"The choices I had to make”
Anna Azrieli Interview
on September 6th, 2022
by Anabella Lenzu
Anabella: Thank you Anna for your time and for being here. I would like to know about your life and your career before and after you became a mother.
Anna: Yes, very big difference. Before I became a mother I was almost exclusively a dancer. I did a tiny bit of choreography the last couple of years before I became a mother. I worked with various choreographers for different projects. I was in, I guess you could almost call it a company, at the time, but I don't think he (Miguel Gutierrez) would call it that. A few of us who started with him, stayed with him throughout some of the early projects, so it felt like a company. When I was pregnant, I was in a show of his, and there was this big transition where I made the show with him while I was not pregnant, and then I became pregnant. He wanted to tour the work, and I said I still wanted to tour while pregnant. I wanted to dance while pregnant. He didn’t want to at first but I insisted, because I felt very strongly, and he ended up making adjustments and brought in another dancer to sort of split my role into two sections– into two people I suppose– so I was still able to do the the part that he felt I was doing okay (laughs), and the part that he wanted more action, he got someone that wasn’t pregnant. I think that came out very well. We toured it twice, and to this day I still have people –other dancers and choreographers– coming up to me saying “it was inspiring to see you dancing while pregnant. It was a big model in my life.” So I feel that it was a big, important switch in my life as a dancer. Once I became a mother, I actually ended up having a desire to choreograph that seemed to come out of the blue. I started a from-scratch career in choreography. It felt like I had to start from zero again. I’m sure it wasn’t exactly that, but it felt that way. And so I’d performed for a long time with other people, but I felt like I was more of a choreographer as soon as I became a mother. I feel like I identified more that way. Now my child is 16!
These days I identify equally as a dancer and a choreographer. It's shifted yet again in my life. The choreography that I made had a lot to do with being a mom/mother/parent. Not all of it, but most. The last big show that I made, my child was in it, and I made it around this idea of having the child in the dance. Also, as I look back, I think there were so many things that I was working out in the choreography that had to do with being a parent. Things about my body, how my body has changed with birth, the care that you want to give to other people, and all those effects on my psyche, body and movement. So that’s the overview!
Anabella: You have one child?
Anna: Yes. They are 16 years old.
Anabella: Tell me, was it your decision to become a mom? How was the transition?
Anna: My partner, my child’s other parent figure, and I, didn’t want to wait too long until I was older. I think at the time, I wasn’t quite clear– I think I would’ve waited longer, but it felt like we wanted to make a family at that point. So I just decided to go for it! I was 34 when I had my child. That’s pretty young for a dancer, but it felt much older than everybody else around me. It felt like I was the old mom at the playground. I was in this dance group that was kind of project-based, do-something-here, do-something-there, put-it-together-here, do-a-little-job-there, so it didn’t feel like I would lose all of my work. I would figure it out, I thought. I told myself “This will work, this will work.” I didn’t have many models at the time. There was one of the other dancers with Miguel that had her child two years before me. So I watched her at rehearsals, still working with a baby and I was like, “Oh, okay! We can do this! Let’s try it!” So it didn’t seem that daunting at the time, however afterwards I realized it was harder than I thought to be a mother and a performer/choreographer. It was much harder than I thought.
Anabella: Let’s talk about that! I interviewed some recent mothers/choreographers, and they’re like “Oh my God! The only time I’m alone is when I take a bath!” And I say “That’s right - no privacy!” Let’s talk about that. The difficulties and how you handle that.
Anna: One of the big things that stands out to me is the payment that I received for being a dancer in someone else’s work. Choreographer as well, but especially as a dancer. Before I had a baby, if I got paid $15/hour I was like, “wow, amazing! I’m working, I have money!” But after I had a baby, I had to spend all that money on babysitting. It felt like, “oh, well this doesn’t seem right.” I felt like I had to make some major decisions– based on how much money I was earning– when I would do a project. And when I was making my own work, I could only do so many hours because I only had this much money, time or energy to devote. So that model of being in the dance world where you do everything for free, or for very little pay, felt much more impossible with a child. It felt that I really can’t do all these things. The choices I had to make about work became more important because you have to pay for preschool, clothes, and various things. That had a huge impact on the choices I made after having a child. Time and money.
Anabella: And did you feel that these choices impacted your art development? Were there things you regret, or had to give up? Like - right now today I need to put the food in the oven and get the laundry done? Tomorrow I’ll go to the studio to rehearse or see a show. How did you feel about making these decisions? What about child care? The need to provide for different individuals? I would love to hear your ideas.
Anna: The struggle of living as an artist is doubled or tripled when you are a parent because you have another person relying on you. The people I know who had children in the earlier models often had a partner who can support them while they continue to make work and have children, so it becomes much more possible. And I don’t come from a poor background, and my partner had work, but it’s still harder. I’m trying to think of examples… It seems like it’s evolved over time. I don’t recall any specific, “no, I can’t do this because I have a child.” But it’s a way of thinking, and a mindset, that I feel really changed. I would say it has affected me more recently, in the last six years or so, as my child has gotten older– which seems like it should be easier in terms of everything. And it is for many things – I don’t need child care anymore, my child can do the cooking– but there is a feeling of needing to support them going to college. I don’t make that much work anymore. The amount of work one has to do to make a show is huge! Starting from trying to get funding. You have to spend so much time writing. Making up fake ideas of what you’re going to do in the future. It’s all the usual things that everyone else has to do, but it’s not that interesting to me anymore, because I have to do other things that I care about. Making it happen is a struggle, because I have to work to make a living, and that takes energy. I’m also interested in the work I do outside of dance.
Anabella: What is it you do outside of dance?
Anna: I teach yoga and pilates and movement. I have clients and classes where I teach them how to move better, basically, and have them do movement because so many people in our culture have very little movement in their lives. I actually feel like I have a much bigger effect on people than I did as an artist! And I’m making money. So it’s an interesting division - I still do movement, just in a different way. However, I’m also dancing for other people, and performing much more than I did in the years before. So I don’t know. These things change over time.
Anabella: How do you define what it is to be a “good” mother?
Anna: (Laughs) I think ultimately it’s some kind of balance of giving to your child and keeping enough for yourself so that you can still live and prosper on your own. And if you can achieve that balance, you can also give more to your child! Being a good mother is not giving yourself completely to your child, but also loving them and supporting them, finding that balance.
Anabella: So you were born in the Soviet Union?
Anna: Yes. We came here when I was 7 years old, in 1979. I was actually born in Ukraine. Zaporizhzhia – where they have the nuclear reactor that’s in the news right now. The part of Ukraine that’s been taken over by Russia. But it was all Soviet Union when I was there.
Anabella: Let’s talk about immigration. How do you feel as a mother about passing down any of your traditions, or not, in this foreign land? Or your religion? How does this affect your art, or not?
Anna: I think being a child when I came here probably created a whole different version of things than if I had been older coming here. I feel like I’m also completely American– I’m definitely an immigrant, but very Americanized. So earlier in my dance career, I didn’t really think much about the fact that I was from another country. It didn’t pop up that much for me. I think in retrospect “Oh, right, I think differently because of my background,” or “That’s the way I think because I’m from a different place other than America.” In terms of traditions, I don’t think it’s really consciously come up for me as a performer. But on a parent level, of course, I’ve dealt with it consciously because I speak another language besides English– Russian– my family makes different foods, that my child has seen. I would say language and food have been the biggest things that I have shown my child that are different. I don’t feel terribly pulled to Russia because I feel I was expelled in a sense. We were not just immigrants, we were refugees. We were Jews. It was our “choice” to leave. “You can leave, but you can never come back,” was what we were told at the time. You know, that had a big effect at the time. In the late 1980’s, when the Soviet Union broke apart, that was my growing up. That was me from age 7 to 15 or so, so I have this feeling of, “you can never go back to where you’re from.” That’s deeply set. “They don’t want you. They hated you anyway.” I actually have gone back to Russia as an adult for performing – 3 times – and teaching, and it was very interesting to feel the subtle and not-so-subtle discrimination towards me.
When I went there I was like, “Oh, this is what it’s like to be non-white in America.” In Russia, they knew right away who I was, based on my features and dark hair I suppose. I was traveling with a few white Americans and in a restaurant, though I was the one who spoke Russian, the waitress wouldn’t acknowledge me but talked to my friends. Another time a group of kids ran after me shouting “Sholom Aleheim”. It was very interesting, like a mirror of being a non-white American in America. Having light skin here, I haven’t experienced discrimination– in New York, anyway. But if you go outside of New York and other big cities, having darker hair and being Jewish still marks you as different. Also, I’ve told my child, who is non-binary, that they shouldn’t go to Russia. They’re terrible to LGBTQ folk. I don’t even want them to visit the big cities there.
Even recently in Ukraine when the war was breaking out, there was footage of African students who were not being allowed to leave. All the white people were allowed to leave but the darker people weren’t allowed to leave Ukraine. Ugh. It still has terrible stuff going on to this day. So I don't actually feel a huge attachment to Russia, Ukraine, Soviet Union. I mean, of course, I have nostalgia, and – my father passed away this past year, and I’m going through things like pottery, and dishes– things that remind me of Russia. So I have a sense of nostalgia for some objects from my childhood that are from there. My child has been around when I go through those emotions, so they’ve been like “Oh, wow, that orange and white polka dot pot that you have is really important because it’s from the Soviet Union” or something like that. And they see that and I think that’s had an effect on them. They’re old enough that they understand. This past year they had a project at school where they had to talk about where they’re from. They asked me a bunch of questions about being an immigrant, and how I feel about it. They also are dealing with figuring that out and what that means. I didn’t teach them Russian very well because I felt very overwhelmed with being a parent, and I don’t think in Russian anymore. I think in English because I was so young when I came here. Russian, even though it’s my first language, it’s really my second language. But now that my child is 16, they keep asking questions. “What’s the word for this?” and “Teach me Russian.” They have a desire to learn about that culture more. I think it’s interesting to them, and it’s part of their life.
So somehow these things have been transmitted. Not very purposely by me, but they have filtered through and in. Even being Jewish in the Soviet Union, all the Jews celebrated New Years which was transformed from Christmas. Because of the communist era, they didn’t want to have any religion but Christmas was still a big deal. They said, “Okay, you can still have Christmas, but on New Year’s Day.” And we would combine the days together. It was this very specific Russian Soviet Christmas. So everybody who grew up in that era, even if they’re Jewish, would celebrate New Year’s, which has a big fir tree with ornaments and presents, but it’s New Year’s! And my child’s father is an American Jew, and he really didn’t want our child to do Christmas– only Hanukkah, no Christmas– for many years. But in the last couple of years, I said to my child once they were a little older, “You know, it’s in my experience to do this New Year’s/Christmas holiday, So let’s do that!” It’s not the same thing as Christmas, it actually comes from my tradition. So the last three years we’ve gotten a little fir tree, but we do it on New Year’s. We do the presents and everything, and we’ve both enjoyed that.
Anabella: That’s great. Embracing tradition! Your story makes me sad, though Anna, because I remember my grandfather, who was from Italy. He came to Argentina after the Second World War. He was a paratrooper at 18 years old. He always told me, “Anabella, your homeland is the one giving you the food.” For him, it was Argentina, not Italy. He fought for Italy, but it was so poor in the south of Italy, that he actually considered Argentina his homeland. So when I hear you talk about that, it reminds me of this. Especially when you feel that you’ve been expelled from your homeland. How does this influence your dancing, Anna? The way that you move, and all the stories we have, are in your body. Our sense of relationship with time, space, and gravity. Tell me more about this as an immigrant. When you move, when you perform here in the United States, with Vicky, with Miguel. What are you bringing to the plate as an immigrant?
Anna: That’s a difficult question! (Laughs)
Anabella: Yeah, I know! (Laughs)
Anna: If I think about the reason that I started to dance and wanted to dance– I don’t know if it’s my own memory, or my mother’s– I was small, I have a memory of watching ballet on TV in the Soviet Union, where ballet was a huge part of the culture. Watching fouettes or pirouettes– some kind of turning– and I tried to turn and turn and turn and would fall. I kept trying and told my mom I wanted to learn how. So I was taken to ballet and they looked at my body and did the - point your feet, lift your leg - measurements like the communists do to kids. And they were like “good, good, good. Ah… the butt. Too big.” At age 5! (Laughs) And then my mother took me to gymnastics and they did the same thing. And so eventually I ended up in folk dance where you have a skirt, and don’t have to show your butt. (laughs)
Anabella: Yes.
Anna: I was 5 and I was in folk dance instead of ballet. That was what they could put me in. Ballet was the first thing that I wanted to do and the first kind of dance I did in America starting when I was 10, in Queens where I was living in New York. Ballet, ballet, ballet. So philosophically, ballet, if anything, is the throughline of all of those things. I didn’t learn ballet in Russia, but the desire to dance was from watching ballet which was communist, Russian. It was special there. You know the expression “the black sheep”? I’m the black sheep of my immigrant family. I’m the only one that did something weird and artistic.
Anabella: (Laughs)
Anna: My father was a doctor, and my mother was a scientist. My brother is a doctor. I became a dancer. (Laughs) I think there’s a rebellion against expectations from my family. When you move to America as an immigrant, you don’t have time to do all these fun, creative things. You have to work, you have to make money, to get ahead. You have the American Dream. That was the background– so for me to go off and say “No, I don’t have the American Dream” exactly, my parents thought I was crazy, yet they supported me both financially and with mental support. But they always thought it was strange that I wanted to do that. Had I been in Russia– with a smaller butt– maybe I would’ve been a ballerina who knows. Because it’s in such a different culture, you have a different way through. Here, as an immigrant, I’m definitely the weird one of my immigrant family. When I look at the community of my parents' friends, and what their children have done– they’re all lawyers, engineers, doctors, pharmacists, etc. Everybody is doing a “real job” or a regular job that makes money. So whenever I’m in that setting talking about it, they don’t know what to do with me, and I don’t know how to talk to anybody about it. They’re like, “What? You do what?” So I end up not even telling them I do art. I just say, “Yes, I teach pilates and yoga.” I just stick to that because they can understand that more.
Anabella: Now I understand why you dance with Miguel! Another revolutionary. That’s a perfect fit. But I completely understand because my dad was Italian. But there’s a difference in Argentina, which is that the taxi drivers are biochemists. The people who work in the supermarket are architects. Hardly anyone had the job they were trained for. We had something like 70 percent unemployment when I was growing up. My dad told me two things: “Anabella, if you want to go to University, I will applaud you– but whatever you want to do, the only thing I ask of you is that you do it 110%. And that will set you up for success.” That’s what he said. Anyway, in Argentina, you’re not going to make money. But here it’s a different game in America. The social pressure of being an immigrant is like, “You need to make money! You don’t have time to run around!” Even when you come from a country that loves art. Imagine if you came from another country where dance isn’t celebrated, or music or visual arts - but even so, your parents support you anyway. They didn’t understand you, but they allowed you to go. How was that? And did you convince them?
Anna: I stopped dancing when I was a teenager because they said this wasn’t going to go anywhere. At age 15, that’s what my mother said, and I listened to her. And I didn't start dancing again until I started college at 18 or 19. I think what changed their mind was that I became very depressed about whatever I was doing, and it felt like I had no purpose. The only thing I loved to do was dancing, and that’s the only thing that kept me happy, and I think they finally understood that. “Oh, it’s either a sad daughter or a dancer daughter.” So they got behind it at that point. I didn’t have to do much convincing at that point, it was just my state. I never even talked to them about it afterward, I’m just now looking back thinking that must be what happened– and why they said, “Let’s let her do this” and support it. Because they paid for me to go to NYU for dance.
Very expensive! They just said, “Okay, this is what she wants to do.” And with all the debt everyone has from college, I’m like, “Oh my God, amazing! My immigrant family, who worked really hard, said “Okay. We’re going to pay for her to become an artist and the family wealth can lift her up in this way.” I think it is really amazing. Otherwise, I’d be a really depressed lawyer. What would I have done? I’d probably be in some kind of job that made money, but I’d be angry and unhappy most of the time.
Anabella: Thank you for sharing these stories. Because when I think about this project “ Listen to Your Mother”, it’s about creating a community. And we need to hear these stories. Sacrifices inform how you are as a mother.
Anna: It’s nice to even talk about this, Anabella, because it makes you think about yourself in a different context.
Anabella: Thank you for sharing your story, you made me cry! These immigrant mothers’ stories are so important. We are mothers of Americans.
Anna Azrieli is a Brooklyn-based choreographer, performer, and teacher. At age seven she emigrated with her family from the Soviet Union/Ukraine and grew up in Queens. She performed over the course of a decade with Miguel Gutierrez and has freelanced with Vanessa Anspaugh, Abigail Levine, Vicky Shick, Mariangela Lopez, Heather Kravas, robbinschilds, David Thomson, Clarinda Mac Low, Luciana Achugar, Sam Kim, Donna Uchizono, Wendy Perron, among others. She has been in video projects of Yanira Castro, Maya Ciarrocchi, and David Bowie.
Anna started making her own work after the birth of her child sixteen years ago. Becoming a parent transformed her physically, mentally, and artistically. Her choreographic work has often been in response to, and redefinition of, her body and mind that made, and continues to grow, another human. Her last show, presented by The Chocolate Factory Theater, included her child as a collaborator and performer. Another theme in her dances has been the use of repetitive movement to explore ritualized thoughts and feelings. Her work has been presented by Gibney Dance, The Kitchen, Danspace Project, Movement Research at the Judson Church, MR Spring Festival, New Dance Alliance, Roulette, Open Source Gallery, Catch, AUNTS, Dixon Place, and Elastic City. She has been a Movement Research Artist in Residence and a BAX Parent Artist Space Grantee.
She has taught dance and movement improvisation through Movement Research, ClassClassClass, Moscow’s TSEKH, and the University of Texas Pan-American. She also teaches yoga, pilates, and mindful exercise throughout NYC and privately. She holds a BFA in Dance from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.
ANABELLA LENZU: Originally from Argentina, Anabella Lenzu is a dancer, choreographer, scholar & educator with over 30 years of experience working in Argentina, Chile, Italy, and the USA. Lenzu directs her own company, Anabella Lenzu/DanceDrama (ALDD), which since 2006 has presented 400 performances, created 15 choreographic works, and performed at 100 venues, presenting thought-provoking and historically conscious dance-theater in NYC. As a choreographer, she has been commissioned all over the world for opera, TV programs, theatre productions, and by many dance companies. She has produced and directed several award-winning short dance films and screened her work in over 200 festivals both nationally and internationally.