“STAND UP FOR MYSELF”
Christine Jowers
interview on August 22th, 2022
by Anabella Lenzu
Anabella: Thank you so much for sharing your stories as an artist and as a mother. I have many questions, but the first one is: When you were growing up, how did you envision yourself? You studied dance, and being a dancer and when the time came to decide, you had kids. I want to know about this decision because many dancers don't want to have kids because of their career and the stigma, you know. So I want to go back, and ask what made you decide you want to be a mom and how did you handle this.
Christine: You know it’s funny I got married -and I knew I wanted to get married- but I didn’t know that I wanted to have kids. We would be married for eight years before we had kids. My husband wanted to have time to be together –just us. He didn’t feel like rushing into having a family… and that was fine with me.. At least it was good for us because we got to know each other. But let me tell you, the family that I came from, the heritage that I came from, West Indian/ Puerto Rican, everyone was like: “What’s wrong with you, when are you going to have a baby, when am I going to be a grandparent. What’s going to happen, what’s going to happen?? Baby, baby, baby!”
At that time, I didn’t really know any dancers that were mothers. I was young, studying here in New York and all the people that I enjoyed were seasoned, solo professional women, they weren’t married. They weren’t married, they didn’t have children, or if they did, it was like a secret. Everything was about your career, your dedication to the art form. We were so dedicated to the art form.
And, I fell in with the old-fashioned crowd. Meaning, I should’ve hung out with experimental dancers cause perhaps they would’ve been more open-minded. But I was with the old crowd, the Limón and the Graham people, (they were very impressive) and Anna Sokolow. Everybody lived for their art. You know that’s a very interesting, kind of heady thing, to live for your art, it is almost religious, like going to Catholic school ( which I did). So it's not being a nun, but it’s kind of the next best thing.. Everybody was working so hard and this whole idea of being a mother never came up… I partnered with a guy that took Ballet classes with me and we got a gig, we choreographed and danced in a duet together and it was chosen to be presented at Sound Dance, do you remember that place?
Anabella: I remember that.
Christine: So our duet was presented at Sound Dance and then we auditioned it for other places as well. One of the things my partner would say to me is (he’s no longer my partner): Well, you know you’re going to get pregnant and then, you’re not going to be able to dance again. You’re going to be fat and out of shape and… I thought it was a horrible thing to say. It was really rude -obnoxious - but you know, that sentiment was out there…Career, vocation, was everything. Women were weaker or less than because they could get pregnant and then not be as “real” of an artist because they would be split.
In 1996, my husband moved to London for a job opportunity and I of course followed him. All of a sudden I was teaching dance at the Laban Centre as an adjunct professor, also at a studio in downtown London, I can’t remember the name now but down the street from Selfridges dept store. I also did guest teaching gigs around the country. Suddenly my husband says: “well, I’d like to have a baby now, we should have a baby.” I wasn’t so eager. I was afraid to lose something I worked my entire life for and… I was just getting my footing in a brand new country. I also couldn’t envision that I could do more than one thing, or have the strength to be able to. We used to have arguments about it. He would often have to travel on business trips and once, I remember, we were in Vienna. I met him in Vienna. We were staying in this beautiful hotel room, and we fought about getting pregnant. I spent that night, well most of the night, in the bathtub. (The bathroom was the best. In some of these European hotels, the bathrooms are the most luxurious areas)… I slept in the tub.
When we moved back to the States after we lived in London for two years. I said to him: “Look, we can try to have kids, that's fine. All I know is, I’m not going to do invitro, so if it happens it will happen and if it doesn’t happen it won’t happen.” Then, in New York, in our new apartment,( and all of a sudden) I was unpacking boxes, and I had this burning desire for burritos. Burritos for lunch at 11 o'clock I needed a burrito, I needed a big burrito with everything on it. What!!??, I only ate yogurt and fruit,I was a dancer. It was then realized I was pregnant. And (curiously) I was just so happy.
After all that arguing with my husband about our life and lifestyle, and my career, I was thrilled. My body started changing, yes, I was getting “fatter” and I felt really happy with it. I loved the changes. I was just so happy to be pregnant. It was great.. I have two kids. The second time wasn’t planned, you know I just didn’t think I could have another kid so close to the first one. And, they’re three years apart, I don’t know why I thought that. Maybe it was the idea that if you’re still breastfeeding you can't have a child… What a lot of baloney.
Anabella: Yeah that’s the most dangerous part.
Christine: Anyway, back in the States I made a solo concert for myself, with choreography from many of my friends, with video interviews of all sorts of prominent dancers speaking about their relationship to Isadora Duncan. The concert was exploring Isadora Duncan’s legacy to dancers today, and motherhood, and it was really big for me. ( I was listed in the New York Times- one of the interesting things going on in the new season.) It was at the University settlement. I was working on the show when 9/11 happened, AND I was pregnant again. The way I found out, (before 9/11) was during a costume fitting. I had one costume fitting and then a month later the designer, my friend Rusty, came back and I couldn’t fit into my costume.. and I’m like “what the hell?!” That’s when I knew.. There was no other reason I couldn't fit into my costume. Thankfully the show was soon after I discovered my pregnancy. There was lots of falling, and rolling, and athletic movement , and the lady that helped me with babysitting my eldest came to the show and said, “Oh my god! I can’t believe they way that you’re throwing yourself around when you are pregnant. But I felt really healthy and I was quite happy, again. Pregnancy was beautiful.
Because of the terrible tragedy of September 11th and because my show was downtown and you know, people were very community minded, and flooded in to support downtown art. Many, many of my friends came to the show, my colleagues, my teachers, my don from Sarah Lawrence RoseAnne Thom. When I told them afterwards that I was pregnant they were so excited.
I never thought it was a possibility to be a dancer and to be a mom, simply because the people before me, the dancing people, didn’t present any role models for that. They kept on saying, you know, it’s one or the other, it’s one or the other. I didn’t envision that it could happen.
Anabella: How did it feel to keep dancing, keep choreographing, keep taking care of the kids? Mother’s have such divided attention.
Christine: In the beginning it was difficult to learn, my mind… When I was working on my show with the choreographer BJ Sullivan, Sean Sullivan's wife, who is much younger than me. I was lactating and rehearsing, and my mind just wouldn’t work. I couldn’t retain steps. I could not retain and I was so tired and her choreography was difficult for me, lots of steps, lots of things that were the same – but not quite– theme and variation,but part A and part B are almost identical.. And you know, of course, choreographers try things out, they keep on changing things. Anyway, and I remember being in rehearsal thinking, panicking : “ Oh my god. I can’t get this, I just don’t know… I might just tell her that I have to stop. How can I go on?” But it worked out fine. I mean it worked out, but I remember my brain being foggy and I felt as if I was in a a dream in her rehearsals.
I’m very lucky because my husband had a good job in the investment world and from the beginning I told him, if I have children I need help, I’m not going be home, cook and clean, and have children as my new career. I want to keep doing something. Dancing was important to me and I needed an adult creative thing to do something that was my own, where I could use my brain in a different way and not think of mommy/baby things all the time. And I worked for myself, not for a company, so that was good in the sense that I created my own schedule around the kids. I rented space at KHDT ( Kazako Hirabashi’s studio), which was within walking distance of my apartment.. Robert Swinston, who managed rentals at the time, would let me come in very early in the morning, which wasn’t allowed for larger groups. I set up a schedule for myself where I would take care of the baby in the morning, leave for rehearsal, come back for lunch with Tommy, we would have lunch, we would play, I would go back to rehearsal and then I would come back in the late afternoon to be with my boy. It was the best time of my life because of that schedule and because I had help that I could trust.
Anabella: And you also followed your body and the schedule of your kids.
Christine: That’s right, and I had help I could trust. But that took a while to happen. It was just my husband and I at first. My parents were in the Caribbean, his were in Georgia and we had no friends nearby that had families. I needed another pair of hands, someone to talk to. I interviewed many many people and I would keep them for a long time in the interview just talking to them so that they would feel free with me — not as if they were in an interview. That’s how I got to know who could work or who wouldn’t.
Anabella: Difficult…
Christine: It was a time of transition, everything was new. One thing I discovered after I had my first son was postpartum depression. He was a challenge. He cried, wailed all the time and I couldn’t console him. It was very difficult and when I went back to dance, I had ups and downs. My energy was off, I couldn’t feel productive. I thought, in the beginning, “obviously I won’t ever dance again, but will I at least be able to have time to read the newspaper and have a cup of coffee.” I doubted it. Finally I went to see a therapist, and after a lot of time (because I was wary of it) , I decided to take medication.
I learned alot about myself during that time. The medication actually relaxed me. Previously, before having children, I used to take Ballet class, and modern class freeze in certain combinations. I thought it was because I was a really bad class taker.. I knew I was a good performer but in class I was never a “quicker picker-upper.” It was always something that bothered me. To a certain extent, I felt like a failure because of it. People judge you in class, not in performance as much. Performance was where I was free. Class scared me, especially if the teacher made me stand in front. So much pressure. Taking Zoloft for post- partum depression ( when I finally did) helped… I realized that there was something inside me, in my chemical make-up, that made me panic, something that had always been there, but that was made more prominent after I gave birth.
I used to have panic attacks about class and auditions. My teachers would say ‘you know you just have to learn how to take an audition and you just have to realize you just need to go and try, make it like a game. ’That didn’t help.
But on the medicine, all of a sudden I was “just doing” the allegro exercises, and the across- the- floor main combinations and not worrying… even if I messed up.. The medicine taught me. I learned to calm down and be more gentle with myself about performance anxiety in classes and auditions. It was the weirdest thing and only through having children and postpartum depression did I learn.
At first when I had my first baby, my friends would say “isn’t this the best thing that you’ve ever done?” I would think -No, I am an artist and I have done some pretty great things before having kids. It was hard to hear everybody continue on about “motherhood” being this pinnacle experience. It was difficult. My kid kept crying. He wouldn’t sleep. I couldn’t sleep. He had colic. We were exhausted. It wasn’t all wonderful. I had a hard time with postpartum depression.
But despite my post-partum, and as time went on, I realized that my children were/are a blessing because for one thing, they taught me to stand up for myself in a way I NEVER did when I didn’t have them. Even when I was married, I didn’t stand up for who I was as an artist, as a person. I would hide, I would underplay my achievements, and I was an adult woman…it just was ridiculous when I look back on it now. But the kids, I had to stand up for them, to be strong for them. I wanted them to be strong and to do what they wanted to do, and I didn’t want anyone to pick on them. I wanted to help my boys be their best selves in a healthy way. Well, if you want to do that as a mom for your children, you MUST do it for yourself. You are their example, after all.
I remember after I got back, and started to take class again, I wasn’t really sure that I’d be able to dance after the first baby, and also people were saying “you know you’re old,” because that’s another thing, dancers are so cruel about their bodies, and they’re cruel about aging and I was 35! The first time I gave birth I was barely 36, the second one I was 40, and I was in really good shape then and even the people that were nice, my friends, were saying all these things like: “You’re old and you know, I wonder if you can still do this, cause, you know, you’re old.” ( I was in great shape after both my kids… It was a wonderful dancing time.)
Now, in the times since I’ve had the baby, the age issue has become a little more soft. Lots of older people dancing what was 40 up is now 50, 60 and 70 up. One of the best performances I’ve seen was Gus Solomon’s dancing in his walker in his 80’s. So much wisdom and sensitivity.. Of course there was Carmen de Lavallade dancing still when I was working, but she was like a rare bird. So I think we’re a body image, even though Bill T. Jones happened and Mark Morris was open to heavier non-waify types when I was a younger ish person it didn’t feel like that was common practice.
Anabella: You keep talking about standing up for yourself, and how your kids know you were not a regular mom, you were a dancer. So can you describe a little more about how your kids saw you, growing up in this environment. Did you bring them to rehearsal, did you bring them to performances. Tell me all about that.
Christine: There was this other woman that rehearsed KHDT, Irene Hultman, a dancer from Trisha Brown’s Company. She was there, she had a company called Irene’s AllStars and with all these “stars” like Shelly Washington and Robert LaFosse and all these people. They came to the studio after me and Irene used to bring her child into her rehearsal. I always thought, how the hell do you do that?! It seemed the other kids would go to rehearsal and play with blocks, or they would play with their cars or find something to do. Not my kid! If I tried to do a solo piece, my kid would just walk right in front of me and take over to do his dance or climb on me. Now, I can look back and say, that I admire that. Maybe I should have let him choreogaph on me and been more creative about it.
You know, I taught at his little pre- school and he totally messed me up. The other kids just loved me and followed me around, well- behaved, and people said “Oh Christine is such a great teacher,” meanwhile when I had my son in class and he was disruptive. He would say, “Okay, do what you wanna do now, but then it's my turn, and I wanna do this!” and I just, I couldn’t deal with it with my boy. Too close.
Anabella: So you couldn’t bring your kids to the rehearsal, it was not an option.
Christine: It was not an option, they had to stay at home. That kept me sane. We were separate like church and state. . When I was working on my solo concert, I worked with Margie Gillis, who suggested that I video tape myself dancing, so I could coach myself. There was a big TV in our living room, it was a very old TV, one with a dial, no remote, and I would hook my camera on it and watch myself. I hated watching myself. But Margie said the whole thing was for me to see when I looked beautiful and then maybe when I fell away from that idea… Her dance was an improv, a structured improv. And there were things we were thinking about in different sections. But you know sometimes in improvisation you can get lost and stray from your ideas, aso that’s why I kept on looking at my tapes. To see what worked and what didn’t. Also Margies was trying to convince me that I was beautiful, which I wouldn’t believe. ( still learning to stand up for myself) I put the video on in the living room at home. And Tommy was there watching, and you know what he said so lovingly one day: Oh, look! There are two mommies. And it just melted my heart because he said it with such joy. He saw me in the mirror, and me dancing in the studio and was obviously so in love with the two mommies. If I am so much to this little boy, why can’t I appreciate myself?
I learned a lot from that, from him. When they both were older, the boys would come to my performances.. I performed at the Children’s Museum of Manhattan, and afterwards I invited the kids to come up on stage.Tommy came up and he did a whole solo show. I think it's on a video on YouTube, just him dancing, he chased everyone off stage.. And then they came to another show of mine at 14th Street. I was performing for Rachel Cohen doing a solo with her, where I came out of a paper screen- as a goddess of recycling. She called the dance Looks Good on Paper. It’s a piece I had done before. My kids came up to me afterwards and they said: Mom, you’re a classic you’re just such a classic. And I felt so complimented, until they said, “Are you ever going to do anything new?” Just like that. So, in one way they celebrated me and in another way they humbled me. You know?
They know that I’m an artist. So is the parent of almost every kid in NYC. They kind of got disinterested when they were teenagers because it wasn’t cool. And they would say that they didn’t like dance and they didn’t like the arts. Of course, they would say that while they were dancing around the living room. But they HAD TO not like what I was doing. It is a parent kid thing. Now that I am painting and writing, my kids actually tell me what they like or don’t.
Anabella: They read what you write about dance?
Christine: Oops, no, they will not read what I write about dance, ever, They will see me working, they tell me I work really hard. They appreciate that. I had some problems at The Dance Enthusiast once, and my youngest son was very upset to see how it affected me and he told me that I should quit. Our org. and myself was called out on social media for being racist and friends of mine, people I’ve written about and supported “liked” these mean comments on social media. Some said that TDE was a patriarchal blah blah, all the buzz words that people use to say racist, and horrible, and should be cancelled. Wow. I was surprised at how easy this hate came.. One of my most trusted co-workers, someone I let into my home to work, who knew the kids, my helpers at home, and my parents, behaved in a way that I thought was a betrayal. My kids hated seeing that, and made me promise to never, ever invite my co-workers into our home, and you know what, in the past I was very open about bringing people to our home. I treated everyone like a family. Now, I don’t. Separation of church and state because of my family, and mostly because my sons want to protect me and us. Family is first.
They see me working all the time and you know sometimes I try to help them with their writing.
My little boy actually listened to me when he was applying to go to High School, he took some of my writing notes! That was big.
Anabella: Well you know I have a teenager, and I want him to like arts. But teenagers sometimes do the opposite. So what is our role within our own family, as far as passing down the things that we love or appreciate. For example, I have my mom, and she falls asleep when she sees Pina Bausch, and I love Pina Bausch. My mom thinks most things I do are too weird. So I hear this a lot “Mom, you’re always repeating the same old thing, or Mom, why are you so weird, or why can’t you just dance rather than doing spoken word and all the other complicated things?” So it's interesting how we also see ourselves through the eyes of our family members. How do you feel about that, sharing something you love so much with them, knowing they will have a profoundly different reaction to it? I guess we just keep sharing, knowing that just the openness itself might mean something when they’re going to grow up and have their own families.
Christine: Well, I don’t know the answer to that. You know, you want your kids to like the things that you do. But I’ll tell you, it's not that important for me that they like what I do. It's important for me that they see that I work hard and that I’m passionate about it and that I have friends and that we work on projects together. That is important to me because dance and all the things I do and are really about being involved in life and creativity with passion, concern, questioning, curiosity and that’s what I want for them. . If they don’t like what I do, you know and I think part of that is just, yeah, that they have to rebel against mom. But they don’t have to like what I like. I want them to be their own people.
It’s important that they see my approach…those qualities that I respect in dancers and that I try to hone in myself, like discipline and practice, curiosity, bravery.., I don’t know, there are many qualities. Always wanting to be better, but also not letting perfection, the idea of perfection make you feel stuck in your tracks. Those things (which I learned from dance) I try to teach to my children. Those are the good things I got from this career. The things that I learned from dance that I didn’t like, like looking at my body and not appreciating it, panicking for not getting everything right away,for not fitting in, I don’t want anybody to learn.
I tell my boys to eat, to drink, to get into the habit of exercising and enjoy food and to do everything in moderation. I don’t repeat the thinking that happened in my day, that forced people into molds, and if you didn’t fit into a mold you didn’t fit into the world. Some of my dance teachers said horrible things and those, I will never say. “ You just can’t get it.” “You just don’t have it.” “You have thunder thighs”
Ann Carlson and I made a piece about motherhood together. She adopted her kids. And I was pregnant with my first boy when she made a piece on me. She kept on saying, “I’m so jealous of you, I wish I was pregnant too”. I was very big at that point. And I was just like, you don’t know, you don’t wanna be pregnant. I was getting fake contractions all the while I was working with Ann and moving very S_L_O_W_L_Y. I was ready to have my body back.
We made a dance about motherhood and I think it was one of the most interesting things I’ve ever done. I don’t think a lot of people understood it, some did, some were perplexed and the old teachers of mine were offended because I questioned Isadora’s racist comments from my vantage point as a woman from the Caribbean of mixed race. It was a solo conversation. At times I was Isadora Duncan, the mother of modern dance, and then I was Christine the mother- to-be. I kept talking as one or the other and getting interrupted, because as you know, being interrupted is a feature of mom-life. I would make a statue -beautiful statue shape- sort of like Isadora and then an invisible voice would ask me questions ( unheard by the audience). I broke out of my shape to answer questions, and in between shapes and some sort of romantic dancing, and questions, would be mixed all sorts of crazy everyday gestures, like getting sick to my stomach, like wiping something off of my face…
On its own the solo was a little odd unless you’re an Isadora Duncan addict.(?) It's good for dance history class or in my show about Isadora. I loved it, it was very interesting to work on it. We spoke a lot about motherhood and one it meant to us. One of the things that came up was the idea that when you become a mother you start looking at everybody in a different way… as children or former children. There’s a new kind of empathy you feel for others.
I remember when I interviewed you, (that was so nice) for Arturo Aviles’ BadAssDanceFestival there were young people there listening to us as elders. Eeek. I’m a mother and an elder, but I try not to play “the old wise person,” because I don’t like that. I don’t like to do that to my kids or anyone younger than me.
We should not, because we're older tell younger people what to do. or pretend to be sage. I never want anyone to feel like she must know what she’s talking about because she’s older. Elders still get confused. I still have much to learn. Life is a continual learning process. I want my kids to know that.
It’s fine to be respectful of an older person, but what I like to do instead of saying:” I’m an elder and I know … I like to say “this what happened to me and this is how I felt about it.” Maybe my kids can learn from my mistakes and my victories.
I told the young people working the festival, I forget how it came up, but I said: “ You know when I was young and I was a student and there were teachers that would say: ‘You don’t have IT’. Can you imagine? It hurts. What a comment. Then I told them that as an older person looking back I thought: What does it really mean when someone tells you that? Does it mean that you DON’T have it? AND What is IT ? OR Does it mean that the teachers don’t have the capacity to teach you, or to imagine your capabilities? It hurt me so much. And was untrue. I like to share, when it is appropriate, these feelings with my kids or people younger than me.
The courage that I’ve gained is partly because of my love for my children. One, I don’t want anyone telling bullshit to my kids, like they don’t have it, and two, I realize as an older person, as a parent, as a teacher, choreographer, as an editor, a human being, I have responsibility for other people. Having children made me realize more that this care and responsibility is vital for the future. We use what we have been given - our talents- to make the world a better place. That is what we give our kids.
Having children is the greatest improvisation of life, and it’s the most difficult one cause it's not a structured one, like an improv that Margie Gillis gives you. There’s no “ in this part you do the flowy movement” or “in this part you go to that area of the stage.” You never know the things that your kids will hit you up with. And as they get older the challenges are way way more difficult than changing their diapers. I care about their values, what they are thinking, and think they do too.
Anabella: And how are they, very critical?
Christine: My one son loves movies and he loves spy films, and I love movies too, so this is great. He is into creative expression. They’re not overly critical, but they have their tastes. My son saw “Dear Evan Hansen” and he didn’t really care for it. He told me why, and that was interesting because another friend of mine said it was really great. I listened to my son, but I still might go and see it. And we saw “the Book of Mormon” which was really rude, outrageously sacrilegious, and I find it funny, but having come from a very strict Catholic background, the idea that I was taking my 14 -year-old to see that, and the things that they said –such profanity. I just looked at him and thought “I’m a different kind of mother” then I had. My parents would have been shocked at that play, and they are/were pretty open minded. But my son and I laughed about the play and about the fact that I am a different kind of mom than my traditional Caribbean parents… although I am very like them too.
Anabella: Exactly, exactly. In addition to that, talk to me about passing down the traditions, or the values of the places where you grew up, because you’re also an immigrant. As a mother, how do you feel like you’re giving them the freedom to be themselves, but also form them in a way you think is proper? It’s about teaching.
Christine: And I’m in the funny position of kind of being an immigrant, but not being an immigrant. Immigrant (ish) you could say. And this is a common experience I share with people my age from the American Virgin Islands and my friends and family from Puerto Rico and Culebra. We are “American” but not. The way we were brought up in the Caribbean ( in the 60’s and 70’s through the 80’s) to talk about race, for example, is quite different from the way my friends here, or young people nowadays speak of race… because of our history.. Almost all my island friends are mixed-race and of mixed cultural backgrounds. It was NOT against the law to intermarry because of religion, color, or ethnicity. It is not unusual for a white looking person like me to have a black grandmother /father or a brown/ grandfather/grandmother. As I do. Or to have relatives that were at one time called Mulatto. As I do. The island family is for the most part a mix up and mash up of every color and language and tradition and I LOVE THAT. My parents loved that too, which is why they wanted to raise us in the islands with our family instead of raising us in the continental US where they got married.(My dad was in the army in New Mexico and we lived there for the first 6 years of my life. ) Because of my background, I am constantly adjusting to the identity boxes that we are forced to fill out here, there and everywhere…. I do not like their limitations and the limitations and stereotypes still so prevalent in the US. Even my most educated friends say things like, “you can’t possibly be from the VI because you are white, or you can’t possibly have Puerto Rican heritage because you are white colored and you speak English like an American.” So my kids know about my frustration, and that when I am forced to fill out these stupid boxes, or to “school” someone on my island background, I get ticked off. They also know that I fill every single identity and ethnicity box except for Asian Pacific Islander when I am forced to fill out a form. It is my silent protest and probably embarrassing to them now. They roll their eyes. Maybe later, they will appreciate this frustration.
When I first came here to the United States ( for college) back home we didn’t have the internet, we didn’t have CNN. We weren’t exposed to the stateside culture very much, when I first came to NYC and looked at the subway and Grand Central Station I burst into tears. I thought I would NEVER understand these things. Today, I still feel victorious for knowing my way around the subway. In the islands when I was a child we only got one TV channel from the States. It came on at 5 o’clock in the afternoon, and the first show that came on was a soap opera, called “ Love of Life”. What I knew about the States and dance was what I had seen on TV… like Carol Burnett, or Rodgers and Hammerstein Muscials that aired on PBS… we were lucky because my dad was an arts administrator and we met any artist that traveled to our island. Unlike my kids who are exposed to absolutely everything in NYC, I REALLY appreciated this and was grateful and am still grateful for these wonderful experiences. . I come from a very different background. I wonder if my kids can even comprehend this. On the island, we didn’t have water sometimes, our cistern would run dry and we would have to bathe at my dad’s office where potable water was available. We were each allowed a bucket of water to bathe. The leftover soapy water went to plants. ( Today we would be called very environmentally aware… but back then… well we were just lucky to be able to go to my dad’s office). We didn’t have certain foods. American cherries, peaches, plums… EXPENSIVE. We had tropical fruit a plenty, which we LOVED but I remember going to the states for a rare trip with my family, and eating so many peaches one summer that I gained 10 1bs. I was bowled over by the availability of those fruits. Still today, going to a well-stocked grocery story makes me want to do sparkle jumps. My boys have no idea. Back home, we often didn’t have electrical power. No one owned a generator. Hurricanes were a fact of summer through the early part of our school year. We had to hide and board our windows and track the storm on a map with the radio commentator. NO GPS.,. It was scary. We didn’t have “to-go” food. Whaaaat???!!! We couldn’t afford to go to restaurants. We didn’t have all the latest gadgets or fashions… When you have a lot, or are exposed to alot, it’s hard to appreciate and truly understand how grateful you should be for this life and what you have. Honestly, every morning I wake up and thank my lucky stars for growing up in the Caribbean and for now living here on the east coast and being involved in the art of dance…for living in New York City and being able to be part of a creative life. How can I teach my kids this gratitude? I try to impart that alongside trying to provide them with opportunities that I’ve never had. This is what my parents did for me. My parents grew up without financial resources, you know they tried to give me a life they didn’t have, they grew up in the depression in the Caribbean. My mother said she didn’t know it was a depression since her family in Culebra caught fish. They didn’t lack for food because they were fishermen and goat farmers,, they had milk, they had butter etc. My dad did everything he could do to get a scholarship to study art in the states. He was a dancer, painter, sculptor, textile designer and ceramicist, but he took an arts admin job in the VI so we could grow up there in, know our family and so he could expose us to opportunities afforded to him as an arts administrator back when the National Endowment funded many many outreach programs to the Caribbean. I have a deep appreciation for all this and try to impart that.
When I talk to my children about my life, they’re like: Oh mom you’re so 20th century; it's not like that in islands anymore, you’re not a little girl. St. Thomas and Puerto Rico are different than when you were a kid. And I agree, life is different… for me too Americanized. less safe, more druggy, fewer opportunities for young people. What to do? I love to visit. I don’t think I could live there year round anymore.
My kids would never burst out crying at subway trains or train stations like I did when I was going to college. They can easily go to foreign countries and learn the trains with Siri. I am not as brave. I’m different from my NYC boys, but I look at them with wonder. I have an affinity with Caribbean people who are older than me or my age who remember the things I am speaking about. Finally, cooking, food, teas, juices, Baking special island desserts. My dad and paternal grandmother and maternal grandmother were big big cooks. Dad made wonderful traditional island food, as did his mom, a combo of European and African influences. My grandma on my mother’s side made delicious Puerto Rican food and island sweets. Food gets kids into the Caribbean culture… still there are things they don’t love the way I do or there are times they only want PIZZA.
Anabella: Do you expose them to your culture?
Christine: Yes I expose them, but they’re still New Yorkers. And you know I love New York too. I’m from a small island, and I miss the evaporating elements of that culture, my culture. Right now I am probably idealizing things a bit because of nostalgia. I also need to remember that I didn’t always enjoy being part of a small island community. Even with the natural beauty that I was spoiled to be exposed to ( thank god). You encounter your fair share of closed minds or people who didn’t like you in kindergarten who still don’t like you when your in your 60’s. Not fun. You know we’re in the dance world and it's small enough where we kind of feel that everyone is related to you. That’s not always fun either… But New York generally is a city that gives people space to be who they want to be, and so I take the island stuff that I love and keep it in my life, and throw out the stuff I don’t. It’s a blessing for us to have this option. I also think it is a blessing for my boys to see me involved in a creative career, working on things I am passionate about, and helping others.
Anabella: You want to add anything else…
Christine: I love having my children. Wouldn’t have given them up for the Earth even though they’re very hard sometimes.
Anabella: They make you work hard.
Christine: They do. But they’re number one. So when I had my dance jobs, the only times when I worked for or with other people, I told them point blank, “ I really need to know when rehearsals are “specifically,” because I need to make a schedule for my family. When you tell me when the rehearsal is, I will come, and even if you have to make a change, you can give me a notice I will do my best to come. But, if my child is really sick, I cannot come. Tommy only got sick once where it interfered with a rehearsal with my friend Kun-Yang Lin. He was a little thing and so sick. I had to be with him. And at that point I was working for myself, creating solo projects with my super talented friends, so I was basically in charge of the schedule.
One of the reasons I stuck to solo projects was to have the control over my time and not have to rely on other artists with crazy schedules. Eeek. One of the reasons I stopped dancing was I felt there was no way I could dance well AND run The Dance Enthusiast AND have a sane family life. The Dance Enthusiast takes off in the summer (STILL) even though the kids are out of my nest. We also take a longish Christmas Holiday, and I never worked really for their Spring Break. I am sure this is frustrating to people who have concerts during that time. BUT… it started out as family time then and now these are times for my family to get back together or for me to visit my friends from the Caribbean and elsewhere who are my family as well. Family grounds you. Acknowledging your roots grounds you.
Christine Jowers is the founding editor of the non-profit, independent journalism site, The Dance Enthusiast. For 15 years, she’s covered the NYC dance scene as a videog-rapher, writer, and speaker. She’s developed creative for- mats through which to share the important stories of dancers with diverse audiences. Believing that everyone, not only critics, should be part of the dance conversation, Christine built a place for audiences to speak. Through her Audience Reviews she’s encouraged and discovered budding journalists — many of whom have become cor- respondents on her site or with other respected publications. Before Instagram videos and FB stories existed, Christine captured video from Flip cameras to draw read- ers into the lives and work of professional dancers.This program eventually became “Dance Up Close,” a series funded by Dance/USA’s Engaging Audience Program un- der the auspices of The Doris Duke Charitable Founda- tion. Her Enthusiastic Events series brought together dancers of all genres with visual artists, filmmakers, cura- tors, fashion designers, directors, authors, chefs, gallery owners, and producers to introduce audiences to dance’s connection to the world-at-large. Recognized for promot- ing dance literacy, this program was funded by the Mertz Gilmore Foundation, the Lower Manhattan Community Council and the New York State Council on the Arts. Prior to working in arts journalism, Christine danced to critical acclaim, taught beginners through professional artists, and produced concerts as well as educational events for children and their grown-ups. Christine thoroughly enjoys her adult sons, Tommy and Teddy (even though they pro- claim they aren’t dance enthusiasts.)
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.