This summer, New York’s River to River Festival is hosting a two-part tribute to Jules Feiffer as part of their Extraordinary Moves dance exposition. This exhibition includes “A Dance to Spring: The Drawings of Jules Feiffer” which examines a range of work over Feiffer’s 65 year career, including The Dancer, one of his most beloved creations.
The Dancer first appeared in Feiffer’s Village Voice strip in 1957 and only retired from syndication in 1997. Over the years, The Dancer has not only examined socio-political issues, but the challenges and joys of being human, as expressed in her undying commitment to movement.
This year, The Dancer finds new life through a series of short films directed and produced by filmmaking team Judy and Ellen Dennis. In these six short films, the Dennis sisters derive scripts directly from Feiffer’s strips while his drawings served as the basis for the choreography. Performed by Andrea Weber and Jennifer Dundas, as The Dancer and The Voice of the Dancer, respectively, the pair introduce the beloved piece to a new generation.
Whitewall spoke to Judy Dennis about how this project evolved.
WHITEWALL: What was the impetus behind bringing life to Jules Feiffer's dancer?
JUDY DENNIS: I was working on a screen adaptation of a story by Doris Lessing. After a reading with Angela Lansbury, and before I could get the film airborne - it's an ambitious project - I thought about a project within reach. I imagined creating a series of very short narrative films and....lightbulb.
WW: What was your goal in revisiting The Dancer in this way?
JD: The Dancer has been pretty much off the scene since Jules retired from The Village Voice in 1997. She's a perfect character to re-employ: cool men, bad weather and past Presidents often foil The Dancer's efforts to freely express herself, but she springs back, in full creative bloom, to navigate the complicated and wonderful world in which we all reside.
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WW: What was your first encounter with Feiffer's work?
JD: In high school, I directed a production of "Feiffer's People,” a theater medley of Jules's strips. That's when I first met The Dancer. Before that, we grew up with The Phantom Tollbooth. It's author, Norton Juster, was my dad's roommate in the Jewish frat at University of Pennsylvania.
WW: How do you feel The Dancer Films differ from the illustrated version?
JD: The Dancer Films are structured with two parts. Each film contains a dance and text (springing from a cartoon) and a coda. In the codas, we follow the Dancer through iconic New York locations, each linked thematically to its dance: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, American Museum of Natural History, across The Brooklyn Bridge, and up to the romantic heart of Central Park, Bow Bridge.
The films, of course, pulse with the spirit of our live Dancer: Andrea Weber and the voice Jennifer Dundas.
WW: How involved was Mr. Feiffer in the project?
JD: Jules said, Go Ahead! The day I approached him with my ideas. He dropped in twice during our artist residency at Baryshnikov Arts Center to take a quick look at the choreography we were creating, and was delighted. We saw him again once the films were entirely finished.
WW: How do you feel that film successfully captures dance? Are there ways in which you feel it is unsuccessful?
JD: Totally successful, thanks principally to rich collaborative work from choreographer Susan Marshall, choreographer Larry Keigwin, beautiful and inventive Andrea Weber, Neil Patel, our designer, and cinematographer Dyanna Taylor. We used Jules's cartoons as choreographic blueprints, and his aesthetic - mine, too - is unadorned. The dances are narrative and have their own movement-based values, too. The idea, visually, was to create a sense of the rapturous place she goes to when she dances; and to keep the audience's experience of the Dancer as unobstructed - free - as possible.
The voice of Jennie Dundas and Jane Ira Bloom's music, composed with great feeling for the dance, and perfectly orchestrated with a cool 60s beat, complete the synthesis.
“A Dance to Spring: The Drawings of Jules Feiffer “ can be seen at the World Financial Center’s Winter Garden from July 9 through August 14 and "The Dancer Films" will be on exhibit through July 17th.