When I returned home to LA from teaching two years at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, I had an image of launching a career in concert performance. My experiences at the college–inspiring students through ideas, experimentation, considering a philosophy of life–gave me much-needed confidence in myself, in my instinctive ways of knowing and trusting it.
Situated back in Los Angeles I envisioned a strategy: to create and perform a new work on every concert venue possible. The idea was possible thanks to Betty Empey establishing the Los Angeles Area Dance Alliance,–the southern California support and producing organization which included the annual summer festival “Dance Kaleidoscope,” a monthly dance newsletter, and a team of active artist advocates who championed the diversity and artistry in dance happening throughout the Los Angeles area.
I was graciously given studio space in exchange for teaching a children’s ballet class at the Renard Dance Studio on Venice Boulevard in Mar Vista. Owners Mickey and Maxine Renard were a touring duo dance team and a part of many Las Vegas shows of the 50’s. Maxine became a longtime friend and though she candidly admitted, “I don’t much like modern dance,” she always came to see my work.
I practically lived at their studio working every afternoon after teaching into early evening. In a year’s time I auditioned my first solo work for the 1982 Dance Kaleidoscope festival: “Off Beat.” The work earned the acknowledgement and honor of the Judith Stark/LAADA Vanguard Award for Outstanding Choreography for Solo Performance. Throughout that year I also danced as a guest with local companies and created works for various performance venues. The Los Angeles dance community had developed a presence due to its heightened consciousness for the dance art–-and thanks to the people who paid attention and attended concerts; thanks to those spoke and wrote about the work–even if and when the writing itself did not match the poeticism in the work (post-Martin Bernheimer of the Los Angeles Times); and, along with continuing to gaining gain that much-needed confidence, I applied for and received my first National Endowment for the Arts Choreography Fellowship in 1983.
