Month: March 2020

An Ad in Dance Magazine Leads to an Amazing Summer

JoAnne Tucker / / Childhood, Costa Rica, Personal Life

It was late fall and I was 14 ½, nearly 15 years old and browsing through Dance Magazine.  I had continued to be very focused on dance, having progressed from the creative dance classes of Genevieve Jones to more structured modern dance classes with Jeanne Beaman.  Jeanne’s classes were a nice blend of a variety of modern dance techniques, definitely including some Graham technique sprinkled in.  

Hungry for lots more technique and intensive training, I was determined to find a program to attend in the summer.  Dance Magazine was an excellent source and I came across an ad for Perry-Mansfield’s Camp/Performing Arts Program which said Helen Tamiris would be teaching there for the first three weeks. I looked up Tamiris and found that she was not only a pioneering modern dancer but was also the choreographer of several Broadway shows.   Wow, that would be a perfect person to study with! The challenge was that the camp was located in Steamboat Springs, Colorado and that was pretty far from Pittsburgh.  When I approached my parents they said they would pay for the tuition but I had to pay for my transportation.  I found that one could take the train from Pittsburgh, change in Chicago to Denver and then take a trainfrom Denver to Steamboat Springs. I seem to remember that the round trip fare was around $75 (this was 1958).  Another friend, JoAnn Fried, was also interested in going.  She would focus on drama while I would be a dance major.

Now how to raise the necessary money.  Definitely babysitting would be one way.  Then in brainstorming with JoAnn Fried we came up with the idea of teaching classes in my basement.  We could charge 25 cents per class, and have a culminating creative type recital like Genevieve Jones did.  My Mom was very enthusiastic and said we could use the finished room in our basement, which even had its own bathroom. Luckily there wasn’t too much furniture and we could easily move it to the side, giving us plenty of room to dance. Finding students wasn’t hard either, between younger kids in the neighborhood, my sisters’ friends,and daughters of my Mom’s friends.  The word quickly got around and we had a nice group of kids to work with. 

Picture of JoAnn Fried and myself working with two of our students. I’m holding the arm of my sister Suzanne (of blessed memory). This picture is from a Pittsburgh newspaper, May 1958, which I recently found in a saved file.

Once my parents realized that I would indeed be able to make the transportation costs, they agreed that I could attend camp and allowed me to apply.  They made the deposit for the summer and agreed they would pay the rest of the tuition. JoAnn Fried and I called ourselves Jo-Jo Inc. and had fun putting together a production we called Westward Ho as a culminating event. We needed a place to perform and Mom helped us to rent the local grade school auditorium for an evening. 

Looking back I realize that my parents’ asking me to raise the transportation costs was an excellent experience that ended up providing me with tools that have helped me through my life. Maybe it is best summed up by saying I learned that I could envision an idea and carry it through. That kind of skill set enabled me to found the Avodah Dance Ensemble and run the company for 30 years and then later in life develop the film company Healing Voices – Personal Stories.  

It has also served me in my personal life.  Recently it was put into practice as Murray and I moved to our new home in Costa Rica. Having learned from the time I was a teen that it was OK to attend a summer program halfway across the United States, I didn’t find it so overwhelming to be building a new life in Central America. Knowing that from the age of 14 I was able to collaborate with another person and build a program with a culminating event fueled my confidence that I can envision and make change happen.  Early I learned that one needs a certain level of determination and problem-solving ability to make one’s vision happen.  I am grateful that I was encouraged from a young age to do this.

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Maggie – Reconnecting and Supporting The Peaceful Project

JoAnne Tucker / / Art, Personal Life

When we were living in Tallahassee back in the 1980’s with young children, Maggie helped to take care of Julie and Rachel after school while I was busy at The Creative Dance Center.  Later she would dance in The Avodah Dance Ensemble.  We lost touch with each other for a number of years. Then a few years ago she moved to Santa Fe and we reconnected.  She and her husband Bill were helping us as we got ready to leave for Costa Rica. Maggie had bought some of my art and was enthusiastic about both my art and Murray’s photography.  Over the years Murray and I had created quite a lot, and after making it available for sale in Santa Fe, we weren’t sure what to do with what was left . In some discussions with Maggie and Bill the idea emerged that she and Bill would take the remaining collection with the instructions “to use it to benefit The Peaceful Project,” a non-profit organization whose mission is meaningful to us. 

The Peaceful Project’s mission is “to inspire individuals to foster peaceful relationships based on personal responsibility, collaboration, and leadership.” Here’s a link to their website. (https://www.thepeacefulproject.org)

The original plans were to do a special fundraiser where our art would be available for sale. Instead, it is being done virtually!  Here what Maggie has sent out:

You may have received an email asking you to save a date in April for a special fundraiser for The Peaceful Project, The Art of Peace.  Instead – with our current world of social distancing –  we are going to get the ball rolling right now and do a part of it virtually!   This will open up the event to an even wider audience than those who could attend a live event in Santa Fe.  Instead of distancing, connect with art! 

This all began when friends  JoAnne and Murray Tucker generously gifted me with a delightful collection of JoAnne’s art and Murray’s photography.  Their instructions were “to use it to benefit The Peaceful Project”.  So we are!  

Today we present a collection of ten of JoAnne’s pastels, all florals.  Take a look and choose the ones that speak to you.    

If you are not local to Santa Fe, we will tube the pastels of your choice and ship them to your door.  If you are local, we will deliver.

Here’s a link to where you can see the 9 pastels still available for sale.  If you scroll up you can read all the details about how to own one yourself.https://myemail.constantcontact.com/The-Art-of-Peace–A-Different-Sort-of-Event-.html?soid=1104176519269&aid=irO9_gNXRUA#Pastel

Please share the link with your friends and let’s help The Peaceful Project.  Thank you, Maggie, for the super work you are doing.

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Finding my Creative Voice in Costa Rica

JoAnne Tucker / / Art, Costa Rica, Personal Life

We have now been in Costa Rica for just over six weeks.  The first four were particularly challenging.  We furnished our house with the basics, deciding not to get fancy or spend lots of money.  We learned how to pay our bills, estimating colonies to dollars so we could understand the cost of things in a way we were used to. We are still figuring out how to manage our house and the swimming pool with its solar heating and infinity design which still remains a puzzle to us. During these first four weeks I often woke up with, and experienced at other times, a huge knot in my stomach.  The last few weeks I have begun to get back to painting and that has made a major difference. Particularly the past week I have made it a point to have at least two hours a day devoted to my quiet creative time, mainly painting but sometimes writing.  The knot in my stomach is rarely there now.  Yes, regular meditation helps some too.  For me something additional happens when I am using my creative voice.  Fears, concerns, planning all drop away and I become one with my painting, just as I did with dance.

I am aware that I am experimenting right now, not sure what style, medium, or subject matter will dominate. The views from each room in our house are breathtaking.  When I think about what I want to paint I have tons of choices.  Where to begin… what to key in on… how to simplify and yet capture the spirit of what I am seeing — these are some of the thoughts that are going through my mind.  Of course, at this point all that is important is that I show up and just see what happens — no criticism, just being present and finding the creative voice.

For years I have taught and encouraged teachers to find their creative voice, and guided them on how to help children keep their creative energies, which seem to drop off around 4th grade. When I lead workshops for teachers I particularly focused on the research of E. Paul Torrance and the wonderful way he defined elements that make up the creative process. He also developed creativity tests.  I am thinking that it will be useful to remember some of Torrance’s ideas as I explore my creative voice in this new chapter in my life.

When I first became familiar with Torrance, he drew on J.P. Guilford’s thinking and defined creativity as having 4 components –  fluency, flexibility, originality and elaboration:

Fluency. The total number of interpretable, meaningful, and relevant ideas generated in response to the stimulus. 2. Flexibility. The number of different categories or shifts in responses. 3. Originality. The number of unusual yet relevant ideas and the statistical rarity of the responses. 4. Elaboration. The amount of detail used to extend a response. (From Ellis Paul Torrance – The Father of Creativity by Sergey Markov, June 2017) https://geniusrevive.com/en/ellis-paul-torrance-father-of-modern-creativity/

Sergey Markov’s article is excellent and I learned lots of new things about Torrance.  I recommend reading it if you have a strong interest in creativity theory and testing.  For the purposes of this blog I just want to say I will be exploring and guiding some of my painting by keeping these ways of thinking in mind.  Of course… it will be important for me to not get caught up in an intellectual way but rather to simply explore and not judge.

I’ve completed one 9” x 12” oil focusing on one of the plants in a realistic way. 

First Painting

Now I’m working on another painting and am approaching it by doing a larger scene but with less detail and looking at it as large blocks of colors. It’s also a 9” x 12” board. 

My second painting. Is it complete?

In an earlier blog I wrote about the encouragement I got from my Mom in being creative, and the model she provided by completing a lovely watercolor of her dog just three weeks before she died at the age of 90. Certainly Genevieve Jones’s creative dance classes were a wonderful guide, as was my work in creative dramatics with both Dr. Barbara McIntyre and Dr. Joe Karioth.

For now the creative time is helping me settle in Costa Rica and truly see and appreciate the beautiful landscape we are surrounded by. Indeed, the beauty of our location was one of the guiding forces that brought us here and it could be so easy to get caught up in the overwhelming process of adjusting to a new country and forget that.  The two hours of my own quiet time, sometimes in writing and mostly in painting (as non-verbal creativity is more target to me), is so important right now.  

End Note (written Thursday night, March 12) This blog was written last weekend. Since then, our community of Atenas has been experiencing major fires due to the heat and high winds. On Tuesday, Murray and I had to leave the house in the late afternoon because the smoke was so intense and large flames were very visible and close to our house.  Luckily so far we have been spared any damage. We returned last evening and most of today was spent cleaning. Creative endeavors sometimes have to be put on hold and I am reminded of Rollo May’s hierarchy of needs. Life is certainly a balancing act.  After posting this blog this morning on Sunday, March 15th I am going to spend several hours painting.  It is not just an option… it is a necessity to keep my balance!!!

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Tuesday Night Dance Classes: Thank You, Jeanne Beaman

JoAnne Tucker / / Dance History, Personal Life

To get ready to write this blog I googled Jeanne Beaman hoping to find some pictures and a good bio online.  Instead I found an obituary. I knew Jeanne was getting up in years but somehow I didn’t expect to find that she had died just this month, having lived to be a hundred.  And an even bigger surprise was that she died in Bernallilo, New Mexico. My heart sank. Up until the end of January I had lived within a 40-minute drive of where she had lived. I could have visited her if I had known.  I hunched that one of her children must have moved to New Mexico and that she had been living with them.  Googling some more I discovered it was her son, Peter, and that he lived in Placido having moved from Pittsburgh. So… this blog takes on a special meaning for me. Not only do I want to share the strong impact she had on my development as a dancer and person but I deeply want to honor her.

Jeanne Beaman https://obituaries.gloucestertimes.com/obituary/jeanne-beaman-1078445337

I was probably about 14 when I began taking an adult modern dance class that met on Tuesday evenings in Genevieve Jones’s Oakland studio. Luckily a friend of my Mom’s regularly took the class and offered to drive me to and from the class until I was 16 and could drive myself. I was the only young person in the class and it was quite a wonderful group of adults, many of whom still stand out in my mind as if it were only yesterday.  Fran Balter, the friend of my Mom’s, had children close to my age and had studied dance at Bennington and the Martha Graham Studio. She was a tall, stately, elegant woman.  And then there was Cecil Kitcat. She taught dance at Carnegie Mellon (then called Carnegie Tech).  She had a strong British accent and was probably in her 60’s.  She seemed very old to me and quite a character as she enthusiastically attacked the movement.  Several other women were regulars, and I don’t remember if we had any men in the class. 

Jeanne led the class with focused intent.  Small, with her hair in a tight bun, she guided us through a serious modern dance class, drawing from several different modern dance pioneers and putting together wonderful combinations of her own.  The class was well thought out, beginning with standing stretches, progressing to sitting-on-the-floor work that included Graham contractions and turns around the back.  When we stood up again, with pliés and tendus we were ready to go across the floor.  And that was what I loved most.  I remember one combination that had a super fun fall in it where we ran and lunged with an outstretched arm taking us to the ground followed by a roll and getting back up.  I later used that fall in an audition at Perry-Mansfield Dance and Theatre Camp and it got the attention of Helen Tamiris and earned me a spot in a piece she was setting.  Tamiris even asked me to please repeat the fall again at the audition. Many of the campers/students had put together a short dance before they came.  I hadn’t, so I put together some of my favorite across-the-floor combinations of Jeanne’s, ending with the fall. 

For me, Jeanne wasn’t just my modern dance teacher, but someone who could understand my drive and determination to be a dancer and my desire to have a career in dance.  Sometimes when I was being challenged at home and discouraged from a dance career she would speak with my parents, helping them to understand my love of dance and encouraging their support.

When Martha Graham’s film A Dancer’s World was made and first broadcast at WQED in Pittsburgh, Jeanne held a reception at Chatham College where she was teaching at the time.  Graham was there and I remember being introduced to her and saying that I so wanted to come to NYC and take her Xmas intensive course.  And of course she assured me that was indeed possible even for a person as young as I was at the time. (Probably 14 going on 15 at the time…. it would take me until I was 16 to go.) 

Later Jeanne left Chatham College and began teaching at the University of Pittsburgh.  By then I was in NYC and Juilliard.  When I came back home from Juilliard to attend the University of Pittsburgh, the university wouldn’t accept the ballet or modern dance classes from Juilliard to fulfill the required PE credit.  So I took Jeanne’s modern dance class in the PE department and served as her demonstrator for the semester. It was kind of our joke that here I was in this beginning modern class to fulfill a PE requirement.

Among my many memories is the composition assignment based on computer-assigned movement. Unexpected movement sequences challenged us.  Jeanne was a pioneer in working on using the computer and dance together.

As my dance career developed and Jeanne and her husband had retired, moving to Rockport, Massachusetts during the year, and in the summers to an island in Maine, we kept in touch.  She came to a dance performance by Avodah when we were in Boston, and on another tour when I had a day off I visited her in Rockport.  One summer when Murray and I planned a Maine trip we had a delightful time visiting her and Richard on their Maine Island.

Murray and I with Jeanne, summer of 1990
at their Maine Island.

We kept in touch, occasionally talking and writing, through the early 2000’s. At some point I knew that her children were encouraging her to leave Rockport where she was then living alone since her husband had died.  She wrote that she wasn’t ready yet.  

The dance world is small with lots of overlapping connections. At a conference in October of 2018 (when Elizabeth McPherson and I were presenting a workshop on Helen Tamiris), Elizabeth, Lynne Wimmer (a dancer/choreographer/teacher from Pittsburgh) and I were having dinner together.  Somehow Lynne and I began talking about classes with Jeanne Beaman.  Elizabeth perked up and shared that she had interviewed Jeanne for a book she had written about the early Bennington College summer program.  We had fun sharing our memories of Jeanne and marveling at Jeanne’s dance history from starting in ballet with the San Francisco Opera Ballet, then studying with the early dance pioneers, training at Mills College, teaching for many years, and advocating for dance, particularly in Pittsburgh and New England.

There is a strange empty feeling in me right now knowing that she has passed.  I send heartfelt love and condolences to her family and am deeply grateful for the role she played in my life.

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