Tag: Creative Movement

Movement Workshop in Response to Last Week’s Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting

JoAnne Tucker / / Movement Workshops

There have been many meaningful interfaith services that have happened following the Saturday, October 27th tragedy at Tree of Life Synagogue. The one in Pittsburgh at Soldiers and Sailors’ Hall stands out in particular: music and inspirational words coming from so many different faiths reaching out to comfort, mourn and remember the 11 who lost their lives, and to show support and affirmation that we care and stand for each other.

For some of us, dance/movement is our means of connecting, processing, and affirming.  This week’s blog is an outline for a dance workshop that I would conduct for teens, adults and seniors in response to events such as the shooting at Tree of Life Synagogue, Columbine, Charleston, the nightclub outside of Orlando or any one of the 297 mass shootings that have occurred just this year. That is nearly a shooting for each day of the year. (A mass shooting, according to the Gun Violence Archive, is defined as when 4 or more individuals are shot or killed in the same general time and location.)

The killing of 11 members of Tree of Life Synagogue was particularly close to home for me. Murray and I grew up in Squirrel Hill just a few miles from where it happened.  I find myself filled with a deep sadness.  With it has come an even greater empathy for all those closely affected by the many mass murders in recent years.

How can I take these feelings and design an appropriate “mending or healing” workshop? First, who are the participants? I imagine that the group is made up of different ages, economic backgrounds, religious beliefs, races and sexual preferences. I envision that we share the need to express our feelings and let each other know that we are united in wanting to overcome the violence that is increasing in the U.S. We realize that if it is violence to one of us it is to all of us.  Our strength can come from our unity.

Usually when I am planning a workshop I research any inspirational text, paintings, music or poetry that I might want to weave into the workshop or to just be aware of, to have handy should the need arise. Always I keep in mind that the outline for the workshop is just that… an outline. The workshop is always building in response to those participating and the energy of the group.

I would probably begin in a circle with each member of the group sharing their name and a simple movement that matches the rhythm of their name.  As each movement is done, the whole group repeats it.  This immediately lets each person know they can make up a movement, teach it, and learn other movements.  By the end of this activity a group energy, trust, and comfort has been formed.  (This repetition of movement can be done either with the group copying only the newest movement shown, or with the group repeating all of the previous movements, in a cumulative chain – like “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”)

Mass murders trigger our emotions ranging from sadness to anger.  Fear also plays a part – this might happen to me or someone close to me.  So my outline begins with addressing these emotions by asking the group what emotions they are feeling right now.  Each emotion is then expressed in movement. Some options for this are:

  1. Sculpt the emotion.  One person comes into the center of the group and takes a pose (without speaking). The next person joins them, relating to the first person’s conveyed emotion in a complementary way. The first person leaves and a third person now enters taking another complementary emotional pose.  This continues and at an appropriate time a different emotion is sculpted.
  2. Allow each sculpture to build until about 5 people have joined, one at a time (with no one leaving).  Let the rest of group (those not sculpting) suggest a title for the sculpture that has been created.
  3. Make one giant sculpture with the whole group participating and then ask the group to move together in slow motion creating another shape conveying either the first emotion or another one.
  4. Ask the group to spread out through out the space. Each person is then to draw an imaginary circle around him/herself. This is now the space they have to move in.  Ask everyone to express fear, anger or sadness in their own defined circle.
  5. Take each of the 3 predominant emotions of fear, anger and sadness and have the whole group move throughout space expressing it. They may relate to another person but they may not touch each other.

After expressing the emotion explore how that emotion could be changed into some kind of positive action.  Divide the room into three parts, one area representing each of the three emotions.  Ask the participants to go to the area that represents the strongest emotion that they are feeling.

Each group is to discuss how they can use the emotion in a positive way and then share that in dance.  Some examples are: turning sadness into compassion by reaching out to comfort those in need; turning fear into providing protection; turning anger into a “march” or call to action (such as the Parkland students have done).

Each group should create a 16-count movement phrase showing their new response.  When all of the groups have created a phrase, have each group show its phrase and teach it to everyone in the room. [This does not have to be perfect! Like the simple warm-up, the whole group, at this point, is trying together to copy movements, immediately, as closely as possible; sharing the general essence of the created movements is more important than capturing precise details.]  Now the whole group has a phrase that everyone knows. Depending on the size of the group, timing and needs of the group, this could either be the conclusion or used to expand into a piece such as The Avodah Dance Ensemble did with direction from Louis Johnson and me in Make A Change.  Here’s the link to the blog where I describe this.

Another totally different approach, rather than focusing directly on emotions, is taking an image from nature — such as water, trees or light — that finds expression in different religions, cultures and myths and building the workshop based on this.

Since the recent incident happened at Tree of Life Synagogue, right now the tree would be a natural image to explore.  Quick research at Wikipedia got me started.  Here is the opening paragraph:

Trees are significant in many of the world’s mythologies and religions, and have been given deep and sacred meanings throughout the ages. Human beings, observing the growth and death of trees, and the annual death and revival of their foliage, have often seen them as powerful symbols of growth, death and rebirth. Evergreen trees, which largely stay green throughout these cycles, are sometimes considered symbols of the eternal, immortality or fertility. The image of the Tree of life or world tree occurs in many mythologies.

I probably would not read this to the group. I am only using this as a way to get started.  Perhaps I would bring in lots of different paintings of trees from my collection of art magazines or from my favorite photographer (Murray!), and we would explore some of the trees in movement, paying attention at times to the roots of the tree, the strong trunk, branches that are reaching in different directions (straight or twisted) and leaves that bud, bloom and fall.

Tree at Lake Abiquiu, New Mexico. Photo by Murray Tucker.

Bent Tree, outside of Ushuaia, Argentina. Photo taken by Murray Tucker.

Winter, Bosque de Apache, New Mexico. Photo taken by Murray Tucker.

Oil Painting by JoAnne Tucker of a damaged Aspen Tree.

The image of the tree in seasons is also very powerful in the quote from Wikipedia – growth, death and rebirth. Depending on the group these three words as they relate to the tree could be very strong motivators for dance.

Wikipedia also mentions a world tree. This could be used to create a large group improvisation where everyone creates and dances this world tree.  How can we support each other as part of this tree and move together helping each other to keep our balance and wholeness?

Going in another possible direction for the workshop (or to incorporate in the previous approaches), these quotes from Nelson Mandela have potential.

The greatest glory in living is not in falling, but in rising every time we fall.

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear but the triumph over it.

No single person can liberate a country. You can only liberate a country if you act as a collective.

If you want the cooperation of humans around you, you must make them feel they are important and you do that by being genuine and humble.

If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy.  Then he becomes your partner.

Another quote that can be incorporated powerfully into the workshop is one that I first heard (a variation of) from Canon Lloyd Casson during a service at The Church of Saints Andrew and Matthew, when The Avodah Dance Ensemble participated one Sunday morning in the 1990’s. The quote is by Matthew Fox.

Create harmony and healing together. Celebrate, praise, and thank together. Cease using religion to divide. Use it for its purpose, to reconnect to Mother Earth, to blessings, to the underground river that I am and that you all share. And cease scandalizing the young by your indifference to these awesome blessings, by your competition, and your boredom. Praise one another. Praise the earth. In doing so, you praise me.

Focusing on Mother Earth and/or the underground river can provide excellent motivation for movement.

To conclude, in planning this workshop as in many others, it has been helpful to have the collaborative input from Kezia.  Finding someone to brainstorm with can make the planning of a workshop much easier and richer.  In conducting a workshop, I find having the assistance of a trained dancer familiar with my approach  builds momentum, especially for a large group.  And I would also ask Newman to bring his collection of percussion instruments to accompany us.  Having an accompanist such as Newman, who allows the participants’ movement to help motivate the sound, reinforces and further shapes the energy of the group.

Thinking about what I would do in dance at this time, in reaction to the Saturday, October 27th event, even if I don’t get to lead the workshop I’ve outlined, has had a calming and healing effect for me.  For some of us, our connection is through the creative sphere.  Thinking about dance, writing about dance, and of course dancing is my connection to the deep underground river.

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First Dance Classes: Remembering Genevieve Jones

JoAnne Tucker / / Childhood, Personal Life

My cousin Maxine, who is a year younger than I am, started taking dance classes when she was 4 or 5 and my family would drive to Uniontown, which was about an hour from where we lived in Pittsburgh, to watch her recitals.  These were long evenings with kids in satiny, glittery costumes doing various routines.  Usually the kids had several costume changes since they were in quite a few numbers.  So when my Mom wanted to expose me to dance classes she selected Kelly’s School of Dance, which was in our neighborhood and run by Louise Kelly.  Louise was one of Gene Kelly’s sisters.  Gene had grown up in Pittsburgh and now was in his prime in Hollywood. It was somewhat similar to the kind of dance school that Maxine had gone to, with the emphasis on recitals and costumes and young kids being exposed to tap, acrobatics, and a kind of intro to ballet.

My cousin Maxine in one of her recital costumes. (When I shared this picture with Maxine she remembered the following about the picture and the role her dance classes played in her life.)

My recollection is that this was taken when my ballet dance class performed Swan Lake. I think somehow we must have had individual photos. I was definitely in the chorus of ballerinas and sort of remember being in a semicircular formation with the other dancers. Note the braces so I think this was towards the end of my involvement with dance training 6 days/week when I decided as a teenager that I liked academics a lot more than dance and did not have the talent or the desire to be a ballerina or a dancer.

Today, I am most grateful for the self discipline, the coordination, mental development, the muscular training and the appreciation for the art of dance that I received from all of that hard work. My involvement with Tai Chi over the past 10 years brings back so much of the joy of dance – practicing steps, being graceful and remembering combinations. I also attribute my physical strength and my ability to comeback from my traumatic brain injury to this early training.)

Once I got to know my friend Regina and learned about the dance classes she was taking I thought I would like to try the kind of dance she was doing. Regina was studying with Genevieve Jones and had recently been in a delightful production of Johnny Appleseed. She was invited to play a skunk with an older group of kids. Genevieve had a totally different approach to working with kids.  Students were encouraged to make up their own movement, usually to a story she shared.  The music was mostly live accompaniment.  I wanted to do this instead of learning routines!!

Genevieve was a real pioneer in modern dance in Pittsburgh.  She was born in 1906 in Pittsburgh and attended the University of Wisconsin, majoring in dance.  (The University of Wisconsin-Madison, according to its website, offered the first university dance degree program in the country.)  Genevieve brought her love of modern dance back to Pittsburgh.  In the 30’s she began bringing such dance legends as Martha Graham, Hanya Holm, and Jose Limon to her hometown.

I soon was loving the creative movement classes she led, and I remember one dance program in which I was an Irish Lady and we danced a poem about the Irish famine when people only ate potatoes.

Practicing in costume for the Irish Lady, in the living room of our house on Shaw Avenue in Pittsburgh. I think I am about 10 in this picture.

In addition to the children’s classes that Genevieve taught, she also conducted quite popular ballroom classes for pre-teens.  Five of us from Shaw Avenue carpooled to these classes. One of our parents would drive us to the class and another would pick us up.  Jimmy Levinson, Joan Davis, Regina, Bobby Moser and I would pile into a car and off we go to her very large studio with chairs all around the room.  I seem to remember we had to wear white cotton gloves and it was all very formal learning how to do the basic ballroom steps.  We learned to graciously accept being asked to dance, and when it was women’s choice, to ask someone to dance.  Afterwards we would go back to one of our houses and have fun hanging out together.  While I didn’t keep in contact with Joan Davis, I do know that Bobby Moser took over his father’s interior design business in our neighborhood of Squirrel Hill. He died in his sixties. Jimmy and I have kept in contact through the years.  He has done amazing things in agricultural economics and with work in India. His son is part of an amazing non-profit in India which works with pregnant women and their newborn infants. And of course, if you have been reading this blog you know that Regina and I continue to enjoy both our friendship and working and collaborating together.

As a teenager I began teaching classes in my basement as a way to earn some money and found myself using many images and ideas from Genevieve Jones’s classes.   And many years later when I had a full-grown practice working with children in Tallahassee I again turned to ideas I had experienced in Genevieve’s classes.  By that time she had published a book sharing her stories, telling how she guided children in using them in movement, and providing original music from the person who had accompanied her classes.  Her materials were wonderfully useful, especially for working with children ages 3 to about 8. 

I also remember the simple imagery she used when doing some warm-up exercises like saying hello and goodbye as we pointed and flexed our feet!!

Teaching in Tallahassee, Florida, saying “hello and goodbye” with our toes. Picture taken around 1975.

Genevieve was a wonderful influence in helping me develop my creativity and starting me on a fun journey in dance.  As I became a teenager I wanted something different and found other dance teachers with a more disciplined and structured approach. 

As I was going through my scrapbooks getting ready for our move to Costa Rica, I came across an obituary that I had saved, written when Genevieve died in 2002.  In it she is quoted as saying, “Dance (always spelled with a capital D) is a sacred thing, a great and wonderful thing.” 

I very much wanted to find a picture of Genevieve Jones to include in this post.  I wasn’t able to, but what I did find, in a literary journal, was a wonderful piece entitled “Letters to Genevieve,” which describes her beautifully and shows the profound impact she had on one individual’s life. The work was written by Sarah Golin, and here is the link to it. https://blackbird.vcu.edu/v18n1/nonfiction/golin-s/letters-page.shtml.  Thank you, Sarah, for writing this. 

Regina Ress has also written about her experience in dance and the influence of Genevieve Jones. Here’s a link to it. Thank you, Regina, for sharing this.

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Dr. Barbara McIntyre – “An Inspiration and Mentor to Generations of Students”

JoAnne Tucker / / Arts in Education, Personal Life

I am one of those students and the above quote is from an obituary of Barbara McIntyre.   When I returned to Pittsburgh in 1962 and became a theatre major at the University of Pittsburgh following two years at Juilliard, one of the courses I took was Dr. McIntyre’s class on Creative Dramatics.  It was for both education and theatre students and gave us a good grounding in how to teach creative dramatics to children.  When I completed my undergraduate work and we stayed in Pittsburgh another year so my husband Murray could finish his Ph.D., I became Barbara’s teaching assistant as I worked towards a master’s degree in theatre.

Barbara had a wonderful way of encouraging creative potential in young children as well as in those who studied with her at the undergraduate or graduate level. While I was her teaching assistant she encouraged me to integrate creative movement into creative dramatic classes and suggested writing an article for teachers about how to use movement in creative dramatics.  It was an excellent assignment and experience for me as I researched and thought about movement and how best to express it for teachers. It gave me a fundamental understanding that served me well for the next thirty years. It did result in a publication, and the next year when we had moved to Madison, Wisconsin and I began graduate work for a Ph.D. in theatre, the University did not require me to finish my master’s since my work had been published.  I was allowed instead to enter the doctorate program directly.  I also became a teaching assistant in the theatre department, but those experiences will be for a later blog.

Barbara was born in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada in 1916 and according to an interview by Ruth Beall Heinig, Ph.D., a former student, she wasn’t much of a student growing up.  She began to find her talents in theatre and voice especially when she went to Normal School which she attended after high school and where she was in a teacher training program. Upon graduating from the program she taught in a small rural school near Moose Jaw. That teaching experience with 11 students ranging in grades 1 to 9 instilled in her a love for children and teaching. In fact, her obituary (June 2005) mentions that “Barbara fell in love with children and with teaching did everything in her power to bring learning alive in her classroom. Early on Barbara incorporated drama into her classes and learned how powerful a force it could be in children’s learning.” (https://www.legacy.com/ca/obituaries/timescolonist/name/barbara-mcintyre-obituary?n=barbara-mcintyre&pid=14252934)

In researching for this blog there was much I learned about Barbara’s life, including her earning her M.A. at the University of Minnesota in 1950 and then moving to Pittsburgh a few years later, first with a shared job between the University of Pittsburgh and the Children’s Theatre of Pittsburgh. The Arizona State University Library, Child Drama Collection, where Barbara’s papers from 1948-1991 are housed, provided an excellent write up of her time at Pitt.

As a Professor at the University of Pittsburgh, Barbara shared a job with the Children’s Theater of Pittsburgh and the Pitt Speech Department. This enabled her to develop a teacher education program where the college students could be involved with children from the first week of classes. When the Speech Department started sending children with hearing and speech problems to her classes, she realized the therapeutic value of creative drama. Her chairman encouraged her to go back to school and get a doctorate degree in speech and hearing. She studied with Eleanor Irwin, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry in the School of Medicine, who promoted the use of creative drama in drama therapy. McIntyre received her PhD from the University of Pittsburgh in 1957. The title of her dissertation was, The Effect of a Program of Creative Activities Upon the Consonant Articulation Skills of Adolescent and Pre-Adolescent Children with Speech Disorders.  (http://azarchivesonline.org/xtf/view?docId=ead/asu/mcintyre.xml;query=;brand=default)

Besides the excellent experience of learning how to analyze and incorporate movement into creative dramatics, there were some other very important things I learned from Barbara.  First of all, she introduced me to literature on children’s theatre and creative dramatics and particularly Winifred Ward’s Stories to Dramatize. I am not sure if Caps for Sale was a part of this collection but this became one of my favorite stories that I used often in creative movement classes.  It is about a peddler who falls asleep under a tree and monkeys come down from the tree and steal all of his hats from his bag.  When he wakes up and sees what has happened he finds a clever way of tricking the monkeys to get his caps back.  Under Barbara’s guidance I learned how to use these stories to captivate a group of children and to engage them so that they could act or dance the stories.  And I learned how to ask questions following their acting/dancing so that the group could both see what worked and what might be improved upon in a positive and healthy way.

One of my responsibilities as Barbara’s teaching assistant was to observe (via a one-way mirror) children with speech and hearing problems working in creative dramatics, and to take notes about the sessions.  Both my observations with Barbara and my mother’s work with the visually handicapped encouraged me to see and sometimes work with children or adults with disabilities.

I am also very grateful for the seeds that were planted in working with Barbara of how dance and theatre can reinforce academics — and not just with young children.  Two of the projects of Avodah (the dance company I founded and directed), made good use of this.  “Let My People Go” received a number of grants that enabled us to go into the New York area public schools and present concerts and workshops with students which reinforced curriculum related to American history, slavery in the United States and figures like Harriet Tubman.  We also developed programs around the Holocaust and again received grants to bring them to students.

And of course, the roots of how I incorporated dance midrash into the Jewish educational classroom, especially for children, goes back to this time. As I reflect back on the different role models and mentors I had it is like looking at a good recipe with lots of different ingredients.  I feel so grateful that I had the opportunity to study and work with Barbara McIntyre.

I especially want to thank Dr. Eleanor Irwin and Dr. Ruth Heinig for their help in “remembering Barbara.”  Both of them stayed very close to Barbara after she left Pittsburgh.

Picture from the personal collection of Eleanor Irwin, Ph.D.  Barbara is on the left, with her sister, niece and nephew.

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