“City Gallery regrets to announce the passing of gourd sculptor, Wally Szyndler. He was an inaugural member of the Gallery and one of our most popular and accomplished members. We are heartbroken and will miss him terribly.

Wally began creating and showing gourd sculptures after his retirement as Director of Research and Demonstration from Melwood. His masks and containers were very well-received and he exhibited widely in juried and invitational shows, winning numerous awards for the work.

His work is exquisitely crafted pieces with perfect little joints, precisely fitted inlays, and exact stitching. Each piece is remarkable in its execution. And humor. Read the titles of Wally’s work, such as “Fantasy Diva” to the left, and gain insight into the man’s sense of play and wicked wit.

Wally approached this work with sympathy for the cultural traditions out of which it grew and deep respect for both the cultures and for his materials.”

Click here to read the complete post. Visit Szyndler’s site here to learn more about him.

Image in the post is of a Szyndler sculpture, from the East City Art post.

In his first theatrical experiments, audience members were empowered to stop a performance and suggest alternative actions for the character(s) experiencing oppression. In response, the actor(s) would change his (their) behavior and transform the situation. But during one performance, a woman in the audience, outraged because the actor was not able to express her suggestion, went up to the stage and performed what she meant. The event became the source for Boal’s concept of spect-actor, someone who perceives and acts accordingly, and his theatre was transformed: he discovered that through direct participation members of the audience became motivated to actually experience the change they wanted, were able to reflect collectively on the transformation, and felt empowered to generate social changes in everyday life.

Augusto Boal (1931-2009) passed away on May 2. A week before, in an emotional exchange of emails, when we were saying goodbye to each other, he sent me this text, which had been sent to UNESCO, on the occasion of International Theater Day. To celebrate his life, his struggle for “peace without passivity”, and the creativity of his work, and aiming for its continuity, I share his last thoughts with you.

Regina Miranda
Chair of the Board & Acting CEO
Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies, LIMS®

All human societies are “spectacular*” in their daily life and produce “spectacles” at special moments. They are “spectacular” as a form of social organization and produce “spectacles” like the one you have come to see.

Even if one is unaware of it, human relationships are structured in a theatrical way. The use of space, body language, choice of words and voice modulation, the confrontation of ideas and passions, everything that we demonstrate on the stage, we live in our lives. We are theatre!

Weddings and funerals are “spectacles”, but so, also, are daily rituals so familiar that we are not conscious of this. Occasions of pomp and circumstance, but also the morning coffee, the exchanged good-mornings, timid love and storms of passion, a senate session or a diplomatic meeting – all is theatre.

One of the main functions of our art is to make people sensitive to the “spectacles” of daily life in which the actors are their own spectators, performances in which the stage and the stalls coincide. We are all artists. By doing theatre, we learn to see what is obvious but what we usually can’t see because we are only used to looking at it. What is familiar to us becomes unseen: doing theatre throws light on the stage of daily life.

Last September, we were surprised by a theatrical revelation: we, who thought that we were living in a safe world, despite wars, genocide, slaughter and torture which certainly exist, but far from us in remote and wild places. We, who were living in security with our money invested in some respectable bank or in some honest trader’s hands in the stock exchange were told that this money did not exist, that it was virtual, a fictitious invention by some economists who were not fictitious at all and neither reliable nor respectable. Everything was just bad theatre, a dark plot in which a few people won a lot and many people lost all. Some politicians from rich countries held secret meetings in which they found some magic solutions. And we, the victims of their decisions, have remained spectators in the last row of the balcony.

Twenty years ago, I staged Racine’s Phèdre in Rio de Janeiro. The stage setting was poor: cow skins on the ground, bamboos around. Before each presentation, I used to say to my actors: “The fiction we created day by day is over. When you cross those bamboos, none of you will have the right to lie. Theatre is the Hidden Truth”.

When we look beyond appearances, we see oppressors and oppressed people, in all societies, ethnic groups, genders, social classes and casts; we see an unfair and cruel world. We have to create another world because we know it is possible. But it is up to us to build this other world with our hands and by acting on the stage and in our own life.

Participate in the “spectacle” which is about to begin and once you are back home, with your friends act your own plays and look at what you were never able to see: that which is obvious. Theatre is not just an event; it is a way of life!

We are all actors: being a citizen is not living in society, it is changing it.

Augusto Boal

“Saludares had danced a pas de deux in George Balanchine’s “Who Cares?” and returned to her hotel along with staff members and the other Studio Company dancers. The dancers’ plan was to spend the rest of the evening watching a movie, ballet officials said yesterday. Saludares and two other company members decided to walk across the highway to a convenience store for snacks. They didn’t make it. Bel Air police say Saludares dashed in front of an oncoming Chevy Impala about 10 p.m. while crossing Route 24. She was pronounced dead at Upper Chesapeake Medical Center an hour and a half later. The driver was not charged.”

The remainder of the tour was cancelled.

In the press release sent by The Washington Ballet, Artistic Director Septime Webre stated: “No words can describe the pain of losing Mary. She was not only a beautiful dancer, but a radiant soul who emitted peace, and joy. The entire Washington Ballet family mourns her passing, and extends its thoughts and prayers to Mary’s family.”

Local dance critic Carmel Morgan stated, “I noticed Mary immediately when I saw her perform this past fall. She caught my attention because she exuded such positive energy. I remember pouring through the names on the program to figure out which dancer she was. I was excited to have discovered her.”

In Jean Marbella’s article in the Baltimore Sun, Washington School of Ballet director Kee-Juan Han is quoted saying, “Some dancers have a lot of technique, that is their drive. But some dancers are born with a more innate quality. For Mary, everything came from inside. She had this passion. Even at rehearsal, she danced as if she was on stage.”

Robert Mulvey (15), a Washington School of Ballet student quoted in the same article, stated “I still picture her dancing, how beautiful she was. I used to do a pas de deux class with her, and she was very easy to partner. But we never did a show together.”

To the many who knew her socially, Mary was a loving and loved friend. She laughed easily, and possessed a depth unusual for any age. A longtime friend and colleague of Mary’s posted the following on his blog:

“You knew how to have a great time. But you were my friend because you also had substance. You weren’t just a girl in the world. You had brains, heart, and passion. You loved your family, friends, and teachers. Unlike me, you were very vocal about this. You were a university and college scholar at UP and made sure you got good grades. You would work on your roles with passion and ferver. Always testing how far you could go. We could talk about life and love for hours on end. Even though I missed you, I was really happy you were in the States to realize your dream. We shared the dream, didn’t we? To dance for others and touch lives through our art.

I was looking forward to seeing you this May. I was hoping that Steps would have us partner again. I was looking forward to your jokes, your kwento’s and your company. Now, I am glad I was able to tell you a few weeks ago that I miss you and that I love you. Yes, Mary, I will mourn for you. And I will remember you. But I will also rejoice because you are in heaven. There is no better place to be than there.”

The Washington Ballet has established a fund to defray the Saludares’ funeral expenses, and plans to hold a memorial service early next month, though a date has not been set. The accident was reported in the Baltimore Sun, and later on DCist.

- Rob Bettmann, Editor – Bourgeon

To most people at that time, it was an unlikely choice; a decrepit amusement park with buildings dating from the turn of the century through the 1920’s, filled with a hippie-like group of artists and set outside the city. The Park Service warned me that other dancers before me had tried unsuccessfully to start a dance program at Glen Echo, including Jan Van Dyke, the grande dame of DC modern dance. I was undeterred – partially by my stubbornness, partially by my belief that what I was attempting to create was so unique it had to succeed. What I envisioned was a dance center that would have a professional modern dance repertory company that would provide opportunities for emerging choreographers, an apprentice dance program for developing a new generation of modern dancers, a studio that offered study in a variety of disciplines but focused on modern dance and a Summer Dance Festival that would provide exposure for local dance to the entire metropolitan area. Glen Echo, with its large facilities, artists’ community (which provided countless opportunities for multidisciplinary work), and potential support by the National Park Service, seemed to be the perfect location.

I offered my first classes at Glen Echo during the summer of 1976. The space I was given was the Spanish Ballroom, a magnificent space during the 1920’s, but at that time boarded up and filled with broken glass, fleas and raccoons (both dead and alive). With fellow dancer and good friend Stan Fowler, the beautiful maple floor was cleaned enough to hold a summer session of modern dance classes. However, as the weather turned cold, the space was no longer suitable and I brought my students to Mt. Vernon College, where I was teaching in the adult education program.

The following spring, I asked the Park Service to allow me to expand the summer program to include more classes, and performances by local dance companies. They agreed, allowing me to present the first Summer Dance Festival at Glen Echo. One of the more memorable performances of that inaugural summer was by the newly created Washington Ballet, featuring a young, unknown choreographer named Choo San Goh.

Unfortunately, I was for the most part, working alone. My only help came from Stan, who provided technical assistance for the performances. In addition, I taught all the classes. At the end of the summer, the dance program was the largest program at the Park, and I applied for a year-round facility and permission to expand the program further.

In August of 1977, I was given the use of a fairly large room beneath the Park offices. It had a terrible floor for dance, linoleum over concrete, but it was heated. I immediately held auditions for what was to be the first modern dance company at Glen Echo Park. The dancers I hired were selected not only for their talents as dancers and dance teachers, but because they also shared the vision I had of creating a very different kind of dance program. Those first dancers were Cheryl Koehler, who was also an accomplished choreographer and musician, Becky Westwood, Roberta Rubin, Steve Johnson, Stan Fowler and apprentice dancer Linda Hindley. Within a few months we added two other dancers, Sandy Asay and John Kramer, and Glen Echo Dance Theater was born. During the first year, we performed works that Cheryl and I choreographed and also had a new work created for us by Greg Reynolds, a former dancer with the Paul Taylor Dance Company. Greg was now looking to make a name for himself as a choreographer and was eager to have a company to choreograph on. Our first performance was held in the Adventure Theater at Glen Echo Park and we received a promising review from George Jackson.

The first year was primarily one of development: developing the company as a coherent group of dancers, developing choreography from within and outside the company, teaching classes and securing funding for the festival and a more permanent studio space. There was great progress made during that first year. In addition to the growth of the dancers and the repertory, our studio grew exponentially. We had so many students that we had clearly out grown the space we were using. At that time, one of the resident artists at the Park decided to move on, leaving her space, the old Hall of Mirrors, vacant. It could provide us a home with a nice sized studio on a suspended wood floor, dressing rooms and office space. I applied for residency status and was awarded that status in 1978. Now we had a permanent home for classes and rehearsals, plus the use of the Spanish Ballroom for performances.

However, both spaces were in need of major work. The studio needed to be converted from a one-room pottery studio into the divided spaces that we required. Most important was the need to cover the aging and splinted wood floor with a suitable dance floor. The Ballroom needed even more work. We had completely cleaned up the space, but its vast size, lack of audience seating or designated performing space and no theatrical lighting meant all performances had a very informal feel to them. What we really needed to do was to retrofit the building to create a real dance theater.

The studio transformation came first. Stan, who was an electrician, chemist and a bit of an engineer, in addition to being a dancer, designed a studio floor. Steve Carty, an apprentice to the company and Alex Rounds, who was one of my students in the very first contact improvisation classes taught in Washington, worked with Stan to build the studio. Both men continued to dance in Washington. Alex became a very accomplished and well-known dancer in the contact-improvisation world.

Then came the Ballroom. Stan, who was at that time hired by the National Park Service to provide technical assistance throughout the Park, managed to procure theatrical light fixtures from some of our ‘sister’ parks, including Wolftrap. He also picked up scrap metal parts such as old World War II bomb holders and metal pipe to create a grid that would be suspended from the Ballroom ceiling and support the lights. We requisitioned risers and chairs for audience seating, rolling space dividers to create wings and ultimately rented and purchased theatrical curtains, masking and an enormous custom made cyc for a backdrop. By the summer of 1978, the Spanish Ballroom had been converted into one of the nicest performing spaces available to the local dance community. In addition to the physical space, through state, county and private grants and donations, the Summer Dance Festival was able to provide paid performing opportunities to professional companies and free performing opportunities to emerging or student companies. These performances included performing space, all technical assistance, publicity, and often a much-needed review and/or video services. Dance companies were exposed to new audiences, as the festivals would draw generally 3,000 people over the course of a day. The festivals, which ran over the entire summer, from 1978 – 1990, had a variety of workshops, master classes, lecture-demonstrations and both formal and informal concerts on stages set up all over the Park. Not only was this of great benefit to the dance community, the greater Washington area benefited by having so many exciting dance opportunities offered throughout the summer at no virtually no cost! All of the events, with the exception of the evening concerts in the Ballroom theater, were offered for free. Artists who performed in the Festival included Liz Lerman/Dance Exchange, Tish Carter and Nancy Galeota’s New Moves, Sharon Wyrrick, Sally Nash, Debbie Kanter, Maryland Youth Ballet, Eric Hampton, and also companies from outside Washington, including the Jose Limon Company.

As the Festivals grew in size and stature, so did the studio and the company. Studio classes were offered by some of the best teachers in the metropolitan area, including advanced ballet for modern dancers with Ann Parsons and Mimi Legat and modern dance with Pola Nirenska. In addition to teaching classes, Pola came to Glen Echo to choreograph on both the resident company and also a series of guest dancers including Rima Faber and Collette Yglesias. The company had numerous critical successes and was featured in such prestigious venues as City Dance at the Warner Theater and a residency at ArtPark, in NY. Over the years, many outstanding dancers were members of Glen Echo Dance Theater including Nancy Galeota, Tish Carter, Ellie Denker, Katie Fowle, Jeff Moreland, Beth Davis, Bonnie Slawson, Betsy Eagan, Stephanie Simmons, Susan Hannan, Tom Truss, etc. In the late 80’s I expanded our residency to include Liz Lerman/Dance Exchange. The apprentice dance program, one of the few modern based apprentice programs in the country at the time, trained numerous young dancers who went on to dance in professional companies in NY including Leslie Ruley, (Nikolais), Debbie Cohen (Mark Dendy) and Beck Jung (Pilobolus) as well as other dancers who joined Washington based companies.

Many dancers and dance writers in Washington describe that time period, the late 1970’s through 1990, as the ‘heyday of Washington dance’. I like to think that Glen Echo Dance Theater had some part to play in that.

This is a video I put together from some of the performances of the recent DC Improv Festival:

 
I founded the DC International Performance Plus + Festival, which is now the Improvisation Festival.  I later co-curated with Jim Levy, Daniel Burkholder, Cyrus Khambatta, and Sharon Mansur.  A little over a year ago I turned the reigns of the festival over to my colleagues in the Metro/dc area. This year’s festival 
was coordinated by Amanda Abrams, with an excellent curatorial board.  
I’m so happy that the festival continues, am proud that it was one of the first such festivals nationally 
and/or internationally.

The DC International Improvisation Festival introduces audiences to 
diverse approaches to improvisation as a performing art and provides
 artists with opportunities for networking and exchange. Over the last 
thirteen years the DC International Improvisation Festival has 
successfully presented improvisational performances in theatres and for
site-specific venues throughout the Washington, DC area.
 

Mr. Bjerknes, a Bethesda resident, also was a soloist with the Houston Ballet and a principal dancer with the Joffrey Ballet, as well as a guest artist with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet in Canada and the Northern Ballet Theatre of England. Agnes de Mille, Robert Joffrey and Choo-San Goh choreographed original roles for him.

After Mr. Bjerknes stopped dancing, he became a teacher and ballet master at the Washington Ballet and the Universal Ballet in Seoul. He was an influential creative force in the Washington area for the past two decades.

In 2000, he and wife Pamela Bjerknes, a former member of American Ballet Theatre, founded the American Dance Institute, a thriving school and performance space. The institute came about at an opportune time, the couple told The Washington Post shortly after its opening. Pamela Bjerknes, then 46, was looking to expand her private teaching career, while her husband, then 43, was not eager to be a peripatetic artistic director, his next logical career step. Their three children also were in school.

“I have a limited ability to become a bohemian again,” Mr. Bjerknes told The Post.

Click here to read the rest of the Washington Post article.

To read more discussion on Michael, visit the board on Ballet Talk; click here.