JoAnne Tucker

Some Reflections on Perry-Mansfield 1959-1999

JoAnne Tucker / April 25, 2020May 8, 2020 / Perry-Mansfield, Personal Life

I thought I would be going back to Perry-Mansfield in 1959 but instead I ended up auditioning for and getting into a bicentennial summer stock production that ran most of the summer in Pittsburgh. That will be another later blog. Right now I just want to focus on my history with Perry-Mansfield. Even though I didn’t return, I highly recommended the camp to other dancers and in fact my sister attended in 1965 and Murray and I, along with my mother, visited her while she was at camp. At that point Perry-Mansfield was in transition. The founders, Portia Mansfield and Charlotte Perry, had donated the camp to Stephens College, a women’s school in Columbia, Missouri. Harriet Ann Gray, head of the Stephens Dance Department, had been a regular teacher at Perry-Mansfield. The camp had a four-year transition period and would not be under full control of Stephens until 1967.

The camp became a summer campus for Stephens so that when our two daughters were ready for a summer program I was disappointed that it wouldn’t work for them. I pretty much hadn’t thought about Perry-Mansfield again until I saw a very small notice in Dance Magazine in the fall of 1991 that a group of townspeople had formed Friends of Perry-Mansfield, a non-profit organization to save the camp, as Stephens College was planning to sell it to be developed for condos or such. I think I sent in a $25 donation.

In the summer of 1992, Murray and I took a trip to Rocky Mountain Park and were staying in the western part of the park, about a 2-hour drive from Steamboat Springs where Perry-Mansfield is located. I suggested that we take a drive over to Steamboat and see what the town was like, as I had been pretty impressed that a group of townspeople were making an effort to save the camp. We did drive over and liked the energy in the town. It had grown from when I was there, particularly the ski area, but it still had the feel of a small Western town and none of the pretensions of Aspen or Vail. As we were wandering around town we picked up some brochures of condos that were doing summer rentals and even drove by a few of them. And in fact the next summer we rented a condo for a month and had a great time hiking, swimming and being in Steamboat. Strangely, though we drove by the entrance to the camp quite a few times I never wanted to go in to visit. Somehow I didn’t want to ruin the wonderful memories I had.

Murray and I in Rocky Mountain Park in the summer of 1992.

We continued to rent for a month each summer and then in 1996 we bought a condo and began to increase our time to five weeks. Since we were beginning to feel a bigger commitment to Steamboat and what the community had to offer, I decided I would go to Perry-Mansfield’s “Evening of Dance” concert. It was pretty bad and I didn’t go back for a few years until the summer of 1999.

Once again, I was very disappointed in the evening. There were a few lovely dancers but the choreography of the pieces didn’t appeal to me, seeming weak attempts at being avant-garde and not particularly challenging for the dancers. At intermission I was quietly talking to one of the townspeople that I recognized, sharing my disappointment, when someone interrupted the conversation and asked who I was. I shared that I directed a small modern dance company in NYC and that I had been at P-M the summer of 1958 and had loved studying with Tamiris and being in the piece “Dance for Walt Whitman.” At which point this lovely woman began doing one of the movements from the piece. So I immediately asked who she was. “T Ray Faulkner,” came her answer, and I just hugged her, telling her that I remembered her well from the summer I had been there. We laughed and she said we needed to talk and asked if I would be willing to go out to lunch with her.

I agreed of course, we exchanged contact information and set up a time to meet!

Before I go any further, this seems a fitting time to share more about T Ray and her role with Perry-Mansfield, and honor this beautiful woman who contributed so much to so many lives and to the well being of Perry-Mansfield. I think all of us who attended P-M from 1957 to 2015 have wonderful memories of T Ray. T Ray started as a counselor at P-M but soon was asked to assist the two directors, Charlotte Perry and Portia Mansfield, doing a wide variety of things that the ladies didn’t have time for. She was also a major help in making the transition to ownership by Stephens College.

T Ray was drawn to modern dance even though she grew up in a religious household where dance was “for whores.” I found this wonderful write up about T Ray on the website of the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma, honoring alumni, and I share it here as it lets us know about T Ray’s professional life.

In the early 1950s, Thelma Ray Faulkner was told that a college degree could take her anywhere she wanted to go, provided she used it. Forty-five years, four continents and hundreds of souvenirs later, Faulkner proved those words to be true. The 1956 OCW graduate has made her mark in the world of education, earning both her Masters and Ph.D. in dance and related arts from Texas Woman’s University in Denton, Texas, in 1965 and 1969, respectively, and has taught on every educational level from kindergarten to post graduate. She taught dance at Indiana University in Bloomington, Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, the University of Oregon in Eugene and Arizona State University in Tempe. During her career in higher education, she did post doctoral work at the Laban Art Movement Center at Goldsmith College, part of the University of London. She was a visiting professor at the University of the Americas in Chalua, Mexico, a guest teacher/artist at two colleges in Brazil and was a judge at Brazil’s major international dance competition. She retired from college teaching in 1982, only to reenter the field of education as an elementary school teacher. For the last six years of her teaching career, she worked with third-fifth grade Native American students on the White Mountain Apache Reservation in Whiteriver, Ariz. As a Language Arts Specialist, she taught creative writing to children with reading and writing limitations. Still not content to retire at the age of 65, Faulkner elected to work part-time at the Perry-Mansfield Performing Arts School and Camp in Steamboat Springs, Colo. Her travels have taken her to countries in Europe and South America, the island of Malta, China, Antarctica, Egypt, and around the world.

T Ray, picture found on the Internet, as I remember her around 2010. T-Ray died June 9, 2016.

T Ray and I indeed had lunch together and we talked about how the dance program could be improved and might return to the outstanding status that it once held, of key people in the field of dance having a role at the camp. As we were talking I thought about my good friend Linda Kent, who had danced in Alvin Ailey’s company for seven years upon her graduation from Juilliard and then gone on to perform with Paul Taylor for 14 more years. She was now on the faculty of Juilliard and I knew how diverse and deep her contacts in the dance world were. I also knew that she didn’t have a summer program that she regularly participated in and I thought that maybe she would be interested in heading up the dance program at P-M.

Linda and I had worked together on several projects, she had set two pieces for The Avodah Dance Ensemble, had helped me with casting, been a guest teacher in week-long Avodah summer programs, and on one or two occasions had even danced with the company when a dancer was out sick. I had watched her coach dancers and I thought she was one of the best coaches of dance!! I’ll share more about how Linda Kent and I met and the various projects we did together, in a later blog.

T Ray loved the idea and thought the next steps were to meet with June Lindenmayer, the current director of P-M and Jim Steinberg, the President of the Board of Friends of Perry-Mansfield. She would set up those meetings and in the meantime I was to ask Linda if she would be interested in heading the dance program at Perry-Mansfield.

In the next blog I share what happened next!

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1958 Summer at Perry-Mansfield

JoAnne Tucker / April 10, 2020 / Childhood, Perry-Mansfield, Personal Life

Preface: Why am I continuing to paint and write this blog at a time when the world is in crisis? An honest answer is because it allows some structure to this time when Murray and I aren’t leaving our home. For part of each day there is an element of peacefulness and joy in my life as I reflect back or create anew. Doing something creative engages me and I invite you along on the journey. I also welcome guest blogs… won’t you share how you are structuring your time to find some peacefulness and joy!

Even though it is nearly 60 years since I ventured to Steamboat Springs and attended Perry-Mansfield, the memories are crystal clear in my mind. The blend of the arts, the Colorado landscape, the rustic setting with horses – all evoke smells, sounds and visual images swirling me back in time. I was lucky to attend at a time when Charlotte Perry and Portia Mansfield were still very active as the founding directors. According to Wikipedia, “Perry-Mansfield Performing Arts School and Camp was founded by Charlotte and Portia in 1913 and is the oldest continuously operating dance and theater school in America.”

Perry-Mansfield’s website describes:

…two ladies came to the frontier mountain town of Steamboat Springs, Colorado with a mule named “Tango.” Although the town was populated with people primarily engaged in mining and ranching, it was Charlotte Perry and Portia Mansfield’s vision to explore and teach “natural dance forms” and “artistic expression close to creatures and mountains and out-of-doors.”
Quickly regarded by the locals as the “mad ladies of Steamboat,” Charlotte and Portia founded Perry-Mansfield Performing Arts School and Camp in this spectacular mountain setting – a 76-acre campus 7,000 feet above sea level and 150 miles northwest of Denver.
From their humble beginnings in a few rustic cabins and some lean years when the “scenery was the salary,” Charlotte and Portia nurtured Perry-Mansfield into one of the premier performing arts schools and camps for children and youth of all ages.

JoAnn Fried and I arrived at the Steamboat train station which is now the Arts Depot. I don’t have any pictures of our arrival but I do have one of our departure.

JoAnn Fried and I at the train station at the end of summer.

The first few days were a whirlwind of activity settling into a rustic cabin (no bathroom) up a fairly steep hill. Down the hill was the bath house with toilets, sinks and showers. I quickly got to know three roommates, one from Denver, another from Wyoming, and I don’t remember where the third was from. I also think our counselor may have slept in our bunk, but I am not sure. I do remember her name was Jo and she was from Minnesota. Auditions and class placement were also an important part of the first few days. I excitedly and boldly auditioned for both Helen Tamiris’s piece that she would be setting on a selected group, along with Midsummer Night’s Dream, the theater production to be staged in the first few weeks of camp.

In an earlier blog I mentioned that I hadn’t prepared anything for an audition and quickly put together favorite phrases from Jeanne Beaman’s class, ending with a fun fall of sliding onto an outstretched arm and then rolling to get up. When I completed my phrase of probably two minutes, Tamiris asked me to please repeat the fall. A day later a list was posted outside the office door listing the selected campers. I remember being thrilled to see my name there. Only two of us under college age were selected, myself and Martha Clarke, a year younger than me.

At that time Perry-Mansfield went from young campers (in a section called The Ranch) all the way to College-age students, each age having its own section at the camp. All ages attended at the same time.

I also auditioned for Midsummer Night’s Dream. I don’t remember the initial audition but I do remember the callback. Three of us were called back to read for Titania. I was stunned. I had never taken an acting class and never thought of myself as anything other than a dancer. I had gone to the initial audition because I wanted to apply myself to as many different opportunities as possible. I didn’t get the part and did get cast in a small role in the production, which I declined, feeling that the rehearsals for Tamaris’s ballet were enough for me. It was exciting to have made the callback and to have had the experience of auditioning for the part of Titania.

Since I was cast in the ballet I was also permitted to take Tamiris’s advanced technique class and Tamiris’s composition class. The composition class was a real eye opener. I don’t have much memory of the technique class other than doing relevés into falls and catching ourselves, in each direction. The composition class left me with two main approaches that in ways are still part of my life. First, that one can start with an ordinary gesture and from that build a whole dance, and second, that one must totally commit to what one is doing!!

The piece Tamiris developed that summer was Dance for Walt Whitman. It was in three sections, each featuring a poem that was read. The middle section was my favorite, inspired by the poem “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking.” All the women linked arms and moved as one body. My mom surprised me and came out for the performance. As I was packing for the move to Costa Rica I found a letter that she had written my dad. Reading it was very moving to me and I share just a few sentences from it.

JoAnne was an important part of the group. Tamiris added a fall for her… she slid half way down a 3 ft ramp and got up gracefully 10 beats later. The ballet lasted 20 minutes and the effect was magnificent.
I’m getting more convinced that she really has something to express in dance.

Program from Perry-Mansfield’s Evening of Dance

Working with Tamiris was a turning point for me in dance. The confirmation of being selected and then the experience of the actual classes, rehearsals and performance cemented my determination to have a career in dance. But the experience at Perry-Mansfield had another major influence on my life. It introduced me to the western Rocky Mountains and confirmed my love of being in nature. During the summer I would hike up from the cabin to the top of the hill, and in a level area do a short dance of thanksgiving for being in such an amazing environment.

Picture taken by one of my friends, of me dancing at the top the hill at Perry-Mansfield.

After the Tamiris ballet experience I had several more weeks of camp and wasn’t particularly impressed with Harriet Anne Gray, who took over for Tamiris. Instead there were two other experiences that stand out in my mind.

On her day off, Ray Faulkner, the head counselor of our Hill unit, invited me to join her on a hike up Fish Creek Falls to a lake at the top. It was breathtaking and awesome and the wildflowers were amazing. Hiking, wildflowers and being in nature have been important parts of life since then.

Perry-Mansfield also offered special western trips. I had signed up for a three-day trip to the Grand Canyon. It actually wasn’t to the Grand Canyon but rather to Dead Horse Point which is in Utah where the Colorado River cuts through it much like it does at the Grand Canyon. That was another awesome nature experience. We camped out and that night was during the August meteor shower and I remember an amazing night counting shooting stars.

As the 6-week experience ended and we boarded the train to head for home, I found myself filled with a new energy and a clear direction for my life.

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Remembering Louis Johnson

JoAnne Tucker / April 3, 2020April 10, 2020 / "Let My People Go", Dance History, New York Company, Personal Life

Our “Let My People Go” cast members of The Avodah Dance Ensemble are like a family. There is a special closeness, especially among those of us who worked directly with Louis. So it felt quite natural that the way I would hear about Louis’s passing this past Tuesday, March 31, was to get a message from Christopher Hemmans, who danced in “Let My People Go” while a student at Juilliard. He shared this notice, and a little later I got a text message from Freddie Moore, sharing the same link.

I am filled with so many warm memories of my collaboration and friendship with Louis and feel so blessed that he was an important part of my dance history. I have written many blogs about the collaboration, from the first blog of Mostly Dance (on June 1, 2018) to a most meaningful one on September 7, 2018 describing the last meeting I had with Louis. Kezia so beautifully wrote of Louis in 1999, and that is a part of the September 7^th blog too. I encourage you to check it out along with all the other blogs from June 1 to September 7, 2018.

We are living in such a strange time with so many deaths that I fear that Louis’s passing will go without the proper honoring that he deserves. When Loretta Abbott passed we had a small but very special meeting together at St. Mark’s church hosted by Jeannine Otis. Now it looks like the way we can gather together is via a ZOOM meeting. So I am suggesting to our Avodah family that we do a ZOOM meeting to share our favorite memories of Louis. How about if we plan on doing that after Passover and Easter… on Tuesday, April 21^st, the time to be determined by who wants to participate. Please leave a comment on the blog, or email me directly at jotuc122@gmail.com if you would like to participate.

JoAnne and Louis
Picture taken by Tommy Scott

An Ad in Dance Magazine Leads to an Amazing Summer

JoAnne Tucker / March 27, 2020 / 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 / March 20, 2020 / 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 / March 15, 2020March 20, 2020 / 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 4^th 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.

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.

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 / March 6, 2020March 20, 2020 / 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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First Dance Classes: Remembering Genevieve Jones

JoAnne Tucker / February 28, 2020March 1, 2020 / Childhood, Personal Life

My cousin Maxine, who is a year younger than I am, started taking dance classes when she was 4 or 5 and my family would drive to Uniontown, which was about an hour from where we lived in Pittsburgh, to watch her recitals. These were long evenings with kids in satiny, glittery costumes doing various routines. Usually the kids had several costume changes since they were in quite a few numbers. So when my Mom wanted to expose me to dance classes she selected Kelly’s School of Dance, which was in our neighborhood and run by Louise Kelly. Louise was one of Gene Kelly’s sisters. Gene had grown up in Pittsburgh and now was in his prime in Hollywood. It was somewhat similar to the kind of dance school that Maxine had gone to, with the emphasis on recitals and costumes and young kids being exposed to tap, acrobatics, and a kind of intro to ballet.

My cousin Maxine in one of her recital costumes. (When I shared this picture with Maxine she remembered the following about the picture and the role her dance classes played in her life.)

My recollection is that this was taken when my ballet dance class performed Swan Lake. I think somehow we must have had individual photos. I was definitely in the chorus of ballerinas and sort of remember being in a semicircular formation with the other dancers. Note the braces so I think this was towards the end of my involvement with dance training 6 days/week when I decided as a teenager that I liked academics a lot more than dance and did not have the talent or the desire to be a ballerina or a dancer.

Today, I am most grateful for the self discipline, the coordination, mental development, the muscular training and the appreciation for the art of dance that I received from all of that hard work. My involvement with Tai Chi over the past 10 years brings back so much of the joy of dance – practicing steps, being graceful and remembering combinations. I also attribute my physical strength and my ability to comeback from my traumatic brain injury to this early training.)

Once I got to know my friend Regina and learned about the dance classes she was taking I thought I would like to try the kind of dance she was doing. Regina was studying with Genevieve Jones and had recently been in a delightful production of Johnny Appleseed. She was invited to play a skunk with an older group of kids. Genevieve had a totally different approach to working with kids. Students were encouraged to make up their own movement, usually to a story she shared. The music was mostly live accompaniment. I wanted to do this instead of learning routines!!

Genevieve was a real pioneer in modern dance in Pittsburgh. She was born in 1906 in Pittsburgh and attended the University of Wisconsin, majoring in dance. (The University of Wisconsin-Madison, according to its website, offered the first university dance degree program in the country.) Genevieve brought her love of modern dance back to Pittsburgh. In the 30’s she began bringing such dance legends as Martha Graham, Hanya Holm, and Jose Limon to her hometown.

I soon was loving the creative movement classes she led, and I remember one dance program in which I was an Irish Lady and we danced a poem about the Irish famine when people only ate potatoes.

Practicing in costume for the Irish Lady, in the living room of our house on Shaw Avenue in Pittsburgh. I think I am about 10 in this picture.

In addition to the children’s classes that Genevieve taught, she also conducted quite popular ballroom classes for pre-teens. Five of us from Shaw Avenue carpooled to these classes. One of our parents would drive us to the class and another would pick us up. Jimmy Levinson, Joan Davis, Regina, Bobby Moser and I would pile into a car and off we go to her very large studio with chairs all around the room. I seem to remember we had to wear white cotton gloves and it was all very formal learning how to do the basic ballroom steps. We learned to graciously accept being asked to dance, and when it was women’s choice, to ask someone to dance. Afterwards we would go back to one of our houses and have fun hanging out together. While I didn’t keep in contact with Joan Davis, I do know that Bobby Moser took over his father’s interior design business in our neighborhood of Squirrel Hill. He died in his sixties. Jimmy and I have kept in contact through the years. He has done amazing things in agricultural economics and with work in India. His son is part of an amazing non-profit in India which works with pregnant women and their newborn infants. And of course, if you have been reading this blog you know that Regina and I continue to enjoy both our friendship and working and collaborating together.

As a teenager I began teaching classes in my basement as a way to earn some money and found myself using many images and ideas from Genevieve Jones’s classes. And many years later when I had a full-grown practice working with children in Tallahassee I again turned to ideas I had experienced in Genevieve’s classes. By that time she had published a book sharing her stories, telling how she guided children in using them in movement, and providing original music from the person who had accompanied her classes. Her materials were wonderfully useful, especially for working with children ages 3 to about 8.

I also remember the simple imagery she used when doing some warm-up exercises like saying hello and goodbye as we pointed and flexed our feet!!

Teaching in Tallahassee, Florida, saying “hello and goodbye” with our toes. Picture taken around 1975.

Genevieve was a wonderful influence in helping me develop my creativity and starting me on a fun journey in dance. As I became a teenager I wanted something different and found other dance teachers with a more disciplined and structured approach.

As I was going through my scrapbooks getting ready for our move to Costa Rica, I came across an obituary that I had saved, written when Genevieve died in 2002. In it she is quoted as saying, “Dance (always spelled with a capital D) is a sacred thing, a great and wonderful thing.”

I very much wanted to find a picture of Genevieve Jones to include in this post. I wasn’t able to, but what I did find, in a literary journal, was a wonderful piece entitled “Letters to Genevieve,” which describes her beautifully and shows the profound impact she had on one individual’s life. The work was written by Sarah Golin, and here is the link to it. https://blackbird.vcu.edu/v18n1/nonfiction/golin-s/letters-page.shtml. Thank you, Sarah, for writing this.

Regina Ress has also written about her experience in dance and the influence of Genevieve Jones. Here’s a link to it. Thank you, Regina, for sharing this.

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Putting Together the Right Team in Selling and Buying A House: Part 2

JoAnne Tucker / February 21, 2020February 21, 2020 / Personal Life

We had no intention of buying a home in Costa Rica when we visited in late October. We were here to check out how we could handle the high humidity in rainy season. We did think it would be useful to get a sense of the real estate market with the thought we might buy at a later date, and to get to know the different neighborhoods in the community of Atenas where we thought we might like to live, so we reached out to Marian Veltman to show us around. We had rented a house that was managed by the company she is connected with. In fact, her husband had picked us up at the airport and when I asked him about Marian showing us around, he commented, “She won’t just sell you a house, she will make sure you are really settled in it and know your way around the community.” Hum, I thought, that is an interesting comment…

So Murray and I began going out with Marian and getting to know the different neighborhoods. We saw lots of homes that didn’t interest us. As we went around, I was impressed that Marian was listening and paying attention to our interests. Murray really loves his swimming workout, and finding a house with either a large enough pool or easy access to a neighborhood pool was taken very seriously. When we heard about a community that was over a half-hour drive away and where Marian had a house listed, she even enthusiastically contacted another real estate person to make sure we could see a second available house in the area and drove us down. That was a fairly challenging drive, especially when we got near the community and drove a very narrow, rough, dirt road. But we didn’t like either house.

And then one day when we were looking at homes, we drove up a very lovely driveway to a house that we both loved and everything changed!

For us and our needs this house really stood out! Now we began to think differently. We calculated our budget and put in an offer based on what we could afford, knowing that it is much easier to buy in Costa Rica than to sell. We learned more about closing and the taxes you have to pay along with lawyer fees in Costa Rica. The closing costs are actually higher than in the US. We took all these costs into account. Marian was respectful of our thinking, not pushing us to go higher in any way, which we really appreciated. It took a bit of negotiating and we liked the very personal way she worked with us and the seller, and we came to an agreement which was in our budget. So this stage of getting an offer accepted was complete and it had all been extremely positive, working with a very professional, knowledgeable person who had lots of energy and positive outlook. When we left to go back to the US, she said she would be at the airport to pick us up when we returned to Costa Rica.

And 2 ½ months later she indeed was there, along with Piet, one of the property managers whom we had also met. We indeed needed two cars for our 8 very large bags and 4 additional carry ons! (We decided not to send a container but to take only what we could fit into suitcases. We were flying Southwest, which allows you to check 2 bags each, along with paying for extra bags and overweight. It was well worth it to have our stuff with us right away.)

Murray and I at the airport (photo taken by our son-in-law who helped us to get to the airport with all of our bags.

Three days later, we closed on the house. Marian had carefully prepared a list of useful numbers for us and promised to take us shopping the next day. In the meantime (and over the next few days), we enjoyed some wonderful pastries that were a gift from her.

Bright and early the next morning, Marian picked us up and we spent all day shopping, going from one store to another to make sure we had the basics to get started in the new house! Beds for all the bedrooms, a sofa and a TV for the living room, pots and pans for the kitchen, dishes and glasses and on and on went the list. By the end of the day we had all the basics that we would need! She promised to take us again. We were deeply grateful for her help. It didn’t end there.

Murray and Marian after our long day of shopping. Murray was exhausted! Marian still had lots of energy! I was somewhere in between.

Among the many challenging things for new expats is banking. When we had gone to contract on the house and expressed some of our concerns about how we would function in a new country, our lawyer had said that his secretary would help us set up a bank account. She did, and she set up some of the bills, like electricity and phone, so they would be paid automatically.

Other bills, like our homeowner’s fees and water bill, would have to be paid differently and not online. Until one has some form of residency here, banking is limited. I found myself very overwhelmed about how to pay the bills at another bank. Marian and I had emailed back and forth and we had planned that we would do another shopping trip together. When she picked me up I expressed my concern about paying these bills and so we decided to stop at the bank where they could be paid and she could show me how. It ended up being very easy and I was so excited and relieved that I just wanted to hug her and do a dance of joy!! The transition was getting easier, thanks to her generous help.

Among the things she knew I was looking for was an inexpensive coffee table. A few days later Marian texted to say she thought she had found one when she was out shopping. She sent us a picture and we said “Yes! Buy it!” She even had it assembled for us. It works perfectly in our living room.

And of course she knows the local vendors and how and where to get things. She helped Murray get his cell phone. She recommended someone to upholster the well-worn dining room chairs. (The previous owner had agreed to leave a few things such as the dining room table and chairs for us.) She is very fluent in both English and Spanish and that makes it very easy for her to help those of us who have very limited Spanish.

I’m used to being in charge. I am learning to ask for lots of help as we make this transition to a new country. We feel so fortunate to have the help of Marian and indeed the comment that her husband made about her not just selling us a house but also helping us to adjust and become a part of this new community is very true!

More lessons learned. When you find the right person, welcome them into your life, don’t be afraid to ask for help and most important let them know how grateful you are for their help. A deep bow of gratitude and thanks to Marian Veltman.

https://www.godutchrealty.com/costa-rica-real-estate-agents/atenas-real-estate-agent/
Marian Veltman of GoDutch Realty

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Putting Together the Right Team in Selling and Buying a House – Part I

JoAnne Tucker / February 14, 2020February 14, 2020 / Personal Life

It should not come as a surprise, yet it still does amaze me, that the many experiences I had directing the Avodah Dance Ensemble (and then being part of a team producing and directing short films for Healing Voices-Personal Stories) are so relevant in other aspects of my life. This was especially true recently when we sold our Santa Fe house and bought a new one in Costa Rica.

I’ll begin with selling the home in Santa Fe. I thought it would be a breeze to find a listing agent, and wow was I wrong. We asked around, looked at reviews online and then finally decided to interview two or three agents. The first person we arranged to see had very high reviews online and so we called and she came over. She had a lovely personality and gave us a listing figure that surprised us at how high it was. She also said we didn’t need to do anything to put the house in order. Hum…. That didn’t seem too realistic. She was overpricing, and when I went to explore her website I saw quite a few homes that had reduced their price.

Our neighbors across the street raved about their realtor so the next appointment was with her. Exactly the opposite of the first person. As we walked through the house together she pointed out all the things that were wrong. When we sat down to discuss it further we could see she was undervaluing the house and was really acting like a buyer’s representative, not a listing agent.

We were somewhat frustrated and not sure where to turn next. Then I decided to call a realtor friend that I knew from being on the Board of New Mexico Women in Film. I hadn’t called her before because she was new to real estate. She asked if she could bring a friend who was mentoring her. They came together but the mentor totally took over and my friend never had an opportunity to say much. The mentor nailed the price as to what we hunched it was worth and had a nice positive attitude. Unfortunately, she started pressing us to immediately sign the listing agreement which she had brought. Three times we told her that we wanted to think it over first!! She continued to press us. There were follow-up calls from my friend, who was clearly being directed to press us, too. Well… that wouldn’t work for us. The thought of her bringing us an offer that we might be hesitant about and having to deal with pressure from her was just not to our liking.

We were now getting more discouraged. We had never imagined that it would be hard to find a listing agent. A day or two went by with both of us wondering what to do. Then I remembered that our Healing Voices intern had worked part-time for a realtor at Sotheby’s. I texted our former intern, and she highly recommended the realtor, Emily Garcia, so we put in a call. Emily set up a time to visit our home. When she arrived she set a relaxed and friendly mood and said this visit was just to get to know our house. She wouldn’t even quote a listing price until she had a good sense of the house, and then she would go back to her office and research it. It was a lovely experience walking her through the house. She was very positive and said she would help me stage it so it would have the most impact for showing. At the end we shared the price that we thought was right. That evening we got a call back from her saying we had nailed the exact price!! Yeah! She then asked us to come down to her office to go through things. We did. There was absolutely no pressure to sign and we liked that. She introduced us to other members of her team that would be working with her. It was clear she was very well organized and had put together a good team to handle all the details of selling and closing!

Whew… we had found our right listing agent. The next step was to stage our house. One of our daughters clearly told me to listen to whatever Emily said — she knew best and it would work to our advantage to just follow her instructions.

Emily Garcia our listing agent
http://emilygarcia.com

Emily returned and I walked with her through the house, pencil and paper in hand, making notes of all the things that she said needed to go, and of the different places for pictures to be hung to enhance the Southwest look of a Santa Fe home. Those things that were easy to do, we did right away. I had a pretty long list of things I would be needing to do. For example, reducing the bookshelves by at least one-third. Some of the things on the list involved moving furniture that was too heavy for Murray and me. Emily gave us names of several people who could help us. I called one on the list and set up a time to meet with him. Emily joined us that day, continuing to tweak her instructions on how to make our home look its absolute best.

OK….. how did it feel to have someone staging our home? Well I think it was a little hard for my husband but again my theatre/film experience came in handy. Our home was now a set for a performance that needed to look just right. Emily was my set designer and my job was simply to follow her instructions. I could tell she had a real sense of design and what would work, so it made it particularly easy to just do it.

The day photos were going to be taken Emily again joined us and tweaked a few things to get everything just right. I also immediately connected to the photography.

I was impressed how Emily approached the write up. She had us fill out a questionnaire and write down the things we really loved about our house. Murray and I each did it separately and some of our phrases became part of the description.

Once the house was ready for the photos to be taken I knew it was time to immediately put it on the market. We had considered waiting until we moved out, but some quick research showed there was very little for sale in our price range and no home as lovely. So pictures were taken on Monday. They were available on Thursday. Thursday night our house was MLS listed. Friday and Saturday we had to be out of the house most of the afternoon as we were getting quite a few showing appointments each day. By Sunday morning we had an offer that we later in the day learned was slightly over the asking price. WOW…. It had worked. We had found a good listing agent and had followed her instructions. It was worth interviewing four different people and taking our time to find just the right person.

Through the next few weeks other members of Emily’s team stepped up and proved how valuable they were. Lesson learned and reminder to myself… just as I carefully auditioned to find a dancer to join the company, it pays to take my time to build the right team in all aspects of my life. Thank you, Emily Garcia for the great job you and your team did!