Frederick Hammersley Fund, New Mexico PBS Great Southwestern Arts & Education Endowment Fund, and the Nellita E. Walker Fund for KNME-TV at the Albuquerque Community Foundation New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and by the National Endowment for the Arts and Viewers Like You It was like opening up your heart to the world when you went to Santa Fe.

JUDITH CHAZIN-BENNAHUM SHARES HER EARLY CAREER AS A DANCER AT THE METROPLITAN AND SANTA FE OPERAS A BEHIND THE SCENES LOOK AT THEIR FIRST PRODUCTION, THE “OUTSIDE CIRCLE THEATER PROJECT,” PROVIDES A STAGE FOR UNDERREPRESENTED VOICES TO SHARE THEIR STORY.

COMBINING A 19TH CENTURY PHOTOGRAPHIC PROCESS WITH A 1970S TOY CAMERA, ARTIST CAROL MUNDER CREATES HER OWN WORLD IT'S ALL AHEAD ON COLORES ON POINT [Music] >>Faith: How did you begin your journey as a dancer?

>>Gigi: First of all, I lived in New York where dance companies were prevailing and I fell in love with the idea of moving, of being active.

I was a very nervous child, very irrepressibly, energetic.

My mother didn't quite know what to do with me sometimes, so she took me to a wonderful studio in New York at Carnegie Hall called Fokine's Ballet Studio.

It was the son of the very most famous choreographer at the time, Michel Fokine, who was the choreographer for the Ballet Russe.

I studied in this studio and I just loved ballet.

I think it was because it was so difficult and so interesting, and it was like trying to be perfect, and I wanted so much to make my body do what I thought was beautiful.

And also, I wanted to fly.

I wasn't scared of getting in front of an audience.

And the choreographers were quite interesting to me.

I mean, the movements and the way in which the movements expressed emotion.

And then of course, I had a career as a professional dancer, and that happened after I went to college.

>>Faith: And from there, one of your first auditions was Goldilocks?

>>Gigi: Yes!

>>Faith: How was that?

Can you tell me about your first audition experience?

>>Gigi: Oh my God, that was so fun!

>>Faith: Yeah!

>>Gigi: First of all, I graduated from college.

>>Faith: Yes.

>>Gigi: I took my diploma and I gave it to my father who was so happy that I went to school, graduated from college.

And then all I did was read Variety, which is where all the auditions took place.

And two weeks after I graduated, there was an audition, and it was an audition with Agnes De Mille.

She was the choreographer and she was famous because she had done Oklahoma and many other Broadway musicals that were absolutely impeccable and beautiful.

So there was hundreds of people at this audition and all these people on stage, and I was so scared.

I went in the back and I just said, "Well, this is a good experience.

It's my first audition."

I'll hang in the back."

But one of the kids I went to performing arts with, Peter Saul, was there and he said, "Gigi, come on, get in front."

I said, "No."

He said, "Yes, get in front!"

So he pushed me in front and there I was doing these glissade-assemble, tombe pas de bourrée, whatever, and then I heard Agnes say, "Who is the redhead with the long legs?"

>>Faith: [Laughter] >>Gigi: And that was-that was why I got in.

She wanted a redhead with long legs.

>>Faith: [Laughter] >>Gigi: I was just very lucky.

And it was a wonderful show.

The choreography, we had seven dances, seven changes of costume.

I mean, really, some very fast changes.

It was quite exhausting, but it was a very good experience for me.

But I then decided I couldn't be in another Broadway show.

>>Faith: Oh, no?

>>Gigi: I couldn't, it was so difficult to do seven shows, six days a week.

So after that, my friend Nancy said, "There's an audition for the Metropolitan Opera Ballet Company, and maybe you should go and take a class with Antony Tudor.

He's the ballet director of the company."

So, I went to the audition, I met Mr. Tudor.

He was very- he had the tallest longest back, and he taught a very cicchetti class.

He was very smooth, very lyrical, very formulated.

He knew exactly what the combinations would be, but because he was a choreographer, he played with them and they were very complex.

So it was tough figuring out what the combinations would be and remembering them and then doing them.

But he went by me as we were- as I was standing at the bar, and he- he liked to challenge dancers.

He liked to be kind of naughty.

And he said, "What did you dream about last night?"

And I was right on it.

And I said, "Why you Mr.

Tudor!"

>>Faith: [Laughter] >>Gigi: He loved it.

And that didn't help me at all because the audition went on for hours and it was really tough.

But I got into the company and it was very exciting being at the Met.

The Metropolitan Opera is an extraordinary place to work because there are hundreds of core, hundreds of musicians- not really, but it felt like that many.

And then we had a pretty big dance company at the time, and it was a very exciting place to work because every, every day was a different opera, and there were ballets in many of the operas.

So, we were on stage all the time, if not rehearsing, then on stage performing.

>>Faith: What was the first performance that you had where you were like the principal soloist?

>>Gigi: Aida was my most exciting cause it was a very challenging ballet.

There was a split at the end where I'm hiked up with two guys and I had to get it exactly right, otherwise you tip over here or tip over there.

And there was a fantastic lift before that where I had to tumble.

It was really acrobatic.

I had to step onto his- one of the guy's arms, Donald's arms, and then he would flip me over and then both of them would lift me up.

And it was really not so easy to do, but it was great.

It was- it was exciting to do that kind of movement.

>>Faith: So, what drew you to the Santa Fe Opera as a dancer, and how did that experience help you understand the connection between dance and opera?

>>Gigi: I have to tell you, I wasn't too interested in opera, but I became very interested when I got into the Met.

I loved it.

And I would sit in the first wing and listen, even if I weren't in the opera.

So, when John Crosby was creating a ballet company along with the Santa Fe Opera, Crosby invited Tommy Andrew to be the ballet choreographer for the ballet evenings we were to do in Santa Fe, and Tommy came to me after one of the shows- he was in the Met with me in the ballet company, and he said, "Do you want to go to Santa Fe?"

I said, "Sure!

I've never been to New Mexico.

Why not?"

>>Faith: So, when you were at the Santa Fe Opera, were there particular roles or productions that you felt had a lasting impact on you and your career as a dancer?

>>Gigi: Sure.

>>Faith: For instance, I know you were lead in Clarissa.

>>Gigi: Yes.

I was the soloist in Clarissa.

>>Faith: Yeah.

>>Gigi: And that was a ballet to Reveille's left-handed composition, which was very beautiful piece.

And Tommy choreographed it, and it was about a young woman who is taken under the wing of a rather wealthy gentleman, and then really not taken care of by him and suffers as a result.

So, it was very dramatic and very challenging choreography.

And the music built to a crescendo where you were just totally in the music and you lost sight of everything on stage.

You were just in the piece.

And we worked with wonderful choreographers.

We worked with John Butler and Tommy choreographed beautiful stuff.

He even did Persephone.

And we met Vera Zorina, who was a very famous ballet dancer and got to know her and her two kids and her husband, and she was the one who admired my dancing.

The excitement of working in Santa Fe can't be overestimated.

It was a very uplifting, and I would say a very educational experience because Mr. Stravinsky, was- he was very critical.

He had a very critical eye.

He was not easy on any singer or any musician or any composer.

He was a character of extraordinary presence.

And his wife also with very good taste and was an artist herself, because she designed the costumes for Persephone.

So, getting to know them was really a very privileged experience.

>>Faith: And how did it feel having Stravinsky in the audience watching?

>>Gigi: It was terrifying.

>>Faith: Yeah.

Why is that?

>>Gigi: Yeah, it was his opera.

But yeah, because he was like a God.

And I think Crosby felt very privileged to have him there the whole summer because music- everybody loved, but they didn't necessarily know how it was played and whether the orchestra was playing it correctly.

>>Faith: So, coming from Manhattan in the Met and performing in this open air desert place at the Santa Fe Opera, how was that experience?

>>Gigi: Going to Santa Fe was astounding, not only because it was so- it was a desert and there were mountains and we were from Manhattan.

All we had was buildings, and I was so, taken by the sky and the way in which the clouds were so apparent, it was like opening up your heart to the world when you went to Santa Fe, and I think there was much more of isolation in New York than in Santa Fe.

That's it.

I felt more isolated in the big city, and I think everyone felt that way, that we were all at one with each other, and the operas benefited from that.

>>Faith: So, do you have any specific memories of being on the Santa Fe opera stage?

>>Gigi: Being outdoors is quite a wondrous thing, especially since you know what the background was, which was Los Alamos and the mountains and the beauty of the whole landscape.

So, breathing the air outdoors, it was so full- it was so fresh.

I mean, you never felt you were in fresh air at the Met, but you had this marvelous sense of breathe, when you are- which is so important in dance, and you're moving through this space, so you have that feeling.

Then you also feel nature.

I mean, in Persephone, we were nymphs, so, I felt like I was in a forest.

>>Faith: After the Santa Fe Opera, it was Zorina that told you to audition for Balanchine, right?

>>Gigi: It was a very good audition, and he said, "You come to Russia with us."

This was for the Russian tour, and I really wanted to go.

But, the point work was very, very difficult, and you had to be on point all the time, even in class with Balanchine, and I was having severe pain in my left foot, but then working so much in ballet- of course, you're on pointe all the time.

I began to feel pain, and it was so, excruciating at times, I realized that I couldn't do the tour, and it was very sad for me.

I felt really struck by it, struck down by it, and it threw me into a very kind of sad state.

Even though I was still dancing at the Met.

I think it taught me that if you fall down, you get up and- you know, dance is something that's part of your soul.

It's just part of your body, I guess, because it's in the body and you can't lose your body.

You got it for the rest of your life, and the body speaks.

The body tells stories.

The body is history.

The body is amazing as- as a mechanism for expression and as a tool for your world, for the world you live in.

SHARING A DREAM Everybody has a novel in a drawer somewhere, right?

I bet you there's a lot of plays underneath socks in drawers, you know?

And we thought, I wonder how many people in this community want that opportunity?

We have an amazingly diverse community here in this county and really not a lot of serious theater.

The mission is to provide a venue for anyone who has a creative idea or play or something they want to produce that could not otherwise get it produced or have anyone read it or look at it in any serious way.

And we're willing to do that.

I believe there are a lot of great writers out there, and I'm huge on encouraging people to share their dream.

There are a lot of marginalized voices that don't normally get heard, and that's kind of our focus.

[If you need any help, I can be the hostess] One of my favorite poets is Audre Lorde.

One of her poems talks about women and being different.

She talks about women who live outside the circle, being different and wanting to do different things and just being outside of the norm.

There are always that group of people that are outside the circle that are just as talented or for some, more talented than those that are in the circle.

Sometimes those of us are those people outside the circle just need that push to believe that they belong in the circle.

And, so we thought, that's what we're doing.

We're on the verge of retiring.

We're of a certain age, you know, we want to do something different, something fun.

And everybody's different in their own way, you know?

I don't think that we're necessarily so radical in that idea.

Then we set up a playwriting contest.

We said, “Where are we going to get the content?” And we got- oh, maybe ten plus, plays.

I think maybe I was projecting that we were looking at DEI, that we were going to get a lot of marginalization issues, but we got Molly McFadden's play about ageism.

And that's a marginalization issue.

That's ageism.

I think in terms of looking at underrepresented voices, that was a perfect pick.

So, we invited Molly to Elyria she gave us permission to produce her play.

When I got accepted and the award, I thought I got the Oscar.

It's about loss.

Love.

It's about a lady who is fearful of changing her life and feels like she has no agency.

She's in her 70s.

She feels like she's being forced by her family to leave the home and neighborhood, and the neighborhood family that she's come to love.

And that's scary for her.

And she's uncomfortable with that notion.

For me with “The Downside,” I hope people see themselves and are open to it.

Because like every writer, you want to write about your life.

When we lived in Michigan, we had a jazz bistro called Molly's.

Well, it was time to sell the equipment, the books, my cookbooks, and I had a meltdown, and I said, “they're taking my life away.” And, my daughter was like, “Mom, they're not.” God bless her, she was saying, “you need to downsize.

You need to ask, Do I love this object?

Can it be let go?” And I said, “No, that's my memory, that's my life.” So, I understood the struggle between an adult and a child who cares.

I found what came out of that is what we're all going through when we go through transitions of life and those transitions of you need to downsize, you need to let go.

You need to face the fact you're getting older.

Those are healthy.

It was painful.

It was funny.

And the more I wrote the more people kept saying, "Go!

Keep going."

Before I knew it, I had a full-length play and everybody's relating to it, you know?

For me particularly, I think ageism is a thing.

And it's going to affect all of us at some point in our lives.

And I really felt connected to the angst that she was going through in having to make huge life decisions because we're all going to be there.

[Never in my life have I seen Sam and I thought I knew everyone in this neighborhood.]

I’m excited for people to see it.

I'm excited that it's our first production.

I'm excited because I know this is going to be the beginning of great things.

This is something that I really feel is going to transform Elyria and Lorain County.

There's so much we can learn from each other, and theater can bring you together in such a unique way.

So, I’m very excited for people to see this, but I’m even more excited that I look at it as a stepping-stone to greater things to come.

And more people looking at it and saying, “Hey, this is legitimate.

I want to get involved.” And no matter what happens, we did it.

We tried.

And that's the whole point of the exercise.

And we, we will have said something about how we see our community.

We will have made a statement about how we expect our world to remain and change at the same time.

Just being able to see the words I wrote down portrayed and how it impacts their life and the audience.

That's a gift.

And they've-they’ve got the passion.

They've got the drive.

They have the mission.

And there's other writers out there who have a story to tell and they will find their way here.

And something magical is happening.

[Am I having trouble getting rid of things because of an attachment to the past or fear of the future?]

Creating an Unusual World My name's Carol Munder, I’m a photographer and I use the process photogravure.

It's a 19th century process where I've taken image that I've photographed and through a process it's transferred to a copper plate, the copper plate is etched and then you print on a gravure press to get the final image.

It's a long process, it takes many days.

There's different stages of the process that have to be done days ahead of time, things I have to cure.

I work with raw chemistry, so that's mixed together.

So normally I soak it, you know, like 24 hours ahead of time, because the water- I don't know, slowly goes into the paper, and it's absorbed, and I can kind of pull it out and almost put it on the press right away.

It's a slow process and I love it 'cause it keeps me outta trouble.

The softness comes through a camera that I use.

I photographed with a Diana camera, and it was originally manufactured in the 70s as a toy.

You could buy it for $3.95 at the Dime Store.

It was sort of like the images were soft edged and it was something that spoke to me.

My father was a commercial lithographer, so that whole printing world maybe runs in my blood or something, I'm not sure.

But I had in my library of books a chapter in a book on photo gravure and happenstance, I had even highlighted part of the process in there years and years ago.

So, if you're going do it, you have to be dedicated.

And I taught myself and I made every mistake in the book and then some.

So, for some reason the first time you sort of ink a plate, it needs a second time around to really start grabbing the ink properly.

I don't know why that is.

Today, you can go online, you can watch videos, you can do workshops.

It was pretty limited back then on what was available, and I had out of print books that I taught myself and you're much better off taking workshops if you can because there's a lot of things they don't talk about.

The humidity is a real important factor for it, and they sort of didn't mention that in the books.

I used to photograph in museums a lot.

I was photographing Etruscan sculptures a lot, really close up through glass, so you would get refractions, you know, you go through a lot of different phases.

But now I'm photographing just with these wooden sculptures that we've been finding in flea markets that are anonymously carved almost like outsider art, anatomically incorrect sculptures that are just so soulful.

And I started photographing them 'cause I just loved them and it evolved over the years.

But now I montage an image because with my camera, it's limitations are, it's a plastic lens.

I'm limited by the size of something.

So, I will photograph something that's, you know, six inches big and have to put it into a different environment.

And, you know, you have to adjust those to sort of play some sort of game of making it.

I mean, it's an unusual world that I'm creating.

Funding for COLORES was provided in part by: Frederick Hammersley Fund, New Mexico PBS Great Southwestern Arts & Education Endowment Fund, and the Nellita E. Walker Fund for KNME-TV at the Albuquerque Community Foundation New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and by the National Endowment for the Arts and Viewers Like You.