dance at Trinity

My sister Kathy who works at Trinity College, invited me to see a special celebration of 40 years of dance at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. The performance was all about the Trinity College Dance program and the wonderful teachers and students who are involved. But when I saw the performance, I just couldn’t help but remember my own dance teacher of many years, Truda Kaschmann. Below is a photo of her taken by Peter Crowley. Seeing this photo of Truda carried me right back to the many classes I took with her and the all improvisational dance we did. The photo captures her warmth and her strength. She truly shaped me as an artist through the classes I took with her.

There is not a lot information online about Truda, but I did come across a few items. The passage below was written by Maggie Roberts, one of Truda’s students, through the Yale National Initiative as part of a curriculum guide. It’s titled, Putting Poetry on it's Feet.

"Truda Kaschmann's dance class met for an hour and a half and she devoted the last 20 minutes to different kinds of improvisation. One form of improvisation was dancing to poetry. Mrs. Kaschmann would recite a poem to us, allowing time between lines for us to move about. Each interpretation was correct in her eyes, and so we valued our own interpretations and our self-confidence and creativity grew."

I could not have said this any better than Maggie did. Because Truda valued our interpretations, our self confidence and our creativity grew. I try to teach my own mixed media art students in the same way.

Truda Kaschmann was a true modern dance pioneer. She brought Modern Dance to the Hartford Conservatory, formerly known as the Hartford School of Music. Alwin Nikolais was her most famous student, but she was proud of every one of her students. Both my sister Kathy and my mother took classes with her. I took many classes from Truda starting at a young age and for at least 25 years. Both of my parents encouraged me to dance and did a lot of driving to and from the classes.

It had been a long time since I had seen a dance performance until last night. There was a huge mix of dance styles in Trinity College's '40 Forward' celebration, from performance art, to a middle school kids’ rap, to traditional Indian dancing, as well as more 'traditional' modern dance. I enjoyed being there, catching a bit of that energy and being reminded of how powerful dance was and still is in my life. It was also very exciting to see Clive Thompson accept the Dance pioneer Award. He and his wife Liz introduced the Trinity College Dance program on the Trinity campus 40 years ago.

I don’t have a photo of me dancing that I can find, but I do have one of my mom as a young woman. She’s practicing modern dance at home in West Hartford CT, early 1950's. Most likely it’s a rehearsal for a Truda Kaschmann Dance Ensemble performance!

Thank you mom & dad, and to Kathy for the invite! With gratitude to my family…

I can’t resist adding this photo. From 1965?

The dancers! My sister Kathy, my mom and me.