florida State University’s Dance Department proved to be an ideal place to get back in shape. Unfortunately I thought I was in better shape then I was and leaped a bit too high and in the landing severed my Achilles tendon.  It proved to be just a few months’ setback and luckily I had driven myself to the hospital in time so that surgery was avoided and I was able to have the repair done by a foot-to-thigh cast.  During this time I remember working with two young community members, Brian Berkowitz and Terri McOuat, in the family room of our house, choreographing for them, from my place on the sofa, a duet that became part of the “Barchu” section expressing the love between two people.  Once the cast was removed, I had excellent physical therapy and got back to class… being more realistic about my technical dance ability.

Brian Berkowitz and Terri McOuat rehearsing duet from In Praise. Photo by Tallahassee Democrat, 1973

The program notes shared our thoughts:

In Praise is our statement in music, dance, and words of some of our feelings about God and the spirit of Judaism.  We have selected essential parts of the traditional synagogue service as our framework.  In the “Barchu” we see God in man and nature. The “Shema” depicts the strong historical roots of Judaism. “May the Words of Our Mouth” is a moment of personal prayer.  The “Adoration” expresses mankind’s search for self-understanding and fulfillment.

Eight members of the Temple community sang in the piece, including Irving’s wife Anita and my husband Murray.  Reuben Capelouto, Tevye from the production of Tradition, along with Irving’s brother Edwin also were part of the chorus. Some 40 years later, one of the singers, Alicia Novey (now Alicia Smith), sent me an email that she was living in Santa Fe where I now live.  We are now good friends, each having changed in our individual ways from the time of In Praise yet feeling a very strong connection to each other.

Four dancers joined me.  All four had limited dance training but total enthusiasm and willingness to participate.

There were many things I learned from this experience that served me well as I continued with Avodah.  The first thing was how hard it was for a rabbi to change the furniture on the bema.  And for dance to work we need space to move. After much discussion it ended up that we did two performances of In Praise.  The first performance – for the actual dedication ceremony – limited furniture was moved.  However, a week later we had a clear bema so that the dance was larger and could be fully seen.  Over the years of integrating dance into the Friday night Reform  service this became a regular challenge.  I got better and better at finding ways to reassure the various rabbis that rearranging the bema would be OK (and that it would be best if temple officers were not sitting directly behind kicking dancers in a tight space) and that the congregation would accept the temporary changes.  I even learned to quote Biblical text about sacred space to make my point.

Ten months later an article appeared in Reform Judaism (which went to all congregation members of Reform temples throughout the United States) describing the performance:

Tallahassee Congregation Dedicates

 New Sanctuary with Creative Dance Cantata

 The dedication of a new sanctuary is a joyous and precious event requiring a ceremony to fit the occasion.

Temple Israel of Tallahassee, Florida, dedicated its new house of worship with a magnificent dance cantata entitled “In Praise.” The work, conceived and written by Dr. Irving Fleet and Dr. JoAnne Tucker, dramatically proclaimed its authors’ feelings about God and Judaism. “Who is God?” asks one character. “God is some precious moments,” comes the reply.

The cantata was part of a regular worship service at the temple, enhancing the service through song, dance, and narrative.  Beginning with the Barchu, the call to worship, the sights and sounds of a singing chorus, piano and organ, four dancers, and musical soloists lifted the congregation above the everyday into the spiritual realm:

          From God comes all of life.
          He is everywhere and everything
          He is some very precious moments—
          The sound of the woods,
          The sun and the rain,
          The sounds of a voice,
          To feel and to touch.
          Praised be the Lord forever and ever.

 Dance segments of “In Praise” portrayed such themes as love for nature, the love of a man and a woman, and the tenderness of the mother-child relationship.  Other highlights included an affirmation of the oneness of the Jewish people:

          Through all ages
          A scattered people.
          These words bind us together,
          These words carry us through the years.
          And a hope for real concern among people:
          May the time not be distant
          When we see ourselves,
          When we know each other.
 

Anyone interested in recreating this work may write to Temple Israel….

And write they did.  Over the next year we received about 50 letters.  I think we were both stunned by the strong interest.  In the next blog I will write about our first performance out of town, in my hometown, Pittsburgh.

JoAnne in the “May the Words” solo from In Praise. Photo by Evelyn Walborsky

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