Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 15, Number 6, 1 June 1998 — Rachel Berman: Taylored for Tūtū [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Rachel Berman: Taylored for Tūtū

The Paul Taylor Company's star comes home to premier her choregraphic tribute to her grandmother.

By Paula Durbin AS A SOLOIST in the internationally acclaimed Paul Taylor Dance Company, Rachel Berman is among New York City's most established divas. She has graced the cover of the pages of Vanity Fair, Dance Magazine, television screens across the country and the world's classiest theaters. Through it all, she has held on fast to her heritage. "I am very proud to be Hawaiian," she said, "and everyone knows where my roots are." She comes home annually to visit her proud father, Ronald Berman, but otherwise, when she's not teaching, rehearsing or performing for modern dance ieon Taylor, she hangs out with other Hawai'i ex-patriots at Radio Hula, a store specializing in island products, whieh Berman calls "our own little club." For the past two years, she has been studying hula after hours with the owner, Janu Cassidy. "I love it," she said. "It takes me back to my roots. I would like to be a wonderful hula dancer" As a student at Kamehameha Schools, Berman already had the makings of a wonderful ballet dancer. But that was before Kamehameha had its Performing Arts Center, and Berman's talent was not yet being systematically developed. Everything changed when she moved with her mother, Judith Harding, to San Francisco in 1977. "My mother was nervous about the big city so we both decided to look into ballet schools," Berman said. "Pretty soon I was taking class five days a week and dancing in "77ie Nutcracker." Her sights were set on the San Francisco Ballet, but

when she discovered her short, compact body didn't fit

the ballerina mold, she looked in another direction. "If the San Francisco Ballet didn't want me, I really wanted to be in New York City," she recalled. Berman eased into the Big

Apple through summer scholarships from the Joffrey Ballet and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center and by attending the State University of New York in nearby Purchase. There, she got her first taste of modern dance and hung up her satin slippers with no regrets. "I felt good in bare feet. I have 'lū'au feet' anyway," she laughed. Even before graduation, she began paying her dues in well-regard-ed but non-union troupes dancing the peppy roles reserved for small, cute women. "I always had to do something else - hostess, coat-check or work in retail," she said. Between jobs, she began taking classes at Paul Taylor's studio. Two years later, Berman got her big break when she was hired to fill in for an injured dancer during a 1989 tour to Australia and Hawai'i. Winning an invitation to stay on, she said, has been the greatest accomplishment of her career. "Just getting into this company, growing with it, dancing the pieces," she clairified. "Paul has pushed me in so many directions." Taylor first began casting Berman against her spunky type in 1995 when he revived his " Musical Offering" set to a Bach requiem. "It was a soulful, more mature part," she explained. After that, they collaborated on a lament, in " Prime Numbers" whieh premiered in New Delhi to commemorate the 50th anniversary of India's independence. Recently, Berman drew on her expressive capacity.

Her loeal ^ roots used to be anchored by her Hawaiian-Chi-

nese grandmother, Frances Ku'ulei Kim Yin Goo Berman, 1 and when she died at 92, Berman felt the loss deeply. Inspired by a poem discovered in the lady's handbag, she worked through her sorrow by setting a solo for herself. "To me, it's about hope, about finding your inner strength," she

explained. "It's a very personal jour- 1 ney in memory of my tūtū." Rachel Berman will premier " Comes the Dawn," her tribute to her 1 tūtū, at the Hawai'i Theater on June 19 and 20 when she appears as the guest artist of Peter Rockford-Espiri-tu's Tau Dance Theater. ■

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