Hi Martha, I am way into your writing and your way of being in the world. I've recently written a book, Never Ready, which will be available June 20. I worked at the Paul Taylor Dance Company when we lost two of our nine men to AIDS. I waited decades to write about 'working at a circus during a plague;' I just wasn't ready.
Then as I finished the first draft, my husband was diagnosed with cancer. I would love to talk to you about all of it and share an advanced reader copy. Please visit NeverReady.net and reach me through the contact for a secure link, or just to talk about your writing, female creativity, the beauty of dysfunctional dance families, or anything else on your mind.
I dance. My core interest is contact improvisation. Though, I do practice adult ballet. I'm 69, and have been dancing for 20 years. I no longer believe that dance can save the world, but I have learned that everything comes from movement. I don't like to spend too much time looking at, or writing on social media, but I want to be connected. I offer a link to the website of the company I co-direct – ksamb.com
Thank you Miki for taking the time to respond! I did contact improv in college and have just started exploring it again. Your company looks amazing. I am very interested in/inspired by the principles of integrative dance and creative movement -- I actually just took a workshop along those lines with Terry Goetz, who runs the Creative Dance Center in Seattle. If I was in Saskatoon I would be showing up on your doorstep :)
I’ll be the one person to say no, I don’t dance. I grew up doing ballet, but now I find myself avoiding the dance floor at weddings and nights out. I have no rhythm and it makes me self-conscious. I am a runner, and I find that type of movement to be more meditative for me, personally. No music, just me and my heartbeat and breath. But if you catch me alone while I’m listening to Neil Young or something, you just might see me rocking my head back and forth, if that counts!
That absolutely counts. I might also argue that you *do* have rhythm (because ... I kindof think everyone does?). Your body is just attuned to the rhythm of running. Thank you for commenting and going against the flow!
I used to ballet dance as a child and I loved the discipline and rigor of it. As I aged I took a class periodically and dabbled in jazz as a young adult. My daughters studied ballet, jazz, tap, pointe, and modern at a professional studio and fear of embarassing them prevented me from taking a class. They have long since aged out and maybe one day I will step into that studio for me and not them.
Dance always has and always will leave me feeling stronger and happier. I did a dance fitness class the other day and when we did our routine to All That Jazz I imagined I was Roxie Hart herself. That is why I love dance. For a time you can be anyone or anything you want to be.
It's true -- you can transform yourself for a little bit! The point about not wanting to embarrass your kids, or just bigfoot into their space, is well taken. As I've learned since moving to the suburbs, outside of big cities there are just not a lot of options in terms of adult dance classes. If they exist they're often tagged onto studios whose primary mission is to teach kids/teens and I wager the prospect of sharing that space with your own kids, or even kids who might KNOW your kids, can be a deterrent for many.
At least once a month for 10 years, and sometimes for several days in a row, I dance and lose myself to music. (This is “social dancing” in nightclubs and open fields, not professional dancing in a studio.) It contributes to a sort of spiritual and emotional equilibrium in my life, and I’m convinced it is or one day will be a revolutionary act in this hollow, arrhythmic society.
This is great! And yes, I agree. Dancing with other people has been proven to build trust and community—which we’re going to need to launch a revolution.
I am an "adult learner" and studier of movement. I have been going regularly to ecstatic dance and similar local events for many years, but that's all free form and I was struck with a desire to really study dance. I made plans and life choices to quit my full-time job so that I could start taking dance.
About 6 months ago I took a deep dive into a season of dance.
I am 36-year-old mom and outdoor educator, and I live in small town.
I drive about 35 minutes to the town over to take beginning: ballet, tap, modern, swing, break, aerial, and whatever else I can make work in my life. It's all very fun. My knees hurt sometimes and I'm often that good kind of sore.
I have been going to the studio long enough now that I am beginning to know the back story of the other movers that I share time and space with. And these folks are in their 60's 70's and 80's telling me that they started in their 50's.
I dream of dancing like them one day.
Now I am 6 months in, and I love studying movement (mine and other's).
As I said elsewhere, it IS changing your life. It's changing your life to become a 70-year-old dancer! Also: I hear you on the commute. Right now I have to travel 1+ hour just to get to class, which means I spend more time on the train or in the car than I do actually in class. It makes no sense, yet it seems worth it.
I absolutely concur. Also I feel like a lot of people are conditioned to be embarrassed to dance, and the fact that people seem to be getting over that (?) gives hope for the future. There are so many worse things that can happen in life than being embarrassed! Like, just be a freak you guys. It's ok.
I was just texting a friend about signing up for a dance class! I did lots of dancing at parties and clubs when I was younger, lots of dancing at weddings over the years and little shimmies around the house. But I’ve never had formal instruction and my sense of rhythm is shaky at best lol. But I love it! It feels good and fun and very human.
A recent dream that seems relevant: My dream was so weird!
I dreamt that I was arguing with the billing office at the hospital where I teach, because they were slow and inefficient to pay me the next $3,000 for my writing workshop (true story ha). But because I was arguing with them, I was forced to get ready for a small breast surgery. The woman who is the chair for the Center of Digital Research and Archives at the University of Nebraska was performing the surgery. But right before it began, she told me she was going to have to do a “full explant surgery” to remove my implants without anesthesia because that’s what the State mandated after all the trouble I caused. I got up from the operating table, said “No way,” and yanked out the catheter which was also somehow a breathing tube.
In doing this, I turned the world into gray ash and stone, filled with violence and guns and men flaying people alive. My family and I all knew we had to try to find somewhere to go, so we booked plane flights to the other side of the world “which wasn’t much better but was better than this” according to the dream. We’re all in line at the airport, my parents and loved ones all get on the plane but some bad person had stolen my ID so I’m not allowed on. We decide they should leave while Lois, the TSA attendant (who in real life is the sweetest secretary at the Sentara cancer center where I get chemo) says she’ll remain behind with me and help me make a new ID. She goes to the photocopier store across the street as bombs start going off. I hide all my colorful clothes underneath a conveyer belt at the airport and change into black dress pants, a black blazer, a black fedora, red tassel socks and black tap shoes.
I start dancing in the streets amidst the bombs, waiting for Lois to finish with my fake ID or waiting for the world to end, whichever comes first.
I dance a lot in my dreams. In real life, we have Friday night dance parties at home with my five year old.
Hi Martha, I am way into your writing and your way of being in the world. I've recently written a book, Never Ready, which will be available June 20. I worked at the Paul Taylor Dance Company when we lost two of our nine men to AIDS. I waited decades to write about 'working at a circus during a plague;' I just wasn't ready.
Then as I finished the first draft, my husband was diagnosed with cancer. I would love to talk to you about all of it and share an advanced reader copy. Please visit NeverReady.net and reach me through the contact for a secure link, or just to talk about your writing, female creativity, the beauty of dysfunctional dance families, or anything else on your mind.
Many thanks; stay well,
Lucie André
Thank you so much! I’d love to read your book. I’ll be in touch ….
I dance. My core interest is contact improvisation. Though, I do practice adult ballet. I'm 69, and have been dancing for 20 years. I no longer believe that dance can save the world, but I have learned that everything comes from movement. I don't like to spend too much time looking at, or writing on social media, but I want to be connected. I offer a link to the website of the company I co-direct – ksamb.com
Thank you Miki for taking the time to respond! I did contact improv in college and have just started exploring it again. Your company looks amazing. I am very interested in/inspired by the principles of integrative dance and creative movement -- I actually just took a workshop along those lines with Terry Goetz, who runs the Creative Dance Center in Seattle. If I was in Saskatoon I would be showing up on your doorstep :)
I’ll be the one person to say no, I don’t dance. I grew up doing ballet, but now I find myself avoiding the dance floor at weddings and nights out. I have no rhythm and it makes me self-conscious. I am a runner, and I find that type of movement to be more meditative for me, personally. No music, just me and my heartbeat and breath. But if you catch me alone while I’m listening to Neil Young or something, you just might see me rocking my head back and forth, if that counts!
That absolutely counts. I might also argue that you *do* have rhythm (because ... I kindof think everyone does?). Your body is just attuned to the rhythm of running. Thank you for commenting and going against the flow!
I used to ballet dance as a child and I loved the discipline and rigor of it. As I aged I took a class periodically and dabbled in jazz as a young adult. My daughters studied ballet, jazz, tap, pointe, and modern at a professional studio and fear of embarassing them prevented me from taking a class. They have long since aged out and maybe one day I will step into that studio for me and not them.
Dance always has and always will leave me feeling stronger and happier. I did a dance fitness class the other day and when we did our routine to All That Jazz I imagined I was Roxie Hart herself. That is why I love dance. For a time you can be anyone or anything you want to be.
It's true -- you can transform yourself for a little bit! The point about not wanting to embarrass your kids, or just bigfoot into their space, is well taken. As I've learned since moving to the suburbs, outside of big cities there are just not a lot of options in terms of adult dance classes. If they exist they're often tagged onto studios whose primary mission is to teach kids/teens and I wager the prospect of sharing that space with your own kids, or even kids who might KNOW your kids, can be a deterrent for many.
At least once a month for 10 years, and sometimes for several days in a row, I dance and lose myself to music. (This is “social dancing” in nightclubs and open fields, not professional dancing in a studio.) It contributes to a sort of spiritual and emotional equilibrium in my life, and I’m convinced it is or one day will be a revolutionary act in this hollow, arrhythmic society.
This is great! And yes, I agree. Dancing with other people has been proven to build trust and community—which we’re going to need to launch a revolution.
I am an "adult learner" and studier of movement. I have been going regularly to ecstatic dance and similar local events for many years, but that's all free form and I was struck with a desire to really study dance. I made plans and life choices to quit my full-time job so that I could start taking dance.
About 6 months ago I took a deep dive into a season of dance.
I am 36-year-old mom and outdoor educator, and I live in small town.
I drive about 35 minutes to the town over to take beginning: ballet, tap, modern, swing, break, aerial, and whatever else I can make work in my life. It's all very fun. My knees hurt sometimes and I'm often that good kind of sore.
I have been going to the studio long enough now that I am beginning to know the back story of the other movers that I share time and space with. And these folks are in their 60's 70's and 80's telling me that they started in their 50's.
I dream of dancing like them one day.
Now I am 6 months in, and I love studying movement (mine and other's).
I think it's changing my life.
As I said elsewhere, it IS changing your life. It's changing your life to become a 70-year-old dancer! Also: I hear you on the commute. Right now I have to travel 1+ hour just to get to class, which means I spend more time on the train or in the car than I do actually in class. It makes no sense, yet it seems worth it.
I really dig this! And thanks for the shout out <3
Your piece said everything I was trying to say with so much more flair!
I am honestly so happy that a lot of people are feeling this urge to move/dance it out/activate physically. We need it so badly!
I absolutely concur. Also I feel like a lot of people are conditioned to be embarrassed to dance, and the fact that people seem to be getting over that (?) gives hope for the future. There are so many worse things that can happen in life than being embarrassed! Like, just be a freak you guys. It's ok.
I was just texting a friend about signing up for a dance class! I did lots of dancing at parties and clubs when I was younger, lots of dancing at weddings over the years and little shimmies around the house. But I’ve never had formal instruction and my sense of rhythm is shaky at best lol. But I love it! It feels good and fun and very human.
It is so human!
A recent dream that seems relevant: My dream was so weird!
I dreamt that I was arguing with the billing office at the hospital where I teach, because they were slow and inefficient to pay me the next $3,000 for my writing workshop (true story ha). But because I was arguing with them, I was forced to get ready for a small breast surgery. The woman who is the chair for the Center of Digital Research and Archives at the University of Nebraska was performing the surgery. But right before it began, she told me she was going to have to do a “full explant surgery” to remove my implants without anesthesia because that’s what the State mandated after all the trouble I caused. I got up from the operating table, said “No way,” and yanked out the catheter which was also somehow a breathing tube.
In doing this, I turned the world into gray ash and stone, filled with violence and guns and men flaying people alive. My family and I all knew we had to try to find somewhere to go, so we booked plane flights to the other side of the world “which wasn’t much better but was better than this” according to the dream. We’re all in line at the airport, my parents and loved ones all get on the plane but some bad person had stolen my ID so I’m not allowed on. We decide they should leave while Lois, the TSA attendant (who in real life is the sweetest secretary at the Sentara cancer center where I get chemo) says she’ll remain behind with me and help me make a new ID. She goes to the photocopier store across the street as bombs start going off. I hide all my colorful clothes underneath a conveyer belt at the airport and change into black dress pants, a black blazer, a black fedora, red tassel socks and black tap shoes.
I start dancing in the streets amidst the bombs, waiting for Lois to finish with my fake ID or waiting for the world to end, whichever comes first.
I dance a lot in my dreams. In real life, we have Friday night dance parties at home with my five year old.
I love this and feel it should be optioned as a movie