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.
Clearly Juilliard and The Martha Graham Company have been on my mind recently and I have been writing about them in recent blogs. They both played an important part in a recent trip to New York City. I usually go at least once a year to NYC and sometimes twice. Of course, part of that is to see family and friends. It is also just to enjoy the energy of the city, the museums, theatre and dance. This year’s trip began with a Homecoming for dancers at Juilliard and ended with a performance of The Martha Graham Company. This blog, spread over two weeks, will focus on these two events.
Sunday afternoon, April 7th, was billed as a homecoming for dancers at Juilliard. It was an opportunity to mingle, to take class (they offered a Gaga Class and a Meditation Class), to see student compositions and to meet and hear Alicia Graf Mack, the new director of the Dance Department. Indeed it was a really full afternoon, starting at noon and ending at six. I decided that classes weren’t for me so I went at 3 in time to see student choreography, hear Alicia Graf and enjoy networking.
Part of my closeness to Juilliard is not only the impact the school had on me when I attended but also a deep appreciation for dancers in Avodah who had studied there and how much I benefited from their excellent training and professional attitude. Linda Kent, Juilliard faculty member and very good friend, had encouraged me to come and said she would definitely be there. So I flew in on April 6th, to attend the next day.
My only disappointment was that none of the classmates I was close to back in the 60’s attended nor did any of the many dancers that I had worked with in Avodah. I did see quite a few acquaintances and that was pleasant. And of course it is always fun to hang out with Linda Kent who knows just about everyone there.
The highlight for me was hearing Alicia Graf Mack speak. For an hour she shared her background in dance and her ideas for the department, and answered questions. Her warm, friendly and very open style is appealing. The fact that she performed in both Dance Theatre of Harlem and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater gives her an excellent professional background. The March issue of Dance Magazine sums it up well:
As a former leading dancer for both DTH – under the exacting eye of Arthur Mitchell – and Ailey, she effortlessly embodies Juilliard’s ethos: an equal focus on ballet and modern dance. She also holds a degree in history from Columbia University and an MA in nonprofit management from Washington University in St. Louis. She is an overachiever in every sense.
She is also the first African American and, at 39, the youngest person to direct the Dance Department.
Among the things she shared, I found particularly interesting one of the projects she did while at Columbia – reviewing and writing about the financial records of Dance Theatre of Harlem. She also experienced illness that forced her to stop dancing with DTH, and she talked openly about how that impacted her and how she was able to go back. She became involved with a “Praise” dance group at Columbia University that led her to choreograph and go back to classes, this time taking Milton Myers’s classes in Horton technique, which eventually led her to the Ailey Company.
From l to r: Linda Kent, Alicia Graf Mack, and JoAnne at the Juilliard Homecoming on April 7th.
I left Juilliard with a very good feeling that the dance department was in good hands. And off I went to meet my grandson for dinner. My trip to NYC was off to a good start.
Sometimes events surprise you and life takes a turn you hadn’t expected. That happened in late May of 1962 when I was flying home having completed my first year at Juilliard. About half way through the short flight from NYC to Pittsburgh, I got a tap on my shoulder. A male voice said, “I think we know each other.” I was aware I was wearing a scoop-neck dress and I thought hmm… he must be getting an interesting sight… Anyway it turned out we indeed did know each other. Murray Tucker and I had gone out on a date a few years back when I had directed a water ballet at the country club both of our parents belonged to. His sister Lynne had been one of the youth I directed. That year’s water ballet was a bit humorous, making fun of the Pittsburgh Steelers football team. Their dad was Joe Tucker, the Voice of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Lynne had introduced Murray and me, and I had asked if he could do a takeoff on his father and announce the water ballet.
Anyway that was how we met and then we had gone out on an actual date to see the Ice Capades. Neither one of us was interested in the other at that time. We hadn’t seen each other since then. We chatted for a few minutes on the plane and when we walked off the plane we noticed that our parents were talking to each other. We saw each other a few times before I took off for a summer job teaching dance at a camp. We saw each other again at the end of the summer and continued corresponding and seeing each other at school breaks. Definitely the romance was building and I could see a future with Murray.
At the same time, while I loved my classes and study at Juilliard I was becoming aware of several other things. I was surrounded by many talented dancers and I saw my limitations particularly as a performer. The company I aspired to be a part of was The Martha Graham Company. I loved the technique and her choreography. I was also realistic that my chances were not great to get into the Company. And even more important was that the more I hung around the Graham studio and began to meet some of the newest members of the company the more disappointed I became. Sometimes I would help sew costumes late in the evening at the Graham studio to earn some money and would see Martha wandering around fairly intoxicated, looking for where she might find a bottle with some more liquor in it. That was shattering my illusion of a very talented creative person. I knew this was a challenging time for her as she was still performing her lead roles but not with the same energy or technique that she had earlier. She must have been wrestling with how to retire from performing. As has been documented in biographies and articles about her, this was very difficult for her.
In her autobiography Blood Memory she wrote: “[When I stopped dancing] I had lost my will to live. I stayed home alone, ate very little, and drank too much and brooded. My face was ruined, and people say I looked odd, which I agreed with. Finally my system just gave in. I was in the hospital for a long time, much of it in a coma.” (Quote is from Wikipedia; no page number is given. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Graham)
Anna Kisselgoff, in an excellent article for The New York Times writes about this period, “To give up dancing, Graham felt, meant to give up her life.” Kisselgoff continues “After a severe depression and a two-year illness in the early 1970’s, Graham actively resumed working with her company.” Here’s the link to the article, which gives an excellent picture of Martha and her company up to 1984, the time the article was written. https://www.nytimes.com/1984/02/19/magazine/martha-graham.html
While my time at the studio was seven or eight years before Martha’s severe depression, clearly the seeds were apparent to all around her and gave me much to think about. But I was very inspired by her choreography, her technique and her wonderful way of expressing a philosophy of life. Just Google “Martha Graham quotes” and links to a number of websites are listed. Here’s one “Top 25 Quotes of Martha Graham.” And they are not just about dance. They are about a philosophy of life. https://www.azquotes.com/author/5783-Martha_Graham
Her classes were sprinkled with inspiration on how to be a dancer, a creative person and how to reach your full potential. I was so disappointed to see such a person – who inspired and was such an innovator – not happy. Of course, I was a young 20-year old not mature enough or able to understand the challenges that life brings and also the challenges that a very passionate and creative genius deals with.
I also sensed the strong competition among the younger company members and the lack of kindness that they showed each other. Was this an environment I wanted to be part of? I was no longer sure. I was also aware that I had completed one important goal… I had made it through all three levels of Louis Horst’s Composition Program, and to be a choreographer remained a key desire of mine.
At the end of my second year I went home to Pittsburgh filled with these thoughts and beginning to consider returning to Pittsburgh and maybe building a life with Murray. The summer went well and I made the decision not to return to Juilliard and to attend academic classes at the University of Pittsburgh. I have never for one moment regretted that choice. We were married a year later and what a rich, loving, sometimes challenging and amazing journey we have been on since then.
Now a full time student at Juilliard, I stopped taking outside technique classes. That was easy to do because some Juilliard classes were with the same teachers I had had at the Graham Studio. In ballet I really adored Alfredo Corvino’s classes and was glad to be studying with him consistently. The schedule at Juilliard was so full that it left little time for anything else. I was up early and in class at 9 in the morning and often didn’t get back until 9 at night. The program was exhausting and I can remember sometimes falling asleep in my leotard and tights. At that time Juilliard had no dorm and I was now living at the Barbizon for Women, which was a good 45-minute subway ride from the school, which was located at 120 Claremont Ave on the upper West Side. Since Columbia University was located nearby I could continue the two academic classes I was taking. When I returned in the fall I began taking academic classes at Juilliard and did not return to Columbia University’s School of General Studies. I don’t remember anything about the academic classes at Juilliard and don’t think they were very interesting or challenging at the time.
Besides the technique and Horst’s composition classes, two classes stand out strongly in my mind: Literature and Materials of Music taught by Caryl Friend and Labanotation taught by Muriel Topaz. They were challenging and helped me relate to dance in new ways. “L and M,” as we referred to Friend’s class, introduced us to the various forms of classical music and we often had to create dance studies related to the musical form we were studying. We had to study each piece of music carefully, as her exam consisted of her dropping the needle down on the record and our having to identify the piece and where in the piece she was playing. The second year, we began playing the piano and I remember writing short piano compositions. In fact, during the second year, when I was dating Murray (who later became my husband), I sent him a series of themes on the tune “Happy Birthday” using my new skill at music composition. As he was attempting to figure out what I had written, his Mom walked by and identified the piece as variations on “Happy Birthday.”
Muriel Topaz was an excellent teacher and I was fascinated with Labanotation and at one point even toyed with going further with notation. Analyzing movement to write it down helped me understand it better and it was fun to begin to read movement scores of famous pieces.
Of course a highlight continued to be having the opportunity to study composition with Louis Horst. Modern Forms was great fun and I enjoyed not only the course material and assignments but other students in the class, particularly Martha Clarke and Diane Gray. There was even a time when the three of us put together a dance study which I seem to remember we titled “Minding your P’s and Q’s” that related to an assignment we had. Behind our back each of us held in one hand a cupcake in honor of Louis’s birthday and the end of the piece we presented him with the cupcakes. In my second year at Juilliard I was able to take Louis’s third-year course Group Forms. The class consisted of students who were seriously interested in composition and each of us progressed from doing a trio to a quartet and then a quintet. You had the option to continue with the course as long as you were a student … so it gave me an opportunity to get to know some juniors and seniors. I spent the first semester developing a trio based on the book Green Mansions and was pleased that it was included in a concert of student works. The next semester I focused on a quartet about people looking at a painting. It was inspired by the long lines I would see winding around the Metropolitan Museum of Art when the painting Mona Lisa was on view. I never finished the piece but did have fun beginning to find my sense of humor in dance.
While I had enjoyed taking technique classes at The Martha Graham School they were even better at Juilliard as over the year and a half at Juilliard I consistently got to study with Helen McGehee, Ethel Winter, Bertram Ross, and (when the Graham Company was on tour) Donald McKayle. Each of the teachers had their own style and favorite combinations, and they were excellent teachers and outstanding performers.
Helen McGehee was my favorite. She had a fierceness as a teacher that I found I responded to. I was curious if she was still alive. She is and is in her late 90’s. There is a wonderful interview of her done around 2010 by Doug Hamby that is mainly a sharing of the piece The Lady and the Unicorn, which she choreographed in 1945 and which was filmed in 1957. I highly recommend the first 7 or 8 minutes, which include excerpts from the piece and her interview. She talks about creating one section in Louis Horst’s class. Her descriptions of Horst is quite wonderful. Here’s the link.
Ethel Winter had a much gentler style of teaching. I found her combinations to be much more lyrical and she was a good balance to McGehee. She died at the age of 87 in 2012. Anna Kisselgoff wrote a beautiful obituary that perfectly captures what I remember.
Bertram was simply Bertram. He had a fun sense of humor and would often join students at a table in the cafeteria. I think I enjoyed him more as a performer than a teacher. Bertram died in 2003 and here is a link to the obituary that Jennifer Dunning wrote about him.
Classes with Donald McKayle were extraordinary. An outstanding teacher, he put together combinations that I loved. He died in August 2018 at the age of 87. I found particularly meaningful the obituary in Dance Magazine which included video of Rainbow Round My Shoulder, performed by the Alvin Ailey Company. Here’s a link to it.
The time I spent at Juilliard was demanding and after two years I left, which I will write about in the next blog. The time in NYC and then at Juilliard shaped me as a choreographer, giving me a discipline and a structured way of working and approaching things that I am very grateful for. This also carried over to other areas of my life, particularly how I approach painting and filmmaking.
I researched to find a picture of The Juilliard School on Claremont Avenue but couldn’t find one that looked like I remember it. I did find this picture of Louis Horst as I pretty much remember him in class. The only thing missing is a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, but if you look closely, he is holding it in his hand. No credit is given for this photo.
In the last blog I mentioned that although Martha Hill had encouraged me to re-audition for Juilliard, I never had a chance to discuss this with my parents because my grandmother died at the same time. So … as planned, off I went to the University of Denver, my only backup school. After only one dance class it was clear to me this was not going to work. Within a few days after informing my parents I would not be staying at the University of Denver, I had withdrawn from school and was packed and on the train heading back to Pittsburgh. I was filled with a clear determination that I wanted to study dance with the best, and the place to do that was in New York City. There was no doubt in my mind that I wanted a career in dance. I hoped that I would have the support of my parents and that they would financially support an independent program in NYC that wasn’t connected to a particular college. I loved the Graham technique of modern dance and knew that would be where I would be taking modern dance classes. On my list was to find a good place to study ballet. I valued academics and thought I would explore what kind of possibilities there would be to enroll in one or two college courses. The long train ride from Denver to Pittsburgh gave me time to think through these different options and I found myself focused and clear on what my next steps were when I got home.
My parents were somewhat open but clearly had their own thoughts on what would be best for me, and my father in particular had a hard time with his daughter being a dancer in NYC. My father’s stepbrother was a psychiatrist and having been consulted, he suggested that when I got home I should see a colleague of his and have someone outside of the family talk to me in case there was something else going on. So shortly after I got home my parents arranged an appointment for me. I knew I needed to be cooperative because my first choice was having their financial support rather then having to support myself in NYC so I was willing to give it a few months home in Pittsburgh if I had to. They also suggested I enroll in a typing course so I might have a skill to support myself if I needed to.
So I enrolled in a typing course at a secretarial school and I had what turned out to be a single appointment with a woman psychiatrist. The appointment ended up actually being lots of fun. I explained why I wanted to go to New York and how I was planning to structure my time. She asked me quite a few questions and by the end of the appointment she was very encouraging and said that if I liked, she would have a follow up appointment with my parents and share with them that she thought my plans were very realistic and encourage them to support me.
Following their appointment a week later, it was decided that I would move to NYC after the 1stof the year. That would give me time to further explore options of where to live in the City and finish the typing course. My mom and I visited New York to explore options of where I would live. I was young and the idea of my living in an apartment was out of the question so we explored places like Y residences for women and the Barbizon Hotel for Women, where I had stayed once before. We then found a house on Madison and 68thStreet that was for women only and offered breakfast in the morning. That would be where I stayed. The neighborhood was great and the other women were a variety of ages. I think I even had my own room. I remember that living in the room next door was a model who was on the cover of Vogue,and another person living on the floor was studying acting. The house itself was a beautiful brownstone with a dramatic spiral staircase in the foyer where one entered. It was near the Cuban Embassy and there were often candlelight vigils and protests on our street.
I knew I would be taking classes at the Graham Studio which was located at 63rdbetween 1stand 2ndAvenue and an easy walk from where I lived. Next to explore was where I would go for ballet. I am not sure what made me decide that I wanted to go to the American School of Ballet which was pretty much for very serious young dancers but I got that in my mind and shortly after arriving in NYC I went for an audition and was placed in the beginning level class with outstanding teachers like Muriel Stuart. I actually loved the classes in spite of being surrounded by very thin “bunhead” ballerina types. Later I would move to studying ballet with Nina Fonaroff, totally loving her class and feeling so much more at home with her. She had danced in the Martha Graham company and also assisted Louis Horst, a composition teacher I was hoping to study with. I continued studying with her even when I later attended Juilliard. Her classes were fun and had a unique musical quality to them as she accompanied the class playing on the studio’s piano. A friend I had met at Connecticut College the previous summer sometimes joined the small class too. With the tension and competition that existed at places like The Graham Studio, School of American Ballet and later at Juilliard, it was a real delight to take class and get back in touch with the childhood joy of dancing. Nina’s combinations were fun to do and her corrections excellent. Ballet was fun – something I had not really experienced before.
One more piece of the puzzle to solve. I discovered that Columbia University had a School of General Studies that was designed for students like me who didn’t want to go full time. So I took the entrance exam, was accepted and began taking a few courses there.
While I did spend a lot of my time on NYC subways and buses going from place to place, I liked the package I had put together and enjoyed the next six months in New York very much.
The film A Dancer’s Work (1957) features the wonderful Graham teachers I got to study with including: Helen McGehee, Ethel Winter, Yuriko, Mary Hinkson and Bertram Ross. A lot of it was filmed in the big studio I remember studying in.
The following summer I returned to Connecticut College, this time focusing on composition classes and continuing to take two technique classes a day, one in Graham technique and the other in Cunningham technique which really never suited me well. The highlight for me was taking a composition class from Pearl Lang, and Louis Horst’s Pre-Classic Dance Forms. I loved both of them. In Pearl’s class I spent the full six weeks creating a laughter study and an anger study in dance. Louis’s class was a real challenge. The pieces we had to create were short with an ABA form. The theme had to be introduced in the first two measures of the A section and every movement in the A section needed to relate to something in those first two measures. He was very demanding and would stop you in the middle of a section if you weren’t following the rules of composition that he outlined. I immediately had great respect for him and knew I wanted to study with him more. So at the end of the summer I asked him if I could take his next course (Modern Forms) at Juilliard, even if I wasn’t a full-time student. He agreed and when I returned to New York in the fall I got approval to do just that. It was a few months into the fall semester when he said I should stop this nonsense of running all around New York and just be a student at Juilliard. And that is exactly what happened. With permission from the dance office and individual teachers, I was allowed to sit in on the classes like Literature and Material of Music for Dancers, and Labanotation and if I passed the mid-term exams I could get credit for those classes. I auditioned in late January, was accepted and became a full-time student at Juilliard in the winter of 1962. By the end of the school year I had completed my first year at Juilliard. Although the class had begun with about 40-plus students, when we started school the following fall there were only about 15 of us left. In the next blog I’ll share more reflections about my time at Juilliard.
I recently read Elizabeth McPherson’s book The Contributions of Martha Hill to American Dance, 1900-1995 and gained insights both into Martha Hill’s role in the history of modern dance in the United States and how she impacted my own life.
Picture of Martha Hill from the Wikipedia website. No photo credit is given.
If you have been reading Mostly Dance on a regular basis you know that Elizabeth McPherson was a member of The Avodah Dance Ensemble for seven years and that recently we collaborated on a conference presentation about Helen Tamiris. Elizabeth is currently the Editor of Dance Education in Practice, a journal of the National Dance Education Organization (NDEO), and she has beautifully edited two articles that I wrote or co-authored for that publication. I feel very lucky to have two people who shared their talents first as dancers and now as valued editors in my life, Elizabeth and Kezia (editor of this blog).
Elizabeth shares in her introduction that the seeds for the book were planted at the memorial service for Hill in 1995, as Elizabeth heard the love and devotion that students of Martha Hill expressed. For her dissertation, Elizabeth decided to focus on profound and personal ways Hill had touched those around her. Elizabeth interviewed four of Hill’s students who graduated “between the years 1965 and 1975, which was one of the peak points in Hill’s career. All four students retained contact with Hill in the years following their graduation up until her death. They also remained active professionally in the dance field” (p. 2). The four dancers are Laura Glenn, Linda Kent, Dian Dong and Danny Lewis. Linda and I are close friends. I have also known Dian for a long time, because Avodah rented space from H.T. Chen & Dancers, the company and school she and her husband run in Chinatown, and we have kept in touch. Laura Glenn and Danny Lewis overlapped one of the years I was at Juilliard.
In the preface to the book, Joseph Polisi (President of Juilliard from 1984 to 2017) puts Elizabeth and her work in an excellent perspective:
Elizabeth McPherson, scholar and Juilliard dance alumna, has provided an insightful biography of Martha Hill that gives appropriate credit to the work that she realized as one of the unsung heroes in contemporary dance in America in the twentieth century. Not only is Martha’s life thoroughly explored in this work, but McPherson also provides an intriguing overview of dance in 20th century American higher education that describes the context within which Martha Hill worked. A meaningful and touching view of Martha as seen through “the eyes of her students” adds immeasurably to understanding the person behind the legacy. (p. ii)
The first chapter is an overview of the history of dance in higher education in the United States. Elizabeth points out that from 1914 to 1932, “a free and creative form of dance, a precursor to modern dance, began to take root in the physical education departments of many colleges and universities” (p. 6).
I have long been a fan of Margaret H’Doubler’s writing in dance education, having used her analysis in many teaching workshops, so it was of particular interest to learn that in 1923 H’Doubler created a dance minor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison in the Physical Education Department. It became a major with students in 1927, and a Master’s degree soon followed.
The relationship of Hill to three then-developing dance departments that I respect highly is discussed in full: New York University, Bennington College and Juilliard. Also discussed is The Connecticut College School of the Dance/American Dance Festival which grew out of the Bennington summer program that ran from 1934–1942 and which was “Hill’s vision, building her status as a giant in dance education.”
I attended two summers of The American Dance Festival at Connecticut College in New London, Connecticut, and both were life changing. Although Martha Hill was no longer director, and – as Elizabeth points out in her book – Hill was either listed as “on leave” or “advisor,” it was during the summer of 1960 that Martha Hill had a profound influence on my life. The following summer it was Louis Horst who influenced me. I don’t think I fully appreciated that until I read this book.
I auditioned for Juilliard in the spring of 1960 but didn’t get in. I knew dance was what I wanted, and while I wasn’t due to graduate until February of 1961, I learned I had enough credits that if I doubled in English I could graduate in June. I knew Juilliard was where I wanted to go and I hadn’t spent much time focusing on other alternatives. As my backup I had applied and gotten into University of Denver. It only had a dance minor, but I thought I might like the school because I had had such a positive experience at Perry-Mansfield and fallen in love with the Colorado Rocky Mountains.
At any rate, I’d gone off to Connecticut College for the summer and was loving the program. I had auditioned and gotten into a special class that Charles Weidman was teaching, which ended with a performance in one of the student showcases. I remember we were going across the floor with a combination of his when I looked up and saw Martha Hill in the balcony watching class. After class she came downstairs and found me and said something like, “You know dear, Juilliard is having an audition at the end of August for additional students for the fall class and if you audition again you will get in.” I thanked her for the information and planned on discussing this with my parents as soon as I got home, which would be in just a few days.
However, by the time I got home, my maternal grandmother had died and so the emotions and energy just weren’t right for me to say anything or change the plans that were already in motion. So a few weeks later, instead of re-auditioning for Juilliard, I was off to the University of Denver. Well… I lasted only about two weeks. After my first class with the head of the dance program, I called home. I told my parents about my brief conversation with Martha Hill, and that the University of Denver was not what I wanted and that I was not staying. I was very definite about that and that I needed to be in New York, if not at Juilliard (because the fall semester had already begun), then taking appropriate classes at the Graham Studio and some strong ballet classes. They agreed that I could come home and that we would figure New York out. How I soon got to New York will be the next blog, but for now I just want to say that Martha Hill’s encouragement was what pushed me to not settle for staying at a place that I knew in my gut wasn’t the right place for me.
Now back to historical insights from Elizabeth’s book. I loved learning that although Martha Hill was a dancer briefly in the Martha Graham company, it was really her behind-the-scenes role in bringing the early creative talents of modern dance to places like Bennington that shaped modern dance in the United States. The faculties she brought together gave modern dancers like Graham, Humphrey, Weidman and Limon places to work, rehearse and create their legendary repertory.
I also found it fascinating to read about how she and William Schuman, President of Juilliard in 1951, founded the Juilliard Dance Department “upon the idea of the integration of the two forms of ballet and modern dance. Up to this time dancers had primarily studied ballet or modern” (p. 57). I really admired Martha Hill’s drive in making sure that the dance department remained a part of Juilliard in the school’s move to Lincoln Center.
A definite highlight was reading the four sections on Martha Hill through the eyes of her students. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in the history of modern dance in the United States and how dance programs developed in U.S. colleges and universities. Thank you, Elizabeth.
Here’s a link to where you can order a copy. I was able to buy a used book for under $10 but that is not the case now.
It was very insightful to view three videos of Binding and see how the piece evolved from its first performance in 1989. The premiere performance that I wrote about in last week’s blog featured two guest performers integrated into the piece. Cantor Mark Childs and Rabbi Norman Cohen were an important part of the performance. Mark sang, narrated and was part of the stage action. Norman also narrated and participated onstage. In a video of a performance done five years later with Cantor Bruce Ruben, he was very visible but never interacted directly with the dancers. The choreography of the dancers remained basically the same. As with the first performance the dancers gave strong and dramatic performances.
For me, in all three videos the strongest moment in the piece is when one of the dancers who has been associated with the character of Sarah dramatically screams “No” instead of “Hineni” (“Here I am”).
This occurs after the following narration:
And Abraham picked up the knife to slay his son. Then an angel of the Lord called to him from heaven: ‘Abraham! Abraham!’ and he answered…
Three dancers respond with the traditional “Hineni.” The fourth dancer, her arms held as if cradling a child, screams “No!”
Carla Norwood Armstrong, in writing an Avodah memory, remembered that during a rehearsal of Binding, “when I let out the scream a security guard came running into the room to make sure that we were okay.”
In the third video, the dancers handled the whole piece, while I played thetriangle and the drum at appropriate places. I remember a particularly strong rehearsal when I had just added much more for the dancers to do, and one of the dancers, Tanya Alexander, made me stop and think to myself, “Wow she is a strong actress.” It wasn’t just the scream… it was the whole way she was developing her character and making the lines she was saying so believable.
I told Tanya about my call and asked her if she wanted to read for Julie that afternoon. Of course she said she did. We continued rehearsing without Tanya and a little while later I got a call from Julie asking if I would mind if Tanya missed rehearsal the next day, as Julie wanted to cast her. I agreed.
At that time my daughter Julie was casting the show Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. At a break in rehearsal I impulsively picked up my cell phone and called her. I mentioned that one of the dancers was a particularly strong actress. Julie asked me a few questions about her and I described Tanya to her. Julie said she was actually looking for an actor for a young single mom role that might be just right for Tanya. The next thing out of her mouth was a request that I send Tanya over to read for her.
Tanya and I used to laugh about the fact that her actor friends were surprised that she had gotten that part on Law and Order: Special Victims Unit because she had been in a modern dance company directed by the mother of the casting director.
While I don’t have a photo of Tanya in Binding I do have this photo of her in Kaddish in a performance at Smith College taken by a student in 2000.
Rehearsals began
with four collaborating dancers. Deborah,
Kezia, Susan and Beth (Bardin) had all helped to create Sisters. There was an ease
and comfort of working together that I really appreciated with a text like the Akedah which is challenging and
disturbing. I knew where I wanted to
begin and that was opening with an angel ballet. Having been introduced to a wide variety of
percussion instruments by Newman Taylor Baker I also had decided that we would
use text, chanting and percussion to accompany the movement. That gives a certain freedom to
choreographing as there is no music we need to follow. It also means we don’t have any form to
follow or any musical drive to motivate the piece.
I asked Mark
Childs, the cantor we had worked with in Let
My People Go, to help create the cantorial score of the piece and to be in
at least the first performance in December 1989. I was very grateful that Rabbi Norman Cohen
had indicated his willingness to both speak before the piece was performed and
to be part of the performance as well.
So we began with the angel ballet and played around with movement that might reflect a surreal appearance. This included the dancers walking on tiptoe backwards, making diagonal crossing paths. Ritual movement from the Kedusha prayer would be incorporated. The Kedusha is part of the Amidah, “the standing prayer which is central to every Jewish service.” The Kedusha “calls us to imitate the choirs of angels singing ‘Holy, holy, holy.’ There is a custom of rising on our tiptoes with every repetition of the word kadosh, holy.” (https://velveteenrabbi.blogs.com/blog/2015/08/shabbat-morning-gratitude.html)
We would take it a step further by turning the rising on the
tiptoes to three jumps! And toward the
end of the opening angel ballet which is accompanied by a triangle percussion
instrument, Mark would elegantly and boldly chant the traditional prayer. Following that, the angels would birth the ram, inspired by
Frederick Terna’s painting, to the accompaniment of the traditional sounds
of the shofar.
Costumes can sometimes help create a mood. Somehow I wanted to have a very simple look to the piece and yet have the dancers have fabric that could indicate angel wings. I loved the pants we had for performing the piece M’Vakshei Or and thought they could work with a black leotard. The pants had a wrap-around design that gave a perfect place for fabric to be added. Sometimes when I don’t know what to do for costumes I wander in department stores, particularly in designer areas. As I was wandering around a store I came across a very simple and elegant chiffon poncho. It had an irregular cut to it. The price was over $200 and definitely out of our budget. I drew a quick sketch of how it was constructed and realized it would be simple to make. Next stop was the fabric store to pick out four different pastel colors in chiffon and enough extra to add some fabric to the pants. The costumes worked and gave just the effect I wanted.
The Angels birthing the ram. From l. to r. Beth Bardin, Susan Freeman (as the ram), Deborah Hanna, and Kezia Gleckman Hayman in the chapel at Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion, NYC. Much to my disappointment we have neither formal professional pictures of this piece, nor any taken in dress rehearsal. Luckily we have a video of the dress rehearsal. So I have copied the VHS to a DVD and then to an MP4 file. Using a screen shot I have captured some moments from the piece that I will be sharing in the blog.
The next section of the piece is based on exploring this line of text: “After these things, God put Abraham to the test.” What were these things? A duet begins between Deborah and Susan inspired by this poem:
Ishmael the older brother, boasted of his Blood and brayed: My blood was drained when I was thirteen:
The younger Isaac whispered: if God Wishes to take me, let God take all of me.
Deborah (standing) and Susan in the forefront as the brothers
At one of the early rehearsals Susan arrived with two poems she had written that she offered for the piece. With her permission I share these poems which became part of the piece (with slight variations) and inspired choreography.
Hagar is crying – – Banished and weary – – In the wilderness. The desert horizon is Thirst and starvation. Collapsing to her knees She buries her face – – Not to watch as Death’s path Unwinds its parched fingers Ready to take her son In its suffocating embrace.
Hagar is crying in the – – After these things Abraham was put on trial. Abraham is crying, Forced to turn, Return to the place Familiar in his dreams – – Wilderness. (written by Rabbi Susan Freeman)
Beth and Kezia (l-r) as Hagar interpreting this poem in dance.
The piece continues using the second poem that Susan wrote:
Before these things Sarah lay breathless. Her eyes full, her cheeks damp, Abraham holding their newborn son, Joyous astonishment – – And Sarah laughed. Amazing is the One Who creates life and death, Laughter and tears. And they called the child Isaac.
After these things Sarah lay breathless, Her eyes full, her cheeks damp.
A dance follows with Deborah as Sarah holding her new son and the three other dancers giggling and laughing in movement until the movement changes to a more hysterical, crying tone.
As the story unfolds Norman and Mark join the dancers on stage portraying Abraham and Isaac.
Shortly after the creation of Sisters, Rabbi Norman Cohen suggested Avodah create another dance midrash piece based on the Akedah portion of Genesis (22: 1–19) where God commands Abraham to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice. The Joseph Gallery of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion was planning an exhibit of paintings by Frederick Terna called “Articulation of Hope: The Binding of Isaac.” Norman thought an Avodah concert featuring a new piece based on Terna’s paintings would be excellent to include in the series of programs related to the Exhibition. I had mixed feelings about focusing on these lines of text as they were very difficult for me to relate to. I agreed and we set the date for December 13th, the last of the programs so I could wait until the paintings arrived at the college and I could see Terna’s visual interpretation.
About a week before the opening, Norman called to let me know that the paintings had arrived and suggested I walk through the gallery with him to look at them. This would also give me an opportunity to discuss the text with him and gain some more insight into these critical lines that play such a strong role in Jewish life… not only read when that portion of the Torah is read but also read on the High Holiday of Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year).
As I walked through the gallery, studying each painting carefully I was struck by the strong role of the angels and the ram that is finally sacrificed instead of Isaac. A painting entitled An Offering Set Aside shows the ram as an egg in a womb of perhaps an angel. Once I saw that painting I thought I might have a place to begin.
In my file I found a brochure that HUC-JIR created for the exhibit that includes a biography of Terna and a scholarly essay written by Norman on Frederick Terna and the exhibition. Norman notes:
Drawn to the piercing questions of the Akedah, Frederick Terna has wrestled with this text for many years. As a Holocaust survivor he has found in this story one vehicle to deal with his own life experiences and to express deep-seated emotions in a most creative manner.
Norman also refers to the one painting that had the most poignancy for me in beginning the creative work on the piece.
An Offering Set Aside reminds us that from the very outset of creation, the ram, the salvational vehicle and through its horns, the symbol of the messianic, is waiting. Programmed into human existence from its inception is the potential for redemption.
When I left Norman that day after seeing the paintings, I had a hunch where the new piece on the Akedah would begin. I also was impressed with Terna’s paintings which while sometimes showing the pain and suffering of the text also had a softness and nurturing quality to them using feminine colors. Perhaps that could calm my uncomfortable feeling of creating a piece on text that I found extremely puzzling and which did not have a woman’s voice in it at all. It was a story of a father and son with Sarah, the mother, not even mentioned.
In reflecting back on developing this new piece on just nineteen lines of text from Genesis I realized it brought together elements that both challenged and inspired me. It required that I do research and make sure I was aware of traditional midrashim as well as contemporary thought. It involved collaboration with Rabbi Norman Cohen, an outstanding scholar; Mark Childs, a cantor I had just worked with in creating “Let My People Go,” and a wonderful group of dancers. And then there were the paintings of Frederick Terna to inspire and point me in new directions.
When I looked at traditional midrashim on the nineteen lines it was fascinating to me to see that the phrase “after these things,” which is part of the opening line of text, had lots of midrashim. Hum… we could work with this in dance… indeed what were “these things” that might have caused God to put Abraham to such a test as to sacrifice his son?
I had also recently read a book called The Thirteen Petalled Rose: A Discourse on the Essence of Jewish Existence and Beliefby Adin Steinsaltz. In the book he talks about angels in Jewish text, suggesting that each is a manifestation of a single emotional response or essence. Angels were an important part of Frederick Terna’s paintings and so Steinsaltz’s words became particularly meaningful for me as I prepared to meet with the dancers and begin work on the new piece.
It would be an interesting journey working with the four dancers to create the piece, and both Norman Cohen and Mark Childs had agreed to collaborate and even perform in the first performance. Luckily I have a video of the final rehearsal for the performance, which I will refer to in the next blog on this piece. I also have two other videos of the piece: one that is done five years later and a third that was done eight or nine years later. As I watched all three videos one evening I was struck by how a piece evolves over time — from when Norman Cohen and Mark Childs were part of the piece, actually moving on stage with the dancers; to a performance with a cantor alone singing and narrating the story; to the dancers handling singing, chanting text and narrating as they move. I will share more about this over the next several blogs.
Before closing this blog I want to share more about the painter Frederick Terna. The program for the exhibition of his paintings on the Akedah includes a section that he wrote:
About twenty years ago, leafing through one of my old sketchbooks, I came upon a drawing that resembled a person wielding a knife over a smaller figure. It made me pause and I wondered who I feared or who I had wanted to kill. Searching for an answer and not finding one, I wondered about the prototype, the archetype. Abraham and Isaac came to mind. I opened a new sketchbook, put aside the old one, and proceeded to play with the idea.
He continued to explain the relationship of his paintings to the Holocaust:
During World War II, I spent more than three years in German concentration camps. Painting around the theme of the Akedah has become one of my ways, though not the exclusive one, of dealing with those years.
I was curious if Frederick Terna was still alive; since he was born in 1923 he would be 96 now. I Googled and found that he is indeed alive and he had an exhibit at St. Francis College in Brooklyn Heights, NY in the winter of 2017.
On a website called The Ripple Project there is a wonderful interview of him that is called “A Lesson in Civility” and I quote from it. Here’s a link to read more and see some recent photos which I hunch are from about 2017:
A writer from the Ripple Project asked Fred what he thought of the Presidential election. His response is described:
He closed his eyes for [a] second, as he often does before he begins to speak, as if to enhance the drama. Tilting his head right and with a wry smile said: “I’m disappointed, confused, and surprised but not worried. Dictators don’t last, it’s against human nature. We just need to keep our civility.”
As the discussion continued:
Fred responded in a deeper tone, the smile was gone: “When we were in the camps, facing death, humiliation, starvation, anger, not knowing if we will live another 10 minutes… we still kept our civility. We always knew the Nazis wouldn’t last, it’s against human nature. It doesn’t matter what the Nazis did to us, how much they screamed and yelled at us. When we were alone in the room, at night, we were civilized. We knew that our civility is the key to survival, our humanity and civility will outlast the Nazis. It might take a month, a year or ten, but it will outlast them.”
I am indeed very humbled and inspired by both the paintings and words of Fred Terna. Civility is something for all of us to keep in mind each and every day.
In the Summer 1992 issue of Outlook (the Women’s League for Conservative Judaism’s magazine), Kezia and I wrote an article entitled “Midrash in Motion” which shared more about our process of creating Sisters, including some of the dancers’ thoughts and conversations in the rehearsal studio.
“Maybe Leah’s eyes were weak from crying,” Deborah suggests.
“Maybe,” muses Kezia. I don’t think she really had weak eyes. Other people just called them weak because she was thoughtful and withdrawn, especially compared to Rachel, and sensitive in a way people would not see.”
“Deborah, your interpretation matches a traditional midrash,” interjects JoAnne. “However, I want to focus on Rachel and Leah’s reactions when they were described as the beautiful Rachel and the weak-eyed Leah.”
This snatch of conversations did not take place in an ordinary midrash class. Deborah Hanna and Kezia Gleckman Hayman, professional modern dancers of the Avodah Dance Ensemble, are rehearsing….
Focusing on the initial question, two dancers improvised as [Cantor] Stone repeatedly chanted, “Rachel was beautiful, Leah had weak eyes.” Coached by Tucker, Stone moved closer and closer to each dancer, first shouting the text in their ears, and then whispering. The dancers reacted, their movements altered by the forceful suggestions of the intruder. It was immediately clear that such chanting would be powerful.
Since the article was written and published several years after the piece was created, it ended with some reflections by Deborah and Kezia about performing the piece.
In mentioning the company’s community of performers, we must mention that when Sisters (and other works) toured over the years, if the original cantor could not travel with the company, exceptional local cantors occasionally agreed to take on the role in the piece – not an easy task, since it meant learning the role mainly by studying a video and then having usually only one quick rehearsal both to coordinate with the dancers and to master the staging. And staging was complicated – for everyone – because it required customizing the choreography to fit most safely and dramatically into each unique performance space, which often included features such as stairs. We are grateful to all the local cantors who performed so artistically and soulfully with us over the years, for Sisters and other company repertoire.
The form of the piece has remained substantially the same. Kezia and Deborah are still stepping into the sisters’ lives. And yet, they still ponder the meaning of Leah’s weak eyes – in discussions and in dance. In each performance, Leah discovers a new element of her feelings toward Rachel. In each performance, Rachel feels a bit differently when she chooses to reveal the secret sign, thereby surrendering her bridal veil. Each time, the cantor’svoice reveals new shades of emotion. Each time, the company’s community [of performers] creates a bond distinct from the previous performance. Each time, new midrash is created.
In 2004 when I was getting ready to leave the New York area I invited dancers and company collaborators to a Sunday afternoon gathering. I asked both those that attended and those that couldn’t make it to write an Avodah Memory. Rabbi Susan Freeman shared this one:
Besides all the laughing and intense improvising…. I often think of the awe-inspiring moments of holding a pose in “Sisters” at a synagogue in suburban Detroit – with the sanctuary in the style of an enormous tent. Any gaze extended into the “folds” of this amazing architecture. I felt so alive – spiritually, intellectually, emotionally, socially, aesthetically. It was one of those unique experiences of being wholly present – when the immediate moment becomes aligned with the eternal moment.
The performance Susan is describing took place at Temple Beth El in Bloomfield Hills, outside of Detroit. The cantor’s role there was beautifully performed by Cantor Gail Hirschenfang. With a satisfying sense of life’s circles, Kezia is delighted to note that Cantor Hirschenfang is now the cantor of the temple to which Kezia belongs in Poughkeepsie.
The photograph of the building’s outside is by Rob Yallop from the website MichiganModern.org. A photo of the soaring inside of the temple, with the “folds” described by Susan, can be found at the following link.
Here is a link to see a video of the first performance of Sisters.
It is with great sadness that I share news of the passing of Rabbi Larry Raphael. Larry was an important person in my life and in the Avodah Dance Ensemble’s life, from the time Avodah became associated with Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1978. At that time, Larry was an Assistant Dean. He stayed at HUC-JIR until 1996, leaving (as Dean) when he became the first Director of Adult Jewish Growth at the Union for Reform Judaism. He left the New York area in 2003 to become the 9thRabbi at Sherith Israel in San Francisco. He died this past Sunday.
I liked to refer to him jokingly as Avodah’s casting director, because he told Rick Jacobs (then a student at HUC-JIR) that Avodah was looking for a tall dancer. Rick auditioned and was an important force in the company for many years. He also recommended, when they were students, Cantor Mark Childs and Rabbi Susan Freeman, both of whom played very important roles in the company.
By 1983, Larry was a Board Member of Avodah, formalizing his enthusiasm and support for the dance company. As the company’s home address was HUC-JIR and I often stopped by to check Avodah’s mailbox, I was always glad to see Larry in the hallway or stop by his office and know that if there was something on my mind, he would be very welcoming and take time to discuss any challenges I might be facing with the company.
One of Larry’s roles in New York was to conduct High Holiday services for young adults living away from home in Manhattan. Well, Murray and I didn’t fit the category of “young adults,” but since we had a relationship with HUC-JIR, we were welcome to attend services there. Those attending weren’t a community, but Larry’s warm way of leading made us feel we were. The Rosh Hashanah service after 9/11 was a good example. Shortly after beginning the service, he invited us to introduce ourselves to someone sitting near us that we didn’t know and share where we were on 9/11. I will long remember the buzz in the room and the connections made instantaneously.
When Avodah created repertory related to Selichot, Larry invited us to perform that or any relevant dance midrash as part of the afternoon Yom Kippur service. It was never a full company, as some of the dancers were observing the High Holiday in their home communities, but there were at least two or three dancers who would join me to participate. It was a special feeling to incorporate dance into this most sacred time in the Jewish calendar, and I am very grateful that Larry gave us that experience.
I was honored to be on the faculty of several summer Kallot of the UAHC (now the URJ), where for five days adults gathered together and studied. I led dance midrash workshops. Larry, aided by Barbara Shulman, was in charge. These were very special programs, not only because we had very enthusiastic and dedicated adults in our sessions, but because I was learning from and connecting with some of the outstanding scholars and cantors of the 90’s and early 2000’s.
I am deeply grateful for Larry’s role in helping to build The Avodah Dance Ensemble, his friendship, his innovative approach, and his warmth. The Yiddish word “mensch” so beautifully fits him.
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