February 16, 2023

Akron, OH

Ordnung, An Amish Ballet isn’t only a ballet. It includes a pre-show multidisciplinary panel discussion featuring Joan Van Dyke, Torah Bontrager, experts, and academics to discuss “The Right to Education” from the perspectives of women’s and gender studies, sociology, psychology/health, and law, in addition to Joan and Torah’s lived experiences related to Wisconsin v. Yoder and the making of the ballet.

The panel is designed to be customized to include professors and staff from the university at which the ballet is showing, as well as members of the local community.

The ballet begins in the US Supreme Court courtroom in 1972 during the ruling of Wisconsin v. Yoder. This determined that children in Amish communities were not required — and effectively not permitted — to attend school past the 8th grade.

What Past Attendees Say:

Curious About the Ballet?

Did you know Amish children (and adults) of the practicing community are prohibited from going to school past the 8th grade? And that education is not a federal constitutional right for US citizens?

It has been 50 years since the Wisconsin v. Yoder decision, and we have seen many changes in the Amish and non-Amish communities, including the impact of global economics, environmental changes, and human disruption of animal and plant habitats on the lifestyle of the Amish.

Many Anabaptist people (e.g., Amish, Amish offshoots, conservative Mennonites, etc.) are being compelled into the mainstream American workforce without the formal education and training they need in order to be competitive in the job market.

The results of the Yoder law have impacted individuals raised in strict Anabaptist communities for the last five generations with tens of thousands of individuals being denied a high school education. Our ballet project attempts to increase awareness and help facilitate a bridge to education and career goals for the Anabaptists, and other groups that have also been affected by this law.

Today Wisconsin v. Yoder is starting to be questioned and debated in academia and the public, due to the Amish Heritage Foundation’s groundbreaking work and Joan Van Dyke’s first-of-its-kind ballet, inspired by the Yoder case.

LENA, born into an Amish family, is 7 years old when the story begins. We fast-forward to 1982, 10 years later. Lena, now 17, has been secretly studying her passion, ballet. She is extremely talented in dance and wants to pursue a career in the arts.

MARY ANN, her best friend, is passionate about helping others and wants nothing more than to become a nurse.

JIM is a local “English” (i.e., non-Amish) man who inherited his family farm after his father passed away. Many of the local Amish community members work for him, including ELI who is in love with Mary Ann. Mary Ann has her eye on Jim, and Jim is completely enamored with Lena.

LIZBETH, the town gossip, looks on as the lovers weave their web. She decides to alert the Amish community about the couples and the girls’ interest in outside careers.

Lena’s mom KATHERINE, and her best friend VERA, the Amish one-room schoolhouse teacher, encourage the girls to follow their dreams. But Katherine must look away, because going to school past the 8th grade is prohibited. Lena’s sisters watch to see what their big sister will do.

When Mary Ann realizes that Jim loves Lena, she decides to leave the community to become a nurse, and as a result, she is shunned. Eli decides to follow Mary Ann and the community shuns him, too. Lena is saddened to lose her best friend and decides to break some rules during rumspringa before becoming a baptized member of the church. The other young women join her to see the world outside the Amish.

Lena decides to pursue her passion for dance no matter what the circumstances and invites the Amish community to her graduation performance, even though she is shunned. To her surprise, the community attends the event. Now a nurse, Mary Ann returns with her husband Eli to see Lena’s performance. As Lena leaves the event with Jim, she is persuaded by her friends and family to stay in her Amish community. Lena and Jim say their final farewells.

What Past Attendees Say:

About the Amish Heritage Foundation

Founded by Amish escapee Torah Bontrager, The Amish Heritage Foundation is a 501(c)(3) history-making nonprofit committed to empowering Amish women and children through education past the 8th grade, so they can exercise their human and constitutional rights to create and choose their futures. Your donations are tax-deductible as provided by law.

by Dr. Rick Kemp

In the show you are about to watch, you will see and hear multiple performance modes.

Joan Van Dyke’s original choreography has been enhanced by Devised Theatre material that helps put the ballet’s story in the context of historical events, most notably the 1972 US Supreme Court ruling in Wisconsin v. Yoder.

Devised Theatre is created by the people who present it — such as performers, designers, technicians, writers, musicians, dancers, and fabricators — all working together to create content that matters today.

We start without a script and have multiple potential prompts, such as a story, a theme, personal experience, and historical events to name a few. Creative processes involve writing, moving, playing, improvising, researching, and image creation among many others.

In this show, the Devising Group has researched and chosen historical audio clips, created a short film, recorded voice-overs, and created and performed some pieces of image-based theatre that complement the choreography.

What Past Attendees Say:

by Torah Bontrager

In this show, I interpret Joan Van Dyke’s use of going to the moon as symbolizing how distant and “impossible” Amish girls’ dreams are if they want to attain an education past the Amish version of 8th grade. This is next to impossible even for girls who manage to immerse themselves in non-Amish life during rumspringa.

In the Wisconsin v. Yoder case document, the sole partially dissenting Justice acknowledges that Amish children will never have the opportunity to become an astronaut. In my own work I discuss how, during the 1960s to 1970s when Yoder was decided, NASA was landing astronauts on the moon. Now, 50 years later, NASA has restarted its moon mission program.

But Amish children — and adults — do not have the right to participate in the space program, among other projects celebrating human ingenuity and stretching the human imagination, simply because they have been born into the wrong group of US citizens.

Curious About the Ballet?

Did you know?

Joan Van Dyke is an Associate Professor of Dance in the Department of Theater and Dance and affiliate faculty for Women’s Studies at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Ms. Van Dyke is the director of the Dance Program and IUP Dance Theater Company.

During her tenure at IUP, she has choreographed 59 main stage productions for the Department of Theater and Dance, IUP Dance Theater, and the Department of Music. She serves as director and resident choreographer for IUP Dance Theater. Ms. Van Dyke was selected for the Distinguished Faculty award in the Creative Arts at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

What Past Attendees Say:

Did you know?