I am not a writer, so I cannot express myself in poems. I am not a composer, so I cannot express myself through music. I am not a painter, so I cannot create an image on canvas. I am simply a choreographer, and through dance, I humbly honor, remember, and pay tribute to the victims of 9/11.”
— Marie Alonzo Snyder
From the first time she visited the 9/11 memorial reflecting ponds three or four years ago, Marie Alonzo Snyder of West Windsor felt that she just had to do something artistic there. “When I stood there, I felt I was in a sacred oasis, an outdoor sanctuary, it is so peaceful to sit there and pray,” she says. “I needed to do something, but I was not ready.”
The community is invited to a the township tribute followed by Alonzo Snyder’s choreographic tribute to the seven residents of West Windsor who died on 9/11, on Sunday, September 10, at 6 p.m., at the reflecting ponds in West Windsor’s Ron R. Rogers Arboretum at the corner of Princeton-Hightstown and Clarksville roads. Admission is free.
“When Blue Skies Cry” is a 10-minute dance piece to bring the audience together in remembrance of the lives lost on the pristine morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001. The work is inspired by the last section of a piece Alonzo Snyder did in 2004, “Water Dreams,” a section about loss and grief, the metaphor of “bucket of tears.” The dance, minimalist and solemn, has no words. “It is a way to reflect and remember, with no need of electricity, posters, or advertisements.” she says. “Doing site specific outdoor work is not new to me and around here there are so many interesting places to put movement and choreography in and transform the space into a temporary stage.”
“After seeing dance in a public place, one’s way of seeing the world around will change, a park will not only be a park, but a place for movement and abstract images etched in someone’s memory, the gazebo will not only be a meeting place but a beginning and an ending, a wooden bridge is not only decorative but becomes a a symbol of a journey to another chapter in one’s life, letting the water take a new course.”
“One thing I vividly remember about that morning when I took my sons to their bus stop is looking up and seeing such a beautiful clear September blue sky,” says Alonzo Snyder.
Victims of 9/11 from West Windsor include Jeffrey M. Chairnoff, Michael Joseph Cunningham, Peter Edward Mardikian, Patrick Sean Murphy, Edward R. Pykon, John J. Ryan, and David S. Suarez. Plainsboro residents include Robert P. Devitt Jr., Jeffrey L. Fox, and Jim Edward Potorti.
“Throughout this work, water takes on many metaphoric meanings: from the Kalinga Philippine tribe’s ritual of crossing a body of water as the final and concluding passage of a person’s time of mourning, to symbols of liberation and new beginnings in Judaism and Christianity, or the cleansing and purifying powers found in Islam and Hinduism. When Blue Skies Cry is a work not meant as a spectacle, nor for entertainment, but as a sacred way to reflect, through movement and nature, on the tragic events and the impact it has had on our lives, the people around us, and the whole world.”
The members of the newly-formed dance ensemble, Dancevision, have studied modern dance with Alonzo Snyder at Princeton Dance and Theater Studio in Plainsboro. They include Debra Bona, Brianna Meisenbacher, Ellen Taraschi, Phoebe Sandford, Laura Whitby, Henri Velandia, and Gretchen LaMotte. Sandford and Whitby are students at High School South. Henri Velandia lives in Plainsboro and teaches salsa at Princeton Dance and Theater. Meisenbacher’s grandmother died in the North Tower on 9/11. She and Taraschi are Montgomery High School students. LaMotte is a student at Princeton Day School.
Visual artist Connie Tell, also a West Windsor resident, contributes her imaginative eye to the art direction, creating a solemn and contemplative visual outdoor set for the dance. When Alonzo Snyder first heard Morten Lauridsen’s “Ubi Caritas et Amor” (Where there is Love and Mercy) about a year ago, she fell in love with it. The tribute includes soprano Tamara Fay Hayes, a student at Rutgers University studying voice.
On a recent visit to Florida, Alonzo Snyder visited the Boca Raton Museum and noticed a piece by Barbara Balzer titled: The Average Person sheds 7 gallons of tears in a lifetime: a Meditation. “There were seven ceramic bowls filled with water…if you see my piece there are similarities,” she says. Alonzo Snyder had already planned to create the piece with seven dancers and bins filled with water.
“When I saw that piece in the museum about seven gallons of tears, it gave me the affirmation that I was heading in the right direction,” says Alonzo Snyder. “It is awesome for an artist to find other imagery during the process of creating a work that gives it another powerful meaning. When I saw it in the museum it took my breath away for a few seconds — I could not believe that this piece existed.”
Born in the Philippines, Alonzo Snyder was raised in Rome, Italy, attended schools in England and California, then settled in New York City attending New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, and Columbia University’s Teachers College.
“While in New York City I was influenced by the choreographic works and style of Lar Lubovitch for its musicality and organic movement, Paul Taylor’s grounded and rigorous style, Pilobolus’s imaginative unpredictability and Bill T. Jones’s athletic and avant-garde ways,” she says. “While performing works with H. T. Chen & Dancers, Asian American Dance Theater, Hikari Baba Dancers, and Ruby Shang, I was influenced by the cultural blend of East and West through movement, and this eventually lead me to develop my own voice that speaks of my multicultural upbringing and sensibility.”
Her doctoral dissertation “Contemporary female choreographers of Asian descent: Three case studies of an evolving cultural expression in American modern dance” is one of the first scholarly works in dance that explores the choreographic works of Asian Americans in modern dance.
Two artists who were case studies for her doctoral dissertation influenced her work. Kristin Jackson’s “Still Waters” used the Kalinga Tribe’s passing a body of water to mark the end of mourning period as a solo dedicated to her father who had died. Muna Tseng’s “Water Mysteries” included galvanized bins with water. “In ‘Water Mysteries 2’ there were three women with long hair who dipped their hair and flicked it, almost making Chinese calligraphy in the air with water,” says Alonzo Snyder.
Since 1986 Alonzo Snyder’s works have been presented in New York City, Texas, Amherst, Albany, Chicago, Montreal, Princeton, and West Windsor. She has also been produced several times by the Mulberry Street Theater in New York City.
As a scholar, Alonzo Snyder has presented papers at Texas Women’s University, Teachers College Columbia University, Michigan State University, University of Quebec and Princeton University. She is on the faculty of Princeton Day School and Princeton Dance and Theater Studio.
Alonzo’s husband, a computer scientist, works in New York for Blackrock. Their oldest son is a freshman at High School South and the younger one is a fifth grader at Village School.
“Dance is an elusive performing art,” says Alonzo Snyder. “Once done what’s left is what people keep in their thoughts, their heart, their mind, and their memory.”
Remembering 9/11 Through Dance, West Windsor Township, September 11 Memorial Twin Ponds, Clarksville and Princeton-Hightstown roads, 609-799-2400. Township tribute followed by “When Blue Skies Cry,” a choreographic tribute to the seven residents of West Windsor who perished on 9/11. Free. Sunday, September 10, 6 p.m.
