June 2019 – Mostly Dance

Another Holocaust Piece, Based on the Writings of Primo Levi

JoAnne Tucker / June 28, 2019July 5, 2019 / Holocaust Repertory, New York Company, Uncategorized

Two blogs ago, I wrote about creating the 8-minute piece Kaddish. It soon became a regular in our repertory, performed in concerts, Holocaust memorial programs, and on the bema before the Kaddish prayer. Over the next fifteen years we were often invited to participate in Holocaust memorial programs, particularly in November around the time of Kristallnacht (“Night of Broken Glass”; see June 14, 2019 blog for explanation) and in late April or early May for Yom HaShoah (Holocaust memorial day, based on the Jewish calendar). It wasn’t until 1996 that I choreographed the next piece that became a part of our Holocaust repertory.

As long as I can remember, it was important to me that pieces related to the Holocaust be part of the Avodah Dance Ensemble’s repertory. At the age of 12 or 13 I saw the original production of The Diary of Anne Frank on Broadway with Susan Strasberg as Anne Frank and Joseph Schildkraut as Otto Frank. It was during my first trip to New York City with my parents, when we saw several Broadway shows, The Diary of Anne Frank being the only drama. I remember the evening well. We had seats in the first row and I was mesmerized by the play and the performances. I experienced the power of how theater can teach and emotionally engage one in learning. After that I regularly read and learned more about the Holocaust and as I developed as a choreographer it was a natural next step to create pieces like I Never Saw Another Butterfly and Kaddish.

The idea for the new piece, Shema, inspired by Primo Levi’s writing, came from Rabbi Oren Postrel. I hunch that Rabbi Larry Raphael (of blessed memory) probably introduced us, knowing that Oren had a very strong background as a dancer who had seriously studied ballet and performed in the Oakland Ballet. Oren shared Primo Levi’s writing with me and soon we were developing a piece based on it. Primo Levi (1919–1987) was an Italian Jewish chemist, writer and Holocaust survivor. Much of what we used in our piece Shemacame from his best-known work, If This Is A Man, about his time as a prisoner at Auschwitz.

The choreography was not only inspired by Primo Levi’s poetry but also by the Broadway play Bent, written by Martin Sherman. The play, which I saw in 1980, revolves around the persecution of gays in Nazi Germany. I found the second act particularly powerful with its stillness and senseless repetition as the two main characters move a pile of stones from one side of the stage to the other. When it came time to choreograph Shema I wanted to use some kind of repetition to hold the piece together. So throughout the whole piece the four dancers walk in a straight line back and forth across the stage in the back part of the performing area. Each dancer steps out of the line to share their poem in words and movement and when done goes back into the line. Jack Anderson in a review in The New York Times, May 31, 1997, describes it well:

Shema effectively contrasted relentless pacing, representing concentration camp regimentation with sudden outburst, symbolizing the prisoners’ turbulent personal feelings.

From a video of the piece, April 15, 1996, performed by the dancers who helped to create it, in a Yom HaShoah Service at
Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion
Dancers from l. to r. Kezia Gleckman Hayman, Elizabeth McPherson, Beth Millstein, and Carla Armstrong
Here’s the link to the video

As in the earlier Holocaust piece I Never Saw Another Butterfly, the dance is done in silence and to the voices of the dancers.

As I was writing this blog I came across an editorial in The New York Times published on May 26th (2019). It was written by the Editorial Board, which “represents the opinions of the board, its editor and the publisher. It is separate from the newsroom and the Op-Ed section.” The editorial clearly states that anti- Semitism is sharply on the rise and gives statistics for the increase in Germany and France in particular and also points out that it is not only coming from the far right, but also from the Islamists and far left. The authors mention the increase here in the United States, and end by saying:

Speak up, now, when you glimpse evidence of Anti Semitism, particularly within your own ranks, or risk enabling the spread of this deadly virus.

It is with a deep sadness and concern I read this and realize the truth in what they are saying. I fear we are on the edge of a cliff right now and I echo that we all have a responsibility to speak up and not allow discrimination in any form.

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Remembering Estelle Sommers with Great Fondness

JoAnne Tucker / June 21, 2019 / New York Company, Personal Life

Last week I wrote about the company’s performance of Kaddish at a Central Synagogue Sabbath service in May 1985. We dedicated that evening’s performance to Ben Sommers, who had been President of Capezio, and who had died that week. I mentioned in the blog that Ben’s wife, Estelle Sommers, had told me afterwards how meaningful the service was. She also told me that we should get together for lunch after things calmed down for her. About a month or so later we had lunch together, and that began a very special friendship that strongly impacted both the Avodah Dance Ensemble and my life personally.

Estelle, like Ben, was a dancewearspecialist and managed Capezio stores:

Sommers made her career in retail dancewear as a designer, business executive, and owner of various ventures. She revolutionized the field of fitness clothing by introducing a new fabric, Antron-Lycra/Spandex, into her innovative designs for Capezio’s bodywear.
(https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/sommers-estelle-joan)

At some point either before our lunch or after she suggested that I reach out to and meet Linda Kent. She mentioned that Linda (then with The Paul Taylor Dance Company) was also interested in liturgical dance. I knew who Linda was and had great respect for her outstanding professional career, first with the Alvin Ailey Company from 1968–74, and then as a principal dancer with the Taylor Company from 1975. I had often seen her perform. Estelle sent Linda a similar kind of note, giving us information on how to contact each other.

Linda and I did get in touch, resulting in a personal friendship and professional collaboration. Linda created pieces and helped shape Interfaith programs for Avodah, guest taught at our workshops, and at times performed with the company (including filling in for Kezia when she broke her foot performing Let My People Go). Linda also helped us find Avodah dancers by recommending students she knew from her position at Juilliard (where she had graduated in 1968 and joined the faculty in 1984), and she offered generous artistic and Board advice when Julie Gayer took over as Avodah’s Director. Linda and I continue our long friendship today. (See photo in blog on Juilliard homecoming. I will be writing more blogs later about Linda.) Introducing Linda and me was very typical of Estelle, as she was one of the best networkers I have ever known. In the same article I quoted above, Estelle was described as “one of the most enthusiastic advocates and patrons of dance,” sometimes referred to as the “empress of dance.” And I can affirm that indeed she was, for The Avodah Dance Ensemble.

Within a year of our meeting, Estelle suggested having a gathering at her apartment to introduce Avodah dancers and Board members to some of her influential dance friends. One very important contact we made that evening was Ted Bartwink. Ted served as Trustee and Executive Director of The Harkness Foundation for Dance from 1968–2014. The Harkness Foundation made annual contributions to most of the major dance venues in New York City. Following that evening he came to at least one performance that I remember and for a number of years we received funding for our educational programs from the Harkness Foundation.

At Estelle’s request, I often served on honorary committees for benefit events. I was always thrilled to see my name on a list with so many outstanding dance and theatre people. Murray and I enjoyed attending the events and below is the back of an invitation for a 1991 International Committee for The Dance Library of Israel which honored Stephanie French, the Vice President of Corporate Contributions and Cultural Affairs for the Philip Morris Management Corporation, a major supporter of dance in the New York City area.

Back of invitation for the Dance Library of Israel Event

Earlier that same year Estelle Sommers was honored with the 9^thAnnual Dance Notation Bureau Award and I was thrilled to be on that Honorary Committee. I end this blog with this lovely picture of Estelle.

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“Kaddish” Danced as a Memorial in Two Shabbat Services

JoAnne Tucker / June 14, 2019 / dance liturgy, Holocaust Repertory, New York Company

A few people have asked me if I am planning to turn the blog into a book. No, I am not. What I am finding most meaningful is the immediate input I get in the comment section or in personal emails. This week’s blog is a result of a comment that Elizabeth McPherson made in response to last week’s blog. She wrote: “Also remember performing Kaddish at a memorial service for Yitzhak Rabin after he was assassinated. That was a very intense experience.” Elizabeth and I emailed back and forth figuring out more about the event. I think we now have a very good picture of how we came to perform Kaddish as a memorial piece for Yitzhak Rabin.

Rabin died on Saturday, November 4, 1995, and it was on November 10^th at Rodeph Shalom Congregation that Avodah danced the piece in his memory. Avodah had a strong relationship with Rodeph Shalom (located on 83^rdStreet just off of Central Park in New York City). Let My People Go was performed there in 1989 (the piece’s opening season), and during the mid-90’s two Avodah dancers and I would lead dance midrash classes in the religious school. In 1995, we had been booked – many months before Rabin’s assassination – to be part of the November 10^th Sabbath service. On November 9^thand 10^th, synagogues and Jewish organizations often do programs remembering Kristallnacht. The U.S. Holocaust Museum provides the following description of Kristallnacht on its website:

Kristallnacht, literally, “Night of Crystal,” is often referred to as the “Night of Broken Glass.” The name refers to the wave of violent anti-Jewish pogroms which took place on November 9 and 10, 1938. This wave of violence took place throughout Germany, annexed Austria, and in areas of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia recently occupied by German troops.Kristallnacht owes its name to the shards of shattered glass that lined German streets in the wake of the pogrom—broken glass from the windows of synagogues, homes, and Jewish-owned businesses plundered and destroyed during the violence. (https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/kristallnacht)

Avodah was set to perform three Holocaust pieces in the November 10^th service: I Never Saw Another Butterfly (which I have written about before), Shema, based on the writings of Primo Levi (and which will be the subject of an upcoming blog), and Kaddish.

Elizabeth has kept her datebooks and has excellent notes of when she was at Rodeph Shalom rehearsing the piece and when she had to be there for the performance. She also commented:

I do remember that there was a huge audience attending the service at Rodeph Shalom on Nov. 10th. It was overwhelming, but also felt really important to be there in that space performing at that moment.

Thank you, Elizabeth, for keeping those datebooks!

Picture from Rodeph Shalom’s website. Usually, to provide room for the dancers to move, the center podium was taken off the bema or moved to the side, and any movable chairs were also removed from the beta.

About 10 years earlier, on May 9, 1985, we had danced Kaddish in another memorial service. That time it was at Central Synagogue on Lexington Avenue, for Ben Sommers, who had died that week. When we arrived at the Synagogue to begin rehearsing and staging the three pieces we would be doing, the rabbi told us about Ben’s death and that it was appropriate that we were there that evening, as Ben had been the President of Capezio (the famous dancewear company) from 1940 to the time of his death. (Ben had also been a remarkable supporter of dance, including creating the Capezio Foundation, and the Capezio Award for lifetime achievement in dance). We ended our discussion by saying that the dances that evening and particularly Kaddish would be danced in Ben’s memory.

I remember speaking about Kaddish, and Rick Jacobs may have also spoken, since he danced the opening Kaddish solo. During the Oneg Shabbat after the service, Ben’s widow, Estelle Sommers (1919–1994), came up to me and said how meaningful the service was.

For the company, Kaddish was always a powerful piece to perform, but on these two occasions, it was indeed particularly meaningful.

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Adding Kaddish to Avodah’s Repertory

JoAnne Tucker / June 7, 2019June 7, 2019 / Avodah's Early History, Holocaust Repertory, New York Company

It’s February 5, 1981, and we are premiering a new piece in Avodah’s repertory for a Holocaust Memorial Program at The Savannah College of Art and Design. It is part of a program entitled “Light Through The Darkness,” which has been organized and planned by Congregation Mickve Israel for February 5^ththrough 12^th. It is part of a three-part program which includes a dance performance, an art exhibit, and a lecture by a prominent collector. We have decided to create a new piece for the program, to the first eight minutes of Leonard Bernstein’s “Kaddish” Symphony.

This was not our first performance in Savannah. This was our third. An article on February 4,1981, in the Georgia Gazettesums up our special relationship with Savannah very well:

The company has performed on several occasions to standing-room-only crowds in Savannah, and Tucker credits Rabbi Rubin (Saul Rubin) with encouraging her efforts during the company’s early years.

The first time we performed in Savannah was in March 1976 using female dancers from the congregation and bringing a male dancer from Tallahassee. I went in a week before and totally enjoyed my time there working with the dancers, who were lovely. Temple Mickve Israel is an old congregation with an historic sanctuary. It is located on a beautiful square, and a March 17, 1976 article in City Beat mentions that “while traffic circled about the verdant oasis, the dancers kicked off their shoes, and in leotards and jeans ran through their paces, barefoot in the park.” The publicity, with several articles and pictures of myself and composer Irving Fleet, was excellent for the Friday night service. In fact, when Irving joined me to rehearse the musicians and we had some time off to stroll along the river walkway and wandered in a shop, the owner recognized us from the newspaper. The Friday night service was indeed packed and standing-room-only. We performed Sabbath Woman and In Praise as part of a creative service that Rabbi Saul Rubin wrote.

We returned to Savannah in the fall of 1976 to repeat the two pieces as part of a regional Biennial Convention of the Southeast Union of American Hebrew Congregations (now called Union of Reform Judaism). That helped us become better known with congregations in the Southeastern part of the country. (My favorite memory from the performance in the Shabbat service is that I met a cousin and his wife that I hadn’t seen in years.)

We had a special relationship with Rabbi Saul Rubin and Temple Mickve Israel and I was really pleased to have an opportunity to be part of the Light Through The Darkness Holocaust Program. I also liked the fact we would have a good space to perform in at the Savannah College of Art and Design. This was a great opportunity to create a new piece to go with I Never Saw Another Butterfly. I remember listening to lots of music and giving much thought to what to create. I stumbled across Bernstein’s “Kaddish” Symphony and loved the first 8 minutes. The piece opens with about a four-minute reading by a solo voice, with some music. The recording I first found, and originally choreographed to, featured Leonard Bernstein doing the vocal part. So I created the solo on Michael Bush, the male dancer in the Tallahassee company at that time. What follows the vocal section is a wonderful burst of music during which the solo dancer joins the other dancers in one of my favorite phrases, which we often used for auditions over the years. With hands fisted, the dancers rise slowly as a group into a suspended relevé in simple parallel, from which they explode into a skip and leap, and a fan kick into a knee walk into a tilted attitude turn.

The performance in Savannah went well but more important to me was that the new piece Kaddish became a signature part of the repertoire for over twenty years, regularly performed before the Kaddish prayer in services and ending many concerts. Shortly after that first performance I discovered a recording with a female voice (Bernstein’s wife, Felicia Montealegre) doing the part, and when I returned to New York, I used that recording and taught the solo to Lynn Elliott who did a magnificent job with the part.

We used the female recording from that point on except when Rick Jacobs performed the solo. (I obtained the permissions I needed to use the music and each year reported the number of performances so I could pay the appropriate royalty.)

Over the years so many wonderful dancers performed the solo part, and it was great fun for me to see how each dancer made it their own. Kezia continued to teach the group section to new dancers even when she was no longer in the company. She adds the following note:

One of my proudest moments, both as Assistant Rehearsal Director and as ensemble member, was during a performance at an arts festival, when the music suddenly disappeared in the middle of the group section of Kaddish – a tricky section with changing tempos. We continued dancing without pause. Our ensemble work was so reliable that when the music resumed, we were exactly where we should have been, as if nothing unusual had happened.

Another one of my most memorable performances was in that same festival, a rain-or-shine, mainly-outdoor event. Let it never be said that we ever performed with less than our full focus, technique, heart and soul – not even when we performed under that LEAKING tent top, for that ONE audience member sitting under his umbrella in the pouring rain to watch us. We laugh at these memories, like other touring mishaps, but they don’t detract from the pleasure of being part of such festivals. This particular occasion also gave us the rare opportunity to enjoy performances by other artists, including most memorably the lovely music ensemble Voice of the Turtle.

Lynn Elliott inKaddish. Photo by Amanda Kreglow.

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