Tag: Martha Graham

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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Seeds for a Later Tour – Visiting a Former Avodah Dancer in Italy

JoAnne Tucker / / Personal Life, Touring

For seven years Deborah Hanna was a part of The Avodah Dance Ensemble.  If you skim through the blogs of Mostly Dance you will see lots of pictures of her, as she played a key role in collaborating on pieces that became an important part of Avodah’s repertory.  In particular, Deborah was in the original cast of Let My People Go, and she and Kezia collaborated on Sisters.  At some point, I shared her with the Martha Graham Ensemble and loved how well trained she was in Graham technique, which I totally adored!  When she decided it was time to leave the company and move to Italy with her husband I was both sad to see her go and also excited for her new adventure.  We might even have joked a bit about Avodah coming to Italy, as she did not intend to stop dancing.

Two years later, in 1995, I saw Deborah on a trip to Italy.  My husband, Murray, had a business trip to Rome, related to his job as economist with the IRS.  I was able to go with him and we decided to travel a few days early so we could spend some time visiting Deborah.

A day or two after arriving in Rome, Murray and I took the hour-and-a-half train ride to Tarquinia, where Deborah and her husband, Jeevan, were living.  Tarquinia is an old city in the province of Viterbo, Lazio, known mainly for its ancient Etruscan tombs.  We stayed in their sweet country cottage and loved going sightseeing in the area with them.  Tarquinia is Jeevan’s hometown and his family owned a wonderful restaurant there.

Top Picture: Deborah and I have fun posing at one of the Etruscan Tombs.
Lower Picture: Deborah and Jeevan, Murray and I, enjoying being together. 

Deborah had begun to teach dance shortly after she arrived in Italy in February of 1993.  She taught Graham technique and choreographed for the end-of-the-year concerts in her local community.  Deborah shared with me that “The Graham Technique made a big hit as quite a novelty and the first piece I did for them to the music of Carmina Burana received a loud “ANCORA”  from the audience – which I just took as a wonderful sign of appreciation, but quickly found out meant we had to repeat the piece again immediately – which we did.”

Deborah choreographed for this group of dancers when she first arrived in 1993.

By the time of our visit with Deborah she had not only continued teaching but had expanded with in-school performances and workshops in the local grade schools and middle schools and had won best choreography awards at the Viterbo Dance Festival.

Before we left Italy Deborah joined us in Rome and ended up going out to dinner with us and charming some of Murray’s business colleagues with her excellent Italian. We talked about projects between Avodah and Italy, and the seeds were planted for what would happen several years later.

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Guest Post By Deborah Hanna: A Response to Remembering Louis Johnson

JoAnne Tucker / / "Let My People Go", Guest Posts

Last month, eleven of us gathered together on a Zoom call to remember choreographer Louis Johnson who had passed away on March 31. (April 10th obituary in NYTimes) We all had some kind of connection to Louis, and most of us had worked with him on “Let My People Go.”  We covered a number of time zones and different countries from Italy to Costa Rica to the US (from NYC to CA).  The next morning we received this beautiful email from Deborah Hanna.  I asked her if I could share it as a guest blog. 

Bio of our Guest Blogger:

Deborah Lynn Hanna grew up in Charleston, West Virginia as a sports lover –  playing basketball, swimming and riding horses competitively.  This love of movement transformed into modern dance, and she graduated with a BA in Humanities from Stetson University in Deland, Florida, earning “The Most Outstanding Humanities Student” Award in 1981 and 1982.   Next step:  New York City and the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance where she worked and studied for 5 years, achieving her 3rd year Trainee Program Diploma at the Advanced Level, while acting as Coordinator for the Martha Graham Ensemble and dancing with the Ensemble for 3 years in the annual revival pieces of “Primitive Mysteries,” “Steps in the Street” and “Celebration.” Primarily, Deborah grew as a performer with The Avodah Dance Ensemble from 1987-1992 in its 15-piece repertoire, dancing and giving workshops in all parts of the US. She then moved to Italy with her Italian husband and began teaching the Martha Graham Technique and choreographing, as well as teaching English as a Second Language. In 2013, the latter work took Deborah and her husband to Myanmar for 7 years, where she taught English and dance, and also performed in interesting, but unlikely venues. In July 2019 Deborah and her husband returned to their family property in Tarquinia, Italy and are in the midst of creating a holistic center for Cultural and the Healing Arts.

Guest Blog by Deborah Hanna

I woke up this morning (a few hours later actually, with our time difference here), remembering pieces of our conversations, your faces, my thoughts and reflections, and most importantly, a profound sense of love… love for the beauty and uniqueness of what was shared, along with such awe and respect for the amazing talent and achievements represented on that tiny screen – everyone in their homes, sort of a humbling and very human factor, that  gives us an equal voice at the table as human beings, as we all walk through this unique period of history together…. with a glance backwards towards another era.

My first consideration, as we all expressed last night, was the unifying force of JoAnne, her creative vision for Avodah and the ever-changing landscape of  her choreography (of which we all played integral roles in the creation of movement), the beauty of so many diverse collaborations, performance arenas, teaching workshops, cities, towns and even countries, and the continual unexpected, which made every performance and new work exciting. This is an amazing accomplishment, JoAnne – one that gave so much to so many of us as artists, not to mention the audiences and workshop participants.  The other beautiful quality of Avodah was the bond of friendship and healthy spirit of collaboration that existed amongst us… a very rare quality in the NYC dance scene – at least coming from the Martha Graham Dance Company perspective.  Last night, after we listened to Candice’s memory of getting lost in a piece of Avodah choreography and JoAnne being amused as to how she and the rest of us would figure our ways out of these tight spots, Kezia brought up a similar moment for me, with the Graham work Celebration. 

Deborah Hanna in the studio in a Graham movement.

During one City Center performance of the first reconstruction of Celebration (464 jumps in 6 minutes), as I was beating out a 64-count phrase, I became lost in imagery that Martha herself had given to us during one of the last rehearsals. I simply departed on my next jump series 8 counts too soon – alone, instead of with another 5 dancers.  I remember being out in the middle of that big City Center stage, feeling all of the responsibility that comes with representing Graham in that arena, and thinking to myself, “Okay, Deb, you’re here…. just keep jumping until the others arrive and keep the image of light pouring down, so no one can see in your eyes that you screwed up royally.”  I was the only one moving on the stage at that moment in an intricately choreographed Graham piece, where every single second was carved to perfection.  Just in that moment, a quite accomplished dance reviewer snapped my photo, which only made matters worse!  Eight counts later, the other dancers arrived and we finished the piece successfully.  The next day, the dance review and photo were sitting on my dressing room table, with all of the other Ensemble members gathered round. To my mind, I had successfully come out of an error and actually done really well.  Naturally, Yuriko (the director of the Ensemble) didn’t agree! She stomped into the dressing room – her tiny but powerful stature steaming, venom flowing from her eyes. I felt this ancient Samurai power about to unfurl …. she was furious and said that if I ever did anything like that again, I was out of the Ensemble!  There was no chance to explain, no excuses!  

Only recently, after having lived in South East Asia for 7 years and having worked with many Japanese, getting to know them and their culture, I can now understand her reaction, but at the time, it was very foreign – especially for a West Virginia hillbilly like myself.  Yuriko was deeply dedicated to the integrity and accuracy of Martha’s work, above all else….  and that was the atmosphere of the Graham World.  Our rehearsals with Yuriko were very much akin to being in the military, I imagined… for all the greatness and perils that those worlds offer.

So, from there to Avodah…..After I’d finished my first season at City Center with the Martha Graham Ensemble in the reconstructions of Celebration and Primitive Mysteries, Yuriko was interested in having me come to rehearsals and integrate into the permanent Martha Graham Ensemble ( which I had helped cultivate into a full-time second company, having been the booking coordinator – a role I developed as a work-study student, in order to pay for my own classes). It was one of those monumental life crossroads for me.  I had just gotten into Avodah simultaneously, during the Graham NY City Center season in 1987, and had to make a decision of which road to travel.  I looked at the long line of extraordinary dancers fighting tooth and nail to get into Graham, and fortunately I had the good sense to choose Avodah, where I could be a “little star” in a very healthy, satisfying dance company.  And that decision has made all of the difference!

At the end of my intense years both training with Graham and working on her reconstruction works, then the immensely diverse experiences performing in so many roles with Avodah, I felt deeply satisfied as a dance performer and was ready for the next step…. which just happened to be Italy via India…. dance being a constant companion throughout…but in extraordinarily unique settings, far from my NYC days.

I know that Louis would be very pleased to know that he was responsible for helping unite all of us in a little gem of a work that he and JoAnne created…. “Let My People Go!” It was one of my very favorite pieces in the Avodah repertoire because it gave us the chance to do so much – act, sing, dance different styles and change up pace so quickly that you were always on your toes.  I learnt this great lesson on the art of choreographing from Louis…the grave importance of changing pace, dynamics, styles, directions, rhythms and energy.  That lesson is monumental!  

I’ll finish off this rather indulgent email (only in these times is this kind of epistle really possible – to write and perhaps even to be read) with how “Let My People Go” started on its first debut, to its final performance of the first season run. Our “virgin” performance was on a notably long, and rather narrow bema in Ohio, where we left notes on stage right and left as we exited, in order to remember where and when we entered and what we had to do….. to the last performance for that season, at Henry Street Settlement – 15 performances later – all done in less than a 2-month period.  

That final Sunday afternoon matinee performance at Henry Street was a humble, but magical one!  It was raining, I believe, and a rather gloomy Sunday afternoon, so there was hardly any audience and I don’t think Louis was present. But we were there, a now seasoned first cast, having worked together so hard and intensively, travelling for almost 6 weeks – planes, cars, hotels, restaurants, snow storms, missing cast members, dead deer, interesting hosts…. and so, we were seasoned in many ways…. enough so, that the final performance was truly a spiritual experience.  We now knew the piece — and each other — very well, and on that stage at Henry Street Settlement, where the project had begun, something extraordinary happened.  Every one of us began spontaneously to expand a little on our roles, sing an extra note, give an added expression, leap a little higher, or add an arm for emphasis.  I remember watching Kezia, Newman, Loretta, Mark and Rob in between my own entrances, and so enjoying and appreciating their spontaneity and creativity.  But above all, there was this amazing, tangible feeling between us – a sort of deep flow and understanding beyond words, of being united by vibrations – those invisible threads that bind us to the core.  For me, that last run of “Let My People Go” was the essence and highest level of performance…….collective, joyful, fun and pure creativity in the moment.

Deborah in the performance at Henry St. of Let My People Go.
Behind her is Loretta Abbott and drummer Leopoldo Fleming. Photo by Tom Brazil.

Synchronicity at Play – Spring Trip to NYC (Part Two: Martha Graham Company)

JoAnne Tucker / / Dance History, Personal Life

In my last blog, I began to write about my recent trip to New York City.  In a later blog I’ll share more about the trip, in particular about a workshop that longtime friend and collaborator Regina Ress and I did at New York University’s Forum on Theater and Health.  For now, keeping with this blog’s title of synchronicity with my  recently published blogs,  I now jump to my last night in NYC and attending the closing night of the Martha Graham Company’s April 2–14, 2019 performances at the Joyce.  I had debated about even getting tickets for the performance, but finally, a few days before I left home I went online and purchased a ticket for Program C.  I mainly selected this program because I had Sunday evening free and there was a piece by Pam Tanowitz in the program. I had never seen any of Tanowitz’s work and I was aware that she was getting lots of rave reviews.

Write-ups about her, as well as her biography, interested me, particularly reports  that she was known “for her unflinchingly post-modern treatment of classical dance vocabulary” (http://pamtanowitzdance.org/bio). This spring she was not only creating a work for the Martha Graham Company but also for The New York City Ballet. That is indeed impressive and so I made sure to select a program that included the New York Premiere of her piece Untitled (Souvenir) for the Graham Company. Also on the program were two Graham classics, Errand into the Maze (created in 1947) and Chronicle(1936). Another world premiere by two choreographers who were totally new to me, Maxine Doyle and Bobbi Jene Smith, completed the program.

When I bought the ticket I felt disappointed that one of my very favorite Graham pieces, Diversion of Angels, was not being performed that evening.  But I made my decision based on seeing the Tanowitz piece, as very few choreographers are able to cross over from ballet to modern commissions as she does.

So off I went to spend my last night in NYC at the Graham concert.  The opening piece, Errand into the Maze, was one that I remembered seeing years ago (on one of my return trips to NYC) performed by one of my favorite teachers and Graham performers, Helen McGehee, in the leading female role.  I don’t remember who performed the male role with her. I do remember her fierceness and passion in dancing.  It appears that the piece had not been in the Graham repertory for 15 years when it was brought back in 1968 and Clive Barnes wrote a review:

The choreography – it dates from 1947 and has not been seen in New York for 15 years – wonderfully mixes the swift and angular lightness of the female with the heavy solemnity of the male.  Set against the bones of Isamu Noguchi’s skeletal setting, and the sonorities of Gian Carlo Menotti’s score, the work powerfully conveys the archaic mythical pattern of despair, hope and achievement.

As the female, danced first of course, by Graham herself, Helen McGehee, as intense as a flickering flame, possesses just the sense of nervousness despair and faith this view of Ariadne demands and Clive Thompson’s Minotaur-Thesus, both ponderous yet buoyant, is the perfect stolid partner to her impetuous neuroticism.  (The New York Times,October 26, 1968) 

Errand Into The Maze opened the concert and I was pleasantly surprised at the performance it was given by Charlotte Landreau and Lloyd Mayor.   A rush of positive emotion filled me as a dance vocabulary and approach I so love was beautifully performed.  I have always loved how Graham turned to classical mythology for inspiration for her choreography and I remember writing a fairly long paper for an English class in High School on Graham’s use of mythology.  It received an A and I held onto it for a long time but at some point, along with programs that I had kept for years, it got thrown out when we were cleaning out our papers for one of our many moves.

The second piece on the program was Deo by guest choreographers Doyle and Smith and frankly I don’t remember anything about it. Following intermission came the Tanowitz piece.  I could clearly see how she was manipulating the Graham technique in a new way and found that rather interesting but that was really all I got from the piece.  Disappointment was my overall reaction.  I can see why critics like what she is doing and from an intellectual point of view it was fascinating but it didn’t emotionally move me in any way. 

The last piece, Chronicles took my breath away.  It is in three parts and I was familiar with the piece because Deborah Hanna, a dancer who worked with Avodah for 7 years and with whom I continue to keep in contact, had danced in one of the sections of the piece when she was in the Martha Graham Ensemble (a junior company of Graham in the 1980’s and early 90’s).  I don’t remember getting to see Deborah in it but did know that it was being revived.  The original program notes were included in the Joyce program:

Chronicle does not attempt to show the actualities of war; rather does it, by evoking war’s images, set forth the fateful prelude to war, portray the devastation of spirit which it leaves in its wake, and suggest an answer.

The first Part, titled “Spectre – 1914,” was powerfully danced by Xin Ying.  She managed the huge black and red shroud with power and was a good start to what followed. Section II is entitled “Steps in the Street (Devastation – Homelessness – Exile)” and is a powerful group dance that along with Section III, “Prelude to Action (Unity – Pledge to the Future),” shows the female members of the company in an excellent light.  

A review by Joanne DiVito for the LA Dance Chronicle of a performance just a month before the one I saw describes the second section wonderfully:

The second movement Steps in the Street begins with one soul, played by the incredible Anne Souder dressed in black.  She backs onto the stage; step, drag, hesitate, step drag, hesitate, all in silence.  This remarkable section, comments on the devastation of people caught in war. The stunning use of tiny runs, continuous jumps, and reconfigurations, static against kinetic, calls for the dancers to defy gravity and rise to all manner of challenges which this piece demands.  Their sudden heroic prowess surprises and adds to the tension and release of this remarkable piece.   (https://www.ladancechronicle.com/grahams-brilliant-legacy-lives-today-with-eilbers-leadership/)

But it is the last section that totally took my breath away.  The women’s leaping and repetition of strong Graham phrases became heroic and so powerful that it was no surprise that the audience (a wonderful mix of young and old) rose to its feet shouting and applauding loudly, to acknowledge the beautiful performance.  That kind of energy we rarely see in dance anymore – and what a treat!

Afterwards, as I ran into several contemporary fellow dancers in the lobby, one remarked, “That lady [referring to Graham] certainly had talent.”  And indeed she did, for it was Graham’s two pieces, not the newly commissioned ones, that stood out.  And it was a wonderful way for me to finish my trip to NYC!!

The Program from the Graham concert.  

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Leaving Juilliard

JoAnne Tucker / / Dance History, Personal Life

Sometimes events surprise you and life takes a turn you hadn’t expected.  That happened in late May of 1962 when I was flying home having completed my first year at Juilliard.  About half way through the short flight from NYC to Pittsburgh, I got a tap on my shoulder.  A male voice said, “I think we know each other.”  I was aware I was wearing a scoop-neck dress and I thought hmm… he must be getting an interesting sight…  Anyway it turned out we indeed did know each other.  Murray Tucker and I had gone out on a date a few years back when I had directed a water ballet at the country club both of our parents belonged to.  His sister Lynne had been one of the youth I directed.  That year’s water ballet was a bit humorous, making fun of the Pittsburgh Steelers football team.  Their dad was Joe Tucker, the Voice of the Pittsburgh Steelers.  Lynne had introduced Murray and me, and I had asked if he could do a takeoff on his father and announce the water ballet.

Anyway that was how we met and then we had gone out on an actual date to see the Ice Capades. Neither one of us was interested in the other at that time.  We hadn’t seen each other since then.  We chatted for a few minutes on the plane and when we walked off the plane we noticed that our parents were talking to each other.  We saw each other a few times before I took off for a summer job teaching dance at a camp.  We saw each other again at the end of the summer and continued corresponding and seeing each other at school breaks.  Definitely the romance was building and I could see a future with Murray.

At the same time, while I loved my classes and study at Juilliard I was becoming aware of several other things.  I was surrounded by many talented dancers and I saw my limitations particularly as a performer.  The company I aspired to be a part of was The Martha Graham Company.  I loved the technique and her choreography. I was also realistic that my chances were not great to get into the Company.  And even more important was that the more I hung around the Graham studio and began to meet some of the newest members of the company the more disappointed I became.  Sometimes I would help sew costumes late in the evening at the Graham studio to earn some money and would see Martha wandering around fairly intoxicated, looking for where she might find a bottle with some more liquor in it. That was shattering my illusion of a very talented creative person.  I knew this was a challenging time for her as she was still performing her lead roles but not with the same energy or technique that she had earlier. She must have been wrestling with how to retire from performing.  As has been documented in biographies and articles about her, this was very difficult for her.  

In her autobiography Blood Memory she wrote: “[When I stopped dancing] I had lost my will to live. I stayed home alone, ate very little, and drank too much and brooded.  My face was ruined, and people say I looked odd, which I agreed with. Finally my system just gave in. I was in the hospital for a long time, much of it in a coma.” (Quote is from Wikipedia; no page number is given. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Graham)

Anna Kisselgoff, in an excellent article for The New York Times writes about this period, “To give up dancing, Graham felt, meant to give up her life.”  Kisselgoff continues “After a severe depression and a two-year illness in the early 1970’s, Graham actively resumed working with her company.” Here’s the link to the article, which gives an excellent picture of Martha and her company up to 1984, the time the article was written.  https://www.nytimes.com/1984/02/19/magazine/martha-graham.html

While my time at the studio was seven or eight years before Martha’s severe depression, clearly the seeds were apparent to all around her and gave me much to think about.  But I was very inspired by her choreography, her technique and her wonderful way of expressing a philosophy of life.  Just Google “Martha Graham quotes” and links to a number of websites are listed. Here’s one “Top 25 Quotes of Martha Graham.”  And they are not just about dance. They are about a philosophy of life.  https://www.azquotes.com/author/5783-Martha_Graham

Her classes were sprinkled with inspiration on how to be a dancer, a creative person and how to reach your full potential.  I was so disappointed to see such a person – who inspired and was such an innovator – not happy.  Of course, I was a young 20-year old not mature enough or able to understand the challenges that life brings and also the challenges that a very passionate and creative genius deals with.  

I also sensed the strong competition among the younger company members and the lack of kindness that they showed each other.  Was this an environment I wanted to be part of?  I was no longer sure.  I was also aware that I had completed one important goal… I had made it through all three levels of Louis Horst’s Composition Program, and to be a choreographer remained a key desire of mine.

At the end of my second year I went home to Pittsburgh filled with these thoughts and beginning to consider returning to Pittsburgh and maybe building a life with Murray. The summer went well and I made the decision not to return to Juilliard and to attend academic classes at the University of Pittsburgh.  I have never for one moment regretted that choice.  We were married a year later and what a rich, loving, sometimes challenging and amazing journey we have been on since then.

A favorite wedding picture, August 1964

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Juilliard

JoAnne Tucker / / Personal Life

Now a full time student at Juilliard, I stopped taking outside technique classes.  That was easy to do because some Juilliard classes were with the same teachers I had had  at the Graham Studio.  In ballet I really adored Alfredo Corvino’s classes and was glad to be studying with him consistently.  The schedule at Juilliard was so full that it left little time for anything else.  I was up early and in class at 9 in the morning and often didn’t get back until 9 at night. The program was exhausting and I can remember sometimes falling asleep in my leotard and tights.  At that time Juilliard had no dorm and I was now living at the Barbizon for Women, which was a good 45-minute subway ride from the school, which was located at 120 Claremont Ave on the upper West Side. Since Columbia University was located nearby I could continue the two academic classes I was taking. When I returned in the fall I began taking academic classes at Juilliard and did not return to Columbia University’s School of General Studies.  I don’t remember anything about the academic classes at Juilliard and don’t think they were very interesting or challenging at the time.

Besides the technique and Horst’s composition classes, two classes stand out strongly in my mind:  Literature and Materials of Music taught by Caryl Friend and Labanotation taught by Muriel Topaz. They were challenging and helped me relate to dance in new ways.  “L and M,”  as we referred to Friend’s class, introduced us to the various forms of classical music and we often had to create dance studies related to the musical form we were studying.   We had to study each piece of music carefully, as her exam consisted of her dropping the needle down on the record and our having to identify the piece and where in the piece she was playing. The second year, we began playing the piano and I remember writing short piano compositions.  In fact, during the second year, when I was dating Murray (who later became my husband), I sent him a series of themes on the tune “Happy Birthday” using my new skill at music composition.  As he was attempting to figure out what I had written, his Mom walked by and identified the piece as variations on “Happy Birthday.”

Muriel Topaz was an excellent teacher and I was fascinated with Labanotation and at one point even toyed with going further with notation.  Analyzing movement to write it down helped me understand it better and it was fun to begin to read movement scores of famous pieces.

Of course a highlight continued to be having the opportunity to study composition with Louis Horst. Modern Forms was great fun and I enjoyed not only the course material and assignments but other students in the class, particularly Martha Clarke and Diane Gray.  There was even a time when the three of us put together a dance study which I seem to remember we titled “Minding your P’s and Q’s” that related to an assignment we had. Behind our back each of us held in one hand a cupcake in honor of Louis’s birthday and the end of the piece we presented him with the cupcakes.  In my second year at Juilliard I was able to take Louis’s third-year course Group Forms.  The class consisted of students who were seriously interested in composition and each of us progressed from doing a trio to a quartet and then a quintet.  You had the option to continue with the course as long as you were a student … so it gave me an opportunity to get to know some juniors and seniors.  I spent the first semester developing a trio based on the book Green Mansions and was pleased that it was included in a concert of student works.  The next semester I focused on a quartet about people looking at a painting.  It was inspired by the long lines I would see winding around the Metropolitan Museum of Art when the painting Mona Lisa was on view.  I never finished the piece but did have fun beginning to find my sense of humor in dance.

While I had enjoyed taking technique classes at The Martha Graham School they were even better at Juilliard as over the year and a half at Juilliard I consistently got to study with Helen McGehee, Ethel Winter, Bertram Ross, and (when the Graham Company was on tour) Donald McKayle.  Each of the teachers had their own style and favorite combinations, and they were excellent teachers and outstanding performers. 

Helen McGehee was my favorite. She had a fierceness as a teacher that I found I responded to.  I was curious if she was still alive.  She is and is in her late 90’s.  There is a wonderful interview of her done around 2010 by Doug Hamby that is mainly a sharing of the piece The Lady and the Unicorn, which she choreographed in 1945 and which was filmed in 1957.  I highly recommend the first 7 or 8 minutes, which include excerpts from the piece and her interview. She talks about creating one section in Louis Horst’s class.  Her descriptions of Horst is quite wonderful. Here’s the link.

Ethel Winter had a much gentler style of teaching.  I found her combinations to be much more lyrical and she was a good balance to McGehee.  She died at the age of 87 in 2012.  Anna Kisselgoff wrote a beautiful obituary that perfectly captures what I remember. 

Bertram was simply Bertram. He had a fun sense of humor and would often join students at a table in the cafeteria.  I think I enjoyed him more as a performer than a teacher. Bertram died in 2003 and here is a link to the obituary that Jennifer Dunning wrote about him. 

Classes with Donald McKayle were extraordinary. An outstanding teacher, he put together combinations that I loved. He died in August 2018 at the age of 87.  I found particularly meaningful the obituary in Dance Magazine which included video of Rainbow Round My Shoulder, performed by the Alvin Ailey Company.  Here’s a link to it.

The time I spent at Juilliard was demanding and after two years I left, which I will write about in the next blog.  The time in NYC and then at Juilliard shaped me as a choreographer, giving me a discipline and a structured way of working and approaching things that I am very grateful for.  This also carried over to other areas of my life, particularly how I approach painting and filmmaking.  

I researched to find a picture of The Juilliard School on Claremont Avenue but couldn’t find one that looked like I remember it.  I did find this picture of Louis Horst as I pretty much remember him in class. The only thing missing is a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, but if you look closely,  he is holding it in his hand. No credit is given for this photo.

Photograph of Louis Horst found on the Internet.

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Building My Own Program in NYC

JoAnne Tucker / / Dance History, Personal Life

In the last blog I mentioned that although Martha Hill had encouraged me to re-audition for Juilliard, I never had a chance to discuss this with my parents because  my grandmother died at the same time. So … as planned, off I went to the University of Denver, my only backup school.  After only one dance class it was clear to me this was not going to work. Within a few days after informing my parents I would not be staying at the University of Denver, I had withdrawn from school and was packed and on the train heading back to Pittsburgh. I was filled with a clear determination that I wanted to study dance with the best, and the place to do that was in New York City.  There was no doubt in my mind that I wanted a career in dance.  I hoped that I would have the support of my parents and that they would financially support an independent program in NYC that wasn’t connected to a particular college.  I loved the Graham technique of modern dance and knew that would be where I would be taking modern dance classes. On my list was to find a good place to study ballet.  I valued academics and thought I would explore what kind of possibilities there would be to enroll in one or two college courses.  The long train ride from Denver to Pittsburgh gave me time to think through these different options and I found myself focused and clear on what my next steps were when I got home.

My parents were somewhat open but clearly had their own thoughts on what would be best for me, and my father in particular had a hard time with his daughter being a dancer in NYC.  My father’s stepbrother was a psychiatrist and having been consulted, he suggested that when I got home I should see a colleague of his and have someone outside of the family talk to me in  case there was something else going on.  So shortly after I got home my parents arranged an appointment for me.  I knew I needed to be cooperative because my first choice was having their financial support rather then having to support myself in NYC so I was willing to give it a few months home in Pittsburgh if I had to.  They also suggested I enroll in a typing course so I might have a skill to support myself if I needed to.  

So I enrolled in a typing course at a secretarial school and I had what turned out to be a single appointment with a woman psychiatrist.  The appointment ended up actually being lots of fun. I explained why I wanted to go to New York and how I was planning to structure my time.  She asked me quite a few questions and by the end of the appointment she was very encouraging and said that if I liked, she would have a follow up appointment with my parents and share with them that she thought my plans were very realistic and encourage them to support me.  

Following their appointment a week later, it was decided that I would move to NYC after the 1stof the year.  That would give me time to further explore options of where to live in the City and finish the typing course.  My mom and I visited New York to explore options of where I would live.  I was young and the idea of my living in an apartment was out of the question so we explored places like Y residences for women and the Barbizon Hotel for Women, where I had stayed once before. We then found a house on Madison and 68thStreet that was for women only and offered breakfast in the morning.  That would be where I stayed.  The neighborhood was great and the other women were a variety of ages. I think I even had my own room. I remember that living in the room next door was a model who was on the cover of Vogue,and another person living on the floor was studying acting. The house itself was a beautiful brownstone with a dramatic spiral staircase in the foyer where one entered. It was near the Cuban Embassy and there were often candlelight vigils and protests on our street.

I knew I would be taking classes at the Graham Studio which was located at 63rdbetween 1stand 2ndAvenue and an easy walk from where I lived. Next to explore was where I would go for ballet. I am not sure what made me decide that I wanted to go to the American School of Ballet which was pretty much for very serious young dancers but I got that in my mind and shortly after arriving in NYC I went for an audition and was placed in the beginning level class with outstanding teachers like Muriel Stuart. I actually loved the classes in spite of being surrounded by very thin “bunhead” ballerina types.  Later I would move to studying ballet with Nina Fonaroff, totally loving her class and feeling so much more at home with her.  She had danced in the Martha Graham company and also assisted Louis Horst, a composition teacher I was hoping to study with.  I continued studying with her even when I later attended Juilliard.  Her classes were fun and had a unique musical quality to them as she accompanied the class playing on the studio’s piano.  A friend I had met at Connecticut College the previous summer sometimes joined the small class too.  With the tension and competition that existed at places like The Graham Studio, School of American Ballet and later at Juilliard, it was a real delight to take class and get back in touch with the childhood joy of dancing.  Nina’s combinations were fun to do and her corrections excellent.  Ballet was fun –  something I had not really experienced before.

One more piece of the puzzle to solve.  I discovered that Columbia University had a School of General Studies that was designed for students like me who didn’t want to go full time.  So I took the entrance exam, was accepted and began taking a few courses there.

While I did spend a lot of my time on NYC subways and buses going from place to place, I liked the package I had put together and enjoyed the next six months in New York very much.  

The film A Dancer’s Work (1957) features the wonderful Graham teachers I got to study with including: Helen McGehee, Ethel Winter, Yuriko, Mary Hinkson and Bertram Ross. A lot of it was filmed in the big studio I remember studying in.

The following summer I returned to Connecticut College, this time focusing on composition classes and continuing to take two technique classes a day, one in Graham technique and the other in Cunningham technique which really never suited me well. The highlight for me was taking a composition class from Pearl Lang, and Louis Horst’s Pre-Classic Dance Forms.   I loved both of them. In Pearl’s class I spent the full six weeks creating a laughter study and an anger study in dance.  Louis’s class was a real challenge.  The pieces we had to create were short with an ABA form.  The theme had to be introduced in the first two measures of the A section and every movement in the A section needed to relate to something in those first two measures.  He was very demanding and would stop you in the middle of a section if you weren’t following the rules of composition that he outlined.  I immediately had great respect for him and knew I wanted to study with him more.  So at the end of the summer I asked him if I could take his next course (Modern Forms) at Juilliard, even if I wasn’t a full-time student.  He agreed and when I returned to New York in the fall I got approval to do just that.  It was a few months into the fall semester when he said I should stop this nonsense of running all around New York and just be a student at Juilliard.  And that is exactly what happened.  With permission from the dance office and individual teachers, I was allowed to sit in on the classes like Literature and Material of Music for Dancers, and Labanotation and if I passed the mid-term exams I could get credit for those classes.  I auditioned in late January, was accepted and became a full-time student at Juilliard in the winter of 1962.  By the end of the school year I had completed my first year at Juilliard.  Although the class had begun with about 40-plus students, when we started school the following fall there were only about 15 of us left. In the next blog I’ll share more reflections about my time at Juilliard.

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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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