Clarence Brooks in Mourner’s Bench by Talley Beatty.
Photo: Mats Rudels

June 13 and 14, 7:30 pm
Purdie Space
523 Palisade Avenue, Jersey City NJ
FREE (RSVP recommended)

Samantha Geracht, Sokolow Theatre/Dance Ensemble‘s Artistic Director, received a Jersey City Arts Council Individual Artist Grant to choreograph “Benched,” a work which will examine what it means to be benched, to take a knee, and…. Inspired by Talley Beatty’s Mourner’s Bench as well as Leni Williams’ Sweet In The Morning, she is working closely with dancer Clarence Brooks to create a new solo which will premiere at this event.

The program will include other dance works which use a bench as a metaphor for being set aside, left out, or isolated. Clarence Brooks will perform Talley Beatty’s masterwork Mourner’s Bench. Sokolow Theatre/Dance Ensemble will perform Janis Brenner’s The Shekhinah/Voices* and an excerpt from Robert E. Cleary’s Bound and Determined. And featuring a bench in an entirely different role will be Anna Sokolow’s surreal take on Magritte’s painting “The Menaced Assassin,” from Magritte, Magritte.

This event is made possible in part by the Individual Artist Fellowship program provided by the Jersey City Arts Council and the Jersey City Arts & Culture Trust Fund.

*In Jewish mystical literature, “Shekhinah” is the word for the feminine principle of God or the female Divine Presence immanent in the world.

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Bios

SAMANTHA GÉRACHT, MFA (Artistic Director) performed with Anna Sokolow’s Players’ Project for eleven years and is a founding member of the Sokolow Theatre/Dance Ensemble. She has toured and taught Sokolow’s repertory nationally and internationally, setting Ms. Sokolow’s works on professional companies, university dance programs, and solo dance artists. Samantha has been the Ensemble’s Artistic Director since 2017. 

Samantha studied technique and composition with Alwin Nikolais and Murry Louis, Humphrey/Limon with Jim May, Betty Jones, Fritz Luden, and Gail Corbin, and Weidman with Deborah Carr. She has taught in the Professional Studies program at the Limon Institute, the Herbert Berghoff (‘HB’) Studio, and is on the faculty of the Hoboken Charter School. Her performance credits include Deborah Carr Theater Dance Ensemble, Rae Ballard’s Thoughts in Motion, and David Parker and The Bang Group. In 2016 she choreographed Shadowbox Theatre’s The Earth and Me, a critically acclaimed climate change puppet/dance opera created for NYC public schools and community centers. She served as a panelist for the Library of Congress opening of the “New Dance Group” archives, and received a 2025 Finalist award from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. She holds an MFA in dance from Montclair State University (NJ) and a BS in dance from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Ms. Géracht is committed to the preservation of early American Modern Dance, making the works of modern dance pioneers more accessible to dance education programs, young artists, and new audiences.

TALLEY BEATTY studied with Martha Graham and Katherine Dunham and became a principal dancer with the Katherine Dunham Company at age sixteen. After touring with the Dunham Company for five years and appearing in films such as A Study in Choreography for Camera and Broadway shows such as Cabin in the Sky, Pins and Needles, and Blue Holiday, Mr. Beatty formed his own company and toured throughout Europe, the U.S. and Canada. For his work on Broadway, Beatty was nominated for a 1977 Tony Award as Best Choreographer for Your Arm’s Too Short to Box with God. He is considered one of the greatest African American choreographers and his work focuses on the social issues, experiences, and everyday life of African Americans. Mourner’s Bench is an excerpt from Mr. Beatty’s first ballet, Southern Landscapes, which takes a dramatic look at the end of the reconstruction period marked by the end, through destruction, of the thousands of cooperative farms that had been created after the Civil War. (From University of Washington’s website)

JANIS BRENNER is an award-winning dancer, choreographer, singer, and teacher and is Artistic Director of Janis Brenner & Dancers in NY. Over her decades long career, she has toured in 36 countries and received numerous awards and grants, including a “Bessie” nomination for Solo for Janis by Richard Siegal; 2018 “Best Production” Award for Inheritance: A Litany at the United Solo Theatre Festival Off-Broadway; 2017 “Best Choreography” Award for Eva Petric’s eden, transplanted at United Solo Theatre Festival; a commission for the interdisciplinary work, The Memory Project from The Whitney Museum of American Art; and international grants from US Embassies in Moscow, Bosnia, Jakarta, and Dakar. She received her MFA degree from the Hollins University/ADF in 2009.

Ms. Brenner is a sought-after master teacher conducting workshops in Improvisation, Composition, Repertory and Vocal Work both nationally and internationally. She was on faculty at The Juilliard School from 2009-2021, and is currently on faculty at Marymount Manhattan College and at STEPS Conservatory. 

Performance credits include: the Murray Louis Dance Company from 1977-84; Annabelle Gamson’s company of esteemed female artists 1984-87; Meredith Monk and Vocal Ensemble from 1990 – 2005; the historic solos of Mary Wigman; and associations with Rudolf Nureyev, Placido Domingo, Dave Brubeck Quartet, Joseph Papp/The Public Theater, Paul Winter Consort, Batsheva Dance Company, and Alwin Nikolais.Ms. Brenner’s creations include her critically acclaimed one-woman shows, Inheritance: A Litany (2018) and She Remembers Her Amnesia (2022); Co-Choreographing for juggler/dancer/physicist and MacArthur “Genius” Award-winner Michael Moschen (1988-92: BAM’s Next Wave Festival, US tours and PBS’ Great Performances); and Visual Art exhibits at the Susan Eley/Fine Art gallery in Manhattan (2022) and the Loy Luo Private Gallery (2023).

CLARENCE BROOKS has performed with 80 plus American companies and toured the US, Europe, and Asia. Clarence can be seen in the 5-part video documentary The World of Alwin Nikolais. Their essay “Dancing with the Issues” was published in One Teacher in 10: LGBT Educators Share Their Stories (Alyson Books). Clarence has lectured, choreographed, and taught ballet, modern, and repertory classes in schools and universities across the nation. A former associate professor, they founded the Repertory Dance Theatre Ensemble which performed in curated festivals from Miami to Boston.

Awards and honors include induction into the OCU Performance Hall of Honor, two Associate Artist-in-Residences at the Atlantic Center for the Arts (with Douglas Dunn and Liz Lerman, respectively), Japan Foundation Fellowship (to study with Butoh master Yoshiko Ohno), and recipient of both the Clyde Fyfe Award and the Randolph A. Frank Prize for Performing Arts. The Library of Congress recorded Clarence’s interpretation of Talley Beatty’s masterpiece “Mourner’s Bench”(1947) for the national archive.

A founding member and past president of the Florida Dance Education Organization, Clarence holds an advisory position with FDEO and sits on the boards of the Sokolow Theatre/Dance Ensemble, danceTactics performance group, Natural Movers Foundation, Miami Dance Futures, and Doris Humphrey Foundation for Dance. A high school dropout, he holds an MFA, a bachelor of performing arts, and a certification in Laban Movement Analysis. A 200-hour yoga teacher, they are also certified to teach the Bill Evans Method of Teaching Dance Technique.

Clarence currently freelances with the Dance Exchange, Pioneer Winter Collective, Sokolow Theatre Dance Ensemble, danceTactics performance group, David Parker & The Bang Group, and Megan Williams Dance Projects. Follow them on Instagram: @clbdreadeddancer.

ROBERT E. CLEARY  is co-artistic director, with Lisa Thurrell, of Kanopy Dance in Madison, WI. Mr. Cleary has toured, performed, choreographed, and taught throughout the United States and Denmark. Mr. Cleary received his Bachelor of Arts in Dance Performance and Choreography and a Bachelor of Arts in History, 19th Century Europe, from the University of Minnesota. He trained intensively at American Ballet Theatre and with Susan Klein in Klein Release Technique in New York. Influenced by ballet, modernists, as well as post-modernists, Cleary is in constant exploration of relevant dance expression. An exceptional movement artist, the medium of physical theater suits him like a second skin.

Critics hail Cleary as “fiery and riveting, inspired, wicked dancing…astonishing…”. As a choreographer, his work has been widely praised as “classic, gut centered 20th century modern dance”, and “riotously pleasurable, intense, richly satisfying”. Cleary’s choreography has been featured by numerous presenters including at several Arhus and Copenhagen Dance Festivals and in Chicago at the Ruth Page Center. His most recent commission was for the choreographic work, this is Not America, performed in March 2019, by the Sokolow Theatre/Dance Ensemble in New York City.

He was soloist in Nini Theilade’s Ballet Schubert, created originally for Massine’s Ballet Russe (1997) Copenhagen, Denmark. He annually performs as guest soloist for Ballet Minnesota in Nutcracker (1994 to date), as well as High Brahmin in La Bayadere (2008), and most notably, the lead role created on him for Beethoven’s 9th Symphony (2008, 2018).

Cleary has served on the guest faculty in dance at Idrætshøjskole, Oure, Denmark (1997); Illinois State University, Normal, IL; Mankato Ballet, Ballet Minnesota, Southwest Texas State, Texas (1998), among others.

ANNA SOKOLOW (1910-2000) was a choreographer, teacher, and dancer, dedicated to revealing both the lyric and stark aspects of the human experience. She began her training at the Neighborhood Playhouse with Martha Graham and Louis Horst. In the 1930’s she was an original member of the Graham Dance Company and assisted Mr. Horst in his dance composition classes. During this period, in addition to her association with the WPA dance unit, she formed her own company and began choreographing and performing solo concerts and ensemble works.

In 1939 Ms. Sokolow began a lifelong association with international dance and theater arts. Her work for the Mexican Ministry of Fine Arts grew to become the National Academy of Dance in Mexico. In 1953 she was invited to Israel to work with Inbal Dance Company, and later choreographed for Batsheva, Kibbutz Dance Company, and Lyric Theatre. 

Ms. Sokolow was a faculty member of the Juilliard School in both the dance and drama divisions. She received many honors and awards, including Honorary Doctorate degrees from Ohio State University, Brandeis University and the Boston Conservatory of Music; a Fulbright Fellowship to Japan; the Dance Magazine Award; a National Endowment for the Arts’ Choreographic Fellowship; the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American/Israeli Cultural Foundation; the Samuel H. Scripps Award; and the Encomienda, Aztec Eagle Honor (the highest civilian honor awarded to a foreigner by Mexico).

Ms. Sokolow’s interest in humanity led her to create a vast range of repertory with her commentaries on humanity and social justice threaded into each of her works. Her Broadway choreography credits include Street Scene, Camino Real, Candide, and the original Hair. In the late 1950’s Ms. Sokolow was the first modern dance choreographer to have her work, Rooms, presented on national television. Ms. Sokolow’s works are performed today by the Sokolow Theatre/Dance Ensemble, and are in the repertories of numerous other companies around the world.