In the Garden: A New Piece Inspired by a Medieval Book of Poetry

Seven years after Sephardic Suite, I created two companion pieces for that work, to be part of a program commemorating the 500^th anniversary of the Spanish Inquisition.  While the Inquisition began in 1481, it wasn’t until 1492 that the Jews were actually expelled from Spain.  Many Jews had converted to Christianity, but in the first twelve years, more than 13,000 Conversos (Secret Jews) were put on trial. Then all Jews were expelled from the country.   Five hundred years after the Expulsion, it looked like there would be a lot of programming marking that anniversary and I was inspired to develop more repertory.  I knew that I wanted to collaborate with a scholar and found the perfect person, Rabbi Raymond Scheindlin.  

Rabbi Scheindlin is Professor Emeritus of Medieval Hebrew Literature at Jewish Theological Seminary. He specializes in medieval Hebrew poetry with a special interest in Spain and other regions of Arabic culture. Please check out his website to learn more about this outstanding scholar and the numerous books he has published.  I was particularly fascinated with his collection of poetry in Wine, Women, and Death: Medieval Hebrew Poems on the Good Life.

I learned that Jewish poets of medieval Spain combined elements of the dominant Arabic-Islamic culture with Jewish religious and literary traditions to create a rich new Hebrew literature.  In the book Wine,Women and Death, Rabbi Sheindlin presents the original 12^th century Hebrew poetry with his own melodic translations. The poetry that he translated is part of the golden age of Jewish culture during the Middle Ages where Muslims ruled and Jews were accepted into society.  Jewish religious, cultural and economic life flourished.

In the book, Scheindlin talked about gatherings that would happen late into the night in beautiful gardens where poetry would be recited.  I remembered my first trip to Granada with Murray in the late 1980’s and how I had fallen in love with the Alhambra Palace and garden in Granada.  I envisioned the new piece of choreography happening in this setting.  Many years later, long after choreographing the piece In the Garden I was able to spend two weeks wandering and sketching in the Alhambra garden while Murray attended a Spanish school in Granada.  It is a very special and beautiful place, both the garden and the surrounding architecture.

Inspired by Alhambra, I had great fun creating In the Garden in collaboration with the four dancers in the company at the time:  Kezia Gleckman Hayman, Beth Millstein, Elizabeth McPherson (and one other dancer whose name I choose to omit … that may be another blog).

Adding one more piece that I will describe in the next blog, we created a new program to tour with Rabbi Scheindlin.  We titled the program “Breezes from Andalusia: Dance, Spain and the Jews.”  

Among the tours I remember with Rabbi Scheindlin are two with unique memories, and Kezia recalls that Rabbi Scheindlin’s perspective contributed, with insight and good humor, to those experiences.  Our recollections:

In one community, Rabbi Scheindlin got into a discussion of Halacha (interpretation of Jewish law) with the rabbi, not concerning anything in the service, but in an attempt to come to our rescue as hungry artists at a post-performance dinner at a local restaurant.  When the menus arrived, we were told by our hosts that we could only order kosher food because the rabbi kept kosher.  The restaurant was not kosher, but it did have some fish and vegetarian dishes, which would be permitted. We pointed out to our hosts, respectfully, that two of the dancers were not Jewish and several of the rest of us did not keep kosher.  We also pointed out, gently, that we had all had a long day of travel and rehearsal and performance (likely with another demanding day to follow), and we thought some might be hoping for meat for dinner.  Despite Rabbi Scheindlin’s efforts to debate the Halacha of the moment on our behalf, we were still told that we all had to eat “kosher.”  In all the years of touring this was the only time JoAnne ever encountered this situation.  Another unique moment of the same evening was that because our hosts invited us to go to dinner, they also wanted to reduce our per diem.  We had often been entertained but no one had ever wanted to deduct our per diem before.  JoAnne prepared to object, but when she asked the amount and heard it was only $5 per person, she just “went with it.”

Rabbi Scheindlin’s touring perspective was interesting to us in other ways, as well.  His wife was a professional singer, and he expressed significant surprise at our performance-day routines.  We learned that the singer would be vigilant about resting her voice on a performance day.  Rabbi Scheindlin remarked repeatedly about the fact that we, in contrast, would rehearse for hours on the performance day, sometimes even traveling on that day as well.  In addition, each performance would be in a new, vastly different setting, requiring extensive spacing adjustments to the choreography.  It happened that one of the tours with Rabbi Scheindlin took us to a Florida congregation with one of the most challenging bemas in the company’s history, with ramps and various levels.  As the dancers went methodically through each piece under JoAnne’s direction, experimenting and constantly restaging movements and formations to accommodate the architecture, Rabbi Scheindlin, who was sitting next to JoAnne during the rehearsal, asked her whether the dancers would really remember all the changes they were making.  JoAnne assured him that the dancers would remember about 95% of the changes, and that she would have a lot of fun seeing how they would spontaneously solve the 5% they forgot. 

JoAnne says she will always stand in awe of the amazing way that Avodah dancers learned to adapt very quickly to the most unusual spaces.  Kezia says she will always be amazed by how JoAnne never scolded a dancer for making any mistake, and indeed, often shared a good laugh about how we “thought on our feet.”

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