Overbrook dance concert will honor spirit of Judith ... - MLive.com

By Bill Iddings | The Muskegon Chronicle

April 04, 2010, 5:39AM

Darren BreenDancers rehearse a modern dance routine titled "Gray Matter," about the different ways that people communicate, in preparation for "Dance Theater in Concert XXV."In life, Judith Brooky Green made people smile.

Now, remembering the late West Michigan dance legend brings Cathy Gamby-Weideman to tears.

Judith Brooky Green died in 1998.“She was generous,” Gamby-Weideman said.

Then, as Gamby-Weideman sat in the Bookside Bistro at Muskegon Community College, emotion choked her words into silence. Her eyes went red and wet. She paused to compose herself, to be able to continue.

“And that comes from the way she was with me, the way she interacted with other students, the things that I hear other dance students say about her,” Gamby-Weideman said, and repreated, “She was generous.”

Gamby-Weideman is the director of “Overbrook Dance Theater in Concert,” Muskegon Community College’s biennial dance concert that Brooky Green founded.

The 25th concert coming up at MCC’s Overbrook Theater will pay tribute to Brooky Green, who also founded the college’s dance program. After the first of three performances, on Friday night, one dancer will become the first recipient of the Judith Brooky Green Memorial Scholarship.

Fresh from The University of Michigan, Brooky Green came to MCC in 1974. Three years later she founded MCC’s Repertory Dance Touring Company, which spent 12 years touring to area schools.

Named in 1982 as Dance Instructor of the Year by the Michigan Dance Association, Brooky Green in 1986 co-founded the Ariel Dance company in the city of Holland.

Brooky Green contracted cancer. She died April 21, 1998.

Friends and colleagues â€" often they were synonymous â€" knew and know Brooky Green as far more than her resume.

Michelle Thompson, standing, and Amelia Rogers rehearse a modern dance routine for their upcoming dance concert.In an area where dance often is sparsely represented in public performance â€" “Judith used to say it was either feast or famine around here,” Gamby-Weideman said â€" Brooky Green nurtured an art form in which trained bodies move to tell a story. As the great choreographer Agnes DeMille once said, “The job of a choreographer is to be immersed in the idea, and to be creative, and to work out all the technical problems, and still hold the attention and energies of (the) group ... on many levels at once.”

Such was Judith Brooky Green, as Beth LaBaren-Root remembers.

The director of dance at Southwestern Michigan College in Dowagiac, LaBaren-Root was Beth Johnson when, in the mid-1980’s, she attended MCC and danced with and for Brooky Green.

“She was a very good role model,” said LaBaren-Root, who is bringing 11 of her dancers  to perform three numbers in “Overbrook Dance Theater in Concert XXV.” “She was very kind and giving. She introduced us to a lot of new ideas and concert. She really gave a lot to the program.”

Not all of the 39 dancers who will perform 13 pieces in “Overbrook Dance Theater in Concert” are aware of the dancing queen whom the show will honor.

Michelle Johnson, a 19-year-old MCC student from Fruitport, concedes to not knowing much about Brooky Green.

Amy Decker, a psychology major, front, and Meranda Sills, a special-event planning major at MCC, rehearse their parts in "Gray Matter." Indeed, Johnson said, earlier in her life she was not certain she even wanted to dance.

“My older sister was a dancer and I just wanted to be like my older sister,” she said. “I actually hated it at first.”

Johnson now intends to make dance a career, after furthering her education at either Hope College or Grand Valley State University. She is on a dance scholarship at MCC. She has choreographed a dance titled “Burning Room,” with influences of modern, jazz and ballet dancing, for the MCC concert.

Johnson is one of 19 choreographers for “Overbrook Dance Theater in Concert,” along with Gamby-Weideman, LaBaren-Root, Sarah Powell, Julie Siuda Jolman, Jodi Ellinger, Mike McCallum, Jana Warren, Rhashika Lewis and Monica Miles.

They also will perform, as will Erin Robere, Amy Decker, Andria DeCaire, Katie Potter, Meranda Sills, Jacy Jonseck, Amelia Rogers, Samantha Schuler, Judy Schalk, Deb Null, Michelle Lovse, Debbie Paynich, Renae Murphy, Erin Blais, Corey Christoffersen, Elaine Anderson, and Dana Smith.

Many of the participants in “Overbrook Dance Theater in Concert XXV” are alums, either of MCC, past “Overbrook Dance Theater” concerts, or both. That also pays tribute to Brooky Green, said Gamby-Weideman.

“One of the things that has been notable each time we do the concert is the return of the alumni students,” said Gamby-Weideman. “Some of the dancers who are participating this year danced with Judith 20, 25 years ago.”

Once a dancer, always a dancer.

“When you’re a dancer, there’s no denying that. You can try to take a year off, you can try to say I’m too old to dance, but it’s a part of who you are. ... It’s what you were meant to do. It’s within you, what needs to come out of any creative person.”

Bill Iddings is a Chronicle correspondent.

 

 

 

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