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.
For those of you who personally know me, you are aware that I usually seem happiest when busy. For years it was founding, choreographing and directing a dance company. More recently it has been creating art, selling art and learning how to make the art functional with the tiles and tea towels that we put our images on. And of course most recently it’s been directing and making films related to domestic violence. The months of August and September were particularly busy with our Day of Action Against Domestic Violence. When I arrived in Costa Rica a week ago I was pretty exhausted and found myself for the first two days just sitting on the patio of the beautiful home we have rented and mostly doing nothing, with my only interest being watching the birds.
Now it is a week later and I am no longer tired but guess what… I still find it refreshing and a joy to just watch the birds. Sometimes we are amused and have fun watching what we have learned is the Great Kiskadee flycatcher take a dip in the pool. A pair fly back and forth and just love to splash in the pool and then find a banana leaf to rest on before crossing back to the other side and repeating their cute little dive. I find myself just giggling as I watch.
Picture taken with my IPhone as I was writing this blog
This morning Murray got up just after sunrise and wandered outside to see six very colorful Toucans going back and forth between two very close trees. I got to see one at the far away tree a few mornings ago. I may have to get up at sunrise and check out what’s happening tomorrow or the next day. We are using The Birds of Costa Rica: A Field Guide by Richard Garrigues and Robert Dean.
From page 193 of the Field Guide
Not so long ago a black vulture rested again on the leafless branches of a not so close, very tall tree. It seems to be a favorite resting place to look around before taking off again. This time the vulture facing toward me very slowly and elegantly spread his/her wings to their full extent, holding still like this for a good 30 seconds. What an incredible sight. Here’s a link to a photo of the wings of the black vulture. https://ebird.org/species/blkvul
And of course there is a regular chatter going on nearly all
the time.
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.
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.
Last week I wrote about the company’s performance of Kaddish at a Central Synagogue Sabbath service in May 1985. We dedicated that evening’s performance to Ben Sommers, who had been President of Capezio, and who had died that week. I mentioned in the blog that Ben’s wife, Estelle Sommers, had told me afterwards how meaningful the service was. She also told me that we should get together for lunch after things calmed down for her. About a month or so later we had lunch together, and that began a very special friendship that strongly impacted both the Avodah Dance Ensemble and my life personally.
Estelle, like Ben, was a dancewearspecialist and managed Capezio stores:
Sommers made her career in retail dancewear as a designer, business executive, and owner of various ventures. She revolutionized the field of fitness clothing by introducing a new fabric, Antron-Lycra/Spandex, into her innovative designs for Capezio’s bodywear. (https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/sommers-estelle-joan)
At some point either before our lunch or after she suggested that I reach out to and meet Linda Kent. She mentioned that Linda (then with The Paul Taylor Dance Company) was also interested in liturgical dance. I knew who Linda was and had great respect for her outstanding professional career, first with the Alvin Ailey Company from 1968–74, and then as a principal dancer with the Taylor Company from 1975. I had often seen her perform. Estelle sent Linda a similar kind of note, giving us information on how to contact each other.
Linda and I did get in touch, resulting in a personal friendship and professional collaboration. Linda created pieces and helped shape Interfaith programs for Avodah, guest taught at our workshops, and at times performed with the company (including filling in for Kezia when she broke her foot performing Let My People Go). Linda also helped us find Avodah dancers by recommending students she knew from her position at Juilliard (where she had graduated in 1968 and joined the faculty in 1984), and she offered generous artistic and Board advice when Julie Gayer took over as Avodah’s Director. Linda and I continue our long friendship today. (See photo in blog on Juilliard homecoming. I will be writing more blogs later about Linda.) Introducing Linda and me was very typical of Estelle, as she was one of the best networkers I have ever known. In the same article I quoted above, Estelle was described as “one of the most enthusiastic advocates and patrons of dance,” sometimes referred to as the “empress of dance.” And I can affirm that indeed she was, for The Avodah Dance Ensemble.
Within a year of our meeting, Estelle suggested having a gathering at her apartment to introduce Avodah dancers and Board members to some of her influential dance friends. One very important contact we made that evening was Ted Bartwink. Ted served as Trustee and Executive Director of The Harkness Foundation for Dance from 1968–2014. The Harkness Foundation made annual contributions to most of the major dance venues in New York City. Following that evening he came to at least one performance that I remember and for a number of years we received funding for our educational programs from the Harkness Foundation.
At Estelle’s request, I often served on honorary committees for benefit events. I was always thrilled to see my name on a list with so many outstanding dance and theatre people. Murray and I enjoyed attending the events and below is the back of an invitation for a 1991 International Committee for The Dance Library of Israel which honored Stephanie French, the Vice President of Corporate Contributions and Cultural Affairs for the Philip Morris Management Corporation, a major supporter of dance in the New York City area.
Back of invitation for the Dance Library of Israel Event
Earlier that same year Estelle Sommers was honored with the 9thAnnual Dance Notation Bureau Award and I was thrilled to be on that Honorary Committee. I end this blog with this lovely picture of Estelle.
In my last blog, I began to write about my recent trip to New York City. In a later blog I’ll share more about the trip, in particular about a workshop that longtime friend and collaborator Regina Ress and I did at New York University’s Forum on Theater and Health. For now, keeping with this blog’s title of synchronicity with my recently published blogs, I now jump to my last night in NYC and attending the closing night of the Martha Graham Company’s April 2–14, 2019 performances at the Joyce. I had debated about even getting tickets for the performance, but finally, a few days before I left home I went online and purchased a ticket for Program C. I mainly selected this program because I had Sunday evening free and there was a piece by Pam Tanowitz in the program. I had never seen any of Tanowitz’s work and I was aware that she was getting lots of rave reviews.
Write-ups about her, as well as her biography, interested me, particularly reports that she was known “for her unflinchingly post-modern treatment of classical dance vocabulary” (http://pamtanowitzdance.org/bio). This spring she was not only creating a work for the Martha Graham Company but also for The New York City Ballet. That is indeed impressive and so I made sure to select a program that included the New York Premiere of her piece Untitled (Souvenir) for the Graham Company. Also on the program were two Graham classics, Errand into the Maze (created in 1947) and Chronicle(1936). Another world premiere by two choreographers who were totally new to me, Maxine Doyle and Bobbi Jene Smith, completed the program.
When I bought the ticket I felt disappointed that one of my very favorite Graham pieces, Diversion of Angels, was not being performed that evening. But I made my decision based on seeing the Tanowitz piece, as very few choreographers are able to cross over from ballet to modern commissions as she does.
So off I went to spend my last night in NYC at the Graham concert. The opening piece, Errand into the Maze, was one that I remembered seeing years ago (on one of my return trips to NYC) performed by one of my favorite teachers and Graham performers, Helen McGehee, in the leading female role. I don’t remember who performed the male role with her. I do remember her fierceness and passion in dancing. It appears that the piece had not been in the Graham repertory for 15 years when it was brought back in 1968 and Clive Barnes wrote a review:
The choreography – it dates from 1947 and has not been seen in New York for 15 years – wonderfully mixes the swift and angular lightness of the female with the heavy solemnity of the male. Set against the bones of Isamu Noguchi’s skeletal setting, and the sonorities of Gian Carlo Menotti’s score, the work powerfully conveys the archaic mythical pattern of despair, hope and achievement.
As the female, danced first of course, by Graham herself, Helen McGehee, as intense as a flickering flame, possesses just the sense of nervousness despair and faith this view of Ariadne demands and Clive Thompson’s Minotaur-Thesus, both ponderous yet buoyant, is the perfect stolid partner to her impetuous neuroticism. (The New York Times,October 26, 1968)
Errand Into The Maze opened the concert and I was pleasantly surprised at the performance it was given by Charlotte Landreau and Lloyd Mayor. A rush of positive emotion filled me as a dance vocabulary and approach I so love was beautifully performed. I have always loved how Graham turned to classical mythology for inspiration for her choreography and I remember writing a fairly long paper for an English class in High School on Graham’s use of mythology. It received an A and I held onto it for a long time but at some point, along with programs that I had kept for years, it got thrown out when we were cleaning out our papers for one of our many moves.
The second piece on the program was Deo by guest choreographers Doyle and Smith and frankly I don’t remember anything about it. Following intermission came the Tanowitz piece. I could clearly see how she was manipulating the Graham technique in a new way and found that rather interesting but that was really all I got from the piece. Disappointment was my overall reaction. I can see why critics like what she is doing and from an intellectual point of view it was fascinating but it didn’t emotionally move me in any way.
The last piece, Chronicles took my breath away. It is in three parts and I was familiar with the piece because Deborah Hanna, a dancer who worked with Avodah for 7 years and with whom I continue to keep in contact, had danced in one of the sections of the piece when she was in the Martha Graham Ensemble (a junior company of Graham in the 1980’s and early 90’s). I don’t remember getting to see Deborah in it but did know that it was being revived. The original program notes were included in the Joyce program:
Chronicle does not attempt to show the actualities of war; rather does it, by evoking war’s images, set forth the fateful prelude to war, portray the devastation of spirit which it leaves in its wake, and suggest an answer.
The first Part, titled “Spectre – 1914,” was powerfully danced by Xin Ying. She managed the huge black and red shroud with power and was a good start to what followed. Section II is entitled “Steps in the Street (Devastation – Homelessness – Exile)” and is a powerful group dance that along with Section III, “Prelude to Action (Unity – Pledge to the Future),” shows the female members of the company in an excellent light.
A review by Joanne DiVito for the LA Dance Chronicle of a performance just a month before the one I saw describes the second section wonderfully:
The second movement Steps in the Street begins with one soul, played by the incredible Anne Souder dressed in black. She backs onto the stage; step, drag, hesitate, step drag, hesitate, all in silence. This remarkable section, comments on the devastation of people caught in war. The stunning use of tiny runs, continuous jumps, and reconfigurations, static against kinetic, calls for the dancers to defy gravity and rise to all manner of challenges which this piece demands. Their sudden heroic prowess surprises and adds to the tension and release of this remarkable piece. (https://www.ladancechronicle.com/grahams-brilliant-legacy-lives-today-with-eilbers-leadership/)
But it is the last section that totally took my breath away. The women’s leaping and repetition of strong Graham phrases became heroic and so powerful that it was no surprise that the audience (a wonderful mix of young and old) rose to its feet shouting and applauding loudly, to acknowledge the beautiful performance. That kind of energy we rarely see in dance anymore – and what a treat!
Afterwards, as I ran into several contemporary fellow dancers in the lobby, one remarked, “That lady [referring to Graham] certainly had talent.” And indeed she did, for it was Graham’s two pieces, not the newly commissioned ones, that stood out. And it was a wonderful way for me to finish my trip to NYC!!
Clearly Juilliard and The Martha Graham Company have been on my mind recently and I have been writing about them in recent blogs. They both played an important part in a recent trip to New York City. I usually go at least once a year to NYC and sometimes twice. Of course, part of that is to see family and friends. It is also just to enjoy the energy of the city, the museums, theatre and dance. This year’s trip began with a Homecoming for dancers at Juilliard and ended with a performance of The Martha Graham Company. This blog, spread over two weeks, will focus on these two events.
Sunday afternoon, April 7th, was billed as a homecoming for dancers at Juilliard. It was an opportunity to mingle, to take class (they offered a Gaga Class and a Meditation Class), to see student compositions and to meet and hear Alicia Graf Mack, the new director of the Dance Department. Indeed it was a really full afternoon, starting at noon and ending at six. I decided that classes weren’t for me so I went at 3 in time to see student choreography, hear Alicia Graf and enjoy networking.
Part of my closeness to Juilliard is not only the impact the school had on me when I attended but also a deep appreciation for dancers in Avodah who had studied there and how much I benefited from their excellent training and professional attitude. Linda Kent, Juilliard faculty member and very good friend, had encouraged me to come and said she would definitely be there. So I flew in on April 6th, to attend the next day.
My only disappointment was that none of the classmates I was close to back in the 60’s attended nor did any of the many dancers that I had worked with in Avodah. I did see quite a few acquaintances and that was pleasant. And of course it is always fun to hang out with Linda Kent who knows just about everyone there.
The highlight for me was hearing Alicia Graf Mack speak. For an hour she shared her background in dance and her ideas for the department, and answered questions. Her warm, friendly and very open style is appealing. The fact that she performed in both Dance Theatre of Harlem and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater gives her an excellent professional background. The March issue of Dance Magazine sums it up well:
As a former leading dancer for both DTH – under the exacting eye of Arthur Mitchell – and Ailey, she effortlessly embodies Juilliard’s ethos: an equal focus on ballet and modern dance. She also holds a degree in history from Columbia University and an MA in nonprofit management from Washington University in St. Louis. She is an overachiever in every sense.
She is also the first African American and, at 39, the youngest person to direct the Dance Department.
Among the things she shared, I found particularly interesting one of the projects she did while at Columbia – reviewing and writing about the financial records of Dance Theatre of Harlem. She also experienced illness that forced her to stop dancing with DTH, and she talked openly about how that impacted her and how she was able to go back. She became involved with a “Praise” dance group at Columbia University that led her to choreograph and go back to classes, this time taking Milton Myers’s classes in Horton technique, which eventually led her to the Ailey Company.
From l to r: Linda Kent, Alicia Graf Mack, and JoAnne at the Juilliard Homecoming on April 7th.
I left Juilliard with a very good feeling that the dance department was in good hands. And off I went to meet my grandson for dinner. My trip to NYC was off to a good start.
Sometimes events surprise you and life takes a turn you hadn’t expected. That happened in late May of 1962 when I was flying home having completed my first year at Juilliard. About half way through the short flight from NYC to Pittsburgh, I got a tap on my shoulder. A male voice said, “I think we know each other.” I was aware I was wearing a scoop-neck dress and I thought hmm… he must be getting an interesting sight… Anyway it turned out we indeed did know each other. Murray Tucker and I had gone out on a date a few years back when I had directed a water ballet at the country club both of our parents belonged to. His sister Lynne had been one of the youth I directed. That year’s water ballet was a bit humorous, making fun of the Pittsburgh Steelers football team. Their dad was Joe Tucker, the Voice of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Lynne had introduced Murray and me, and I had asked if he could do a takeoff on his father and announce the water ballet.
Anyway that was how we met and then we had gone out on an actual date to see the Ice Capades. Neither one of us was interested in the other at that time. We hadn’t seen each other since then. We chatted for a few minutes on the plane and when we walked off the plane we noticed that our parents were talking to each other. We saw each other a few times before I took off for a summer job teaching dance at a camp. We saw each other again at the end of the summer and continued corresponding and seeing each other at school breaks. Definitely the romance was building and I could see a future with Murray.
At the same time, while I loved my classes and study at Juilliard I was becoming aware of several other things. I was surrounded by many talented dancers and I saw my limitations particularly as a performer. The company I aspired to be a part of was The Martha Graham Company. I loved the technique and her choreography. I was also realistic that my chances were not great to get into the Company. And even more important was that the more I hung around the Graham studio and began to meet some of the newest members of the company the more disappointed I became. Sometimes I would help sew costumes late in the evening at the Graham studio to earn some money and would see Martha wandering around fairly intoxicated, looking for where she might find a bottle with some more liquor in it. That was shattering my illusion of a very talented creative person. I knew this was a challenging time for her as she was still performing her lead roles but not with the same energy or technique that she had earlier. She must have been wrestling with how to retire from performing. As has been documented in biographies and articles about her, this was very difficult for her.
In her autobiography Blood Memory she wrote: “[When I stopped dancing] I had lost my will to live. I stayed home alone, ate very little, and drank too much and brooded. My face was ruined, and people say I looked odd, which I agreed with. Finally my system just gave in. I was in the hospital for a long time, much of it in a coma.” (Quote is from Wikipedia; no page number is given. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Graham)
Anna Kisselgoff, in an excellent article for The New York Times writes about this period, “To give up dancing, Graham felt, meant to give up her life.” Kisselgoff continues “After a severe depression and a two-year illness in the early 1970’s, Graham actively resumed working with her company.” Here’s the link to the article, which gives an excellent picture of Martha and her company up to 1984, the time the article was written. https://www.nytimes.com/1984/02/19/magazine/martha-graham.html
While my time at the studio was seven or eight years before Martha’s severe depression, clearly the seeds were apparent to all around her and gave me much to think about. But I was very inspired by her choreography, her technique and her wonderful way of expressing a philosophy of life. Just Google “Martha Graham quotes” and links to a number of websites are listed. Here’s one “Top 25 Quotes of Martha Graham.” And they are not just about dance. They are about a philosophy of life. https://www.azquotes.com/author/5783-Martha_Graham
Her classes were sprinkled with inspiration on how to be a dancer, a creative person and how to reach your full potential. I was so disappointed to see such a person – who inspired and was such an innovator – not happy. Of course, I was a young 20-year old not mature enough or able to understand the challenges that life brings and also the challenges that a very passionate and creative genius deals with.
I also sensed the strong competition among the younger company members and the lack of kindness that they showed each other. Was this an environment I wanted to be part of? I was no longer sure. I was also aware that I had completed one important goal… I had made it through all three levels of Louis Horst’s Composition Program, and to be a choreographer remained a key desire of mine.
At the end of my second year I went home to Pittsburgh filled with these thoughts and beginning to consider returning to Pittsburgh and maybe building a life with Murray. The summer went well and I made the decision not to return to Juilliard and to attend academic classes at the University of Pittsburgh. I have never for one moment regretted that choice. We were married a year later and what a rich, loving, sometimes challenging and amazing journey we have been on since then.
Now a full time student at Juilliard, I stopped taking outside technique classes. That was easy to do because some Juilliard classes were with the same teachers I had had at the Graham Studio. In ballet I really adored Alfredo Corvino’s classes and was glad to be studying with him consistently. The schedule at Juilliard was so full that it left little time for anything else. I was up early and in class at 9 in the morning and often didn’t get back until 9 at night. The program was exhausting and I can remember sometimes falling asleep in my leotard and tights. At that time Juilliard had no dorm and I was now living at the Barbizon for Women, which was a good 45-minute subway ride from the school, which was located at 120 Claremont Ave on the upper West Side. Since Columbia University was located nearby I could continue the two academic classes I was taking. When I returned in the fall I began taking academic classes at Juilliard and did not return to Columbia University’s School of General Studies. I don’t remember anything about the academic classes at Juilliard and don’t think they were very interesting or challenging at the time.
Besides the technique and Horst’s composition classes, two classes stand out strongly in my mind: Literature and Materials of Music taught by Caryl Friend and Labanotation taught by Muriel Topaz. They were challenging and helped me relate to dance in new ways. “L and M,” as we referred to Friend’s class, introduced us to the various forms of classical music and we often had to create dance studies related to the musical form we were studying. We had to study each piece of music carefully, as her exam consisted of her dropping the needle down on the record and our having to identify the piece and where in the piece she was playing. The second year, we began playing the piano and I remember writing short piano compositions. In fact, during the second year, when I was dating Murray (who later became my husband), I sent him a series of themes on the tune “Happy Birthday” using my new skill at music composition. As he was attempting to figure out what I had written, his Mom walked by and identified the piece as variations on “Happy Birthday.”
Muriel Topaz was an excellent teacher and I was fascinated with Labanotation and at one point even toyed with going further with notation. Analyzing movement to write it down helped me understand it better and it was fun to begin to read movement scores of famous pieces.
Of course a highlight continued to be having the opportunity to study composition with Louis Horst. Modern Forms was great fun and I enjoyed not only the course material and assignments but other students in the class, particularly Martha Clarke and Diane Gray. There was even a time when the three of us put together a dance study which I seem to remember we titled “Minding your P’s and Q’s” that related to an assignment we had. Behind our back each of us held in one hand a cupcake in honor of Louis’s birthday and the end of the piece we presented him with the cupcakes. In my second year at Juilliard I was able to take Louis’s third-year course Group Forms. The class consisted of students who were seriously interested in composition and each of us progressed from doing a trio to a quartet and then a quintet. You had the option to continue with the course as long as you were a student … so it gave me an opportunity to get to know some juniors and seniors. I spent the first semester developing a trio based on the book Green Mansions and was pleased that it was included in a concert of student works. The next semester I focused on a quartet about people looking at a painting. It was inspired by the long lines I would see winding around the Metropolitan Museum of Art when the painting Mona Lisa was on view. I never finished the piece but did have fun beginning to find my sense of humor in dance.
While I had enjoyed taking technique classes at The Martha Graham School they were even better at Juilliard as over the year and a half at Juilliard I consistently got to study with Helen McGehee, Ethel Winter, Bertram Ross, and (when the Graham Company was on tour) Donald McKayle. Each of the teachers had their own style and favorite combinations, and they were excellent teachers and outstanding performers.
Helen McGehee was my favorite. She had a fierceness as a teacher that I found I responded to. I was curious if she was still alive. She is and is in her late 90’s. There is a wonderful interview of her done around 2010 by Doug Hamby that is mainly a sharing of the piece The Lady and the Unicorn, which she choreographed in 1945 and which was filmed in 1957. I highly recommend the first 7 or 8 minutes, which include excerpts from the piece and her interview. She talks about creating one section in Louis Horst’s class. Her descriptions of Horst is quite wonderful. Here’s the link.
Ethel Winter had a much gentler style of teaching. I found her combinations to be much more lyrical and she was a good balance to McGehee. She died at the age of 87 in 2012. Anna Kisselgoff wrote a beautiful obituary that perfectly captures what I remember.
Bertram was simply Bertram. He had a fun sense of humor and would often join students at a table in the cafeteria. I think I enjoyed him more as a performer than a teacher. Bertram died in 2003 and here is a link to the obituary that Jennifer Dunning wrote about him.
Classes with Donald McKayle were extraordinary. An outstanding teacher, he put together combinations that I loved. He died in August 2018 at the age of 87. I found particularly meaningful the obituary in Dance Magazine which included video of Rainbow Round My Shoulder, performed by the Alvin Ailey Company. Here’s a link to it.
The time I spent at Juilliard was demanding and after two years I left, which I will write about in the next blog. The time in NYC and then at Juilliard shaped me as a choreographer, giving me a discipline and a structured way of working and approaching things that I am very grateful for. This also carried over to other areas of my life, particularly how I approach painting and filmmaking.
I researched to find a picture of The Juilliard School on Claremont Avenue but couldn’t find one that looked like I remember it. I did find this picture of Louis Horst as I pretty much remember him in class. The only thing missing is a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, but if you look closely, he is holding it in his hand. No credit is given for this photo.
In the last blog I mentioned that although Martha Hill had encouraged me to re-audition for Juilliard, I never had a chance to discuss this with my parents because my grandmother died at the same time. So … as planned, off I went to the University of Denver, my only backup school. After only one dance class it was clear to me this was not going to work. Within a few days after informing my parents I would not be staying at the University of Denver, I had withdrawn from school and was packed and on the train heading back to Pittsburgh. I was filled with a clear determination that I wanted to study dance with the best, and the place to do that was in New York City. There was no doubt in my mind that I wanted a career in dance. I hoped that I would have the support of my parents and that they would financially support an independent program in NYC that wasn’t connected to a particular college. I loved the Graham technique of modern dance and knew that would be where I would be taking modern dance classes. On my list was to find a good place to study ballet. I valued academics and thought I would explore what kind of possibilities there would be to enroll in one or two college courses. The long train ride from Denver to Pittsburgh gave me time to think through these different options and I found myself focused and clear on what my next steps were when I got home.
My parents were somewhat open but clearly had their own thoughts on what would be best for me, and my father in particular had a hard time with his daughter being a dancer in NYC. My father’s stepbrother was a psychiatrist and having been consulted, he suggested that when I got home I should see a colleague of his and have someone outside of the family talk to me in case there was something else going on. So shortly after I got home my parents arranged an appointment for me. I knew I needed to be cooperative because my first choice was having their financial support rather then having to support myself in NYC so I was willing to give it a few months home in Pittsburgh if I had to. They also suggested I enroll in a typing course so I might have a skill to support myself if I needed to.
So I enrolled in a typing course at a secretarial school and I had what turned out to be a single appointment with a woman psychiatrist. The appointment ended up actually being lots of fun. I explained why I wanted to go to New York and how I was planning to structure my time. She asked me quite a few questions and by the end of the appointment she was very encouraging and said that if I liked, she would have a follow up appointment with my parents and share with them that she thought my plans were very realistic and encourage them to support me.
Following their appointment a week later, it was decided that I would move to NYC after the 1stof the year. That would give me time to further explore options of where to live in the City and finish the typing course. My mom and I visited New York to explore options of where I would live. I was young and the idea of my living in an apartment was out of the question so we explored places like Y residences for women and the Barbizon Hotel for Women, where I had stayed once before. We then found a house on Madison and 68thStreet that was for women only and offered breakfast in the morning. That would be where I stayed. The neighborhood was great and the other women were a variety of ages. I think I even had my own room. I remember that living in the room next door was a model who was on the cover of Vogue,and another person living on the floor was studying acting. The house itself was a beautiful brownstone with a dramatic spiral staircase in the foyer where one entered. It was near the Cuban Embassy and there were often candlelight vigils and protests on our street.
I knew I would be taking classes at the Graham Studio which was located at 63rdbetween 1stand 2ndAvenue and an easy walk from where I lived. Next to explore was where I would go for ballet. I am not sure what made me decide that I wanted to go to the American School of Ballet which was pretty much for very serious young dancers but I got that in my mind and shortly after arriving in NYC I went for an audition and was placed in the beginning level class with outstanding teachers like Muriel Stuart. I actually loved the classes in spite of being surrounded by very thin “bunhead” ballerina types. Later I would move to studying ballet with Nina Fonaroff, totally loving her class and feeling so much more at home with her. She had danced in the Martha Graham company and also assisted Louis Horst, a composition teacher I was hoping to study with. I continued studying with her even when I later attended Juilliard. Her classes were fun and had a unique musical quality to them as she accompanied the class playing on the studio’s piano. A friend I had met at Connecticut College the previous summer sometimes joined the small class too. With the tension and competition that existed at places like The Graham Studio, School of American Ballet and later at Juilliard, it was a real delight to take class and get back in touch with the childhood joy of dancing. Nina’s combinations were fun to do and her corrections excellent. Ballet was fun – something I had not really experienced before.
One more piece of the puzzle to solve. I discovered that Columbia University had a School of General Studies that was designed for students like me who didn’t want to go full time. So I took the entrance exam, was accepted and began taking a few courses there.
While I did spend a lot of my time on NYC subways and buses going from place to place, I liked the package I had put together and enjoyed the next six months in New York very much.
The film A Dancer’s Work (1957) features the wonderful Graham teachers I got to study with including: Helen McGehee, Ethel Winter, Yuriko, Mary Hinkson and Bertram Ross. A lot of it was filmed in the big studio I remember studying in.
The following summer I returned to Connecticut College, this time focusing on composition classes and continuing to take two technique classes a day, one in Graham technique and the other in Cunningham technique which really never suited me well. The highlight for me was taking a composition class from Pearl Lang, and Louis Horst’s Pre-Classic Dance Forms. I loved both of them. In Pearl’s class I spent the full six weeks creating a laughter study and an anger study in dance. Louis’s class was a real challenge. The pieces we had to create were short with an ABA form. The theme had to be introduced in the first two measures of the A section and every movement in the A section needed to relate to something in those first two measures. He was very demanding and would stop you in the middle of a section if you weren’t following the rules of composition that he outlined. I immediately had great respect for him and knew I wanted to study with him more. So at the end of the summer I asked him if I could take his next course (Modern Forms) at Juilliard, even if I wasn’t a full-time student. He agreed and when I returned to New York in the fall I got approval to do just that. It was a few months into the fall semester when he said I should stop this nonsense of running all around New York and just be a student at Juilliard. And that is exactly what happened. With permission from the dance office and individual teachers, I was allowed to sit in on the classes like Literature and Material of Music for Dancers, and Labanotation and if I passed the mid-term exams I could get credit for those classes. I auditioned in late January, was accepted and became a full-time student at Juilliard in the winter of 1962. By the end of the school year I had completed my first year at Juilliard. Although the class had begun with about 40-plus students, when we started school the following fall there were only about 15 of us left. In the next blog I’ll share more reflections about my time at Juilliard.
I recently read Elizabeth McPherson’s book The Contributions of Martha Hill to American Dance, 1900-1995 and gained insights both into Martha Hill’s role in the history of modern dance in the United States and how she impacted my own life.
Picture of Martha Hill from the Wikipedia website. No photo credit is given.
If you have been reading Mostly Dance on a regular basis you know that Elizabeth McPherson was a member of The Avodah Dance Ensemble for seven years and that recently we collaborated on a conference presentation about Helen Tamiris. Elizabeth is currently the Editor of Dance Education in Practice, a journal of the National Dance Education Organization (NDEO), and she has beautifully edited two articles that I wrote or co-authored for that publication. I feel very lucky to have two people who shared their talents first as dancers and now as valued editors in my life, Elizabeth and Kezia (editor of this blog).
Elizabeth shares in her introduction that the seeds for the book were planted at the memorial service for Hill in 1995, as Elizabeth heard the love and devotion that students of Martha Hill expressed. For her dissertation, Elizabeth decided to focus on profound and personal ways Hill had touched those around her. Elizabeth interviewed four of Hill’s students who graduated “between the years 1965 and 1975, which was one of the peak points in Hill’s career. All four students retained contact with Hill in the years following their graduation up until her death. They also remained active professionally in the dance field” (p. 2). The four dancers are Laura Glenn, Linda Kent, Dian Dong and Danny Lewis. Linda and I are close friends. I have also known Dian for a long time, because Avodah rented space from H.T. Chen & Dancers, the company and school she and her husband run in Chinatown, and we have kept in touch. Laura Glenn and Danny Lewis overlapped one of the years I was at Juilliard.
In the preface to the book, Joseph Polisi (President of Juilliard from 1984 to 2017) puts Elizabeth and her work in an excellent perspective:
Elizabeth McPherson, scholar and Juilliard dance alumna, has provided an insightful biography of Martha Hill that gives appropriate credit to the work that she realized as one of the unsung heroes in contemporary dance in America in the twentieth century. Not only is Martha’s life thoroughly explored in this work, but McPherson also provides an intriguing overview of dance in 20th century American higher education that describes the context within which Martha Hill worked. A meaningful and touching view of Martha as seen through “the eyes of her students” adds immeasurably to understanding the person behind the legacy. (p. ii)
The first chapter is an overview of the history of dance in higher education in the United States. Elizabeth points out that from 1914 to 1932, “a free and creative form of dance, a precursor to modern dance, began to take root in the physical education departments of many colleges and universities” (p. 6).
I have long been a fan of Margaret H’Doubler’s writing in dance education, having used her analysis in many teaching workshops, so it was of particular interest to learn that in 1923 H’Doubler created a dance minor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison in the Physical Education Department. It became a major with students in 1927, and a Master’s degree soon followed.
The relationship of Hill to three then-developing dance departments that I respect highly is discussed in full: New York University, Bennington College and Juilliard. Also discussed is The Connecticut College School of the Dance/American Dance Festival which grew out of the Bennington summer program that ran from 1934–1942 and which was “Hill’s vision, building her status as a giant in dance education.”
I attended two summers of The American Dance Festival at Connecticut College in New London, Connecticut, and both were life changing. Although Martha Hill was no longer director, and – as Elizabeth points out in her book – Hill was either listed as “on leave” or “advisor,” it was during the summer of 1960 that Martha Hill had a profound influence on my life. The following summer it was Louis Horst who influenced me. I don’t think I fully appreciated that until I read this book.
I auditioned for Juilliard in the spring of 1960 but didn’t get in. I knew dance was what I wanted, and while I wasn’t due to graduate until February of 1961, I learned I had enough credits that if I doubled in English I could graduate in June. I knew Juilliard was where I wanted to go and I hadn’t spent much time focusing on other alternatives. As my backup I had applied and gotten into University of Denver. It only had a dance minor, but I thought I might like the school because I had had such a positive experience at Perry-Mansfield and fallen in love with the Colorado Rocky Mountains.
At any rate, I’d gone off to Connecticut College for the summer and was loving the program. I had auditioned and gotten into a special class that Charles Weidman was teaching, which ended with a performance in one of the student showcases. I remember we were going across the floor with a combination of his when I looked up and saw Martha Hill in the balcony watching class. After class she came downstairs and found me and said something like, “You know dear, Juilliard is having an audition at the end of August for additional students for the fall class and if you audition again you will get in.” I thanked her for the information and planned on discussing this with my parents as soon as I got home, which would be in just a few days.
However, by the time I got home, my maternal grandmother had died and so the emotions and energy just weren’t right for me to say anything or change the plans that were already in motion. So a few weeks later, instead of re-auditioning for Juilliard, I was off to the University of Denver. Well… I lasted only about two weeks. After my first class with the head of the dance program, I called home. I told my parents about my brief conversation with Martha Hill, and that the University of Denver was not what I wanted and that I was not staying. I was very definite about that and that I needed to be in New York, if not at Juilliard (because the fall semester had already begun), then taking appropriate classes at the Graham Studio and some strong ballet classes. They agreed that I could come home and that we would figure New York out. How I soon got to New York will be the next blog, but for now I just want to say that Martha Hill’s encouragement was what pushed me to not settle for staying at a place that I knew in my gut wasn’t the right place for me.
Now back to historical insights from Elizabeth’s book. I loved learning that although Martha Hill was a dancer briefly in the Martha Graham company, it was really her behind-the-scenes role in bringing the early creative talents of modern dance to places like Bennington that shaped modern dance in the United States. The faculties she brought together gave modern dancers like Graham, Humphrey, Weidman and Limon places to work, rehearse and create their legendary repertory.
I also found it fascinating to read about how she and William Schuman, President of Juilliard in 1951, founded the Juilliard Dance Department “upon the idea of the integration of the two forms of ballet and modern dance. Up to this time dancers had primarily studied ballet or modern” (p. 57). I really admired Martha Hill’s drive in making sure that the dance department remained a part of Juilliard in the school’s move to Lincoln Center.
A definite highlight was reading the four sections on Martha Hill through the eyes of her students. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in the history of modern dance in the United States and how dance programs developed in U.S. colleges and universities. Thank you, Elizabeth.
Here’s a link to where you can order a copy. I was able to buy a used book for under $10 but that is not the case now.
