This book consists of seven interviews with exemplary dance professionals thriving in the diverse, but related worlds of choreography, performance, education, criticism, administration, preservation and scholarship.
Introduction: What are dance professionals and where do they come from? 9 -- Deborah Jowitt: "I cry when I read really beautiful dance writing." 14 -- Carolyn Carlson: "It's like a meditation. The curtain opens and you have to be there and it's only this moment, now." 34 -- Andrea Snyder: "I dream that dance will step up among the cultural art forms as an equal to opera and theater and music and be attractive to people to come to and enjoy and understand and love and do." 54 -- Garth Fagan: "It definitely is a passion. Because you have to be mad, completely out of it, to be in it!" 78 -- Joann Keali'inohomoku: "It's like you've put some little dried thing in a pan of water and it begins to swell. That's what my reaction is like ... I'm just so filled with it all." 106 -- Bill Evans: "I've never questioned the validity of what I do as a dance teacher, performer, or choreographer. It just seems innately noble to me." 132 -- Madeleine Nichols: "So, how do you measure your work? You measure it by their success. That's it. That's all you have your eye on. That's fun!" 162.