JoAnne Tucker - Mostly Dance

Leaving Juilliard

JoAnne Tucker / May 17, 2019May 17, 2019 / Dance History, Personal Life

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.

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Synchronicity at Play – Spring Trip to NYC (Part One: Juilliard)

JoAnne Tucker / May 24, 2019May 31, 2019 / Personal Life

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 7^th.

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.

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Synchronicity at Play – Spring Trip to NYC (Part Two: Martha Graham Company)

JoAnne Tucker / May 31, 2019June 1, 2019 / Dance History, Personal Life

In my last blog, I began to write about my recent trip to New York City. In a later blog I’ll share more about the trip, in particular about a workshop that longtime friend and collaborator Regina Ress and I did at New York University’s Forum on Theater and Health. For now, keeping with this blog’s title of synchronicity with my recently published blogs, I now jump to my last night in NYC and attending the closing night of the Martha Graham Company’s April 2–14, 2019 performances at the Joyce. I had debated about even getting tickets for the performance, but finally, a few days before I left home I went online and purchased a ticket for Program C. I mainly selected this program because I had Sunday evening free and there was a piece by Pam Tanowitz in the program. I had never seen any of Tanowitz’s work and I was aware that she was getting lots of rave reviews.

Write-ups about her, as well as her biography, interested me, particularly reports that she was known “for her unflinchingly post-modern treatment of classical dance vocabulary” (http://pamtanowitzdance.org/bio). This spring she was not only creating a work for the Martha Graham Company but also for The New York City Ballet. That is indeed impressive and so I made sure to select a program that included the New York Premiere of her piece Untitled (Souvenir) for the Graham Company. Also on the program were two Graham classics, Errand into the Maze (created in 1947) and Chronicle(1936). Another world premiere by two choreographers who were totally new to me, Maxine Doyle and Bobbi Jene Smith, completed the program.

When I bought the ticket I felt disappointed that one of my very favorite Graham pieces, Diversion of Angels, was not being performed that evening. But I made my decision based on seeing the Tanowitz piece, as very few choreographers are able to cross over from ballet to modern commissions as she does.

So off I went to spend my last night in NYC at the Graham concert. The opening piece, Errand into the Maze, was one that I remembered seeing years ago (on one of my return trips to NYC) performed by one of my favorite teachers and Graham performers, Helen McGehee, in the leading female role. I don’t remember who performed the male role with her. I do remember her fierceness and passion in dancing. It appears that the piece had not been in the Graham repertory for 15 years when it was brought back in 1968 and Clive Barnes wrote a review:

The choreography – it dates from 1947 and has not been seen in New York for 15 years – wonderfully mixes the swift and angular lightness of the female with the heavy solemnity of the male. Set against the bones of Isamu Noguchi’s skeletal setting, and the sonorities of Gian Carlo Menotti’s score, the work powerfully conveys the archaic mythical pattern of despair, hope and achievement.
As the female, danced first of course, by Graham herself, Helen McGehee, as intense as a flickering flame, possesses just the sense of nervousness despair and faith this view of Ariadne demands and Clive Thompson’s Minotaur-Thesus, both ponderous yet buoyant, is the perfect stolid partner to her impetuous neuroticism. (The New York Times,October 26, 1968)

Errand Into The Maze opened the concert and I was pleasantly surprised at the performance it was given by Charlotte Landreau and Lloyd Mayor. A rush of positive emotion filled me as a dance vocabulary and approach I so love was beautifully performed. I have always loved how Graham turned to classical mythology for inspiration for her choreography and I remember writing a fairly long paper for an English class in High School on Graham’s use of mythology. It received an A and I held onto it for a long time but at some point, along with programs that I had kept for years, it got thrown out when we were cleaning out our papers for one of our many moves.

The second piece on the program was Deo by guest choreographers Doyle and Smith and frankly I don’t remember anything about it. Following intermission came the Tanowitz piece. I could clearly see how she was manipulating the Graham technique in a new way and found that rather interesting but that was really all I got from the piece. Disappointment was my overall reaction. I can see why critics like what she is doing and from an intellectual point of view it was fascinating but it didn’t emotionally move me in any way.

The last piece, Chronicles took my breath away. It is in three parts and I was familiar with the piece because Deborah Hanna, a dancer who worked with Avodah for 7 years and with whom I continue to keep in contact, had danced in one of the sections of the piece when she was in the Martha Graham Ensemble (a junior company of Graham in the 1980’s and early 90’s). I don’t remember getting to see Deborah in it but did know that it was being revived. The original program notes were included in the Joyce program:

Chronicle does not attempt to show the actualities of war; rather does it, by evoking war’s images, set forth the fateful prelude to war, portray the devastation of spirit which it leaves in its wake, and suggest an answer.

The first Part, titled “Spectre – 1914,” was powerfully danced by Xin Ying. She managed the huge black and red shroud with power and was a good start to what followed. Section II is entitled “Steps in the Street (Devastation – Homelessness – Exile)” and is a powerful group dance that along with Section III, “Prelude to Action (Unity – Pledge to the Future),” shows the female members of the company in an excellent light.

A review by Joanne DiVito for the LA Dance Chronicle of a performance just a month before the one I saw describes the second section wonderfully:

The second movement Steps in the Street begins with one soul, played by the incredible Anne Souder dressed in black. She backs onto the stage; step, drag, hesitate, step drag, hesitate, all in silence. This remarkable section, comments on the devastation of people caught in war. The stunning use of tiny runs, continuous jumps, and reconfigurations, static against kinetic, calls for the dancers to defy gravity and rise to all manner of challenges which this piece demands. Their sudden heroic prowess surprises and adds to the tension and release of this remarkable piece. (https://www.ladancechronicle.com/grahams-brilliant-legacy-lives-today-with-eilbers-leadership/)

But it is the last section that totally took my breath away. The women’s leaping and repetition of strong Graham phrases became heroic and so powerful that it was no surprise that the audience (a wonderful mix of young and old) rose to its feet shouting and applauding loudly, to acknowledge the beautiful performance. That kind of energy we rarely see in dance anymore – and what a treat!

Afterwards, as I ran into several contemporary fellow dancers in the lobby, one remarked, “That lady [referring to Graham] certainly had talent.” And indeed she did, for it was Graham’s two pieces, not the newly commissioned ones, that stood out. And it was a wonderful way for me to finish my trip to NYC!!

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Adding Kaddish to Avodah’s Repertory

JoAnne Tucker / June 7, 2019June 7, 2019 / Avodah's Early History, Holocaust Repertory, New York Company

It’s February 5, 1981, and we are premiering a new piece in Avodah’s repertory for a Holocaust Memorial Program at The Savannah College of Art and Design. It is part of a program entitled “Light Through The Darkness,” which has been organized and planned by Congregation Mickve Israel for February 5^ththrough 12^th. It is part of a three-part program which includes a dance performance, an art exhibit, and a lecture by a prominent collector. We have decided to create a new piece for the program, to the first eight minutes of Leonard Bernstein’s “Kaddish” Symphony.

This was not our first performance in Savannah. This was our third. An article on February 4,1981, in the Georgia Gazettesums up our special relationship with Savannah very well:

The company has performed on several occasions to standing-room-only crowds in Savannah, and Tucker credits Rabbi Rubin (Saul Rubin) with encouraging her efforts during the company’s early years.

The first time we performed in Savannah was in March 1976 using female dancers from the congregation and bringing a male dancer from Tallahassee. I went in a week before and totally enjoyed my time there working with the dancers, who were lovely. Temple Mickve Israel is an old congregation with an historic sanctuary. It is located on a beautiful square, and a March 17, 1976 article in City Beat mentions that “while traffic circled about the verdant oasis, the dancers kicked off their shoes, and in leotards and jeans ran through their paces, barefoot in the park.” The publicity, with several articles and pictures of myself and composer Irving Fleet, was excellent for the Friday night service. In fact, when Irving joined me to rehearse the musicians and we had some time off to stroll along the river walkway and wandered in a shop, the owner recognized us from the newspaper. The Friday night service was indeed packed and standing-room-only. We performed Sabbath Woman and In Praise as part of a creative service that Rabbi Saul Rubin wrote.

We returned to Savannah in the fall of 1976 to repeat the two pieces as part of a regional Biennial Convention of the Southeast Union of American Hebrew Congregations (now called Union of Reform Judaism). That helped us become better known with congregations in the Southeastern part of the country. (My favorite memory from the performance in the Shabbat service is that I met a cousin and his wife that I hadn’t seen in years.)

We had a special relationship with Rabbi Saul Rubin and Temple Mickve Israel and I was really pleased to have an opportunity to be part of the Light Through The Darkness Holocaust Program. I also liked the fact we would have a good space to perform in at the Savannah College of Art and Design. This was a great opportunity to create a new piece to go with I Never Saw Another Butterfly. I remember listening to lots of music and giving much thought to what to create. I stumbled across Bernstein’s “Kaddish” Symphony and loved the first 8 minutes. The piece opens with about a four-minute reading by a solo voice, with some music. The recording I first found, and originally choreographed to, featured Leonard Bernstein doing the vocal part. So I created the solo on Michael Bush, the male dancer in the Tallahassee company at that time. What follows the vocal section is a wonderful burst of music during which the solo dancer joins the other dancers in one of my favorite phrases, which we often used for auditions over the years. With hands fisted, the dancers rise slowly as a group into a suspended relevé in simple parallel, from which they explode into a skip and leap, and a fan kick into a knee walk into a tilted attitude turn.

The performance in Savannah went well but more important to me was that the new piece Kaddish became a signature part of the repertoire for over twenty years, regularly performed before the Kaddish prayer in services and ending many concerts. Shortly after that first performance I discovered a recording with a female voice (Bernstein’s wife, Felicia Montealegre) doing the part, and when I returned to New York, I used that recording and taught the solo to Lynn Elliott who did a magnificent job with the part.

We used the female recording from that point on except when Rick Jacobs performed the solo. (I obtained the permissions I needed to use the music and each year reported the number of performances so I could pay the appropriate royalty.)

Over the years so many wonderful dancers performed the solo part, and it was great fun for me to see how each dancer made it their own. Kezia continued to teach the group section to new dancers even when she was no longer in the company. She adds the following note:

One of my proudest moments, both as Assistant Rehearsal Director and as ensemble member, was during a performance at an arts festival, when the music suddenly disappeared in the middle of the group section of Kaddish – a tricky section with changing tempos. We continued dancing without pause. Our ensemble work was so reliable that when the music resumed, we were exactly where we should have been, as if nothing unusual had happened.

Another one of my most memorable performances was in that same festival, a rain-or-shine, mainly-outdoor event. Let it never be said that we ever performed with less than our full focus, technique, heart and soul – not even when we performed under that LEAKING tent top, for that ONE audience member sitting under his umbrella in the pouring rain to watch us. We laugh at these memories, like other touring mishaps, but they don’t detract from the pleasure of being part of such festivals. This particular occasion also gave us the rare opportunity to enjoy performances by other artists, including most memorably the lovely music ensemble Voice of the Turtle.

Lynn Elliott inKaddish. Photo by Amanda Kreglow.

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“Kaddish” Danced as a Memorial in Two Shabbat Services

JoAnne Tucker / June 14, 2019 / dance liturgy, Holocaust Repertory, New York Company

A few people have asked me if I am planning to turn the blog into a book. No, I am not. What I am finding most meaningful is the immediate input I get in the comment section or in personal emails. This week’s blog is a result of a comment that Elizabeth McPherson made in response to last week’s blog. She wrote: “Also remember performing Kaddish at a memorial service for Yitzhak Rabin after he was assassinated. That was a very intense experience.” Elizabeth and I emailed back and forth figuring out more about the event. I think we now have a very good picture of how we came to perform Kaddish as a memorial piece for Yitzhak Rabin.

Rabin died on Saturday, November 4, 1995, and it was on November 10^th at Rodeph Shalom Congregation that Avodah danced the piece in his memory. Avodah had a strong relationship with Rodeph Shalom (located on 83^rdStreet just off of Central Park in New York City). Let My People Go was performed there in 1989 (the piece’s opening season), and during the mid-90’s two Avodah dancers and I would lead dance midrash classes in the religious school. In 1995, we had been booked – many months before Rabin’s assassination – to be part of the November 10^th Sabbath service. On November 9^thand 10^th, synagogues and Jewish organizations often do programs remembering Kristallnacht. The U.S. Holocaust Museum provides the following description of Kristallnacht on its website:

Kristallnacht, literally, “Night of Crystal,” is often referred to as the “Night of Broken Glass.” The name refers to the wave of violent anti-Jewish pogroms which took place on November 9 and 10, 1938. This wave of violence took place throughout Germany, annexed Austria, and in areas of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia recently occupied by German troops.Kristallnacht owes its name to the shards of shattered glass that lined German streets in the wake of the pogrom—broken glass from the windows of synagogues, homes, and Jewish-owned businesses plundered and destroyed during the violence. (https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/kristallnacht)

Avodah was set to perform three Holocaust pieces in the November 10^th service: I Never Saw Another Butterfly (which I have written about before), Shema, based on the writings of Primo Levi (and which will be the subject of an upcoming blog), and Kaddish.

Elizabeth has kept her datebooks and has excellent notes of when she was at Rodeph Shalom rehearsing the piece and when she had to be there for the performance. She also commented:

I do remember that there was a huge audience attending the service at Rodeph Shalom on Nov. 10th. It was overwhelming, but also felt really important to be there in that space performing at that moment.

Thank you, Elizabeth, for keeping those datebooks!

Picture from Rodeph Shalom’s website. Usually, to provide room for the dancers to move, the center podium was taken off the bema or moved to the side, and any movable chairs were also removed from the beta.

About 10 years earlier, on May 9, 1985, we had danced Kaddish in another memorial service. That time it was at Central Synagogue on Lexington Avenue, for Ben Sommers, who had died that week. When we arrived at the Synagogue to begin rehearsing and staging the three pieces we would be doing, the rabbi told us about Ben’s death and that it was appropriate that we were there that evening, as Ben had been the President of Capezio (the famous dancewear company) from 1940 to the time of his death. (Ben had also been a remarkable supporter of dance, including creating the Capezio Foundation, and the Capezio Award for lifetime achievement in dance). We ended our discussion by saying that the dances that evening and particularly Kaddish would be danced in Ben’s memory.

I remember speaking about Kaddish, and Rick Jacobs may have also spoken, since he danced the opening Kaddish solo. During the Oneg Shabbat after the service, Ben’s widow, Estelle Sommers (1919–1994), came up to me and said how meaningful the service was.

For the company, Kaddish was always a powerful piece to perform, but on these two occasions, it was indeed particularly meaningful.

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Remembering Estelle Sommers with Great Fondness

JoAnne Tucker / June 21, 2019 / New York Company, Personal Life

Last week I wrote about the company’s performance of Kaddish at a Central Synagogue Sabbath service in May 1985. We dedicated that evening’s performance to Ben Sommers, who had been President of Capezio, and who had died that week. I mentioned in the blog that Ben’s wife, Estelle Sommers, had told me afterwards how meaningful the service was. She also told me that we should get together for lunch after things calmed down for her. About a month or so later we had lunch together, and that began a very special friendship that strongly impacted both the Avodah Dance Ensemble and my life personally.

Estelle, like Ben, was a dancewearspecialist and managed Capezio stores:

Sommers made her career in retail dancewear as a designer, business executive, and owner of various ventures. She revolutionized the field of fitness clothing by introducing a new fabric, Antron-Lycra/Spandex, into her innovative designs for Capezio’s bodywear.
(https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/sommers-estelle-joan)

At some point either before our lunch or after she suggested that I reach out to and meet Linda Kent. She mentioned that Linda (then with The Paul Taylor Dance Company) was also interested in liturgical dance. I knew who Linda was and had great respect for her outstanding professional career, first with the Alvin Ailey Company from 1968–74, and then as a principal dancer with the Taylor Company from 1975. I had often seen her perform. Estelle sent Linda a similar kind of note, giving us information on how to contact each other.

Linda and I did get in touch, resulting in a personal friendship and professional collaboration. Linda created pieces and helped shape Interfaith programs for Avodah, guest taught at our workshops, and at times performed with the company (including filling in for Kezia when she broke her foot performing Let My People Go). Linda also helped us find Avodah dancers by recommending students she knew from her position at Juilliard (where she had graduated in 1968 and joined the faculty in 1984), and she offered generous artistic and Board advice when Julie Gayer took over as Avodah’s Director. Linda and I continue our long friendship today. (See photo in blog on Juilliard homecoming. I will be writing more blogs later about Linda.) Introducing Linda and me was very typical of Estelle, as she was one of the best networkers I have ever known. In the same article I quoted above, Estelle was described as “one of the most enthusiastic advocates and patrons of dance,” sometimes referred to as the “empress of dance.” And I can affirm that indeed she was, for The Avodah Dance Ensemble.

Within a year of our meeting, Estelle suggested having a gathering at her apartment to introduce Avodah dancers and Board members to some of her influential dance friends. One very important contact we made that evening was Ted Bartwink. Ted served as Trustee and Executive Director of The Harkness Foundation for Dance from 1968–2014. The Harkness Foundation made annual contributions to most of the major dance venues in New York City. Following that evening he came to at least one performance that I remember and for a number of years we received funding for our educational programs from the Harkness Foundation.

At Estelle’s request, I often served on honorary committees for benefit events. I was always thrilled to see my name on a list with so many outstanding dance and theatre people. Murray and I enjoyed attending the events and below is the back of an invitation for a 1991 International Committee for The Dance Library of Israel which honored Stephanie French, the Vice President of Corporate Contributions and Cultural Affairs for the Philip Morris Management Corporation, a major supporter of dance in the New York City area.

Back of invitation for the Dance Library of Israel Event

Earlier that same year Estelle Sommers was honored with the 9^thAnnual Dance Notation Bureau Award and I was thrilled to be on that Honorary Committee. I end this blog with this lovely picture of Estelle.

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Another Holocaust Piece, Based on the Writings of Primo Levi

JoAnne Tucker / June 28, 2019July 5, 2019 / Holocaust Repertory, New York Company, Uncategorized

Two blogs ago, I wrote about creating the 8-minute piece Kaddish. It soon became a regular in our repertory, performed in concerts, Holocaust memorial programs, and on the bema before the Kaddish prayer. Over the next fifteen years we were often invited to participate in Holocaust memorial programs, particularly in November around the time of Kristallnacht (“Night of Broken Glass”; see June 14, 2019 blog for explanation) and in late April or early May for Yom HaShoah (Holocaust memorial day, based on the Jewish calendar). It wasn’t until 1996 that I choreographed the next piece that became a part of our Holocaust repertory.

As long as I can remember, it was important to me that pieces related to the Holocaust be part of the Avodah Dance Ensemble’s repertory. At the age of 12 or 13 I saw the original production of The Diary of Anne Frank on Broadway with Susan Strasberg as Anne Frank and Joseph Schildkraut as Otto Frank. It was during my first trip to New York City with my parents, when we saw several Broadway shows, The Diary of Anne Frank being the only drama. I remember the evening well. We had seats in the first row and I was mesmerized by the play and the performances. I experienced the power of how theater can teach and emotionally engage one in learning. After that I regularly read and learned more about the Holocaust and as I developed as a choreographer it was a natural next step to create pieces like I Never Saw Another Butterfly and Kaddish.

The idea for the new piece, Shema, inspired by Primo Levi’s writing, came from Rabbi Oren Postrel. I hunch that Rabbi Larry Raphael (of blessed memory) probably introduced us, knowing that Oren had a very strong background as a dancer who had seriously studied ballet and performed in the Oakland Ballet. Oren shared Primo Levi’s writing with me and soon we were developing a piece based on it. Primo Levi (1919–1987) was an Italian Jewish chemist, writer and Holocaust survivor. Much of what we used in our piece Shemacame from his best-known work, If This Is A Man, about his time as a prisoner at Auschwitz.

The choreography was not only inspired by Primo Levi’s poetry but also by the Broadway play Bent, written by Martin Sherman. The play, which I saw in 1980, revolves around the persecution of gays in Nazi Germany. I found the second act particularly powerful with its stillness and senseless repetition as the two main characters move a pile of stones from one side of the stage to the other. When it came time to choreograph Shema I wanted to use some kind of repetition to hold the piece together. So throughout the whole piece the four dancers walk in a straight line back and forth across the stage in the back part of the performing area. Each dancer steps out of the line to share their poem in words and movement and when done goes back into the line. Jack Anderson in a review in The New York Times, May 31, 1997, describes it well:

Shema effectively contrasted relentless pacing, representing concentration camp regimentation with sudden outburst, symbolizing the prisoners’ turbulent personal feelings.

From a video of the piece, April 15, 1996, performed by the dancers who helped to create it, in a Yom HaShoah Service at
Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion
Dancers from l. to r. Kezia Gleckman Hayman, Elizabeth McPherson, Beth Millstein, and Carla Armstrong
Here’s the link to the video

As in the earlier Holocaust piece I Never Saw Another Butterfly, the dance is done in silence and to the voices of the dancers.

As I was writing this blog I came across an editorial in The New York Times published on May 26th (2019). It was written by the Editorial Board, which “represents the opinions of the board, its editor and the publisher. It is separate from the newsroom and the Op-Ed section.” The editorial clearly states that anti- Semitism is sharply on the rise and gives statistics for the increase in Germany and France in particular and also points out that it is not only coming from the far right, but also from the Islamists and far left. The authors mention the increase here in the United States, and end by saying:

Speak up, now, when you glimpse evidence of Anti Semitism, particularly within your own ranks, or risk enabling the spread of this deadly virus.

It is with a deep sadness and concern I read this and realize the truth in what they are saying. I fear we are on the edge of a cliff right now and I echo that we all have a responsibility to speak up and not allow discrimination in any form.

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Heroic Deeds – Honoring Righteous Gentiles

JoAnne Tucker / July 5, 2019 / Holocaust Repertory, New York Company

In 1993 when I first visited Israel, I remember a very emotional day spent at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem. Among its many remembrances, Yad Vashem honors over 11,000 Righteous Gentiles. These are individuals who risked their own lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. I knew that someday I would choreograph a dance to honor them and that happened during the 2001-2002 season. That was a particularly creative season since I choreographed three pieces on four talented dancers: Andrea Eisenstein, Danielle A. Smith, Jessica Sehested, and Kerri Thoma. The Avodah Dance Ensemble had moved from a part-time dance company operating throughout the year to a full-time company operating for 16 weeks of the year. The opportunity to work so intensively for about six hours each day was very stimulating.

As I began choreographing Heroic Deeds I began to realize that something else was motivating me as well. Living in Jersey City, right across from the World Trade Center, I had witnessed, only a few months before, the collapse of the second tower as I stood about three blocks from our home and looked across the river with our neighbors. And I remembered that our youngest daughter had been working in the World Trade Center in 1993 when a truck bomb detonated inside the parking garage. Her company was located on the 97^thfloor and she had walked down. She talked about how people were helping each other. There were no lights and so people were counting stairs and eventually as she got lower the NYC Firemen were coming up and providing additional guidance. As I began choreographing Heroic Deeds I found I was not only thinking of the Righteous Gentiles who risked their lives but how people can help each other in emergency situations, such as what my daughter experienced, and of course of the many first responders on 9/11 who risked their lives.

Part of both the fun and the challenge of choreographing is finding just the right music. I did, in a piece by the American composer Charles Ives. In a review by Jennifer Dunning in The New York Times (April 10, 2002) of a concert we did at the 92^ndStreet Y on the previous Sunday afternoon she pointed out, “Heroic Deeds distilled community need in a quartet as stark as its score by Ives.”

Once I had the music and had begun choreographing with the collaboration of the dancers my attention turned to costumes. Finding gray tops and ¾ length pants in gray I decided to paint silver, black and lighter gray spots on them to symbolize ashes and destruction of property in an abstract way.

Tom Brazil, a dance photographer who had previously photographed Avodah, beautifully captured the energy of the piece. Here are some of my favorite photos, with the four dancers who helped to create the work. All of the following photos are by Tom Brazil and copyrighted by him.

From l. to r. Jessica Sehested, Kerri Thoma, and Danielle Smith

From l. to r. Danielle, Jessica, Andrea Eisenstein, Kerri

From l. to r. Jessica, Andrea, Kerri, and Danielle

From l. to r. Danielle, Kerri, Jessica and Andrea

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Dr. Edith Eva Eger’s The Choice: Embrace the Possible

JoAnne Tucker / July 12, 2019 / Book Review, Holocaust Repertory

While Facebook gets lots of criticism and has its drawbacks, one of its very positive things for me is connecting to the many dancers I’ve worked with from the time Avodah began in the early 70’s to the women who were part of the recent Healing Voices – Personal Stories film Through the Door. Lisa Watson, a member of Avodah in the 90’s, is a friend on Facebook and this past May 19^th she posted about Dr. Edith Eva Eger (now 92) who wrote a book at age 90 about surviving the Holocaust. The book is called The Choice: Embrace the Possible, and I thank you, Lisa, for bringing the book to my attention.

Recently I have tended to stay away from reading accounts of Holocaust survivors but this book held special interest for me because prior to her deportation to Auschwitz in 1944 at the age of 16, Eger had been training as a dancer and gymnast. The post that Lisa shared on Facebook related to the fact that Dr. Eger was in the Netherlands to meet with the director, the actor and the ballerina who would be portraying her in a performance about the time that Dr. Mengele in Auschwitz asked her to dance for him. There is a wonderful interview of her trip to the Netherlands which includes her watching a rehearsal and hugging the dancer who is portraying her. The interview is a good account of her life and philosophy and I highly recommend it whether or not you plan on reading the book. https://dreditheger.com/2019/05/04/interview-with-eenvandaag-dutch-national-television/

I wonder, if I were still running Avodah, if I would choose to build a piece about Eger and the moment that she danced for Mengele, who had come into the barracks looking for a ballerina. She found that the way she was able to dance for him was to close her eyes and pretend that she was at the Budapest opera house dancing Romeo and Juliet. But it is not only that moment that I find gripping and would want to convey. It is her overall philosophy and spirit, even in her 90’s, that I would want to capture (demonstrated by the fact that she ends her lectures with a high kick).

Among the many gems in the book is her recalling and giving examples over and over again of the inspirational words from her mother, spoken in the cattle car as they were being transported to Auschwitz. Her mother said to her that no one can take away from you what you think and feel inside. The day they arrived her mother and father died but she and her sister survived. Toward the end of the war, prisoners were marched to Austria. She and her sister were found by a soldier on May 4, 1945. She was barely alive, sick and with a broken back.

We learn how she recovered, married and moved to the United States where she eventually studied Psychology, earning her Ph.D. and becoming an expert particularly with war trauma victims.

She shares stories of some of her patients and how they help her work through her own challenges. While physically free she shares the struggle to mentally free herself. She relates this to her patients that are living in their own prisons, and so much of what she shares has relevancy to all of us about how we can live in a prison of our own making, choosing to be our own jailers. A comment by her I noted, most likely when she was recently interviewed by Oprah, is to choose expression rather than depression. It is what we keep secret and do not work through that causes our depression. Here’s the link where you can watch the interview.

http://www.oprah.com/own-super-soul-sunday/dr-edith-eva-eger-the-choice

One of her mentors is Victor Frankel, another Holocaust survivor who wrote Man’s Search for Meaning. She describes their friendship.

To conclude I want to share quotes from two sources. First, a review in The New York Times written in October 2017 ends with the reviewer’s comment, “I can’t imagine a more important message for modern times. Eger’s book is a triumph and should be read by all who care about their inner freedom and the future of humanity.” Second, the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Desmond Tutu said: “The Choice is a gift to humanity. One of those rare and eternal stories that you don’t want to end and that leave you forever changed. Dr. Eger’s life reveals our capacity to transcend even the greatest of horrors and to use that suffering for the benefit of others. She has found true freedom and forgiveness and shows us how we can as well.”

I am so glad to have read Dr. Eger’s book, which then led me to watch her various interviews. What a wonderful role model she is for those of us looking for people in their 80’s and 90’s leading rich meaningful lives.

Dr Eger holding her book. Photo from her website

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The Forgiveness Project – Its Beginning

JoAnne Tucker / July 19, 2019 / dance liturgy, New York Company

In 1997 or 1998, sitting with Canon Lloyd Casson in the study at SAMS (The Episcopal Church of Saints Andrew and Matthew, in Wilmington, DE) when the Avodah Dance Ensemble was performing there, I asked if he had any ideas for a new project for the company. Canon Casson suggested I read Desmond Tutu’s book No Future Without Forgiveness. I don’t remember much else from our conversation but I do know I went out and bought the book and indeed, it did lead to a new piece of choreography and teaching opportunities for Avodah that ended up changing the direction of the dance company for me.

Before I get into how just a paragraph in No Future Without Forgiveness set me in motion, this week’s blog and next week’s blog share what I would say were the preliminary seeds that enabled this project to develop so powerfully. This week’s blog is about an earlier piece on forgiveness, Selichot Suite, and next week’s blog, featuring a piece that Kezia Gleckman Hayman wrote for the Avodah Newsletter in 1997, will focus on Canon Casson and the depth of thought he brought to us.

Selichot Suite was commissioned by Temple Beth El in Jersey City to be included in the Selichot Service that year, 1987, ten years before my conversation with Canon Casson. At the time, Murray and I were living in Jersey City and were members of the congregation. In Jewish Reform congregations, a Selichot service is held the Saturday night before Rosh Hashanah, usually late in the evening. The word “selichot” means forgiveness and the prayers are the same as those recited on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Rabbi Bruce Block and Cantor Peter Halpern collaborated with us and we danced to Cantor Halpern’s chanting of the prayers.

We set four parts of the service to dance, integrating them at the time each prayer was recited in the service. The first one, Hanshamah Lakh (“The Soul is Yours”), used very slow, meditative, rocking and lilting walks entering into the sacred space. The piece was beautifully sung by Cantor Halpern. The choreography of the next piece, Hashivenu,didn’t work very well in the first performance except for an ending circle. The ending circle reminded me of a a piece I had choreographed before. It was the last section in a piece called Shevit Ahim Gam Yahad (“Behold how good it is when brothers dwell together”). This was a piece that I had choreographed in the late 70’s to music of Lucas Foss. It didn’t stay in the repertory long but I loved the ending section and realized it would fit beautifully to Hashivenu. I substituted it for the original choreography for Hashivenu in the next performance and loved seeing it as part of Selicot Suite.

The third piece was actually danced to a poem that I must have originally found in the Gates of Forgiveness prayer book. I was so pleased to have found it online as I was beginning to write this blog. It is by Denise Levertov. The dancers recited it as they danced:

Something is very gently,
invisibly, silently,
pulling at me-a thread
or net of threads ….

Here’s a link to read the entire poem.

https://allpoetry.com/The-Thread

I found this poem so lovely and so representative of feelings related to the search for finding one’s spiritual center or home. Rereading it now I still find it very meaningful.

The last section of the piece was danced to the prayer V’al kulam. There is a traditional gesture of striking one’s chest softly with one’s fist, which accompanies the related Al Chet prayer, and we used variations of this movement in the piece. We also used movements of falling to the floor, and a dancer falling into the arms of others, for this deeply strong forgiveness prayer.

The dance company had just gone through a major change in dancers and I see in the Newsletter of September 1987 that there were seven dancers listed as performing that season. I think several of them were only with the company a short time. The original choreography was for seven dancers but by the next time that we performed the piece, it was revised for four dancers, the usual number of dancers in the company.

Selichot Suite was performed fairly regularly in Selichot services over the next 10 years. While several of the performances were in the NY area (Tenafly and Scarsdale) several bookings were out of town, with one in Bloomfield Hills, MI and another in Houston, TX. Often a concert with some of our other repertory preceded the service.

I have only one video of the piece and it is a wonderful one danced beautifully by Kezia Gleckman Hayman, Elizabeth McPherson, Beth Millstein, and Carla Norwood. They are so elegantly ensembled that it was a true example of what I hoped would happen when I named the company Avodah Dance ENSEMBLE. The video is from a program we did at Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion on dance as part of liturgy. Rabbi Rick Jacobs spoke and Cantor Benji Ellen Schiller beautifully accompanied the dancers. Here’s a link to watch it.

These three pictures were snapshots taken from the video, and in a photo editing program I chose to do them in black and white.

From the opening of *Hashivenu*
Dancer standing – Kezia Gleckman Hayman, Dancer sitting – Elizabeth McPherson
Cantor Benjie Ellen Schiller is standing in back in black

From the closing of *Hashivenu*
Dancers from l to r, Kezia, Elizabeth, Carla Norwood and Beth Millstein (with her back to us) and Cantor Schiller.

From *V’al kulam*
Dancers from l to r: Elizabeth, Kezia, Carla, Beth
Cantor Schiller is in the back.

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