JoAnne Tucker shares her experiences in dance from directly a modern dance company to leading movement activities for women in prison and domestic violence survivors.
One morning I got a text from a dancer who had performed for two seasons with The Avodah Dance Ensemble, saying that she was planning a trip to Costa Rica. If you are a regular reader of this Mostly Dance you know that I was the founder, and Artistic Director and choreographer of Avodah for over 30 years. I was delighted to hear from Kerrie and told her I would love to see her.
It worked best in both of our schedules for her to plan on visiting at the end of her trip. Kerrie arrived late Thursday afternoon, stayed overnight and then later the next morning caught her flight back to the United States. It gave us plenty of time to catch up on the events in each other’s lives.
Kerrie was in Avodah at the time of a major transition for the company. For the first time, we had received sufficient grant money to hire dancers full time for a sixteen-week season. We also had a major new work, The Forgiveness Project, that was going to take us to weeklong residencies in four different places, including our first visit to a women’s prison. (See blog.) I found this prison experience to be life changing, as did Kerrie, who continued with Avodah for the next season. Here are some pictures of her performing with the company.
Kerrie in Balancing Act. Photo by Tom Brazil
Kerrie in Balancing Act with Sidra Bell. Photo by Tom Brazil.
I loved learning about what Kerrie is doing today and was in awe of her good business sense in running a performing arts school, Forevermore Dance & Theatre Arts, located in the outskirts of Chicago. The school includes three studios for dance classes, two music studios and an area that can be used as a black box for performances. Her management skills are impressive, as well as the way she was able to keep her business open during COVID. A particular highlight for me was when I shared that I couldn’t figure out how to build a real dance studio here on the property, and she came up with a wonderful idea. There are two open spaces – one outdoor and one indoor – that are plenty big enough for a small class or group to work. Neither is ideal,but they could work. One is where cars park, right by the entrance to the house, and the other is the atrium of the house, where there are plants and easy-to-move furniture. Next problem… tile-on-cement floors. I showed Kerrie some 2 ft.-by-2 ft. pads that I had found at the store and was using for yoga. They are designed to be put together, and we tested 4 made into a large square and saw that it could work if I purchased enough. Granted … not a real dance studio but still a place for movement activities that would be safe. I am very grateful for her suggestion.
Not only did we have fun catching up, but we both gave each other ideas for the future. The visit was meaningful and reminded me, especially at this time with so much world stress, that we definitely need to reach out to people who played important roles in our lives even if we haven’t seen them for a very long time. It was over twenty years ago that Kerrie danced with Avodah. When we work as a team in the arts, a bond develops that provides a rich connection. It stays strong over time and provides purposeful further interactions many years later.
Kerrie and I on her visit to Costa Rica, November 2024 Photo by Manrique
Sometimes we get surprised and we realize that an experience has profoundly changed us when we least expected it. That is what happened to me following the residency at York. It wasn’t just one thing but a series of changes that I felt inside myself. A shift.
First of all, things were no longer black and white/good or bad — rather, many shades of gray. Someone could have done something bad at one time in their life and yet have many good qualities. And how many of us have done things and gotten away with them while someone else didn’t? That was my first take away – an opportunity to see people differently and to know that we all have a tremendous range of capabilities within us.
Second, I had truly loved the teaching experience. The women were very open to learning and enthusiastic in their participation. They were willing to try new things in a much more open way then I had experienced when leading workshops at synagogues, community centers and schools. And they were so appreciative. They listened and responded in a very attentive way especially by the third day. It was clear we had connected with them. They were creative.
Third… there seemed to be some characteristics that artists and inmates have in common. Both like to think outside the box, so the level of creative responses is excellent. Both like to get high. The majority of the women had gotten high either via alcohol or with drugs. Now they were discovering the high that they could get from performing and were very enthusiastic about it. Artists and inmates are risk takers. I think sharing these kinds of traits enables a deeper connection to be made than happens in teaching in a typical urban or suburban adult class.
For the first time in a long time I felt like I was teaching with the flow rather than against the current. So often in teaching situations over a number of the previous years I had felt like it was a struggle to get the point across. Here was a situation where the participants were like sponges, eager to learn and to take in every word. Indeed a very satisfying teaching experience.
I wondered if this had been just a unique week or if it would be true if we returned to York again or went to another women’s facility. The next season we found ourselves both back at York and in residence for a week-long program at Dolores J. Baylor Women’s Correctional Institution in New Castle, Delaware. Again the connection to the women was strong and our teaching resonated with them. I found myself wanting to do more of these type of residencies and less of the type of bookings we had done before.
The work in women’s prisons continued to grow with less and less other bookings. In the winter of 2004 Murray and I decided that we would retire from the New York area and I would find a new leader for Avodah. I did and remained on the Board for a few years. I was haunted by the women’s stories that I had heard and the intensity of the teaching experience. Five years after I had retired, the stories still resonated, particularly those of several women we met who had murdered their abusers out of fear for their lives or having been pushed to the point where they snapped. This would lead me to form a non-profit film company with the mission of creating and distributing media of women striving to overcome abuse, and I’ll share more of this in a later blog. I would also return to teaching movement in a women’s jail in Santa Fe as well as working in movement with women at Esperanza Shelter for Battered Families. I also helped to facilitate an art project at York, done by a friend. There will be later blogs about these various experiences. That first week at York planted the seeds for creative work I have continued, to today. Thank you, Joe Lea, for the invitation to bring the Forgiveness Project to York.
JoAnne, looking ahead. Photo taken by Murray around May 2004 at Liberty State Park near our home in Jersey City.
The performing space was anything but ideal, basically the intersection of two hallways. The longer one provided an area for the audience while the shorter two hallways to the right and left served as places to enter and exit. The women gathered before, all showing up and expressing a typical nervousness that individuals new to performing often have. The fact that all 24 women had shown up and were participating in the culminating event was itself very positive as we had been told that not completing things and dropping out was often a pattern of women in prison.
The lovely program that was made at York indicates that the performance began with an introduction by me, followed by a reading by Wally Lamb. Wally had been leading writing workshops at York for a number years before our residency. He edited and helped to get published two volumes of the women’s writing. The second book he wrote, I Know This Much is True, has an excellent passage on forgiveness that we were using in our workshops and so he read that section before the piece began.
Both performances went extremely well and I am pleased to share some of the following feedback:
From Alice Fitzpatrick, Executive Director of the Community Foundation of Southeastern CT:
[A]s the music began, a transformation occurred and the hours of practice, discipline and determination paid off. They were a precision team, they were proud of themselves and they were beautiful to watch. The audience exploded with appreciation and encouragement… It was a triumph.”
From Steven Slosberg in The Day, a paper serving the New London, CT area, June 2, 2002:
Forgiveness danced its way through the York Correctional Institution in Niantic a few weeks ago, spellbinding those who beheld it and moving those who delivered it to seek a return.
Joe Lea, who had arranged the residency, wrote about an article in Liberation in December of 2003 about various “Art Programs in Prison.” Here is how the Avodah residency was described:
One of our most profound experiences resulting from the incorporation of the arts into the school curriculum was with an artistic residency program offered in 2002 by Avodah Dance Ensemble, a New York City dance company. Avodah’s residency was the first of its kind for York CI and only one of a few in the history of the Connecticut Department of Correction.
The incarcerated population was focused, dedicated and willing to explore the workshops and programs offered by Avodah, our staff and volunteers. One member of the custody staff noted that the week was free of disciplinary incidents at the school. Additionally, the impact of the program was full of life-long lessons in cooperation, commitment, collaboration and accomplishment. (A 65-year-old inmate suffering from lung cancer who participated in the dance program pulled me aside and said “Mr. Lea, I will remember this for the rest of my life, Thank you.”)
A Supervising Psychologist at York sent a Memorandum to Joe Lea in which he shared:
It was a moving experience and a marvelous realization of the theme of the project – forgiveness. The reviews I got from the women who participated and from those I spoke to who had been part of the audience were uniformly glowing. If I may offer a personal observation, it seemed to me as I watched the performance that both audience and performers were transported; it seemed for the time that we were all free and not in a prison.
A handwritten, two-page letter written by an inmate who participated in the program gave us more insight into the impact our residency had:
Being able to work with and later perform with Avodah was truly an honor. It was a privilege and an opportunity that I never dreamed would be available to me, prior to my incarceration, let alone imprisoned in a facility where encouragement of reconciliation, forgiveness and respect for others is not fostered.
You and the ensemble accepted each one of us as we were, never questioning our past, approaching us selflessly, gently guiding us to a deeper place inside of us. It was as if, each one of us were being held and uplifted to whatever place we needed to be at, at that particularly moment in time. I sometimes felt as though we were all blocks of clay, hard and packaged with labeling put on us by members of society that have never taken the time to get to know us. Avodah took each block of clay and nurtured it with warmth, enthusiasm, love and equality.
I know that I found it extremely liberating to be able to “express” myself in an artistic medium that spoke for itself. I wasn’t questioned about the movements I chose to do, none of the women were. We were free to forgive whatever, whomever we wanted to, without any scrutiny from anyone.
The impact the residency had on me was also beyond all expectations. I think it touched all four of the dancers and Newman as well. I wondered if the week had been a unique experience. Would we find a similar reaction if we returned or if we did a residency at another women’s correctional facility? Over the next two years I discovered that we had similar kinds of very positive experiences in two return visits to York and residencies at the Delores J. Baylor Women’s Correctional Institution in New Castle, Delaware. In the next blog I will describe more deeply the impact of the week at York.
Cover of a thank you note we received from York. Photo was taken by one of the women at York who was learning how to do graphics.
Just a few weeks after our residency at the Jewish congregation in Westchester we were off to Niantic, Connecticut for our final residency in a women’s prison. I was still wrestling with an uncertainty of my own beliefs as well as what I saw as the future direction of the dance company, when we arrived on Sunday evening and gathered at a local church to meet our host families for the five nights we would be in Niantic.
Monday morning, 8:30 a.m. the dancers, Newman and I gathered in the waiting room of the prison. I am pretty sure that Joe Lea, who was handling all the details of the residency and had invited us, met us and guided us through the process of entering the facility. Following a brief orientation we were guided to the school which was in the maximum security side and entered the large classroom that had been cleared of most furniture except chairs along one side. While not an ideal space it was certainly large enough and even had its own private bathroom.
Twenty-four women and one of the staff teachers soon joined us. To be part of our program the women had to be enrolled in school, have permission from a teacher and have successfully taken two dance classes led by a teacher on staff who had a dance background. Joyce, the teacher who had led the classes, explained that the criterion for the women’s participation in our residency was that they could follow directions and make it through an elementary jazz-like dance class. Women of all sizes and ages, with or without any dance background, were welcomed.
Once everyone was in the room I asked them to make a large circle, and the four company members and I spread out joining the circle. Newman was busy setting up his instruments at the far end of the room. Usually I begin with a warm up led by one of the company members and that was what I had planned to do… but looking around the room I turned to Joyce and asked her to start the class and we would follow along. She did and we followed her warm up for about 10 minutes. Then she said they had created a dance and asked if I wanted to see it. Indeed I did. The company members joined me as we watched a short jazz-style dance of about a minute. Then I asked Joyce and the women to teach it to the four Avodah company members. They did and everyone was enjoying having the company members dancing with them. I asked if I might coach it a bit and was greeted with enthusiasm. They quickly responded to the few suggestions I gave.
Then I asked the women to sit on one side of the room and said that I would share a little about the style of dance we did. Accompanied by Newman we shared some of the elements of modern dance focusing on different qualities of movement, floor patterns, and changing dynamics. I then asked the group to give us a theme to dance about. One woman raised her hand and I called on her. She said the feelings of a sad baby crying. Kerri, Andrea, Jessica and Danielle responded beautifully, creating a heartfelt movement improvisation. You could have heard a pin drop in the room and the women were so clearly with the dancers. I knew we were off to a very good start and that the women in the room and the four Avodah dancers would have no problem working together. They had become a company of 28 women who would work on The Forgiveness Piece together to perform for other women at the facility on Friday. Joe was also inviting some outside guests to the join the audience and we had scheduled two performances, one in the morning and one in the early afternoon.
As the week continued each of the company dancers had a small group of women that they worked with developing dances on different stages of forgiveness. We also taught them some ensemble sections and I remember coaching them on the ending movement of the piece where I suggested that as each person brought their arms down they lift their sternum at the same time thinking of their hearts opening. When I asked them to do that section again I was stunned to see the change and that each person in the room had taken that instruction to heart. I remember looking over at Newman and we nodded at each other. The women had gotten it and the result was very powerful.
We did not know any of the reasons the women were incarcerated. That is something one doesn’t ask. We were taken by how attentive they were and incredibly responsive to suggestions. It was a very diverse group of all ages and sizes. There was even a mother and daughter who were working together and really expressing how much they were glad to have this time together. Sometimes we would watch teachers observing through a small glass window at the door, and occasionally they would have tears in their eyes.
It was a pretty exhausting week as in addition to the daily work for two-and-a-half hours in the morning we were doing other afternoon workshops and a regular Avodah Dance Ensemble concert one evening in the minimum security side for women who wouldn’t be able to attend the Friday performances.
I seem to remember meeting with the women who would be performing with the company on Thursday afternoon as well as the morning so they would have a chance to run through The Forgiveness Piece from beginning to end. I also staged curtain calls at that time. Very rarely do I do individual curtain calls but this time I did and the women had great fun figuring out their unique way to enter, take a bow, and exit.
In next week’s blog I’ll share some memories of the actual performance. Before I close this blog, I want to mention that earlier that year York formed a Forgiveness Project Committee made up mainly of teachers in the school and put together a full program of guest speakers related to the week’s theme. It included a child of a Holocaust Survivor, a discussion about the “plight of the Native Americans as it relates to trust and forgiveness” and meditation related to Tibetan nuns and how the Tibetan people pray for their captors and continue “good works” in the hope that life will get better.
The School Committee also offered afternoon workshops that women could sign up for. On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday we led workshops. There were also other workshops with topics such as “Building Bridges,” “Is Forgiveness Possible?” and “Oral Storytelling.”
The Committee designed an excellent 8-sided brochure describing Avodah’s role and the goals for participants. In addition, the brochure gave the 400 women who were enrolled in the school program a chance to sign up for the guest speakers and the workshops. I am so glad that I saved the brochure, and below is the cover.
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.
From April 9–13, 2002 the dance company was in residence at Westchester Reform Temple (WRT) in Scarsdale, New York. The company had a longstanding relationship with the congregation, as the senior rabbi, Rick Jacobs, had been a member of Avodah for six years in the 80’s. JoAnne also regularly led workshops there, and the company’s week of exploration with Ulla (See blog) was held there.
As with each residency, prior to coming, JoAnne met with the leadership to determine how to best serve the community. Rick wanted to schedule the time around Yom HaShoah, (Holocaust Memorial Day). He wasn’t interested in members of the congregation participating in the Forgiveness Piece itself but thought that maybe congregants could participate in I Never Saw Another Butterfly instead and that could be part of the Friday night Shabbat service. In addition, our new Holocaust piece Heroic Deeds (see Blog ) would also fit in very well. A new piece I had just choreographed called Tent, Tallit and Torah also appealed to him. Now… when would we do the Forgiveness Piece? He suggested we do it at his staff meeting time on Wednesday and I agreed especially if the full staff could be there which would include clergy, maintenance staff, teachers and secretaries. The company would lead a workshop and then afterwards the company members would perform the Forgiveness Piece. This would be our only residency in which community members did not participate in the piece itself.
Again, I am very grateful to Kezia for her notes of the very busy day on Wednesday, April 13that the congregation. It included a workshop for staff with a performance, a lecture-dem for pre-schoolers, a workshop for 16-year-olds and participation in two Holocaust Memorial services for 6th, 7thand 11th/12thgraders.
Kezia described the forgiveness workshop with the full staff so beautifully that I include her notes here:
JoAnne began by instructing all participants (including the company dancers) simply to walk throughout the room. As they did so, accompanied by percussionist Newman Taylor Baker, Tucker provided a continuous stream of movement instructions which were both fun and purposeful in directing participants’ exploration of elements of movement. Moreover, the participants in the room quickly became peers in executing the assignments to navigate through imaginary peanut butter or jello, to move as quickly as possible, to make sudden changes of direction, or to focus on moving certain parts of the body. There was 100% participation, and smiles were plentiful.
Tucker gradually introduced interaction through movement, building from a simple greeting when passing, to structured mirroring in pairs (whereby one partner must become the mirror image of the other, as they move together). At Tucker’s direction, pairs were constantly dissolved and formed anew, so each participant worked with many others, creating partnerships that may not occur on a daily basis – rabbi with maintenance worker, cantor with secretary, pre-school teacher with high school teacher. Additionally, within pairs, roles were rotated, so each participant experienced being both “a leader” and “a follower” within each of these distinct partnerships.
At this point, when movement skills were sharpened and the group appeared at ease moving, Tucker asked the group to verbally brainstorm “blocks to forgiveness.” A range of replies were offered and visibly considered by the group, as evidenced by nodding heads and comments such as “I never thought of that.” Using the tools they had just developed, the group explored the ideas suggested, through further mirroring and then through paired “conversations in movement.” All pairs were intently focused and, based on the coordinated timing and complementary style of their created movements, indeed appeared to be successfully “conversing.” The Rabbi later revealed to Tucker and me that several of these participants, in their everyday interaction, refuse to speak to each other.
Avodah dancer Jessica Sehested and a member of the WRT staff having a conversation together in movement.
The final participatory portion of the workshop was an activity by which participants, through movement, “shared a hurt” with others. With insight and a sense of humor, the groups ended this exercise with the Rabbi on the floor, so overloaded with everyone’s “sharing” that the group had to lift him. To resolve the overwhelming “hurt,” the group, at Tucker’s instruction, passed a “letting go” movement around the circle of participants, and the last person, at her own initiative, threw the “hurt” out of the circle.
Participants sharing a hurt.
The participants then watched a performance of the Forgiveness Project piece (without community involvement). At the conclusion of the piece, there was no applause. The viewers attributed their silence to being stunned by the piece’s intensity, not to lack of appreciation. One participant asked whether she was supposed to interpret intellectually what she had just seen. A dancer pointed out that, just as the percussion instruments in an earlier activity had immediately invoked different emotions without requiring any intellectual articulation of “why,” so dance can deeply affect a viewer without requiring a verbal analysis. The Rabbi pointed out that “Forgiveness itself is not just intellectual.” Another participant noted that it was helpful to have done the movement exercises before seeing the piece. The Rabbi was curious as to whether performing the piece regularly “heals” tensions with the dance company; in response, one dancer discussed dance as a levelizer”; another dancer pointed out that using movement allows any group, with any “issues,” to have a chance to communicate without having to talk – to be thrown into a new activity together, to have fun. A few of the participants nodded in agreement, and the Rabbi mused, “Maybe we should have all our staff meetings like this.”
I am very grateful to Kezia for keeping such careful notes of the workshop and have included them without any edits, as particularly the paragraphs before the last could serve as a model for someone leading a movement workshop on the theme of forgiveness.
I found the workshop to be a very meaningful part of the residency at the congregation. However, I was disappointed that we were not able to involve more of the congregation in the theme of forgiveness, or involve community in a performance of the piece,as I found those performances much more meaningful for the audience.
Of course, it is important to respond to the needs of the community, and the leadership felt that focusing on Yom HaShoah for the balance of the activities was more appropriate. In Part II, I will share how we engaged some members of the congregation in the Friday night service, and describe the other pieces we integrated into the service.
The grant from the Nathan Cummings Foundation underwrote four one-week residencies at four contrasting sites. Our first residency was held from February 25 through March 3 in Wilmington, Delaware. Plans called for us to work with the community on many levels. Workshops were held for schoolchildren as well as adults, and community members participated in two performances – one at Temple Beth Emeth (as part of the Friday night Sabbath service) and the other at the Episcopal Church of Saint Andrews and Matthew (SAMS). (As mentioned in previous blogs, Canon Lloyd Casson of SAMS, a longtime supporter of Avodah, was instrumental in the development of the Forgiveness Project.)
One of the requirements of the grant was to have good documentation of the residencies. A budget had been built into the grant to cover the cost of having two former members of the Avodah Dance Ensemble observe and take notes of what they saw. Kezia Gleckman Hayman and Beth Millstein were super at doing this and I was thrilled when Kezia mentioned that she still had her notes about how we integrated community members into the performance.
The following description is from Kezia’s report about Congregation Beth Emeth, Wilmington, DE (March 1, 2002):
I first observed the community members in a 6 p.m. rehearsal for the 8 p.m. temple service that evening. All four participants had attended at least one workshop with the company during the preceding days. Now the participants were to be incorporated into the performance piece with the company, using movement phrases they were about to create, themselves, based on workshop activities.
JoAnne began by brainstorming responses to ”Forgiveness is… “ The group chose three images it wanted to use in this performance: “liberating a closed heart,” “transformation,” and “letting go.” The ideas were translated into movement through sculpting. (One participant assumed a position expressing the given idea, and then other participants, one at a time, added to the sculpture.) This became the opening of the piece, before the entry of the company dancers.
One of the participants mentioned that she had particularly liked a workshop movement exercise in which Tucker had two lines of participants approaching each other . . . Tucker built the next section on variations of “approaching,” assigning participants to interact with the company dancers. Again drawing on images that had emerged during the workshops, one group approached as if to say “sorry,” another with the idea of returning, and the third incorporating a gesture of one’s face buried in one’s hands. This segued into the set choreography performed by the company.
At a subsequent place in the piece, the participants re-entered, interacting with the dancers in “sharing a hurt” through movement, and at the conclusion of the piece the participants joined the company by mirroring the professional dancers’ movements of comforting each other and “opening their hearts.”
I am so grateful to Kezia for saving these notes as it gives a very clear example of how we integrated the community with the professional dancers for the actual performance of the Forgiveness Piece. I wish I had performance photos with community members but alas we don’t. I do have photographs from workshops.
In three of the four residencies, members of the community did perform with the dancers onstage as part of the piece, usually at similar places in the choreography but with different improvisations, based on what had been particularly meaningful to the workshop participants.
Once the structure for the community members’ improvisations was set, then the next stage was coaching. From Kezia’s notes:
Tucker coached the participants to refine their original movements to the highest possible level in terms of expressiveness, clarity of movement, dynamics, use of space and interaction with fellow dancers. With each urging, the participants’ movements improved, and their confidence grew, as evidenced by their lack of hesitation, the fullness of their movements, the development of their movements beyond the most obvious gestural representation of an idea, and the initiative they began to take . . . .
At all times, movement came from the participants themselves, as they continually re-examined their impressions of the forgiveness process. At one point, Tucker coached a participant moving from one place to another, “Transformation is not easy – it needs more tension,” and the participant reacted, “Right. I would have to WORK to get over there,” revising her movement accordingly. At another point, Tucker coached, “Make sure ‘transformation’ and ‘letting go’ are not the same.” The participant appealed, “Help me,” to which Tucker responded, “It has to come from you. Let your energy change.’’ It did, with a visibly expanded movement.
In one-and-a-half hours, the participants had been incorporated into the piece with movement both appropriate to their levels of technical ability and expressive of their individual explorations of forgiveness. The piece was performed with unified commitment and fluidity, and extremely well received by the congregation, many of whom noted the community participants with particular praise.
The time in Delaware continued with different community members joining the company when the Forgiveness Piece was performed at SAMS.
The first residency indicated that what we planned was indeed working. If community members participated in a workshop earlier in the week then it was no problem to include them in the performance piece. Since Kezia was there as an evaluator for the grant she asked participants for feedback about effectiveness of the workshops. Here are comments from two of the participants.
Participant 1: “I’m usually intellectual, and movement is not. In the workshop, I chose to explore my relationship with my daughter, and I discovered how angry I really was – I didn’t realize until I moved that it was anger I was feeling.”
Participant 2: “JoAnne had us do a movement exercise about sharing a hurt – it really lessened the hurt!”
Our second residency began just a little over a week later at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institution of Religion in New York City. Workshops were very similar and participants included both rabbinic and cantorial students of HUC-JIR and people living in the neighborhood. I am delighted that we have some pictures from these workshops which were held in the very beautiful HUC-JIR chapel, a place we were very familiar with, as that was our home performing space.
Community members in a workshop at HUC-JIR preparing to join the company in performance
Community members in a workshop at HUC-JIR preparing to join the company in performance
The grant from the Nathan Cummings Foundation enabled us to fully realize our plans for The Forgiveness Project. We would have three full weeks of rehearsal time to create the new piece on forgiveness. That would be followed by four five-day residencies in four different places. I will be writing several blogs about these residencies. For right now I want to look at the rehearsal period which began in mid-January, 2002.
My thinking after September 11th was first that it was hard to feel that dance, or the arts, had any significance at all. As time passed I began to realize that the arts are extremely important to our healing as individuals and as a community.
The repertory that I once felt was relevant and appropriate no longer felt congruent. As of a result of those feelings I found it exciting and affirming to be doing new and creative work. Not only would I be choreographing the Forgiveness Project piece, but I planned to do two other pieces.
Newman Taylor Baker was composing the music for the Forgiveness Project piece. He would be playing it live for the performances as well as joining us for each of the residencies, available to accompany workshops.
The four dancers who had begun the work the previous year were not returning and so I was auditioning a totally new company for a season that would go from mid-January to mid-May. Here are the bios of the four dancers I selected (as they appeared in the 2002 Newsletter).
Andrea Eisenstein began her dance training in Houston, Texas at the Jewish Community Center. She graduated from the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in 1996 and then continued her training at Sam Houston State University receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts in the Fall of 1999. Moving to New York she started her own company, Ironstone Movement Company, and performed with Bridgeman/Packer, Liz Keen and Teri Weksler. She is also currently studying in the professional program at the Merce Cunningham Dance Foundation.
Jessica Sehested was born in New York City and grew up in Atlanta, GA and Memphis, TN. She studied dance professionally at Ballet Memphis, Wake Forest University, University of North Carolina in Greensboro and Dancespace Center in New York City. After receiving her B.A. in dance from the University of North Carolina she returned to New York City to pursue certification in the Pilates Method. Involved in liturgical dance for over 13 years, Jessica has taught and performed at conferences and gatherings both nationally and internationally, including Cuba, Zimbabwe, and Canada. (2019 Note: Kezia remembers that Jessica had been a student at Wake Forest when Avodah performed there. As part of that short residency, the company had set “Kaddish” on a small group of students, one of whom was Jessica.) Kezia also remembers that during the Forgiveness Project residencies, Jessica often opened a session by masterfully engaging the participants and/or audiences – without any verbal introduction – in a call-and-response rhythmic clapping game, which immediately focused, charmed, energized, and unified the group.
Danielle Smith grew up in Harrisburg, PA where she began her study of dance and performed with the Cumberland Dance Company. She also performed and trained with the Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet and at SUNY-Purchase, Conservatory of Dance. Among the summer programs she received scholarships for and attended were The Juilliard Summer Intensive, The Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival and The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre.
Kerri Ann Thoma is a native of Chicago. She has been teaching children and adults for the past 13 years in all levels and styles of dance. She has a BFA in dance performance from Northern Illinois University, and aspires to continue her teaching and choreographic endeavors. She looks forward to founding her own dance company in the future, sharing her enthusiasm and love for dance, and becoming an active part of the dance community in New York.
Putting together the right team has always been important to me, and it continues to be important even today with the non-profit film company Healing Voices – Personal Stories of which I am President and co-Director of Films. I have learned to trust my instinct when considering a person to join the film company, as I did when I auditioned dancers. For dancers, having a strong technique was of course very important to me, but equally important was the kind of energy each person brought into the room. It was a wonderful creative adventure to work with these four dancers and I am very proud of the work we did together and the three pieces that we created.
And so rehearsal began and it was a very satisfying creative journey. The dancers enthusiastically risked both their emotional expression and technical skills as we wrestled with the complicated questions related to forgiveness. These four dancers with very different backgrounds quickly became a company. As we rehearsed in Chinatown at the Mulberry St. studio of Chen and Dancers each day from 10 to 4 with a short break for lunch, the piece slowly began to develop, as did two other pieces we were working on. Because of 9/11 and attending quite a few Buddhist workshops over the previous several months my approach was changing and I found this impacting the collaborative way I was working with the dancers. We were designing the Forgiveness Piece so it could be performed either by the four dancers alone, or by the dancers joined by community members who would be incorporated into key parts of the piece. My favorite part was the ending we planned, where community members joined the company members on stage doing a very simple movement of lifting the sternum as their arms traced down their upper body, representing the idea of opening one’s heart to each other and to community.
Danielle Smith leaping, Jessica Sehesed kneeling and holding onto Andrea Eisenstein. Newman is in the corner of the photo, accompanying the piece. Photo by Tom BrazilFrom l to r: Jessica, Andrea, Kerri and Danielle in The Forgiveness Piece close to the end. Photograph by Tom Brazil
Having met the application deadline for the Nathan Cummings grant in the early part of the summer, I didn’t give a lot of thought to the Forgiveness Project specifically but found myself still wrestling with questions that had come up from the week of dancing with Ulla (see blog Exploring German and Jewish Relationships and Forgiveness). Since I had created several pieces on the Holocaust, and the dance company had been part of so many Holocaust memorial programs, I did not yet know how to integrate my new feelings both into my personal life and into my role as Artistic Director of Avodah. So I was wrestling with this when 9/11 happened.
At the time, I lived in Jersey City directly across from the
World Trade Center. Each day we took the
PATH train into Manhattan, usually via the World
Trade Center, to then catch subways to where we were going in the City or sometimes to walk if we were going somewhere in
lower Manhattan. While we didn’t live on
the river we were only several blocks away from a full view of lower
Manhattan. Murray, my husband, had left
early that morning and was going to a meeting in midtown. Shortly after the first plane hit the tower I
got a very anxious call from our daughter Rachel asking where Dad was. I mentioned he had gone into the city for a
meeting. Rachel, who is usually quite calm and matter of fact, told me what had happened and told me to turn on the news. I said I would call and let her know as soon
as I heard from Dad. Luckily he called
just a few minutes later to say he was safe uptown far from the WTC. I told him to please call Rachel… she needed
to hear his voice.
9/11 was particularly intense for Rachel as she had been in
the WTC when it had been bombed in 1993.
She had been pregnant at the time and had walked down from the 98th
floor. I spoke to Rachel again, too. She was not working in the City this time. Then I walked down to the river and watched as
the second tower fell. I was glad that I
was able to be standing with a neighbor.
Soon I went home and just like everyone else watched television and
waited to hear again from Murray who had gone to our daughter Julie’s apartment
located in Manhattan. Eventually he made
it home, that evening.
I think each of us tries to find some kind of comfort in
whatever way we can and attempts to figure out how to make sense of such an
event, particularly when it is so close to home. In our case, it was directly across the river,
and where we got off the PATH train nearly every day. For many days we saw and
smelled the smoke. I was quite surprised
to get a call one week later from an optical shop just three blocks from where
the WTC had been, saying that my glasses were ready to be picked up. And so I found myself taking the 33rd
St. PATH into Manhattan and then a subway down to the Fulton Street stop to
pick up my glasses. What surprised me
the most was how much, so close to the site, was functioning again – subways running, restaurants and businesses
open.
Over the next several weeks I observed several things. People were much more open and friendly to each other and in fact people who were only acquaintances hugged each other when seeing they were OK. When I went to teaching jobs in the Jewish community I noticed increased security which was certainly appropriate but also a retreating or closing in that I didn’t quite understand. I was puzzled and trying to figure out things for myself when my good friend Regina suggested I join her and hear Thich Nhat Hanh at Riverside Church the evening of September 25. The evening was presented as a response and call for healing following September 11th. It was my first exposure to him or to any Buddhist/Zen presentation. I found the chanting, ritual, and philosophy very healing. His talk was very powerful. You can read the talk online at https://www.thezensite.com/ZenTeachings/Essence_of_compassion.html
In rereading the talk as I am writing this blog I can see why it had a strong impact on me. The talk opened with:
My Dear friends, I would like to tell you how I practice when I get angry. During the war in Vietnam, there was a lot of injustice, and many thousands, including friends of mine, many disciples of mine, were killed. I got very angry. One time I learned that the city of Ben Tre, a city of three hundred thousand people, was bombarded by American aviation just because some guerillas came to the city and tried to shoot down American aircrafts. The guerillas did not succeed, and after that they went away. And the city was destroyed. And the military man who was responsible for that declared later that he had to destroy the city of Ben Tre to save it. I was very angry.
But at that time, I was already a practitioner, a solid practitioner. I did not say anything, I did not act, because I knew that acting or saying things while you are angry is not wise. It may create a lot of destruction. I went back to myself, recognizing my anger, embracing it, and looked deeply into the nature of my suffering.
Later in the speech he shared:
This summer, a group of Palestinians came to Plum Village and practiced together with a group of Israelis, a few dozen of them. We sponsored their coming and practicing together. In two weeks, they learned to sit together, walk mindfully together, enjoy silent meals together, and sit quietly in order to listen to each other. The practice taken up was very successful. At the end of the two weeks practice, they gave us a wonderful, wonderful report. One lady said, “Thay, this is the first time in my life that I see that peace in the Middle East is possible.”
He also shared a poem of his and I added it to The Forgiveness Project workshop materials.
Here’s the opening verse to the poem.
I hold my face in my two hands I hold my face in my two hands My hands Hollowed to catch what might fall from within me Deeper than crying I am not crying.
About a month after 9/11, much to my surprise, I
learned that we had received the grant we had applied for in the amount of
$25,000 from the Nathan Cummings Foundation to create a dance piece on forgiveness and to take the piece, along with
accompanying workshops on forgiveness, to week-long residencies in the four
proposed sites.
Over the next several months quite a few prominent Buddhist leaders came to NYC offering free workshops or programs to community members who wanted to attend. I went often and began a meditation practice at home that I found (and still find) very helpful. I also found the idea of keeping one’s heart open and praying for the well being of all people, not just oneself or one’s own community, resonated strongly with me. Later in the winter I would find ways to incorporate these ideas into The Forgiveness Project.
I don’t remember how we got the booking at Hartford Seminary or the exact date that we were there. I hunch it was in April of 2001. Hartford Seminary was doing an all-day program on forgiveness and asked us to do a lecture-demonstration as part of the day. The Seminary is a non-denominational graduate school for religious and theological studies. We were honored to be a part of the program which also included someone from South Africa who had firsthand experience with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission which Desmond Tutu had written about in his book No Future Without Forgiveness. The four company members – Stacy, Becca, Julia and Candice – joined me and we put together a lecture-demonstration which might have also had some audience participation. I remember being in a large room with about 50 to 75 people sitting around the edge on all four sides of the room.
The Seminary did excellent publicity all around town with flyers listing the participants, including The Avodah Dance Ensemble. As a result of the publicity, the week after we were in Hartford I got an email from Joe Lea, then a teacher at York Correctional Institution, the only women’s facility in the state of Connecticut. He asked if I would be interested in bringing the program we did at the Seminary to York. Well I was a bit taken aback and surprised by the email, and I had never thought of taking the dance company to a prison. Then I began to think, “Why not?!”
So I emailed Joe back and said that I would consider it but that I had never been in a jail or a prison and wondered if it was the right environment to bring the company into and how it would work. Where would we perform? I had lots of questions. Joe suggested I come up, tour the prison and discuss it in person. I agreed. Of course the next thing I had to do was to fill out forms and get clearance to go into the prison. I did that and then we agreed on a date. I took the train to New Haven and Joe picked me up and we drove 45 more minutes to the prison.
The whole experience was very new to me. Leaving my purse in the car, I took nothing in with me. It was easy being with Joe since he guided me through all the steps and of course everyone knew him. Signing in, going through the metal detectors and then being in a small room with no windows where one door locks first before the door on the other side opens is a very sobering experience.
As we walked through the prison hallway Joe explained that York housed both a minimum and a maximum security side and that the school was located in the maximum side. Women in the minimum side were permitted to attend. While the prison housed up to 1400 women there were only 400 slots in the school. I seem to remember that women under 18 who hadn’t graduated from high school were required to work on a GED. Women over 18 who hadn’t graduated were also welcome to attend. And in fact Joe was going to teach a GED class that afternoon and I was welcome to join him and speak with the women.
Joe showed me around and introduced me to some of the other teachers. He showed me where they usually did programs in the school section. It was in a long hallway which, in the center, had hallways leading off to each side. While this was not ideal I could see how it would work.
When it came time for Joe to meet his class, I joined him and did kind of a Q and A with the students, sharing information about the dance company and the kind of programs that we did. I realized that this was no different than any other teaching situation and in fact found the students more attentive than many other groups that I had worked with. I told Joe that I would indeed be willing to bring the company to York.
Shortly after my visit to York I decided to apply for a grant from the Nathan Cummings Foundation and called Joe to discuss the idea. I suggested that instead of the dance company just coming up for one day, I was thinking of writing the grant for 4 different 5-day residencies where the company worked with each site giving participants an opportunity to dance with the company and even perform with them. What did he think of Avodah coming to York for five days, working with a group of the women for four of the days and on the fifth day the women joining the company in performance? He loved the idea.
So I wrote a grant that involved bringing The Forgiveness Project to four different sites including the prison and mailed it off!
The entrance to York Correctional Institution (from the Connecticut Correctional website)
