Tag: Lynne Wimmer

First Out of Town Performance: “In Praise” in Pittsburgh

JoAnne Tucker / / Avodah's Early History

I grew up in the Jewish Reform Temple of Rodef Shalom in Pittsburgh when the esteemed scholar Dr. Solomon Freehof was the senior rabbi there.  As I mentioned earlier, his book had influenced the creation of In Praise.  He was a bit intimidating for me and it was the younger Rabbi, Dr. Walter Jacob, that I got to know as a teen at Rodef Shalom and who in fact married Murray and me. Rodef Shalom has had a prominent history in the development of Reform Judaism in the United States and here is a link where you can learn more.  At some point on a visit to Pittsburgh probably in the summer of 1973 I mentioned to Walter what I had been doing in Tallahassee and he suggested bringing In Praise to Pittsburgh.  Hum… that seemed really a neat option as the sanctuary of Rodef Shalom was inspiring and elegant and it would be a challenge to set our piece on the bema as part of a service.

One of Rodef Shalom’s weekly services was on Sunday morning and Walter suggested that as the ideal time to weave In Praise into the service. Since I still had dance contacts in Pittsburgh, I decided that I would use local dancers and Irving could work with the professional choir that sang regularly at Rodef Shalom.  During the summer of 1973 I had also spent time visiting my good friend and former Pittsburgher Lynne Wimmer, who had joined the Repertory Dance Company (RDT) in Salt Lake City, Utah upon her graduation from Juilliard in 1968.  I decided I wanted to take a two-week workshop RDT offered and do some hiking and hanging out with Lynne.

Before I continue with In Praise in Pittsburgh, let me give you a little bit of background on my friendship with Lynne.  Both of our families, along with Murray’s, belonged to a Swim Club in Pittsburgh and we hung at the pool.  Lynne and I got to know each other then and particularly when I had moved back to Pittsburgh to marry Murray following two years at Juilliard. Lynne was then going into her junior year.  She was very serious about her dancing and I suggested that she audition for Juilliard in her junior year and if accepted she could take summer school and skip her senior year. I knew this was possible since a classmate of mine, Martha Clarke, had done exactly that.  Anyway Lynne auditioned, got in and entered Juilliard that fall.  We have kept in contact over the years both as friends and dance collaborators.  There will be other blogs I will be writing in which Lynne plays an important part.

When a date was set with Rodef Shalom I reached out to Lynne to see if she could join me and perform in In Praise.  Since the date was in January when RDT was touring in the Midwest she was able to take a week’s leave of absence and perform with us.  I don’t remember how exactly I got the other five dancers, and I only recognize one other name:  Martha Amper, whom I had worked with quite a few years earlier when she was in high school. (I’ll definitely do a blog on the poetry program I did with her and 6 or 7 other students back in 1965.) Most likely, I reached out to my Pittsburgh modern dance teacher, Jeanne Beaman, and asked her for suggestions.  I had studied seriously with Jeanne all through high school and am deeply grateful to her for the strong training and inspiration I received from her.

It was great fun and challenging to spend the week in Pittsburgh working with the dancers, teaching them sections of In Praise, and making adjustments to the choreography to fit the bema which was long and narrow.  The sanctuary seats a total of 1200 (900 on the first floor and 300 in the balcony) and I was particularly aware of wanting to take in the full congregation during a quiet solo I did to the prayer “May the Words of My Mouth.”  Lynne helped me with the solo, coaching me to fully extend my hands in several key places. That really helped and in a receiving line after the performance (it’s a tradition that the Rabbis form this line and any invited guest speaker join them) a number of people asked to see my hands, remarking how big they looked on the bema.  THANK YOU LYNNE!! IT WORKED!!

JoAnne Tucker and Lynne Wimmer on the bema, in front of the ark at Rodef Shalom. Photo by Morris Berman for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

In a recent phone conversation with Lynne I asked her what she remembered about the performance. She shared that she had a funny feeling dancing on the bema, as she had grown up in a conservative congregation and it felt strange to be dancing on the bema as if on a stage.  Her comment did not surprise me at all and over the years the approach I had of integrating dance into the service was both welcomed and questioned.  Martha Graham’s classic comment that “wherever a dancer stands is holy ground” has resonated for me since I was a teenager and so why not dance on the bema.

Irving arrived mid-week and as he worked with the professional choir the piece began to flow together.  Choreographic changes and music timing were polished and in a letter following In Praise Dr. Jacob wrote, “Until I watched you work with the dancers individually in the morning and on Wednesday evening, I had no idea how much detailed preparation was necessary.”

Top picture: Irving playing the piano while we work out a musical coordination.

Bottom picture: Irving working with the professional musicians.

The costumes shown in the above picture of Lynne and me were just too busy for RodefShalom’s elegant sanctuary. Something simpler was needed and so white leotards with matching white skirts and beige tights underneath became the new costumes for the piece.  The male dancer wore a white tank top with brown tights.

Nice publicity in both the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette provided a filled sanctuary for our January 27thservice. I remember very vividly that as the music began for In Praise and we were in place in the aisles, the sun suddenly burst through the long stained glass windows providing the most amazing lighting.

A week later in the Jewish Chronicle, Milton K. Susman wrote about his experience, in his column entitled “As I See It” (February 7, 1974):

In these days when spiritual uplift is as rare as birdsong in January, one savors the experience at Rodef Shalom Temple last week when the Congregation offered a service in the guise of a dance cantata titled “In Praise.” It was a moving and meaningful occasion in that the cantata was a highly religious tableau without resort to religious formalism.

            “In Praise” infused the litanies of the “Shema,” “May the Words…” and “Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God…” with the grace and beauty of movement against a musical background that set the mood and etched every emotion.  This innovative approach to prayer has the virtues of perspective and the quickened pulse, for the observer can hardly escape the encompassing effects of sight and sound on those supplications that are as familiar to the worshipper as his living room.

            “In Praise” gives to prayer a whole new dimension of joyfulness and humility and for a lot of days to come the afterglow of Florida-based Dr. Irving Fleet’s music and Dr. JoAnne Tucker’s choreography (she is the daughter-in-law of former Pittsburgh sportscaster Joe Tucker) will remain as a kind of haunting benediction.

            Those who went and witnessed have to be grateful to the Alexander A. and Cecilia Bluestone Music Fund for making the cantata possible and to Dr. Walter Jacob, rabbi of Rodef Shalom, for surrendering his pulpit to a happening that was couched in velvet.

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A Challenging Film Project

JoAnne Tucker / / Dance in Film, Healing Voices - Personal Stories

What a joy it is to now have Healing Voices-Personal Stories’s new film Out of the Shadow: Shining Light on Domestic Violence posted on Vimeo and our website.  This project and resulting film were more complicated than our earlier films. The idea for the film was brought to us by HV-PS’s board member Leona Stucky-Abbott and grew into a Day of Action Against Domestic Violence held on October 5, 2019.  Check out this website to see where events were held.  In this blog I write about the role that movement and dance played in the Day and in the film.   

One of the things we recommended for the Day of Action was a Die-In to remember and acknowledge the large number of women who have lost their lives to an intimate partner. As we began to share our idea with people, it became clear we needed to establish some basic guidelines for what we meant as a Die-In.  It was not to be a protest but rather a time to remember those women who have lost their lives!!  We gave a basic movement outline…. to have those women who were representing the victims enter first and lie down on the ground.  Other women (who did not want to lie down) and men then made a protective circle around them.  Once everyone was in place, all observed a minute of silence with no movement.  After the minute, with the cue of a chime, one woman began to get up, then help another person up, with the two acknowledging each other before moving on to help another woman up.  Once everyone was up, they affirmed, with dance and gestures, the celebration of life and the message that the violence has to stop.  

We did a demonstration film of our model and provided it to groups so they could get an idea of what to do.  We of course also suggested that they come up with their own ideas too.  You can watch the demonstration film here.  It was exciting to get the videos from the different groups and see what they came up with for October 5th.

We also suggested that each event plan something special to call attention to domestic violence.  I was thrilled that we ended up with three specific dances that play an important role in the film.  Two of the dance pieces were a part of the New York Day of Action held at St. Mark’s Church.  Regina Ress, who organized the NYC event, describes them beautifully in the film and I strongly urge you to watch it.  Briefly, one of the dances was performed and choreographed by Sonali Skandan, who has an East Indian dance company. It is about a courtesan who is trapped and longs to be free. The second dance, Ni Una Carmen Mas (“Not One More Carmen”), was performed by Ivanka Figueroa and choreographed by Gabriela Estrada who enthusiastically signed up to be a part of our Day of Action when we first announced it. 

Screenshot of Sonali Skandan taken from Out of the Shadow
Screenshot of Ni Una Carmen Mas, performed by Ivanka Figueroa 
and choreographed by Gabriela Estrada from Out of the Shadow

Trapped is the third dance piece featured in our film and its history is very interesting.  It is performed by Tiana Lovett with choreography by Lynne Wimmer.  Lynne Wimmer is the co-director and editor of Out of the Shadow and a longtime friend.  We have collaborated on lots of different projects. I suggested she read Leona Stucky-Abbott’s book The Fog of Faith.  Leona is a board member of Healing Voices – Personal Stories, which produced the film.  Leona also brought to us the idea of making a film related to how many women have died from domestic violence –  nearly double the number of men who died in combat from 2001 – 2012. (6,500 U.S. troops were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan while 11,700 women were murdered by intimate partners.)

Screenshot  of Trapped performed by Tiana Lovett with choreography by Lynne Wimmer

In a recent email, Lynne Wimmer wrote:

Leona, your brave, blunt autobiography of your terrifying experiences was what directed me to paw through a collection of old (and I mean old – reel to reel 1 inch tapes) videotapes and discover that the first dance I’d ever choreographed had some purpose besides history. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to work with such a talented, willing creature as Tiana. So, working on this project also sent me back into the dance studio as a choreographer for the first time in six years. I don’t know if I’ll ever venture there again, but it was a nice, short return visit to my former life.

Last year I visited Lynne and loved seeing her work with Tiana and how this very first piece she choreographed could have a wonderful place in the Day of Action or on its own.  As it turned out, Lynne beautifully staged a Die-In in a church as part of a Day of Action event organized by the Gun Violence Prevention Center of Salt Lake City, and later filmed Trapped. 

At some point as Lynne was editing she experimented with seeing how the Grimms’ tale “Old Rink Rank,” which Regina had told in NYC and which we had included (in a shortened version) in the interview we taped at Northern New Mexico College with filmmaker David Lindblom’s students, would work with her dance.  When she shared it with me, I thought, “Wow did that work!” and so it became part of the film.  Regina and Lynne are now thinking of developing this into a film of its own, and I hope they will do that.   It is always very special and fun to see things come together that were not necessarily planned.

To conclude, I honor Lynne Wimmer and the amazing job she did to take a series of photos and video clips from many different groups and edit it into this film.  Her artistic sensitivity, film editing skills, understanding of dance and the choreographic process took this film to a higher level than we imagined!!  THANK YOU, LYNNE.  

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Avodah Dance Ensemble’s First International Tour

JoAnne Tucker / / Dances on Biblical Women, Touring, Uncategorized

While not a very long flight or very far, our first international tour was to Toronto, Canada in October of 1995.  I didn’t remember much about it until I mentioned to Kezia that I was planning to do a blog about the tour.  She happened to be sorting through lots of old files and found a program from the performance, which she scanned and sent to me. (She also found a photo related to another recent blog, which we’ve included at the end here.) We then emailed about a fun shopping trip we had one afternoon during a break and she said she still had the beautiful barrette she had bought (yes, photo at end of blog).  Having the program brought back all kinds of memories for me both about the repertory we did, the cantor we performed with, the company members on the tour and the unique congregation where we performed.  

While I am most grateful for Kezia’s editing skills, what makes working on this blog all the better is the fact that she has been a part of so many of the things I am writing about.  She was a member of the company for 13 years, and then an Avodah board member, and we have a 34-year friendship.  She also saves things. After many years and a series of moves, I no longer have programs and now have only scanned material from scrapbooks and personal files. It is wonderful to read an email or hear in a Zoom or phone call that she has a program or a photo of something I am planning to write about.  So a deep bow of gratitude to Kezia for her friendship, her memory and her wonderful editing skills.

Now let me share about this first international tour.  First of all since it was prior to 9/11 and before passports were needed for travel to Canada, all we needed was appropriate ID such as a driver’s license.  Traveling and going through Customs were very easy for us.  The four dancers (Kezia, Beth Millstein Wish, Elizabeth McPherson and Carla Armstrong) worked well together and it was a fun and easy group to travel with.   Our booking was at Holy Blossom Temple as part of the 1995-96 “Our Musical Heritage” Series.  The booking had been arranged by Cantor Benjamin Maissner and he would be joining us in accompanying two of the pieces.

Holy Blossom Temple is the oldest synagogue in Toronto, dating back to 1856.  It is also a very large congregation with 6,500 members.  It is affiliated with the Union of Reform Judaism, which serves congregations in Canada and the United States.  I don’t remember exactly how we got the booking except that Cantor Maissner might have been at a Cantorial Conference we performed at or heard about us from one of his colleagues. For us it was exciting to be collaborating with the Cantor in the opening piece Hallelu (music composed by Cantor Benji Ellen Schiller) and also in Binding which is a retelling of the Akedah – the biblical story where Abraham is asked to sacrifice his son Isaac. Our usual pattern was to send the music to the cantor several weeks beforehand and then spend an hour or so rehearsing — coordinating cues and tempos.  Usually it went very well, as it did with Cantor Maissner.  Then we would focus on staging the other four pieces, as concerts generally consisted of six pieces.

Other works in the program included: Shema, a Holocaust piece set to poems by Primo Levi;  Kaddish, set to the first 8 minutes of Leonard Bernstein’s Kaddish Symphony; Noshing, a comic piece about eating and gossiping; and Braided Journey, choreographed by Lynne Wimmer and based on the Ruth and Naomi story.  Since I have written in previous blogs about all the other repertory except Hallelu and Braided Journey, let me share with you a little about these two pieces. 

Hallelu was inspired by Cantor Benjie Ellen Schiller’s beautiful setting of Psalm 150 (“Praise God . . . with the timbrel and dance.”)  Our dance piece opens with a dancer circling the space and then calling out “Tekiah” — the first call for the blowing of the Shofar (ram’s horn) on the Jewish high holidays.  Other dancers join her, calling out more Shofar calls accompanied by movement, leading into the opening section of the music.  A rhythmic section follows in which the floor becomes a virtual drum for patterns beat by the dancers’ feet, leading into the final section of joyful movement to Schiller’s inspiring music.  Cantor Schiller is Professor of Cantorial Art at Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion, and I knew her from our time as dance company in residence at the college.  It was a delight to be able to choreograph a company piece to her work.  In addition to her role at HUC-JIR she is Cantor at Congregation Bet Am Shalom in Westchester where her husband Rabbi Lester Bronstein is the Rabbi.

From Hallelu
l to r: Beth, Elizabeth and Kezia
From Hallelu
l. to r. Beth, Elizabeth and Kezia
Company in Hallelu

Braided Journey, choreographed by Lynne Wimmer, tells the story of Naomi and Ruth and is divided into three sections.  Section I is titled “Return unto thy people” (Naomi to Ruth).  Section II is “Entreat me not to leave thee” (Ruth to Naomi), and Section III is “Thy People will be my people.”  The piece is set to music by The Bulgarian Women’s Choir.  Lynne and I have known each other for years and it is always an honor when I can collaborate with her.  Lynne has a long dance history, including joining Utah Repertory Company full-time immediately after graduating from Juilliard.  She has had her own company and been a professor of dance at University of South Florida. The tour to Toronto was shortly after Braided Journey joined Avodah’s repertory, and in this program it was performed by Elizabeth and Carla.

While this was not my first trip to Canada, as Murray and I had gone to the Canadian Rockies, it was my first trip to Toronto, as I believe it was for the four dancers.  We were glad to have a leisurely afternoon to wander through one of the neighborhoods which reminded me of the East Village in NYC.  Kezia and I hung out together and had great fun going in and out of shops, including one that kind of reminded me of a vampire type funky store and actually had some unique velvet hairpieces, which we both bought.  Amazingly Kezia still has hers!!  

Kezia’s barrette that she bought on tour in Toronto in 1995 and still wears!

In the Blog published on January 4, 2021, “Touring in the United States, Part I” I wrote about the challenging adjustments the dancers had to make in each unique performance space, particularly on temple bemas.  Kezia kept this picture of Congregation B’nai Jeshurun (Short Hills, NJ).  She had also made a note that when performing the piece Gimmel there (choreography with a lot of wave-like movement, including rolling on the ground), the dancers rolled down the stairs!

B’nai Jeshurun (Short Hills, NJ)
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