The last dance class I took in New York City was about seven years ago. I had not been taking class down here, even though there is a school within walking distance, because the teachers are not on the New York level, because they use canned music, because if it is the holiday season, you might find yourself doing the barre to “Rudolph, the Red-nosed Reindeer”, because the other students are young teens and brain dead only begins to describe them, because the work is uninspiring. Ballet work done right is brutal, it is draining, it takes focus and perseverance and a willingness to force yourself to go on when you are exhausted. If the work is not challenging mentally as in ingenious choreography, and artistically involving, I can’t dredge up the strength.

So, in 2007, on a trip to see Sophie, my 99-year-old piano mentor and friend (who was then under at-home nursing care and no longer teaching), I took the opportunity to show up at Broadway Dance Center (57th Street) and have a class and it was to be the last. Sophie died soon after, a month short of her 100th birthday in January. She was my built in reason to travel to New York (I may never see her again was my plea) and now my going was not considered compelling enough to justify the expense. I could argue that going to New York on a periodic basis keeps me alive. But, and this is so saddening, the class and the piano lesson I would take are now in the past. I have friends there and I love them but to be in New York and NOT DANCE and not work with Sophie is a personal tragedy.

The class I took was with Dorit, an Israeli, and she gave a truly involving, difficult, exciting class. I was 76 and had been working out daily in Florida on my own. Stretches, jumps, pirouettes, plies, all of it. I was able to keep up, which surprised and inspired me. I sailed through the air, an arabesque leap two feet off the floor during the grande allegro part. and the thought flashed through my mind, “This is living.”

I can’t do that anymore. This is not only because my workouts are not as ambitious as they used to be, but because I lost endurance and energy and muscle strength after coming off of hormone replacement therapy due to the breast cancer diagnosis (many female cancers are hormone dependent). I’m stronger than most my age, but just not up to class. I still get e mails from Broadway Dance Center that inform me about new teaching programs, new disciplines (like I want to toe-tap – forget it), with bios of new teachers, with announcement of performances being given. I also get e mails from Steps on Broadway, my other studio (that I left because the teacher was beginning to really annoy me) and there was one I got today that started me thinking about what it was like to stretch myself beyond the ordinary.

One teacher I had (Jan Miller) who was absolutely fantastic, had left New York and gone to work for a school in New Orleans, to head its dance department. She turned the class upside down and made it viable. Students had been using it for an easy A. That all stopped and despite whining and sniveling and being forced to actually apply themselves, despite angry parents who were inclined to indulge their little darlings, she turned them into dancers. She flunked the slackers and concentrated on the do-ers. She put on programs. She designed the costumes, and sewed them herself. Then came Katrina. She got out and wound up in Texas where she is now teaching in one of the colleges. We keep in touch sporadically. I have invited her to visit but there is a generation gap that, I think, daunts her. Too bad.

Dancing and piano have given me an inner power that I love. I miss the dancing because it spent me in a total way. Thankfully, I still feel the thrill of the music coming to life in my hands. And, lately, my hands are getting better. I don’t quite know why. It’s like a sudden leap forward and I didn’t know that could still happen. I’m hanging on to that.

xx, Teal