Diane Rugg

“[Witnessing] the first rehearsal of L. Martina Young’s upcoming performance event, SWAN: a poetical inquiry in dance, text & memoir, I am compelled to share my experience.

I have been privy to Martina’s work for over 25 years and am familiar with her body of work. Swan, (her first full-length performance in 3 years since her bilateral hip replacements), reveals the further deepening and renewed creative imagining of a mature artist who now revels in her ongoing work.

Her subtle and deceptively simple movement material gently suggests rebirth, renewal, and the continuing exploration that is essential to a fully lived life. Martina’s [work], so grounded in her own deep knowing, is profound in its ability to engage and fully translate a human depth, such that I was moved to tears. [It] is the universal sense of hope that is deeply rooted in our own notions of re-awakening and re-awakening that this dance so beautifully realizes. [With] an ability to make visible what is invisible, another invited viewer remarked: “It is magical.” 
     - Diane Rugg, Dance Educator on SWAN (rehearsal), 2013