“Transformative and Creative Energy”
Gabriela Ammann
Interviewed on November 11th, 2022
by Anabella Lenzu
Anabella: Thank you, Gabriela, for carving time and sharing your life story with me and with all of the audience of this project, which hopefully will be impactful.
Tell me about your life and how you started as a dancer, then became a choreographer, and then a mom.
Gabriela: All right. This is going to be fun!
I was very young when I started dancing. Maybe I was five, probably a typical age for girls to start ballet classes. My best friend at the time took dance classes. We went to our local dance studio in New Jersey. It was really loving; my best friend brought me into dancing because she was really everything to me when I was little. Jennifer Coen I know her name, and I'll never forget her name. She was kind of the star dancer. She was always very good, and I was along for the ride, but I loved them, I loved dancing, I loved classes.
Then she started going to the School of American Ballet in the city. I followed because after she started, I auditioned and got in. I don't know why, she was a much better ballet dancer than I. By now, I was in the fourth or fifth grade, and my mother would pick me up after school in New Jersey and drive me to Manhattan. Thinking about it now, as a parent, I would never do that. I'd tell my kids, “No, you can go to the local dance school.” When I think about how she drove me into the city just because I wanted to take classes at the School of American Ballet, it was really nice, and I don't know if I ever thanked her. This conversation is making me realize I should really thank her. At the time, I just took it for granted. I wanted to take dance classes there, and she made it happen. It was expensive, and my parents were going through a divorce, so she couldn't afford any of this. Ultimately, that’s why I left a few years later, because it was very expensive, and it was mostly wealthy kids who kept going.
It was such an unbelievable scene. She was working too. I don't know what she was doing at the time, but she somehow managed with her work schedule to leave work, pick me up, drive us into the city, hang out for an hour and a half, and then drive us home. I have two older sisters, so she still had to cook dinner for us when we got home. At that point, I took classes about three days a week: two evenings during the week and Saturday. My friend, Jennifer, was a much better dancer, and she was already in a more advanced level than I was, so we weren't taking classes together.
When I look back, it was an interesting experience. It was a heartbreaking experience because I was totally overlooked while I was there, and that feeling was the root of my insecurity in my abilities. Even if we could have continued to pay, I probably would've left, or they would've kicked me out eventually. Every now and then, you would see the company dancers, and you were taught by these legends from New York City, but it was totally messed up. My mother told me she would wait for me in the waiting area, and all these other mothers would be there waiting for their kids, and they'd be swapping advice on the best diet pills. All these girls, of course, are ridiculously skinny. It's a very toxic environment, and my mom couldn't stand it anymore, so she would do something else on the Upper West Side. One year, they suggested that I have my feet broken and remolded — this is the kind of stuff that they said.
Anabella: Oh my God. That was worse than what we had in Argentina. We were all bulimic and anorexic, but that never happened.
Gabriela: Yeah, to break your feet, they had doctors they sent the kids to, so they would have more of a perfect point. Can you imagine?
Anyway, I danced at the School of American Ballet for maybe two or three years, then I was out. Thank God. Going into my adolescent and teen years. I continued dancing at a local place in Ridgewood, New Jersey, called the Irene Fokine School. Irene Fokine was, at that point, probably in her seventies — she had the cane and cigarette, that whole thing. That’s how she taught the class. She was a cranky piece of work. Her uncle was Michel Fokin, whose claim to fame was Firebird, and she was his niece.
I danced there throughout high school, and it wasn't a great experience for me, but I kept at it. It was this tortured love affair with dance. I never felt good about myself, but I kept going.
I know this is such a typical experience for most, at least for women, in our generation. It's a tortured relationship you have with dance. The terrible teachers and unrealistic expectations, along with the hierarchy of the favored and the invisible. I loved it anyway. I loved performing because I decided that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to find a college dance program to get a Bachelor's in Fine Arts. I ended up at Purchase College as a dance major.
When I started there, they taught mostly Graham and Cunningham techniques, which seems insane to me because they were dated — certainly, Graham was pretty dated — already by then. But this was my introduction to modern dance, and I totally fell in love with modern dance. And it’s all because of my first Graham class, which I was placed into because of my ballet technique.
I should also mention that throughout my high school years, I would still come into the city and take jazz classes at the Luigi School. That was on the Upper West Side. Luigi was just, he was one of the really best things about that was he's, he was such a kind, genuinely kind person because it was a really different type of experience in terms of having a teacher who was just really lovely and encouraging. Anyone who came into those classes –– any background, any level or skill, any body type –– he loved. Maybe that's what kept me going: having that positive experience that was thoroughly enjoyable.
When I got to Purchase, it was the first time I was exposed to modern dance, and I loved it because you had to do choreography as part of the coursework. I started doing that and met the best people there who I'm still friends with. They are amazing dancers, and we had an amazing time. We certainly raged against the machine. Freshman year, I loved Graham, but by sophomore year, we were engaging in discourse on what is this establishment of dance, and of course, we all pushed against that. One of our teachers was Neil Greenberg, and we really gravitated to what he was doing. We were a bit rebellious against the doctrines of Graham and Cunningham's technique and many of their offshoots.
Then I graduated in 1992, and we went out to Boulder to do the dance festival at the University of Colorado. I’m not sure if they still have it, but it used to be fantastic. A bunch of us went out there, did the dance festival, then stayed. By the time I got back to New York, it was 1993. We were taking classes, and I was doing fine art modeling at the Arts Students League and with other private artists. I did that for a few years because I was trying to avoid waitressing, but eventually, I got into waitressing. I kept auditioning for things, taking classes, and then in 1995, myself and two other friends from Purchase decided to start a dance company called Underfoot Dance. We would fundraise to afford to rent the Cunningham studio and other places around the city. We scraped together around $10,000, and with that, you could do a weekend show and maybe pay your dancers and get costumes made. We would all choreograph and dance in each other's work. After our first show, Caitlin left, then it was just Melissa and I, and we kept doing this for about 8 years or so. It was intense because it didn't make any money, and we were so small. We were just self-producing. We stuck with it because if you stay in it, you eventually start getting more attention and opportunities, but we didn't even get to that point. We didn’t develop a board, which probably would've come next. Then I started having kids, and by the time I had Ella, I was still co-directing the company.
Anabella: I remember seeing your work at BAX (Brooklyn Arts Exchange) and babysitting during rehearsals.
Gabriela: It was really my dream for a while, and I really thought I could do it. My dream was to dance and have babies.
Yes, that’s right, you would meet me outside, and I’d be playing with Ella.
Anabella: Yes! I was there with Ella while you were rehearsing.
Gabriela: By that point, we were utilizing Ben and Tina's space. You were so instrumental in making me think I could make this work! You meeting with me and looking after Ella for a few hours, so I could get through rehearsal or class was huge. It was a tremendous gift to have you do that for us, and, of course, Ella loved you.
I remember I would bring Ella once a week. I manned the office, and they had that great performance space. We were continuing to do shows, and Melissa lived a block and a half away on North Seventh Street. Ben and Tina’s studio became a second home base of operations for our company.
Then I got pregnant with Marco, and the reality of it all started to sink in. Having the kids bled money, and I didn't make money. We did so much work to fundraise and then just hoped for the best. We got a few small grants here and there, $5,000 grants, etc. That was helpful, but the amount of work you had to put in, along with the fact that I had a two-year-old and was pregnant with another one, was really a lot.
To expect my husband to carry all that when his business was really young, financially and energy-wise, it was too much. By the time I was pregnant with Marco, that was the last time I ever performed. I was four months pregnant, and I have a memory of dancing at BAX and hearing Ella cry in the dressing room.
So, when I was pregnant with Marco at four months, that was the last time I performed. At 33, the realities of it were clear to me. It's really hard trying to do this [profession] with little kids.
It was a fantasy I thought I could make real, but it was too much. In order to have really made it work, I would've needed to pour a lot more energy into the dance company. I had to sit with myself and think about how committed I was. Some people are different because some people have a lot more energy while parenting little ones. I didn't have a lot of energy, [parenting] took a lot out of me, and I didn't sleep a lot. There were all these things I would've needed to do to take it to the next level, like all the administrative stuff, setting aside rehearsals, choreography, and intensive fundraising to get us to another place where we were no longer just breaking even. That was not even doable, and Melissa didn't wanna do it on her own. She either wanted to do this as a partnership or not at all. After that point, we didn't keep going with it.
Anabella: You touched on something very important, Gabriela — the socioeconomic situations. When you're thinking about the many choices that we make, perhaps these choices don't have to do with love or passion or the quality of your work. It has to do with money. Money makes the work go around. And that's a reality in our field, especially for women. So it makes me think, are we really choosing this, or is it the environment that makes us choose?
Gabriela: That's because much of what life is, right? That happens in many different ways. Are we choosing, or are the circumstances because of the environment? These realities, especially when you start having kids, force certain choices. You're a great example. Obviously, people can do it, right? You continue; you persevere. I have to be very real about it. I love dancing, and I loved performing, but I wasn't deeply committed enough to put myself through what I needed to do to make it happen. That's just the reality. Thinking about it, I could've put in an all-out effort. I could’ve given it a few years and tried to make this work, but I didn't do that.
You're totally right. The realities of the environment and not having enough money to float me while I did it. It also was painful, but not painful. One of the reasons for that was I had this other career love, which was reproductive justice and maternal child health. In my twenties, I'd thought of going back to school to be a midwife, but I realized there was no way. I won't be able to dance if I'm in midwifery school. That would take my complete attention. I saw [giving up performing] as an opportunity for this. Now was the time to explore this other thing that's been really important to me since I was probably a teenager. When I stopped performing, I don’t think I thought that I would be completely done. I probably held on to it because of some notion that I would still maybe dance in other people's work sometimes. I loved making solo work, so I thought maybe I'd go make a solo piece at some point. There were a number of times when I would still dream of choreography. That went on for a good ten years after I stopped dancing, where I would still dream of dances. That hasn't happened in a while, which is kind of sad because it would be fun to do that still.
When I stopped dancing, I would still, every now and then, feel this deep pull to get into the studio and make work, a really deep pull. I never did it, and I haven't had that feeling in a while. At least well into my forties, there was a part of me still desiring to express myself that way. Sometimes it would be hard to go see a dance performance. Now it's interesting. I can go to see dance and just enjoy it. I don't feel that attachment in the same way anymore. After I became pregnant with Marco, and I stopped performing and we dissolved the company. A few months later, I started looking into maternal health. I thought I could go to midwifery school, but I have two really little children.
Anabella: Everything is difficult with kids, everything –– dance or anything you do!
Gabriela: So that’s what brought me to being a doula. I thought, “Oh, I could do this instead.” It’s a much easier gateway into birth support and supporting pregnancy. While I was pregnant with Marco, I did doula training and then worked on my certification over the next year and started attending births. That was tough with little ones because you're on call, and I was still breastfeeding Marco when I started going to births. I didn’t know what to do for that while supporting a client in their labor, sometimes for 10 hours. A couple of times, Dave had to come to the hospital and hand me Marco to breastfeed.
One thing I did think about when I left dance was what would be my creative outlet. Am I going to really miss dance so much and feel kind of hardened inside?
But what I found was that it’s transferrable; that creative energy is not about the art form you're doing. The art form helps you express it, but it is not the basis for it. It's about being invested in what you're doing and loving what you do. Doula's work is hands-on. It's very physical. Obviously, it’s labor and birth. It’s holistic. It's physical, emotional, and spiritual. All of this is transformational. I found a lot of correlations with dance. In that sense, supporting people during birth felt very similar to, in an odd way, making and creating dance and movement. I was really surprised when I noticed that. I wasn't losing anything. It was just shifting to a different realm that I was still tapping into.
Anabella: Who could be a better doula than a dancer and a mother? It’s the knowledge of your body and understanding other bodies in space and the pain and pleasure that you mentioned. It’s why you were dancing during maternity.
Gabriela: It can be apparent in improvisation because you rely on your ability to relate to somebody. In order to make choices about how this movement will go and evolve, you have to be attuned to that other person. Supporting someone in labor is a hundred percent having to be attuned to their physicality, their energy, and their non-verbal cues, so it's a really transferable skill. It’s not something I expected, and it ended up being a beautiful realization that this is interesting to me. I'm still feeling fulfilled in the way I thought I would be lacking by leaving dance.
Now I am on the administrative side of things, as assistant director for a doula program with the city. I'm totally enmeshed in the doula world specifically as it relates to program planning, administration, strategizing, and advocacy, focusing on birth equity in the city. It is now a very heady experience in my work.
Anabella: You understand the relationship between experiencing pain and pleasure while giving birth. I know you don't do it anymore, but how do you feel when helping someone during this transition while they’re giving birth? I’d love to know more; I'm sure the audience reading would also love to know!
Gabriela: Well, it's an immersion into a person, a family's birthing experience, which you're dropping yourself into, and it’s an extraordinary experience for these people that met recently. You're dropping right into one of the most important life events that they'll have. Going into it as a doula means approaching solely from the perspective of understanding how to support the person through their experience. You're coming at it with an open heart place. Speaking from my experience as a doula, I’m supporting someone and doing it from an energetic perspective. It's a very open experience, and it feels like a gift to be there for somebody and help them navigate something challenging. It has a quality that can feel otherworldly. We say things about supporting people in labor by holding the space. In a way, you become a container for the experience happening in the family dynamic that’s going on for your client.
You are constantly observing them, just like dance. You have to be attuned to them and that kind of constant energy. I call it a gift because, in our day to day, we're usually focused on our own experiences. We're just thinking about ourselves because we're navigating whatever we're navigating. We've got our own problems. We're thinking about our own things we have to do and how that affects us. We think, “I feel stressed about this,” or “I've got to get there”. Even when caring and thinking about others, we're still essentially in ourselves all day. To have an opportunity to shift that, I always found it to be an incredibly wonderful part of that work.
Then there are parts of the work that are not wonderful; it's exhausting. You have to remember to bring food. You can potentially be with this person for three days. When you have kids, that means three days of trying to make sure that there's constant childcare. So that's really stressful, making sure you've set up everything, so you're good to go and be with your client.
As a doula, you’re helping them be as comfortable as possible, like helping with breathing techniques. How do we help the client stay relaxed and unstressed? Stress is a natural part of the experience, but how do we help a client not get stuck in some kind of spinning of stress and fear? Whether it's the pain or other things happening or deeply held trauma that might be surfacing, whatever it is. How do you help your client navigate that? You have to be as calm and relaxed as possible and help guide them in different movements and positions that help the baby move down. The baby has their journey; they're doing it through labor. It’s movement. Labor is about moving. You have to move during your labor. It’s dancing in labor. It roots you and gets you to where you need to be. You need to be physically rooted. You need to be opening up your pelvis, and dancing helps you do that. It gets you lower in your body, whatever that dance might look like. It might just be swaying back and forth. Doulas help with comfort measures, different hands-on techniques, massage techniques, and things that help the labor progress. We are providing informational support. Doulas aren't making medical decisions. We're not clinicians. We're not taking the baby's heart rate. We're not checking your heart rate. We're not checking your blood pressure. We're not checking your cervix, but we are observing signs and watching things if there seems to be a complication. We’re trying to make sure that the client has enough information, so they can make an informed decision about the next step –– whether that's induction, C-section, or pain medication, right? Whatever the thought might be about medical intervention, can we make sure that our client has as much information as possible, so they can make the best decision for themselves? That’s one of the trickiest things because that is often a very big hurdle in hospitals.
Anabella: The only thing that I remember is, in Mount Sinai, you're in the middle of the pain and handling your papers to sign. Of course, you sign everything. I don't know. I’m supposed to sign, but we don't know what to sign. We sign anyway.
Gabriela: Yeah, it’s nutty. Particularly for Black and Brown people in this city, their experiences of bias and racism that they are contending with in the birthing process, perpetuate inequities in maternal and infant outcomes. Much of the work we do in our program is serving those communities. As a doula, you're also bearing witness to a lot of trauma, particularly in communities that are marginalized, and seeing how stressors impact birth outcomes, people's well-being, and the health of their pregnancies. There are a lot of sociopolitical aspects, especially for community-based doulas, which is where my work is centered now. We are providing support to families and connecting them to resources. First and foremost, providing culturally sensitive care so you’re not that biased person who's adding disrespect and abuse in some way. It's a profoundly important role in birth and the maternity care system. The maternal care system is abysmal in the United States and in a state of crisis, particularly for people of color. The doula can be a mitigating intervention in the face of systemic injustice - someone with whom a pregnant person can establish trust, who provides respectful care and is there to support you in however the birth unfolds, and who provides a continuity of care from pregnancy through postpartum.
Anabella: Well, that's the difference between the United States and other countries, and that doesn't have to be the case. You have your family if something happens. You have your family, your cousins, and there are all the women giving you advice. Good or bad, right? But you have them there, but not it’s not like that here, especially in New York City. Do you find this different in another part of the United States than in New York?
Gabriela: I don't know. All my doula experience has been in New York City. I saw when my sister gave birth in Boulder, Colorado, and she seemed to be at a pretty great hospital where they respected her decision-making. It can be different. We currently have just one free-standing birthing center that exists in all of New York City, the Brooklyn Birthing Center. There is not a lot of support for alternative birthing options such as birthing centers and home birth, and there needs to be. Some people need to give birth in the hospital because that's the appropriate safe space for them to give birth, or they just may want that. It's totally valid and fine, but other birthing options are equally valid and fine.
Anabella: It’s like what you said about the quality of life. When I think about the level of violence in the United States compared with the level of violence in Argentina, why is it that poorer countries don’t have the same violence that happens here?
I remember going to my first sonogram, the first experience, and there was no empathy, nothing coming in and out. There is something about that environment forming these individuals.
I’ve asked all the women I interviewed about what kind of citizens we are forming as mothers in this society because there’s all this violence and fear. I never had a panic attack until I came to the United States. That’s the gift. “You can improve your life by coming to the United States, but by the way, you’re going to be afraid because of all the violence, and you need to know how to handle that.” What is giving birth? You are in this vulnerable state where you need support. And if you don't receive it, there is resentment, and that is what we carry on.
How important it is to think about this. With your son and with your daughter, how do you talk about these things? It's important how they see you from the outside. How do they see you, Gabriela? Because you are doing a service for the community.
Gabriela: How do they see me? I'm not quite sure. I think they appreciate what I do. They probably roll their eyes at the level of my intensity sometimes. They're also intense themselves. They're Gen Z, so they’re focused on changing the world. I know a small cohort of Gen Z, my kids, their friends, and my nephews, who have their fingers on the pulse of how messed up things are and what they're saddled with. I sense they're glad I'm doing something that's trying to correct a wrong; beyond that, I’m not sure because I have not asked them.
Anabella: This is an anecdote that I always share. When my son was three and a half, I brought him to all of my classes. We were at Peridance, and when we finished class, he turned to me and said, “Mama, I want to be a woman.” I looked at him and said, “Why?” and he said, “Because the women are the ones in command. They command everything. You tell your students what to do; you tell Papa what to do; Grandmother tells Grandfather what to do.” So he saw the idea of being a leader as being a female, and that reminded me that they’re our mirror. That’s what he picked up on. I didn't notice that. That's why I asked you how your kids see you because we get these glimpses.
Gabriela: Interesting. This reminds me of something Ella said to me a year ago. We were arguing, and we were sorting through something. At one point she said, “Mom, you're really strong.” I think she was saying it because I needed to understand what it was like to be around me. She was trying to tell me that I have a very strong personality, and I'm always clear about what I want to do, and then I do it. I don't see myself that way at all. Not that I don't see myself as strong, but I don’t think I’m some kind of force. Most of the time, I am a ball of anxiety about the world and concerns. I’m just trying to make it through my day and not be an asshole or a bad person. I profess a lot of strong opinions about things. My work is intense and important. It's also transformative work. It's right to the heart of many converging issues: misogyny, racism, economics, equity, and how things operate in this country.
Anabella: Thinking about the idea of serving the community –– it’s easy to think, “I’m only making a dance; who am I really serving?” That’s the whole thing about making art versus impacting the world. Is this art making an impact? What does that mean for you?
Gabriela: I don't think I ever wondered about that because it has never been a question for me. The value of art in life is always up there with any community organizer. It is absolutely essential to being.
I forgot to mention, that I did go back to school to get my master's degree in public health. When I got a BFA at Purchase, I didn't take any science classes or math, so I had to suffer through the GRE to apply to graduate schools. I had to get a tutor. I had to teach myself basic math again. That was actually a really wonderful thing, though. It was hard, but it was wonderful to break a bias I had about my capabilities. The fact that I did that was important to me because it shattered my own silly perceptions. Prior to that I had limited myself to buying into the right brain, left brain nonsense. The thought is that if you're this type of person, you stay in this lane intellectually and career-wise. Like, I'm a person who makes dances, right? That's not a person who goes into policy work. Maybe young artists now don't hold these perceptions, but 30 years ago, there was still a typical stereotype of non-artists and artists. It was very limiting because it was just not true.
Anabella: You said that when you are in the doula moment, in support of someone giving birth, you feel that you are in another realm. Do you have any parallels when you are performing? Is there another round of consciousness you feel, and how are these two things for you?
Gabriela: It's the feeling of being present. When you’re performing, when it's going well, and you're really in it, you have a heightened awareness of everything around you. What your body's doing and the movement you're expressing, and you're fully in and feeling it, it’s that quality.
Thank you for making that connection. It dawned on me how this carries through. This is the same thing. It’s the stuff of life, right? Now that I've gotten older, I’m much more aware of it in all sorts of ways. How do you tap into that sense of embodiment, openness, and presence, and how one relates to the world?
Anabella: Thank you very much, Gabriella, for this hour of enlightenment. It’s beautiful what you are doing. Thank you for doing this service for the community. It’s important. Everybody should have a doula; it makes a difference in the quality of life. Otherwise, there is this trauma he passes on to the next generation. Then you wonder what happened. Well, everything starts there, at the point of birth.
Gabriela: Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Gabriela Ammann has lived and worked in NYC for three decades. In 1995 she co-founded UnderFoot Dance, a modern dance company that produced full evening dance performances at various venues throughout NYC. After the birth of her second child in 2004, Gabriela embarked on her next career path in maternal and child health, working as a doula and childbirth educator in private practice as well as with the New York City Department of Health’s Healthy Start Brooklyn and the By My Side Birth Support Program (BMS). In 2014 she earned her master’s degree in Public Health and shifted her focus to program development and implementation as director of BMS. Gabriela is currently the Assistant Director of the Health Department’s Citywide Doula Initiative, which expands no-cost doula services to families in neighborhoods across the five boroughs. She has co-authored two published studies: “Doula Services Within a Healthy Start Program: Increasing Access for an Underserved Population”, and “Birth equity on the front lines: Impact of a community-based doula program in Brooklyn, NY”.
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.