Tag: Irving Fleet

How the Avodah Dance Ensemble Got Its Name

JoAnne Tucker / / Avodah's Early History, Tallahassee

It’s late summer 1974 and the events of the past two years are serving as motivation to find a structure to expand and formalize what clearly feels like the right direction for my dance talents at this time. I think I want to start a non-profit organization with the mission of expressing Jewish liturgy, text and history through dance and music.  Several people, among them my musical collaborator Irving Fleet, have agreed to be on the board and we already have a lawyer who is donating his services to get us going.  Now we need a name.

For two years Irving and I had been studying the Jewish Siddur (prayer book) as explained by the very prominent Rabbi Solomon B. Freehof, who had also been my childhood rabbi. His book The Small Sanctuary had been a wonderful introduction for us. Also helpful were discussions with Rabbi Stanley Garfein, of the Temple in Tallahassee, Florida where both of our families were members at the time.  One section of the Yom Kippur High Holiday service intrigued me because it was a retelling of Jewish history from creation to the sacred rituals done on Yom Kippur by the High Priest before the destruction of the Second Temple. It is called the Avodah Service and the word Avodah means “work” in modern Hebrew and “sacred work” in Biblical Hebrew.  In a meeting with Stanley he shared that the word was often used in a phrase: Avodah Sh’Balev meaning work of the heart!  All uses of the word Avodah fit for me.  Being a dancer and running a dance company is indeed WORK.  And in the context of what we had been doing for the previous year it felt like sacred work and work of the heart.  So the new organization would be called Avodah and the dance company The Avodah Dance Ensemble.  Adding the word Ensemble was especially important to me. Kezia just reminded me that I wrote about this in a 1989 Avodah Newsletter:

Back in 1974, when wrestling with a name for a dance company, I especially chose to include the word “ensemble” with Avodah. Ensemble—“a group of complementary parts that contribute to a single effect” – was the goal I had in mind, where the members of the dance company would balance each other and contribute dynamically to creating unity.

And indeed this proved to be very true over the years with an amazing group of dancers, musicians, writers, visual artists and storytellers sharing their talents.

But back to the beginning. My husband Murray and I moved to Tallahassee, Florida from Washington, DC in the summer of 1970.  Murray taught at Florida State University while I focused on settling the kids (then 1 ½ and  3 ½ years old) and writing my dissertation.  It was good fortune that my major professor from the University of Wisconsin, where I had done all my course work and taken exams, had also relocated to Tallahassee accepting an appointment in the Theatre Department.  Writing the dissertation was lonely and required all my perseverance skills and I was very glad that Joe Karioth was able to still work with me even though he was no longer on the Wisconsin faculty.  A year later I returned to Madison, to defend my dissertation entitled “The Use of Creative Dramatics as an Aid in Developing Reading Readiness with Kindergarten Children.”  Perhaps I will write more about Wisconsin and the work I did in Creative Dramatics, which naturally included a lot of creative movement, at a later time. Once the dissertation was done it became clear that there weren’t many academic teaching opportunities in Tallahassee and I would need to forge my own path.

Loving to teach and work with children in creative dramatics and movement, I focused on how I could build upon those interests.  With the encouragement and support of a friend, Carolyn Davis, I approached Temple Israel about whether I could direct dance and drama activities as part of their religious education program, and also use space in their building to teach regular modern dance and creative dramatics classes. And that is what I did and how I was asked by the sisterhood to be director of a mini-musical they wanted to do based on Fiddler on the Roof.

I agreed as long as I had a good musical director.  They had someone in mind right away.  I have saved the program from the mini-musical named “Tradition” and here is Irving Fleet’s bio:

Irving Fleet, our musical director, is an orthodontist who has always had a big interest in music.  He played the piano frequently as a student in Tallahassee schools and in college as a soloist and recitalist.  He was the first organist of Temple Israel and started playing for the congregation even before the present synagogue was built. He last appeared in Tallahassee as piano soloist with the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra in 1963-64. Presently, his biggest area of interest is composing, and he has written a number of songs for voice and piano pieces. 

“Fiddler on the Roof” has always been a favorite show of mine, ever since I saw it on Broadway during its original run.  I have also always felt close to the production because I knew two original cast members. Sammy Bayes, a townsperson who later played the fiddler, was at Perry-Mansfield Performing Arts Camp the same summer I was there and we had both been in a piece choreographed by Helen Tamiris. Sue Babel, who played Grandma Tzeitel, had been at Connecticut College Summer Program in Dance the same summer I was there.

With the script having been adapted to run about half of the time of the original show, Irving and I faced our first task: casting the production.  Lots of members of the community showed up and I was particularly taken with Rueben Capelouto’s audition for Tevye.  Irving agreed that his audition was great but was worried about the fact Rueben stuttered.  I was shocked … I didn’t know him outside of just meeting him for the audition and he never stuttered in auditioning for Tevye.  Others also kept cautioning me that he would be a poor choice.  My instincts kept saying that he would be perfect and so he was cast and indeed he was quite wonderful.

Rueben Capelouto as Tevye.  Photo by Evelyn Walborsky

“Tradition” proved to be a wonderful community success and gave me an excellent opportunity to get to know members of the community.  Many of them would continue to play a role in Avodah’s history.  For example, Marianne Mendelson, a high schooler at the time, played one of Teyve’s younger daughters.  Years later, while living in the New York area, she became Avodah’s treasurer for a number of years, a supporter of the dance company and a very good friend.

In going through my files to write this blog I found this poem which I read to the cast and which best describes what this experience meant to me.

When rehearsals first began
There were shouts… cries
Sarcastic utterances
“I can’t do that
I’m not a professional
She’s crazy
I’ll never learn my lines!”
Expression of fears and apprehensions of the task that lay ahead.

We’ve come along way from those first weeks
Lines have been learned
Characters developed
Scenes added
Change after change made
Always our goal clearly in sight “A production to make the congregation proud.”

As director, the bulk of my task is done
Thursday nite, after final dress
I sat down, reflected
And made these notes
No matter what the final outcome, applause great or small,
There are certain thoughts which I have to share with this cast.

Each and everyone, from page turner, technical crew, villagers to Tevye,
Deserves praise for a job well done
Often I’ve been harsh
Critical and outspoken
Free with criticism
But limited with praise
Trying to fulfill my role as director, to push you as far as you can go.

The talent within this group is overwhelming
Beyond expectations
A challenge to work with
And watch develop so far
So.. to my professional crew, a special Equity card for everyone here.

Before reading the inscription on each of these cards
One last thought to share
Building a production
Creating a show
Is learning to live with each other, helping one another to do their very best.

We have each had our moments
Tempers lost
Frustrations and tensions revealed
Perhaps out of such moments, we’ve learned to grow
To know more about ourselves and how we get along with others.

For me, this experience has had many rewards
A creative challenge
A chance to use my skills
But most important of all
I’ve grown to feel at home here, in Tallahassee, to know and respect each one of you.

Irving and I had great fun working together.  We seemed to challenge each other to be more creative, complementing each other’s skills.  By the end of the two-performance weekend we were talking about writing an original musical theater piece together, for which I could be choreographer and director, and he could be composer and musical director. Next week I’ll write about where we went next!

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“In Praise” – Integrating Dance into a Sabbath Service

JoAnne Tucker / / Avodah's Early History, Tallahassee

It is 1972.  I am sitting in a hospital room in Tallahassee, Florida visiting Irving who has recently been hit in the eye with a tennis ball.  His eyes are covered but he is alert and expected to be fine.  His wife Anita has called and suggested I visit him as she is off to some kind of meeting and thought he might enjoy company.  It is several weeks after Tradition and we haven’t gotten very far in any thoughts of what kind of musical we might collaborate on.

Irving asks me, “What do you think about God?”  I make a face and am glad his eyes are covered.  “I don’t think much about God,” I reply and then continue, explaining I don’t find much meaning in going to temple or sitting through most services.  It just doesn’t connect for me.  He suggests something like well… it is maybe the music that resonates for him.  Before the visit is over we have decided to explore parts of the service in music and dance.  Well that is a bit of a surprise for me… but I’m not opposed.

Over the next few weeks we begin to study the parts of the service, and we think the “Barchu”might be a good starting place.  We discuss the moments in our own lives where we feel close to “God.”  I find it is hard for me to write this 45 years later because my feminist nature no longer includes the word “God” in it.  Even the words “Goddess” or the Jewish word for the feminine side of God – the Shekhina – don’t really reflect my current thinking. Most likely I would express the idea that it is in dance, and in being an artist, that I connect to a deeper place in myself and to others.  That said… let me get back to sharing where I was at in 1972.

It soon became apparent that the ideal premiere of our dance/music “cantata” based on key parts of the traditional Jewish service would be for the dedication of a new sanctuary for Temple Israel planned for the following spring.  That would give us plenty of time to develop the piece and to rehearse with members of the congregation and community.  Together we developed a libretto and then Irving got busy writing the music and I got busy choreographing.

It had been quite a while since I had performed so I soon began taking classes again. Florida State University’s Dance Department proved to be an ideal place to get back in shape. Unfortunately I thought I was in better shape then I was and leaped a bit too high and in the landing severed my Achilles tendon.  It proved to be just a few months’ setback and luckily I had driven myself to the hospital in time so that surgery was avoided and I was able to have the repair done by a foot-to-thigh cast.  During this time I remember working with two young community members, Brian Berkowitz and Terri McOuat, in the family room of our house, choreographing for them, from my place on the sofa, a duet that became part of the “Barchu” section expressing the love between two people.  Once the cast was removed, I had excellent physical therapy and got back to class… being more realistic about my technical dance ability.

Brian Berkowitz and Terri McOuat rehearsing duet from In Praise. Photo by Tallahassee Democrat, 1973

The program notes shared our thoughts:

In Praise is our statement in music, dance, and words of some of our feelings about God and the spirit of Judaism.  We have selected essential parts of the traditional synagogue service as our framework.  In the “Barchu” we see God in man and nature. The “Shema” depicts the strong historical roots of Judaism. “May the Words of Our Mouth” is a moment of personal prayer.  The “Adoration” expresses mankind’s search for self-understanding and fulfillment.

Eight members of the Temple community sang in the piece, including Irving’s wife Anita and my husband Murray.  Reuben Capelouto, Tevye from the production of Tradition, along with Irving’s brother Edwin also were part of the chorus. Some 40 years later, one of the singers, Alicia Novey (now Alicia Smith), sent me an email that she was living in Santa Fe where I now live.  We are now good friends, each having changed in our individual ways from the time of In Praise yet feeling a very strong connection to each other.

Four dancers joined me.  All four had limited dance training but total enthusiasm and willingness to participate.

There were many things I learned from this experience that served me well as I continued with Avodah.  The first thing was how hard it was for a rabbi to change the furniture on the bema.  And for dance to work we need space to move. After much discussion it ended up that we did two performances of In Praise.  The first performance – for the actual dedication ceremony – limited furniture was moved.  However, a week later we had a clear bema so that the dance was larger and could be fully seen.  Over the years of integrating dance into the Friday night Reform  service this became a regular challenge.  I got better and better at finding ways to reassure the various rabbis that rearranging the bema would be OK (and that it would be best if temple officers were not sitting directly behind kicking dancers in a tight space) and that the congregation would accept the temporary changes.  I even learned to quote Biblical text about sacred space to make my point.

Ten months later an article appeared in Reform Judaism (which went to all congregation members of Reform temples throughout the United States) describing the performance:

Tallahassee Congregation Dedicates

 New Sanctuary with Creative Dance Cantata

 The dedication of a new sanctuary is a joyous and precious event requiring a ceremony to fit the occasion.

Temple Israel of Tallahassee, Florida, dedicated its new house of worship with a magnificent dance cantata entitled “In Praise.” The work, conceived and written by Dr. Irving Fleet and Dr. JoAnne Tucker, dramatically proclaimed its authors’ feelings about God and Judaism. “Who is God?” asks one character. “God is some precious moments,” comes the reply.

The cantata was part of a regular worship service at the temple, enhancing the service through song, dance, and narrative.  Beginning with the Barchu, the call to worship, the sights and sounds of a singing chorus, piano and organ, four dancers, and musical soloists lifted the congregation above the everyday into the spiritual realm:

          From God comes all of life.
          He is everywhere and everything
          He is some very precious moments—
          The sound of the woods,
          The sun and the rain,
          The sounds of a voice,
          To feel and to touch.
          Praised be the Lord forever and ever.

 Dance segments of “In Praise” portrayed such themes as love for nature, the love of a man and a woman, and the tenderness of the mother-child relationship.  Other highlights included an affirmation of the oneness of the Jewish people:

          Through all ages
          A scattered people.
          These words bind us together,
          These words carry us through the years.
          And a hope for real concern among people:
          May the time not be distant
          When we see ourselves,
          When we know each other.
 

Anyone interested in recreating this work may write to Temple Israel….

And write they did.  Over the next year we received about 50 letters.  I think we were both stunned by the strong interest.  In the next blog I will write about our first performance out of town, in my hometown, Pittsburgh.

JoAnne in the “May the Words” solo from In Praise. Photo by Evelyn Walborsky

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Choreographing Based on Ritual and Research

JoAnne Tucker / / Avodah's Early History, Tallahassee

Spring 1974.  Excited by the strong response to our first piece “In Praise” I am eager to do another piece with Irving that would fit into the Sabbath Service.  Having a limited education in liturgy, I find myself reading and learning as much as I can.  I zero in on the Friday night candlelighting gesture of circling the flames and covering the eyes.  What does it mean? Where did it come from? I start experimenting, myself, with using the gesture when I light the candles.  (Now… to be upfront, I was not very observant and it was as much out of curiosity as any kind of spiritual desire or need that I found myself lighting the candles and saying the blessing on Friday night.)

I soon showed Irving the gesture, with much enthusiasm, one early evening in his backyard.  We decided to move forward on creating a piece related to welcoming the Sabbath. Research continued with the help of Rabbi Garfein. In fact, we dedicated the first performance, November 9, 1974 to him.  That was also the first official performance of The Avodah Dance Ensemble, a part of the newly formed Avodah, Inc. (See this earlier blog to learn more about this.)

As Irving and I researched the idea of welcoming the Sabbath the piece began to take shape into several sections.  Its opening was expressed in a statement we wrote about the piece for the first performance: “The image of Women, be she Mother, Daughter, or Grandmother, with eyes covered, praying over the Sabbath lights, while her family silently gathers around, inspired the dance and music of our new piece.”

I found the gesture of circling the flame and covering the eyes to be a very personal one and I imaged that each person did it in their own way with their own thoughts.  The piece opens with three women each doing the gesture in their own way and conveying their emotional response in movement.  They come together doing circular movement putting the hand gesture into the whole body and the feet. As I choreographed I realized I was drawing on my composition classes with Louis Horst in making sure each movement related to the theme I had introduced. Helen Tamiris’s use of gesture as a starting point was also a key influence. Long after the piece was no longer a part of the repertory, we often included the movement ritual of circling and covering the eyes as part of workshops.  Kezia has said about this, “In all the years I was in the company, I always loved and was intrigued by workshop participants’ explanations of how precisely they did the candlelighting gesture, where they had learned it, and what they thought of when doing it.”

In our research we learned that the Sabbath is often referred to as a bride and that a 16thcentury hymn still used in most services, “Lecha dodi likras kallah” expresses the notion of embracing the Sabbath as a bride and even of men dressing as a bridegroom going out to welcome the Sabbath.  As our piece evolved we introduced a dancer as the bride and a male dancer to embrace her in a duet.

Many years later, living in the New York area, I occasionally enjoyed attending Friday night services at B’nai Jeshurun and there following “Lecha dodi” congregants fill the aisles with joyful dancing.  But that was not at all what I grew up with and while some communities have begun to do this it is still pretty rare, at least in the United States.

So on Friday, November 9ththe Avodah Dance Ensemble gave its first official performance. The company consisted of five dancers. Judith Bloomberg, Hillary Gal and I opened as the three women. Corrine Levy was the bride with Jack Clark representing the bridegroom or man who greets the Sabbath.

Hillary Gal and I rehearsing “Sabbath Woman.” Photo by Tallahassee Democrat.

Living in Tallahassee near Florida State University’s excellent dance department I was able to draw dancers from there and take classes to keep myself in shape.  Dr. Nancy Smith, the head of the FSU dance department, was very welcoming and even helped by providing rehearsal space.

Reflecting back on those first few years in Tallahassee I realize I had come a long way from the first year as a faculty wife when I felt alone, unable to find a job. In fact in an article in the Tallahassee Democratdated September 1, 1974 I am quoted as saying “It was really bleak. I couldn’t find a job.  Nothing happened for a year, and I was going berserk.”

I did focus on writing my dissertation, and I was lucky that my major professor had moved from the University of Wisconsin to Florida State University’s Drama Department.  I was able to return to the University of Wisconsin and defend my dissertation in 1973 officially becoming Dr. Tucker. Now there were two Dr. Tucker’s in our household, Murray with his Ph.D. in Economics and I with mine in Theatre/Speech Communication.

I was also learning how to create my own opportunities and by the fall of 1974 I felt totally a part of the community with various dance projects besides Avodah and plans underway to build my own dance studio.

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Exploring Biblical Sarah

JoAnne Tucker / / Dances on Biblical Women, New York Company, Tallahassee

The third piece that Irving Fleet and I collaborated on was called Sarah. I mentioned it in the blog about the beginning of the New York company and want to go into more detail about the piece in this blog. Irving is quoted in an article in the Tallahassee Democrat as saying, “JoAnne was always intrigued with the character of Sarah” (March 2, 1979).  And I hunch that was probably what motivated us to begin exploring her story.  We honed in on that part of her life centered on first being unable to bear a child for her husband, then offering her handmaiden, Hagar, to bear a child for her and finally, when she becomes pregnant, Abraham celebrating the news.  For me this was the beginning of my own journey creating “dance midrash.” Midrash refers to both the early interpretations and commentaries on Torah as well as modern ones.  At the time I didn’t know this word. Later I would create a number of dance pieces that I considered midrash, co-author a book on dance midrash (Torah in Motion: Creating Dance Midrash, with Rabbi Susan Freeman), and teach many workshops involving dance midrash. 

While telling the story was somewhat important, it was exploring Sarah’s emotions that we focused on the most: Sarah’s anguish at not becoming pregnant; her jealousy and anger at Hagar when Hagar does bear a child for Abraham, which results in Sarah banishing Hagar; and then her joy when she becomes pregnant in her old age.  

Ritual movement again played an important choreographic role in the piece.  When Abraham renews his covenant with God following news of Sarah’s pregnancy, Sarah, in our midrash, takes off the rope from her gown and gives it to Abraham.  He then uses it for tefillin (ritual leather boxes with straps, which contain Torah text). Tefillin are traditionally only worn by men during the weekday morning service. They wrap one set around the arm, hand and fingers, and wrap the other set above the forehead. As Abraham is often referred to as the father of the morning prayer this ritual seemed an appropriate one to draw on.  In the same article in the Tallahassee Democrat that I referred to earlier I am quoted as saying, “Dance composition should go back to everyday gestures, take them, enlarge and manipulate them.”  And that is exactly what I did with the ritual of wrapping tefillin. I thought it worked very well.  However, not everyone agreed with me.  In fact, we had received some funding that year from the National Foundation for Jewish Culture and when the piece was later performed in New York City, the Executive Director from the NFJC made a very strong point of letting me know that I clearly didn’t understand what wrapping tefillin was, as it was entirely inappropriate for Sarah to hand Abraham the rope from her gown to use.  Indeed I did very much understand and part of my feminist statement was purposefully to have Sarah hand it to him.

On Saturday March 3, 1979, the first performance of Sarah was held as part of a concert at Temple Israel in Tallahassee along with Sabbath Woman, In Praise and I Never Saw Another Butterfly.   The piece was created on the Tallahassee company with Ellen Ashdown as Sarah, Michael Bush as Abraham, Judith Lyons as Hagar and  two handmaidens, Donna Campbell and Trish Whidden. 

From my scrapbook. Photograph that was part of the Tallahassee Democrat article,
March 2, 1979.

Six weeks later I recreated the piece for the New York company with Lynn Elliott dancing the role of Sarah in a performance at Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion’s West 68thStreet Campus.  

In the fall of 1979, we did a three-week season at Henry St. Settlement House on the Lower East Side of New York City as part of the American Jewish Theater.  This was an excellent experience for us and I will write a full blog about it.  For right now I want to share part of a review from Dance Magazine (by Marilyn Hunt) of  the performance of Sarah  at Henry St. 

             Sarah, a Grahamesque drama of a woman of large-scale passions is portrayed concisely and lucidly. Sarah vents her despair at being childless by lashing one leg around, pacing, and whipping her hair in a circle.  In contrast, her handmaiden, young Hagar, whom Sarah gives to her husband, Abraham, to bear him a child, carries her imaginary water jar with chest thrust proudly forward and has a formal ritual-like mating with Abraham.  Only the ending, God’s promise that Isaac, Abraham and Sarah’s belatedly-born son, would father the tribes of Israel, failed to come across in dance terms.  The two women’s roles were especially well filled by Lynn Elliott and Peggy Evans.  Dance Magazine, February 1980.   

A year later when Rick Jacobs, who was then a rabbinic student at HUC-JIR, joined the company and learned the part of Abraham, the ending blessing took on a whole new dimension, as the prayer and actual movement were already deeply meaningful to him, and he performed the section in a uniquely heartfelt way. 

Rick Jacobs as Abraham, 1981.  Photo by Amanda Kreglow
Rick Jacobs and Lynn Elliott in Sarah. Photo by Amanda Kreglow.

Sarah continued to be beautifully performed regularly by the New York company during the next several years with Rick dancing the part of Abraham, and Lynn Elliott dancing the part of Sarah.  For me Sarah was the first of a series of pieces focusing on Biblical women.  And I would revisit Sarah, more than once. 

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