JoAnne Tucker shares her experiences in dance from directly a modern dance company to leading movement activities for women in prison and domestic violence survivors.
It’s the final day of the 2001 six-week summer program for high school and college-age dancers at Perry-Mansfield. Linda Kent has headed the program and I am watching the repertory class in the large studio of Steinberg Pavilion. Tears of joy are streaming down my face as I watch a very enthusiastic, energetic group of talented young dancers perform repertory they have learned from works of Alvin Ailey and Jose Limon and even some phrases of Twyla Tharpe. My eye catches a few of the people who helped make possible Linda’s role as new director of the dance program, and we smile broadly. In just one summer the level of the performing arts program at P-M has skyrocketed, exposing the students to outstanding teachers, classics of modern dance repertory and new up-and-coming choreographers.
Steinberg Pavillon – taken from the Perry-Mansfield website. I love the way that all the studios at Perry-Mansfield are open to the outside.
Following my lunch with T Ray at the end of the previous summer, I had confirmed that Linda would be interested in heading the dance program at Perry-Mansfield. T Ray and I met with both the Executive Director (June Lindenmayer) and President of the Board (Jim Steinberg) and they liked the idea and then reached out to Linda. I had done my job making the suggestion and now it was up to them to make it happen. There was a deep feeling of satisfaction in knowing that in some way I was contributing to making the dance program as extraordinary as it had once been.
Linda drew on her many contacts in the dance world and put together an outstanding faculty for that first summer and the following 12 that she headed the program. It included both young rising choreographers, and seasoned teachers from Juilliard and other established programs. The Evening of Dance concerts were excellent each summer and one of my favorites ended with a section from Paul Taylor’s Esplanade that Linda set beautifully on the dancers. It was a shared delight for me to watch classes and rehearsals and to get to hang out with the dance faculty. A few weeks into the first summer I hosted a party for the faculty at our home and that became a tradition that we continued until 2009 when we relocated from Steamboat Springs to Santa Fe, New Mexico.
When dance became a part of the New Works program that preceded the official camp session, Linda selected gifted choreographers to come and develop work. They have gone on to have exceptional careers. Two noteworthy examples are Robert Battle, who is now the director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and Camille A. Brown, who not only has her own company, but has been choreographing for Broadway, Off-Broadway and the recent Jesus Christ Superstar production on television.
Linda continued directing the program through the 100th anniversary of Perry-Mansfield. By that time I was well settled in Santa Fe and did not make it up to see the wonderful program she put together featuring a setting of the second half of Agnes de Mille’s Rodeo. Supposedly de Mille got the idea for Rodeo when she was on the faculty of Perry-Mansfield.
As happens, the new Executive Director (Joan Lazarus Dobkowski) decided to make a change and the following summer Linda did not return to Perry-Mansfield to head the dance program. I am very pleased that in the course of 13 amazing summers Linda was able to have an impact on many young dancers. Linda is an outstanding coach and is able to guide dancers to find the very best way to execute a movement phrase. A December 2016 article by Kristin Schwab in Dance Magazine, titled “These Five Details Can Make or Break Your Performance,” pointed out that “for Linda Kent, even the slightest shift in focus can change the meaning.” I love the picture of Linda that accompanied the article. I am so glad that I had a role in recommending that Linda head the dance department at Perry-Mansfield and that so many young dancers benefited from the staff she engaged and from her direction and instruction.
Photo by Todd Rosenberg, courtesy of Juilliard, taken from the December 2016 Dance Magazine article.
Avodah began to do week-long summer dance training programs in 1997, but I want to share memories of our final one, at Perry-Mansfield in August 2004. We were very fortunate to have a grant from the Laura Jane Musser Fund. This fund, which began in 1989 upon the death of Laura Jane Musser, is devoted to her interests, which included the arts and helping children. One of the areas funded is Intercultural Harmony and we applied for a grant to provide a five-day workshop teaching how to use movement, music and storytelling to create multicultural programs in schools. The grant enabled me to put together a stellar faculty and to help provide scholarships to participants.
This was not the first Avodah workshop at Perry-Mansfield in Steamboat Spring, CO. The first one was in 2001 when Amichai Lau Lavie and Libbie Mathes joined me as the faculty with our week focused on Yoga, Dance and Sacred Text. Libbie was my next-door neighbor in Steamboat Springs and we quickly discovered our common interest in dance and sacred text from both a Jewish and a Buddhist perspective. This was a great opportunity for us to work together. Libbie is a highly trained and gifted teacher of Yoga, having studied in India in both Asana (posture) and Pranayama (breath work). Amichai is now a rabbi, but at the time of the workshop he was a student, extremely knowledgeable about Jewish text. Libbie remembers “loving his analysis and insights into the Moses sagas.” The workshop was part of Avodah’s training program for leaders of dance midrash, and at least one person who had done workshops with me in NYC made the trip to Perry-Mansfield in Colorado.
Libbie and I did another workshop the following year focusing on Meditation, with Rabbi Sheila Peltz Weinberg joining us. And then in 2004 we had a faculty of five, all people that I had a long history of working with. As I mentioned in the opening paragraph, we focused on training teachers to use multicultural programs in the schools. Libbie continued providing the Yoga section and insights from her explorations of India and Yoga’s traditions. Regina Ress, an international storyteller, had a huge number of relevant stories to share and had taught in schools at all levels. Kezia had both an education degree and a dance degree, and had danced and taught with Avodah for 13 years. She and I had led many workshops related to dance midrash and multicultural work that grew out of our piece Let My People Go. Newman Taylor Baker is a percussionist I had worked with since 1989 as part of Let My People Go and then in other teaching situations along with our prison programs. He had years of experience presenting school programs and had the most amazing collection of percussion instruments from all over the world. In addition we invited Julie Gayer to join us, as she was taking on the role of director of The Avodah Dance Ensemble in the fall of 2004, since I was no longer living in New York City and was retiring from heading the dance company.
Our 2004 faculty from l. to r. Libbie, Kezia, Julie, JoAnne, Newman and Regina sitting on the edge of the Louis Horst Dance Studio at Perry-Mansfield.
We not only had participants from throughout the United States, but two members of the Steamboat Springs community, as well. Libbie remembers a chemistry teacher and also an administrator. We were thrilled that we could offer scholarships to participants. Having all worked together before, this was a sheer teaching joy where we could just easily flow from one leader to another. As Libbie and I were next-door neighbors and luckily the townhouse on the other side of mine was vacant, we rented it for the week, and everyone had fun hanging out together after teaching. I remember that Newman introduced me to quinoa and showed me how to rinse it first before cooking it. And then the weekend following the workshop, we had a wonderful time hiking two of my favorite trails.
Storytelling, movement, and music are all ways to connect to others and learn about different cultures, finding common threads and celebrating differences. For me on a personal note it was a wonderful way to complete my work with the Avodah Dance Ensemble as its founding director. Avodah had begun with my exploration of my own Jewish roots and my relationship to Jewish text. Now over thirty years later, I had changed and my focus was on building bridges between people and seeing intercultural harmony (the beautiful phrase used by the Laura Jane Musser Fund). And how wonderful to be able to hold this workshop at Perry-Mansfield in the Louis Horst Studio. It was like so many pieces of my life coming together…nature, spirituality, dance history, personal history, deep friendships and artistic collaborations.
Regina hugging a tree on one of our hikes.
Resting on a hike and totally enjoying being together.
Last month, eleven of us gathered together on a Zoom call to remember choreographer Louis Johnson who had passed away on March 31. (April 10th obituary in NYTimes) We all had some kind of connection to Louis, and most of us had worked with him on “Let My People Go.” We covered a number of time zones and different countries from Italy to Costa Rica to the US (from NYC to CA). The next morning we received this beautiful email from Deborah Hanna. I asked her if I could share it as a guest blog.
Bio of our Guest Blogger:
Deborah Lynn Hanna grew up in Charleston, West Virginia as a sports lover – playing basketball, swimming and riding horses competitively. This love of movement transformed into modern dance, and she graduated with a BA in Humanities from Stetson University in Deland, Florida, earning “The Most Outstanding Humanities Student” Award in 1981 and 1982. Next step: New York City and the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance where she worked and studied for 5 years, achieving her 3rd year Trainee Program Diploma at the Advanced Level, while acting as Coordinator for the Martha Graham Ensemble and dancing with the Ensemble for 3 years in the annual revival pieces of “Primitive Mysteries,” “Steps in the Street” and “Celebration.” Primarily, Deborah grew as a performer with The Avodah Dance Ensemble from 1987-1992 in its 15-piece repertoire, dancing and giving workshops in all parts of the US. She then moved to Italy with her Italian husband and began teaching the Martha Graham Technique and choreographing, as well as teaching English as a Second Language. In 2013, the latter work took Deborah and her husband to Myanmar for 7 years, where she taught English and dance, and also performed in interesting, but unlikely venues. In July 2019 Deborah and her husband returned to their family property in Tarquinia, Italy and are in the midst of creating a holistic center for Cultural and the Healing Arts.
Guest Blog by Deborah Hanna
I woke up this morning (a few hours later actually, with our time difference here), remembering pieces of our conversations, your faces, my thoughts and reflections, and most importantly, a profound sense of love… love for the beauty and uniqueness of what was shared, along with such awe and respect for the amazing talent and achievements represented on that tiny screen – everyone in their homes, sort of a humbling and very human factor, that gives us an equal voice at the table as human beings, as we all walk through this unique period of history together…. with a glance backwards towards another era.
My first consideration, as we all expressed last night, was the unifying force of JoAnne, her creative vision for Avodah and the ever-changing landscape of her choreography (of which we all played integral roles in the creation of movement), the beauty of so many diverse collaborations, performance arenas, teaching workshops, cities, towns and even countries, and the continual unexpected, which made every performance and new work exciting. This is an amazing accomplishment, JoAnne – one that gave so much to so many of us as artists, not to mention the audiences and workshop participants. The other beautiful quality of Avodah was the bond of friendship and healthy spirit of collaboration that existed amongst us… a very rare quality in the NYC dance scene – at least coming from the Martha Graham Dance Company perspective. Last night, after we listened to Candice’s memory of getting lost in a piece of Avodah choreography and JoAnne being amused as to how she and the rest of us would figure our ways out of these tight spots, Kezia brought up a similar moment for me, with the Graham work Celebration.
Deborah Hanna in the studio in a Graham movement.
During one City Center performance of the first reconstruction of Celebration (464 jumps in 6 minutes), as I was beating out a 64-count phrase, I became lost in imagery that Martha herself had given to us during one of the last rehearsals. I simply departed on my next jump series 8 counts too soon – alone, instead of with another 5 dancers. I remember being out in the middle of that big City Center stage, feeling all of the responsibility that comes with representing Graham in that arena, and thinking to myself, “Okay, Deb, you’re here…. just keep jumping until the others arrive and keep the image of light pouring down, so no one can see in your eyes that you screwed up royally.” I was the only one moving on the stage at that moment in an intricately choreographed Graham piece, where every single second was carved to perfection. Just in that moment, a quite accomplished dance reviewer snapped my photo, which only made matters worse! Eight counts later, the other dancers arrived and we finished the piece successfully. The next day, the dance review and photo were sitting on my dressing room table, with all of the other Ensemble members gathered round. To my mind, I had successfully come out of an error and actually done really well. Naturally, Yuriko (the director of the Ensemble) didn’t agree! She stomped into the dressing room – her tiny but powerful stature steaming, venom flowing from her eyes. I felt this ancient Samurai power about to unfurl …. she was furious and said that if I ever did anything like that again, I was out of the Ensemble! There was no chance to explain, no excuses!
Only recently, after having lived in South East Asia for 7 years and having worked with many Japanese, getting to know them and their culture, I can now understand her reaction, but at the time, it was very foreign – especially for a West Virginia hillbilly like myself. Yuriko was deeply dedicated to the integrity and accuracy of Martha’s work, above all else…. and that was the atmosphere of the Graham World. Our rehearsals with Yuriko were very much akin to being in the military, I imagined… for all the greatness and perils that those worlds offer.
So, from there to Avodah…..After I’d finished my first season at City Center with the Martha Graham Ensemble in the reconstructions of Celebration and Primitive Mysteries, Yuriko was interested in having me come to rehearsals and integrate into the permanent Martha Graham Ensemble ( which I had helped cultivate into a full-time second company, having been the booking coordinator – a role I developed as a work-study student, in order to pay for my own classes). It was one of those monumental life crossroads for me. I had just gotten into Avodah simultaneously, during the Graham NY City Center season in 1987, and had to make a decision of which road to travel. I looked at the long line of extraordinary dancers fighting tooth and nail to get into Graham, and fortunately I had the good sense to choose Avodah, where I could be a “little star” in a very healthy, satisfying dance company. And that decision has made all of the difference!
At the end of my intense years both training with Graham and working on her reconstruction works, then the immensely diverse experiences performing in so many roles with Avodah, I felt deeply satisfied as a dance performer and was ready for the next step…. which just happened to be Italy via India…. dance being a constant companion throughout…but in extraordinarily unique settings, far from my NYC days.
I know that Louis would be very pleased to know that he was responsible for helping unite all of us in a little gem of a work that he and JoAnne created…. “Let My People Go!” It was one of my very favorite pieces in the Avodah repertoire because it gave us the chance to do so much – act, sing, dance different styles and change up pace so quickly that you were always on your toes. I learnt this great lesson on the art of choreographing from Louis…the grave importance of changing pace, dynamics, styles, directions, rhythms and energy. That lesson is monumental!
I’ll finish off this rather indulgent email (only in these times is this kind of epistle really possible – to write and perhaps even to be read) with how “Let My People Go” started on its first debut, to its final performance of the first season run. Our “virgin” performance was on a notably long, and rather narrow bema in Ohio, where we left notes on stage right and left as we exited, in order to remember where and when we entered and what we had to do….. to the last performance for that season, at Henry Street Settlement – 15 performances later – all done in less than a 2-month period.
That final Sunday afternoon matinee performance at Henry Street was a humble, but magical one! It was raining, I believe, and a rather gloomy Sunday afternoon, so there was hardly any audience and I don’t think Louis was present. But we were there, a now seasoned first cast, having worked together so hard and intensively, travelling for almost 6 weeks – planes, cars, hotels, restaurants, snow storms, missing cast members, dead deer, interesting hosts…. and so, we were seasoned in many ways…. enough so, that the final performance was truly a spiritual experience. We now knew the piece — and each other — very well, and on that stage at Henry Street Settlement, where the project had begun, something extraordinary happened. Every one of us began spontaneously to expand a little on our roles, sing an extra note, give an added expression, leap a little higher, or add an arm for emphasis. I remember watching Kezia, Newman, Loretta, Mark and Rob in between my own entrances, and so enjoying and appreciating their spontaneity and creativity. But above all, there was this amazing, tangible feeling between us – a sort of deep flow and understanding beyond words, of being united by vibrations – those invisible threads that bind us to the core. For me, that last run of “Let My People Go” was the essence and highest level of performance…….collective, joyful, fun and pure creativity in the moment.
Deborah in the performance at Henry St. of Let My People Go. Behind her is Loretta Abbott and drummer Leopoldo Fleming. Photo by Tom Brazil.
Reflecting back on the April 21st telephone call when 11 of us gathered on Zoom to remember choreographer Louis Johnson who died on March 31, I am struck by two main areas I want to write about: memories I had not heard before, related to Louis Johnson and Let My People Go; and ways the participants are continuing with their work during the pandemic.
While lots of memories were shared, many of which I have written about in earlier blogs, these are a few new ones.
Cantor Mark Childs shared what it meant to go down to Henry St. Settlement House where rehearsals and a performance of Let My People Go were held. That was a place where his grandparents and great-grandparents went, and he said it was “such a special experience in my heart” to be able to be there.
Elizabeth McPherson taught at Henry St., where Louis was head of the dance program. Louis was known for his high standards and even had the same high standards for 4-year-olds as for professional dancers. Getting ready for a performance involving students, Louis was yelling at a 4-year-old boy to go to his right. The child wasn’t understanding, so Elizabeth explained to Louis that “4-year-olds don’t know their left from their right.” Louis threw up his arms and said, “You teach them.” Elizabeth did that gladly, telling the young boy to go toward the window.
Freddie Moore shared how meaningful it was to have a chance to work with Louis directly in the Avodah projects because when Freddie was a certificate student at Ailey, the historian Joe Nash would bring Louis in regularly to the dance history class and Louis was such a kind, sweet spirit and always passionate about whatever he was doing.
Jeannine Otis reminded us that when Louis would see her, years after she had performed the cantor’s role in Let My People Go, he would shout out, “There’s the black cantor!!”
As our gathering continued I asked each person to share what they were doing now. Part of each person’s sharing was how they were coping with COVID – 19.
Elizabeth McPherson, Director of the Dance Division and Coordinator of the MFA in Dance at Montclair State University, reported that they have a program with 120 undergraduates and 14 graduates. She has published two books and is now working on a book on Helen Tamiris. She also shared that she was just reading a Master’s Thesis Project that quotes Freddie Moore. ( A common element to our gathering was the intersecting paths that we all have in each other’s lives.) Elizabeth is in current discussions with the dean about changes that the college President may make for the fall semester (including perhaps starting the semester in October, having everyone wear masks, and having students alternate weeks on campus so classes would be smaller and students would have more space between them). Currently she is reviewing video auditions of students for the freshman class. She loved one creative video where the student did the barre in her kitchen, petit allegro in her living room and grand allegro in the street.
Beth Millstein is a psychotherapist and now seeing patients on Zoom and hearing their experiences of how they are handling staying at home. She is taking dance classes on Zoom and performs once or twice a year.
Jeannine is as busy as ever as Music Director at St. Mark’s Church in Manhattan. Now with the pandemic she is working from home and doing online services. Each week she and her partner Larry feel like they are producing a radio show, finding the location, setting up the keyboard and doing the service from home. She is also involved with Theatre for Social Change, working with kids, and her book A Gathering has been turned into a theatre piece.
Kezia Gleckman Hayman is still doing administrative work at the same law firm she joined when she joined Avodah. She is currently busy working from home, while keeping an eye on her 12-year-old son, who is also attending school remotely and trying to sneak in video games simultaneously. She takes adult ballet classes (now Zoom) with Kathy McDonald, who was in Avodah’s first New York company. Kezia has recently joined some of her adult classmates in studying pointe, 33 years after she last performed in toe shoes.
Kezia trying her new pointe shoes in her Zoom dance studio — her small kitchen.
Freddie Moore has been at Ailey for 35 years now. A graduate of the Certificate Program and dancer with Ailey II, he has also had his own company, Footprints Dance Company, for 30 years. For the past eight years he has been running the Certificate Program and is Rehearsal Director of the Ailey student group, preparing juniors and seniors for performance. In addition he works with churches all over the world, building liturgical dance ministries. He is also raising two of his granddaughters, ages 6 and 8. Right now he is challenged by home schooling and live Zoom classes. In April when we were talking he was planning a graduation program for Ailey.
Deborah Hanna has just moved back to Italy after 7 years in South East Asia where she taught English and some dance. One experience she shared was introducing Martha Graham to a community in Myanmar that had no idea what modern dance was, let alone the Graham technique. Now in Italy she and her husband are working on family property to create a holistic art and cultural center. She can be found having coffee with three chickens, chopping down a tree and painting fences. She hopes once the pandemic is over we will come and visit.
Deborah (looking like a Graham performer, says Kezia) working on the family property in Italy during COVID 19.
Candice Franklin has been teaching with the Joffrey Ballet since 2007. She was caught right as the pandemic began to lock down things in the US when she was on tour holding auditions for the Joffrey Ballet. One day they had a room full of eager dancers and the next day there were just two dancers. She got on a plane in Kansas to return to NYC. She is doing a lot of teaching on Zoom and she finds it much harder to teach on Zoom then when it is a live class. She has to prepare extra carefully and really focus to get everything done in the hour. She had been training to teach ballroom dance. But that will need to be on hold, although someone in our Zoom group suggested using a broomstick for a partner!!
Newman shared that he had a gig on March 6th at the Folk Museum in NYC with a hundred people attending, and just 5 days later he had a gig in Brooklyn with only 2 people attending. He pointed out that he has spent a lot of his life not knowing where the next gig is, but now the whole world doesn’t know where the next gig is. He is particularly focusing on how to perform on the Internet. His whole experience has been with live audiences and the Internet is a totally different experience, which he doesn’t like. He knows he has to change and he is particularly inspired by Yo Yo Ma, who in Newman’s words, “gets to the same place” when performing on the Internet as when performing with a live audience. Newman is working to reach that point as well. Newman also shared his new instrument – the washboard. He came to it by accident when he was substituting for another musician. Changing the way the previous musician played it, Newman puts the washboard in his lap and plays it with shotgun shells covering 4 fingers on each hand, which creates a totally different sound. Playing the washboard has also led him to explore his family history, particularly his paternal grandfather who was born a slave and went on to earn a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Yale in 1903.
Newman noted something important for all of us to keep in mind. After 9/11 most of the places he used to play as a musician were gone. It took a year until people went out again. Newman concluded by saying we will all have to do what jazz musicians do — improvise.
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