Synchronicity at Play – Spring Trip to NYC (Part One: Juilliard)

Clearly Juilliard and The Martha Graham Company have been on my mind recently and I have been writing about them in recent blogs.  They both played an important part in a recent trip to New York City.  I usually go at least once a year to NYC and sometimes twice.  Of course, part of that is to see family and friends.  It is also just to enjoy the energy of the city, the museums, theatre and dance.  This year’s trip began with a Homecoming for dancers at Juilliard and ended with a performance of The Martha Graham Company. This blog, spread over two weeks, will focus on these two events. 

Sunday afternoon, April 7th, was billed as a homecoming for dancers at Juilliard.  It was an opportunity to mingle, to take class (they offered a Gaga Class and a Meditation Class), to see student compositions and to meet and hear Alicia Graf Mack, the new director of the Dance Department.  Indeed it was a really full afternoon, starting at noon and ending at six.  I decided that classes weren’t for me so I went at 3 in time to see student choreography, hear Alicia Graf and enjoy networking.  

Part of my closeness to Juilliard is not only the impact the school had on me when I attended but also a deep appreciation for dancers in Avodah who had studied there and how much I benefited from their excellent training and professional attitude. Linda Kent, Juilliard faculty member and very good friend, had encouraged me to come and said she would definitely be there.  So I flew in on April 6th, to attend the next day.

My only disappointment was that none of the classmates I was close to back in the 60’s attended nor did any of the many dancers that I had worked with in Avodah.  I did see quite a few acquaintances and that was pleasant.  And of course it is always fun to hang out with Linda Kent who knows just about everyone there.

The highlight for me was hearing Alicia Graf Mack speak. For an hour she shared her background in dance and her ideas for the department, and answered questions.  Her warm, friendly and very open style is appealing.  The fact that she performed in both Dance Theatre of Harlem and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater gives her an excellent professional background.  The March issue of Dance Magazine sums it up well:

As a former leading dancer for both DTH – under the exacting eye of Arthur Mitchell – and Ailey, she effortlessly embodies Juilliard’s ethos: an equal focus on ballet and modern dance.  She also holds a degree in history from Columbia University and an MA in nonprofit management from Washington University in St. Louis.  She is an overachiever in every sense. 

She is also the first African American and, at 39, the youngest person to direct the Dance Department.

Among the things she shared, I found particularly interesting one of the projects she did while at Columbia – reviewing and writing about the financial records of Dance Theatre of Harlem.  She also experienced illness that forced her to stop dancing with DTH, and she talked openly about how that impacted her and how she was able to go back.  She became involved with a “Praise” dance group at Columbia University that led her to choreograph and go back to classes, this time taking Milton Myers’s classes in Horton technique, which eventually led her to the Ailey Company.

I left Juilliard with a very good feeling that the dance department was in good hands.  And off I went to meet my grandson for dinner.  My trip to NYC was off to a good start.