Buried in a sea of multicolored tutus that itched and scratched and squeezed and poked but oh it was so worth it she thought as she pulled tugged at the rough stiff fabric that hadn’t been touched in years. The thrill she got parading her proud 4 year-old self around mommy’s dance studio showing off her razzle-dazzle to the grown-ups who could touch the clouds and shake hands with the constellations was like nothing she had ever experienced before. In photos I see her gripping a ballet bar too tight and arching her little back much too far and pointing those toes like there’s no tomorrow. This was the birth of a whisper that would soon become a sigh that would soon become an inaudible word_____an audible word_____a coversation_____a theory_____an inspiration_____and that is still becoming a voice. A lifestyle. K 1 2 3 4 5 twirling jumping traveling lead & following rolling skipping in blue pink green striped long-sleeved shirts that had sparkly lines too that would leave itty bitty sparkles on your arms and tummy for days on end. She didn’t know then and there that in this utopia of movement and no movement the sparkly stuff never actually goes away. It sinks into your skin and your soul and accumulates over time and ever once in a while it’ll explode out of you in a kind of perfectly poignant elaboration of silent and deafening passion.

4 nine years old. Monologues becoming dialogues. She begins to create her own moving pictures and to speak the most foreign language of all: her own. Through this discovery of her own personal language, she begins to open doors that she didn’t know existed until after she had opened them. She finds herself immersed in a world that she does not know. Yet. This World is Hers. Is Mine. World becomes meaningful, significant.

5
Heavy
Tangible
Real

6
World tugs on her fingers and nudges her elbows and kicks her feet out from under her while she watches with wide, seeing eyes. World mocks her, isolates her, challenges her, questions her every move. 7 World taunts her. 8 World grabs her. 9 World blinds her. World stops her and starts her. World talks to her World ignores her World embraces her World drops her World asks her World helps her. Her World.

10 Breathe.
One summer she breathed. She saw breath in motion and fell irreversibly in love with it. Breath caught her throat on a hook and tugged only it wasn’t painful. She woke up, sat up, inhaled, exhaled, and repeated. This was her religion. But then it became more than a religion it became more than a language it became a style and it became her style. This new mentality
This new physicality
This new ideality
This new actuality
This new reality spoke through her. Spoke to her. Spoke for her within her without her.
Thank you, was all she could say to them. Because they taught her how to breathe.
Thank you
Thank you
Thank you

11
New phenomenons. Epiphanies. Continuously putting two and 2 together over and over again and again. Angles? 3-Dimensionality? Juxtaposition. Yes and. Atmosphere. Layers. Attempt, Fail, Practice. Attempt, Fail, Practice.
__________________
The people that lived in her little world alongside her changed her. They moved her mind and moved her body and moved her life. She believes in them and jostles them around and tests them and then believes in them even more. Together they reached a tipping point. They established limits and then pushed beyond them. They ran into walls and let themselves fall because some things will always defeat you. They defined themselves and defined each other and re-defined everything else. They painted their names on the floor and on the walls and on the ceiling and in the sky and filled every empty, colorless spot with the color of passion. This is their language.

12
It’s not good-bye because it is goodbye. She learned how to fly but then so did time. She won’t believe it because it’s true, but it’s true because she believed in it every moment that it existed.
Waltzing zebras and faulty picture frames and sparkly face-painted stars and tacky over-sized dresses and X-Factor and cliché tears, you won’t be forgotten.
______________
They threw crackers and broke crackers and crumbled crackers and stuffed crackers in their mouths and down their shirts and choked on crackers and sang ACDC until their voices were shot and their throats and lips were dry and chapped from all the crackers. Then they wiped their mouths and fixed their hair and cleaned each other up and cleared their throats and exchanged awkward glances and coughed in the silence and pulled and tugged at their clothes and stood there____in a straight, uniform line, sweating through their nude leotards and shrinking into their over-sized white button-down shirts. They stood there in their boxers, stock still and out of breath, and stared blindly forward at a darkened audience until the lights went out. And they all smiled_____and bowed_____and exited the stage.

BAX was where I truly became the teacher that I still am today. It is where I developed a fierce belief that training young dancers to be choreographers as well as dancers is vital. It is where I realized that dance for little ones is necessary and dance for teenagers is a life-line.

Eight years ago, I left Brooklyn to achieve a life-long goal of mine to found a modern dance center in the country. Recently, a new parent said of my dance studio’s schedule, “Wow, this looks so much like the schedule from my daughter’s old dance school.” I asked her what studio it was and she answered, “BAX.” She gave me the greatest compliment. Classes in my studio continue the work I began back in 1989 on Douglass St.

One ending thought. Teaching YPPW for ten years was a gift. Working independently, with Dani Nikas and many wonderful guest choreographers was a teaching experience I hold dear. Dani and I both felt blessed to work in such a nurturing environment. We loved our students and felt incredibly lucky witnessing them grow as people, dancers and choreographers. It gives me immense joy to know that so many of those young dancers I taught so long ago (some for as many as ten years) are out there in the world dancing, making dances and teaching dance.