The Crescent – Remembering Helen Lewis: Screenings & Conversations – HMD 2024
Activity information
Activity type: Public activity
Organisation name: The Crescent
Website: https://crescentarts.org/events/remembering-helen-lewis-film-screenings-and-conversations
Address:
Crescent
2-4 University Rd
Belfast
Antrim
BT7 1NH
United Kingdom
Join us for an evening to celebrate the legacy of dancer and teacher, Helen Lewis (1916 – 2009), who survived Auschwitz and went on to teach modern dance in Belfast. On Holocaust Memorial Day 2024 we will screen two films that reflect Helen’s life and the work she inspired, and share outline ideas for a new Scholarship Fund for dance artists named after Helen.
The Crescent Arts Centre is proud to be home to the Ulster History Circle’s blue plaque in Helen Lewis’ name, and to have our primary Dance Studio named after her. Several of the dancers taught by Helen teach regularly in The Crescent.
About the Films
A Time to Dance (60 mins)
Produced and Directed by Moore Sinnerton
A Chistera Production for BBC Northern Ireland
When the Nazis entered the Czech capital Prague in 1939 the young Modern Dance student Helly Katz could scarcely have envisaged a future in a faraway place called Northern Ireland where - as Helen Lewis - she would make a huge contribution to the Arts and wider culture here. Obliged to wear a yellow star, she would soon embark on a succession of forced transportations to some of the most horrific concentration and extermination camps in the East, including Auschwitz-Birkenau. In A Time to Dance she reflects on her survival against the odds and how she built a new life in Belfast.
Abii ne viderem (I turned away so as not to see) (16 minutes)
Philip Johnston
Music: Giya Kancheli, waltz from Coppélia by Léo Delibes, Argentine Tango (anon)
The genesis of this work began after visiting the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC with Helen in 1998. We spent many hours in the museum with our friends Sam and Joan McCready. Helen gave details of each the exhibits in the museum that other people, perhaps not understanding their significance, simply passed by. When I was next in Belfast I asked Helen if she would tell me about choreographing the Waltz from Coppelia in Stutthof Concentration Camp in December 1944. We recorded the conversation and I asked Helen if I could use her voice in the dance piece. I retuned to the United States and began to choreograph Abbi ne viderem. I filmed the work and brought it back to Belfast to show it to Helen in her home. It was later performed at the Lyric Theatre in Belfast with dancers from Northern Ireland and Helen in the audience.
The proposal for the Helen Lewis Fund Scholarship at The Crescent developed in partnership with Philip Johnston, Jane Mooney, Brenda McKee
Organiser Name
N/A N/A