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This coming Monday, at the Pennsylvania Library Association Convention, I'll be sitting with Stephen Fried and Neal Bascomb on a panel devoted to nonfiction, an event I've been looking forward to for quite awhile.
Other events at a variety of venues—Rosemont College, Montgomery County Community College, Trinity Urban Life Center, University of Pennsylvania, Montgomery County Historical Center, and the National Harbor Convention Center—are upcoming, and I share them here, on the off chance that our paths might cross. Nonfiction, memoir, promotions, the Schuylkill River, the fate of young adult fiction, and my new April 2015 novel, One Thing Stolen (Chronicle Books) will all be discussed.
In between, I'll be dancing the cha-cha for DanceSport Academy on the Bryn Mawr College campus to the song "Blurred Lines." Which is exactly how I'm feeling.
September 29, 2014, 2:00 PM Nonfiction Panel with Stephen Fried and Neal Bascomb PaLA Convention Lancaster County Convention Center Lancaster County, PA
October 11, 2014 Memoir and Creative Nonfiction Panel (1:15), with Karen Rile and Julia Chang Marketing for Published Authors Panel (2:30), with Kelly Simmons and Donna Galanti Push to Publish Conference Rosemont College Rosemont, PA Details here.
October 14, 7 PM River of the Year Keynote Schuylkill River Heritage Area Montgomery County Community College West Campus Community Room Details here.
October 16, 7 PM River of the Year Keynote Schuylkill River Heritage Area Trinity Urban Life Center Philadelphia, PA Details here.
November 1, 2014, 4:00 PM University of Pennsylvania Homecoming Panel LORENE CARY (C'78), BETH KEPHART (C'82), JORDAN SONNENBLICK (C'91), and KATHY DEMARCO VAN CLEVE (C'88) — and moderated by children's book editor LIZ VAN DOREN Young Adult Fiction Panel Kelly Writers House Philadelphia, PA
November 15, 2014 Luncheon Keynote Montgomery County Historical Society (private function)
November 21, 2014, 1:00 PM NCTE Signing, ONE THING STOLEN National Harbor Convention Center Washington, DC
0 Comments on a few upcoming events as of 9/26/2014 8:09:00 PM
Today was full of many things—an early morning with my dad, time with a manuscript, a fantastic (even raucous) baby shower crowded with such dear friends, a trip to the Schuylkill River to experience the Flow Festival, and almost (not quite) finding A.S. King in my own 30th Street Station (we missed each other by minutes; we will not miss each other again). Tonight, day's end, I am thinking of the souls who gathered, the baby who is waiting, the joy that convened. I am thinking, too, about a conversation—the kind I've had so rarely I could count the times on my left hand.
"We need to talk about Savas," the conversation began. The speaker was a dance friend, a tech genius, someone I hadn't seen in many months. I was so startled that at first I couldn't imagine what he meant. It was Going Over, the Berlin novel, he was speaking of. It was a decision I'd made about a character, a young Turkish boy, that he was questioning. How? he asked me. Why? Should it not have been impossible to write what I wrote down?
My friend had questions, too, about Ada and Stefan, what my west Berlin graffiti girl saw, at first, in her East Berlin lover. He wanted to know about point of view, how I decided what was to be left on stage, and off. And where did the graffiti come from, he wanted to know. Were you (in a distant past) some kind of graffiti delinquent?
I kept shaking my head. I kept smiling inside. I kept reminding myself—Wait. He took the time. He read your book. He thought about it. He wondered. I thought later how unusual this was. To be asked, with real interest, about something I'd written. To be invited to talk—not about all that superficial stuff that interests me less and less, but about the story itself. It's a rare friend who makes room for this—who presses you, who listens, who may not agree with some of the choices you made, but whose interest, nonetheless, is genuine.
I have been dancing, on and off, for a few good years now. I'm no better at it than when I began. But I dance, like I do clay, for the conversations and the friends. Of this, today—among so much laughter, within such warmth—I was reminded again.
Congratulations, in the meantime, to Aideen, Mike, and Mercy, who brought us altogether. What a family you have. And many thanks to Ms. Tirsa Rivas. One of the best party-throwers in the land.
0 Comments on getting real, with friends as of 9/22/2014 12:44:00 AM
In today's Philadelphia Inquirer I yearn toward dance, mourn my countless non-capabilities, and conclude, well — read on. The story begins like this, below, and can be found in its entirety here.
How I stood, how I sat, how I walked into a room and didn't possess it - these were concerns. Also: the untamed wilderness of my hair, but we would get to that. In addition: the way I hid behind my clothes and failed their easy angles. Most troubling, perhaps: my tendency to rush, my feverish impatience with myself, my heretofore undiagnosed problem with the art of being led.
So I thought I could dance.
So I imagined the ballroom instructors leaning in to say - first rumba or perhaps the second - "You've got a knack for this."
What knack? What had I done? Why had I not realized that dancing in the dark alone to Bruce Springsteen does not qualify anyone for the cha-cha? That grace is not necessarily an elevated pointer finger? That how they do it on TV is how they do it on TV? That just because you love to dance does not a dancer make you?
So many thanks to Avery Rome for making room for the piece, and to DanceSport Academy in Ardmore—and all my teachers—for making room for me. Thanks, too, to a certain Moira. She knows who she is.
3 Comments on reflecting on my ballroom dance "career" in today's Inquirer, last added: 10/10/2012
Fun article, Beth! Thanks for sharing your encouraging qualms. As you know, I very much enjoy your dance videos - and aspire to such grace of movement. But the reality is that I'm much more of a dancing in the dark w/ Bruce kind of girl. (Where I rule the floor.) :)
You know how it is when you wait and wait and wait to share a (good) secret? That's how I always feel when I'm waiting to showcase my husband's art on my humble blog. I was able to release this image not long ago. Today I can share more.
This work is months in the making. It all began with a photo shoot at DanceSport Academy and features our talented, beautiful friends—Jan, Lana, Scott, Tirsa—whom Bill photographed against a green background. Everything else in these images—the furniture, the hats, the mannequins, the cloth, that pair of legs—was fashioned with a variety of 3D software tools, about which I know nothing.
I just know that I'm amazed, all the time, by what Bill does.
Click on the image to see it in bright detail.
3 Comments on My husband's art (2), last added: 8/10/2012
One of the most exciting DanceSport Academy presentations this past Sunday was the dance of the studio's two young stars—a wild mix of genres against the backdrop of "The Matrix" soundtrack, all choreographed by Miss Cristina. I photographed the two during the rehearsals Sunday morning. Look at how quickly K. moves. Check out the beauty of M.
3 Comments on Dance, Superimposed, last added: 8/2/2011
We spent much of yesterday rehearsing for and then delivering the sixth DanceSport Academy Showcase, sited this year at the Villanova University Connelly Center (which is also where the Lore Kephart Distinguished Historians Series is hosted).
I happen to think it was the best show ever—full of brave souls, innovative choreography, sheer talent, electrifying youth, and the final crowning glory of two performances by Latin champion dancers Jan Paulovich and Lana Roosiparg.
It was also, for me, a chance to dance that waltz with Jan and that cha-cha with my husband—a chance, too, to be surprised by dear friends Tom, Nancy, Mark, Elizabeth, and Laura, who arrived unannounced and cheered us on. How much that meant (and how long remembered it will be). And afterward, of course, dinner with the Bells. We always love our dinner with the Bells, and it's especially fun when dinner with the Bells coincides (another surprise) with a second chance to visit with Tom, Nancy, Mark, Elizabeth, and Laura.
Thank you, Scott Lazarov, John Larson, Cristina Mueller, Aideen O'Malley, Tirsa Rivas, and, of course, Jan and Lana, for seeing us through. For asking us to do more than we think we can—for expecting it from us—and for giving us a stage upon which we can try to soar...or, at least, hear the music.
4 Comments on Scenes from the DanceSport Academy Showcase, last added: 8/1/2011
We loved seeing your performance - and, to no one's surprise, you tell a beautiful story even in dance. We are grateful for your introduction to DanceSport and the pleasure we have found in attempting to take our first semi-rhythmic steps.
How often I can be found here on this blog, talking dance, yearning for it. How many books of mine have taken a choreographic turn or stopped and lived at, say, the very House of Dance? I've been blessed by teachers who sway me toward better—Scott Lazarov with his impeccable choreography, Jan Paulovich, who insists that I hear the music and is so artfully exact, John Larson, the King of Standard, Cristina Mueller and her Thursday wonders, Aideen O'Malley who does it all, John Vilardo, who worked me out of paralytic fear early on, and others, too. Blessed is me.
I'm not terrific at dance, but I keep trying, and I console myself that the trying matters. This coming Sunday I'll be trying again in a DanceSport Academy showcase—dancing the cha-cha with my husband and a waltz with Jan Paulovich. I'm not exactly ready for either dance. But the hours tick on, and Sunday comes.
Today, though, I share this video of Jan Paulovich and his partner, Lana Roosiparg, who dance so magnificently together. This is what they do, these teachers, when they are free to be their ultimate dance selves.
5 Comments on Jan and Lana Dance the Jive (for real, ladies and gentlemen), last added: 7/30/2011
It has crept up on me—the DanceSport Academy Annual Showcase—a many-hour extravaganza of dance-loving people having fun. Or, we tell ourselves that it's fun. Or, afterward, no matter what has happened, we remember it as being fun. I prefer those waiting-in-the-wings moments, hidden behind the curtain, watching my friends. I yield, every time, to the camaraderie. I try to forget that I've been too buried in corporate work to give the performances my rehearsing all. I'll dance a Viennese waltz with my husband—tune out the nerves, listen for the song. I'll dance that campy, broom-swinging fox trot with John Larson. I'll take photographs in between and hope that one or two of them turns out.
The photograph above was taking during a Dancing Classrooms final. These are children, the flower fallen from her hair. These are kids, enjoying their now. I'm going to be thinking about them when I take the stage. I am going to remember that, no matter what happens beneath the spotlight, it's a lucky thing to have bend in your knees and hope tucked in your heart.
5 Comments on A weekend of dance, last added: 10/11/2010
Just now, coming home from a ballroom lesson with John (Where is the dance? I asked him; It's in the balance we create between each other, he said) I drove through sunlit rain. Half the sky clear and the other full of gray shout.
I'm going to tell you something: I did not look pretty today. My hair is two weeks past the cut I'd promised it (I'm getting to it, I tell it). My clothes are the ones that aren't in the laundry room (sorry, but that means they are not my favorites). My mascara is tending toward globby.
I did not look pretty today, and yet I went dancing. Oh, poor Jean, I thought, as I went up those stairs. The things that man has to put up with. My chin too low on some rumba moves, my feet not yet always firmly planted, my New Yorker sneaking up on my ronde, and my hair. Never good, but even worse when it is two weeks past a hair cut.
Whatever. I'd worked through perhaps 100 emails, five drafts of different projects, and at least a dozen calls; there just wasn't time to deal with me. And I was about to apologize for it, about to make a bunch of lame excuses, but Jean is my good friend Jean. Jean, I realized today, is the kind of friend and dance instructor who can laugh with me despite how I look and not make me feel too flat-out unattractive to dance a cha-cha or a salsa.
That's friendship.
7 Comments on Metamorphosis at the Dance Studio, last added: 3/21/2010
I think your hair looks really good. I like the new spikey style and those black highlights are very fashion-forward. (You're an Autumn, you lucky girl, you can get away with that palette.)
So I am so out of the loop - wash and go hair. I am jealous! Sorry to have been an absentee commenter. Been commiting the unforgivable sin of reading posts without commenting.
I'm certain you looked lovely! I had to chuckle at the 'two weeks past a hair cut' comment, because I'm the same way ... I think it actually starts about a week BEFORE the haircut! :-)
In a few short weeks, House of Dance, my second novel for young adults, will be out as a paperback with a slightly revamped cover.
Those of you who know me a little know this: I love the freedom that dance affords me—the freedom to be my somewhat zany self, the freedom from the mind-bend of at-the-desk problem solving, the freedom of movement. House of Dance, which received a number of starred reviews and has begun to show up on state lists, takes place in a version of Dancesport Academy of Ardmore, PA, where I continue to learn to dance with the likes of Scott Lazarov, Jean Paulovich, John Larson, Aideen O'Malley, Magda Piekarz, Tim Jones, Cristina Rodrighes, and Tirsa Rivas, and among so many friends. I made this "trailer" for the the book with footage that I shot at the studio and around town.
In any case, the point is: I'm having a paperback contest. Those of you interested in receiving a signed copy of the paperback should leave, in the comment box, your definition of what dance is. Two winners will be selected from among the participants, and the two winning definitions will be featured on my blog.
Please leave your comments by March 5th.
21 Comments on House of Dance: A Paperback Contest, last added: 2/21/2010
Dance is a physical expression of music, a chance for anyone who is willing to close their eyes and lose themselves in the moment, to let their bodies respond to the sounds that fill their ears. Unlike any other art form, it's a blending of heart and mind, body and soul. Dance can be freedom. But not everybody wants to be free.
Dance is feeling the rhythm suffuse itself throughout your body, become your pulse, and allowing your body to naturally follow that beat. It's letting yourself go to the moment, to the joy of life, to inhibitions and fears.
I think that dance is a way to physically express emotions that can't always be expressed verbally; or sometimes its a way to tell a story that might not have the same effect by simply speaking it.
In simplest terms dance is self expression. It is the self expression of the creator of the movement, the choreographer. It is also the self expression of the dancer. Trained or untrained it does not matter.
It is about expressing emotion through movement; whether to music or silence, in front of an audience or alone in your bedroom.
Dance is a physical response to an irresistible stimulus, bringing internal and external rhythms together and forcing the body to move in time with them. As they sang in Hairspray, "You can't stop the beat."
Dance is moving your body in new ways, pushing boundaries and changing perspectives. I love getting lost in my own movements- sometimes even caught off guard. Dance allows you to be who you want to be (especially when done in the privacy of your own room). It is awesome.
Dance is when your body becomes a channel for which music can flow. When your veins run with the flow and rhythm. Your very movements are decided by the tempo, you get lost in the beat. Dance is like the changes of nature, for which each sound, your body, and the dance change in a never ending cycle. Dance is an expression of yourself,as you find your heart, and others somewhere on the smooth wood floors. To me, dance is an expression of emotion, but more importantly, Dance is the movement of life.
Dance is a chance to express yourself through music, it's an art - blah blah blah. The classic textbook answer is that and such. Not that it's wrong, but I believe you can't just define dance to be a mere meaning to be able to just move your feet and/or body to a rhythm (though that's highly necessary, in matters that you wouldn't want to just fling your arms about and smack someone). For some people, dancing is their life. Others, it's a culture (perhaps to celebrate their succesful day of hunting). Wrong thinking would be, such as verious belittling professionals: if you aren't willing to do your best, don't dance at all. However that's not even remotely true. Just because you can't doesn't mean you shouldn't. If you want to say what you mean and you're not good with words, dance. Show others you mean something and that the beauty in what you see will be shown to the rest. Plus, it's great exercise.
From Hilary Hanes via Facebook: "Dance is...an expression of everything one feels. It can be fast or slow; it can be with someone or alone. It can be joyful or sorrowful. Dance doesn't have to be perfect, nor can anyone really define perfection. It doesn't have to be pretty, but it has to come from the heart. Someone dancing without an ounce of rhythm can be just as beautiful as someone dancing with technical perfection. It expresses what one feels inside, and should be shown with unabashed freedom. "
Magda, the champion dancer, talks about posture. She says, "Imagine that you have a coat, a heavy coat, and that you have filled its every pocket with stones. Now imagine that you are wearing that coat, that your shoulders bear its weight. There is no tension in your neck, no hunch around your ears, because the coat that you are wearing keeps your shoulders in their place and your arms proper in their sockets. You reach high, but always from an anchored place. Your neck is strong. Your head sits right."
She talks and I watch her move, I watch her glide across the room—this gorgeous creature. I think how easy it seems—standing straight, shoulders back, life in repose. I think of how, from the earliest days on frozen ponds and ice skating rinks, I had all the inner joy and all the speed and all the height, but I lacked posture. I lacked the courage to present myself to the world, to come out from behind myself and say, Here, at last, am I. That has carried forward. Writing, for example, is myself once removed. It is me, behind words, inside them.
Is it too late, at my age, to finally stand tall?
No. Because I want this. I want beauty.
2 Comments on Posturing for Beauty, last added: 10/16/2009
In about two weeks I'll be standing on a stage, hopefully blinded by the lights, dancing a tango in Act One and that much-feared Broadway number in Act Two—all as part of the DanceSport showcase. It's always about now in these scenarios that I ask myself, And what, Beth, were you thinking? When I wake from a dream (I mean to say nightmare) purely certain that there's an elephant turning a pirouette on my chest.
Graceful beasts, those elephants. And so heavy.
Every time I think about getting out there with those jumps and lifts, that impossible Quickstep, that prickly tele-spin, those many cortes, I remember my final ice skating competition, when all I wanted was to be perfect. By the time I took the ice however, I was so clutched and crunched with fear that when the music started my legs were ungreased tins. The rink seemed huge and the audience vast, but most of all I was aware of my parents in the stands—deeply cognizant of their generous investment (time and money) in my ice skating career. I needed, I thought, to skate for their sakes. I needed to be lovely.
I fell on the first jump. I skated tall after that. I brought speed and height into my jumps, kick into the footwork, patience and lean to the spread eagle. I lost, in the end, to my rival, Holly Archinal. But I had skated, I had, and that's what I hope for in two weeks—to find a way past the inevitable errors and to finish tall.
Earlier tonight I was here, at the dance studio. There was rain outside, wet in my perpetually untamed hair, and the lights on the dance floor were dim. There was a mood—a containment, a stillness, no conversation, a quiet conversation, an insistence, a deferral, and then, through the door, came Susan.
I hadn't seen her for months. I'd thought of her often. She's a dark-haired beauty with a megawatt presence. We had sat once, months ago, and talked about weddings. The right way to do them. The wrong way to wear hats. The perils of open bars. We'd talked about love, and about getting love right.
And Susan has. For on her hand this evening was something she had not, until this past Friday, worn before—yes, of course, engagement diamonds. Susan's getting married, and because I was at the studio with my camera, out of place on a quiet night, I got to share in her joy.
This is the thing about the places to which we choose to belong—we enter into family, and family enters into us.
And you—out here—who embraced me these past few days; you know how I feel about you. I have been lucky in my book life, lucky because the right people have found me. You rank high among them.
5 Comments on Family Life and Engagement Joy, last added: 7/24/2009
One returns to the dance studio because one must, because quitting isn't really an option, not in this life. Because if, yesterday, you felt so cluttered and tangled with the smash stuff of yourself, today you could be calm, couldn't you? Be ordinary, self-contained.
You could also be happy, or I was, for there was Jean, being his funny-smart self, and there was this song, from the soundtrack of The Mask, that we've decided to dance at a September showcase, and there were those ridiculous words (at my age), "I'm just a baby in this business of love." When you can't dance like you always wished you could, you can at least act the part, and in a Kenneth Cole T-shirt and white capris, I made as if I'd been swined with pearls, as if I were standing on a street corner at midnight, a bunch of Dick Tracy characters hanging about. I write stories, why not act them? Why not be who I am not, and feel the glory pull of that.
So there I was, mixing the fox trot with quick step with high kicks and play, and there was hardly a soul about (just Nate and Cristina, who are forgiving, just gorgeous Tirsa, and, sometimes, Scott), and I didn't care what I looked like or what I got wrong. I didn't even count the wrongs. I just swirled my imaginary pearls and danced. I was a baby in the business of love.
I have been the kind of person, throughout too much of my life, who measures the day by the progress that's been made—against deadlines, against expectations, against you name it.
I've tried to make the days count.
But today, after going urban pecs power and all, I decided to give myself the day off. Went shopping for an outfit. Went shopping for shoes. Took my beautiful boy out to lunch. Got my hair done. At four o'clock I was in the car, driving to the baptism of a baby girl who has a world of dancers head over heels for her, at least partly because her mom, Cristina, pictured here, had long ago danced her way into our hearts.
I did nothing all day but look forward to this—this gathering of friends in celebration of a baby and a marriage. And then it happened, then I came home, and all I wanted was more song, so I turned the music on. I stood at the screened-in door and watched the night begin. There were clouds. There were stars. There was a carousel of lightning bugs. I sang to the songs. I danced alone.
One more thing: The beautiful service that honored Cristina, her husband, Jeremy, and their baby was conducted—impeccably—by a man who later introduced himself as the husband of fellow blogger, Sierra Rix. Sometimes we bloggers slip out from our shadows. Sometimes we're just standing there as no one but ourselves.
I get so much wrong in this life, but today I got right. Today there was one measure: joy.
12 Comments on Getting the Day Right, last added: 6/14/2009
This world of ours, which grows bigger in my mind as I grope to understand the causes and ideals that drive it, is also made warmer and less intimidating by the the ever dwindlind six degrees. I always knew the Main Line was a "small world" but am constantly delighted by the proof!
I can relate to the need to measure and weigh every day against the brittle yardstick of "progress" (which I suppose means something different to each of us). It is SO difficult to step away from that, even for a day, and stack up scoops of ice cream instead.
I am thinking this morning of the fractions we make, the contradictions we provoke, the black clouds we send up over our heads. I think of the comments we make in a moment of hurry or exhaustion, the tossed-off observations, the words we use to delineate one thing from the other, to set one thing to the side of another, at the awful expense of that other. These things echo; they reverberate. We don't see the ramifications coming, but they will come: you wait, they'll be there. There is nothing we can do to scrub the thing we might not have said, the hurt we should have never inflicted, from our record. We can apologize, and we do. But we can't retreat to the before.
Lately I have been taking dance lessons from a choreographer who, in so many ways, silences the negative. You doubt yourself, and he asks you not to. You hear yourself making some ironic observation, and it goes strictly unacknowledged. You ask him a question and you discover, in his answer, no manipulation, no deceit, no cunning. You make a mistake, and he does not shame you. The lesson isn't soft, the learning is relentless, the stakes keep getting higher—and yet: the negative doesn't enter in. Nothing is gained at the expense of something else. There is, quite simply, gain.
The best teachers teach us more about life than they do about anything else. They give us the chance to be slightly better people. Taking ballroom dance lessons is a self-indulgence of the highest order. But oh, I still have so much to learn. And oh, I am so desperate to get some part of this living right.
We are not taught to acknowledge the positives; only the negatives. When you're called into your boss's office, is it to receive accolades? Nope. Only to get your ass reamed. (Sorry for the verbiage.) I try so hard as a supervisor, to acknowledge people's contributions, but always feel like I could be doing more of it. It's great that you have found someone who understands that accentuating the positives is sooooo important.
I have been conscious lately of the words I speak. I always choose them carefully, but currently my anger towards certain people I have tried very hard to keep inside so as not to cause further damage. It's a difficult thing to do. We're human, I suppose.
I wish I could make letters really wide and open here like a hug. My wow would span the page. So much to take from this. So many lessons I need to act on now! And just how the heck did that instructor get so wise? w-0-w~
1- The detritus we leave behind is usually gathered, parcelled out and kept in a corner of our brain to be analysed (logically) when we are about to make the same mistake again. By then, I hope, we will have learned the lesson.
2- My drama instructor, when I was in uni, came from Boston. She knew from the word go that she was working with a group of higher education students who were studying English and therefore mistakes were prone to being made in rehearsals. She had a gigantic notepad and at the end of each practice she would say: 'Someone said this. The correct way of saying is thus.' That way she avoided shaming the already bashful actor. I was reminded of this experience by your very own tale. It's also a practice that I have brought to my own dance tuition. I hardly ever single out people for mistakes they are making, but try to put it as a general issue.
And the music is. And the music is how Iryna hears it, how she won’t let it down to the floor on the power of its own acquiesce. How she says the battering beat is my bones, it is the affectation of want over repose, and by the way, I will be late, and that will be song. Take it apart. Say it again. The music is how the one snow thread of Iryna’s snow dress snaps, how it melts, how it is always Jean’s, alone.
(I did not take this photograph of this gorgeous and talented couple; it was taken of them at a recent competition in Boston, where they captured the attention of the judges and the fans in major fashion, as they always do. They are on their way. You can see why.)
8 Comments on Jean and Iryna are Dancing: Beth Kephart Poem, last added: 6/1/2009
And then Jean said, "Beth, you have become someone with whom I like to dance. You keep your own balance. You can turn. You can follow. You are gaining technique. Now I worry that the music holds you back. Let the music free you."
Why shouldn't the music free me, I wonder. It always has before.
I am afraid of...what?
4 Comments on Let the Music Free You, last added: 5/1/2009
Fear is interesting. Once you start to look at it, you can see it everywhere. So much of what we do, of what our society values, is grounded in fear. What if it wasn't?
Nothing. Fear, especially in art, is of ridicule, of exposing ourselves. Nothing can hold you back. When you go, you go. That's it. There's no turning back.
I can imagine myself being afraid of not getting the balance, the turns, the techniques and not even hearing the music. Now maybe it's the music's turn. Sounds like it's time to fly. I know you will.
Leave it to Jane Satterfield, the poet, memoirist, and teacher, to instruct me, again, in what I did not know but should have. We met at Bread Loaf, Jane and I. I've been learning from her ever since.
Except that I will. I will quote from this terrific interview, and I will say, for myself, this: Last week, and the week before, something happened at the studio, a letting go (again, more) that enabled me, for the briefest moment, to skim the floor the way Dove describes such skimming. To trust so completely the dancers who kindly danced with me that I could also trust myself. I'd ruin things, of course. I'd break the spell. But for an instant I grasped what it must be to have the knowing of dance in one's bones. I grasped it. I wanted more.
From Rita Dove:
Poetry is a kind of dance already. Technically, there's the play of contemporary speech against the bass-line of the iambic, but there's also the expression of desire that is continually restrained by the limits of the page, the breath, the very architecture of the language--just as dance is limited by the capabilities of our physical bodies as well as by gravity. A dancer toils in order to skim the surface of the floor, she develops muscles most of us don't even know we have; but the goal is to appear weightless. A poet struggles to render into words that which is unsayable--the ineffable, that which is deeper than language--in the hopes that whatever words make the final cut will, in turn, strike the reader speechless.
8 Comments on Poet at the Dance, last added: 4/28/2009
I love the way she describes dance to which I would add that dance is one of the rare forms where you can compose a poem in the air without the aid of a pen. Your body draws the lines, thus turning the dancer into the ultimate painter, too and the result is a sketch whose lines get blurred and disappear as the performers move to another corner of the stage, but whose essence stays with you long after the lights are switched off and the curtains closed.
Many thanks for that interview, I enjoyed it thoroughly.
House of Dance has a slightly modified cover in store for its release next March as a paperback; thank you, Carla Weise and Jill Santopolo.
In this trailer (the last of the three that I've been creating these past few weeks), we go through the streets of Ardmore and up into the Dancesport Academy studio, where it has taken an entire planet's worth of gifted dancers—Scott Lazarov, Jean Paulovich, John Villardo, John Larson, Jim Bunting, Cristina Rodrighes, Aideen O'Malley—and one very fine manager (the lovely Tirsa) to teach me a few things about the box step. This is the studio that inspired this novel, which was named one of the best of the year by Kirkus in 2008.
11 Comments on The House of Dance Trailer, last added: 4/21/2009
Thank you, B&BM (am I the only one who calls you that) and Q and LN. A professional videocamera holder I am not. But I've had fun making these.
Q — SO glad you like the new cover!!
Vivian said, on 4/18/2009 12:16:00 PM
Oh, I love the new cover. Amazing what a change of color will do to make things pop and look more sophisticated.
You are having too much fun with the videocamera. Nice reflection of the dancers!
Maya Ganesan said, on 4/18/2009 12:21:00 PM
I really love the new cover -- it's gorgeous. Amazing trailers.
Priya said, on 4/18/2009 10:27:00 PM
I like the new cover too. It's more dynamic and makes me want to read the book all over again!
Em said, on 4/18/2009 10:42:00 PM
A new cover, interesting. Is it the one on the side, red and black? Maybe you could do a post about why they changed the cover? I love to learn little insider things like that. :)
There are days when I show up at the dance studio for a lesson certain that I'm headed for disaster. My brain is locked, my limbs are ice, I can't distinguish left from right, and honest to goodness, I think to myself, Jean (vested with the responsibility of teaching me, poor thing) is going to kill me. I apologize in advance for the coming catastrophics, and then I beg for mercy. I mean, the guy and his gorgeous wife, Iryna, are on the cusp of huge ballroom dance fame. Can you imagine how much it hurts his head to return, with me, to the basics?
Yesterday Jean took one look at me and said the following words: "Let's not worry about teaching today. Let's just listen to the music and dance." A waltz was on. Jean (the world's greatest mimic) pantomimed a bird. And then my head was arced back and we were dancing. Two false starts, but the third time there it was—the glide and air that I go to dance to find, the float that I'm perpetually seeking.
"What are your goals in dance?" Jean had asked me two weeks before, and I should have said, This. This ageless, timeless, everness. This gift of release from myself.
Oh, well, I don't know about being a terrific dancer, dear Sherry. Perhaps a committed one. And a delightful student? We'll have to ask Jean. I bet he wishes he didn't have to talk at all—that he could just lead and I'd seamlessly follow. That's the goal. Sometimes I'm nearly there (for about thirty seconds). PJ — I am just me. Seeing me as I see me. (what a drag)
It's funny because as I get wiser in years, I've come to terms that living fully means taking risks, taking chances at all life has to offer. Yes, some may see it as "making a fool of oneself," and I think we all have the blushes of "youth" behind us on things we've done or perhaps decided not to do, for fear of embarrassment or how others would see us.
Maybe it's when we finally accept ourselves, we appreciate the chances to make fools of ourselves. (which I did today in the most public way)
It's only been in the last couple of years that I've realized the value of regularly putting oneself in discomfort of some sort...pushing the boundaries...facing one's fears...making a fool of oneself...however you describe it. It gives us a chance to remake ourselves and our perception of ourselves again and again. It grows new muscles, sharpens the vision, limbers the mind and pushes out the horizon.
I believe that's the secret of staying young in spirit.
Thanks for posting this video! As you spoke, I thought of Lewis Carroll's "Lobster Quadrille" (which I've set to music), and how much I try to take my daily living lessons from that poem:
What matters it how far we go?" his scaly friend replied. "There is another shore, you know, upon the other side. The further off from England the nearer is to France -- Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance.
Thanks for this reminder, Beth. I'm often too afraid (and shy and nervous) to do things that I don't understand or that I'm not good at. It's fun to remember that making a fool of yourself can be a good thing. I'm going dancing tonight and I'll keep that in mind. :)
Fun article, Beth! Thanks for sharing your encouraging qualms. As you know, I very much enjoy your dance videos - and aspire to such grace of movement. But the reality is that I'm much more of a dancing in the dark w/ Bruce kind of girl. (Where I rule the floor.) :)
Great news Beth!!! And what is this about a book on Berlin?? Will you be traveling here to Germany to get some inspiration???
JV
Great news Beth!! What is this about a book on Berlin? Will you be traveling here to Germany for some inspiration? Please keep me posted!
JV