Artists’ Memories and Managing Dance and Music Now

Reflecting back on the April 21^st 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. 

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.  

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 6^th 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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