problem solving - Mostly Dance

This evening as we were getting ready to go out to dinner, Murray said, “Oh by the way the back door of our Rav SUV isn’t closing.” OK, I thought, let me take a look at it.

So… I opened the back door which looked normal except it wasn’t closing tightly and I immediately saw that the latch wasn’t hanging right. Since it was evening and dark… I got out my iPhone, put on the flashlight and saw that one screw had come out of the latch and so it was hanging downward. Murray joined me and we soon found the missing screw. Murray got a screwdriver and in just a few minutes it was back to working perfectly.

Now Murray was a bit surprised, because he’d figured he would have to take it into a repair shop. While I usually am not solving car problems, this was a no brainer… and Murray was very happy that I had just saved us $85 or more. All I could think was that one benefit of touring and running a dance company is that you learn to quickly problem solve.

Tonight I am remembering those moments of touring which required quick problem solving, and the last-minute challenges of directing a dance company. One example I have already shared — the snow storm that left two dancers performing “Let My People Go” when there should have been a full company of six. In a few hours that day we figured out how to make something work for the evening performance. (See “Let My People Go Meets Let it Snow”.)

Last minute casting changes sometimes happened. Like the time that Beth Millstein got the chicken pox two days before we were due to perform in Boston. Well… I called my good friend Linda Kent and asked if she could recommend one of her students or past students from Juilliard who might fill in and she said SHE was available. Wow that was pretty awesome to have a former member of Alvin Ailey Company and Paul Taylor Company subbing for us.

And then there was the time in the airport when one of the dancers hadn’t arrived at our meeting place and it was getting very close to the time that the plane was due to take off. Hmmm…. Not wanting to have the rest of us miss the flight, I left her ticket with a ticket agent and we all boarded the plane. Just as they were about to close the door, the dancer appeared to a round of applause from us and those sitting near us.

When performing in services, we always worked to get furniture moved from the bema so the dancers could have as much space as possible to move. One day when one rabbi was determinedly saying that a podium couldn’t be moved, Rick and I gently tilted it back, disconnected the wires and moved it over to the side, giving the dancers their needed space. The rabbi wrote a lovely review back to the Jewish Welfare Lecture Bureau that had booked us, saying that “JoAnne Tucker was very pleasant to work with in spite of being persistent.”

At one Friday Sabbath service in Connecticut, the rabbi was certain the best place for us to perform was in an area in the back of the sanctuary and everyone could just look over his or her shoulders to see us. Now that was by far the oddest suggestion I had ever heard and there was no way I could agree to that. For several hours we went back and forth… meanwhile I simply told the dancers to work on their spacing on the bema. Finally I quoted scripture – Exodus 40:30-32 about levels of sacred space and remembered something we had written in Torah in Motion. I convinced him that it would be all right for the dancers to be on the bema because they would not be going up to the ark where the Torah scrolls were kept. That space was just for him! Success! We danced on the bema!

So many times, I entered a space in the early afternoon and had to make decisions of where I would run the sound, set it up, and make sure it worked. How many times dancers had to quickly adapt to a new space, making it their own and performing brilliantly. And then when we were in a theatre, I had to quickly learn the lighting system. Larger companies carried tech people. We didn’t. While I rarely ran the lights, I had to learn how to communicate with the light person and sometimes a sound person to be able to call the cues. Then I would call my own cue and walk into the spotlight to narrate between pieces.

So… what I learned from running a dance company was to be flexible. Problems can be solved by stopping, taking in the situation, and then seeing the possible solutions. This training has served me very well in life and fixing our car door tonight was a small example.

Murray and I, happy that the car is repaired.

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I’m not one for making New Year’s resolutions, but somehow as I step into this new year I sense a need to have a philosophy or an approach to handle the continuing challenges of the time we are living in. As I pondered what this approach could be, what came to mind was the important role improvisation has played in my work with the dance company and in the many workshops I have led in so many different situations. When an improvisation works it transcends the moment, connecting the participants together in a new and unique way. Somehow each participant has let go of their individual agenda and given themselves fully to the moment and to each other. Over the years I have experienced this in a variety of different places, and the feeling of connecting deeply was sometimes surprising and always very fulfilling. I have observed it when the Avodah Dance Ensemble nailed an improvisation of a particular Torah portion. Once when I was leading a group of students in a Doctor of Divinity Program it happened as we responded to a line of text in movement, and after the beautiful movement improvisation of about 10 minutes we quietly sat together, not sure what words to use to describe the experience, and just remained quiet, taking in what had happened.

So we are living at a time when it is important to let go of being fully committed to plans. We just don’t know what’s around the corner related to COVID… will there be a new variant that will close things down? How do we interact with people, even if we have gotten the vaccines and booster? This is all very new, and I find I am reminding myself of what I know from years of improvisation and even from the more informal creative movements I learned as a child: having fun and committing myself to the moment and finding the way to respond.

Recently Rabbi Lisa Greene emailed me and asked me if I would speak to a student of hers who was a dancer preparing for her Bat Mitzvah. I agreed and did, and then Lisa and I enjoyed emailing back and forth. Lisa shared a link with me about Viola Spolin, Spolin’s son Paul Sills and Second City Improv Company. It was a program created by the PBS station in Chicago and the description about the program is as follows:

Chicago’s greatest cultural export just might be improvised theater, which was born at Jane Addams’ Hull House during the Great Depression and carried out into the world by the likes of Bill Murray, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler and Stephen Colbert. But while to most people improv might seem synonymous with comedy, the art form was devised by a woman named Viola Spolin who wasn’t out for laughs.

I knew Viola Spolin’s name well and even took a workshop with her in the 60’s in Chicago, probably knowing of her through the graduate work I was doing in theatre either at the University of Pittsburgh or University of Wisconsin in Madison. And I had both her book Improvisation for the Theater and a wonderful box filled with all kinds of cards for games to use in teaching movement improvisation. Her book came out in 1963 and is still available on Kindle or through a website devoted to her work. I highly recommend checking out the website.

Viola Spolin was born in 1906 to Russian Jewish immigrants. In the 1930’s, as a social worker, she began experimenting with theatre games. To learn more about her amazing life, the number of actors and teachers she has directly influenced (along with countless others through them) and why she is called the “mother of improvisation” please check out her biography at: https://www.violaspolin.org/bio

Spolin died in 1994. Her son Paul Sills continued her work during her lifetime and after and there is lots about him in the PBS YouTube link. Her granddaughter Aretha Sills is continuing to lead workshops and has a series online. I just boldly signed up for a workshop beginning March 3^rd,meeting once a week for 2 ½ hours, for six weeks. I am very curious to see how she will be leading it online and I definitely want to refresh myself on how an improvisational way of thinking might help to handle the challenges of 2022!

Before I close this blog I want to share a few specific reasons why improvisation can be a guide for 2022. These come from two websites that cite Spolin’s work and express it clearly:

Live in the moment, responding to what is happening
“Yes and,” not “No but”! Be positive
Listen
Meet the needs of your partner, team or situation rather than your ego
Do your best and learn from your mistakes
Don’t have an agenda
Don’t be afraid to fail

Here’s the link to the two websites that talk about how improvising can contribute to a more positive creative life. https://www.nextavenue.org/mprov-way-through-life/

https://greenglobaltravel.com/how-to-be-happier-5-secrets-to-improvising-your-life/

I look forward to taking the online workshop and most certainly will write a blog about it! SO here is to a new year navigating with flexibility and improvising as we go!

Both images are from the ViolaSpolin.org website. Although it turned out that I didn’t need permission to use the images (as they have the website on the posters), I did check and was pleased to get a speedy positive response from Aretha Sills.

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Tag: problem solving

Things you Learn from Touring

Improvising into 2022