Tag: Helen Tamiris

The Pioneers of Modern Dance: My Firsthand Experience

JoAnne Tucker / / Dance History, Personal Life

Recently I was talking about the different teachers I had studied with as a young dancer between the ages of 15 and 21.  I hadn’t thought of it before in quite these terms, but I am old enough to have had firsthand experience with most of the shapers of modern dance.  These were amazing pioneers forging new traditions in dance from the 1920’s into the 1960’s and some beyond.  Here is a list of these pioneers and a few sentences describing my experience with them, in the order I met them.

Ted Shawn  (1891-1972) of Denishawn – He and Ruth St. Denis founded a company where a number of the pioneers got their first experience and opportunity to build long-term collaborations.  I heard Ted Shawn speak at Jacob’s Pillow when he introduced the program that I went to see when I was a camper at a nearby camp.  Jacob’s Pillow’s history goes back to 1933 when Shawn and his group of men did their first performance in a barn that still exists and is used for classes and performances today.  Here’s a link to learn more about the founding of Jacob’s Pillow.  The camp I attended was called Belgian Village and was located in Cummington, MA .  I was there on a scholarship teaching dance to the younger campers.  I can remember sitting in the Jacob’s Pillow theatre and being awed by both Ted Shawn’s inspiring words and an amazing performance that included modern dance, ballet and ethnic dance.

Martha Graham  (1894 -1991) – I first met her at the age of 15 when she came to Pittsburgh for the premiere of her movie  A Dancer’s World, which you can watch on YouTube.  It is a wonderful introduction to her and her technique.  Jeanne Beaman, my modern dance teacher in Pittsburgh, hosted a reception for Martha following a private showing of the film.  I have a clear memory of being introduced to her and her encouraging me to come to NYC and take the Xmas course even though I was very young. I did go a year later, and from that time on, Graham technique was my favorite way to train. That was not the only time I had classes directly with her.  She taught a week of classes at the six-week summer program at the American Dance Festival which I attended twice. There were also occasions when she taught at the New York studio.  She, the technique she developed, and how she choreographed her pieces were a major influence on me!

Helen Tamiris  (1902-1966) – I auditioned for her in 1958 at Perry-Mansfield Camp and was accepted into a piece she choreographed during the three weeks she was there. Martha Clarke and I were the only two younger-than-college-age dancers who were part of her piece Dance for Walt Whitman. (I’ve written before about Tamiris and Dance for Walt Whitman; here is a link to that blog. The fact that Tamiris recognized my abilities reaffirmed my commitment to be a dancer. She also influenced significantly my understanding of choreographic elements.  Currently Elizabeth McPherson, a member of Avodah Dance Ensemble during seven of the years I directed the company, is working on a book about Tamiris.  When Elizabeth spent three weeks at the artist residency program  I hold at my home, we spent many hours talking about Tamiris, and it was great fun for me to learn new things about her life.  I was so glad that we were able to stage some of Tamiris’s choreography when Elizabeth set Tamiris’s piece Negro Spirituals for the Avodah Dance Ensemble.

Charles Weidman (1901-1975) – I was part of a class he taught in kinetic pantomime at the American Dance Festival at Connecticut College in 1960.  He staged a demonstration that we performed in a Festival program.  It was during one of his rehearsals that Martha Hill, the chairman of the dance department of Juilliard, saw me rehearsing and remembered me from an audition I had taken for Juilliard about six weeks before. She found me after class and asked me to reaudition.  I hadn’t made that first audition, but she felt I now would get into the school.

Photo from Connecticut College, 1960, of the Charles Weidman piece I was in. I am the dancer on the left. I do not know who the other two dancers are.

Martha Hill  (1900- 1995) – I mentioned in the last paragraph that she encouraged me to reaudition for Juilliard, which I did about a year later.  While I didn’t have a lot of direct contact with her while I was at Juilliard, the program that she developed at Juilliard and my two years as a student there shaped me as an artist.  The tools and ability to focus on my “art” carried over from dance to painting and filmmaking. I have tremendous respect for the role she played in the development of dance education in colleges.  Elizabeth McPherson has written an excellent book about her, and here is a link to a blog I wrote about the book.

 Louis Horst (1884 – 1964) – I took my first of three composition classes from him in the summer of 1961, at Connecticut College.  In Pre-Classic Dance Forms, he encouraged me to continue with him, even though I wasn’t yet a student at Juilliard. I did so (as a special student), continuing to take his second-year course, Modern Forms.  By mid-semester I had become a full-time student at Juilliard.  The following year I took his third and final formal course, Group Forms.  I loved his classes.  His demanding insistence that we follow the clear form of different musical dances instilled a discipline and focus on how I used movement in dance pieces. His second-year course began a long appreciation of art and how much we can learn from different periods of art history.  A good example of how this later influenced me can be found in how I used a painting as a basis for I Never Saw Another Butterfly. Here’s a link to a blog where I go into detail about this.  Last fall, Nancy Bannon was here on an artist residency working on a play about Louis Horst and Martha Graham, and I learned lots of interesting things about Louis’s life.  She shared with me a wonderful book by Janet Soares about Louis that I look forward to reviewing in an upcoming blog.

There are two pioneers from the period that I didn’t get to study with directly although I did study with their disciples.

Doris Humphrey (1895 -1958)  – Her name is associated with Charles Weidman (they formed together The Humphrey-Weidman Company) and with Jose Limon (she mentored him when he was her student, and when she retired from her own company, she became Artistic Director of his Limon Company).  I took classes in Limon technique at Juilliard and sometimes had a class directly from Limon.  Although I wasn’t fond of the technique, I loved Limon’s choreography as well as pieces that I saw of Humphrey’s.  In particular, Humphrey’s Water Study (1928), The Shakers (1931), and Passacaglia (to Bach’s Music) are among my favorites.  Passacaglia was revived at Juilliard during the time I was there.  I am so glad that I got to see Jose dance in The Moor’s Pavane along with Betty Jones, Lucas Hoving and Pauline Koner.  Some of his other pieces that have created a lasting memory are There Is a Time and Missa Brevis.

While I did not study directly with Humphrey, her philosophy and writing did have an influence on me, such as her movement exercises of fall and recovery.  “She called this the arc between two deaths.  At one extreme an individual surrenders to the nature of gravity; at the other, one attempts to achieve balance.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doris_Humphrey).  Her book The Art of Making Dance (1958), which I read several years after it was published, was also helpful to me, and it was a regular reference book in my library.  I keep in mind to this very day her statement that the last seconds of a piece of choreography are most important.  For me, that reminder carries over to all art forms.

Hanya Holm (1893 – 1999) One of the dancers that she strongly influenced, Don Redlich, choreographed a piece that I was in while a teenager in Pittsburgh.  It was interesting working with him, but I don’t remember anything unique about the experience that I can trace back to Holm.  I do remember loving her choreography in My Fair Lady which I saw shortly after it opened with Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison in 1956.

Writing this blog has felt like a journey down memory lane.  I am grateful to have experienced firsthand so many of the modern dance pioneers.  I welcome readers who may have worked with some of them to share their experiences in the comment section.

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Dance and Poetry: An Elegy for Helen Tamiris

JoAnne Tucker / / Dance History, Perry-Mansfield, Personal Life, Poetry, Uncategorized

Recently I signed up for an Introduction to Poetry class.  Several things motivated me.  We had begun a writer’s group where I live, and I thought I would like to share poems. I have loved poetry since I was a teenager, and I have choreographed many pieces to poems.

In our very first class the teacher introduced us to the form of elegy and used Walt Whitman’s O Captain! My Captain! as an example. After going over the format and purpose of the elegy, he asked us to write one. As I reread O Captain! My Captain! I began reflecting on the experience of being in Helen Tamiris’s Dance for Walt Whitman at Perry-Mansfield during the summer of 1958.   That was a defining experience in helping me realize that I wanted a career in dance, and it had provided an excellent example of how poetry can inspire a piece of choreography.

When I look back over my career as a choreographer, I realize how often I turned to poetry as the stimulus for movement.  That idea had been introduced to me by Helen Tamiris, so it was no surprise that I decided to do my elegy for her and to use the structure and rhyming pattern of O Captain! My Captain! as my model.

Elegy for Helen Tamiris

By JoAnne Tucker

A frayed program, carefully saved, recalls long ago days

There is still time to remember and sing your praise

You stood, arms outstretched, framed by aspen gently swaying

Directions given, challenges accepted, our energy outpouring,

            Alas, a google search

            Your name barely marked

            Too many years have passed

            Still a desire remains in my heart.

Those of us, hold tightly onto each other,

Make a chain, rock endlessly, calling the primal mother

We cannot forget, your teaching remains within us living

We have gone forth, as a curious child goes exploring.

            Tamiris, O Tamiris

            Fifty years since you departed

            Your legacy begins to fade

            Memories linger in my heart.

A legacy of movement and poetry continues still,

New writers and dancers passionate with strong will.

So this old crone will continue to sing your praise

Encourage, mentor and celebrate all my days

            To dance to the spoken verse

            To follow your pioneer art

            Words carefully written

            Danced from the heart

Helen Tamiris at Perry-Mansfield, July 1958. Photo taken by JoAnne Tucker.

The first set of poems I choreographed was for a school program in Pittsburgh shortly after leaving Juilliard. The dancers were six high school students, and the program toured several elementary schools and won a Carnegie Award.  Later I would continue to turn to poetry with the Avodah Dance Ensemble, and during my thirty years as Artist Director of that company, I  created dances to a variety of different poems. The ones that stand out the most in my memory are:

  • I Never Saw Another Butterfly, using poems written by children in the Terezin Concentration Camp
  • Shema, incorporating poetry of Italian Holocaust survivor Primo Levi
  • Let My People Go, based on James Weldon Johnson’s poem of the same title
  • In the Garden, drawn from several poems in the collection Wine, Women and Death: Medieval Hebrew Poems on the Good Life, translated by Raymond Scheindlin
  • Selichot Suite, a section of which uses Denise Levertov’s poem The Thread

I end by welcoming dancers and choreographers to share what poems they have enjoyed dancing to or creating movement for.  If you haven’t used poetry and movement together, I strongly encourage you to try it!

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1958 Summer at Perry-Mansfield

JoAnne Tucker / / Childhood, Perry-Mansfield, Personal Life

Preface: Why am I continuing to paint and write this blog at a time when the world is in crisis? An honest answer is because it allows some structure to this time when Murray and I aren’t leaving our home. For part of each day there is an element of peacefulness and joy in my life as I reflect back or create anew. Doing something creative engages me and I invite you along on the journey. I also welcome guest blogs… won’t you share how you are structuring your time to find some peacefulness and joy!

Even though it is nearly 60 years since I ventured to Steamboat Springs and attended Perry-Mansfield, the memories are crystal clear in my mind. The blend of the arts, the Colorado landscape, the rustic setting with horses – all evoke smells, sounds and visual images swirling me back in time.  I was lucky to attend at a time when Charlotte Perry and Portia Mansfield were still very active as the founding directors.  According to Wikipedia,  “Perry-Mansfield Performing Arts School and Camp was founded by Charlotte and Portia in 1913 and is the oldest continuously operating dance and theater school in America.” 

Perry-Mansfield’s website describes:

…two ladies came to the frontier mountain town of Steamboat Springs, Colorado with a mule named “Tango.” Although the town was populated with people primarily engaged in mining and ranching, it was Charlotte Perry and Portia Mansfield’s vision to explore and teach “natural dance forms” and “artistic expression close to creatures and mountains and out-of-doors.”

Quickly regarded by the locals as the “mad ladies of Steamboat,” Charlotte and Portia founded Perry-Mansfield Performing Arts School and Camp in this spectacular mountain setting – a 76-acre campus 7,000 feet above sea level and 150 miles northwest of Denver.

From their humble beginnings in a few rustic cabins and some lean years when the “scenery was the salary,” Charlotte and Portia nurtured Perry-Mansfield into one of the premier performing arts schools and camps for children and youth of all ages.

JoAnn Fried and I arrived at the Steamboat train station which is now the Arts Depot.  I don’t have any pictures of our arrival but I do have one of our departure.  

JoAnn Fried and I at the train station at the end of summer.

The first few days were a whirlwind of activity settling into a rustic cabin (no bathroom) up a fairly steep hill.  Down the hill was the bath house with toilets, sinks and showers. I quickly got to know three roommates, one from Denver, another from Wyoming, and I don’t remember where the third was from.  I also think our counselor may have slept in our bunk, but I am not sure. I do remember her name was Jo and she was from Minnesota. Auditions and class placement were also an important part of the first few days.  I excitedly and boldly auditioned for both Helen Tamiris’s piece that she would be setting on a selected group, along with Midsummer Night’s Dream, the theater production to be staged in the first few weeks of camp.  

In an earlier blog I mentioned that I hadn’t prepared anything for an audition and quickly put together favorite phrases from Jeanne Beaman’s class, ending with a fun fall of sliding onto an outstretched arm and then rolling to get up. When I completed my phrase of probably two minutes, Tamiris asked me to please repeat the fall.  A day later a list was posted outside the office door listing the selected campers. I remember being thrilled to see my name there.  Only two of us under college age were selected, myself and Martha Clarke, a year younger than me.    

At that time Perry-Mansfield went from young campers (in a section called The Ranch) all the way to College-age students, each age having its own section at the camp.  All ages attended at the same time.

I also auditioned for Midsummer Night’s Dream. I don’t remember the initial audition but I do remember the callback. Three of us were called back to read for Titania. I was stunned. I had never taken an acting class and never thought of myself as anything other than a dancer.  I had gone to the initial audition because I wanted to apply myself to as many different opportunities as possible.  I didn’t get the part and did get cast in a small role in the production, which I declined, feeling that the rehearsals for Tamaris’s ballet were enough for me.  It was exciting to have made the callback and to have had the experience of auditioning for the part of Titania.

Since I was cast in the ballet I was also permitted to take Tamiris’s advanced technique class and Tamiris’s composition class. The composition class was a real eye opener. I don’t have much memory of the technique class other than doing relevés into falls and catching ourselves, in each direction. The composition class left me with two main approaches that in ways are still part of my life.  First, that one can start with an ordinary gesture and from that build a whole dance, and second, that one must totally commit to what one is doing!!

The piece Tamiris developed that summer was Dance for Walt Whitman.  It was in three sections, each featuring a poem that was read.  The middle section was my favorite, inspired by the poem “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking.”  All the women linked arms and moved as one body.  My mom surprised me and came out for the performance.  As I was packing for the move to Costa Rica I found a letter that she had written my dad.  Reading it was very moving to me and I share just a few sentences from it.  

JoAnne was an important part of the group. Tamiris added a fall for her… she slid half way down a 3 ft ramp and got up gracefully 10 beats later.  The ballet lasted 20 minutes and the effect was magnificent. 

I’m getting more convinced that she really has something to express in dance.

Program from Perry-Mansfield’s Evening of Dance
Picture of Tamiris that I took!

Working with Tamiris was a turning point for me in dance. The confirmation of being selected and then the experience of the actual classes, rehearsals and performance cemented my determination to have a career in dance.  But the experience at Perry-Mansfield had another major influence on my life. It introduced me to the western Rocky Mountains and confirmed my love of being in nature.  During the summer I would hike up from the cabin to the top of the hill,  and in a level area do a short dance of thanksgiving for being in such an amazing environment.  

Picture taken by one of my friends, of me dancing at the top the hill at Perry-Mansfield.

After the Tamiris ballet experience I had several more weeks of camp and wasn’t particularly impressed with Harriet Anne Gray, who took over for Tamiris.  Instead there were two other experiences that stand out in my mind.

On her day off, Ray Faulkner, the head counselor of our Hill unit, invited me to join her on a hike up Fish Creek Falls to a lake at the top. It was breathtaking and awesome and the wildflowers were amazing.  Hiking, wildflowers and being in nature have been important parts of life since then. 

Perry-Mansfield also offered special western trips. I had signed up for a three-day trip to the Grand Canyon.  It actually wasn’t to the Grand Canyon but rather to Dead Horse Point which is in Utah where the Colorado River cuts through it much like it does at the Grand Canyon.  That was another awesome nature experience.  We camped out and that night was during the August meteor shower and I remember an amazing night counting shooting stars.

Picture of me at Dead Horse Point!

As the 6-week experience ended and we boarded the train to head for home, I found myself filled with a new energy and a clear direction for my life.  

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Reflection on the “Jews and Jewishness in the Dance World” Conference

JoAnne Tucker / / Current Dance Events, Movement Workshops

Let me begin by sharing the history of how and why I decided to go to this conference.  I saw a notice about it posted by Naomi Jackson on the National Dance Education Association bulletin board about a year and a half ago.  Shortly after seeing it, I received a copy of the notice from Elizabeth McPherson, who danced in Avodah for seven years and with whom I have kept in regular touch, often meeting on my occasional trips to NYC.  She wanted to make sure I saw it and wanted to encourage me to apply. What followed was a series of emails with Naomi, as I wondered what kind of presentations she had in mind, and then later emails with Elizabeth.  The conference seemed to be very broad, looking at “Jewishness” and dance from many different angles.  Since I have moved on from The Avodah Dance Ensemble and using Jewish themes as motivation for creating choreography or doing workshops, I wanted to share something that felt current to me now.  In discussions with Elizabeth the idea of presenting on Helen Tamaris came up.  She was a pioneer modern dancer, and Jewish, and most important to me, her work is the thread that influenced both the work that I did with Avodah and the work that I do now.  Perfect.

So we came up with the idea that Elizabeth and I would submit together.  She would share the history of Helen Tamiris, teaching one or two sections of Helen Tamiris’s Negro Spirituals, (see Blog Honoring Helen Tamiris on how we added Negro Spirituals to Avodah’s repertory) and I would share some ideas from studying composition with Tamiris. I was thrilled and while still feeling a sense of reluctance to attend, I felt very good about the presentation I would be part of.  And what a surprise I received.

Elizabeth presenting her paper on Tamiris.

Elizabeth teaching “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” from Tamiris’s Negro Spirituals

Naomi set up a Google Drive where we could all share information from books published related to Jewish dance, choreography by Jewish choreographers or pieces on Jewish themes.  Lots of sharing went on as well as discussions on a logo for the conference and individuals’ memories of important influences in their work.  I followed and did post a little.  My husband and good friend Regina commented to me that every time I mentioned the conference I made a strange face that clearly lacked enthusiasm.  I wondered what three days of the conference would mean for me and didn’t have high hopes.  And clearly I was not alone in feeling this way, as once there, this questioning came up in quiet conversations.  But the thank you’s after the conference, again using our connection through Google Drive, were unanimous in sharing how good and meaningful the conference was and hoping there would be more.

In addition to Elizabeth, my good friend and dance/film collaborator Lynne Wimmer decided to go to.  (See Blog on “In Praise” in Pittsburgh and watch the film “Through the Door” which we co-directed in 2016.) Lynne and I would be roommates and we looked forward to catching up on our recent adventures.  So I went knowing that at least I would be hanging out with people I really enjoyed. I also decided to drive so that I would have a car to make it easy to get around and do other things in the area should the conference be “boring.”  It wasn’t at all boring, but the car was helpful in enabling us to select restaurants that weren’t in easy walking distance.

The overall energy of the conference was a genuine sharing of who we are and our role in dance and how it might relate to our “Jewishness.” From presentations on key historical figures (such as ours about Helen Tamiris), to panels on dance therapy or how one’s choreography related to social justice, participants shared enthusiastically and audience members listened carefully and respectfully.  For the majority of the time slots of an hour and fifteen minutes we had to select which one of four presentations we wanted to attend and it was often hard to choose since all looked good.

The opening evening program on Saturday  was a selection of dance films curated by Ellen Bromberg, Professor at the University of Utah who teaches Screendance. I loved seeing an early film of Daniel Nagrin and the fun film techniques used in 1953 when the film was made.

Sunday night was a concert curated by Liz Lerman and Wendy Perron.  Outstanding moments from the concert were: a piece beautifully performed by college-age Maggie Waller; Send Off performed by Jesse Zarrit to a recorded text of Hanoch Levin focused on the Akedah (the binding of Isaac) from Issac’s point of view; and The Return of Lot’s Wife by Sara Pearson in which Lot’s wife finally confronts God in her 1950’s Brooklyn kitchen.  All pieces were beautifully danced and the last two I mentioned had a wonderful sense of humor to them.

A photograph from Torah in Motion: Creating Dance Midrash that I co-authored with Rabbi Susan Freeman in 1990 was included in the Exhibition of “Reimagining Communities Through Dance” curated by Judith Brin Ingber and Naomi Jackson.

From Torah in Motion: Creating Dance Midrash. Rabbi Susan Freeman working with students from Brooklyn Heights Synagogue.  Photo by Tom Brazil

I found the panel on Dance Therapy to have a lot of historical information and loved the presentations by two of the women, Miriam Berger and Joanna Harris. An intense panel “Exploring the Complex Relations Between Jews and non-Jewish Arabs through Dance” followed and stirred some interesting reflections on whether dance events can help build relationships.

Perhaps the most meaningful moments came the last day and were both experiential movement moments. One was leading the experiential part of our presentation on Helen Tamiris. Tamiris’s composition class focused on the use of gesture to build movement.  I chose to share a way I use this idea with non-dancers.  I asked each of the 15 participants to say one or two words of how they felt at the moment and then we went around with each sharing a gesture that fit their word.  It was an intergenerational group all with a strong dance background and as we built a phrase of our 15 gestures a warmth and community developed.

Later that day I attended a workshop by Victoria Marks and Hannah Schwadron called “Dancing Inter-connections.”  Again it was an intergenerational experience with over 30 participants.  One improvisation featured us finding the way to move in the space between us.  The weaving was fun to do and we had to be inventive to find the space between us. The ending improvisation focused on the word “lingering” in movement interactions. That was particularly rich and beautiful.  In the feedback afterwards one of the young college-age dancers mentioned how meaningful it was to dance with the older generation.  How she felt nurtured and empowered.  And how wonderful that felt, to hear it come from a young woman.

As I reflect back on the experience I am of course very glad to have gone. I loved the many new and renewed connections.  And I wonder whether it was the Jewishness or the dance that so resonated for me, or the combination. I am most grateful to Naomi Jackson for her leadership in maintaining an openness and inclusiveness within the intent of the conference.  Once again I am reminded of the important spiritual connection for me in dance, both by moving, myself, and being inspired by watching dance.

    Closing ceremony dance. Photo by Tim Trumble

Honoring Helen Tamiris

JoAnne Tucker / / "Let My People Go"

With bookings continuing to come in for Let My People Go, I began to think about adding new repertory that would fit in and expand the program offerings.  Elizabeth McPherson joined the company in the summer of 1990 having graduated from Juilliard in May. While in the company, she continued her studies at City College completing an M.A. in dance research and reconstruction. In a recent email exchange with Elizabeth, we could not remember which of us came up with the idea to add Helen Tamiris’s Negro Spirituals to the repertoire.  I only know that with 4 years of notation at Juilliard, a teacher’s certification in Labanotation and experience working on various staging projects as a dancer, Elizabeth had the ideal skills to reconstruct a piece that meant a lot to me. Things fell beautifully in place in the summer of 1993.

When I was 15, at Perry-Mansfield Performing Arts Camp in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, I studied with and performed in a piece choreographed by Helen Tamiris.  I look forward to writing a separate blog on that experience.  For right now let me say it was life changing and Tamiris inspired and encouraged me to focus on a career in dance.

Kezia and Elizabeth wrote about Tamiris in the Fall 1993 Avodah Newsletter:

Helen Tamiris, the daughter of Russian immigrants, was born Helen Becker in 1902 on New York’s Lower East Side.  By her own account, she used to dance wildly in the streets, until one of her brothers decided, “We must do something about Helen,” which resulted in her being enrolled at age eight in dance classes at the Henry Street Settlement House.   After graduating from high school, she was accepted at the school of the Metropolitan Opera Ballet, where she received intensive ballet training and performed in the corps for four years.  But Tamiris found classical ballet confining and left the Met…. She went on to study the techniques of Dalcroze, Delsarte and Isadora Duncan, all three of whom are associated with the beginnings of modern dance. Tamiris, however,was interested in social issues and in conveying the energy of contemporary American life, and she stretched past the dance techniques available for study, shaping her own movement vocabulary and particular dynamic.

Among the works that Tamiris choreographed was Negro Spirituals– a suite of pieces created between 1928 and 1942.  In 1965, a year before she died, she set the work on students at New York’s High School of Performing Arts. That version was preserved in Labanotation and I was thrilled that Elizabeth could reconstruct  the pieces from the Labanotation score for our company.

An example of a tripletstep in Labanotation.

We contacted the Dance Notation Bureau, going through the appropriate steps to secure the rights to perform Negro Spirituals. They also loaned us the score and music to use in performance.

Kezia described so vividly what a rehearsal session was like with Elizabeth:

“Do I keep my right knee bent as I tap my foot?” “When I hear ‘Joshua’ do I pull my arms up or push them down?” “Am I allowed to smile while I do this?” It may sound like Avodah is wasting rehearsal time with silly party challenges, but these questions are signs of a company hard at work….. For each of the questions posed by the dancers, Elizabeth dutifully consults a thick manuscript remotely resembling a musical score composed of geometric shapes. “Yes.” “Up.” “You sure can,” she responds.

We had received a grant from the Manhattan Community Arts Fund that made the rehearsal period and first performance possible.  The performance in November 1993 was at our home base in New York City, Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion located on West 4thStreet.  Our relationship with HUC was very special and important to our growth and I will be writing lots more about that later. For the November program we were joined by Faith Journey, a musical produced by Jesse De Vore about Martin Luther King. Rabbi Norman Cohen (HUC faculty member and Avodah Board Member) moderated the program.  Among the performers in Faith Journey was Jeannine Otis who would later play a very important role with Avodah.

From the fall of 1993 until 2001 Negro Spirituals played an important part in Avodah’s repertory.  Not only was it regularly performed with Let My People Go, but the four solos and the trio of “Lil’David” were often included in Avodah’s regular concerts at colleges, community centers and synagogues.

Kezia was thrilled to be able to perform four of the solos at a Vassar College alumnae event (with additional coaching by retired Vassar faculty member and esteemed notator Ray Cook).  Tamiris was historically important in securing a place for dance in the WPA, and she served as Dance Director of the first Federal Summer Theatre, which (under the direction of Vassar faculty member Hallie Flanagan) was held at Vassar College.  Indeed, the four solos performed by Kezia had been performed at Vassar by Tamiris herself on July 10, 1937.

In April 5, 1995 Doris Diether wrote a review in New York City’s The Villager, headlined “In season of revivals, Tamaris works offered.”  She noted: “a dramatic performance by Elizabeth McPherson” in “Go Down, Moses;” Kezia Gleckman Hayman’s “Swing Low” was a brighter dance with a folk dance quality; Loretta Abbott had a lot of personality in “Git on Board, Lil’ Chillun;” Joshua was given a strong but graceful performance by Carla Norwood; and Beth Millstein and Hayman created frames around Freddie Moore as he gave a light but precise performance with high kicks to “Lil’ David.”

With permission of the Dance Notation Bureau I share three 30 second excerpts from the 1995 Performance. Elizabeth McPherson in “Go Down, Moses;” Beth Millstein, Kezia Gleckman Hayman, and Freddie Moore in “Lil’ David;” and Elizabeth, Beth, Kezia, Freddie joined by Loretta Abbott and Carla Norwood in “When The Saints Come Marching In.” The musicians are Jeannine Otis, Newman Taylor Baker, and a pianist.

Elizabeth McPherson in “Go Down, Moses”

Beth Millstein, Kezia Gleckman Hayman, and Freddie Moore in “Lil’ David;”

Elizabeth, Beth, Kezia, Freddie joined by Loretta Abbott and Carla Norwood in “When The Saints Come Marching In.”

The review and video excerpts are from a benefit performance at Hebrew Union College where we performed not only Let My People Go and Negro Spirituals but a brand new piece called Exultation, choreographed by Freddie Moore. Freddie is a very gifted dancer who began his formal training at The Ailey School where he is now on the faculty.  Among his credits are performing in Ailey II and with Donald Byrd/The Group as well as founding and directing The Footprints Dance Company.  I got to know Freddie because of his strong interest in liturgical dance.  He created  a beautiful four-section piece for us, to familiar hymns ending with “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.”

To end this week’s blog, I want to share how good it felt to be able to have Avodah perform regularly Negro Spirituals, a historical piece of modern dance choreography by Helen Tamiris, who so inspired my career in dance. Each time it was performed I felt a warm glow.  Thank you Elizabeth for staging it, and a deep bow of gratitude to each of the dancers who performed it.

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