And I started studying ballet at age seven.
Was it your decision, or did your...
It happened.
It just happened.
I don't believe it just happened.
Well, it just flitted around.
My mom, it actually, well, my first creative thought was, I would probably, I was sitting
on the couch, my mom had the radio on, and Saturday afternoon at the opera, the Met was
on, and all these opera singers were singing, and she always played that on, you know, Saturday
afternoon, because that's when they did it, and it was directly from the old metropolitan
opera house in New York City in the 40s, which I had the great occasion to visit and see many
operas, but I was sitting there, and I'm saying to myself, I don't know why I remember this
thought, but it was probably my first creative thought.
I don't know if I like this, but I think I should.
And then it just continued on from there, and I'd flit around, so my mom decided we should
do ballet classes, so classical music was always on in my house, and so my first teacher
was Vivian Toshel, and we walked down the stairs in her house into the basement, and
there were blue and red lights, and the floor was raised a little bit, and she showed me
baton twirling, she showed me acrobatics, she showed me tap, and then she showed me ballet.
First I went to the University of Miami for a bit, and then I went to New York City.
I knew I was going to go to New York City, but I just wanted to check out college.
How long were you in college?
A year, and then I was off.
Do you know some of the football players from UVM, not UVM, University of Miami, same initials,
would come and take ballet class?
Really?
Really.
For the exercise or for the girls, I have no idea which, but they were cute, very cute,
but that is not an uncommon thing that football players come into ballet class because of
the focus and control, momentum, and that was always fun.
And athletes should take ballet class, actually everybody should take ballet class, it's great
for the mind and soul, it's wonderful.
I was thinking, what were three things I could say about ballet and dance?
And first of all, it's so brainy.
You really got to connect your brains to your body, and the braininess is really exciting
and it's challenging.
And it's musical, not only is the music beautiful, but your steps have to fit into the music,
so that connects to the brain and the body.
And then as we were speaking before, your presence and your essence, you are in the
moment, whether you be on stage or in a ballet class, and that's all that matters, that you're
in the studio or you're on stage, and I find the process of the studio much more exciting,
funny enough than being on stage, and I've been on stage a lot.
I love the process, and I love my studio.
I looked out the windows and I said, everybody from Merchant's Row is going to be looking
up and is going to be seeing these dancers, and I thought that was just such a wonderful
image in my mind, and nobody ever said anything.
Occasionally, people walk up, as you know, they're not an awful lot of people walking
on Merchant's Row, but then when we met Richard, and you asked me if you could do this, interview,
you said that at one point, you looked up, was it nighttime?
No, it was in the morning.
It was in the morning.
Well, it must have been, obviously, one of my morning classes, and it must have probably
been me that you saw by the bar, because that's where I stand to demonstrate, by the windows,
and you said that you looked up and you saw these images of someone dancing, and what was
your feeling on that?
It was incredibly moving and beautiful, and you created that in the middle of gritty downtown
in Rutland, Vermont, there was this vision of loveliness in the window that was just
exquisite.
Well, when you told me that, and I've been teaching for, God knows, over 25 years, I'm
not going to say how long I've been teaching, but that is exactly what I wanted to happen,
and I didn't realize that it did happen, and then you told me, and I realized that it
hadn't happened, but I hadn't realized that it had happened, and you told me it had happened.
We could go around in circles about that whole thought, so I was really excited that somebody
noticed, and I'm sure that other people noticed, but they haven't told me, so never mentioned
it, so that was great.
