Dances on Biblical Women

Exploring Biblical Sarah

JoAnne Tucker / December 21, 2018December 21, 2018 / Dances on Biblical Women, New York Company, Tallahassee

The third piece that Irving Fleet and I collaborated on was called Sarah. I mentioned it in the blog about the beginning of the New York company and want to go into more detail about the piece in this blog. Irving is quoted in an article in the Tallahassee Democrat as saying, “JoAnne was always intrigued with the character of Sarah” (March 2, 1979). And I hunch that was probably what motivated us to begin exploring her story. We honed in on that part of her life centered on first being unable to bear a child for her husband, then offering her handmaiden, Hagar, to bear a child for her and finally, when she becomes pregnant, Abraham celebrating the news. For me this was the beginning of my own journey creating “dance midrash.” Midrash refers to both the early interpretations and commentaries on Torah as well as modern ones. At the time I didn’t know this word. Later I would create a number of dance pieces that I considered midrash, co-author a book on dance midrash (Torah in Motion: Creating Dance Midrash, with Rabbi Susan Freeman), and teach many workshops involving dance midrash.

While telling the story was somewhat important, it was exploring Sarah’s emotions that we focused on the most: Sarah’s anguish at not becoming pregnant; her jealousy and anger at Hagar when Hagar does bear a child for Abraham, which results in Sarah banishing Hagar; and then her joy when she becomes pregnant in her old age.

Ritual movement again played an important choreographic role in the piece. When Abraham renews his covenant with God following news of Sarah’s pregnancy, Sarah, in our midrash, takes off the rope from her gown and gives it to Abraham. He then uses it for tefillin (ritual leather boxes with straps, which contain Torah text). Tefillin are traditionally only worn by men during the weekday morning service. They wrap one set around the arm, hand and fingers, and wrap the other set above the forehead. As Abraham is often referred to as the father of the morning prayer this ritual seemed an appropriate one to draw on. In the same article in the Tallahassee Democrat that I referred to earlier I am quoted as saying, “Dance composition should go back to everyday gestures, take them, enlarge and manipulate them.” And that is exactly what I did with the ritual of wrapping tefillin. I thought it worked very well. However, not everyone agreed with me. In fact, we had received some funding that year from the National Foundation for Jewish Culture and when the piece was later performed in New York City, the Executive Director from the NFJC made a very strong point of letting me know that I clearly didn’t understand what wrapping tefillin was, as it was entirely inappropriate for Sarah to hand Abraham the rope from her gown to use. Indeed I did very much understand and part of my feminist statement was purposefully to have Sarah hand it to him.

On Saturday March 3, 1979, the first performance of Sarah was held as part of a concert at Temple Israel in Tallahassee along with Sabbath Woman, In Praise and I Never Saw Another Butterfly. The piece was created on the Tallahassee company with Ellen Ashdown as Sarah, Michael Bush as Abraham, Judith Lyons as Hagar and two handmaidens, Donna Campbell and Trish Whidden.

From my scrapbook. Photograph that was part of the *Tallahassee Democrat* article,
March 2, 1979.

Six weeks later I recreated the piece for the New York company with Lynn Elliott dancing the role of Sarah in a performance at Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion’s West 68^thStreet Campus.

In the fall of 1979, we did a three-week season at Henry St. Settlement House on the Lower East Side of New York City as part of the American Jewish Theater. This was an excellent experience for us and I will write a full blog about it. For right now I want to share part of a review from Dance Magazine (by Marilyn Hunt) of the performance of Sarah at Henry St.

Sarah, a Grahamesque drama of a woman of large-scale passions is portrayed concisely and lucidly. Sarah vents her despair at being childless by lashing one leg around, pacing, and whipping her hair in a circle. In contrast, her handmaiden, young Hagar, whom Sarah gives to her husband, Abraham, to bear him a child, carries her imaginary water jar with chest thrust proudly forward and has a formal ritual-like mating with Abraham. Only the ending, God’s promise that Isaac, Abraham and Sarah’s belatedly-born son, would father the tribes of Israel, failed to come across in dance terms. The two women’s roles were especially well filled by Lynn Elliott and Peggy Evans. Dance Magazine, February 1980.

A year later when Rick Jacobs, who was then a rabbinic student at HUC-JIR, joined the company and learned the part of Abraham, the ending blessing took on a whole new dimension, as the prayer and actual movement were already deeply meaningful to him, and he performed the section in a uniquely heartfelt way.

Rick Jacobs as Abraham, 1981. *Photo by Amanda Kreglow*

Rick Jacobs and Lynn Elliott in *Sarah. Photo by Amanda Kreglow.*

Sarah continued to be beautifully performed regularly by the New York company during the next several years with Rick dancing the part of Abraham, and Lynn Elliott dancing the part of Sarah. For me Sarah was the first of a series of pieces focusing on Biblical women. And I would revisit Sarah, more than once.

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Sisters: A Dance Piece on Rachel and Leah

JoAnne Tucker / March 1, 2019March 1, 2019 / Dance Midrash, Dances on Biblical Women

Thirty-one years ago. That is when this piece received its first performance,in a concertsponsored by the Corpus Christi Jewish Community Council in Texas. Sisters was a collaboration between Cantor Meredith Stone and myself. Meredith’s brother Rabbi Warren Stone was a rabbi at a Reform congregation in Texas and he arranged the performance in Corpus Christi. Before I write about the specifics of the piece I want to say how grateful I am that I kept scrapbooks on Avodah. Not only do I have ten scrapbooks of Avodah history but also videotapes from many performances, and some of them include my narration which gives me an idea of what was important to me at the time. For a few pieces I even have a file with notes and musical scores. For Sisters,a piece about the Biblical sister wives, Rachel and Leah, I have a file, a video of the piece in November 1988 with my narration and another video in 1995 with some different performers and again my introduction to the piece. I could not write these blogs without having these materials to refresh my memory.

Of the many pieces I choreographed over the 34 years I was artistic director of Avodah, this one was unusually meaningful to me. In watching it again I am also particularly fond of the choreography. One of the main reasons I began Avodah and continued particularly in the later 70’s and on was to find the woman’s voice in the Torah, particularly the five books. The importance of these five books (Genesis, Exodus, etc.) resonated strongly with me as a portion is read each Shabbat and by the end of the Jewish year the five books have been completely read. The patriarchal tone is so strong that I found myself consistently looking for the female voices.

I was not alone. The 1980’s was a time when there was a lot of feminist writing, art, dance and theatre happening in religious spheres. The first female rabbi, Rabbi Sally Priesand,had been ordained in 1972 by Hebrew Union College. Earlier in 1935 Regina Jones had received semicha (ordination) by a liberal rabbi in Berlin. She had found work as a chaplain. Remaining in Germany she died in Auschwitz in October of 1944 at the age of 42. By the 1980’s Rabbi Sally Priesand had her own congregation in Tinton Falls, NJ having first been an Assistant and Associate Rabbi at Stephen Wise Synagogue in Manhattan, which she left when she realized she would never become their Senior Rabbi. After a few years she became the Rabbi for Monmouth Reform Temple and was there until she retired in 2006. I always felt a strong emotion on the several occasions when we performed at Monmouth Reform Temple, aware of the strong pioneering efforts it took her to be the first!

In writing about Sisters, I want to set the scene for the kind of energy that was going on among many women in religious communities at this time. New feminist prayers were being written. The first women-only Passover Seder was held in 1976 co-hosted by Esther M. Broner and Phyllis Chesler and attended by 13 women including Gloria Steinem and Letty Cottin Pogrebin. By 1988 Feminist Passover Seders were gaining popularity and it was in 1988 that Debbie Friedman wrote Miriam’s Songand introduced it at a NYC Seder where the women grabbed tambourines and filled the room with dance.

Rosh Chodesh groups had begun to form in the 1970’s. While reference to the woman’s role in Rosh Chodesh (the holiday celebrating each new moon) goes all the way back to Talmudic times, women centered groups were gaining popularity throughout the United States in the 1980’s

As I began to focus on creating Sisters on the story of Rachel and Leah I was aware of this new energy and wanted to capture it in this new piece. I found the perfect collaborator in Cantor Meredith Stone. We played with ideas for the piece for well over a year.

Susan Freeman, a rabbinic student at HUC-JIR, had also recently joined the company which meant she would also be able to recite prayers in Hebrew as accompaniment or counterpoint to Meredith’s chanting and singing.

As I watched both videos of the piece I was struck at how well developed the choreography was in each section. Meredith and I had clearly defined each section. The choreography for each part had a distinctiveness and unique phrases that were developed. At the same time I felt the piece held together as a whole.

The piece opens by setting the retelling of the story of the sister wives as if it is happening in the midst of a Rosh Chodesh ceremony. The movements for this section are very circular and inspired by the shape of the new moon. Meredith is humming a vocalization by composer Ron Nelson while Susan is chanting the Rosh Chodesh prayer from the Reform Gates of Prayerbook while she circles the three dancers in the center who are doing very circular and lyrical movement.

As the music builds and the moon-like movement begins to fade, Susan and the dancer from the center who won’t be portraying one of the sisters begin wrapping the other two dancers with an imaginary thread.

From the beginning of *Sisters.*Beth Bardin standing and Susan Freeman on the ground. Photo by Stanley Seligson.

In the 1995 video I shared with the audience that this section was inspired by the idea that red threads are given out at Rachel’s Tomb located at the northern entrance to Bethlehem. Several years earlier I had been to the Tomb and gotten my red thread which I tied on my wrist and wore for quite a while.

Custom says that getting a red thread at Rachel’s Tomb goes back about 150 years. Usually the small length of thread which is just enough to tie around one’s wrist comes from a much longer red thread that had been wound around the Tomb several times. It is thought that the thread can protect a person.

While the wrapping has been going on Meredith has been singing Roitman’s Rachel Weeps for Her Children, a very strong and moving piece. Susan also starts reciting a poem:

And the children struggled together
Two nations
One stronger than the other
The elder… the younger
Brothers sisters

Meredith joins her saying the word “sisters.”

The scene is now set for totally focusing on Rachel and Leah. They perform a lyrical, gentle duet with a lively and playful middle section accompanied by a piece of Bartok which Meredith played on a recorder. Chanting continues telling the story of Leah and Rachel.

From l to r: Kezia Gleckman Hayman as Rachel, Deborah Hanna as Leah accompanied by Cantor Meredith Stone on the recorder. Photo by Stanley Seligson.

There is a traditional midrash that says Rachel and Jacob had a secret sign, and that Rachel shared that sign with Leah so that Jacob could be deceived by having the older sister Leah under the wedding veil instead of his beloved Rachel. The secret sign was for Rachel to touch her toe, thumb and ear. This provided wonderful inspiration for movement with Rachel demonstrating the three gestures to Leah and then Leah following through with them in a short solo showing some of her anxiety.

Strong diagonal crosses have always been a favorite of mine and are used in the piece as Susan recites, to Meredith’s drumming, the names of “the children they bore.” Coming from opposite corners the two dancers come into the center and then circle around each other. This is repeated several times until they are in the center and Benjamin’s name is repeated over and over as Kezia portraying Rachel is falling to the ground, using a traditional Graham contraction and ending in stillness to capture the idea that Rachel died during the childbirth of Benjamin.

I remember having a hard time finding an ending to the piece. I asked Deborah playing Leah to reach out and touch Rachel’s hair. Kezia instinctively slowly sat up. As if brought back to life, Rachel then rises and the other two dancers join the group with the Bartok melody coming back as well as some movement from the earlier duet as the following poem by the Israeli poet Rachel is recited:

Her blood is flowing in my veins
And in my song is heard another
The shepherdess of Laban’s sheep,
Rachel our mother

The very first time I saw a full dance run-through of the piece with the ending, I knew that it worked and I also felt an overwhelming emotion. In fact I excused myself from the room and spent several minutes alone in the hallway. I realized how personal the piece was to me. My youngest sister Suzanne at age 26 had committed suicide and the gesture of Leah bringing Rachel back to life was what I wished I could have done. While that had happened about ten years before, the pain of losing her was still present.

Kezia and Deborah played a strong role in creating the parts of Rachel and Leah and their performances were filled with intensity along with beautiful dancing. Susan brought her rabbinic studies into the dance studio chanting prayers, poetry and the names of the children along with her dancing. When Susan left the company, Beth Millstein brought excellent Hebrew chanting skills to the company and was able to easily take on Susan’s role. Elizabeth took over Deborah’s role as Leah when Deborah moved on. The part of Rachel was only danced by Kezia, always with such beauty and tenderness.

Hebrew Union College liked to coordinate programs and exhibits in the Joseph Gallery on the first floor. While the first performances of Sistersoccurred in the spring of 1988 in Corpus Christi and then in Dallas, the first performance in New York City was at HUC in November as part of a series of programs related to an exhibit of the sculptor Chaim Gross. In the photo below, we were honored to welcome one of the sculptures into the dance company temporarily.

From l to r: Cantor Meredith Stone, Deborah Hanna, Beth Bardin and Kezia Gleckman Hayman dancing with a Chaim Gross sculpture. Photo by Stanley Seligson.

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Cantor Meredith Stone on being a part of Sisters

JoAnne Tucker / March 15, 2019March 15, 2019 / Dance Midrash, Dances on Biblical Women

Meredith Stone has served as Cantor of Congregation Emanu-El of Westchester in Rye, New York for more than 30 years. Among her contributions to the congregation are many creative initiatives in worship, a vibrant women’s study group, and years of innovative musical programming. She is an accomplished soprano with a broad range of professional credits. She graduated from Brown University, holds 2 Master’s degrees in music, and received an honorary doctorate from Hebrew Union College. She and her husband live in New York City and have 2 wonderful daughters now in college. She loves immersing herself in creative endeavors, especially making art, and hopes to one day get beyond Wednesday in the New York Times crossword puzzle.

JoAnne: In writing the blog on Sisters I found I had some questions and I reached out to Meredith to ask if she had any information to share. What follows are my questions, her answers and her reflections on being a part of the collaboration of Sisters.

JoAnne: We used quite a few poems in the piece. Do you know where we found them?

Meredith: Sadly, all I recall about the poems is that you and I went on a big scavenger hunt looking for anything related to Rachel and Leah. Which was more challenging but perhaps more rewarding than today when you can find so much online without any effort at all.

JoAnne: Opening vocalise is by Ron Nelson. What do we know about him?

Meredith: Ron was a composer and beloved teacher of music theory at Brown University where he taught for many years. As a music major, I took several classes with him. (He made music theory feel relevant: I remember one day he played us a Stevie Wonder recording then went to the piano and analyzed all the chords for us.) A terrific guy. Looks like he’s now 89 and living out west.

JoAnne: There is a piece we used called Rachel m’vakoh al Boneho. Any information about this one?

Meredith: Yes, this is a classic piece of Chazzanut “Rachel weeps for her children” by David Roitman.

Meredith continues sharing her thoughts about participating in Sisters:

As a young child my dreams of becoming a ballerina were shattered when I realized I’d never get to appear in The Nutcracker (which I saw every year) at the Boston Ballet since I didn’t study in their prep program. But the real reason is that châiné turns made me dizzy and I couldn’t stand getting sweaty. Singing required far less exertion!

I had always loved dance and was excited when JoAnne approached me with the opportunity to collaborate with Avodah. I was intrigued by the idea of exploring together the complex relationship between siblings, especially sisters, and enjoyed tracking down music and poetry that could enrich the piece. I couldn’t have been more honored to appear onstage as a “dancer” Ha! JoAnne was great about integrating me into the group and making me look like I was one of them, sort of!

I loved combining different aspects of artistic expression with dance – singing, Hebrew chant, instrumental music, spoken word.

I also enjoyed seeing the creative process unfold. I had had no idea that dancers helped choreograph pieces, experimenting with different ways of moving, actively participating in the development of the work. I was more accustomed to the world of opera in which you were expected to interpret a musical score and follow the stage director. The dancers were so integral to the process, motivated, intelligent and fun! We had such a good time when we travelled. I recall we even participated at an American Conference of Cantors convention in Florida when we were asked to create a worship service in movement and dance.

Rehearsing in Chinatown had some nice side benefits – really cheap noodles at Bo Ky on the corner of Mulberry and Bayard, and great buys on exotic vegetables and cool knock-offs along Canal Street.

Looking back, the unique opportunity of working with JoAnne and Avodah gave me so much- igniting my creativity, which I’ve cultivated ever since and which has sustained me through my last 30 years in the cantorate.

Thank you, Avodah. Thank you, JoAnne!

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More on Sisters: A Peek into the Rehearsal Studio and Some Dancers’ Reflections

JoAnne Tucker / March 29, 2019April 1, 2019 / Dance Midrash, Dances on Biblical Women

In the Summer 1992 issue of Outlook (the Women’s League for Conservative Judaism’s magazine), Kezia and I wrote an article entitled “Midrash in Motion” which shared more about our process of creating Sisters, including some of the dancers’ thoughts and conversations in the rehearsal studio.

            “Maybe Leah’s eyes were weak from crying,” Deborah suggests.
            “Maybe,” muses Kezia. I don’t think she really had weak eyes. Other people just called them weak because she was thoughtful and withdrawn, especially compared to Rachel, and sensitive in a way people would not see.”
            “Deborah, your interpretation matches a traditional midrash,” interjects JoAnne. “However, I want to focus on Rachel and Leah’s reactions when they were described as the beautiful Rachel and the weak-eyed Leah.”
            This snatch of conversations did not take place in an ordinary midrash class. Deborah Hanna and Kezia Gleckman Hayman, professional modern dancers of the Avodah Dance Ensemble, are rehearsing….
            Focusing on the initial question, two dancers improvised as [Cantor] Stone repeatedly chanted, “Rachel was beautiful, Leah had weak eyes.”  Coached by Tucker, Stone moved closer and closer to each dancer, first shouting the text in their ears, and then whispering.  The dancers reacted, their movements altered by the forceful suggestions of the intruder.  It was immediately clear that such chanting would be powerful.

Since the article was written and published several years after the piece was created, it ended with some reflections by Deborah and Kezia about performing the piece.

In mentioning the company’s community of performers, we must mention that when Sisters (and other works) toured over the years, if the original cantor could not travel with the company, exceptional local cantors occasionally agreed to take on the role in the piece – not an easy task, since it meant learning the role mainly by studying a video and then having usually only one quick rehearsal both to coordinate with the dancers and to master the staging. And staging was complicated – for everyone – because it required customizing the choreography to fit most safely and dramatically into each unique performance space, which often included features such as stairs. We are grateful to all the local cantors who performed so artistically and soulfully with us over the years, for Sisters and other company repertoire.

The form of the piece has remained substantially the same. Kezia and Deborah are still stepping into the sisters’ lives. And yet, they still ponder the meaning of Leah’s weak eyes – in discussions and in dance. In each performance, Leah discovers a new element of her feelings toward Rachel. In each performance, Rachel feels a bit differently when she chooses to reveal the secret sign, thereby surrendering her bridal veil. Each time, the cantor’svoice reveals new shades of emotion. Each time, the company’s community [of performers] creates a bond distinct from the previous performance. Each time, new midrash is created.

In 2004 when I was getting ready to leave the New York area I invited dancers and company collaborators to a Sunday afternoon gathering. I asked both those that attended and those that couldn’t make it to write an Avodah Memory. Rabbi Susan Freeman shared this one:

Besides all the laughing and intense improvising…. I often think of the awe-inspiring moments of holding a pose in “Sisters” at a synagogue in suburban Detroit – with the sanctuary in the style of an enormous tent. Any gaze extended into the “folds” of this amazing architecture. I felt so alive – spiritually, intellectually, emotionally, socially, aesthetically. It was one of those unique experiences of being wholly present – when the immediate moment becomes aligned with the eternal moment.

The performance Susan is describing took place at Temple Beth El in Bloomfield Hills, outside of Detroit. The cantor’s role there was beautifully performed by Cantor Gail Hirschenfang. With a satisfying sense of life’s circles, Kezia is delighted to note that Cantor Hirschenfang is now the cantor of the temple to which Kezia belongs in Poughkeepsie.

The photograph of the building’s outside is by Rob Yallop from the website MichiganModern.org. A photo of the soaring inside of the temple, with the “folds” described by Susan, can be found at the following link.

Here is a link to see a video of the first performance of Sisters.

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Holding Compassion in our Hearts

JoAnne Tucker / July 10, 2020 / 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 6^ththings 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.

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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Avodah Dance Ensemble’s First International Tour

JoAnne Tucker / February 1, 2021February 18, 2021 / Dances on Biblical Women, Touring, Uncategorized

While not a very long flight or very far, our first international tour was to Toronto, Canada in October of 1995. I didn’t remember much about it until I mentioned to Kezia that I was planning to do a blog about the tour. She happened to be sorting through lots of old files and found a program from the performance, which she scanned and sent to me. (She also found a photo related to another recent blog, which we’ve included at the end here.) We then emailed about a fun shopping trip we had one afternoon during a break and she said she still had the beautiful barrette she had bought (yes, photo at end of blog). Having the program brought back all kinds of memories for me both about the repertory we did, the cantor we performed with, the company members on the tour and the unique congregation where we performed.

While I am most grateful for Kezia’s editing skills, what makes working on this blog all the better is the fact that she has been a part of so many of the things I am writing about. She was a member of the company for 13 years, and then an Avodah board member, and we have a 34-year friendship. She also saves things. After many years and a series of moves, I no longer have programs and now have only scanned material from scrapbooks and personal files. It is wonderful to read an email or hear in a Zoom or phone call that she has a program or a photo of something I am planning to write about. So a deep bow of gratitude to Kezia for her friendship, her memory and her wonderful editing skills.

Now let me share about this first international tour. First of all since it was prior to 9/11 and before passports were needed for travel to Canada, all we needed was appropriate ID such as a driver’s license. Traveling and going through Customs were very easy for us. The four dancers (Kezia, Beth Millstein Wish, Elizabeth McPherson and Carla Armstrong) worked well together and it was a fun and easy group to travel with. Our booking was at Holy Blossom Temple as part of the 1995-96 “Our Musical Heritage” Series. The booking had been arranged by Cantor Benjamin Maissner and he would be joining us in accompanying two of the pieces.

Holy Blossom Temple is the oldest synagogue in Toronto, dating back to 1856. It is also a very large congregation with 6,500 members. It is affiliated with the Union of Reform Judaism, which serves congregations in Canada and the United States. I don’t remember exactly how we got the booking except that Cantor Maissner might have been at a Cantorial Conference we performed at or heard about us from one of his colleagues. For us it was exciting to be collaborating with the Cantor in the opening piece Hallelu (music composed by Cantor Benji Ellen Schiller) and also in Binding which is a retelling of the Akedah – the biblical story where Abraham is asked to sacrifice his son Isaac. Our usual pattern was to send the music to the cantor several weeks beforehand and then spend an hour or so rehearsing — coordinating cues and tempos. Usually it went very well, as it did with Cantor Maissner. Then we would focus on staging the other four pieces, as concerts generally consisted of six pieces.

Other works in the program included: Shema, a Holocaust piece set to poems by Primo Levi; Kaddish, set to the first 8 minutes of Leonard Bernstein’s Kaddish Symphony; Noshing, a comic piece about eating and gossiping; and Braided Journey, choreographed by Lynne Wimmer and based on the Ruth and Naomi story. Since I have written in previous blogs about all the other repertory except Hallelu and Braided Journey, let me share with you a little about these two pieces.

Hallelu was inspired by Cantor Benjie Ellen Schiller’s beautiful setting of Psalm 150 (“Praise God . . . with the timbrel and dance.”) Our dance piece opens with a dancer circling the space and then calling out “Tekiah” — the first call for the blowing of the Shofar (ram’s horn) on the Jewish high holidays. Other dancers join her, calling out more Shofar calls accompanied by movement, leading into the opening section of the music. A rhythmic section follows in which the floor becomes a virtual drum for patterns beat by the dancers’ feet, leading into the final section of joyful movement to Schiller’s inspiring music. Cantor Schiller is Professor of Cantorial Art at Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion, and I knew her from our time as dance company in residence at the college. It was a delight to be able to choreograph a company piece to her work. In addition to her role at HUC-JIR she is Cantor at Congregation Bet Am Shalom in Westchester where her husband Rabbi Lester Bronstein is the Rabbi.

From *Hallelu*
l to r: Beth, Elizabeth and Kezia

Braided Journey, choreographed by Lynne Wimmer, tells the story of Naomi and Ruth and is divided into three sections. Section I is titled “Return unto thy people” (Naomi to Ruth). Section II is “Entreat me not to leave thee” (Ruth to Naomi), and Section III is “Thy People will be my people.” The piece is set to music by The Bulgarian Women’s Choir. Lynne and I have known each other for years and it is always an honor when I can collaborate with her. Lynne has a long dance history, including joining Utah Repertory Company full-time immediately after graduating from Juilliard. She has had her own company and been a professor of dance at University of South Florida. The tour to Toronto was shortly after Braided Journey joined Avodah’s repertory, and in this program it was performed by Elizabeth and Carla.

While this was not my first trip to Canada, as Murray and I had gone to the Canadian Rockies, it was my first trip to Toronto, as I believe it was for the four dancers. We were glad to have a leisurely afternoon to wander through one of the neighborhoods which reminded me of the East Village in NYC. Kezia and I hung out together and had great fun going in and out of shops, including one that kind of reminded me of a vampire type funky store and actually had some unique velvet hairpieces, which we both bought. Amazingly Kezia still has hers!!

Kezia’s barrette that she bought on tour in Toronto in 1995 and still wears!

In the Blog published on January 4, 2021, “Touring in the United States, Part I” I wrote about the challenging adjustments the dancers had to make in each unique performance space, particularly on temple bemas. Kezia kept this picture of Congregation B’nai Jeshurun (Short Hills, NJ). She had also made a note that when performing the piece Gimmel there (choreography with a lot of wave-like movement, including rolling on the ground), the dancers rolled down the stairs!

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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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