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IDENTIFICATION AND BIO: John Henry was a Bay Area dancer, choreographer, and educator perhaps best remembered for collaborating on the evening length piece Singing Myself a Lullaby with choreographer Ellen Bromberg and video artist Douglas Rosenberg. Henry received a B.A. in Education and Theater Arts from the University of Montana and later an M.A. in Choreography and Performance from Mills College in Oakland. He danced for choreographer Margaret Jenkins (1974-79) and in musical-theater productions throughout the United States. He was also the founding resident choreographer of the State Street Ballet in Santa Barbara. As a dance educator, Henry served as an educational consultant for the San Francisco Education Fund, the California Arts Project, the San Francisco Opera, Project Zero at Harvard University, and Apple Computer. Additionally he served as an assistant professor at UC-Berkeley and a lecturer at University of Mississippi, California State University-Hayward, Mills College, and the University of San Francisco. In 1994 he was named Dance Educator of the Year by the California Dance Education Association. Henry worked with Ellen Bromberg in the 1980s in the Bay Area when Bromberg was the guest choreographer for his company called Henry Harris Green. They had parted ways for over a decade before Henry contacted Bromberg to create and direct a piece about his ongoing struggle with AIDS. Premiering in 1995, Lullaby was built in segments that dealt with periods in Henry's life, from his childhood with an obese mother to a turn of duty in Vietnam (later proven to be a fiction) to his struggle with AIDS. The piece was created in collaboration with video artist Douglas Rosenberg. As Henry's illness made him too sick to execute portions of the choreography, Bromberg and Rosenberg orchestrated video images of Henry to gradually replace him in subsequent performances. In the final performance of the piece at San Francisco's Edge Festival in 1996, Henry appeared on stage only intermittently—the flux from one performance to another served to incorporate the debilitation of AIDS into the structure and content of the work. Henry last performed the piece one month before his death from AIDS-related causes.
KEY CONTACT PERSON(S)/EXECUTOR OF ESTATE:
Ellen Bromberg, collaborator
Douglas Rosenberg, video artist, stage designer, and collaborator
Bill Milligan, surviving partner
HUMAN REPOSITORIES OF THE WORK
Sophie Monat (see above) has staged the following works and, in a 12 September 2003 email, states her willingness to do so again in the future: Embraceable You, Gabriel, Lights, Red Rover, Solus, and Some Are.
VIDEO DOCUMENTATION
PHOTOGRAPHIC DOCUMENTATION
MOVEMENT NOTATION
PRODUCTION MATERIALS
ORAL HISTORY:
PERSONAL PAPERS
IMMEDIATE NEEDS
OTHER RELEVANT INFORMATION:
PARTIAL LIST OF WORKS
Cantata #78 (c. 1980)—music: J.S. Bach Lavori in Corso (c. 1980) Lights (1980)—music: Benjamin Britten; Poetry: Arthur Rimbaud; Costume Design: Sandra Woodall; Lighting Design: Rick Wallace; Zellerbach Playhouse, University of California, Berkeley With (c. 1980) L'Histoire du Soldat (1981)—music: Stravinsky Tango (c. 1982-3) The Darkening Sea (1986)—music: Benjamin Britten Solus (1989)—music: Bernstein, Vivaldi; Jackson, Mississippi Embraceable You (1991)—music: George Gershwin; San Francisco Gabriel (1991)—music: Ennio Morricone; Hayward State University Some Are (1994)—music: Glass, Bowie, Eno; Tucson, Ariz. Different Drummer (year unknown) Red Rover (year unknown)—music: Beethoven and popular songs of the 1950s Serpent's Egg (year unknown)—music: Dead Can Dance Singing Myself a Lullaby (1995)—Historic Y, Tucson, Ariz., collaboration with Ellen Bromberg (choreography), Victor Spiegel (music), Doug Rosenberg (videography), Dan Dugan (sound design) and Jack Carpenter (lighting design). Bromberg notes that the Henry's deteriorating health required significant changes to Singing Myself a Lullaby for subsequent performances:
11-14 May 1995, New Performance Gallery, San Francisco
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