Remembering Tamiris, Part 7: How Long, Brethren?

(A WPA poster promoting Tamiris's "Negro Spirituals," and also her production of How Long, Brethren?, 1937. Image courtesy of George Mason University, Special Collections & Archives.)

During her time as a WPA choreographer, Helen Tamiris's most successful dance production was How Long, Brethren? It ran from May 6 to July 4, 1937, at the Nora Bayes Theatre at 216 W. 44th Street; re-opened in July at the Maxine Elliot Theatre at 109 W. 39th Street; and, as you can see from the poster above, had a return engagement at the 49th Street Theatre in December. 

How Long, Brethren? was based on African American songs of protest, and told of "poverty, starvation, injustice, and death. The final song ended in a plea to change all this." The production included an African American chorus and a full orchestra. Tamiris's choreography and dancing stunned the audience: "The simple and honest movement and the eloquent design made the opening night audience stand up and cheer. In fact, the reaction was so whole-hearted and spontaneous that the show was interrupted many times by applause and shouts so loud the dancers could not hear the orchestra or the chorus in the pit" (Christina L. Schlundt, Helen Tamiris: A Chronicle of Her Dance Career, 1927-1955, New York Public Library, 1972, pp. 46 and 52-53).

On June 20, 1937, the following was reported in the New York Times: "Tamiris, director and premiere danseuse of the Federal Theatre dance drama, 'How Long, Brethren?' received the Dance Magazine's annual award of excellence in a formal presentation last night at the Nora Bayes Theatre, where the production is now running. Her direction of the group choreography in 'How Long, Brethren?' was termed the 'most brilliant for the year 1936-37.'"

Remembering Tamiris, Part 6: Helen Tamiris, Walt Whitman, and the WPA

(A WPA poster promoting Tamiris's dance production of Salut au Monde. The poster was created by artist Richard Halls in 1936, and the dance production was based on Walt Whitman's poem of the same name. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.)

In the program for her WPA production of Salut au Monde, Helen Tamiris wrote:

"Salut au Monde, of all Whitman's poems, furnishes a prophetic insight into the problems of the American people and of the rest of mankind today. In it Whitman portrays Man the Individual, surrounded by nature and the environment created by his own efforts, struggling for his existence in the process of which he has created his crafts, his arts, his customs, his lands, his cities, his industries, his religions, his cultures and civilizations, his joys and sufferings - all that sustains man. And through all these innumerable forces and changes, he sees the divine right of the individual, regardless or race, sex, religion, country, social position, material wealth, or individual differences.

'Each of us inevitable,
Each of us limitless--each of us with his or her right upon the earth,
Each of us allow'd the eternal purports of the earth,
Each of us here as divinely as any is here.'

--Walt Whitman, 1881"    

Salut au Monde played from July 23, 1936 to August 5, 1936. It played at various locations, for example, the Henry Street Settlement on July 23 (New York Times, July 19, 1936) and the McMillin Academic Theatre at Columbia University on August 5 (New York Times, August 2, 1936).

(Tamiris's quote above is from: Christena L. Schlundt, Tamiris: A Chronicle of Her Dance Career, 1927-1955, New York Public Library, 1972, p. 51)   

Remembering Tamiris, Part 5: A sense of social responsibility that was a perfect fit for the New Deal

(Helen Tamiris, 1927. Photo by Soichi Sunami, part of the New York Public Library's Dance Collection, used here for historical, educational, and non-commercial purposes. Image scanned from a personal copy.)

After Helen Tamiris passed away in 1966, the New York Times noted her sense of social responsibility: "As the nineteen-thirties unfolded Miss Tamiris's dancing and choreography showed a strong social and political involvement. The despair of the unemployed, the plight of the Southern Negro and the horrors of war all found expression in her work" (August 5, 1966).

Tamiris came from a low-income background and was aware of Jewish persecution through the centuries (her parents were Jewish immigrants from Russia). Add in the misery of the Great Depression, and this probably goes a long way towards explaining why she had sympathies for the downtrodden.
  

Tamiris's background and social concern were a perfect match for the New Deal. Specifically, both Tamiris and New Deal policymakers wanted to lift up those who had been excommunicated from society due to their unemployment, poverty, or race. Tamiris saw the WPA's Federal Threatre Project (from which she would help carve out the Federal Dance Project) as a way to give work to jobless performers, and also as a way to bring modern dance to lower-income Americans - Americans who could not normally afford such high-brow entertainment: "Fired by her sense of mission... She alone of all the major dancers working in the Thirties gave up her career, her [dancing] group, almost her very self for the sense of purpose she felt in the Project" (Christena L. Schlundt, Tamiris: A Chronicle of Her Dance Career, 1927-1955, New York Public Library, 1972, pp. 38-39).  

Remembering Tamiris, Part 4: A dance production to re-elect Roosevelt

(Helen Tamiris in the early 1950s. Photo from the New York City Public Library Dance Collection, used here for historical, educational, and non-commercial purposes.)

In 1944, several years after her days as a WPA choreographer, Helen Tamiris and her husband Daniel Nagrin created a dance production that was "part of a revue entitled The People's Bandwagon, put together for appearances in movie theatres for the purpose of reelecting Franklin D. Roosevelt..." The People's Bandwagon appeared in 25 cities. Tamiris later said, "The exciting thing about this tour was the knowledge that the dance could be part of something as important as helping to elect a president. We not only did some of our own concert dances but appeared in especially created material on the election." Other people appearing in the tour included folk singer Woody Guthrie and actor Will Geer (later famous for portraying "Grandpa" on the The Waltons) (Christena L. Schlundt, Tamiris: A Chronicle of Her Dance Career, 1927-1955, 1972, pp. 62 and 67). 

It was around this same time period that Tamiris's Broadway career was beginning to take off. Between 1943 and 1957, "she choreographed 18 musical comedies, fourteen of which had runs on Broadway, six of which were long runs..." (see previous note, p. 68). In 1950 she won a Tony Award for Best Choreography for the production Touch and Go.

Remembering Tamiris, Part 3: Tamiris as Cassandra

(A WPA poster promoting the dance production "Trojan Incident." Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

In the WPA's dance production of the Trojan Incident, Tamiris played Cassandra, who was the daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba. In Greek mythology, Cassandra tried to warn the Trojans about the Greeks hiding in the Trojan Horse, but no one believed her.

Trojan Incident played at the St. James Theatre at 246 W. 44th St. in New York, from April 21 to May 21, 1938. The play, and Tamiris's performance, divided critics. For example, "Tamiris was accused of bringing such terrifying intensity to her movement both for herself and the group that it was claimed to be wearing on mind and spirit" (Christena L. Schlundt, Tamiris: A Chronicle of Her Dance Career, 1927-1955, 1972, p. 47). 

On the other hand, New York Times critic Brooks Atkinson, while noting that the production was "plagued by ineptitude," said the "the speed, precision and boldness of the dance imagery is frequently exciting..." (New York Times, April 22, 1938). John Martin, another New York Times reviewer, suggested that it was Tamiris's choreography and performance that saved the play:

"It would require a hardy soul indeed, to recommend attendance at the WPA production of 'Trojan Incident' at the St. James Theatre, for, truth to tell, it is only the dances of Tamiris, supported by the admirable musical score of  Wallingford Riegger, that keep it from transforming one of the world's greatest dramas into inadvertent farce" (New York Times, May 1, 1938).

But not everyone agreed with Atkinson and Martin's opinions that the play, as a whole, was problematic. One theatre-goer scolded the criticism of Trojan Incident as "uninformed derision" and described the play as "purposeful and interesting" (New York Times, May 15, 1938).

Remembering Tamiris, Part 2: "Adelante"

(A WPA poster promoting Adelante, 1939. Image courtesy of George Mason University, Special Collections & Archives.)

In the WPA's dance theatre production of Adelante (which means "forward" in Spanish) Helen Tamiris played the girlfriend of a peasant soldier. The play was based on the Spanish Civil War, and the horrors of war more generally it would seem. One reviewer said of the production, "over it all hangs the air of the fantastic and the nightmarish." There were all sorts of political and religious aspects to the Spanish Civil War, and so Adelante went through a fairly rigorous editing process to stay within the content guidelines of federal funding. Hallie Flanagan, the director of the FTP, told Tamiris to focus on the tragedy of war, in a more general sense, as opposed to clearly supporting one side over the other. Tamiris's politics were left-wing and anti-fascist but, at the time, some American citizens, industrialists, and politicians held pro-fascist and even pro-Nazi views.

After a successful two-week run at Daly's 63rd Street Theatre, Adelante played at the 1939 New York World's Fair.

(See, Lisa Jackson-Schebetta, "Corporeal Disasters of War: Legibilities of 'Spain' and the Jewish Body in Helen Tamiris's Adelante!," in Elizabeth Reitz Mullenix (ed.), Theatre History Studies 2014, Vol 33: Theatres of War, University of Alabama Press, 2014, pp. 35-55.)

Remembering Tamiris, Part 1: Bringing modern dance to the people - through the WPA

(Helen Tamiris, center, with fellow dancers Augusta Gassner, Dvo Seron, Ailes Gilmour, Marion Appell, and Lulu Morris, 1937. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

As a choreographer and dancer in the WPA's Federal Dance Project (part of the larger Federal Theatre Project) from 1936 to 1939, Helen Tamiris achieved her goal of bringing modern dance to more people. In 1948, she wrote: "In the early days, in the Twenties, there were many times when I doubted that modern dance would ever reach a large audience.  But the years of the Great Depression and the experience of working as a choreographer for the Federal Theatre Project settled that doubt.  When Charles Weidman's Candide and my How Long, Brethren? and Adelante were presented to cheering audiences that had never seen a dance recital, I knew that the modern dance was not an esoteric passing phase of dance to be enjoyed only by the cognoscenti, but one that could reach large audiences" (Christena L. Schlundt, Tamiris: A Chronicle of Her Dance Career, 1927-1955, New York: New York Public Library, 1972, pp. 75-76)