Ok, I promised Kevin R. Hollo that I'd write something about my "early experiences in the acquisition of any sort of dance knowledge." And I will write you, Kevin, separately, but since this is connected to my thinking on gestural memory, I thought I'd try and start here.

I have no memory of the first time I danced, or moved in a way that might be considered dancing. I don't even remember my first ballet class. Oh, wait, I'm lying. I don't remember ballet, but I remember taking some kind of creative movement class in the upstairs of a fabulous old building on Main Street, in Sedgwick, Maine--one right on the Benjamin river. One part of a dance involved cradling our arms and making a movement that was like rocking a baby to sleep. Maybe I was six, or seven? I don't think there was any music--we sang or chanted some kind of a poem/song that went with our movements.

I probably remember the "rocking the baby" movement because it's one I would have already known in some form.

I don't think the class lasted more than a few weeks one summer. Our teacher was a slightly plump, "earthy" looking woman in her 30s or 40s--though who knows how old she was, really. She was older than me and seemed motherly. My own mother was in her early 30s at the time, so this woman could have been the same age as my mom.

What I loved most about the class was the dance space. Every town on the Blue Hill peninsula has an old town hall, usually with a large meeting/dance hall and a stage. The room we danced in was like that. Maybe it was an old town hall. Old wood floors: slippery, dusty, full of splinters (but good for turns), light and ocean air coming in through the windows. Exposed beams in the ceiling.

I just remembered this now. Before I was going to talk about music. I have very very early memories of singing and being sung to. Mom singing lullabys or asking me to sing, Dad singing and playing guitar. One day I may coax my father to either write his songs down, or do a low tech recording. There are a few recordings of me when I'm five or so singing--sometimes I'm singing a song I actually learned, but often I'm just making stuff up, or telling a story about what I did last week, etc. As I got a bit older, singing was something I'd do while walking, a way of processing information.

As a dancer, my musical phrasing and use of space is certainly what I'm best at. I'm not flexible, and wasn't even when I was younger. So, my early knowledge of dance then, would be based in two things--sound and space. The whole idea that dancing can be social, something you do with another person, came much later.

Of course, I danced with my Dad while standing on his feet--this has to be a common little girl experience.