Building My Own Program in NYC

In the last blog I mentioned that although Martha Hill had encouraged me to re-audition for Juilliard, I never had a chance to discuss this with my parents because  my grandmother died at the same time. So … as planned, off I went to the University of Denver, my only backup school.  After only one dance class it was clear to me this was not going to work. Within a few days after informing my parents I would not be staying at the University of Denver, I had withdrawn from school and was packed and on the train heading back to Pittsburgh. I was filled with a clear determination that I wanted to study dance with the best, and the place to do that was in New York City.  There was no doubt in my mind that I wanted a career in dance.  I hoped that I would have the support of my parents and that they would financially support an independent program in NYC that wasn’t connected to a particular college.  I loved the Graham technique of modern dance and knew that would be where I would be taking modern dance classes. On my list was to find a good place to study ballet.  I valued academics and thought I would explore what kind of possibilities there would be to enroll in one or two college courses.  The long train ride from Denver to Pittsburgh gave me time to think through these different options and I found myself focused and clear on what my next steps were when I got home.

My parents were somewhat open but clearly had their own thoughts on what would be best for me, and my father in particular had a hard time with his daughter being a dancer in NYC.  My father’s stepbrother was a psychiatrist and having been consulted, he suggested that when I got home I should see a colleague of his and have someone outside of the family talk to me in  case there was something else going on.  So shortly after I got home my parents arranged an appointment for me.  I knew I needed to be cooperative because my first choice was having their financial support rather then having to support myself in NYC so I was willing to give it a few months home in Pittsburgh if I had to.  They also suggested I enroll in a typing course so I might have a skill to support myself if I needed to.  

So I enrolled in a typing course at a secretarial school and I had what turned out to be a single appointment with a woman psychiatrist.  The appointment ended up actually being lots of fun. I explained why I wanted to go to New York and how I was planning to structure my time.  She asked me quite a few questions and by the end of the appointment she was very encouraging and said that if I liked, she would have a follow up appointment with my parents and share with them that she thought my plans were very realistic and encourage them to support me.  

Following their appointment a week later, it was decided that I would move to NYC after the 1^stof the year.  That would give me time to further explore options of where to live in the City and finish the typing course.  My mom and I visited New York to explore options of where I would live.  I was young and the idea of my living in an apartment was out of the question so we explored places like Y residences for women and the Barbizon Hotel for Women, where I had stayed once before. We then found a house on Madison and 68^thStreet that was for women only and offered breakfast in the morning.  That would be where I stayed.  The neighborhood was great and the other women were a variety of ages. I think I even had my own room. I remember that living in the room next door was a model who was on the cover of Vogue,and another person living on the floor was studying acting. The house itself was a beautiful brownstone with a dramatic spiral staircase in the foyer where one entered. It was near the Cuban Embassy and there were often candlelight vigils and protests on our street.

I knew I would be taking classes at the Graham Studio which was located at 63^rdbetween 1^stand 2^ndAvenue and an easy walk from where I lived. Next to explore was where I would go for ballet. I am not sure what made me decide that I wanted to go to the American School of Ballet which was pretty much for very serious young dancers but I got that in my mind and shortly after arriving in NYC I went for an audition and was placed in the beginning level class with outstanding teachers like Muriel Stuart. I actually loved the classes in spite of being surrounded by very thin “bunhead” ballerina types.  Later I would move to studying ballet with Nina Fonaroff, totally loving her class and feeling so much more at home with her.  She had danced in the Martha Graham company and also assisted Louis Horst, a composition teacher I was hoping to study with.  I continued studying with her even when I later attended Juilliard.  Her classes were fun and had a unique musical quality to them as she accompanied the class playing on the studio’s piano.  A friend I had met at Connecticut College the previous summer sometimes joined the small class too.  With the tension and competition that existed at places like The Graham Studio, School of American Ballet and later at Juilliard, it was a real delight to take class and get back in touch with the childhood joy of dancing.  Nina’s combinations were fun to do and her corrections excellent.  Ballet was fun –  something I had not really experienced before.

One more piece of the puzzle to solve.  I discovered that Columbia University had a School of General Studies that was designed for students like me who didn’t want to go full time.  So I took the entrance exam, was accepted and began taking a few courses there.

While I did spend a lot of my time on NYC subways and buses going from place to place, I liked the package I had put together and enjoyed the next six months in New York very much.  

The following summer I returned to Connecticut College, this time focusing on composition classes and continuing to take two technique classes a day, one in Graham technique and the other in Cunningham technique which really never suited me well. The highlight for me was taking a composition class from Pearl Lang, and Louis Horst’s Pre-Classic Dance Forms.   I loved both of them. In Pearl’s class I spent the full six weeks creating a laughter study and an anger study in dance.  Louis’s class was a real challenge.  The pieces we had to create were short with an ABA form.  The theme had to be introduced in the first two measures of the A section and every movement in the A section needed to relate to something in those first two measures.  He was very demanding and would stop you in the middle of a section if you weren’t following the rules of composition that he outlined.  I immediately had great respect for him and knew I wanted to study with him more.  So at the end of the summer I asked him if I could take his next course (Modern Forms) at Juilliard, even if I wasn’t a full-time student.  He agreed and when I returned to New York in the fall I got approval to do just that.  It was a few months into the fall semester when he said I should stop this nonsense of running all around New York and just be a student at Juilliard.  And that is exactly what happened.  With permission from the dance office and individual teachers, I was allowed to sit in on the classes like Literature and Material of Music for Dancers, and Labanotation and if I passed the mid-term exams I could get credit for those classes.  I auditioned in late January, was accepted and became a full-time student at Juilliard in the winter of 1962.  By the end of the school year I had completed my first year at Juilliard.  Although the class had begun with about 40-plus students, when we started school the following fall there were only about 15 of us left. In the next blog I’ll share more reflections about my time at Juilliard.