Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it
-George Santayana-
May O'Donnell in her Celtic Ritual (1949)
Anne Affourtit and Adriaan Kans in Day on Earth by Doris Humphrey
AMERICAN MODERN DANCE CLASSICS
Staged in close cooperation with the choreographers or with their closest artistic descendant(s)
Premiered as separate programs, toured in mixed combinations from 1985 - 1989
Suspension (1943)
Choreography: May O'Donnell
Music: Ray Green
Day on Earth (1947)
Choreography: Doris Humphrey
Music: Aaron Copland
The Troubled Sleeper (1970)
Choreography: Anna Sokolow
Music: Franz Liszt
Rooms (1955)
Choreography: Anna Sokolow
Music: Kenyon Hopkins
The Shakers (1930)
Choreography: Doris Humphrey
Music: Traditional
The Exiles (1950)
Choreography: José Limón
Music: Arnold Schönberg
There Is A Time (1956)
Choreography: José Limón
Music: Norman dello Joio
Folksay (1943)
Choreography: Sophie Maslow
Music: Woody Guthrie
Voices (1980)
Choreography: Sophie Maslow
Music: Robert Schumann
Gin. Woman. Distress (1966)
Choreography: Eleo Pomare
Music: Bessie Smith
SUSPENSION (1943)
Choreography: May O'Donnell (1906 - 2004)
Music: Ray Green (1908 - 1997)
Staged by: May O'Donnell, Getrude Shurr, Barbara Allegra
Dancers: Anne Affourtit (solo), Marja Braaksma (solo), Caroline van den Ende, Gonda Dharmaperwira, Maureen Krumeich, Monica Ouwens, Desiree Schneider
When in 1983 I walked for the first time into the May O’Donnell Modern Dance Center, I didn’t foresee within two years I would be performing May’s work with my own company.
Her Suspension opened DANSKERN’s Revival Program 1985 and received an instant standing ovation from an audience, who had never heard of the lady before.
'Pure gold', as Ernestine Stodelle characterized her.
DAY ON EARTH (1947)
Choreography: Doris Humphrey (1895 - 1958)
Music: Aaron Copland: Piano Sonata (1939/41)
Staged by: Daniel Lewis and Jane Carrington
Dancers: Anne Affourtit (The Woman), Marja Braaksma (The Young Girl), Adriaan Kans (The Man), Sherydah Suyl / Barbara Wissink (The Child)
The night we danced our premiere of Day on Earth, the eyes of May O’Donnell, composer-husband Ray Green and lifelong assistant Gertrude Shurr, were riveted upon us, as they were seated in the royal loge, as modern dance royalty befits, dead-center on the first balcony of a packed Amsterdam Municipal Theatre.
Some 40 years before, the three of them had seen their good friend José Limón dance the original 1947 premiere.
‘I don’t remember it this alive, this vital, Adriaan’, was one of the heart-warming comments May gave me later backstage.
THE TROUBLED SLEEPER (1970)
Choreography: Anna Sokolow (1910 - 2000)
Music: Franz Liszt, Valses Oubliées 1 & 2 for piano
Staged by: Anna Sokolow
Dancer: Adriaan Kans
ROOMS (1955)
Choreography: Anna Sokolow
Music: Kenyon Hopkins, for jazz ensemble
Staged by Anna Sokolow
Dancers: Anne Affourtit (Escape; Desire; Daydream), Jerry Boeye (Dream; Desire) Marja Braaksma (The End?), Gonda Dharmaperwira (Daydream; Desire), Adriaan Kans (Panic), Maureen Krumeich (Daydream; Desire), Rob Suyl (Going; Desire), Mischa van Dullemen (Desire)
"My works never have real endings. I don’t end it, because I don’t feel there’s any ending.
ROOMS ends where it began.
That’s the Jew in me.
Ask the world a question, and there’s no answer.
All I do is present what I feel, and you, you answer. You answer"
-Anna Sokolow-
THE SHAKERS (1930)
Choreography: Doris Humphrey (1895 - 1958)
Music: Traditional
Staged by: Ernestine Stodelle assisted by Lesley Maine
Dancers: The Eldress: Monica Ouwens, Elizabeth Dalman (guest); Speaker in tongues: Adriaan Kans; Marja Braaksma, Gonda Dharmaperwira, Ineke Drabbe, Caroline van den Ende, Maureen Krumeich, Desiree Schneider, Rob Suyl, Jan Hein van Tol, David Ward, Samuel Würsten
"My life, my carnal life! I will lay it down, because it is depraved!"
THE EXILES (1950)
Choreography: José Limón (1908 - 1972)
Music: Arnold Schönberg, Chamber Symphony no. 2, opus 38
Staged by: Daniel Lewis and Jane Carrington
Dancers: Anne Affourtit / Maureen Krumeich, Adriaan Kans
'They, looking back, all the eastern side beheld
Of Paradise, so late their happy seat'
-John Milton, Paradise Lost-
THERE IS A TIME (1956)
To everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under the sun
(Ecclesiastes)
Choreography: José Limón (1908 - 1972)
Music: Norman dello Joio, Meditations on Ecclesiastes
Staged by: Daniel Lewis and Jane Carrington
Dancers: Anne Affourtit, Marja Braaksma, Raymond Colling, Gonda Dharmaperwira, Ineke Drabbe, Caroline van den Ende, Adriaan Kans, Maureen Krumeich, Monica Ouwens, Patricia van de Pieterman, Nienke Reehorst, Desiree Schneider, Rob Suyl, Jan Hein van Tol, David Ward, Samuel Würsten
Sophie Maslow and William Bales in Folksay (1940's)
FOLKSAY (1942)
Choreography: Sophie Maslow (1911 - 2006)
Music: with guitarist/company dancer Rob Suyl, I sang Woody Guthrie’s ballads he and Earl Robinson performed at the 1942 premiere; Rob and I told their age-old jokes, and I spoke the excerpts from The People, Yes by Carl Sandburg
Text: The People, Yes by Carl Sandburg
Staged by: Sophie Maslow, assisted by Lynn Frielinghaus
Dancers: Anne Affourtit, Marja Braaksma, Raymond Colling, Gonda Dharmaperwira, Caroline van den Ende, Monica Ouwens, Maureen Krumeich, Desiree Schneider, Jan Hein van Tol, David Ward, Samuel Würsten
Sophie Maslow in Folksay (1940's)
VOICES (1980)
Choreography: Sophie Maslow (1911 - 2006)
Music: Robert Schumann, Kreisleriana
Staged by: Sophie Maslow, assisted by Lynn Frielinghaus
Dancers: Anne Affourtit, Marja Braaksma, Raymond Colling, Gonda Dharmaperwira, Caroline van den Ende, Adriaan Kans, Maureen Krumeich, Monica Ouwens, Desiree Schneider, Rob Suyl, Jan Hein van Tol, David Ward, Samuel Würsten
GIN. WOMAN. DISTRESS. (1966)
Choreography: Eleo Pomare (1937 - 2008)
Music: Bessie Smith
Performed by: Elizabeth Cameron Dalman (b.1934), for whom Eleo Pomare choreographed this three-part solo in New York in 1966.
In 1987, on tour and in our summer season in the Amsterdam Municipal Theatre, Liz, at calendar age 53, performed with us, taking on the roles of 'The Eldress' in Doris Humphrey’s The Shakers, 'The End?' solo in Anna Sokolow's Rooms, while her impressive performance of Eleo Pomare's Gin.Woman.Distress. each night sparked a highlight on the program.
Assistent rehearsal directors to me were:
Frank Shawl
(1931 - 2019)
dancer in the original 1950’s May O’Donnell Dance Company
Liz Dalman
(b. 1934)
Australian modern dance pioneer and founder of Australian Dance Theatre
WORKSHOPS and MASTERCLASSES
Next to the daily open company classes,
I organized workshops & masterclasses in the DANSKERN studio by a.o.:
Barbara Allegra (O’Donnell Technique)
Jane Carrington (Floor Barre)
Liz Dalman (Horton Technique; Nikolais Composition Studies)
May O’Donnell and Gertrude Shurr (Master Classes)
Stuart Gold (Limón Technique)
Danelle Helander (Cunningham Technique)
Betsy Kagan (Humphrey-Limón Technique)
Daniel Lewis (Limón Technique)
Dale Orrin (O’Donnell Technique)
Frank Shawl (O’Donnell Technique)
Anna Sokolow (Movement for Actors; Composition)
Ernestine Stodelle (Humphrey Technique)
Sabatino Verlezza (O’Donnell Technique)
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness...” (Charles Dickens).
Late 1988 acute cholecystitis (gallstone disease and colics) brought me to a grinding halt.
"Goodness, you look just like a yellow canary", the homeopath remarked, when three days after my grueling night screaming and crawling on the bedroom floor with acute colics, I limped into his office.
His homeopathic medicine, coupled with strict diet and rest restored my gall bladder to pristine condition, as I saw on the screen of the hospital ultrasound check-up three months later.
Three months not only of physical, but also mental recovery. And the sobering realization, in my pursuit of artistic excellence and survival, I couldn’t go on constantly overburdening and overworking myself to the extent I had been doing for the last 15 years as an independent jack of all trades (dancer - teacher - choreographer - artistic director - rehearsal director - fundraiser - and not to forget, scapegoat, the straw that eventually broke my camel's back).
In Panic from Rooms, chor. Anna Sokolow
As a dancer of 39, it was either death or glory.
With Maureen Krumeich, who had been with Danskern since 1984, as 2dance2gether we headed for new artistic horizons.
Maureen & me, 2dance2gether lecture-demo, early 1990