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.
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.”
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.
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