Life’s Music in the Body
BY EMMALY WIEDERHOLT; PHOTOGRAPHS BY GREGORY BARTNING
In a 14-day whirlwind filled with little sleep and lots of caffeine, I travelled with photographer Gregory Bartning from Los Angeles up the coast to Seattle, interviewing 25 dancers and hosting five public events to finish and promote our Dancing Over 50 Project, a series of interviews and photographs with over 50 dancers over age 50 along the West Coast. This project has been in the works for over two years, and by next summer we hope to turn this puppy into a signed, sealed and delivered book!
The previously finished interviews are available in full here, but I want to share a sneak peek of some words of wisdom collected on our recent journey. Over the past two weeks, I have been sharing a favorite quote and photo from each of the newest interviewees. In other words, read on!
Naomi Gedo Diouf
On motivation:
“Dance heals your body and mind. It’s a medicine, a spiritual enlightenment. When you say you’re done dancing, something is wrong. Whatever you are feeling, dance is that feeling made visible. It’s a beautiful thing to feel life’s music in your body.”
Stella Matsuda
On legacy:
“You touch people’s lives by what you do. It may be simple, but it’s about sharing. It’s moving someone who’s not moving. It’s transferring energy.”
Jim McGinn
On advice:
“A lot of dancers have what I call ballet damage. And so my plea to them is to keep their aesthetic doors open. Whether you have ballet damage, Catholic damage or football damage, you can get over it and move on.”
Josie Moseley
On pursuing dance:
“You can’t walk into dance with any assurances. You have to walk into it with blind faith. But I trust dance.”
Anandha Ray
On continuing:
“Dance is in the mind as much as it is in the body. I will have to redefine the way I dance as I grow older, but I will never leave. It’s my worst fear to not be able to move. But if I couldn’t move, I would still be dancing in my mind.”
Deborah Slater
On motivation:
“It’s getting harder. There’s so much less money. I look at people who have gone on to other jobs and I wonder why I couldn’t have gone on to something else that was interesting. There’s much that interests me. But I was always determined to be a dance artist in the Bay Area. New York had plenty of dancers. That stubbornness has kept me going.”
Cynthia Winton Henry
On success:
“My success is: am I feeling healthy? Is my community porous to reality and to making things? Are we making things that feel truthful? And does that making feel like an offering of some sort?”
One Response to “Life’s Music in the Body”
So incredibly inspiring. Keep up the good work. I’m still loving dance at 70 after a lifetime of it, never finding another artistic outlet that I could cling to.
Please see Diane Davisson Dancers on facebook. She is located in West L.A. and is a fabulous tap dancer.
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