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 of the highlights of the meaningful Zoom memorial service that good friend and spiritual leader Jimmy Levinson led for my late husband Murray was when he shared some of Murray’s hobbies and then invited each of those present to raise their hand if they also had that hobby and would think of Murray when they did that. Among Murray’s hobbies were hiking, gardening and photography. While taxes were certainly not a hobby, Murray always did ours, first by hand and in later years using Turbo Tax.
While this year was a bit more complicated due to his passing I decided that a way to honor Murray was to continue with his tradition and to do the taxes myself using Turbo Tax instead of organizing them and sending them off to an accountant. I am really glad I did. As I worked on them I felt a real closeness to Murray and a satisfaction of knowing that I was honoring the way he did things.
Now…. Let me be honest, Turbo Tax has an upgrade where they offer 24/7 chat or phone calls and I took that upgrade and did I use it. I never hesitated to call them or chat whenever I had a question and they took their time working me through the questions and the inputting of information. Numbers and math have never been my thing but I did do the easy 990 form for my non-profit dance company and the financial statements for both the dance company and Healing Voices.
It has now been just over 6 months since Murray passed. I miss him a lot and find ways to both keep him in my memory and to honor our years together. This May 6th would have been his 81st birthday and I wanted to make a contribution in his memory. With the devastating news out of India I knew I wanted to make a contribution to an organization in India. I reached out to my good friend Jimmy Levinson to ask what his son Noah’s organization, Calcutta Kids, was doing related to COVID and Jimmy shared that they were setting up a vaccination site. I decided to donate to Calcutta Kids knowing that it was a small organization that I have supported in the past and that they have made and are making a difference in young children and moms’ lives starting with pre-natal care. Here’s a link to their organization in case it interests you: https://calcuttakids.org
I close this blog with a few favorite recent pictures of Murray! (Photos were taken between 2015 – 2018.)
Visiting Fallingwaters, Achitect Frank Lloyd Wright’s famous house outside of Pittsburgh, PA
At Morraine Lake, Banff National Park in the Canadian Rockies. Murray and I visited there on our honeymoon and always talked of going back. We did, 53 years later.
Murray sipping a drink around the pool at a resort in Cancun!
In this concluding blog about our Italy tour Kezia and I share some of our favorite non-dance memories. Certainly one part of touring is when we have a free day or two. On the tour to Pitigliano, Kezia and I arranged to have several days to sightsee after the performance before returning to New York.
One of Kezia’s favorite memories is having to stop the car for a significant time on our way to Pitigliano to allow a flock of sheep to cross the road. She remembers that their bells made wonderful music, and that Deborah spoke to the shepherd and translated for us. He was carrying a little lamb because he said she was tired and kept lying down in the road and crying when she couldn’t keep up with the other sheep.
View from the car when we encountered the sheep in the road. If you look carefully you can see a figure in the very back carrying the lamb.
A favorite memory of mine was watching Deborah’s mother-in-law make gnocchi from scratch and of course getting to enjoy eating it afterwards.
Deborah and her mother-in-law. We all watched enthusiastically as Jeevan’s mother make the gnocchi!
I also loved our time soaking in a hot spring,
JoAnne and Deborah in the hot spring!
In the February 2000 Avodah Newsletter, Kezia wrote about some of our adventures sightseeing:
As tourists in magical Florence, we strolled into innumerable churches, each graced by masterpieces of art, so much a part of their surrounding spiritual home and purpose that often no nameplate is even provided to identify the artist. And regardless of one’s religion, when the church bells ring at twilight in Florence, one is filled with joy. In stark contrast to the gentleness of Florence, the astounding massiveness of Rome was like walking at the feet of elephants. Surprisingly, St. Peter’s, even more enormous than it appears on television, by genius of design, offers an undeniable sense of embrace, even to these two Jewish visitors.
On Shabbat, JoAnne and I attended services in the old Jewish section of Rome. The architecture of the temple was of a style similar to that of churches we had visited, and the unexpected acoustical effect of this kinship was that the chanting in the service took on a nearly Gregorian quality. The text of individual prayers and readings was indistinguishable, replaced by an engulfing hum. The women’s section, up a long flight of stairs, was separated from the downstairs men’s section by an iron gate so densely and intricately patterned that one could barely see through it – as intended. But I suffered no shortage of spiritual sustenance in this country where religion has been the inspiration for glorious architecture, serene and achingly sad painting and sculpture, heart-soaring music and people of deep warmth and courage. When I looked out my window during the flight back to New York and saw how easily the Italian Alps reach right above the clouds, I was not in the least surprised.
Closing thought from JoAnne: I am so grateful for the dedication of the dancers who were part of Avodah, both when they were in the company and afterwards. In particular, to Deborah — who organized and made this tour possible, including rehearsing her dancers and performing in the concert — and to Kezia — who shared this experience with us, helping in staging and performing, and then sharing time together sightseeing with me – a deep bow of gratitude.
For seven years Deborah Hanna was a part of The Avodah Dance Ensemble. If you skim through the blogs of Mostly Dance you will see lots of pictures of her, as she played a key role in collaborating on pieces that became an important part of Avodah’s repertory. In particular, Deborah was in the original cast of Let My People Go, and she and Kezia collaborated on Sisters. At some point, I shared her with the Martha Graham Ensemble and loved how well trained she was in Graham technique, which I totally adored! When she decided it was time to leave the company and move to Italy with her husband I was both sad to see her go and also excited for her new adventure. We might even have joked a bit about Avodah coming to Italy, as she did not intend to stop dancing.
Two years later, in 1995, I saw Deborah on a trip to Italy. My husband, Murray, had a business trip to Rome, related to his job as economist with the IRS. I was able to go with him and we decided to travel a few days early so we could spend some time visiting Deborah.
A day or two after arriving in Rome, Murray and I took the hour-and-a-half train ride to Tarquinia, where Deborah and her husband, Jeevan, were living. Tarquinia is an old city in the province of Viterbo, Lazio, known mainly for its ancient Etruscan tombs. We stayed in their sweet country cottage and loved going sightseeing in the area with them. Tarquinia is Jeevan’s hometown and his family owned a wonderful restaurant there.
Top Picture: Deborah and I have fun posing at one of the Etruscan Tombs. Lower Picture: Deborah and Jeevan, Murray and I, enjoying being together.
Deborah had begun to teach dance shortly after she arrived in Italy in February of 1993. She taught Graham technique and choreographed for the end-of-the-year concerts in her local community. Deborah shared with me that “The Graham Technique made a big hit as quite a novelty and the first piece I did for them to the music of Carmina Burana received a loud “ANCORA” from the audience – which I just took as a wonderful sign of appreciation, but quickly found out meant we had to repeat the piece again immediately – which we did.”
Deborah choreographed for this group of dancers when she first arrived in 1993.
By the time of our visit with Deborah she had not only continued teaching but had expanded with in-school performances and workshops in the local grade schools and middle schools and had won best choreography awards at the Viterbo Dance Festival.
Before we left Italy Deborah joined us in Rome and ended up going out to dinner with us and charming some of Murray’s business colleagues with her excellent Italian. We talked about projects between Avodah and Italy, and the seeds were planted for what would happen several years later.
As I write this blog it is with a lighter heart and a sense of joy, filled with so many poignant memories of Wednesday’s inauguration. With COVID and security concerns the day was beautifully choreographed and the inaugural committee is to be commended. As a United States citizen now living abroad in Costa Rica, my connection to the democratic ideals of the United States remains deep, as do my concerns and hope that healing of long-time wounds will be addressed. I am also very interested in how other countries react to what is happening in the United States.
On Thursday morning I read with delight an article in the Tico Times which I want to share with you, as it gives insight into how Costa Rica views the U.S. inauguration. The headline itself says a lot: “‘Multilateralism is back!’ How Costa Rica’s leaders celebrated U.S. inauguration.” The article mentions that in a Tweet President Carlos Alvarado thanked President Biden for rejoining the World Health Organization and the Paris Agreement, and that he also assured cooperation with the U.S. in “pursuit of ‘shared principles.’”
What was most meaningful in the Tico Times article was what I learned about the Vice President of Costa Rica. Her name is Epsy Campbell and she was elected in 2018. An article by Brendan O’Boyle in Americas Quarterly (Oct. 19, 2020) notes:
Epsy Campbell Barr became the first Black woman in Latin America to be elected vice president – despite the fact that Afro-descendant women comprise up to 17% of the region’s populations. . . . [She] began her career as a human rights and environmental activist and an economist researching women’s inclusion. As vice president, she has led a working group to try to close the gender pay gap, and also launched a program offering credit to rural women working in conservation.
The Tico Times article reported that Campbell “shared a letter she had sent to Vice President Kamala Harris”:
In the communication, Campbell referenced her Afro-descendant grandmother, who “did not live to see her dream made reality,” but who worked to ensure “her daughters and her granddaughters could enjoy the rights she always wanted but never had.”
“As Vice President of the Republic of Costa Rica, and as a Black woman, I have joined the celebration of Afro-descendent towns and communities across the world that appropriate this accomplishment as an example to advance on the path to equality,” Vice President Campbell wrote.
Photo by Stefano Martin of Epsy Campbell from the Americas Quarterly
Costa Rica’s Foreign Ministry is also quoted as saying:
Costa Rica celebrates the solid ties of friendship and cooperation between the two countries, which have cemented its 170 years of diplomatic relations. In this sense, we will work actively and constructively together with the Government of President Biden and Vice President Harris and their teams, to strengthen the recovery process in the face of the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic, and energize the bilateral, regional and multilateral agendas, promoting political dialogue, cooperative actions, and the promotion of commerce and attraction of investments.
So today I not only celebrate the inauguration but I have learned more about the country I am living in and its relationship with the U.S. Murray and I were always aware of the good relationship that existed between the two countries when we decided to move here although we knew that Trump was damaging and isolating the U.S. relationships with many places. So it is with delight I read the Tico Times article and learned about Vice President Epsy Campbell.
For as long as I can remember I have always been interested in traveling both in the United States and internationallybecause not only is it about sightseeing but it is about what we learn about ourselves and our relationship to others. Sometimes I’ve traveled alone, sometimes with the dance company and sometimes with Murray. In our international travel we were both fascinated with how citizens of other countries viewed the United States both positively and negatively. I remember seeing negative things written on walls on a trip to a university town in Germany back in 1987. Traveling during the George Bush administration between 2005-2008 we heard and saw negative things. (Now, of course, the Bush administration is looking amazingly good, after what we have just experienced with Trump.) Living now for nearly a year in Costa Rica I was well aware of the negative attitude toward Trump and the disappointment that Ticos felt for what was happening in the U.S.
I was particularly made aware of that on January 7th when the young man from a restaurant/bakery that I regularly order from made a delivery to the house. The young man asked me how I was doing. I told him that I felt very sad and upset about what had happened at the Capitol in the U.S. the day before. He shared that he was upset too and that it was very troubling what had been happening in the U.S. since Trump had been elected, as he and most Costa Ricans looked to the U.S. as a model and since Trump that wasn’t possible. He hoped it would be possible again. Luckily the young man spoke English very well because while I am progressing in learning Spanish a detailed conversation like this would not have been possible.
I was glad I watched the inauguration with my Costa Rican friend and helper. First of all, I missed sharing this with Murray as he would have been thrilled to witness Biden and Harris sworn in and so I was glad not to be alone. And second it was wonderful to know how a Tico was experiencing the transfer of power. We both had tears in our eyes when Vice President Harris was sworn in, as I did later during the beautiful poem written and read elegantly by 22-year-old American Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman.
I loved the images of both Biden and Harris immediately going to work. Maybe eliminating Inauguration Balls is even a good option for the future.
While I was in the midst of writing a blog related to dance company touring, I had my iPad tuned to news programs mainly to hear about the results of the Georgia runoff elections for the Senate. I was feeling pretty excited hearing that Ossoff was pulling ahead in the GA race and Vice President Mike Pence had made an opening statement indicating that he would be following his appropriate role in receiving and registering the electoral votes. Then the mob breached the Capitol and my energy changed. I could no longer concentrate on writing the dance company blog. The rest of the day and into the late evening I was focused on the news, mainly listening to MSNBC. I found myself deeply sad and at times tearful.
My interests and background are in the arts and I am not usually a news junky. That was what my life partner/husband Murray did and he passed away just over two months ago. Perhaps because I knew I couldn’t turn to ask him for an update, I needed to watch for myself. I did that and now I am left with a strange and uncomfortable feeling of how to react and what to do. I paint, I write and I used to direct a dance company, and so when I find myself having strong emotional reactions I know that I am also looking for a way to express them. So here I am writing.
Among the many senators’ speeches, one of them used two phrases which I could relate to. 9/11 was a time when the action came from outside the country while today the action was from within the country. Outside and inside forces. And the inside force came from the strong encouragement of the President. Images of the people inside the building, especially one person sitting at a desk in the House Speaker’s office had almost a clown feeling to it. Almost someone doing mischief. Efforts were to be disruptive and that they were. It could have been a lot worse. What it did show was how fragile the country is, how poor security was at the Capitol and how democracy is something we cannot take for granted!!
It felt good to see the proceeding resume after the building was secure, and while there were four deaths it could have been many more. By the time I got up this morning, Biden and Harris were formally elected and there was a message from the President there would be an orderly transfer of power. Yet I still have this uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach, and while my unrest is not at the level I felt after 9/11, it is here. On 9/11, living in Jersey City, I saw the second tower collapse, with my own eyes, walking the few blocks from our house to the river. I was with a neighbor and I knew that all of my family was already safe. Yet that day changed me. It took a few months before the direction was clear to me, and how I ran my dance company and what I decided to choreograph evolved in a different direction. I have written about that before and so I will just summarize by saying that the Forgiveness Project happened shortly after that, and my focus on work shifted from emphasis on Jewish themes and performances in synagogues to work relevant for working with women in prison.
So I know I have a need to be patient with myself, not discount my feelings and give myself time to see what evolves. My circumstances are different as I now am far from DC where the action happened. I live alone in Costa Rica in a beautiful setting. Yet I am hearing a voice inside me saying that this threat to democracy in the United States is very real and not over and that it does affect me and those close to me. This fight of the white men to keep control is not over. Racism is a key part of it. And I can’t be silent about it!
In 2003, the teacher I had for life drawing at the Art Students League in New York City (I am embarrassed not to remember her name) talked about how important it is to use your art for political statements, particularly related to feminism. So maybe thinking about how to bring these feelings into my art will be important to me.
We have so many outstanding examples of visual artists, musicians, and performing artists responding to the politics and challenges of their time. I ask myself and I ask you how are we going to respond to what we saw yesterday and the reminder of how fragile our democracy is, and how racism, anti-Semitism and feminism fit into this picture! For a brief moment yesterday we got to celebrate two new senators, Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff elected from a Southern state. Ossoff is only 33 and Jewish. Reverend Warnock is African American. The fact that the Southern state of Georgia elected them and is giving the Senate back to the Democrats is a major tribute to Stacey Abrams who, along with other women of color, dedicated herself to changing the state. That gives me hope.
I am privileged to live in a beautiful home in Costa Rica. Part of the reason Murray and I moved here was because of our fear of how the election of 2016 pointed toward increased anti-Semitism, racism, and loss of democracy. Yesterday was a major test. Even though I don’t live in the United States right now I am still a citizen and care. So I am asking myself, “What can I do as an artist from right where I am????”
Today I decided I want to do original sketches of women I really admire for my wall of Sheroes. This is a very rough sketch of a portrait that I will be working on for the next several days.
I am writing this on December 21, the winter solstice, in Atenas, Costa Rica. When I lived in the United States this was the darkest point in the year and also the point where each day began to get brighter until June 21. Living in Costa Rica the shift is very small. For example, there is just about a half-hour difference in sunrise and half-hour difference in sunset over the full year. So the range is about an hour difference maximum for the year, compared with nearly a five-hour difference in Santa Fe, the last place I lived. I am not a morning person. For as long as I can remember I have loved to stay up late, often getting a burst of creative thinking or loving to watch a movie and just relax, sometimes going to bed around 2 AM. Now that doesn’t work so well here, as the mornings are so beautiful. Murray loved the mornings and often got up shortly after sunrise while I continued to sleep. Perhaps I will experiment a bit more, seeing if I can go to bed earlier and get up earlier to enjoy the morning – maybe seeing if I can turn my internal clock around and be creative first thing in the day.
One of my favorite activities that I did in dance workshops, for participants ranging from young children to adults, was to explore ideas related to light and darkness. Often we used a line from Genesis to get things going: “And G-d separated the light from the darkness.” (Genesis 1:4) There are so many easy and wonderful ways to quickly motivate movement with this line of text, and activities for this line as well as other suggestions can be found in the book I co-authored with Rabbi Susan Freeman called Torah in Motion: Creating Dance Midrash which I am pleased to say is still available on Amazon.com. (Link to book.)
For today’s blog I want to focus on how I relate to light and darkness at the present time!! First of all I find things to celebrate about light and darkness in nature and in my art. I also find a negative side. When the light is too bright I find it very uncomfortable. Darkness can be scary at night, especially with strange noises. On the other hand darkness can be very comforting. A dark night allows us to see the stars more vividly and there is a wonderful joy in that. The few times I have been up to see the sun rise there is something very welcoming and satisfying in that.
When I first studied art at the Art Students League in NYC I was required to do charcoal studies of gradation from very dark to very light and then look carefully at the model and start with the darkest shadow first. I still use this concept when painting. I am beginning to explore watercolor and am learning to decide where the lightest point might be and to leave the paper paint-free with the white showing through. This came in very handy when making some holiday greeting cards where the white became a very important part of the design as illustrated in the photo of this holiday card.
Greeting card I created this December
A favorite painting I created in 2009, in which I particularly like how I used light and darkness. I am pleased to share that this painting sold in Santa Fe back in 2011 and continues to be one of my favorite paintings mainly because of the contrasts in it
I close wishing you a very happy holiday season and hoping this coming year will be a healthy and creative one for us all as we explore our new normal. For me, I might focus on enjoying more of the daylight here in Costa Rica, maybe welcoming the sunrise, finding opportunities to be creative in the morning and learning to go to bed earlier!! And then again my body and mind may just not want to change, no matter how good it sounds.
There is no way of escaping the use of the word “transition” when you turn on the news. It is extremely disturbing how there simply is not the normal process of one President passing the baton to the next. The citizens of the U.S. are left in a state of suspension, a most uncomfortable feeling. And yet in a way that is its own form of transition. An abrupt sudden change. And with this kind of transition in the midst of a pandemic the potential is there for unnecessary deaths and much pain.
As a choreographer my goal was to make a piece in which the transitions were seamless. One section flowed appropriately into the next. 2020 is a year of major transitions for me with each one challenging me in a new way. They are not seamless like a good piece of choreography nor are they sudden and abrupt. Hints of what comes next have helped prepare me. In reflecting I have had three major personal transitions and experienced a fourth, worldwide transition. I share some of my thoughts on each of these.
The first major transition, which I have already written about, was when Murray and I decided to sell our house in Santa Fe and move to Costa Rica, buying a house in Atenas. Learning how to live in a new country, run a house with a beautiful garden and learn Spanish are indeed challenges in themselves. Things got more complicated when Murray’s health problems continued to surface after we had been here just two weeks. And they continued, except for the month of April, until the end of October when he passed. Now I am transitioning to being on my own. In the midst of all of this, COVID-19 changed all of our lives and we all made a rapid transition to learning how to use FaceTime and Zoom as our major ways of connecting with each other.
Murray and I were very fortunate that neither of us had a major illness that required much caretaking of the other during the 56 years we were together. While Murray had been diagnosed with heart issues quite a few years ago he did not have a serious incident until just a few weeks before we were due to leave for Costa Rica. The doctors OK’d our plans to continue our move to Costa Rica after Murray responded well to a pacemaker.
From mid-February to mid-July I gradually transitioned into my role of caretaking. It was challenging for both of us because Murray loved his independence and it was very hard for him to be in a wheelchair needing help to get around. We had help during the day with our full-time house manager/driver/cook who developed a wonderful relationship with Murray (which will be a separate blog). We also had a nurse’s help for a few hours several days a week. But from 4 pm to 9 am and on the weekend we were on our own and often liked that quiet time together. Since Murray needed help to and from the bathroom at night I learned how to function on interrupted night-time sleep. A conscious decision was made by Murray that he did not want to go back to the hospital and I supported that 100%. In Costa Rica, doctors still make house calls and lab technicians come to the house too so that made things so much easier.
So many times we expressed our joy and relief to be in Costa Rica and not the U.S. at this time with COVID changing things so much in the U.S. and not so much here. We were very careful. Murray did not go out of the house at all after mid-July and I only went to the grocery, pharmacy or bank. Most of all Murray was able to continue enjoying our beautiful garden here. And when he was indoors all the rooms have large windows treating his eye to one beautiful section of the property after another. One of our favorite views was (and still is mine) looking out to the butterfly/hummingbird garden we put in where there had been a non-functioning Jacuzzi. In particular, the butterflies were very regular visitors. A gradual transition was progressing as Murray’s concentration and strength weakened and I had more caretaking roles. Given the option of having the nurse here more, especially on the weekend or after 4, I chose not to take it for several reasons. There was a peacefulness of just us being here together and I could keep things more normal. That’s not to say there weren’t frustrating moments for both of us or that I didn’t sometimes feel overwhelmed.
View from the bedroom window of the broken Jacuzzi that we turned into a garden.
We really missed family and loved the group Zoom calls with our daughters and grandchildren. Murray so cherished and looked forward to them. Yes… it would have been super if family could have been here but, like all the world, we were and are adapting to new ways of living because of the pandemic. And over and over I felt and feel deep gratitude that Murray could transition in our home in a setting of sheer beauty.
Via Zoom we were able to have a meaningful memorial for him. It was organized by our daughters and granddaughter, with a slideshow that brought both smiles and tears to me. Led by my next-door neighbor growing up, who shared playing in the Allderdice High School Orchestra with Murray, the memorial had a very personal touch. Although alone in Costa Rica, I felt so much love and warmth during the service and from feedback afterwards. I am very grateful that our daughters and granddaughter went forward with this at a time I was just plain exhausted.
Now it is a month later and I am making another transition. It is filled with a combination of missing Murray and the grief that goes with that, along with lots of questions. Most of the questions are just that… open questions which will take time to explore and for me to figure out. They center around how I want to structure my daily life, from when to eat, what to eat, and what my body rhythm is. How do I want to structure my creative activities? Except for writing this blog (and not as regularly as I wanted to; I love and want to get back to the once-a-week schedule), I haven’t painted much [or done other creative work] at all. So much time is spent with paperwork after a person dies, and while a lot has been accomplished there is much more to do. That too is a major part of the transition.
Some things are becoming clearer. Meditation is playing a bigger role each day and I am finding it very meaningful to start each day with a half hour of meditation followed by some journal writing. Being part of a Buddhist book group has also become important. When asked whether I plan to return to the U.S., the answer is I have no plans [to move back] at this time, but down the road when perhaps there is a closer-to-normal lifestyle I will look forward to some visits. I will keep a legal address in the U.S., and maintaining the ability to vote and stay connected is important to me. I am glad to be continuing to work on a film begun nearly two years ago, on men’s experience of domestic violence and what services are available to them. There is still much to be done related to domestic violence, and our film company Healing Voices – Personal Stories is very important to me.
The haunting question with no answer is why I feel so connected to being here in Costa Rica and what my purpose is here. I feel so fortunate to be living in such a beautiful setting that Murray and I fell in love with a year ago. His presence is very much here, from the papaya tree he planted from seed in March, which is now producing papaya, to our careful selection of just some minimal furnishings. For right now I am settling in and the answers will emerge.
The Papaya tree that Murray planted from a seed in March.
This year, as September 11th approached, I found myself reflecting on the spiritual changes that were triggered by that day and how I relate to those changes now. Are they still valid for me now? Was it a detour? Have my beliefs strengthened or changed? This is not a normal year for me and I hunch it is not normal for anyone else. The pandemic has impacted all of our lives in some way. Murray’s declining health is also another factor and I am finding my daily life as a caretaker something very new and challenging. And of course we moved to Costa Rica the end of January this year. So this is a good time to assess if I am on the right track with a philosophy-spiritual path that can be helpful.
The 70’s saw me exploring Judaism through dance, looking to find how I might relate to prayers that up to that point had held little meaning for me. I found a sense of satisfaction by embodying the intent (or at least my personal intent) of the prayer through movement, at first in my own body and then later as a choreographer with the members of the company expressing my and their interpretation. The 80’s focused a lot on exploring the Torah through what we called dance midrash. A shift began toward the end of the 80’s and continued through the 90’s where the emphasis was in building bridges between communities, particularly the Black and Jewish community. Throughout all three decades I was looking for the feminist voice of the “divine.” And I was beginning to have my doubts about whether I could continue to relate to doing midrash to find the feminine voice in Judaism. So when 9/11 happened I was already questioning things a lot.
9/11 was itself especially traumatic because at that time we lived in Jersey City about three blocks from the river, directly across from the World Trade Center. In fact we usually took the PATH train into the WTC and then either transferred to a subway or walked. So WTC was very much part of our neighborhood. On 9/11 I was home when the first plane hit. Murray had gone into work early and was already through the WTC and at his job site. Our daughter Rachel called me in a panic, worried about her father, as she knew the route he usually took. I asked why and she told me to turn on the TV and briefly told me what happened. I told her Murray had left early but as soon as I heard from him I would let her know. Her voice was filled with panic, as she had been on one of the top floors when the WTC had been bombed back in 1993. She remembered the long walk down to the ground. Murray called in saying he was fine and I asked him to call Rachel and assure her he was OK, which he did.
Knowing Murray was OK, I walked down to the river and joined our next-door neighbor. The second building was still standing and sadly we could see specks falling from the top floors. They were actually people jumping. And then we saw the building collapse. Over the next days, smoke and a sharp strange smell were in the air. People were reaching out to each other in a way that they had not before. When we would see someone we knew even casually in our neighborhood, we would hug each other, glad to see we were OK. Everyone had their story to share about the day.
The Jewish High Holidays were around the corner and I will always remember the Rosh Hashanah Eve service where Rabbi Larry Raphael (of blessed memory) asked us to turn to someone we didn’t know and share where we had been on 9/11. The buzz in the room was tremendous. We wanted to talk to each other about our experiences. Then he guided us back to the service and it became flat for me. The prayers were not resonating.
Within a few weeks of 9/11 Thich Nhat Hahn came to town and a friend took me to a service he was leading at Riverside Church. It was packed and there was something about the event that was nurturing and I began meditating more regularly. I had been meditating before but hadn’t really gotten into doing any Buddhist reading nor did I know any of the philosophy. My exposure had been through Jewish adaptations. Within the next month Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg and Sylvia Boorstein all led events in Manhattan. I attended all three and my meditation practice deepened.
When we moved to Steamboat Springs there was a sangha there and on rare occasion I went. My next door neighbor was involved and we would often have meaningful discussions. In 2009 when we moved to Santa Fe I didn’t do much at all until 2011 when my mother was very ill and I wanted to find something meaningful. Jon Kabat-Zinn was speaking at the Upaya Zen Center and so I went to their Wednesday night Dharma talk and then signed up for a 4-day workshop Zen Brain: Consciousness and the Fundamental Nature of Mind. It was way over my head but I got a lot out of it. Meditation and Upaya became more a part of my life. I attended more workshops and for a while was attending the Wednesday night programs fairly regularly. When we moved to the south side of town and Upaya was a further trip I rarely went, but I did continue a meditation practice sometimes alone and sometimes with Murray.
So where am I at with my practice. The first several months here I did not meditate but lately I am returning to a more disciplined practice, finding it extremely helpful. It is clear this is the spiritual path for me. As I read more and participate in a Buddhist book group, I am finding so much that can help guide me at this time. I will always be proud of my Jewish heritage and love the years I spent studying and interpreting text and prayers through dance. The very basic premise of Buddhism, of discovering how suffering can be transformed into peace, is appropriate for me at this time. InThe Heart of the Buddha, Thich Nhat Hahn encourages us to “embrace your suffering and let it reveal to you the way to peace.”
Picture of Murray taken in Jersey City close to where we lived. We think this picture was taken in the early 90’s
One of the main political talking points a year ago was how to reform U.S. immigration policies. Today it is overshadowed by COVID-19. Yet it is still a very important theme because immigration is a fundamental building block of the United States, and the current administration does all it can to block entry to the country. As director of the Avodah Dance Ensemble, I became fascinated with the Jewish immigrant experience to the U.S. In 1985 I came across a book called Chaia Sonia, written by Don Gussow, describing the journey he and his family made to the U.S. (arriving in 1920). After reading the book, I reached out to Don Gussow, asked to meet with him, and then asked for permission to use ideas from the book as themes for a new piece the dance company. He was most enthusiastic, and generous with his time, and he strongly urged me to meet his son Alan Gussow as a possible collaborator on the project. Alan and I met, and Alan began coming to rehearsals and became a key collaborator on “Journey.” I will be writing more about that later but first I want to share the result of a Google search to check the proper spelling of the title of the book Chaia Sonia.
I am never satisfied to see just what comes up on the first page of a search. I usually continue for five to ten pages more, just because I often find fun surprises and additional information. That is exactly what happened with the search for Chaia Sonia and Gussow. First of all I was thrilled to see the book is still available and there is even a free download at one site, although I was reluctant to try it since it required registering and I wasn’t sure of the website. What I did find was a YouTube video recorded by Don’s grandson Adam Gussow in July 2019. Adam has been a Professor of English and Southern Studies at the University of Mississippi since 2002. But I knew about Adam because his father Alan often proudly shared that Adam was building a reputation as a harmonica player, and that was back in 1985. Indeed Adam has built an outstanding reputation and is highly regarded for his blues harmonica playing. A review in American Harmonica Newsletter says that “Gussow’s playing is characterized by his technical mastery and innovative brilliance that comes along once in a generation.” Futhermore there is a documentary on Netflix called Satan and Adam about Adam’s collaboration with Sterling “Mr. Satan” Magee. It is a fascinating and well done documentary, covering from Adam’s first meeting with Satan (on Satan’s spot on a Harlem street) through their longtime collaboration.
I watched the full 23-minute video on YouTube with total attention. And of course the opening title immediately caught my attention because its full version is so relevant to this blog. The second line says, “All my people are immigrants – An American apologizes for the behavior of our president.” It opens with Adam playing the harmonica and wow that just inspired my old bones to get up and dance. Soon Adam begins speaking about his own family roots and in particular the book his grandfather wrote and how deeply he wants to apologize for the behavior of the president of the U.S. I strongly urge you to watch it. Here is the link.
Don Gussow, author of Chaia Sonia, was a publisher of trade magazines and wrote four books. Chaia Sonia tells of his family’s flight through Poland and Russia to freedom. It is an incredible journey focusing on his mother, a courageous woman who led her family on a five-year journey from Lithuania to the United States, arriving in 1920.
Current cover of Chaia Sonia, which is available at Amazon. I remember a slightly different cover… but my memory could be wrong.
Before talking specifically about the piece “Journey” that we created, I want to share a little bit about Alan Gussow (1931-1997). He had an outstanding, nearly 50-year career as an artist, author, activist/environmentalist and educator. At age 21 he was awarded the Prix de Rome. He was introduced to art and in particular watercolor as a student at Middlebury College. The following is[fix] an excerpt from a Fall 2018 article in the Maine Arts Journal, written by Carl Little, entitled “In Conversation with the World: Alan Gussow’s Watercolors”:
“As a student at Middlebury College in Vermont, I learned at least two things about art,” Gussow once recalled. “First, that art was magical. How I or any person could mix a little water with some paint and then make marks and shapes which look like parts of the world still remains a source of wonder.”….. “At Cooper Union where I studied for one year after Middlebury,” Gussow recalled, “I learned that art was a form of energy.” However nature-centered his art became, he consistently practiced a highly expressive approach to subjects, often entering realms of abstraction.
It is interesting to note that in the 80’s Alan began experimenting with art as a process instead of a product. He brought wonderful energy into the process of our rehearsals.
As I continued developing ideas for the piece I decided that I wanted to reach out to others who had made a journey from Russia to the U.S. about the same time. I was lucky to know two other people with stories to share. One, Louis Siegel,was the father of a longtime friend of mine. We met and he shared his story. I was immediately struck by themes similar to Don Gussow’s story. My husband’s Aunt Bess also recorded her story for us and again the same themes emerged. These were long and difficult journeys involving crossing rivers, being hungry and sometimes stealing food.
Rehearsals began with the five Avodah dancers at that time: Beatrice Bogorad, Jean Ference, Kathy Kellerman, Rachelle Palnick and Rick Jacobs. Alan often joined us, sometimes with a very large piece of paper that he spread on the floor and enjoyed drawing on as we danced. Ideas from the drawings later became a poster and invitation to our opening night performance. We responded to the stories, creating an abstract piece with the desire to get to core of the experience, capturing the energy it took to make such a long and difficult journey. I am not sure how successful we were with the finished product but the process was a meaningful and rich experience, at least for me, as the collaboration with Alan opened new doors and ways of thinking of things. And interestingly, in researching for this blog, I feel a reconnecting with Alan. I now look forward to studying his watercolors and learning from them, as well as from his writing, what I might apply here as I experiment with watercolor and enjoy time painting in our garden.
Page from Avodah Scrapbook showing the poster and invitation painted by Alan Gussow.
A favorite picture from “Journey.” Photo by Tom Brazil.
Right now the choreographer part of me is hungry for a group of dancers, and what I would want to explore with them is stillness. Why stillness? I hunch it is my reaction to the time we are in and the necessity of sheltering in our home. How do we handle this? We can be as busy and in full motion at home as the times when we go shopping, meet up with friends, and rush around with many errands to do, or we can decide to take some time to be really still, silent and just BE. Maybe this pandemic is asking us to do just that.
A lot of us are meditators with a regular practice, and sometimes our minds quiet down to a “stillness,” and lots of time they just don’t. I am finding it interesting that I have been meditating less the past four months, caught up in the challenges surrounding me here. Last week I had the opportunity to join a local Buddhist book group via Zoom that began with a half hour of meditation, and I was amazed at the impact of just that half hour of sitting quietly.
It has encouraged me to get back to a more regular practice of meditation, and it has also triggered my interest in wanting to choreograph a dance study exploring how to move (not even particularly fast) and then find an easy position to hold and remain there for a while until something either internally or externally calls one to move again. And then repeat the process until you find another position that calls you to be still. What does it require to hold the position? Do we tense? Do we relax into it? Are we aware of our surroundings or do they melt away? When we begin to move again what kind of movement do we want to do? Rarely do I long to have a group of dancers to work with, but creating a piece where we explore the beauty of slowly moving in and out of stillness is calling me.
I wondered if such a piece already existed and began a Google search. I found lots of writers using dance and stillness together as a metaphor for what they wanted to write about. I also found an interesting article in Dance Spirit magazine about how dancers have handled holding a pose on stage. https://www.dancespirit.com/how-to-make-the-most-of-stillness-onstage-2502557437.html But so far no link to a dance that explored going in and out of stillness as the theme of the dance and that is what I would love to do right now. So since I have no dancers to work with other than[fix]myself, and I don’t see this as a solo and my range of movement is very limited, I am thinking I can again turn to art and see what I come up with.
Probably why I am so attracted to this theme is the strong need I am feeling in my own life for just being quiet. In the book that the local Buddhist book group is reading, “Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching” by Thich Nhat Hanh, one chapter really stood out for me. It is Chapter 6, “Stopping, Calming, Resting, Healing.” I love the end, which says:
Our body and mind have the capacity to heal themselves if we allow them to rest.
Stopping, calming and resting are preconditions for healing. If we cannot stop, the course of our destruction will just continue. The world needs healing. Individuals, communities, and nations need healing.
When I turned to painting, what I ended up with was a watercolor sketch that might be useful to begin creating a trio. And then later in the day, while enjoying watching a hummingbird come to our feeder, I noticed that even it found time to just rest, and I was able to catch this silhouette of the bird resting calming for quite a while before fluttering back to the feeder.
The hummingbird resting between trips to the feeder.
