“Love and Guilt”
Marya Ursin
Interviewed on December 9th, 2022
by Anabella Lenzu
Anabella: Thank you for sharing your time with me and your life and art stories. What was your life before and after you became a mother?
Marya: Oh, full of changes! Well, it's a longish story.. I was pre-med in college. I was going to be a doctor and a dancer. I figured I could do both. But then, while taking pre-med coursework, I realized that I couldn’t sustain the high amount of focus required for both that and dance, and also be as politically active as I was (pacifist during the Vietnam War). When the revolution did not happen– I went to Paris to study at l’Ecole de Mime Marcel Marceau, Silence! But then returned to college, finished at Swarthmore, and then moved to NYC. So, I chose dance and movement. I had been offered a job in a mime company in Paris. So, I figured I'd make a lot of money (haha) in the summer in NYC with my recent college degree, and then go to Paris and take this job as a mime. But- surprise - I didn't make a lot of money in New York City. Instead, I met Merce Cunningham, and that changed my life. Being a mime in Paris was to be an unlived life for me.
Merce changed the way I saw the world, literally. His use of space, his use of time, his use of music, his use of the body; the synchronicity as opposed to the matching of elements, the art, the intellectual ferocity. It was a revelation. So, I stayed in New York. I received a scholarship to train at the Cunningham Studio. I taught third grade as an assistant teacher for three years in a private school and took classes and swept up at the Cunningham Studio every afternoon from 4-8. At one point, I auditioned for Mimika, a mime company, and got in. I was in Mimika, traveling and performing, for two-three years. I was also taking the company class at Cunningham, at Merce’s suggestion, and people said to me, “Oh, you are being prepared,” but then he asked me to teach at the Cunningham Studio. It was such an honor and such a joy! Some said, “Oh, that's the kiss of death. You will not be in the company.” I was a surprisingly strong dancer. I didn't have a lot of strength natively, but I was very skillful. I performed for various choreographers along the way, all of which I loved. I was in the Laura Dean company for a year, spinning, singing 8-part harmony, jumping, experiencing pure ecstasy, performing at BAM, Walker Arts Center, DTW, etc. It was an exhilarating time.
There was a significant shift in my life after Laura Dean. I was introduced to the man who became my daughter's father; he was a writer with quirky humor. He lived mostly in Carmel, New York. So, I began commuting between Carmel and New York City. About a year after we met, I was on my way to the train station to return to New York when a car crossed the center line and came straight toward me. I veered off to the side, flipped my car, and broke my back. So, it wasn’t just childbirth - your question - but other significant events that shifted my direction! During recovery, I was in a brace. I had fractured three vertebrae, but it was, fortunately, a compression fracture. There wasn't any slipping or paralysis. I was able to return to classes within a few months, but, to my surprise, things hurt. Jumping was like a red-hot poker going up my spine. I remember weeping. So the dancing life for me was different. I worked myself up again to be a skillful dancer, but I never quite regained the same strength, ease, or confidence, that I had had before.
I continued to teach at the Cunningham Studio and performed some but not much. I thought that it would be a good time to go to graduate school. I enrolled in the psycho-neuro-endocrinology double master’s program at Columbia University. The information was new, challenging, and fascinating. There were no textbooks: instead, we studied research actively being produced within the field. In the middle of the program, I got pregnant. A few months into my pregnancy, I found I could not keep my eyes open after 4 pm. I took a break from Columbia.
I didn't mean to get pregnant. But there was something about this particular pregnancy- I knew I wanted this child. My husband was older and had two great children in their late teens. He had not been thinking of another child, either, but we went ahead. My pregnancy was a trip! My body changed shape, without any control or direction from me, or so it seemed. I was very strong and muscular 104 pounds when I got pregnant and gained 37 pounds. I had had an eating disorder for years, and considerable dysmorphia, and now I felt like, “Wow, this shape is right!” I loved my changing body. When I saw Jane Comfort’s film of her pregnancy, I could see her center of gravity, drop, drop, drop, and drop, and how her movement changed. So did mine.
I was dancing while pregnant, and teaching at Cunningham. Late on, I was at Joffrey doing a penché, but I couldn't get up! I couldn't curve much in Cunningham. It was endlessly curious and fascinating, this changing body. For five months, not a scant three months for me, I experienced all day “morning sickness”. I craved certain foods and remember eating five grapefruit and two melons a day at one point. Before, men on the street would catcall me, chanting, “Hey baby!” which always made me uncomfortable and angry. But now it was, “Hey, mama!” and there was a different tone to it.
All of this made me feel like I had come into a kind of being - womanhood? - I'd never really known before. Then Ana was born: she was nine pounds. It was a long delivery, hard, unexpectedly painful - of course. My water broke in the cab on the way to the midwifery center - I remember the eyes of the cabby as he jumped the cab onto sidewalks in a headlong rush uptown to the Midwifery Center. I was three and a half weeks late. I think Ana wanted to be a Leo! She emerged, a dark-eyed and haired squall of beauty and life. Her eyes soon became blue, and she was endlessly expressive, and antic.
After Ana was born, I had a flash of understanding: “This is the one thing, Marya, that you cannot undo, that you cannot go back on. This is forever.” I don't think I had had a sense of forever before. Ana had arrived. My life has never been the same. I wouldn't let anyone else hold her at first. I was extremely protective. I breastfed her for two years. Her father, Peter, adored her.
I returned to teaching within a few weeks: three times a week, taking classes daily, and working at an architect’s office - where I brought little Ana in a carrier chair. I felt constantly crunched for time. I was dancing. I was dashing to the Cunningham Studio, then home, because I felt a terrible longing when I was away from Ana. I had an upswell of love, anxiety, and pain. I had this amazing child. I loved her beyond imagination, just being with her. It was elating, and exhausting. I was surprised at how tiring caring for a wee baby was. I have a lot of energy. People were like, “Oh, it's okay. It’ll change.” Little did I know that changing did not mean it would become easy! I read long books, Anna Karenina and Middlemarch, all of Balzac, in a rocking chair while nursing. In my 20s, I felt I never had time to read. I was always busy working, dancing, teaching. I had always loved to read, and now I could, again. At night, as I lay in bed, I was surprised to see the flap of my belly lying on the bed next to me. My breasts were enormous; they'd never been really big before. These changes were strange for this dancer, who'd been very thin, muscular, and flexible. Now, it felt like I was in a different body. I was moving again, but my body didn't recover as quickly as I thought.
We moved out of the city five months after Ana’s birth. My husband was writing a book, and we had lost our loft. I didn’t want to leave the city, but my friends, George and Betsy White, convinced us that New London, CT, might be a fruitful place to be. George suggested that there would be things for me to do between the O'Neill Center and Connecticut College. He didn't open any doors but suggested it. So, we ended up in the New London area. Within a month of being there, I found a little studio where I started taking classes with Colette Barry, who had been part of early release technique in nyc, which was intriguing to me, being more familiar with a discipline-focused approach. One scary thing about being in the country was that I had to drive. I had not driven since I broke my back, plus I was leaving Ana for two or three hours. I felt this gnawing fear: “What if an accident happens? What will happen to my daughter?” I knew she was fine with Peter, but nonetheless. I constantly had Ana on my mind.
Anabella: Being a mother transforms you in all aspects, not just physical but also spiritual and emotional! Can you talk more about that?
Marya: I am not a religious person, but have always had a strong connection to the mystery, the wideness of being, to the liminal spaces. I have had a number of peak spiritual experiences, dancing, in nature, and now, with Ana, my little one. While being with a child is physical and practical, it was, for me, the manifestation of love and grace. This was the first time in my life I wasn't working, dashing around. At times, I felt stir-crazy, but mostly, it was thrilling. We read, played, and met other babies and their mums. I've always been into esoteric pursuits, so I was reading a lot of green witchery, herbalism, and cabalistic texts. Peter planted a fine garden. I made everything for Ana: food was homemade and homegrown, I made clothing and stuffed animals, I had little moccasins made for those active feet, and we colored and imagined. I'd never played much, really. I don’t recall my parents playing with me - they were loving, but not really playful. This was a new and precious intimacy. My life circled around Ana, and I was in love. This was an outpouring of love, unlike anything I had felt before, in a life rich with love. Even now, my daughter's never not in my mind; she's always in my heart. She's 42 now and has her own 7-year-old. I know she is going through similar and different things with her child. And I adore little Aarya.
Backing up: when little Ana was 2 or 3, Peter and I separated, then divorced, and I needed to return to work. When I went to the O'Neill, I suggested to Lynn Britt, a dancer and actor from GB, that they needed more physical movement in the program. She agreed with me, so I began teaching every day again. I also went to Conn College and started teaching in their continuing education program. I taught a range of physical classes: dance, yoga, body/mind exploration, story making, mask making, and improv. I still teach in both places - mostly yoga and mask now. When Ana was yet a toddler, I bought the dance studio where I had found Collette and release technique a couple of years earlier. Ana took classes on my hip or crawling through the studio. Briefly, I lived in the studio. I thought I could run it and support my daughter and myself but for many reasons - location, and my own state of being, I was only able to keep it running for a year. When I spoke of guilt and love, it is because I have always lived with this push and pull of the responsibility of supporting my child and myself, and yet not wanting to be away from her, and wanting to be, as well. Peter continued to be steady, and a loving presence in her life, for which I am endlessly grateful.
I as a mother felt, yes, spiritually connected, expansive, drenched in love, rather desperate, exhausted, responsible, guilty, explosively happy, shocked by my feelings, full of unquestioning love.
Anabella: When you say, “Oh, my friends didn't have kids,” what period are you referring to?
Marya: I was the only pregnant person at the Cunningham studio, and so I was odd as I got very, very big. I did not know anyone was pregnant, so I had no context. This was a solo experience. Toward the end of my pregnancy, I remember noticing that Merce sort of averted his eyes. I had a circle of Cunningham friends who were thrilled and excited and gave me a baby shower. All of us were poor, but they pitched in to get me a little carrier - a Snugli, I think it was called, for Ana. I also still have the little giraffe with a head/neck that spins in a circle playing “Around the World in 80 Days..”. My friends were lovely and supportive like I was their kin. But I felt a bit like a different species. I had stepped into a different realm, almost a meta-world experience of what I used to think was the primary one.
During the pregnancy, a lot seemed to just happen, without my volition, which was interesting because I’m strong-willed, umm, shall we say - controlling! But that dropped away. During her delivery of me, my mother had an epidural way back before they better moderated the dose of the drug. It had an extended effect on her. She had terrible headaches for six weeks. I doubt she was able to deal with me because the delivery incapacitated her. Years later, I did a rebirthing session. I don't know whether you're familiar with that. It's a meditative journey. You're guided through a meditative trance to visit places in your past. My friend Sharon guided me back to the moment of my birth. What I discovered was that I couldn't move my arms, and I couldn't move my legs. I had gone through this incredible squeezing coming through the canal, and then I couldn't move. It occurred to me that I was likely drugged as well, as well as my mum. I came into this new world, unable to move; I think I needed to become a dancer to assert my capacity to move. I also became a massage therapist when Ana was about 5 - again, touch, movement, pressure. I think this is related to my birth. I was committed to having a natural birth, but I recall saying to myself at the peak of the pushing - “you will not remember this pain, but I am giving you the words: this is more painful than anything you have ever experienced”. My labor was 17 hours. I had an episiotomy because they lost the baby's heartbeat, and they took the baby out right away and put her in my belly, and the love affair began. Of course, the events of birth, the effects on one’s body, certainly on mine, affect one forever. We carry all of this in our bodies, these memories.
Anabella: Thank you for sharing your story. What do you consider what makes a “good mother”?
Marya: When Ana was born, it was 1980, and she became the star of my life. I believe love, touch, support, and honor - these are essential for the baby, not to mention play, language, nutrition, friendships, safety, and getting out of the way of their flourishing. not to impede but to provide. I played a lot with Ana, and for me, it was such fun. I’ve been given the gift to do it again now with my granddaughter. I didn't want to fill Ana’s life with being over-scheduled. So, I was light-handed: she took piano, ballet, and creative dance. She also swam competitively and did some sports, but I was also working much of the time, and missed games and such. I was a single parent. Her father was very present, but he was in New York. (He was the one who wanted to leave New York. I was the one who wanted to stay. After we divorced, he returned to New York, and I stayed. An inverse poetry!).
I’ve always tried to make Ana feel safe and that I was a safe person for her. We had very few rules as she got older and became a teenager. I think some of the other parents were taken aback. I would not say, “You cannot do this. You cannot do that.” I would say, “Be home by.., and let me know where you are.” Those were the rules, and we would negotiate as she got older. My home became the place where all the kids would flock. If it were a weekend, I'd wake up and find a pile of kids. We had a safe place for them. If she were out, she could call me anytime, and I would pick her up. This freedom with guardrails agreement worked for us.
Another big change for me: when Ana was about three years old, I realized I was drinking too much. I felt terrible about myself, and terrified about Ana, but could not stop. I appeared to be on top of things. My friends would say, “Oh no, you don't have a problem.” And I'd be like, “I have a lot of secrets, my dear. I have a lot of secrets”. I didn't value myself enough to stop drinking, but I treasured Ana above all else, so I stopped drinking for her. They say you can’t stop an addiction for someone else, but I did. This then led me to the place of finally valuing myself enough to continue to get better. I have been clean for myself, now, for 39 years.
I entered that healing because of being a mother, not because of my self-worth. I wanted Ana to have a model of someone caring for herself. I am vegetarian, I do yoga every day, I dance, and I have a spiritual practice, which is non-theistic and pantheistic. I have a kind partner. I honor the holiness and beauty of all. We have a safe home. I hope this can help to create a circle of clouds of energy for kindness and peace, for me, for Ana, for her little one, for us all.
Ana is who she is. She has her burdens and difficulties that she needs to go through. And, of course, the hardest thing for a mother is to let the child go through those things. I began noticing that she was creating her world, like when she was 12 or 13. So, I began that long process of grieving - over losing this intimate, all-embracing relationship as it changes. But it has to change. For me, it's always been loss and gain.
Anabella: Thinking about these two words: discipline and freedom in the life of an artist. How do we understand their boundaries?
Marya: Tricky. I have had firm almost rigid boundaries, and I've had to loosen them, and then I've had to reset them. I had a therapist who once said to me, Marya, if you have not said no, you have never said yes. And I thought, Ooh. In yoga, my interpretation of boundaries involves the fourth and fifth chakras: your heart, which is forgiving and kind, and your throat, which is expressive and truth-speaking. They control the shoulders and the arms. So, those qualities are a part of how we embrace and set boundaries and the idea/relationship of an embrace and a boundary.
Meeting Dan was a big and challenging event in my life with Ana. Ana was 8, nearly 9, and I had decided, “Okay, maybe I can get back to performing.” Either that, or go to Divinity School. Same thing. I was looking at Yale Divinity School when one of my dance students said, “Oh, there's this guy who has a mask company, the Mystic Paper Beasts.. He's looking for performers. His wife/partner left him”. I took his number and then lost it; this was in January. At the end of the semester in May, I said, “Sarah, what was his number?” I got his number again - and lost it again. In the summer session, Sarah was in my class again. I asked her for the number again. She gave it to me, and I finally called him up. I was going away with my daughter to Liberation Camp, a camp for single parents and children in Roe, VT. I called Dan, and he said, “Oh, would you like to come and have an audition?” And I said, “No, I'm going away.” So I went away to Liberation camp, and I visited a psychic. I told her, “I'm trying to decide between all these things.” And the psychic said, “You have many doors. You will walk through one of them.” Hah. But indeed, “You take the first step, and all of providence moves with you”. It turned out that, had I called Dan earlier, none of what followed would likely have happened.
So I had the audition with Dan, but he was not familiar with conducting an audition, so I sort of guided us. I think we were being flies together and improvising. When he initially walked out of the barn to greet me, I had the intuition, “This is going to be something more.” And it has been, but the first few years were very rough. I felt I was in a constant position of protecting Ana. It was very, very difficult for all kinds of reasons. Boundaries, family history. I went into therapy. I then insisted he go into therapy. We were in joint therapy, and again, it was for my mental well-being, for the health of our relationship, and it was ultimately for Ana.
Almost every good thing I've done for myself has come out of this deep resolve to be a good mother. Of course, this then becomes a caring for the Self. I didn't know how to be the “best” mother, but I began to understand that I had to clean up my act and be as whole as I could if I was going to be whole for her, to model wholeness. I watch my daughter in awe: She is beautiful, healthy, vibrant, amazing, - and patient, kind, loving as a mother. She has an endless reserve of patience, maybe not for her former husband, who’s a trip, but for her amazing daughter.
I also have four stepchildren - that has been a whole other journey for me, and golly, what a blessing! I am stunned by the gifts I have been granted, simply by making many mistakes but staying, changing, and loving.
Anabella: What makes a “good artist”?
Marya: Being curious and faithful to yourself. Willing to explore, reflect, and be reflected towards. What makes a good artist? Love. That's at the center of everything. Every person I've been involved with has been an artist, and I realize we all had our own practice of art as a kind of mistress, so to speak. It was as if we were split in our relationships. So there was always this tension in my relationship between who I aspired to be, who I am, in a relationship, and then how my artist dancer self might manifest.
Dan and I have done a lot of work together. Yes. But also, we bring a very different energy to it. I’m a dancer, and rather driven. He's never had to make a living. He's much more free. So that's been challenging but exciting and good. You wouldn't believe it, but I've gotten slightly looser. I learned to make masks, paint, and write tales for the company, to direct people in our shows, and to create big community events. What a gift.. Dan and I have been together since 1989, for 33 years, since Anna was 9. It's been a long time since then. We have run a company together and made art and life together.
Anabella: Exactly. It’s not easy to manage artistic and personal relationships. How do you deal with both?
Marya: When you asked me about the interview. I said I could summarize it with two words: love and guilt. I tended to go toward guilt for not being able to be more, more present, more of everything. I have mostly let go of that. I have a degree of acceptance. It is much lighter. My heart fills with love, and yet also pain. And I let it be. I find I can embrace it all, and have the word “and” in my life. There are so many “unlived” lives we all have. Every step I take has a risk of falling. I've spent a life falling and catching myself, and my daughter, and it's worked out.
I perform for K-5 audiences now. I never thought I would do that; I was a serious dancer. I'm not a children's theater performer, though I, and now I do children's theater. Dan's not performing so often with me anymore, due to achy knees and such, plus he goes away for three months every year, doing his visual art - he is an amazing painter and sculptor. So it's a solo performance. There is a lot of liberty in being solo, and a lot of responsibility. I like that. I ran out of time in the performance I gave yesterday to some wonderful kids, so, being solo, I could choose which story to end with. I tell many stories in movement and mask. So, at the end, in the Q&A session, I got the question, “What's that mask over there?” And I said, “Oh, that's the story I didn't tell!” I didn’t feel I had to apologize for running out of time and not getting to all the stories. Rather like life. But - I look at David Dorfman and his company - they are also at Conn College, and think, “Oh, I've missed out on so many things that these companies, these expressive unions, have had.” But here I am, happy, joyous, and relatively free.
I've had a wonderful, wonderful time. There are always choices, and there are always absences. The greatest gift in my life is my daughter. I have a friend who is a wonderful artist. I modeled for her in college, and I recall her saying that her greatest works of art were her two children. I didn’t understand it back then and thought it was odd and possessive, but I understand it now. One can say I have a life beyond my wildest dreams. I am a dreamer, so perhaps it is simply that I am able to inhabit my dreams with some degree of integrity and constance, and love.
Anabella: Please tell me more about Dragon's Egg Residency and history.
Marya: My husband Dan grew up on that property, and when his mother died, he and his brother inherited it along with a lot of money from her family. So Dan bought his brother out, and we gave a lot of the money away but kept enough to build a rehearsal studio for the Mystic Paper Beast.
That's how the idea started. Initially, we thought of it as being a rehearsal studio for the Beasts, because we were bouncing from space to space; this was back in 1996. Dan, a trained architect, was drawing rectangular plans, and then I had this vision. It was like a waking dream of a hexagon, a sacred circus tent rising at the end of the field. The yantra for the heart is a double triangle, and a beehive is based on hexagons. Turns out hexagons are a headache for builders because of the angles. We have windows and vaulting ceilings, a sprung floor, and a place for people to stay, communally, on the sort of second balcony level. So he drew plans, and I would say no, and yes, and how about - we would go back and forth. The Egg was born. I wanted a sprung floor. I researched all these different studios to get the correct wood, polishing, and finishing products. We then hoped people who didn't have a lot of money could come to the Egg, without the requirement of having to produce a product. I didn't want it to be goal-oriented, but simply a space to be, to do, to let go. This has been a problem with writing grants. They want them to be goal-oriented and have an outcome! I emailed friends and former NTI students: the first people to come were all Cunningham people. Ellen Cornfield Co. was the first, and the floor was so slippery because the floor builder had overridden my instructions about the surface. After she left, I had the floor redone. Then Alan Good came, and he stayed for a month with two different projects. Then people started talking about the Egg and coming. More and more people came, people I didn't even know. The projects have been wild and less wild, theatre, and dance, involving companies and individuals, musicians, writers, filmmakers, aerialists, performers, and people simply on retreat from their usual lives and pace. The costs cover things like insurance, electricity, and gas. We have no employees, no salaries. It hangs on and continues to be filled with artists, love, and grace.
Anabella: I did a residency at The Dragon’s Egg in the Summer of 2022. It's a magical place, and you can feel the love and care from the moment you enter the space. Thank you for creating The Dragon’s Egg!
Marya: Thank you! Thank you for putting up with my rambling. *laughter* . Being a mother and an artist has been an amazing journey. I'm so glad you're on it.
Marya Ursin is a dancer/mime/yogi/writer. Her primary dance training was with Merce Cunningham, studied mime with Marcel Marceau, and continues to train in ballet. She is on faculty for the National Theatre Institute at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Ctr and at Conn. College (dance department). Marya danced for various companies, including Laura Dean, Mitchell Rose, Sally Bowden, Brynar Mehl, Brian Hayes, Elaine Shipman: SITU, Mimika. She is Artistic Director for the Mystic Paper Beasts, for which she has written some 60 plays, and is currently performing under the auspices of YoungAudiencesMass. She has performed in ~1000 venues, including DTW, BAM, Whitney, Yale, Naropa, Walker Arts Center, Edinburgh (Scotland), Glastonbury (GB), dozens of museums etc. She is on the roster of Young Audiences Mass. She is the Executive Director of the Dragon’s Egg Theatre Retreat Center. She has written, and co-illustrated (with her husband, Dan Potter), two story books, and is working on a third. She produces a dance/theatre concert regularly in the fall in NYC, and “assembles/ directs” theatrical extravaganzas based on classical texts such as The Inferno, Life is a Dream, and Animal Farm, each year, locally. She collaborates with the Hygienic Galleries in New London to offer a promenade performance through the galleries, every March. She has an RYT 500 teacher designation in yoga and is eclectic in her approach to the teaching of yoga. She has written many papers about yogic philosophy and developed various sequences to serve particular needs and purposes. She has taught yoga since 1981 to the general population, to children, to the aged; at addiction centers and in prisons, at safe houses for girls, at centers for women, and to teachers and administrators at the college level. BA in Art History; MA in Integrative Health and Healing; graduate work in mathematics, and psychoneuroendocrinology and its effects on behavior and learning styles; Registered and Licensed Massage Therapist; Registered Yoga Teacher 500, and a bevy of minor certificates. www.dragonseggstudio.org
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.