Passage: The Ocean in between the Courage to Leave and the Mystery of Arrival

Beth El member and dancer Julie Leavitt has choreographed this dance, inspired by the one sentence her mother told her about this journey. “One of my mothers’ only memories of her family’s escape from Austria, following the Anschluss of 1938, is holding her father’s hand on the ship as she looked up and saw the Statue of Liberty for the first time,” Julie says. “I grew up with the story of that image indelibly marked in the eyes of a four-year-old girl. Passage emerges from this memory. It takes place on the ship over the ocean between the departure from Europe and the New York Harbor where Lady Liberty still stands today. I offer gratitude to my mother, the quick action and courage of her parents and the final act of love of her grandmother that enabled their reunion and escape. and, of course, in loving memory of those who could not escape. This dance is for all of our ancestors, all of our stories.”

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