Gallery III - Carmelita Maracci
Photo-documentation with my iPhone 4, May 2017, at New York University’s Centre for Ballet and the Arts in celebration of the life and work of Carmelita Maracci. Slideshow Music: Lullaby, by Frank Morgan.
From age 12 through 18 I studied with Carmelita in Los Angeles. Following the tradition when a teacher brings the young student to the next teacher, my early childhood teacher, Joan Chodorow brought me to Carmelita. I auditioned and Carmelita took me into her adult class. Carmelita Maracci. In the 1977 The Turning Point—a film fraught with criticisms— Russian ballerina Alexandra Danilova says to the young dancer played by Leslie Brown, “If you’re going to be in Los Angeles you must study with Carmelita Maracci.” (New York Times film critic Pauline Kael—a favorite writer of mine—writes, “ ‘The Turning Point' comes with its own footnotes’ "). Ha-ha! I love that!
Whether going to Carmelita’s studio on 6th Street or later on 8th Street in the mid-Wilshire district of Los Angeles, I took the bus from Silverlake five days a week — when I was old enough to travel by myself — and returned home by bus, weeknights and Saturday mornings. This established my lifelong practice,—a rigorous movement practice I continue today with my own The Swan Practice every morning at 5am.
“Young!—come up here where I can see you!” Carmelita insisted. I always glided to the back of the studio for center work. Oy!—I was so shy. But growing up and learning in Carmelita’s midst, I was personally educated about the professional landscape, as she knew it, for black ballet dancers; she was gently preparing me. Though it was never really a conscious thought of mine to be a ballet dancer per se,—simply to dance. Carmelita cultivated my gifts—alongside all who studied with her—and to excel in musicality, clarity of gesture, the use of breath, and felt expression using the ballet vocabulary. Hers was a holistic aesthetic education: Carmelita always contextualized art and art-making within its social and historical contexts. Devoted throughout my formative years, my time with Carmelita laid a foundation on which I continue to stand,— as artist, as thinker, and as world citizen.
From age 12 through 18 I studied with Carmelita in Los Angeles. Following the tradition when a teacher brings the young student to the next teacher, my early childhood teacher, Joan Chodorow brought me to Carmelita. I auditioned and Carmelita took me into her adult class. Carmelita Maracci. In the 1977 The Turning Point—a film fraught with criticisms— Russian ballerina Alexandra Danilova says to the young dancer played by Leslie Brown, “If you’re going to be in Los Angeles you must study with Carmelita Maracci.” (New York Times film critic Pauline Kael—a favorite writer of mine—writes, “ ‘The Turning Point' comes with its own footnotes’ "). Ha-ha! I love that!
Whether going to Carmelita’s studio on 6th Street or later on 8th Street in the mid-Wilshire district of Los Angeles, I took the bus from Silverlake five days a week — when I was old enough to travel by myself — and returned home by bus, weeknights and Saturday mornings. This established my lifelong practice,—a rigorous movement practice I continue today with my own The Swan Practice every morning at 5am.
“Young!—come up here where I can see you!” Carmelita insisted. I always glided to the back of the studio for center work. Oy!—I was so shy. But growing up and learning in Carmelita’s midst, I was personally educated about the professional landscape, as she knew it, for black ballet dancers; she was gently preparing me. Though it was never really a conscious thought of mine to be a ballet dancer per se,—simply to dance. Carmelita cultivated my gifts—alongside all who studied with her—and to excel in musicality, clarity of gesture, the use of breath, and felt expression using the ballet vocabulary. Hers was a holistic aesthetic education: Carmelita always contextualized art and art-making within its social and historical contexts. Devoted throughout my formative years, my time with Carmelita laid a foundation on which I continue to stand,— as artist, as thinker, and as world citizen.
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