JoAnne Tucker shares her experiences in dance from directly a modern dance company to leading movement activities for women in prison and domestic violence survivors.
Clearly Juilliard and The Martha Graham Company have been on my mind recently and I have been writing about them in recent blogs. They both played an important part in a recent trip to New York City. I usually go at least once a year to NYC and sometimes twice. Of course, part of that is to see family and friends. It is also just to enjoy the energy of the city, the museums, theatre and dance. This year’s trip began with a Homecoming for dancers at Juilliard and ended with a performance of The Martha Graham Company. This blog, spread over two weeks, will focus on these two events.
Sunday afternoon, April 7th, was billed as a homecoming for dancers at Juilliard. It was an opportunity to mingle, to take class (they offered a Gaga Class and a Meditation Class), to see student compositions and to meet and hear Alicia Graf Mack, the new director of the Dance Department. Indeed it was a really full afternoon, starting at noon and ending at six. I decided that classes weren’t for me so I went at 3 in time to see student choreography, hear Alicia Graf and enjoy networking.
Part of my closeness to Juilliard is not only the impact the school had on me when I attended but also a deep appreciation for dancers in Avodah who had studied there and how much I benefited from their excellent training and professional attitude. Linda Kent, Juilliard faculty member and very good friend, had encouraged me to come and said she would definitely be there. So I flew in on April 6th, to attend the next day.
My only disappointment was that none of the classmates I was close to back in the 60’s attended nor did any of the many dancers that I had worked with in Avodah. I did see quite a few acquaintances and that was pleasant. And of course it is always fun to hang out with Linda Kent who knows just about everyone there.
The highlight for me was hearing Alicia Graf Mack speak. For an hour she shared her background in dance and her ideas for the department, and answered questions. Her warm, friendly and very open style is appealing. The fact that she performed in both Dance Theatre of Harlem and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater gives her an excellent professional background. The March issue of Dance Magazine sums it up well:
As a former leading dancer for both DTH – under the exacting eye of Arthur Mitchell – and Ailey, she effortlessly embodies Juilliard’s ethos: an equal focus on ballet and modern dance. She also holds a degree in history from Columbia University and an MA in nonprofit management from Washington University in St. Louis. She is an overachiever in every sense.
She is also the first African American and, at 39, the youngest person to direct the Dance Department.
Among the things she shared, I found particularly interesting one of the projects she did while at Columbia – reviewing and writing about the financial records of Dance Theatre of Harlem. She also experienced illness that forced her to stop dancing with DTH, and she talked openly about how that impacted her and how she was able to go back. She became involved with a “Praise” dance group at Columbia University that led her to choreograph and go back to classes, this time taking Milton Myers’s classes in Horton technique, which eventually led her to the Ailey Company.
From l to r: Linda Kent, Alicia Graf Mack, and JoAnne at the Juilliard Homecoming on April 7th.
I left Juilliard with a very good feeling that the dance department was in good hands. And off I went to meet my grandson for dinner. My trip to NYC was off to a good start.
Last week I wrote about the company’s performance of Kaddish at a Central Synagogue Sabbath service in May 1985. We dedicated that evening’s performance to Ben Sommers, who had been President of Capezio, and who had died that week. I mentioned in the blog that Ben’s wife, Estelle Sommers, had told me afterwards how meaningful the service was. She also told me that we should get together for lunch after things calmed down for her. About a month or so later we had lunch together, and that began a very special friendship that strongly impacted both the Avodah Dance Ensemble and my life personally.
Estelle, like Ben, was a dancewearspecialist and managed Capezio stores:
Sommers made her career in retail dancewear as a designer, business executive, and owner of various ventures. She revolutionized the field of fitness clothing by introducing a new fabric, Antron-Lycra/Spandex, into her innovative designs for Capezio’s bodywear. (https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/sommers-estelle-joan)
At some point either before our lunch or after she suggested that I reach out to and meet Linda Kent. She mentioned that Linda (then with The Paul Taylor Dance Company) was also interested in liturgical dance. I knew who Linda was and had great respect for her outstanding professional career, first with the Alvin Ailey Company from 1968–74, and then as a principal dancer with the Taylor Company from 1975. I had often seen her perform. Estelle sent Linda a similar kind of note, giving us information on how to contact each other.
Linda and I did get in touch, resulting in a personal friendship and professional collaboration. Linda created pieces and helped shape Interfaith programs for Avodah, guest taught at our workshops, and at times performed with the company (including filling in for Kezia when she broke her foot performing Let My People Go). Linda also helped us find Avodah dancers by recommending students she knew from her position at Juilliard (where she had graduated in 1968 and joined the faculty in 1984), and she offered generous artistic and Board advice when Julie Gayer took over as Avodah’s Director. Linda and I continue our long friendship today. (See photo in blog on Juilliard homecoming. I will be writing more blogs later about Linda.) Introducing Linda and me was very typical of Estelle, as she was one of the best networkers I have ever known. In the same article I quoted above, Estelle was described as “one of the most enthusiastic advocates and patrons of dance,” sometimes referred to as the “empress of dance.” And I can affirm that indeed she was, for The Avodah Dance Ensemble.
Within a year of our meeting, Estelle suggested having a gathering at her apartment to introduce Avodah dancers and Board members to some of her influential dance friends. One very important contact we made that evening was Ted Bartwink. Ted served as Trustee and Executive Director of The Harkness Foundation for Dance from 1968–2014. The Harkness Foundation made annual contributions to most of the major dance venues in New York City. Following that evening he came to at least one performance that I remember and for a number of years we received funding for our educational programs from the Harkness Foundation.
At Estelle’s request, I often served on honorary committees for benefit events. I was always thrilled to see my name on a list with so many outstanding dance and theatre people. Murray and I enjoyed attending the events and below is the back of an invitation for a 1991 International Committee for The Dance Library of Israel which honored Stephanie French, the Vice President of Corporate Contributions and Cultural Affairs for the Philip Morris Management Corporation, a major supporter of dance in the New York City area.
Back of invitation for the Dance Library of Israel Event
Earlier that same year Estelle Sommers was honored with the 9thAnnual Dance Notation Bureau Award and I was thrilled to be on that Honorary Committee. I end this blog with this lovely picture of Estelle.
I thought I would be going back to Perry-Mansfield in 1959 but instead I ended up auditioning for and getting into a bicentennial summer stock production that ran most of the summer in Pittsburgh. That will be another later blog. Right now I just want to focus on my history with Perry-Mansfield. Even though I didn’t return, I highly recommended the camp to other dancers and in fact my sister attended in 1965 and Murray and I, along with my mother, visited her while she was at camp. At that point Perry-Mansfield was in transition. The founders, Portia Mansfield and Charlotte Perry, had donated the camp to Stephens College, a women’s school in Columbia, Missouri. Harriet Ann Gray, head of the Stephens Dance Department, had been a regular teacher at Perry-Mansfield. The camp had a four-year transition period and would not be under full control of Stephens until 1967.
The camp became a summer campus for Stephens so that when our two daughters were ready for a summer program I was disappointed that it wouldn’t work for them. I pretty much hadn’t thought about Perry-Mansfield again until I saw a very small notice in Dance Magazine in the fall of 1991 that a group of townspeople had formed Friends of Perry-Mansfield, a non-profit organization to save the camp, as Stephens College was planning to sell it to be developed for condos or such. I think I sent in a $25 donation.
In the summer of 1992, Murray and I took a trip to Rocky Mountain Park and were staying in the western part of the park, about a 2-hour drive from Steamboat Springs where Perry-Mansfield is located. I suggested that we take a drive over to Steamboat and see what the town was like, as I had been pretty impressed that a group of townspeople were making an effort to save the camp. We did drive over and liked the energy in the town. It had grown from when I was there, particularly the ski area, but it still had the feel of a small Western town and none of the pretensions of Aspen or Vail. As we were wandering around town we picked up some brochures of condos that were doing summer rentals and even drove by a few of them. And in fact the next summer we rented a condo for a month and had a great time hiking, swimming and being in Steamboat. Strangely, though we drove by the entrance to the camp quite a few times I never wanted to go in to visit. Somehow I didn’t want to ruin the wonderful memories I had.
Murray and I in Rocky Mountain Park in the summer of 1992.
We continued to rent for a month each summer and then in 1996 we bought a condo and began to increase our time to five weeks. Since we were beginning to feel a bigger commitment to Steamboat and what the community had to offer, I decided I would go to Perry-Mansfield’s “Evening of Dance” concert. It was pretty bad and I didn’t go back for a few years until the summer of 1999.
Once again, I was very disappointed in the evening. There were a few lovely dancers but the choreography of the pieces didn’t appeal to me, seeming weak attempts at being avant-garde and not particularly challenging for the dancers. At intermission I was quietly talking to one of the townspeople that I recognized, sharing my disappointment, when someone interrupted the conversation and asked who I was. I shared that I directed a small modern dance company in NYC and that I had been at P-M the summer of 1958 and had loved studying with Tamiris and being in the piece “Dance for Walt Whitman.” At which point this lovely woman began doing one of the movements from the piece. So I immediately asked who she was. “T Ray Faulkner,” came her answer, and I just hugged her, telling her that I remembered her well from the summer I had been there. We laughed and she said we needed to talk and asked if I would be willing to go out to lunch with her.
I agreed of course, we exchanged contact information and set up a time to meet!
Before I go any further, this seems a fitting time to share more about T Ray and her role with Perry-Mansfield, and honor this beautiful woman who contributed so much to so many lives and to the well being of Perry-Mansfield. I think all of us who attended P-M from 1957 to 2015 have wonderful memories of T Ray. T Ray started as a counselor at P-M but soon was asked to assist the two directors, Charlotte Perry and Portia Mansfield, doing a wide variety of things that the ladies didn’t have time for. She was also a major help in making the transition to ownership by Stephens College.
T Ray [on the right] with another counselor in the summer of 1958. Photo that I took!
T Ray was drawn to modern dance even though she grew up in a religious household where dance was “for whores.” I found this wonderful write up about T Ray on the website of the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma, honoring alumni, and I share it here as it lets us know about T Ray’s professional life.
In the early 1950s, Thelma Ray Faulkner was told that a college degree could take her anywhere she wanted to go, provided she used it. Forty-five years, four continents and hundreds of souvenirs later, Faulkner proved those words to be true. The 1956 OCW graduate has made her mark in the world of education, earning both her Masters and Ph.D. in dance and related arts from Texas Woman’s University in Denton, Texas, in 1965 and 1969, respectively, and has taught on every educational level from kindergarten to post graduate. She taught dance at Indiana University in Bloomington, Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, the University of Oregon in Eugene and Arizona State University in Tempe. During her career in higher education, she did post doctoral work at the Laban Art Movement Center at Goldsmith College, part of the University of London. She was a visiting professor at the University of the Americas in Chalua, Mexico, a guest teacher/artist at two colleges in Brazil and was a judge at Brazil’s major international dance competition. She retired from college teaching in 1982, only to reenter the field of education as an elementary school teacher. For the last six years of her teaching career, she worked with third-fifth grade Native American students on the White Mountain Apache Reservation in Whiteriver, Ariz. As a Language Arts Specialist, she taught creative writing to children with reading and writing limitations. Still not content to retire at the age of 65, Faulkner elected to work part-time at the Perry-Mansfield Performing Arts School and Camp in Steamboat Springs, Colo. Her travels have taken her to countries in Europe and South America, the island of Malta, China, Antarctica, Egypt, and around the world.
T Ray, picture found on the Internet, as I remember her around 2010. T-Ray died June 9, 2016.
T Ray and I indeed had lunch together and we talked about how the dance program could be improved and might return to the outstanding status that it once held, of key people in the field of dance having a role at the camp. As we were talking I thought about my good friend Linda Kent, who had danced in Alvin Ailey’s company for seven years upon her graduation from Juilliard and then gone on to perform with Paul Taylor for 14 more years. She was now on the faculty of Juilliard and I knew how diverse and deep her contacts in the dance world were. I also knew that she didn’t have a summer program that she regularly participated in and I thought that maybe she would be interested in heading up the dance program at P-M.
Linda and I had worked together on several projects, she had set two pieces for The Avodah Dance Ensemble, had helped me with casting, been a guest teacher in week-long Avodah summer programs, and on one or two occasions had even danced with the company when a dancer was out sick. I had watched her coach dancers and I thought she was one of the best coaches of dance!! I’ll share more about how Linda Kent and I met and the various projects we did together, in a later blog.
T Ray loved the idea and thought the next steps were to meet with June Lindenmayer, the current director of P-M and Jim Steinberg, the President of the Board of Friends of Perry-Mansfield. She would set up those meetings and in the meantime I was to ask Linda if she would be interested in heading the dance program at Perry-Mansfield.
It’s the final day of the 2001 six-week summer program for high school and college-age dancers at Perry-Mansfield. Linda Kent has headed the program and I am watching the repertory class in the large studio of Steinberg Pavilion. Tears of joy are streaming down my face as I watch a very enthusiastic, energetic group of talented young dancers perform repertory they have learned from works of Alvin Ailey and Jose Limon and even some phrases of Twyla Tharpe. My eye catches a few of the people who helped make possible Linda’s role as new director of the dance program, and we smile broadly. In just one summer the level of the performing arts program at P-M has skyrocketed, exposing the students to outstanding teachers, classics of modern dance repertory and new up-and-coming choreographers.
Steinberg Pavillon – taken from the Perry-Mansfield website. I love the way that all the studios at Perry-Mansfield are open to the outside.
Following my lunch with T Ray at the end of the previous summer, I had confirmed that Linda would be interested in heading the dance program at Perry-Mansfield. T Ray and I met with both the Executive Director (June Lindenmayer) and President of the Board (Jim Steinberg) and they liked the idea and then reached out to Linda. I had done my job making the suggestion and now it was up to them to make it happen. There was a deep feeling of satisfaction in knowing that in some way I was contributing to making the dance program as extraordinary as it had once been.
Linda drew on her many contacts in the dance world and put together an outstanding faculty for that first summer and the following 12 that she headed the program. It included both young rising choreographers, and seasoned teachers from Juilliard and other established programs. The Evening of Dance concerts were excellent each summer and one of my favorites ended with a section from Paul Taylor’s Esplanade that Linda set beautifully on the dancers. It was a shared delight for me to watch classes and rehearsals and to get to hang out with the dance faculty. A few weeks into the first summer I hosted a party for the faculty at our home and that became a tradition that we continued until 2009 when we relocated from Steamboat Springs to Santa Fe, New Mexico.
When dance became a part of the New Works program that preceded the official camp session, Linda selected gifted choreographers to come and develop work. They have gone on to have exceptional careers. Two noteworthy examples are Robert Battle, who is now the director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and Camille A. Brown, who not only has her own company, but has been choreographing for Broadway, Off-Broadway and the recent Jesus Christ Superstar production on television.
Linda continued directing the program through the 100th anniversary of Perry-Mansfield. By that time I was well settled in Santa Fe and did not make it up to see the wonderful program she put together featuring a setting of the second half of Agnes de Mille’s Rodeo. Supposedly de Mille got the idea for Rodeo when she was on the faculty of Perry-Mansfield.
As happens, the new Executive Director (Joan Lazarus Dobkowski) decided to make a change and the following summer Linda did not return to Perry-Mansfield to head the dance program. I am very pleased that in the course of 13 amazing summers Linda was able to have an impact on many young dancers. Linda is an outstanding coach and is able to guide dancers to find the very best way to execute a movement phrase. A December 2016 article by Kristin Schwab in Dance Magazine, titled “These Five Details Can Make or Break Your Performance,” pointed out that “for Linda Kent, even the slightest shift in focus can change the meaning.” I love the picture of Linda that accompanied the article. I am so glad that I had a role in recommending that Linda head the dance department at Perry-Mansfield and that so many young dancers benefited from the staff she engaged and from her direction and instruction.
Photo by Todd Rosenberg, courtesy of Juilliard, taken from the December 2016 Dance Magazine article.
It wasn’t until 2011 that I learned that Agnes de Mille had been at Perry-Mansfield Performing Arts Camp in Steamboat Springs, Colorado during the 1930’s. If you are a regular reader of this blog you know that the summer I spent at Perry-Mansfield as a teenager in 1958 was life-changing and that Agnes de Mille’s autobiography Dance to the Piper was also a big influence during that period in my life. In 2011 I was a member of the Board of Directors of Perry-Mansfield and was asked to chair a book-signing event for Dorothy Wickenden’s new book Nothing Daunted: The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West. In discussion with Dorothy I learned that the reason she wanted to have her book signing at Perry-Mansfield instead of the local bookstore was she wanted square dancing and if possible an excerpt from de Mille’s Rodeo to be part of the event. She felt this would set the ideal mood for her book and draw people out to the event.
Wickenden’s book Nothing Daunted tells the adventures of two young women, graduates of Smith College, who in the summer of 1916 left their society life in New York state and headed to Colorado to teach school in rural northwestern Colorado. One of the women was Dorothy’s grandmother, and nearly a hundred years later Dorothy discovered her grandmother’s letters. These letters helped her recreate the womens’ saga.
Perry-Mansfield was founded in 1913 by two other Smith College women, Portia Mansfield and Charlotte Perry. “The Ladies,” as they were usually referred to, shared their purpose in the following statement: “Creative practice through art and nature manifests in a thoughtful, insightful, and courageous life.” Certainly Charlotte and Portia knew the two women written about in Nothing Daunted.
C. S. Carley, in one of her blogs at Castleandcoffeehouse.com, notes, “The story of Agnes de Mille in Steamboat Springs is one of the many historical nuggets in Dorothy Wickenden’s bestselling book . . .” Carley goes on to describe de Mille’s stay in Steamboat:
During her stay . . . ,Agnes asked to be taken to a square dance, an important regular social event in the local schoolhouse. Not only was she fascinated with the actual cowboys and girls dancing in actual cowboy boots, but she went out on the floor and did a solo turn, to much applause.
The event for the book signing was planned. It included some square dancing, a duet from Rodeo and of course Dorothy Wickenden speaking.
Dorothy Wickenden speaking at Perry-Mansfield (photo by Murray Tucker)
Sharing the duet from Rodeo was the beginning of a project by Linda Kent, who at the time was the director of dance at Perry-Mansfield. She brought the project to culmination two years later by presenting an
excerpt from the second half of the dance as part of the 100-year celebration of the performing arts camp.
Paul Sutherland is the sole répétiteur of the ballet Rodeo, having been appointed by the choreographer in 1979. There is a wonderful article from the Sarasota Herald-Tribune that shares the important role Rodeohas played in Sutherland’s life. He first saw the ballet when he was 18, when someone gave him a ticket. The next morning he signed up for a ballet class and two years later he had a contract with The American Ballet Theatre. His first role was dancing one of the cowboys in Rodeo. Here’s the link to the article which shares additional information. http://ticket.heraldtribune.com/2011/12/03/stager-paul-sutherland-is-still-in-the-saddle/
Linda arranged for Paul to come to Juilliard and teach the dance to her student Ellie (who would be a scholarship student at Perry-Mansfield in the summer), and to a young man from the Ailey BFA program, who also planned to be at P-M. When the dancer from the Ailey program was unable to attend, Ellie (then at P-M), taught the dance (with Paul’s permission) to Raffles Durbin, who was a scholarship student from Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Dallas.
The event was a success with a packed, enthusiastic crowd.
Steamboat Sprints Pilot Newspaper, saved by Linda Kent, publicizing the book-signing event! (Credited to John F. Russell/Staff)
One of the challenges that Linda Kent faced when she was Director of Dance at Perry-Mansfield was to provide really meaningful experiences for the dance students after their concert which was held the fourth week of camp. That meant there were still two weeks left of the six-week program. She came up with the idea of bringing guest artists to P-M so the students would be exposed to both master classes and a lecture demonstration by an outstanding artist.
In 2007, P-M faculty member Christina Paolucci arranged an amazing experience featuring Gemze de Lappe sharing work of Agnes de Mille, along with two dancers and a musician. (At that time I did not know about Agnes de Mille’s history with P-M. Check out Part I of this blog to learn about it.) I was thrilled that the students would be able to have master classes and a lecture demonstration, and so Murray and I made a contribution to P-M to help fund it.
Christina at the time was Educational Director/Associate Artistic Director at New York Theatre Ballet, and Gemze had been working extensively with NYTB from 2005 until her death in 2017 as NYTB presented many excerpts from de Mille’s ballets. A highlight of NYTB’s work on de Mille was a production called Dance/Speak. A description in TheatreMania describes it well:
The New York Theatre Ballet celebrates its 30th Anniversary season with the World Premiere of Dance/Speak: The Life of Agnes de Mille, a dance/drama which tells the story of choreographer Agnes de Mille’s struggle for success in the American theatre. Written by Anderson Ferrell, novelist and director of The de Mille Working Group; Directed by Scott Alan Evans; Staged by Gemze de Lappe (including dances from Oklahoma!, Carousel, Brigadoon as well as Fall River Legend, Three Virgins and a Devil, Rodeo, and Debut at the Opera) with Additional Choreography by Liza Gennaro. All performances are followed by an intimate panel discussion with the creators.
Diana Byer, Sallie Wilson, Gemze deLappe and Paul Sutherland at a post-performance conversation after an evening of de Mille works produced by NYTB. Photo by Christina PaolucciElena Zahlmann and Terence Duncan in Oklahoma! Photo by Richard Termine, courtesy of New York Theatre Ballet
An obituary in The New York Times helped me understand better the contribution that Gemze made to the dance world and to keeping the integrity of de Mille’s choreography. Richard Sandomer described it well in this quote:
Miss de Lappe understood that de Mille’s dancers had to be actors, and that her choreography — which was celebrated for incorporating elements of folk dancing and classical ballet — was as much about forging character as it was about learning the steps. When she recreated de Mille’s choreography, Miss de Lappe used her mentor’s vocabulary, vivid with motivational similes, to inform even the subtlest of movements.
The obituary also pointed out:
Miss de Lappe’s association with de Mille began in 1943 when she was cast in a small part in the first national tour of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s“Oklahoma!”
…“She was the potter’s clay for Agnes and one of her foremost interpreters,” Anderson Ferrell, director of the de Mille Working Group, which licenses performances of de Mille’s dances, said in a telephone interview. “Gemze was her muse.”
Over the course of three days Gemze along with dancers Terence Duncan and Julie-Anne Taylor and music director Ferdy Tumakaka conducted a Repertory class for P-M dancers, held two master classes open to the public and presented an hour-long lecture demonstration. Repertory from Carousel, Brigadoon and Oklahoma were introduced. Christina and Terence remember that Gemze’s master class focused on the breath and very detailed characterization from Carousel.
Gemze (center) teaching at Perry-Mansfield. Photo by Christina Paolucci
Five years later in 2013, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Perry-Mansfield Linda Kent turned to de Mille’s Rodeo and shared the following with me:
I wanted to celebrate our history and our dance present and future. Rodeo seemed the most perfect look back. I had great ambition and very little budget!!! Paul Sutherland and the de Mille estate worked with us and we did an excerpt of the second half of the dance. Paul has been the exclusive restager of Rodeo since 1979 and he gives the dancers so much more than steps!! It was a miracle to see contemporary 16-21 year olds ransformed into the gals and cowboys of de Mille’s first encounters. Our cowgirl, Cleo Person, was a delight in her awkward mooning over Keil Weiler as our Champion Roper (and fantastic tap dancer). Paul Sutherland was delighted and I was thrilled that we could bring this back to the community where the inspiration began.
Murray and I had already moved from Steamboat Springs to Santa Fe in late 2009 and while at first we returned in the summers, by 2013 we were busy sharing our artwork at fairs and didn’t make it up to Perry-Mansfield for the celebration. We did hear raves from our friends about how well the evening of dance went.
One of the most delightful things of writing the blog posts for Mostly Dance is the interaction I get with other artists sharing memories. I am very grateful to Linda Kent, Christina Paolucci and Terence Duncan for going through notes, photos and memories that made this post possible.
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