May, 2021 - Mostly Dance

One of the highlights of the meaningful Zoom memorial service that good friend and spiritual leader Jimmy Levinson led for my late husband Murray was when he shared some of Murray’s hobbies and then invited each of those present to raise their hand if they also had that hobby and would think of Murray when they did that. Among Murray’s hobbies were hiking, gardening and photography. While taxes were certainly not a hobby, Murray always did ours, first by hand and in later years using Turbo Tax.

While this year was a bit more complicated due to his passing I decided that a way to honor Murray was to continue with his tradition and to do the taxes myself using Turbo Tax instead of organizing them and sending them off to an accountant. I am really glad I did. As I worked on them I felt a real closeness to Murray and a satisfaction of knowing that I was honoring the way he did things.

Now…. Let me be honest, Turbo Tax has an upgrade where they offer 24/7 chat or phone calls and I took that upgrade and did I use it. I never hesitated to call them or chat whenever I had a question and they took their time working me through the questions and the inputting of information. Numbers and math have never been my thing but I did do the easy 990 form for my non-profit dance company and the financial statements for both the dance company and Healing Voices.

It has now been just over 6 months since Murray passed. I miss him a lot and find ways to both keep him in my memory and to honor our years together. This May 6^th would have been his 81^st birthday and I wanted to make a contribution in his memory. With the devastating news out of India I knew I wanted to make a contribution to an organization in India. I reached out to my good friend Jimmy Levinson to ask what his son Noah’s organization, Calcutta Kids, was doing related to COVID and Jimmy shared that they were setting up a vaccination site. I decided to donate to Calcutta Kids knowing that it was a small organization that I have supported in the past and that they have made and are making a difference in young children and moms’ lives starting with pre-natal care. Here’s a link to their organization in case it interests you: https://calcuttakids.org

I close this blog with a few favorite recent pictures of Murray! (Photos were taken between 2015 – 2018.)

Visiting Fallingwaters, Achitect Frank Lloyd Wright’s famous house outside of Pittsburgh, PA

At Morraine Lake, Banff National Park in the Canadian Rockies. Murray and I visited there on our honeymoon and always talked of going back. We did, 53 years later.

Murray sipping a drink around the pool at a resort in Cancun!

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A business trip back in the early 1990s, on which I was able to accompany my husband Murray, still has special significance to me. Murray had a case in Singapore that required him to travel there for some onsite research. We decided to begin our trip with a five-day visit to Thailand. After a long day of flying, which included changing planes in Tokyo, we arrived around 1 AM in Bangkok. I still have a very vivid memory of our taxi ride from the airport to our hotel as traffic was bumper to bumper! And that is how it seemed all the time in Bangkok – never a time when there wasn’t a lot of traffic on the roads. A quick Google search as I am writing this post shows that traffic in Bangkok is still a major problem. Murray and I soon learned that many of the tourist sites were close to one another along the river and that it was possible to take a water taxi on the Chao Phraya River that connected The Grand Palace, Temple of the Reclining Buddha and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. We also took a river trip to the old capital and another river trip in smaller canals to get a flavor of local life. While we did not stay at a hotel on the river we determined that should we ever return, we would certainly do that, to radically limit our time on traffic-filled streets.

While the trip to the old capital was very interesting and I loved the various Buddha statues, my favorite part of the trip was the time in Bangkok at The Grand Palace. Upon entering the grounds my immediate reaction was that I was on the set of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s play The King and I. Everything felt so familiar to me, having been such a fan of the musical. Of course I realized that this was where so many of the set ideas had come from. And for choreographer Jerome Robbins, the position of the figures in many of the facades were woven into the dances.

My own history with The King and I goes back to shortly after the original production starring Gertrude Lawrence and Yul Brynner opened on Broadway in March 1951. My good friend Regina had an original recording of the show. We would dance to the songs in her living room. In 1956 the film version of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical came out, and what a dazzling production with amazing sets! Jerome Robbins recreated his ballet Small House of Uncle Thomas for the film, and I loved that ballet.

In 1964, after returning to Pittsburgh following my two years at Juilliard, I was asked to choreograph a production of The King and I that was being done at Taylor Allderdice High School, the very high school that I had attended. I had a wonderful time doing it. There are three wonderful dance moments in the musical: of course, the sixteen-minute ballet Small House of Uncle Thomas; The March of the Children, when they are introduced to their new teacher; and the duet between Anna and the King. Working with the two leads in the high school production was particularly fun and they were very appreciative of my help.

Over the years I have enjoyed watching the movie quite a few times and seeing revivals of the production. While I didn’t see the 2015 Broadway revival with Kelli O’Hara I was pleased when it won a Tony for best revival. There is even talk right now of a remake of the film. What a great contribution Rodgers and Hammerstein have made to musical theater!

I conclude this blog with a few pictures from our trip to Thailand and welcome your comments related to your connection to the award-winning The King and I.

Photograph taken of a Buddha during our tour to the
Old Capital

Images on a façade at The Grand Palace that might have inspired
Jerome Robbins’ choreography.

Murray and me on the grounds of The Grand Palace in Bangkok, Thailand.

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Month: May 2021

Doing Taxes Takes on A Whole New Meaning

A Trip to Bangkok and Reflections on The King and I