Terry Pollard (Take 1: April 2023)

This piece was originally commissioned by Creative Philadelphia for the city’s Jazz Appreciation Month celebration.

Choreography, text, and arrangements: Pamela Hetherington with improvisation by the dancers

Music: Terry Pollard, Charlie Parker, Irving Berlin, Frank Perkins/Mitchell Parish, Avishai Cohen

Artists: Destiny Bugg, Richard Hill, Jim Holton, Conner Kelly, Bethlehem Roberson, Kathryn Schweingruber

Transcription and additional music direction: Tim Brey

Terry Pollard (Take 2: September 2023)

2023 FRINGIE AWARD WINNER!

Choreography, text, and arrangements: Pamela Hetherington with improvisation by the dancers

Music: Terry Pollard, Charlie Parker, Irving Berlin, Frank Perkins/Mitchell Parish, Avishai Cohen

Artists: Mike Bond, Nia Hammond, Conner Kelly, Madison Rast, Bethlehem Roberson, Kathryn Schweingruber, Nimrod Speaks

Transcription and additional music direction: Tim Brey

This is a piece about bebop, influence, how opportunity knocks across genders, the jazz and tap dance scene in the 1950s, communication, what’s said and unsaid, and really, nothing new. I never heard the name Terry Pollard until a late colleague of mine, Tim Price (1952-2022), told me to look her up. I can’t ask him why, now, but if I had to guess, he was giving me an example to study, one to which I could easily relate. While I can only imagine how much Terry had to persevere as a black female jazz musician and mom in the 1950s, the experience of surviving in the competitive forum of jazz music and art-making, alongside the experience of bearing children, having that divided body experience of needing to be at home when one’s work demands you be seen, out, at all hours, and taking care of a family while making one’s art,  in any male-dominated field, hasn’t changed much. (In fact, see Terri Lyne Carrington’s 2022 book, Jazz Without Patriarchy). Terry Pollard’s story is just one of countless untold jazz stories, scattered like obelisks, where a woman’s prodigious lifetime contributions are simply described in one or two words:  “overlooked,” ”unappreciated,”  or “underrated.” The history of jazz is the history of tap dance and is the history of America. The passed-on legacy ultimately is about what our American society pays attention to and values, what we are made to hear, literally, and  most importantly, the platforms that have been built upon which names are spoken, or not. With gratitude to my mentor, Heather Cornell, who continues to prod me to “do the work.” — Pamela Hetherington

1. A Mental Telegram to Charlie Parker (Bethlehem Roberson, Conner Kelly)

2. Fedj / Moose the Mooche (Destiny Bugg, Conner Kelly, Bethlehem Roberson, Kathryn Schweingruber)

3. A Message for the Woman Who Lives In the Mirror (Bethlehem Roberson, Kathryn Schweingruber)

4. Same Old Story (Destiny Bugg, Nia Hammond, Conner Kelly, Bethlehem Roberson, Kathryn Schweingruber)

5. A Singing Telegram to Hazel Scott (Destiny Bugg, Nia Hammond, Bethlehem Roberson)

6. Stride and Groove and (Pamela Hetherington)

7. My Body, My Work (Destiny Bugg, Conner Kelly, Bethlehem Roberson, Kathryn Schweingruber)