The Men Who Danced From Springfield College to Jacob's Pillow
There ought to be a book entitled "When Good Things Happen to Good People" because such a book can give direction, encouragement and optimism to those among us who have vision and courage. When good things happen we need to open the windows wide and to let the sunshine in. Optimists see the possibilities of the ripples that may come from that one stone that is dropped in the pond and how all of life may ultimately be affected and enhanced by that one tiny pebble.
My story begins at the end of a series of recent events that spin about wildly in my psyche. Larry Humphries, a man who has played a valuable role at Jacob's Pillow dance theatre for more than forty years telephoned to tell me that he had a note from Ella Baff, executive director of Jacob's Pillow, saying that a contribution had been made in Larry's name, to the Pillow, America's first theatre designed for dance. The contribution had been made by Betty MacCormack, the widow of Wilbur MacCormack, one of the men who had danced in the original group that Ted Shawn assembled in 1933 at Jacob's Pillow. She honored Larry who had danced at Jacob's Pillow in the 1960's and later became director of publicity and dance critic under the direction of Ted Shawn. Larry Humphries continues to have a close association with the famed dance theatre.
Another of the recent events that spins about in my psyche and relates to my story continues to be about Larry, who had told me that he had been invited to be a guest at the Landmark Gala celebrating the news that Jacob's Pillow has this year been named a National Historic Landmark. Landmarks are chosen by the federal government for their outstanding ability to make tangible ideas and events that shape the nation and represent the American Experience. This surely is an event that would be included in the book about good things happening to good people.
After the spectacular evening at the Pillow celebration, Larry Humphries told me that he had met with Dr. Cynthia Noble, director of the Springfield College Dance Program and he arranged for Cynthia and me to meet at Lockland Hall on the campus. I was waiting when she arrived. She might well have been an undergraduate student; she was wearing sandals and shorts and she walked with the grace of a dancer. There was an immediate connection as we sat in a cool, empty classroom at Lochland Hall, facing each other across a table. Cynthia told me that she teaches a wide range of students, dance majors, dance minors, physical therapists, athletes and she came to Springfield College because she was interested in arts education and the development of the dance program. Cynthia spoke with great pleasure about the Honorary Doctorate in Humanities Degree that had been awarded to Liz Thompson, who had served as former Director of Jacob Pillow's Dance Festival. This is the kind of thing that strengthens those historical and artistic ties between the College and the Pillow. The story of the relationship between Springfield College and Jacob's Pillow is an important one that needs to be told and celebrated.
Cynthia Noble has been a modem dancer and choreographer but she sees herself primarily as a teacher, a dance educator. While she is from the Bay Area and has lived and studied in Ohio, she has had a Jacob's Pillow Connection from Myra Kinch, her first dance instructor. Her work at Springfield College is especially important to her because of the Pillow Connection and her vision is that the connection will continue to flourish. This Historic Landmark is the kind of inspiration for students of the arts in the Springfield College Community that can enrich both their educational experience and their life experience. Many of her students have seen dance only via the media and once they experience live performances that adds to their thirst. Cynthia's office in East Gym is the office that was Ted Shawn's when President Doggett hired him to teach a dance class at the old YMCA college that later became our own Springfield College. You can't beat that for inspiration.
At the end of our meeting Cynthia told me that she would put a video aside at the Babson Library for me that would tell me about Ted Shawn and "The Men Who Danced." We walked together to my car and I knew that a good thing had happened which prepared me for another good thing, the film that I would see the next day.
The next day was a beautiful day on the campus on Alden Street as I lifted my walker out of my trunk and made my way up the handicapped ramp at Babson Library, where several typical Springfield College students helped me maneuver around and over a few concrete bumps. They laughed when I told them my well-worn line about the dinosaurs that roamed on Alden Street when I was an undergraduate. I laughed with them but underneath it all I could see the kindness of these young people, which is quite typical of that special quality one sees at Springfield College. Once inside the cool, serenity of Babson a student set up the video and I experienced the significance and meaning of so much that I had known and was reawakened by my conversations with Larry Humphries and Cynthia Noble.
"The Men Who Danced" is a film that tells the story of the young athletes that were in Ted Shawn's dance class at Springfield College at a time when there was strong prejudice against men dancing. In 1932 Shawn did a demonstration with four male dancers in the gymnasium to a surprisingly enthusiastic audience in the gym at the YMCA college and was asked by President. Doggett to teach dance to the entire student body of athletes at the college. By the time the school year had ended and the football players no longer huffed and puffed; they did not think of the class as "effeminate." The experience proved valuable both to the students and to their teacher.
Ted Shawn had bought an old farm in the Berkshires that was in need of repair; there was no running water, no electricity and it was to this place, Jacob's Pillow, that Ted Shawn took the young men who would form a company that would establish legitimacy for men in the art of dance. The young athlete-dancers worked close to the earth, clearing the fields, building stone walls and making the roads and growing much of their own food all the while preparing to tour the country. It was hard labor this planting of the fields and the digging and building. It was Men's Work There was great power in what they did together in those depression days when there was no money. The young men often held teas for the ladies in the town and they served tea and cookies before they changed into their leotards and performed their magic. There was a box into which their guests donated one dollar for the performance. It was a triumph; a victory for the dancers who connected with the audience and who learned from performing and it was a victory for the audience who saw the magnificence of the art.
For seven winters the men lived at Jacob's Pillow; They danced eight hundred and-fifty performances in six hundred cities, in every state in the Union as well as in Canada, Cuba, and in England. And the world developed an appreciation of men dancers in ways they could not have dreamed. The dancers did their own technical work; they provided their own lighting and costumes and makeup and they drove thousands of miles from one place to the next. Their energy and vision knew no bounds and the sheer force of Shawn's personality kept everyone together.
But like all things, there are endings and the men who danced went their separate ways in those days before the Second World War. Shawn died in 1972. The world changed; men had a place in the dance that reflected the new view of performance. The old prejudices died and the crusade to establish this new place for men in dance became reality beyond what might have been imagined in those days before men danced.
After fifty years these pioneer artists met together at Jacob's Pillow for a reunion they would not forget. There had been a new building in 1942 built by Joseph Franz with a weather vane portraying one of the male dancers, Barton Mumaw, who was poised above in an open position and in his hand was a banner that blew in the breeze welcoming back the Men Who Danced and ultimately changed the world with their vision.
And so it is that good things do happen to good people and small stones that are dropped in a pond do make ripples that reach far beyond where they began. Springfield College, Dr. Doggett, Ted Shawn. Larry Humphries, Cynthia Noble and, indeed all of us, can open up our windows and let the sunshine in. •