Category: dance liturgy

“Kaddish” Danced as a Memorial in Two Shabbat Services

JoAnne Tucker / / 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 10th at Rodeph Shalom Congregation that Avodah danced the piece in his memory.  Avodah had a strong relationship with Rodeph Shalom (located on 83rdStreet 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 10th Sabbath service.  On November 9thand 10th, 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 10th 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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The Forgiveness Project – Its Beginning

JoAnne Tucker / / 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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The Forgiveness Project Begins: A Movement Presentation on Lines from Biblical Psalms

JoAnne Tucker / / dance liturgy, Forgiveness Project, Holocaust Repertory

Fortunately, I don’t have to rack my memory to figure out the beginning steps for The Forgiveness Project, as they are well documented in the February 2001 Avodah Dance Ensemble Newsletter.  Much of what I am sharing in this blog comes from the Newsletter’s opening article.

I did indeed read Desmond Tutu’s book No Future Without Forgiveness which Canon Lloyd Casson had suggested. Towards the end of the book Tutu has a paragraph related to the need for Israel to wrestle with forgiveness for Germany.  He is not the only one to point this out.  In January 2000, Elie Wiesel spoke of forgiveness in a speech he made on the German Day of Remembrance when he addressed the Bundestag. Simon Wiesenthal addressed this important question in his book The Sunflower. Certainly the question of forgiveness related to post-Holocaust German/Jewish relationships is one of the most challenging.  My plan was for the dance company to wrestle with this difficult question in a new way through movement. There was no goal to come up with any one definitive answer, just to wrestle with the question.

We would also look at forgiveness from a variety of perspectives – forgiveness of oneself, forgiveness within a relationship, forgiveness as it relates to God and forgiveness between communities.  We officially began our work on forgiveness for the project in the fall of 2000 when we presented a lecture demonstration on Yom Kippur afternoon at Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion’s High Holiday Services for College and Graduate Students.  For this presentation I decided to focus on forgiveness between self and God. To prepare I read the Book of Psalms and jotted down any lines that related to forgiveness.  After much pondering I came up with four stages in the process of asking forgiveness of God: being aware of needing to ask for forgiveness; accepting the responsibility to do so; asking for forgiveness; and feeling certain expectations upon being forgiven by God.  Three dancers, including Beth Millstein who had worked with Avodah for over seven years, joined me, and we explored the four stages with related lines of text from Psalms.

Much to my delight I have notes from this demonstration and I share them now.  Readers who are interested in leading workshops on forgiveness are very welcome to use the text and ideas presented here.

Here are the stages of Forgiveness with supporting Psalm references

1.             Reflect or ponder our actions

“So tremble, and sin no more;
  Ponder it on your bed, and be silent  (Psalm 4:5)

2.            Take Responsibility

“For my iniquities have overwhelmed me:
  They are like a heavy burden, more that I can bear.”  (Psalm 38:4)
 
   “I recognize my transgressions
    And am ever conscious of my sins.” (Psalm 51:3)
 
   “I have considered my ways,
    And have turned back to your decrees.” (Psalm 119:59)

3.            Take Action

“Then I acknowledged my sin to you;
  I did not cover up my guilt;” (Psalm 32)

4.            Express how we feel/or anticipate how we will feel after taking action

“Happy is he whose transgression is forgiven,
  Whose sin is covered over.” (Psalm 32:1)
 
  “You are my shelter:
   You preserve me from distress:
   You surround me with the joyous shouts of deliverance.” (Psalm 32:7)
 
    “God redeems your life from the Pit,
    Surrounds you with steadfast love and mercy.” (Psalm 103:4)
 
    “Yours is the power to forgive
     So that You may be held in awe.” (Psalm 130:3-4)
 

We used some of these lines of text in our demonstration as part of the Yom Kippur afternoon service at HUC-JIR and I am most grateful for Rabbi Larry Raphael (of blessed memory) for inviting us to present.  In the formal presentation at HUC-JIR the dancers improvised to the lines of text while members of the congregation watched. 

As the Forgiveness Project continued we wove these lines from The Book of Psalms  into future workshops guiding groups of various ages to explore them.  Usually I started with the first stage, read the line of text and then asked each person to respond in movement to the imagery being expressed – for example, to imagine he/she is pondering on “his/her sins” and express what that would be like in movement. 

We added other texts into the Forgiveness Project, including biblical texts, writings of Moses Maimonides, lines from the New Testament, a poem by Thich Nhat Hanh and a passage from Wally Lamb’s novel I Know this Much is True.  I will be sharing more about these texts and how they fit into the Forgiveness Project in the next few blogs.

JoAnne, on tour in Florida in the fall of 2000, sharing text from the Book of Psalms
with a group of religious school students. 
Dancers improvising for the students, on lines of text from the Book of Psalms.
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Our Third Residency, at a New York Area Reform Congregation, Part II

JoAnne Tucker / / dance liturgy, Forgiveness Project, Holocaust Repertory, New York Company

Each residency took on its own quality based on the needs of the community.  The planning discussions with the senior Rabbi, Rick Jacobs, indicated how important it was to him to have focus on Yom HaShoah, the Holocaust Day of Remembrance, particularly in the Friday Evening Shabbat service. He asked if instead of members of the community joining in the Forgiveness Project, they might do something related to Yom HaShoah as part of the Friday night service.  I agreed and figured that I Never Saw Another Butterfly could easily be done with community members as part of it.  (Here’s a link to learn more about this piece.)

I don’t remember exactly how many congregants joined the dancers but each of the four solos had one or two community members joining the company.  It was easy to teach with each dancer working with a person or two and fitting them into their solo.  They learned the ensemble parts that were not technically hard, but required some concentration.  All the community members were older teenagers or adults so they learned quickly and the piece went well in the service.

We did two other pieces that evening: Heroic Deeds, (here’s a link to Blog about this piece) and Tent, Tallit and Torah, both pieces that were created new for this season.  Tent, Tallit and Torah was inspired by seeing The Lion King.  I was fascinated by and absolutely loved how props had been so effectively woven by Julie Taymor into the piece.  I wanted to try something like that.  So each section involved the dancers working with material in a new way.  For music I selected a classical piece by J.S. Bach.  I have always loved his music and had always wanted to use his music.  I thoroughly enjoyed creating the piece with Jessica, Andrea, Keri and Danielle and was only sorry that it didn’t get more performances.  I don’t remember even restaging it with dancers the following season, although two of the sections, in particular, are among the favorite things I have choreographed.  I am thrilled to have some excellent pictures and am glad to share them here.

From l. to r. Kerri Anne Thoma, Jessica Sehested, and Danielle Smith
Photo by Tom Brazil
From l. to r.   Andrea Eisenstein and Danielle Smith.  Photo by Tom Brazil
Photo by Tom Brazil

That particular Friday night service was unusually hard for me.  On Wednesday night two beams of light were shonefrom where the World Trade Center had been.  Seeing them from my home in Jersey City was quite emotional and I found my eyes filling with tears quite often over the next several days. Usually I am happy to speak in Sabbath Services but that particular Friday night I found it very hard. 

We also participated the next morning in the family service in the alternative space and while I made it through the service OK I found myself quite emotional afterwards. Some of the prayers were becoming increasingly hard for me to hear following 9/11 and I found this was even true at a congregation that I felt was most aligned with how I saw myself practicing Reform Judaism.  It was clear I was moving in a new direction.  

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Holding Compassion in our Hearts

JoAnne Tucker / / dance liturgy, Dance Midrash, Dances on Biblical Women

It is with mixed feelings that I begin to write this blog because it is about a piece that I was so proud to have in Avodah’s repertory, and yet today I realize, as with many other pieces I choreographed between 1972 and 2000, a lot of my thinking has changed.  It is also a strange day outside with no sun and very heavy fog.  I am feeling weighed down. A bit of inspiration, much needed at the moment, came earlier today when I listened to a presentation by Christiana Figueres that is part of Awakened Action 2020 Resource Page at Upaya Zen Center. It’s entitled “Transforming Climate and Global Realities” and she shared the program with Jane Fonda. Among the things she spoke of were 6ththings we can learn from COVID 19 that are very relevant to all the problems we are facing today.  One of those is the success of feminine leadership.  The countries led by women, with New Zealand being a prime example, are much better off.  She contributes this to the fact that women are better listeners, are humble and are guided by collective wisdom.  This certainly resonates a lot with me and perhaps in some small way was hovering in my mind back in 1984 when I created a piece for Avodah based on the M’Chamocha prayer.  Reflecting back on the piece today, I can see some seeds there that I can relate to.

There are many places on the Internet to learn about the M’Chamocha prayer so I am not going to spend much time writing about that.  Instead I want to share that the reason I decided to create this piece (which could be danced both in Shabbat services and in concerts) was that the prophetess Miriam is associated with the prayer and related text, and Exodus 15:20 says Miriam “took a timbrel in her hand, and all the women went out after her in dance with timbrels.”  I was constantly looking to know more about biblical women at the time, and of course how appealing it was that the word “dance” is connected with Miriam here. But as many people have written, there are elements in the surrounding biblical text that are troubling.  Particularly that the Israelites are celebrating while the Egyptians are drowning in the sea.  Fortunately there is a midrash that says God told the angels to stop dancing and celebrating, as the Egyptians are “my children” too and they are drowning.  This midrash inspired the middle section of the piece, where the women show compassion to each other and for the Egyptians, and that is the section I can still relate to today.    

The piece was commissioned by Temple Emanuel in Cherry Hill, NJ with music composed by Cantor Deborah Bedor, then a cantor on Long Island.  It was especially meaningful to be working with a woman composer on this piece. Later she would compose another piece for us based on the wedding ceremony. 

What I remember most about this piece was how much I enjoyed the beautiful dancing of the three women. I loved the beautiful interpretation given by the many women who had roles in this trio through the years. For me the heart of the piece is compassion,  and through compassion an appropriate kind of appreciation of freedom can come, not a celebration when someone else is dying.  More than ever, leadership with compassion is the bottom line.  May each of us hold compassion in our hearts as we struggle through our various challenges.  

Please continue to scroll down and see some of my favorite pictures of the M’chamocha in rehearsal. One rehearsal outside by a lake and another while on tour in the San Francisco area.

Standing: Deborah Hanna
Sitting from l. to r. Beth Bardin and Kezia Gleckman Hayman
From l. to r. Kezia, Deborah and Beth

These two pictures were taken when we were “in-residence” for a summer program and had some free time. I thought the lake made a beautiful setting to run the piece. 

These two photos of Kezia were taken by Tom Scott in a rehearsal (onstage) of the piece.

Biblical quote that inspired the piece:

“Then Miriam the prophet, Aaron’s sister, took a timbrel in her hand, and all the women followed her, with timbrels and dancing” (Exodus 15:20).

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Three Emails Related to Central Synagogue

JoAnne Tucker / / dance liturgy

Over this High Holiday season I received three emails from three friends living in three different places (Boston, Santa Fe, Poughkeepsie) referring me, sometimes with a link, to what was happening at Central Synagogue in New York City. The first one was a link to a beautiful tribute by Rabbi Angela Buchdahl remembering Ruth Bader Ginsburg.  I loved watching it for several reasons.  First of all I remember Angela when she was Associate Rabbi and Cantor at Westchester Reform Temple in Scarsdale, having been ordained as a cantor in 1999 and as a rabbi in 2001. She led services for students in the religious school and I remember one of the last things I did at Westchester Reform Temple was participate with the Avodah Dance Ensemble in a service she was leading. Now she is the Senior Rabbi at Central Synagogue, one of only a few women serving as leaders of a major United States synagogue. Even though she has been the Senior Rabbi since 2014, this was the first time that I saw her in action, and I loved the meaningful and beautiful way she honored RBG. Here’s a link to watch it. 

Rabbi Angela Buchdahl leading a tribute to Ruth Bader Ginsberg on
Rosh Hashanah at Central Synagogue (screenshot).

The second email sent me links to where I could watch the High Holiday services. This was from a friend now living in Boston who had once been a member of Central and was so glad that she could stream the services.  If you are a regular reader of this blog you know from the recent blog on 9/11 that I have moved away from attending services and find my spiritual life in meditating and exploring Buddhism.  I did appreciate my friend sending me the links, and in doing research for this blog I learned that back in 2013 Central Synagogue was streaming their services with over 20,000 viewers from all around the world.  This holiday season 49K watched the Kol Nidre service on YouTube!

The third email was from Kezia, editor of this blog.  She, too, remembers Angela from Avodah experiences, and through Central’s taped services, Kezia has been appreciating Angela’s extraordinarily insightful, beautiful and moving leadership for some time.  She had just streamed the Yizkor service, which included dance! Well that got my attention and so I decided to check it out.  I was glad I did.  Twenty minutes of dance was woven into the opening “legacy” part of the afternoon service which retells, as described by Rabbi Ari Lorge, the “Jewish story from creation to redemption.”  Included in this twenty minutes was reference to the traditional Avodah service of ancient times when the High Priest entered the Holy of Holies to present an offering.  That service has particular meaning for me as that was the name I chose for the dance company I directed for years.

The twenty-five minutes with narrative and song from Central Synagogue’s clerical and musical staff was performed by Jonah Bokaer.  Rabbi Lorge mentioned in his introduction that Central was taking advantage of the open space that they had created for the virtual services.  And he noted that dance has been a part of Jewish tradition since King David danced before the Ark. Of course there are lots of other references that could have been used.  The mood was set and a clearly strong technical dancer weaved through the space, narrative and song. It was a very sincere performance and I particularly liked the moments when he moved boldly through space.  Unfortunately Jonah was dressed in black and we often lost a lot of the movement as he blended into the shadows and poor lighting in various areas.  

Jonah’s background is quite interesting as he combined being a member of the Merce Cunningham Company from 2000 to 2007 with a degree in Visual and Media Studies at the New School.  He has won numerous awards and grants and is a frequent choreographer for Robert Wilson.  I watched a few videos of Jonah on YouTube and was struck by how much more interesting the movement was than what I saw in the service at Central Synagogue. I hope he will continue to explore using his talent as part of services and will bring his strongest creative talent to that setting.  Here’s a link that is currently on line to watch three minutes of Jonah’s dancing at Central. 

Always fun to open emails and get some surprises, as I did in the past few days.

Jonah Bokaer in the Yizkor Service at Central Synagogue (screenshot).
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Sephardic Suite: A Controversial Piece

JoAnne Tucker / / dance liturgy, New York Company

It was always exciting when I received an invitation to choreograph something new for an event.  That’s what happened in 1985 when my home congregation, Temple Emanuel in Westfield, NJ, asked me to create something for a Sephardic Evening they were planning.  It would include a dinner and then a Friday evening Shabbat service.  We were also busy developing new repertory for a fall season in New York at Hebrew Union College, so I knew that not only would the new piece receive a performance in October at Temple Emanuel, but it would be part of the November concerts.  While the company at that time consisted of one man and four women I decided this piece would be just for the four women.  Little did I know, as I first started working on the piece, that it would prove to be controversial.

Whenever I do a new piece, the first step is to learn as much as I can about the subject. I decided to explore how a Sephardic liturgical service might be unique. I learned that the oldest Jewish Congregation in the United States was Congregation Shearith Israel. It was established in 1654 in New Amsterdam by Jews who arrived from Dutch Brazil.  It was often referred to as The Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue.  I visited the Synagogue on the West Side of New York and was reminded that the architecture and placement of the speaker’s table was different than the synagogues I was used to where the speaker’s podium was in the front, on the bema near the Ark and Torah scrolls.  In Sephardic tradition the raised platform (the bema) is freestanding and in the middle of the sanctuary with seating for the men on both sides almost like theater in the round. As Sephardic congregations are Orthodox (at least as far as I know), the women usually sit upstairs in a women’s gallery or if it is a small synagogue, in a dedicated zone on the same level.

In addition to visiting Congregation Shearith Israel I was able to read some of the minutes related to the synagogue and was surprised by one entry written early in the synagogue’s life.  It seems that several women when they heard the noon church bells ring during the Saturday morning service would cross themselves as if they were in church. Aware of the history of the Jewish community in Spain and later in Portugal during the Inquisition I realized that these were deeply held habits to protect themselves from the Inquisition.  For 300 years from around 1480 to the early 1800’s Jews who lived in Spain, Portugal or their American colonies had to practice their Judaism in secret.  If they were found out they could find themselves in prison, be tortured or even receive a death sentence.  Many Jews left Spain and Portugal. A lot of those who stayed became New Christians, often referred to as Marranos or Conversos.  They had to be very clever in how they maintained their Jewish tradition.

As I was researching history and synagogue architecture I was also listening to lots of Sephardic music. I came across a cassette of music I liked and decided on three pieces from the cassette for the new work.  One piece was perfect for choreography that would be based on ritual movement typically done in the service, including bending, bowing, rising slightly on one’s toes and taking steps forward and back.  The four dancers would be standing two on one side and two on the other as if there were a speaker’s podium between them. At times they would exchange places and move around in a square-like pattern.  The second section of the Suite used Torah gestures of holding the scroll, unrolling and lifting it high so all may see the writing inside, and carrying it through the sanctuary.  The piece is very upbeat, filled with leaps of celebration and movements like those that might be done on the holiday of Simchat Torah, when Jews will often dance holding the Torah scrolls.  (The holiday marks finishing the last portion and beginning the first portion of the year-long cycle of weekly Torah readings.)  The last section of the piece would be to remember Marranos or Conversos (Secret Jews) by juxtaposing the candle lighting gesture with the crossing gesture.  The crossing gesture would be done facing forward while the candle lighting gesture of circling the flames with one’s hands and covering the eyes would be done mainly facing backward.

For the first performance, the piece was done on the bema and I am not sure whether it was done in the sermon spot of the service or just before the service started, following dinner.  What I do remember clearly was how upset Rabbi Charles Kroloff was about the crossing gesture being done on the bema. Either later that evening or the next day he called me into his office and shared that he just wasn’t happy about it.  We had a long talk and he agreed that the piece was appropriate because it was part of the history of Jewish life, but he just felt it wasn’t appropriate for the bema.  It was a valuable discussion and I am grateful that he was so honest about his reaction for it helped me to know how to prepare audiences when we presented the piece mostly in concerts.  Sephardic Suite became a regular part of our repertory but it wasn’t until 1992, the 500th anniversary of the Spanish Inquisition, that more Sephardic pieces would be created and we would collaborate with a Sephardic scholar. 

From l to r: Jean Ference and Kathy Kellerman in the 2nd Section of 
Sephardic Suite celebrating the Torah.
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Touring in the United States – Part 1

JoAnne Tucker / / Avodah's Early History, dance liturgy, New York Company, Touring

I had planned to write this week about Avodah’s international tours, and workshops I led outside of the U.S.  But as I was thinking about that I became curious about how many U.S. states Avodah had performed in, and what I remember about touring in the U.S.  So for this blog and the next I am going to write about our domestic touring, in general terms, and include a few fun pictures, before turning my attention to international trips.

First of all, the Avodah Dance Ensemble visited 29 of the 50 United States, either performing or giving workshops — usually doing both. Some states we visited on just one tour and others with multiple tours. For me touring was one of the fun parts of directing the company and I kept in mind several things related to touring as I directed the company.  

I made sure we continued always as a small company that could fit into one car or at least a minivan.  I owned a minivan and we often rented one when we flew on tour.  I purposely kept it that way for two main reasons: economic in that we would only need to rent one vehicle when necessary, and my own personal minivan would work when possible; and personal/professional in that having only 5 to 7 personalities to work with (that included me) made sense to me.  I also made sure we were never gone more than about 10 to 12 days.  Even when we toured to the West Coast we left, for example, on a Thursday, had two weekends away and returned on a  Monday!  On our long tours to places like California and Florida we often had several full days off when we could sightsee and relax.

So what was it like.  When it was a one-day tour and I was using my own car we had a meeting place.  That place depended on where we were off to. If I had to drive through NYC (from New Jersey) then the meeting place was often in the West Village by the Washington Square Subway stop so that it was easy for the dancers to get to.  If I wasn’t going through the city and we were heading west or into South Jersey then we most often met close to where I lived, particularly when I lived in Jersey City.  I don’t remember any incidents where anyone was more than a little late. That is in sharp contrast to some times when we were taking an airplane.

Two particular times stand out when we boarded a plane and not all the dancers had arrived in a timely fashion at the airport.  For one flight to Sarasota, Florida one of the dancers simply wasn’t there when they started boarding the flight. So I left her ticket with an airline agent!  We boarded and clearly other passengers became aware that we were missing someone because when the dancer arrived at the last moment just before they were getting ready to close the doors, most of the plane applauded her. I don’t remember why she was late.

Then there was another trip when the percussionist (not our regular Newman who was always very prompt) did not make the plane at all.  Again I left his ticket and he did arrive on a later flight.  There was also a time when there was a blackout in NYC and there was an element of suspense about whether everyone would get to the airport on time, but if my memory serves me correctly we all did.  

Need I say these situations cause a certain level of anxiety, and I am so glad to report that over a nearly thirty-year period of touring those are the only incidents I have to share.  

Now, once on tour,  what is it like!  Well for short day trips we generally spent the day in the facility rehearsing, with one food trip out unless we had requested food be provided for us.  Grocery stories were a favorite for those day trips because we could each find something there to our liking to take back.  The rest of the day was spent adjusting the dance pieces to the performance space.  Often it was easy for spacing when we were performing in a theatre because the surface was flat and it was just determining which wings to go in and out.  The challenge there was often setting lighting.  Since Avodah didn’t have a stage manager, it was up to me to work with the lighting technician or crew in the theatre both determining what lighting was available and setting it for each piece.  My guideline was to keep it as simple as possible yet have it be effective for setting the moods of the pieces.  The most memorable lighting situation I ever had was in an outdoor festival in Long Island when it rained fairly hard and I was sitting under an umbrella in the rain in a lighting booth out in a field,  calling the cues for the performance.  Maybe we had one or two people in the audience and the dancers luckily were on a protected stage.  (Kezia says it was one man, there were puddles on stage, and the dancers were terrified I would be electrocuted.)

For both theater performances and when we integrated dance into the Friday night service I usually ran the sound.  

Picture taken at CAJE conference (Coalition for the Advancement of Jewish Education) where I am running the sound and the dancers are performing on a stage. 
 
Beth Millstein ironing a costume for a Friday night service while on tour. Avodah was an ensemble onstage and off; everyone ironed, mended, hauled and helped as needed.

A great deal of the time on a Friday afternoon we were preparing to integrate three pieces into the Friday night Shabbat service.  That meant spacing the three pieces on the bema (raised platform where the service is led). Now that could be a real challenge for several reasons: first of all, the bema usually was not just one level – often there were steps that led to different levels; second, its shape was not at all like the rehearsal studio we were used to; and third, it often took a lot of persuading to get most of the furniture off the bema so we would have maximum space for dancing.

Kezia (left) and Deborah Hanna on a break on tour.  We were rehearsing for a Friday night service and the preschool playground provided a perfect place for a break.

Each of these three reasons presented its own unique challenge and each had memorable moments for me.  First of all, levels.  I was always amazed at how the dancers could quickly adjust to so many different levels and manage literally to dance up and down the stairs.  One challenging bema was in South Orange, New Jersey and the dancers in the company in the early 80’s did a most amazing job with the many steps. While most of the company had gone back to the city after the Friday night service, Rick Jacobs (then in rabbinic school) and I stayed to lead a workshop with some teenagers.  We were no longer in the main sanctuary but rather in a smaller chapel.  As I was talking and demonstrating I managed to slip and fall down the maybe two steps.  The next thing I knew, Rick was falling down the steps, because he said as he fell, if the director falls then the dancer follows suit.  The kids laughed and I felt like a total idiot having watched the way the dancers negotiated the steps the night before!!

Irregular shapes were more common than not, and particularly challenging were long skinny bema’s where the dancers had to figure out how to negotiate in 6 feet what was designed to be done in 18 ft.  They did an amazing job.  Sometimes they made different adjustments in performance than were planned in rehearsal.  I never got upset because they consistently found clever ways to adjust to each other.  I was the only person aware and loved to see how they solved these last-minute, new, on-the-spot choreographic changes.

Ah… getting the rabbis to move the furniture for a Friday night service could be challenging. Sometimes, especially on return visits, it was easy but the first time could be difficult.  Unfortunately, I had lots of experience with that, starting with the very first performance of In Praise before there was even a formal dance company.  It took major negotiations to get most of the furniture moved and the Rabbi’s podium was never moved.  A few years later when a Rabbi announced that the podium was not moveable, Rick Jacobs (still in Rabbinic school)  and I simply showed the Rabbi how the podium could easily be moved over to the side and the wires adjusted so the mic worked from there.  The Rabbi wrote, in an evaluation to the Jewish Welfare Board that had arranged the booking, that the director, JoAnne Tucker, was quite professional but aggressive, in seeing that the company got what they needed.  I laughed when the evaluation was shared, knowing exactly what was being referred to.  The Rabbi and that congregation did become a regular booker of Avodah and we returned to participate in a Friday night service for nine years and never had a problem getting the furniture moved again.

Toward the end of the time I was touring, in around 2002, we had the most challenging Rabbi situation.  The Rabbi felt sure the best place for us to perform was in the back of the sanctuary, with the congregation looking over their shoulders to see us, because it was a level, large space.  Well that was totally ridiculous as it was clear no one would see any of the dancing.  I must have spent over an hour negotiating with him, and it was only when I quoted scripture to him and promised that we would not go up to the most sacred space where the Torahs were,  that he relented and I was able to stage the repertory on the other part of the bema so that the congregation could see us.  It amused me quite a bit that here it was thirty years after the earliest performance and I was still negotiating with Rabbis to be able to dance on the bema.  It’s no wonder that I began to feel it was easier to work in prisons!!

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Can you go home again?

JoAnne Tucker / / dance liturgy, Dance Midrash, Personal Life

That is the question coming to mind for me right now.  By “home,” I mean my spiritual home.  There have been times in my life when I have experienced transcendence, by which I mean losing my sense of self, and becoming one with the moment and people I am interacting with, so that the moment exceeds the ordinary.

This has happened to me when I have been dancing or improvising, mainly dancing as part of liturgy or in an improvisation based on a Torah portion.  And it hasn’t happened very often.  It has also occasionally happened with a simple improvisational exercise like mirroring when the person whom I am partnering and I become one.

When I was performing, it happened only after I really knew the choreography so well that I didn’t need to think about the movement or the space I was in.  I remember a performance one Sunday morning at Rodef Shalom in Pittsburgh where I had been coached by a good friend and fellow dancer, Lynne Wimmer.  We were to be part of the morning service, integrating our piece of In Praise into the liturgy.  I had a short solo, following the silent prayer, to the liturgy “May the Words of my Mouth.”  Lynne had coached me to fully use my hands in each movement phrase and as I reached out in a circle to the congregation.  This was an opportunity to take everyone in and reach to the back row. That morning my performance transcended how I usually did the piece, and at the same moment, the sun poured in through the stained glass windows.

As director of the company, I often saw when a dancer knew a particular solo or piece of choreography so well that they became one with the moment.  That was a joy to watch, and I felt my energy totally with them.

On one occasion, the transcendence happened when I was leading a Doctor of Ministry Class at Hebrew Union College and we were dancing a line of text from the Torah.  I don’t remember the line of text, and in a way it wasn’t important. It was the second class of a 12-week course, and I had decided to introduce the group to improvisational movement. None of the participants were dancers.  They were rabbis and ministers, open to experiencing something new but not totally sure about dance.  We began and continued for about 20 minutes without saying anything, sometimes moving alone, sometimes with one other person or with three or four people.  There was no music.  We were focused and intent on interpreting the line of text and interacting with each other.  At some point which seemed right, I said, “Let’s bring it to a close.” We did, and then quietly sat down.  No one spoke for a long time.  I didn’t want to break the silence.  We all knew we had become a total group together and that a spiritual experience had been had by all.  Slowly people began to express their feelings. I finally ended by saying that in the second class they had gone beyond my purpose in teaching the entire course.

As time progressed, as director of the dance company which was very much rooted in the Jewish tradition, I found that my original reasons for starting the company were fading.  My first reason had been that the prayers (particularly in the English translation) were difficult for me. I knew that they had been around for a long time and felt that maybe if I studied them and used dance to interpret them, I would find their meaning. In a way that did happen in the creative process when I and whomever I was collaborating with brought ourselves to the prayer. And some of the songs that had been written for the prayers stimulated and inspired movement.  Not understanding Hebrew was a plus. The original language seemed to fit the prayer, but for me, when the prayer was translated into English, that was where I had a problem and definitely still do.

The other main reason for starting the company had been to see if I could find the woman’s voice, particularly in the Torah. So for years I did what in the Jewish tradition is called creating “midrash.”

Midrash is an interpretive act, seeking the answers to religious questions (both practical and theological by plumbing the meaning of Torah……Midrash responds to contemporary problems and crafts new stories, making connections between new Jewish realities and the unchanging biblical text.  https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/midrash-101/

I explored text, using dance to create midrash, seeking the woman’s voice in that text.  While it was great fun exploring in this way, and eventually co-authoring a book called Torah in Motion: Creating Dance Midrash, I began to feel more and more disappointed and discouraged to realize how patriarchal the Torah and prayers were, and I wasn’t satisfied with just adding a female biblical name to a prayer or creating a midrash on Sarah.  I learned from a rabbi friend of mine that in the 1970’s when the women’s movement in religion began in earnest, some women explored midrash and others found they needed a whole new study.  I realized I was now at the point of needing a new story.

When 9/11 happened in NYC, I lived just across the river, and the towers were part of my neighborhood. I was deeply affected by the event.  A few weeks later a friend took me to hear Thich Nhat Hanh at Riverside Church.  I was fascinated.  Here was a different way to look at your enemies.  During the fall, Sharon Saltzman, Joseph Goldstein and Sylvia Boorstein all offered workshops in NYC.  I liked what I was hearing and began a meditation practice.  I also liked the emphasis of sending wishes of kindness to all people – whether your family, or the person you have the most difficulty with– or as Thich Nhat Hahn would say, “giving your enemy a gift.”  It became increasingly hard for me to say the prayer for peace in Israel as there was no extension to wish for peace for all (non-terrorist) people.  I continue to be troubled by this.  Yes, I very much want peace in Israel and will pray for it; however I also will pray for peace for the Palestinians.  Real peace will only happen when both have peace and neither one has been conquered.

For nearly twenty years I have thought of myself as a BuJew (Buddhist/Jew).  I went regularly to dharma talks and often weekend retreats at Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe.  I continued my meditation practice. During COVID I even increased my meditative practice, thrilled with all that was available online, especially at Upaya.  I was fascinated with The Hidden Lamp, “a collection of one hundred koans and stories of Buddhist women from the time of Buddha to the present day.”

This revolutionary book brings together many teaching stories that were hidden for centuries, unknown until this volume. These stories are extraordinary expressions of freedom and fearlessness, relevant for men and women of any time or place. In these pages we meet nuns, laywomen practicing with their families, famous teachers honored by emperors, and old women selling tea on the side of the road.

Each story is accompanied by a reflection by a contemporary woman teacher—personal responses that help bring the old stories alive for readers today—and concluded by a final meditation for the reader, a question from the editors meant to spark further rumination and inquiry.  https://wisdomexperience.org/product/hidden-lamp/

I even began attending special workshops led by Sensei Zenshin Florence Caplow, happening nine or ten times a year, that looked at a different story each time and then encouraged us to write, based on key words that stood out to us.  I did that for two years, and then one time while doing it I had an aha moment:  in a way, I was doing midrash on another patriarchal religion.

I felt sad and a bit lost again.  This was not my story either.  I continued my meditation practice but I found myself less motivated to attend dharma talks.  I still held onto much of the philosophy of loving kindness, mindfulness, and offering prayer to all people.

Then this High Holiday season, I streamed services from Central Synagogue in NYC.  I had streamed them before and liked them.  This year was different.  I had lost over 30 lbs.  and could move/dance again and so I found myself inspired by quite a few of the traditional melodies like Hashivenu and V’al Kulam.  These were prayers I had previously choreographed, and since I was at home alone, I got up and danced.  A feeling I hadn’t experienced for years returned.  A spiritual high.  Central’s service is filled with the most amazing music.  Led by Angela Buchdahl, who is ordained as both a rabbi and a cantor, the services incorporate an outstanding selection of music, and even if I still have problems with the prayers in English, the music takes me to a spiritual place I haven’t been for a long time.  The sermons by all Central’s rabbis are thoughtful, and the congregation is involved in social action – even a prison project.

During COVID, Central Synagogue streamed and was excellent at building a large online following.  They then formalized the online streaming with a program they call The Neighborhood (I thought of Mr. Rogers and his neighborhood when I first heard its name), where people can join and participate in additional programs via Zoom.  I surprised myself and joined right after the Yom Kippur service.  So, the question I opened with… can one go home again?  I think so, with a new awareness.  My thoughts are I am the person who brings mindfulness and meditation from a twenty-plus-year regular practice, to find transcendence in dance by becoming the prayer or text rooted in my Jewish tradition.

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