A Little Backstory

JM: In a nutshell... I began as a classical pianist at a young age. I started dancing as “physical therapy” at age 10 due to seven fractured vertebrae from a fall, slipping on a bathroom rug. It changed my life… or perhaps allowed me to find it! I never felt as real or as free as when I was dancing. It clearly resonated with me and guided my life from there, although on a rather bumpy path. Family restrictions and expectations tried desperately to steer me away from dance, but somewhere deep inside there was a driving force that kept coming to the fore. I call it my pilot light, and I struggled to keep it lit!

PN: Amazing… how dance and injury entwine in our lives. I too started out with musical training (the cello) When I was sent to a Music Camp, I discovered dance, and that was it for the poor cello! Unfortunately, I also began to have trouble with a subluxing patella (my Spellcheck is having trouble with that!). So instead of returning next summer with a dance scholarship I ended up in the hospital having a knee operation. Mother remembers my surgeon telling me to take up knitting, but I don’t! In the 50’s there was no such thing as post- op PT. I was told to put a sandbag on my ankle and lift and lower it! The next summer I followed a cousin’s example and spent three weeks at Jacob’s Pillow, where I saw a dancer named Daniel Nagrin perform. He combined acting and dance in his choreography. What I wanted to do without knowing it was revealed to be possible!!

MWP: I was an “Army brat” and followed my father from post to post – Texas, Pennsylvania, the Philippines, North Carolina, Germany, back to Texas, and Pennsylvania again. Folk dancing at the age of 5 in the Philippines was my impetus. I loved dancing, and, in a home with a younger and older sister, I had found something I could do and something I was good at! I mainly studied ballet, although I did a stint of Flamenco in San Antonio. It would be at Wilson that I first began modern dance. I went from toe shoes to no shoes and loved everything about it.