It was very insightful to view three videos of Binding and see how the piece evolved from its first performance in 1989. The premiere performance that I wrote about in last week’s blog featured two guest performers integrated into the piece. Cantor Mark Childs and Rabbi Norman Cohen were an important part of the performance. Mark sang, narrated and was part of the stage action. Norman also narrated and participated onstage. In a video of a performance done five years later with Cantor Bruce Ruben, he was very visible but never interacted directly with the dancers. The choreography of the dancers remained basically the same. As with the first performance the dancers gave strong and dramatic performances.
For me, in all three videos the strongest moment in the piece is when one of the dancers who has been associated with the character of Sarah dramatically screams “No” instead of “Hineni” (“Here I am”).
This occurs after the following narration:
And Abraham picked up the knife to slay his son. Then an angel of the Lord called to him from heaven: ‘Abraham! Abraham!’ and he answered…
Three dancers respond with the traditional “Hineni.” The fourth dancer, her arms held as if cradling a child, screams “No!”
Carla Norwood Armstrong, in writing an Avodah memory, remembered that during a rehearsal of Binding, “when I let out the scream a security guard came running into the room to make sure that we were okay.”
In the third video, the dancers handled the whole piece, while I played thetriangle and the drum at appropriate places. I remember a particularly strong rehearsal when I had just added much more for the dancers to do, and one of the dancers, Tanya Alexander, made me stop and think to myself, “Wow she is a strong actress.” It wasn’t just the scream… it was the whole way she was developing her character and making the lines she was saying so believable.
I told Tanya about my call and asked her if she wanted to read for Julie that afternoon. Of course she said she did. We continued rehearsing without Tanya and a little while later I got a call from Julie asking if I would mind if Tanya missed rehearsal the next day, as Julie wanted to cast her. I agreed.
At that time my daughter Julie was casting the show Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. At a break in rehearsal I impulsively picked up my cell phone and called her. I mentioned that one of the dancers was a particularly strong actress. Julie asked me a few questions about her and I described Tanya to her. Julie said she was actually looking for an actor for a young single mom role that might be just right for Tanya. The next thing out of her mouth was a request that I send Tanya over to read for her.
Tanya and I used to laugh about the fact that her actor friends were surprised that she had gotten that part on Law and Order: Special Victims Unit because she had been in a modern dance company directed by the mother of the casting director.
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