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By
Jacinth Planer '02
Dancers' faces flicker
by the light of the remembrance candle each holds as they glide,
ghostly and resolute, from the four corners of the stage, their
dance artfully expressing the fears and hopes of a group of children
amid the grim reality of the Holocaust.
"Wreath of Memories," the powerful focal piece of this
year's Chelonia student dance performance, percolated for
years in the mind of choreographer and Assistant Professor of
Dance Chris Johnson, emerging in an electric opening night performance.
The audience that night included Holocaust survivor Nesse Godin,
and the piece earned the dancers an invitation to do an encore
performance in May at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
in Washington, D.C.
Fifteen years after touring Auschwitz and Birkenau, and after
performing in a dance about the Holocaust in college, Prof. Johnson
returned to the theme in her choreography. "I needed a new
framework in which to express my reaction to the Holocaust. I
choreographed this dance so that people would know the terrible
depths of hatred, but also see the passionate beauty that still
can arise out of those who experience such horrific atrocities,"
she says.
Shared
Experiences
In 1986, Prof. Johnson's
college dance professor, Vicki Blake, choreographed a dance that
drew from poems and works of art created by the children of Terezin
(a ghetto near Prague, where many children lived during the Holocaust).
"Wreath of Memories" draws from some of the same resources.
 
"Vicki introduced me to these works, and although our dances
are very different, her work was integral in getting me started,"
Prof. Johnson says.
One of Prof. Johnson's students, senior Camille Fox, provided added
impetus to bring the idea to the stage this year. Camille worked
at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum as a senior in high
school. The stories of Camille's high school teachers and mentors
engaged her interest in the Holocaust, and her experiences at the
museum instilled a desire to tell the stories of victims and survivors.
"I wanted to be part of their mission not to let the world
forget," she says. "Being in this performance allows me
to do that. Everyone involved in the Holocaust dance piece can impress
on contemporary audiences the importance of not letting this moment
in history be forgotten and never to let such things happen again."
As modern-day women far removed from the horrors of the Holocaust,
both Camille and Prof. Johnson wanted to bring a Holocaust survivor
to Beloit to tell her story in her own voice. They invited Ms. Godin,
a special friend of Ms. Fox from the museum, to speak to the College
community last fall. "We brought Nesse to Beloit in order to
help the campus better understand and explore the Holocaust,"
they explain. Having survived the Shauliai ghetto in Lithuania,
the Stuffhof concentration camp, four labor camps, and a death march,
Ms. Godin has dedicated her life to teaching and sharing memories
of the Holocaust. Her unique ability to translate the Holocaust
through glimpses of her own experiences, and her testimony to
survival, have been recognized across the country. Ms. Godin previewed
the dance one emotional afternoon during her fall campus visit.
Through tears, she explained that the story conveyed by the dancers
reflected her stories and memories. "The message you send
is not for the past but for the future," she said. "The
story you tell is not for those who died in the Holocaust, but
for children and those who are young, that they may never forget
the horrors of the past." She was so moved that she vowed
to return to Beloit two months later on opening night, when she
surprised the student dancers by walking on stage during warmups.
The story Prof. Johnson tells in "Wreath of Memories"
is based on a play called I Never Saw Another Butterfly, written
by Celeste Raspanti about the community of Terezin. There, one remarkable
teacher built a resilient community out of disoriented children,
coaxed artistic expression from even the most terrified souls, and
taught everyone a powerful lesson about the importance of continuing
to learn and live.
In Raspanti's play, a girl named Raja Englanderova, one of the Terezin
children, emerges as the storyteller for her friends and teacher
in the ghetto, many of whom perish. As Raja's community ebbs and
beloved friends become only memories, the poignant story she tells
becomes a life-affirming testimony to the power of community and
the strength of human will to survive unbearable conditions.
"Wreath of Memories" pushes audiences to confront horrors
of the past and look at the Holocaust without turning away. "I
want to make the subject more authentic by appealing to humanity
and human dignity," Prof. Johnson explains. She does so gracefully,
fusing light-hearted poetry, childen's art, and images of youthful
romance in the Terezin ghetto with a stark recitation of victims'
names and the gradual diminution of characters as the dance progresses.
Asked, after viewing the piece, if art can do justice to the topic
of the Holocaust, Nesse Godin replied, "Every form of art we
create conveys a message. Everything we do in our lives and our
lifetime can send a message; every part of our life is a story."
The
Performing Arts and Beyond
A collaborative and
inclusive effort, "Wreath of Memories" was embraced
by faculty from a number of disciplines who were either consulted
as the piece was created or who seized opportunities to use the
work in their teaching. The creation of the dance and Ms. Godin's
visit touched the First-Year Initiatives program, programming
related to the 2002 Weissberg Professor in International Studies,
and the faculty of the philosophy and religious studies department,
the art and art history department, and the chemistry department.
Although several student dancers involved in the production are
majoring or minoring in performing arts, many are not dance majors.
Instead, they are studying everything from environmental studies
to international relations, psychology, elementary education,
biochemistry, and modern languages.
A chemistry and dance double major, Camille Fox's path crossed
that of her chemistry professor, Charlie Abrams, outside the classroom,
when the two discovered that Ms. Godin is a mutual friend. Prof.
Abrams had known Ms. Godin as a fellow congregant at Har Tzeon
Agudath Achim Synagogue in suburban Maryland. He and Camille worked
closely to secure grants to bring Ms. Godin to campus.
Prof. Abrams along with other professors were consulted about
the Holocaust piece, and Prof. Johnson integrated their ideas
into its construction. A new course called "Spirituality
and Art," taught by visiting professor Vaughan McTernan,
considers the piece as part of a study of contemporary art and
spirituality. Discussion about "Wreath of Memories"
in the class focused on a close analysis of artistic and spiritual
components of the dance. "We've talked about the intensity
of the piece and the interplay between viewers and the work,"
explains Prof. McTernan. "We discussed the power of symbols
and how symbols are used, and about how multiples of characters
emphasize a sense of community among the people at Terezin. We
analyzed interactions and movements and talked about the dancers'
gestures. We discussed how the piece tells the story of a young
girl choosing to live for her community because she's the one
who was left."
Prof. Abrams' involvement in the dance project was bittersweet.
He joined Beloit College's faculty in 1997, but plans to move
on at the end of this academic year. "Wherever I go, I'll
be able to teach chemistry, teach multimedia, and work with excellent
students," he says. "But I don't think I'll ever have
another opportunity to work with students who study chemistry
with me during the day and give outstanding, deeply moving dance
performances at night. There are several of those students here."
"Wreath of Memories"
is performed against the backdrop of images from the book I
Never Saw Another Butterfly: Children's Drawings and Poems
from Terezin Concentration Camp. The book is edited by Hana
Volavkova and published by Schocken Books.
RELATED
LINKS:
Department
of Theatre Arts - Dance Home Page
EMAIL:
Chris
Johnson - Assistant Professor of Dance
alumni@beloit.edu
- Alumni Office
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