By Rachel Thorne-Germond
Stephanie Clemens is Owner and Director of The Academy of Movement and Music in Oak Park and one of the artistic directors/performers/choreographers of MOMENTA.
Why did you start re-staging historical works of choreography and how did you choose the works you reconstruct? How do you reconstruct them? Do you use Labanotation (Dance Notation), choreographer's notes, video, or all three?
Stephanie: MOMENTA began doing historical works in 1988 when we decided to celebrate the life and work of Doris Humphrey who was born in Oak Park in 1895. We began by going to the Dance Notation Bureau and did the first two works from labanotated scores, with a reconstructor.
One of the works, "Soaring" from 1920, was a collaborative work Humphrey did with Ruth St. Denis. A student of ours was a granddaughter of the woman, Marion Rice, who had helped to notate that version of “Soaring” (there are several - depends on who is doing the remembering). In doing these works, we met Doris Humphrey's son Charles Woodford, with whom we have had a close connection for almost 20 years.
In 1988, Ann Barzel handed me a folio of dances collected by Doris Humphrey's teacher at Frances Parker School - Mary Wood Hinman. Ann told me to reconstruct two of the little dances in the folio, as they were attributed to Doris Humphrey. I did these two myself, from notes and research, and two others. Since Humphrey had worked with St. Denis, I decided to go back to my own early childhood in Los Angeles. Two of my babysitters were St. Denis dancers, and would either take me to Miss Ruth's studio or have many of the dancers come along to our house to practice. I called Karoun Tootikian to see if she would remember me (which she did). Karoun spent the next 10 years working with me and MOMENTA dancers to teach us many of the St. Denis/Denishawn works. Karoun had worked with Miss Ruth for the last 20 years of Miss Ruth's life and knew many, many dances and had all Miss Ruth's notes and costumes.
We continued to do various Humphrey works during the next ten years – some we did learn from a notated score - but we soon learned that the value of having a coach who had the works in her/his bones. We have worked with original Humphrey dancers: Ernestine Stodelle, Eleanor King and Leitita Ide. When I was a student at Juilliard, I had studied briefly with Jose Limon and Lucas Hoving.
Jose and the three women we worked with had formed the "Little Group" - a group within the Humphrey-Weidman company for a number of years. The knowledge and memories of these three women have been the cornerstones of our work.
In the 1990’s, together with Ernestine, Amy Reusch, the Doris Humphrey Society (founded in 1989 in Oak Park) and MOMENTA, along with Princeton Book Publishing, (which Charles Humphrey Woodford owns) we applied for a grant from the National Inititative to Preserve American Dance (NIPAD) and produced 6 teaching coaching videos on Humphrey's works.
It has just seemed logical to explore first Humphrey, then St. Denis, then the works of Eleanor King, Charles Weidman, Isadora Duncan and Loie Fuller. Eleanor taught us herself. A dancer who had danced with Charles Weidman taught us those dances (Brahms Wlatzes and Lynchtown), Lori Belilove from the Isadora Duncan Foundation taught us those dances and we have worked with Jessica Lindberg on the Loie Fuller works.
How do you select the contemporary choreographers you choose to present? Are they students of the Academy or is there some distinguishing characteristic in the works that you curate for your shows?
Stephanie: MOMENTA started as a company to give the people who taught at the Academy of Movement and Music opportunities to make work. The school, since 1982-3, has had its own theatre space, we are fortunate in that. Initially, my co-artistic director Larry Ippel and I did a lot of work, as did co-founder James Tenuta (no longer with the company). The Joseph Holmes Dance Theatre was, for a time, resident on weekends at the Academy. In this way, I grew to know Alberto Arias, Ron DeJesus, Randy Duncan and Winifred Haun well. They have all done work for us.
I also found that performing at Dance Chicago was a terrific opportunity to see good work and to network and in this way Jon Lehrer and Frank Chaves came to do pieces for us. Some of our choreographers are homegrown: Raphaelle Ziemba grew up in the school and has returned to dance and choreograph for us, Sarita Smith Childs as well. When I go to concerts and I see something I like, I find the choreographer and start a dialogue - Tom Trimble was one - he has done three works for us even though he now lives in Seattle.
We also have, each summer, Young Choreographers' workshops. We hire some of the faculty to create about half the works, and we mentor students who create the other pieces. Doris Humphreys' book on choreography, "The Art of Making Dances," is a bit of a bible for us.
Are you trying to make a connection between the historical and contemporary works that you present side by side on the program?
Stephanie: I do not program the contemporary works in relation to the historical ones, but I love to show relationships between historical works - such as the extravagant use of silk in Loie Fuller's works, in St. Denis and in Doris Humphrey. Or the relationship (well-documented) between Isadora Duncan's dances and Mikhail Fokine's "Les Sylphides", between an early Denishawn floor plastique and Humphrey's 1928 "Water Study" and I will consciously program these works together. Our programs are full of historical information, with bios of the dance history legends always included - and, if there is a pause for costume and set change, I often talk to the audience about the program. Our audiences, many of whom are captive since their children are dancing, are pretty well educated in dance history and we strongly believe in teaching the students dance history live.
Can you tell me a little bit more about yourself and your training/career in dance prior to founding the Academy?
Stephanie: I began my dance studies with Adolph Bolm in Southern California. As a child I made my stage debut with The Ruth St. Denis Concert dancers and then continued my dance studies with Maria Kedrina, Michael Panieff, Gene Marinaccio and then at the San Francisco Ballet School. I then attended Juilliard in the late fifties; there my teachers were Anthony Tudor, Alfredo Corvino, Lucas Hoving, José Limón and members of the Graham Company.
I’ve performed on the West Coast with The American Concert Ballet and The Cosmopolitan Opera Company and in the Midwest as a guest with the Chicago Contemporary Dance Theatre. Currently, I’m the owner and director of The Academy of Movement and Music in Oak Park and one of the artistic directors/performers/choreographers of MOMENTA, a Performing Arts Company. I appeared as a soloist with MOMENTA in New York and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., during 1989-90, performed a one-woman concert of St. Denis solos in summer, 1993, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and in 1994 at the Harold Washington Library in Chicago.
Since 1988 I’ve worked on reconstructions of works by St. Denis, Doris Humphrey and Eleanor King with Karoun Tootikian, Ernestine Stodelle, Letitia Ide and Eleanor King. I’m a founding member and was executive director of the Doris Humphrey Society and am a founding member and director of the Tidmarsh Arts Foundation and served on the board of the Oak Park Area Arts Council for more than ten years. In 2000, I received an award of recognition from the American Library Association for her efforts in producing six videos documenting the work of Doris Humphrey. In 2001, I was awarded a Ruth Page Award for Lifetime Service and received the Oak Park Area Arts Council’s Joseph Randall Shapiro award. I’ve also served on the Dance Panel for the Illinois Arts Council and on the Awards Committee for the Chicago Dance and Music Alliance.
The between-the-lines is that Adolph Bolm (Pavlova's partner in the original Ballets Russes with Diagheliev) lived next door and told my parents I should dance. Having St. Denis dancers in our living room was pretty exciting - nautch skirts and ankle bells - and I had another baby sitter who was an absolute balletomane … as were my parents. I was taken to see Danilova, Frederick Franklin, Alonso, all the greats as a child. And Fonteyn, when I was ten years old, was a revelation: exactly what I wanted to be like (never mind that I grew to be 5' 9"!) I wish I hadn't had such ballet blinders on as a teen - and would have been more open to the modern dance giants around me at Juilliard - although having Anthony Tudor as a teacher was incredible and eating lunch with him in the Juilliard cafeteria was pretty wonderful – such a sarcastic, delicious wit! Other heroines were people like Ava Gardner and Audrey Hepburn. Not from afar, my father was a portrait painter and he painted them; these were people in our house. Ava quite liked me and would take me with her to MGM during the filming of Showboat.
Founding and Development of MOMENTA
MOMENTA is the resident performing arts company of The Academy of Movement and Music in Oak Park. MOMENTA is in reality two companies. The Senior Company is a small group of seasoned professionals augmented as needed by highly skilled advanced students. The Junior Company is a large group of talented young dancers who are developing their performing skills.
Incorporated in 1983 by its founding directors Stephanie Clemens, Larry Ippel and James Tenuta, MOMENTA grew out of a need to create opportunities for local choreographers and composers and to give young artists performing experience. In 1988, MOMENTA broadened its scope and began to acquire the rights to perform dance works by American Dance pioneer Doris Humphrey, a native of Oak Park. In addition to these internationally known works, MOMENTA has expanded its repertoire to include choreography by Humphrey’s associates Ruth St. Denis, Charles Weidman and Eleanor King. During the past 22 years, MOMENTA has presented more than four dozen of these historic works; this commitment makes MOMENTA’s repertoire of historic American modern dance one of the largest of any company in the United States.
During MOMENTA’s 1989-91 seasons, MOMENTA's dancers performed throughout New Mexico, New York State, New Jersey and at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. The company regularly performs throughout the Chicago area.
The 1991-92 season included a restoration of Ishtar, a 1923 work by Ruth St. Denis, Charles Weidman’s beautiful tribute to Doris Humphrey Brahms Waltzes and Concertino pour Trois by the late Ruth Page. MOMENTA dancers toured in Brazil and Russia in the summer of 1993. During 1995, the Centennial Year of Humphrey’s birth, MOMENTA was a focal company in the staging of a number of her works. MOMENTA has been a featured performer at Dance Chicago for the past six years at the Athenaeum Theatre. In the summer of 2003, MOMENTA toured in Austria as one of the Stars of Tomorrow for Tanzsommer International. Twelve dancers performed works by Isadora Duncan, Ruth St. Denis, Martha Graham and Doris Humphrey, as well as contemporary works by Ron DeJesus and Sarah Cullen Fuller.
The 25th Anniversary Year
Reaching a 25th Anniversary is a remarkable accomplishment for dance companies today. MOMENTA, the premiere dance company of Oak Park, has reached this milestone, and 2007 marks its 25th year of educating young dancers, choreographing and performing world premiere works, building a reputation for the re-creation and presentation of renown historical dance for the modern audience and exploring unique and specialized venues for the art of dance. MOMENTA’s 2007 Spring Concert Series in March will kick off a year-long anniversary celebration with an unprecedented schedule that includes three weekends of performances this Spring, and events throughout the year – including a tour in June to Austria.
For this celebratory occasion, the spring concerts have been carefully crafted to feature works from the archives of dance history and works from MOMENTA’s own past – and with ground-breaking world premiere works choreographed expressly for these anniversary concerts. The evening programs will present a rich and varied kaleidoscope of dance, which will showcase the great diversity, expansive talent and passionate creative pursuits that are the hallmarks of this Oak Park dance company.
In bringing to life legendary dances from the past, MOMENTA has always included both classical ballets and works by the pioneers of early American Modern Dance. This spring will see a divertissement from “Esmeralda,” an 1844 work by Jules Perot and “Flower Festival at Genzano,” an 1858 work by Auguste Bournonville. Other historical works are Loïe Fuller’s 1896 “Fire Dance” – a blazing solo in a costume made from 50 yards of silk, and Doris Humphrey’s 1928 “Air for the G String” – with another 50 yards of silk used in a very different style. More silk takes the stage in “Soaring” from 1920 by Doris Humphrey and Ruth St. Denis, who together created a work for 5 dancers and a huge silk scarf. Martha Graham’s 1936 “Steps in the Street” presents a much more stark and almost violent image of women in dance.
From MOMENTA’s own past is “Façade,” a work originally choreographed by Stephanie Clemens in 1983. MOMENTA’s debut performances in 1982 and 1983 were done in collaboration with Raymond Wilding-White and The Loop Group. Another work in collaboration with the late James Mack, an Oak Park composer, is “After the Rain,” choreographed by MOMENTA’s co-artistic director Larry Ippel. Musical collaboration is again the focus in “Lillian” by choreographer Cora D. Mitchell for dancer Mei-Kuang Chen. The music is composed by Mitchell’s cousin, award winning pianist and recording artist, D.D. Jackson. Jackson will be flying in from Tennessee to perform the work live for the first weekend’s world premiere performances.
The adult dancers in the company include many “alums” – dancers who were student dancers in MOMENTA’s early years. In addition to those dancers who live in the Oak Park Area and dance regularly with MOMENTA, the 25th Anniversary Year is the occasion of other alums to return to join the celebration on our stage. Brenna Monroe-Cook, now a soloist with the José Limón Dance Company in New York City will return to perform her own solo, “Albatross” and Sarita Smith Childs returns after a leave of absence to perform “Ida,” Randy Duncan’s moving and powerful solo portrait of African-American suffragist, Ida B. Wells. Katie Grogan and JP Tenuta will perform Ron De Jesus’ lovely duet from “Portrait,” first created for MOMENTA in 2001.
MOMENTA's Commitment to Accessibility in the Arts
In recent years, MOMENTA has physically integrated its company and regularly includes dancers with disabilities in both the Junior and Senior Company, often commissioning works built on the unique potentials of wheelchair dancers. Three pieces will feature Kris Lenzo, who has worked with MOMENTA since 2003 – “Tango # 4” by Sarah Najera, “Convergence” by wheelchair dancer/choreographer Ginger Lane, and “Ashes” by Tom Trimble. “Ashes” is a profound and deeply moving duet for Lenzo who partners Sandra Kaufmann while he is suspended high off the ground.