I have danced for as long as I can remember. From dancing around the living room furniture as a child, to using it to get out of high school early, to the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York or the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris. I have danced with dancers and non-dancers, children with severe handicaps, women in prison and psychiatric patients.
Dance has structured who I am, it is how I see the world. It has given me those moments that surpass everyday existence, those moments when one feels most alive.
Having danced a number of years formyself, as well as for the audiences at hand, I have in recent years chosen to dance with people who otherwise might not.
It became important to find a new meaning in dance, one with a possible social or political resonance. The quest has been less about personal perfectionism, than that of encountering differences.
I have studied, taught, choreographed and written about this journey, and will no doubt continue to do so. It seems like a good time to collect these stepping-stones and share them, a kaleidoscope of experiences in dance, those up until now and those yet to come.
Tai chi chuan has been a companion, a thread running through the years for over three decades, a steady and changing presence to fall back on, to learn from, listen to.
Because that too is a condition of feeling alive, the desire to continue learning, and the certitude that the more we learn, the less we know.
Dance and tai chi are the prisms through which I continue to question.
