Hometown: Circleville, Utah

Current city: St. George, Utah

Age: 76

College and degree: University of Utah, BS 1962

Graduate school and degree: San Jose State University, 1970. I was around 32 when I finished.

Website: www.eastwestsomatics.com 

How you pay the bills: I’m retired with a pension, and I also have my own teaching institute for somatic studies: Eastwest Somatics for Yoga, Dance, and Movement. I teach workshops in St. George, Zion, and many places in the USA, also offering retreats internationally.

All of the dance hats you wear: Director of Eastwest Somatics and writer on dance subjects from 1970 and continuing. I still like to choreograph (inspire and arrange improvisations).

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Describe your dance life in your….

20s: Finished dance studies and started teaching at the University of Montana. Was awarded a Fulbright to study with Mary Wigman in Berlin, Germany. Returned home to a job at San Jose State University. Got married and gave birth to a daughter.

30s: Teaching at Brockport State University in NY.

40s: Became chair of dance at Brockport State University in NY.

50s: Became chair of graduate dance studies at Brockport State. Began my teaching institute, independently.

60s: Finished teaching career, continued to write about dance, continued my interest in Butoh. Wrote more on butoh. Took ten students to perform my work in Japan through sponsorship from two universities in Japan. Returned the next year with another work and more students. Taught in Japan. Have taken 11 trips to Japan for teaching and performing. Hope to make this an even 12.

70s: I just finished a book with my advanced students who are also scholars. The book is just published by University of Illinois Press: Moving Consciously: Somatic Transformations through Dance, Yoga, and Touch.

What is on your plate/calendar for fall 2015?

I’m teaching a somatics workshop here in St. George for 5 days in November. Then I teach a retreat workshop at Zion that also features a conference. Call for Presentations is available. 

I am finishing two articles for publication in the UK: ”Enacting Embodiment and Blue Muffins” (Blue Muffins is a dance I’m working on that features technology.) and ”Phenomenologies in the Flowing Live Present,” (upcoming). I have two new book chapters coming out, both through edited volumes of Oxford U. Press, ”Love and Power in Butoh, Bausch, and Streb,” and ”A Philosophy of the Improvisational Body.”

Have you always been a writer? Can you talk about the process of writing Dance and The Lived Body?

I liked to write a bit in high school, but didn’t realize I had a flair for it until Joan Woodbury, my teacher at the U (so many will know her) asked me to write an article on dance for the university publication, Pen. She suggested I call it “Words from a Dancer.” I look at it now and see the seeds of phenomenology, writing experience from the first person perspective. She gave me the courage to write. Thank you Joan!

Dance and the Lived Body is a very complex work that was 18 years in the making, incubating and gathering, studying and trying out themes, rewriting, etc. I wrote carefully in the finishing stages, which took about six years of the eighteen. I wrote it without a computer. We didn’t use them so much; technology was just catching up with me. I wrote the entire book in long hand with my puppy by my side.

What is your new book about? How long did it take for you to develop, research, and write it?

Th new book I have mentioned already: Moving Consciously: Somatic Transformations through Dance, Yoga, and Touch. There are nine authors in the book besides me. I wrote the first section, which is about 1/3 of the book, and I edited the rest. All of the writers have studied with me at Eastwest Somatics, and they also offer distinct perspectives through other somatic studies. We aim to be inclusive.

Can you talk about your journey with somatics and developing your own somatic practice and education? Where can people study it? 

I love to talk about my journey with somatics, but it is a long story. So in short version, my first somatic studies were through improvisation classes with LaVeve Whetten in Cedar City, Utah and with Joan Woodbury and Shirley Ririe. Improvisation has somatic elements that can be focused on. 

I started to study yoga intensively in my 30s. I consider it a somatic study, but teachers have to know how to present it somatically through adaptation so that everyone can be successful, even people who are injured or old. Somatics is for everyone, not just talented movers. At least this is my perspective. I gradually added many somatic modes to my plate: The Feldenkrais Method (I’m certified), The Alexander Technique, Rosen Breathwork, and Craniosacral Therapy. My perspective on transformational dance and yoga is influenced by all of this, including Zen meditation, which I practiced in Japan. Butoh can be taught somatically. I call my work with this Butoh-Influenced Metamorphic Dance. It is "tricky" to be a Western butoh teacher, but fun. 

I have written 3 books on butoh. Ahh me – I do keep busy! Have a look at my simple book on creative/somatic yoga: Land to Water Yoga. I love teaching yoga in a dancelike, flowing way.

For anyone wishing to experience my approaches to somatic dance, yoga, and touch – St. George and Zion are not far away. The workshops come in 5-day packages. It takes seven of these to become certified through Eastwest and then you also get certification through ISMETA – International Somatic Movement Education and Therapy Association. Eastwest graduates also qualify for certification through Yoga Alliance. 

What keeps you believing in modern dance in 2015?

It stays creative and ever alive to change. I don’t call it "modern dance" anymore however, but I know that this designation still has historical efficacy. I call what is going on now “Contemporary Dance,” and these designations keep changing also. Modern Dance as such is a phenomenon of the Twentieth Century. We have something new now. I wouldn’t even call it postmodern. I did struggle with all of this in writing Dance and the Lived Body. Styles and techniques were changing along with designations even then. Dance and the Lived Body was published in 1987 – and again later.

Last performance you saw that really inspired you:

I continue to be inspired by explorations of my students, especially depth-movement improvisations that I witness in the environment. I like being on both sides of “Authentic Movement,” but I call it “Depth-Movement Dance,” because I’m not fond of the word “Authentic.” All movement, all dance, is authentically what it is.

Final thoughts: Hope/belief/love of the profession:

Wow! I’ve written whole books on my love of dance. It is not a luxury; it is a necessity. My hope is to involve more people in discovery of the dancer in them. I especially like working with those who have no professional aspirations. They seek to heal through dance, and to find joy.

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