JoAnne Tucker

Agnes de Mille and The Dream Ballet in Oklahoma

JoAnne Tucker / June 30, 2021August 20, 2023 / Dance History, Dance in Film, Musical Theater, Personal Life

Much to my surprise and delight I found that Disney+ was streaming the 1955 movie of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical Oklahoma (that duo’s first musical, created for the stage in 1943). When the movie first came out I wasn’t a big fan, as I didn’t like the casting of the main leads. I loved the original Broadway cast album of Oklahoma that featured Joan Roberts, Alfred Drake and Celeste Holmes. None of them were in the movie so I did not see the movie until many years later. What attracted me to watching the movie this month was that it is one of the few examples of Agnes de Mille’s choreography that we can see today. Since I was a teenager and read Dance to the Piper (published 1952) I had always admired de Mille, who despite being discouraged by her parents from becoming a dancer, and facing numerous struggles as a dancer and choreographer, achieved success through her sheer determination.

De Mille choreographed the movie just as she did the Broadway show. She was hired by Rodgers and Hammerstein following the 1942 success of the ballet Rodeo which she choreographed for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. She asked Aaron Copeland to create the score for the piece. It premiered in the fall of 1942 at the Met in New York City with deMille dancing the lead cowgirl. She received 22 curtain calls, and the ballet’s success led to her choreographing the Broadway show which changed the use of dance in musicals. For her, dance was not just an entertainment but rather a way to advance the emotions of the characters and the plot.

The original lead dancers in the dream ballet were Marc Platt, Katherine Sergava and George Church. They doubled for the leading actors, and John Martin in a review in The New York Times wrote that Ms. Sergava, dancing the alter ego of heroine Laurey, “with her strangely remote quality of beauty becomes the ideal heroine of a rather terrifying dream.” Neither Katherine Sergava nor George Church was in the movie. Marc Platt was, but not in his original role of Curly. Instead he had a role dancing and speaking as one of Curly’s pals. The dance leads in the movie were Bambi Linn as Dream Laurey and James Mitchell as Dream Curly. Bambi Lynn made her debut in Oklahoma as a dancer and later went on to a career as a ballroom dancer with her husband Rod Alexander. James Mitchell began as a modern dancer and for 25 years was an assistant to de Mille.

In the movie there is a very graceful transition from the actress Shirley Jones to the dancer Bambi Lynn where for just a moment they mirror each other and then the dream ballet really begins as Laurey runs into and is lifted by Curly and the two dance a very lovely duet. A chorus of women soon joins in and it is a celebration with Laurey imagining her wedding, with a veil that floats down and is put on her head. The scene builds as townspeople gather and an imaginary wedding is about to take place. Curly begins to lift Laurey’s veil when suddenly instead of Curly it is Jud. Laurey flees from Jud and ends up running into a scene of women dancers (women of the night) doing the cancan as Jud watches and at times joins in with them. Laurey continues to be a part of the scene, confused, sad and bewildered, and at times even trying to dance with them. One of the dancers puts Laurey into Jud’s arms and Laurey flees from him and up an open stairway that dramatically is a dead end into open space.

A transition within the ballet is then made with sound effects and lighting suggesting a thunderstorm or tornado, and a trio with Curly, Jud and Laurey begins. Following their struggle, townspeople enter as the energy builds, ending with Jud killing Curly and lifting and carrying Laurey off. This is where the dream ballet ends and the actor Jud appears ready to take the actress Laurey to the party as she awakens from her dream terrified!

As I watched the ballet several times I was struck by what a beautiful ballet de Mille created and what a wonderful score Richard Rogers created using melodies from all different songs in the musical. The dancing is well executed and the way it was filmed added to the richness of the choreography. I also

noted that it was danced on a good soundstage so the dancers could be at their best. We are so lucky to have this available to watch, and I hope I have whet your appetite and you might watch this very well done sixteen minutes of dance. I think that Disney+ still might have a 7-day free subscription trial.

There are other good dance moments in the movie too. One comes about 24 minutes into the film, beginning with a kind of two-step which becomes a vigorous tap dance solo building into a full ensemble dance taking place at the train station. The ending is fun as three of the dancers end up on the roof of the train and two women dancers jump off the train into the arms of waiting men as the train leaves with the male dancer still dancing on the train’s roof!! Another lovely moment is a women’s ballet to the song “Many A New Day.” A square dance in Act II to the “Farmers and the Cowboys Should be Friends” is lively and is used to point out the tension that exists between the cowboys and the farmers, ending with a well choreographed full stage brawl!

While I have to point out that the story doesn’t really work for me anymore the dances sure do, along with the songs! I grew up listening to the music and also remember my Mom mentioning how she had seen the show shortly after it opened with my Dad, who was in the army about to be shipped overseas. She had loved it and talked about the enthusiasm of the audience. I wanted to know more about Oklahoma’s impact at the time related to World War II and found two excellent pieces online related to this. In a blog written by Ryan Raul Banagale he points out that “Oklahoma can be seen as a work that captures an optimistic vision of America at a moment when its future remained very much up in the air.” (https://theconversation.com/oklahoma-at-75-has-the-musical-withstood-the-test-of-time-94110 )

In an article in The New York Times, Todd S. Purdum mentions that “at every performance, there were rows of men in uniform, sitting in seats especially reserved for them, or taking standing room before shipping out overseas.

Both of these articles clearly point out how Oklahoma changed musicals and how the show remains relevant today. I am thrilled we have this example of de Mille’s choreography to watch today. Reading her book, and learning about her, strongly impacted my decision to be a dancer.

In searching for a picture to include I found this wonderful interview of Agnes de Mille talking about the stage version of Oklahoma. While it was uploaded to YouTube in 2013 it is actually from a PBS series done in 1979. We see excerpts from the stage version. It is curious that she never mentions the movie. While the choreography in this clip is similar to the movie I think the movie is actually more interesting and stronger.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iW35nQUZdk4&list=RDiW35nQUZdk4&index=1

Screenshot from YouTube interview of de Mille in 1979 PBS program

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A Trip to Bali

JoAnne Tucker / June 19, 2021June 19, 2021 / Dance Midrash, Multicultural Programs, Personal Life

Memories of a trip to Bali resonate strongly, even though it was nearly 30 years ago that I spent 6 amazing days exploring the island, totally fascinated with the different sites we visited. Murray and his colleague had wandered into a tourist agency on a lunch break during their work trip to Singapore. They saw a great package for 6 days in Bali with airfare and hotel. Liked it and bought it. A few days later we were on the plane for the 3-hour flight to Denpasar Airport. We were met, part of the package, and driven to the resort hotel in Nusa Dua, by far one of the most beautiful hotels we had ever been to. While the resort was very modern, it displayed the traditional beautiful sculpture and art work that the Island is famous for – a nice blending of traditional and modern styles. The rest of the first day we totally enjoyed hanging around and swimming in the very large pool!

The next morning we piled into our small van and the four of us were joined by one other couple. Following a morning concert of traditional music and dance, our guide took us to Ubad (the cultural center) and we wandered in and out of lots of tourist type shops that were at least tasteful and did have some interesting things. In one of them I found a percussive instrument, made of wood – a face with a wooden knocker as the tongue. It was similar to one of my favorite instruments on Newman’s accompaniment blanket, and I was very excited to find it. (Newman, mentioned in other blogs, is the musician who accompanied many workshops and the piece “Let My People Go.” He would set out his wide variety of instruments around him on the stage floor, on a piece of fabric which I came to call “Newman’s Blanket.”) I was thrilled to make the instrument my first purchase and enjoyed using it for many years! There were quite a few Batik stores and I also purchased in one of them a round placemat that I still enjoy using.

As we walked from store to store we were greeted by a number of vendors selling various handcrafted things. Often they started by quoting a very high price, expecting us to bargain. When we walked away they would offer the item for a realistic price where the bargaining could begin. Murray and I saw some interesting small carvings and learned they were carved cow bones. We were first quoted a price of $100 but didn’t counter it and just walked away. Before we knew it, the vendor had said we could have each one for $10. We ended up buying 3 of them, each for $1. The vendor was happy to have sold them, and we were happy to have bought them.

While the shopping was fun, what really fascinated me happened the next day as we were driving up in the mountains. It was a festival day and many Balinese were dressed in traditional clothes. A number of the women were carrying – balanced on their heads – baskets of fruits and flowers arranged in beautiful and intricate patterns. Our tour guides explained that the women were on their way to a sacred site and the baskets were offerings.

I vividly remember a visceral response in my body, and thinking this is exactly the kind of thing that is described in the Torah, and further explained in the Talmud, about how during the time of the Temple’s existence, the Jewish people made offerings. For example, Deuteronomy 26:2 says:

you shall take of the first of every fruit of the ground that you bring in from your Land that your God gives you, and you shall put it in a basket and go to the place that your God will choose.

If you would like to learn more about this ritual, here is a good link to check out: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/first-fruits/

I was seeing something similar in a totally different culture, and I was totally fascinated.

Once back home, I would learn that 90% of the Balinese practice Balinese Hinduism which:

is a mixture of years of contact with different cultures, most notably the Indian one. Traders introduced their faith to Bali between 1,000 and 1,500 years ago.
Apart from Hinduism, the Balinese have aspects of other beliefs in their religion: Buddhism; Malay ancestor cult or the reverence of dead ancestors; and animistic beliefs. (“Lisa’s vivid writing” in Medium.com – see link below)

If you want to learn more about Balinese religious practices, rituals and festivals check out these websites:

https://medium.com/bali-in-a-few-words/balinese-hinduism-explained-e3316a16a535

https://www.villa-bali.com/guide/offerings-canangs

/https://theculturetrip.com/asia/indonesia/articles/traditional-rituals-in-bali-you-should-know-about/https://theculturetrip.com/asia/indonesia/articles/traditional-rituals-in-bali-you-should-know-about/

And then we visited a temple and saw a sign outside that said something like “Women: If you are menstruating or pregnant please do not enter.” When I asked our guide about it, he shared that women who are menstruating, pregnant or have just given birth are considered “ritually unclean.” Here was another example of something that had been part of the Jewish tradition, well documented in Leviticus Chapter 15 beginning with verse 19:

If a woman has a discharge, her flesh discharging blood, she shall remain in her state of menstrual separation for seven days, and whoever touches her shall be come unclean until evening.

There are many others examples of times when someone or something is considered unclean in Leviticus and in other parts of the Torah. Now, here I was, in another culture and religion seeing a similar practice in action. I was surprised to find this in Bali.

The trip to Bali took on a whole new significance for me. It was not just the beautiful scenery or tourist shops or sightseeing. It was about seeing the rituals and culture in practice. The similarity between the rituals I was seeing and the passages I was reading in the Torah (and using as a basis for leading “dance midrash” workshops in Jewish religious schools) was clear. It gave me new ideas for my teaching. It was also an awareness of how similar cultures can be and a reminder that we may all be more alike than different.

Here I am sightseeing in Bali and loving the rich greens of the rice fields.

Murray and me visiting Goa Gajah, the Elephant Cave. To learn more about
this site check out this link:
https://www.tripsavvy.com/goa-gajah-eerie-elephant-cave-in-bali-1629094

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A Trip to Bangkok and Reflections on The King and I

JoAnne Tucker / May 29, 2021June 19, 2021 / Childhood, Musical Theater, Personal Life

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Doing Taxes Takes on A Whole New Meaning

JoAnne Tucker / May 8, 2021 / Personal Life

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Last Thoughts on International Touring

JoAnne Tucker / April 27, 2021May 8, 2021 / Personal Life, Touring

In this concluding blog about our Italy tour Kezia and I share some of our favorite non-dance memories. Certainly one part of touring is when we have a free day or two. On the tour to Pitigliano, Kezia and I arranged to have several days to sightsee after the performance before returning to New York.

One of Kezia’s favorite memories is having to stop the car for a significant time on our way to Pitigliano to allow a flock of sheep to cross the road. She remembers that their bells made wonderful music, and that Deborah spoke to the shepherd and translated for us. He was carrying a little lamb because he said she was tired and kept lying down in the road and crying when she couldn’t keep up with the other sheep.

View from the car when we encountered the sheep in the road. If you look carefully
you can see a figure in the very back carrying the lamb.

A favorite memory of mine was watching Deborah’s mother-in-law make gnocchi from scratch and of course getting to enjoy eating it afterwards.

Deborah and her mother-in-law. We all watched enthusiastically
as Jeevan’s mother make the gnocchi!

I also loved our time soaking in a hot spring,

In the February 2000 Avodah Newsletter, Kezia wrote about some of our adventures sightseeing:

As tourists in magical Florence, we strolled into innumerable churches, each graced by masterpieces of art, so much a part of their surrounding spiritual home and purpose that often no nameplate is even provided to identify the artist. And regardless of one’s religion, when the church bells ring at twilight in Florence, one is filled with joy. In stark contrast to the gentleness of Florence, the astounding massiveness of Rome was like walking at the feet of elephants. Surprisingly, St. Peter’s, even more enormous than it appears on television, by genius of design, offers an undeniable sense of embrace, even to these two Jewish visitors.

On Shabbat, JoAnne and I attended services in the old Jewish section of Rome. The architecture of the temple was of a style similar to that of churches we had visited, and the unexpected acoustical effect of this kinship was that the chanting in the service took on a nearly Gregorian quality. The text of individual prayers and readings was indistinguishable, replaced by an engulfing hum. The women’s section, up a long flight of stairs, was separated from the downstairs men’s section by an iron gate so densely and intricately patterned that one could barely see through it – as intended. But I suffered no shortage of spiritual sustenance in this country where religion has been the inspiration for glorious architecture, serene and achingly sad painting and sculpture, heart-soaring music and people of deep warmth and courage. When I looked out my window during the flight back to New York and saw how easily the Italian Alps reach right above the clouds, I was not in the least surprised.

Closing thought from JoAnne: I am so grateful for the dedication of the dancers who were part of Avodah, both when they were in the company and afterwards. In particular, to Deborah — who organized and made this tour possible, including rehearsing her dancers and performing in the concert — and to Kezia — who shared this experience with us, helping in staging and performing, and then sharing time together sightseeing with me – a deep bow of gratitude.

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Performance in Pitigliano

JoAnne Tucker / April 19, 2021 / Touring

Continuing the blog entries on my international work, I flew from Israel back to Italy, and Kezia arrived there from the U.S., and so rehearsals began in earnest for the upcoming performance for the Pitigliano Festival of Jewish Film and Culture.

In the February 2000 Avodah Newsletter, Kezia reported:

Our trip to Italy came about in great part through the extensive organizing efforts of former Avodah dancer and dear friend Deborah Hanna Leoni, who had been living in Italy (and teaching dance there) since 1992. It was Deborah and two of her delightful advanced students whom I joined to form Avodah’s Italian company. Deborah and her husband Jeevan generously housed JoAnne and me in their country cottage in the very beautiful Tuscan village of Tarquinia, a center of ancient Etruscan life, about 45 minutes from Rome and 15 minutes from the Mediterranean Sea. With stone streets and buildings tinted in warm fresco shades of gold and orange and green with castle-like wooden doors, Tarquinia is a hill town with an expansive view of velvety green countryside. For people who teach, as we do, I believe it is a good reminder to return periodically to being a beginning-level student of anything – to remember just how bare – and frustrating – beginning knowledge is. Since neither JoAnne nor I speak Italian, we had a good dose of “beginnership,” but we found that people determined to find a common understanding are reassuringly able to do so.

We also figured out puzzling light switches, door latches and toilet mechanics, learned to wash dishes using the least possible amount of water (start with that handy pot of water left from boiling pasta) and functioned for periods (common) when the water was turned off or the electric was out. (The cottage was perfectly and appropriately lovely in candlelight.) Our Italian alarm clock each morning was the gunshot chorus of local men hunting for small birds on the property. We deciphered money and purchased groceries (everything FRESH), ate pine nuts from the ground and gourmet mushrooms picked by Jeevan’s family, and watch his mother make us homemade gnocchi. We learned that, like nearly everything else in life, there is a skill to hanging wash on a clothesline – and we did not have it. We were made sharply aware of how luxuriously we usually live, particularly in terms of the use of water, electric and gas, and I felt downright wealthy when I returned home and was able to wash and dry all my clothes at the laundromat. We learned that in Italy, concepts of “efficient” and “businesslike” do not exist as we know them in New York; “casual,” “social” and “personal” are the critical elements of life, as is “generous.” And they do make for a charming, if drastically different, life. For a high school workshop, the students each contributed a sum toward our booking, and we were paid with an envelope of small bills and coins, like the collections I remember for elementary school “milk money.” I – who am still surprised each time JoAnne pays me for dancing – have never felt such a direct connection between my work and my pay.

From JoAnne’s scrapbook: Scenes from Deborah and Jeevan’s land.

The theatre in Pitigliano had a historic feel to it. The stage was just large enough but it did present a bit of a challenge as it was a raked stage (meaning that it sloped upward away from the audience). Fortunately the dancers were able to adjust quite quickly.

Back entrance to the theatre where we performed

The performance consisted of six pieces, and one of them was created for this special event. Entitled Generations,it was inspired by the Hebrew phrase “L’dor V’dor” (“from generation to generation”) and focused on the Jewish woman’s role of carrying on tradition. In seeing a video of the piece, I wasn’t sure at all what I was really trying to say. How I was able to watch a video of the piece was an interesting story in itself. Deborah reminded me that there was a video of the performance and thought that Kezia had a copy of it. It was a VHS which is very outdated and most of us no longer have VCR machines that can play such tapes. Kezia however does still have a VCR, but she doesn’t have the means to transfer a VHS into a format such as an mp4 which would be easy to send over the Internet. So, resourcefully, Kezia played the video on her VCR and filmed it on her phone and sent it to me.

Screenshot of the piece Generations. Kezia is on the floor and Deborah is behind her. In the background are our Italian company members Sylvia Manciani and Anna Compagnucci (two of Deborah’s advanced students at the time).

The other pieces were: Hallelu – a setting of the 150^th Psalm; Negro Spirituals – four solos from Helen Tamiris’s work (danced by Kezia) which had been reconstructed by Elizabeth McPherson from the Labanotated score; M’Chamocha – a piece celebrating the crossing of the Red Sea; Kaddish – a work set to 8 minutes from Leonard Bernstein’s Kaddish symphony, and Shema – a setting of Primo Levi’s writing. Search this blog site for entries describing some of these pieces more fully. In the Avodah Newsletter Kezia described performing Shema:

Most memorable in this performance was the inclusion of our repertory work Shema based on the writings of Italian Holocaust survivor Primo Levi. JoAnne insisted on performing this work, defying suggestions that Italian dance audiences prefer lighter pieces. In Shema the dancers speak excerpts from the writings of Primo Levi. In this performance the text was recited (by our Italian actress, Elisabetta Irrera) in its original Italian. The impact upon the audience was powerful, earning the longest applause of the program.

Deborah Hanna in Shema, with Elisabetta Irrera (the Italian actress who spoke the text in Italian) behind her.

Curtain call following the last piece, Kaddish.

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Pitigliano

JoAnne Tucker / April 9, 2021 / Touring

Continuing my blog entries on my international teaching, I’m sharing for this blog a section of the beautiful piece Kezia wrote in February 2000 for the Avodah Newsletter about Pitigliano, the town in Italy where she, Deborah, three Italian dancers and an actress performed Avodah repertory on the opening night of the Second Annual Pitigliano Festival of Jewish Film and Culture.

From Kezia (in February 2000):

Known as “Little Jerusalem,” Pitigliano sits on the edge of a cliff of volcanic rock, out of which it appears to have risen. Nearly mystical is the sudden sight of the town as one rounds a curve in the winding mountain roads. (The cartoon-like zigzags of these roads begged for more Dramamine than the entire New York-London-Rome flight.)

The beautiful stone streets with their ancient stairs are layered upon one another like an Escher drawing, with flowered courtyards tucked into odd corners, and arresting slashes of light between buildings – through which one glimpses what appear to be sheer drops from the mountainside; and everywhere, garlands of laundry decorate the facades.

In 1799, the Christian community of Pitigliano sheltered its Jewish inhabitants from attacks by neighboring Christians, who had forced Jews from their homes in nearby towns. In 1850, the Jewish population constituted at least 10% (and perhaps as much as 20%) of Pitigliano – exceptional in Italy. Around 1870 many Jews left for new opportunities in larger cities (due to an easing of ethnic restrictions), but some remained in their comforting home of Pitigliano. In the 1930’s the Christians of this town once again protected their Jewish neighbors. But in about 1938, when the Fascist anti-Semitic laws became overpowering, the Jewish community of Pitigliano dissolved. Two websites devoted to this special town note, “During the Holocaust, people of Pitigliano risked their lives to hide and save Jews that were escaping from the Nazi terror” (Eytan Kahn), and “By lucky circumstances and also by the help of gentile Italians, who risked their lives, apparently all the Jews of Pitigliano survived” (Peter Petri). Elena Servi, who was a young girl in 1938, is the only member of Pitigliano’s early Jewish community living there today. Maintaining their proud tradition of shared lives, the Christian community in Pitigliano and Ms. Servi have joined together and created a small museum of Jewish history, and restored the synagogue, the Jewish cemetery and the communal baking ovens where the Jewish community gathered to bake Passover matzoh. (We were graciously given a private, unscheduled tour of the baking site by curator Luigi Cerroni, to whom we extend our appreciation.)

The bicentennial of the heroic events of 1799 coincided with the Second Annual Pitigliano Festival of Jewish Film and Culture, a festival created by Michela Scomazzon Galdi, an Italian film aficionado who chose to integrate her love of film with her appreciation of and interest in the Jewish culture of Pitigliano. It was as part of this Festival that we had the great and moving honor of performing in this town so enriched by its history of rare cooperation and compassion.

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Leading Dance Midrash Workshops in Israel

JoAnne Tucker / March 30, 2021 / Dance Midrash, Dances on Biblical Women, Movement Workshops, Touring

This was not my first trip to Israel. For my 50^th birthday Murray and I traveled to Israel, staying first with friends at Kibbutz Lotan located in the South and then taking a small minivan tour of the country for about a week. While it was a very positive experience and I especially liked Tel Aviv and have vivid memories of watching large groups of people gathering by the beach to folk dance on Shabbat, I did find not myself in a hurry to return. As I flew into Israel on Friday morning to begin this nine-day trip with five workshops scheduled I wondered how my work would be received particularly among traditional orthodox Jewish participants. The five workshops were scheduled throughout the country and I had no idea who the attendees would be.

I am very glad to have written about the trip, shortly after it happened, in an Avodah Newsletter, and the majority of this blog comes from the newsletter. As was my regular practice when leading dance midrash workshops, they were always based on that week’s Torah portion and I had a particularly rich and easy one to work with. I decided to focus on two specific lines in the portion “Lech Lecha”: Genesis 12:1, “The Lord said to Abram, ”Go forth from your native land and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you,” and Genesis 16: 1-16 where Hagar bears a child for Sarah.

Arriving in Israel on Friday I would have Saturday to spend with friends who offered a place to stay where they lived on Kibbutz Tzora. They had originally lived at Kibbutz Lotan, where Murray and I had visited them six years ago. Now, along with two adorable twins, they lived on Kibbutz Tzora which had a much more urban feeling than Lotan. I was also able to use time to review the Torah portion I would be working with. Even though I had worked with many Torah portions many times I often found new insight depending on my life events and world happenings. This particular week I decided to address the question of what quality in Abram triggered God to select him to “go forth.”

For the section on Sarah and Hagar, I decided to find moments of interaction between them that are not described in text, such as what Sarah might have said to Hagar to convince her to bear a child for her, or what Hagar might have said to Sarah when Hagar knew she was pregnant. In other words, I wanted to make the relationship very real between these two women.

All five workshops were built from these two scenarios, and each workshop had the same outline: movement warm-up, introduction of ritual movement (i.e. movement already existing in our tradition, such as putting on a tallit or bending and bowing), exploration of text in movement, questions, and feedback. Each workshop took on its own character and emphasis based on the participants, and there was a huge range!

As I reviewed my write-up in the Avodah Newsletter I noted that I only mentioned four workshops. Actually a fifth one stands out in my mind and I hunch that I decided not to write about it for the newsletter. For this blog I will just share one very strong memory of that workshop (the first), which I led in Jerusalem. I remember my friends driving to and from the location, and that I felt a huge relief to be leaving Jerusalem, as I felt the energy from both the workshop and in the streets to have been somewhat frantic!!

While each workshop had the same outline, each one definitely had its own character and emphasis based on the participants. The second workshop, in Tel Aviv, like the one in Jerusalem, was attended by all non-dancers and thus my main job was in motivating movement and leading the group to be comfortable with movement as a way to explore text.

The third workshop was in the city of Beit She’an which is located in the northern part of Israel in the Jordan Valley. It was held in a beautiful dance studio, part of the region’s cultural center, and had the highest level of dance participants, with several professional dancers and advanced dance students. I also seem to remember this was the home community of Elisabeth, the person who had visited my dance midrash class in New York City and arranged for me to come. A single sentence was enough to motivate rich movement, and sophisticated improvisational dance challenges quickly became an important part of this workshop. A particularly memorable improvisation occurred on the letters in God’s name (yud, hay, vav, hay). I taught a simple movement phrase based on a meditation related to these letters and then asked the participants each to think about her own God image and to incorporate that in her improvisation. The intensity in the room was incredible and while I was dancing with the group I sensed an extraordinary energy happening, with amazing movement interactions taking place in my own improvising. One person had chosen to observe and was mesmerized by what she saw. Not surprisingly, in the feedback section, this exercise was commented on the most. From an orthodox woman came the statement that she was apprehensive when asked to do this activity but found it profound. A secular woman also shared the same reaction – an initial reluctance to dance the letters in God’s name, but then a discovery of great meaning to the exercise. I felt a certain affirmation in having been able to provide such an experience for women coming from such different backgrounds.

From there I traveled to Yeroham which is in the Southern District – Negev Desert. The workshop was held in the Bamidbar Creative Beit Midrash which had been built in 1990 following the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin, and which serves the local community as well as visitors. It is also an unusual space in that it has served as a bomb shelter. Put to happier use, all the furniture had been removed for our dance workshop, and there was also an art exhibit by oil painter Anna Andersch-Marcus, a world-renowned artist living in Yeroham. This was the only time my teaching in English created a few moments of tension, when some debate arose about how to translate what I said. Luckily several bilingual participants were able to assure the group that the differences were insignificant to the assignment, and the 15 women ranging in background from secular to traditional worked together sharing nonverbally our interpretations of biblical text.

My own improvisations that day were influenced by the fact that we were near a site called Hagar’s Well and I was reminded of the challenges that the environment presents. It made a big difference in my own movement to keep the harshness of the desert landscape in mind as I danced interactions between Sarah and Hagar.

The final workshop was at Kibbutz Lotan. The Kibbutz was further south located in the heart of the desert about 40 minutes north of Elat which is on the Red Sea. I had very pleasant memories of the Kibbutz from my earlier trip to Israel. The reform Kibbutz had developed further with bird-watching trails, sand dunes and the intimacy of a small lush Kibbutz surrounded by the barren desert mountains. I thoroughly enjoyed being there and even discussed with the leadership of the Kibbutz the possibility of doing an intensive five-day workshop to train dance midrash specialists as well as individuals who just wanted to explore text through dance stimulated by the beautiful desert environment and guest facilities of the Kibbutz. I never put much energy into organizing it and so it never happened. Being at Kibbutz Lotan was a wonderful way to end a very full nine days and return to Italy to continue getting ready for our October 31 concert.

The only picture I could find that I took on this trip to Israel. Clearly I was fascinated by the harsh environment of the desert!

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The Beginning of the Tour to Italy

JoAnne Tucker / March 19, 2021March 19, 2021 / Touring

In one of the many Jewish newspapers or magazines that I followed I saw a notice about a Jewish Film Festival in Pitigliano, Italy, organized by Michela Scomazzon Galdi, who lived in Rome. I thought maybe they might be interested in adding a dance event. I sent Deborah information about it, along with Galdi’s contact information, and much to my delight Deborah was able to get in touch with her and even headed into Rome to meet with her. Later Deborah would travel to Pitigliano to see the space and figure out theatre technicalities. There was much correspondence between all the parties in Italy as well as between Deborah and me figuring out details for our participation for the opening night of the festival, October 31, 1999.

Deborah also wanted us to have more than one performance and began working with some school contacts to see if she could arrange a workshop and performance in nearby Tuscania.

I knew that our budget would be extremely limited, so there was no way that the whole Avodah company could go, and part of the fun and challenge would be working with Deborah’s dancers. It would be ideal if Kezia could go too. Kezia could help teach as well as perform in the concert and an added bonus was that it would be fun to travel and tour a bit too.

Deborah remembers, “In the summer before you and Kezia came to Italy, I headed home to the US with a long stop in NYC to rehearse with you. As I was planning my trip, several of my dancers – Anna, Cinzia and Francesca wanted to tag along and visit NYC. I said sure and they came and so we had rehearsals there in Chinatown – getting them into some of the pieces for Pitigliano. Also, Silvia Manciani happened to be in New York studying at Graham for an intensive and she came to rehearse with us as well, I believe.”

At the same time I had also been in contact with an enthusiastic dancer from Israel who had attended a Monday night Dance Midrash Class I led regularly in New York City. (These were improvisation classes based on Biblical text. For more information check out Torah in Motion: Creating Dance Midrash which I co-authored with Rabbi Susan Freeman.) The dancer in Israel very much wanted me to go there and teach dance midrash and she was willing to arrange it. She followed through with an email as we were beginning to organize plans for Italy and I thought that the timing would be a perfect fit. I could fly to Italy, have one or two rehearsals with the dancers and then fly to Israel to teach. Kezia could meet me on the return to Italy and we could finish rehearsing, perform in Tuscania and at the Festival, and have a little time for sightseeing before returning to New York.

Deborah did a super job of arranging things and I remember so clearly a rehearsal before I flew to Israel. At that time Deborah had stopped running her own studio. After spending two years trying to do so, and building a small ensemble that traveled to do school performances and festivals, she had realized that the economics were just not in her favor. In fact, after teaching for two years in a studio that her Uncle Enrico had built for his ballroom-champion son, she realized she hadn’t earned a penny for herself after paying rent and the two other teachers in classical and jazz to round out the curriculum. Her husband was a dedicated documentary filmmaker and so she decided that two working artists in the family was one too many and therefore she would teach English. So when I got to Italy, Deborah was teaching English full time for the Italian Military.

I remember well the first rehearsal that I had with the dancers in the lovely studio that her Uncle Enrico had built. I was totally taken aback when someone’s cell phone rang and the person stopped dancing in the middle of the piece to answer the call. I looked at Deborah aghast and she explained that this was the custom in Italy and to just be patient. That never happened in NYC, as cell phones are turned off and only in breaks do people use a phone unless of course someone has an emergency and needs to keep it on! I soon adjusted to this more informal rehearsal style although it did leave a very clear memory in my mind. In terms of the dancing I could see the excellent progress Deborah had made with the dancers and that they would be ready for the upcoming performance.

After just a few days I returned to Rome for my short flight to Israel. Once inside the airport, I couldn’t find El Al listed anywhere. I wandered around the airport a bit and finally asked a policeman where to check in for El Al. He pointed down the hall to the farthest part of the airport. I continued walking down to an unmarked area where I soon realized there was a temporary place to check in.

I was interviewed for quite a while before being able to proceed to the next waiting area. When I got inside I was taken aback to realize that a balcony surrounded the room, and stationed at quite regular intervals were army members with machine guns. When I had traveled to Israel from the US, while security was tight it was nothing like this.

I knew that there had been an incident in the past that had warranted a high level of security, and a bit of Googling brought up the event which happened on October 11, 1982. The following description is from Wikipedia:

The attack took place at the Great Synagogue of Rome in the historic district of Rome on Saturday morning, at 11:55 AM. As the families of the local Jewish community began leaving with their children from the back entrance to the synagogue, five elegantly dressed armed Palestinian attackers walked calmly up to the back entrance of the synagogue and threw at least three hand grenades at the crowd, and afterwards sprayed the crowd with sub-machine gun fire. Eyewitnesses at the scene stated that the hand grenades bounced off the steps and exploded in the street.
A 2-year-old toddler, Stefano Gai Tache was killed in the attack after being hit by shrapnel. In addition, 37 civilians were injured, among them Stefano’s brother, 4-year-old Gadiel Tache, who was shot in the head and chest.

Great Synagogue of Rome (photo from Wikipedia)

I found it meaningful to continue reading and learned that the event was remembered as recently as 2015.

On 3 February 2015, during the message to the Italian Parliament following his taking the oath as President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella remembered the attack with these words: “(Italy) has paid several times, in a not too distant past, the price of hate and intolerance. I want to remember only one name: Stefano Tache who was killed in the cowardly terrorist attack on the synagogue in Rome in October 1982, He was only two years old. He was our baby, an Italian baby.”

Once through security and check-in, we were bused in groups to the far end of the airport where we boarded the plane. It was an easy, uneventful flight to Tel Aviv and I looked forward to my teaching adventure in Israel, which will be the subject of the next blog.

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Seeds for a Later Tour – Visiting a Former Avodah Dancer in Italy

JoAnne Tucker / March 8, 2021 / Personal Life, Touring

For seven years Deborah Hanna was a part of The Avodah Dance Ensemble. If you skim through the blogs of Mostly Dance you will see lots of pictures of her, as she played a key role in collaborating on pieces that became an important part of Avodah’s repertory. In particular, Deborah was in the original cast of Let My People Go, and she and Kezia collaborated on Sisters. At some point, I shared her with the Martha Graham Ensemble and loved how well trained she was in Graham technique, which I totally adored! When she decided it was time to leave the company and move to Italy with her husband I was both sad to see her go and also excited for her new adventure. We might even have joked a bit about Avodah coming to Italy, as she did not intend to stop dancing.

Two years later, in 1995, I saw Deborah on a trip to Italy. My husband, Murray, had a business trip to Rome, related to his job as economist with the IRS. I was able to go with him and we decided to travel a few days early so we could spend some time visiting Deborah.

A day or two after arriving in Rome, Murray and I took the hour-and-a-half train ride to Tarquinia, where Deborah and her husband, Jeevan, were living. Tarquinia is an old city in the province of Viterbo, Lazio, known mainly for its ancient Etruscan tombs. We stayed in their sweet country cottage and loved going sightseeing in the area with them. Tarquinia is Jeevan’s hometown and his family owned a wonderful restaurant there.

Top Picture: Deborah and I have fun posing at one of the Etruscan Tombs.
Lower Picture: Deborah and Jeevan, Murray and I, enjoying being together.

Deborah had begun to teach dance shortly after she arrived in Italy in February of 1993. She taught Graham technique and choreographed for the end-of-the-year concerts in her local community. Deborah shared with me that “The Graham Technique made a big hit as quite a novelty and the first piece I did for them to the music of Carmina Burana received a loud “ANCORA” from the audience – which I just took as a wonderful sign of appreciation, but quickly found out meant we had to repeat the piece again immediately – which we did.”

Deborah choreographed for this group of dancers when she first arrived in 1993.

By the time of our visit with Deborah she had not only continued teaching but had expanded with in-school performances and workshops in the local grade schools and middle schools and had won best choreography awards at the Viterbo Dance Festival.

Before we left Italy Deborah joined us in Rome and ended up going out to dinner with us and charming some of Murray’s business colleagues with her excellent Italian. We talked about projects between Avodah and Italy, and the seeds were planted for what would happen several years later.

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