“The love you take is equal to the love you make”
Sara Rudner
Interviewed on September 6th, 2022
by Anabella Lenzu
Anabella: Thank you so much for your time, your love, and your dedication. Tell me again, what is the best gift for your son?
Sara: Well, now as he has become a man with a wife, a job, and a home, his focus has necessarily shifted and changed to his new roles in life. I'm coming to understand that the best way I can support him and my gift to him is for me to be involved in my own life with dance, and my friends, and have a very full experience even in my late 70s. In terms of what we do with our children when they are very young, we feed, clothe, kiss and hug them. We tell them, “No! That’s bad!” Then we tell them, “Oh! That’s good!” We do a whole thing! And then, what do we do later on? They’re making decisions for themselves, you know? It is not a situation in my case where my son calls me and asks, “Mom! Should I take that job?” Some children and parents have that relationship. You know, he has confidence in himself. We raised him to be confident about his choices, and so far he has been on a track that seems to suit his personality and his life. So far as I can see, I am not worried about him. I am trying to figure out how to redefine our relationship. He went to Tufts University on the East Coast and got a job. He is a software engineer and he was hired out of undergraduate workin a start up in Cambridge, Massachusetts. And then he said, “I think I’ve gone as far as I could go here. I think I have to go to graduate school”. He applied to graduate school and got into Stanford. He then got on a little old motorcycle and drove cross country. I saw him driving away, oh! It was terrible! I saw him driving down Prince Street towards whatever highway, and I said, “Oh my god!” And then I was worried until I started getting photographs from him. He started sending me photographs of his journey. I started tracking him and I saw the backroads and he allowed me in! I was on the journey with him! It was really wonderful! I replaced worry with fascination.
Anabella: That's beautiful!
Sara: It was curiosity! And I remember saying “Oh my God! Look! He was caught in a rainstorm! Oh, how terrible!” “Oh he lost the key, oh well he figured out how to start the engine anyway!” And I am experiencing this, I am seeing his achievement. He is growing up and taking care of himself.
Anabella: How did you decide to become a mom? You had a full career, you were still dancing with Twyla Tharp. Tell me about that time.
Sara: You know I danced with Twyla for a long time. Aside from one break for about two and a half years, I danced with her for almost 20 years. Starting from the time we were all unemployed, I met her really early. I was 20 or 21 years old when I met her and she was 23. We were very young together. And the work got more interesting and more intense. Finally, I took a break and I started my own work. And those marathons and long solos are what came out of that break. I realized the structure of dance touring and dance concerts was not for me. I didn’t like it. It was very stressful because the work I actually wanted to do was very different. I was not interested in developing work for the theater. I was more interested in these long, drawn-out situations where people could come and go. I mean that is what I was investigating with Wendy Rogers, Risa Jaroslow and Wendy Perron, dear colleagues. When, several years later when I had a company, my management, performing art services, started steering me towards stage performances, I thought, “I didn’t leave Twyla to repeat that activity.” I left to do something completely different. In 1977, or so, Twyla invited me to return as a guest to do an original roles and she was also including me in new work, and I continue working with my own group. I was exhausted. It was too much.I ended up having a detached retina.
There were problems with my eyes anyway and I ended up in the hospital in the early eighties. I was fine, except they had to repair my eye. In those years the protocol was to lay in bed for weeks. And during that time I had a lot of time to think and feel. And when I came out of that I said, “I just wanna dance! I don’t want to be doing things I am not interested in doing!” I loved working with that company, and all the people I worked with in the Sara Rudner Performance Ensemble; they were fabulous! I loved working with them. But, the only way I could afford that was doing the work that my management was getting me, and that did not feel right. So with a heavy heart I closed down the company, and worked with Twyla for another three years on. The straw that broke the camel’s back was “Fait Accompli”. It was a big piece, it is not in her repertoire anymore, no one does it. But at the time I had arthritis in my right hip joint. I managed to get through all those performances and seasons, and I did not know what the problem was. So once I found out what the problem was I said, “Oh, I know what this means.” I was just turning forty. I kind of eased out of Twyla’s situation because I remember telling her “Twyla my hip is not so good so I have to be careful”. So the first rehearsal or two I did what I could do. And the next day or two she said, “Oh you can do a lot still!” And I said, “No. I adore you, I love you, you are the most brilliant, wonderful mentor I ever had,” I said. “But, no.” Of course, I was very upset. I was very sad.
I was actually in a marriage at that time. It was breaking up at the same time as I was leaving my dance home. My ex-husband and I were on very good terms, but the marriage was not working out. And during that time I was introduced to a man who became Eli’s father. And I was introduced to him through Carolyn Brown. He was not a dancer, not an artist, he was a lawyer. We met; we got together. At the age of forty-one we had-I was almost forty-two- I had Eli! Now hip replacement are done routinely, but not then in the ighties- they weren’t the surgeons said, “You’re too young, we don’t want to do this. We do not know how long this will last.” So all that relief from that pain was put off until I was fifty. Meanwhile, I had a baby, I had all the hormones. My hip joint felt better and I nursed him for a long time. And I actually did some dance work, some teaching , but mostly I was at home with him. When he was really young from the time he was born, until he was about nine or ten I was only doing work that I wanted to do. I would go to the studio, I collaborated with Wendy goers on a dance for her program at St. Marks’s Church: I made solos for friends. I did not need to earn money at that time. But Eli’s father and I separated. And then it was clear that I needed work. at the invitation of Dana ritz, I went to Bennington College to earn MFA degree, and applied to be the director of Dance at Sarah Lawrence College. Luckily, I was offered the job. Oh! It was just the perfect time. The other perfect thing that happened was that I moved out after living together, and I moved to a loft that was around the corner. So I lived very close and Eli could go back and forth if he wanted or needed. That situation was financially and emotionally difficult for me. I no longer lived with my child one hundred percent of the time since he was ten years old. Since his father really wanted to be with him, the solution, for both of us, was for Eli to spend Monday, Tuesday, and part of Wednesday with me. Then Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday with his father, and then we would split the weekends. So Eli saw both parents all the time.
It wasn’t easy. His father remarried, and I met my very first boyfriend in the world. Again! You know in my late fifties I re-met my very first love. And we lived together until he died. And I always said to Eli, “You are the best thing I ever did. Bye! I gotta go to work!” (chuckles) “Now I’m gonna work. You are the best, you are the best thing I ever did!”
Anabella: How has this changed you? And can you imagine not being a mother?
Sara: Well, I have been fortunate to have friends from the late seventies--so I have former students who became colleagues and they observed me through all this time. They observed me as a teacher. They observed me as a dancer and a choreographer. And I wasn’t aware of my changes, but they were.
And they told me, and I went, “Oh! Yeah, yes that makes sense.” I was one hard-ass teacher. I was like, “Okay guys!” My friend Amy Lieberman, god bless her, sometimes would just say, “Woah! You were just something else!” And as I went through this experience of having a child and caring for him, extending that care to many other people because I only had one child. And I always wanted another child but I couldn’t, I kept on miscarrying.
I was sad, I was very sad about that. And in fact, I went out and bought a piece of clothing for the hoped for new child. Of course, there was never any new child. That was really--it was very very hard. I was so happy to be Eli’s mother. I wanted that more. I wanted him to have a sibling, I wanted him to have more family, but it just didn’t work out. So with that understanding, I look at other people’s children--which we all are. We are other people’s children and say, “Okay, I am now a mother. But I am also mothering those beyond my child and my house.”
Anabella: Yes, absolutely. And I felt that when I met you, Sara. And I told you that when I was pregnant. And the way that you embraced me and the way that you talked to me, you know you made me cry! It was so maternal, so authentic! So thank you, Sara! Ya know? Because even though I did not study with you, you take care of us as a faculty. And I feel that.
Sara: Yes, well that was very important. I really felt that we were all in this together. And I didn’t know--don’t you think having a child is very humbling? Even now! You don’t know what’s going to happen, and you're waiting--I mean, Eli has been my teacher. That relationship was a role model for understanding that other people have a lot to tell me. They have a lot to contribute. So that when we had those faculty meetings at Sarah Lawrence-
Anabella: It was fabulous.
Sara: And I say, “Okay what are you doing? Let’s share what we are doing.” And then like, “How do we deal with our students? Do you have an idea about how to solve this problem? How are you handling that?” And I think that sharing and that understanding, I certainly did not have the answers. I had my experiences. And after learning from my two-year-old –– (laughs) you know I am learning from my two-year-old. He’s looking at me and he says, “Every time this happens you do that.” And I went, “I do?” He says, “Yes!” I respond, “Okay”! You know I loved him so much, I wasn’t going to say, “What do you know? You’re only a kid!”. I said, “I do?” And he said, “Yes!” You know how they talk about the wisdom of children--what they observe. And they just give you the facts.
Anabella: And they are your mirrors. Let me tell you one short anecdote. I was teaching at Peridance and my son was I think three years old. And I say, “Okay, we finished class. You wanna do pee pee?” And so we are in the bathroom and he is like, “Mama, I make a decision. I want to be a woman.” And I’m like “Okay, what’s going on?” And he is like, “Yes! Because women, they always tell everyone what to do. You tell your students, abuela talks to the rest of the family, the other grandmother told everyone –– ” So he saw all these women leaders telling everyone what to do, and he wants to become this maternal figure. And I thought, woah wait a minute. How he sees us! They are our little mirrors-oh my god!
Sara: Yes, and actually I’m a homebody. I hated leaving home. I hated leaving right when I was commuting to Sarah Lawrence for those twenty years. You know, I kind of--I know discipline. Discipline is one thing you learn from dancing--and you do it. But I didn’t like commuting. So as I was leaving, and for a while we would leave together when he was going to High school, I would see a book and I would put it in its place, and I would take a glass and put it in the sink, and he would look at me and say, “are we going or aren’t we going?” “What’s going on?” And I said, “What do you mean?” And he said, “You always do that!” He was definitely picking up on my anxieties. You know how they read you. You know they read all of that, and even to this day--you know it’s very hot here. So I got a –– we don’t have air conditioning, but I got a swamp cooler. I bought a swamp cooler, which is essentially a fan with a compartment with cool water. The fan blows air across the water cooling room. ( btw, he fixed one of my shoes yesterday). My son was fixing my shoes.) When I turned on the fan part of the swamp cooler, he said, “What about the other part of the swamp cooler?” And I said, “I don’t know.” He said, “You’re scared of it?” And I went, “Uh-huh!” (laughs) “I am! I’m afraid of it!” He said, “Okay! See ya later!” And you know, I went and I set it up. And I went back, and I was like a kid. I told Eli, “I set it up, I did it!” You know, he said, “That’s good,” (laughs). So, in a way, there’s this very interesting –– it’s not really role reversal, but it is that thing where they know you so well. it’s a model for me and a lot of my other relationships. How I work, and how I do things. And you know how we play with our children, I feel now I am at a time in my life and a chapter in my life in dance where I’m gonna play, I’m going to play like the kids play. When I go into the Meeting Room at the Berkeley Finnish Hall , or the studio room now it’s sort of like, “Playtime!”
Anabella: This is great! Yes, because the things that are not important are falling apart.
Sara: They’re falling away. And you know the essential relationships, I can honestly say I’m not fully sure how to relate to my son. I’m not really sure how to do it. I think, we raise them, and they turn out to be whoever they are. And it’s time for us to take a good look at ourselves. And that is the privilege of that relationship. As you said, “a mirror” but you learn a lot about yourself, and question “Why did I get so angry about that?” You know, and he would say, “Why are you so angry?” And I went, “I am?” You know this is an essential learning situation. Like the child learns from the parent. And the parent can learn from the child. And that’s where I think I am. And it continue to be, he is gonna be thirty-seven, and it continues.
Anabella: It evolves! Like you say, you know. That’s what I want to ask! You know when you talk about relating to each other, he is not an artist. So how do you share things?
Sara: Yeah, yeah! So when he was young he was around dancing a lot. I never took him to the studio. I mean I was never the one who took the baby to the studio with me. I was able to have someone sit with him for a couple of hours until I came home. When he got a little bit older, he would stop by after school or on the weekend. I had to go rehearse, but there was a little trampoline in the studio and he would go with his friend and play. And he saw a lot, he saw me dance, he saw my friends dance. You know, I have a wonderful, brilliant friend from Australia, Russell Dumas, a dance artist, and he would come to New York and hang out with us. And he would play with Eli, throw him up and down. We were living in a loft with columns, so he would climb columns and Eli would go to see his performances when he was little. He was four or five years old. And I remember, one of his first comments to me after one of my performances, made me realize Eli really felt he was part of the performance. And he said –– I remember it was a reaction to something I had done and he said, “Mom, do you remember when I waved at you and you did this, and then I did something and then you did something?” He was watching in the audience, he was totally immersed in the activity, but he never did it. I mean he was never –– he didn’t start dancing. He liked to run around, he was very coordinated, he had a junior black belt in karate, and he did a lot of other things. But he didn’t dance. So he was exposed and he had an understanding. He also had an understanding of visual art. His father and i had a lot of friends who were painters and sculptors–– –– and we used to take him to museums. He was exposed in New York City. So I would say that even though his choice of life’s work –– he’s a computer scientist, he’s an “if-then” guy, he’s a logical guy. And he’s a mathematician basically, and I'm all about “well, what if we do this?” And you know he would say, “One thing at a time, Mom. What do you want to do first?”
And his wife, she’s also a scientist, and they’re very much alike in terms of their logic because she’s a lawyer. So they both have these jobs that are very different from my pursuit- or are they? I actually talked to a friend this morning. I don’t live with them in their house, but I live in an apartment separate from their house. It’s thirty steps away. At one point I said to my son, “Do you ever wonder what I do all day?” He said, “Yeah.” And then he walked away (laughs). Then this morning I thought –– and I would never do this –– I had fantasies and I would say, “Eli, Diana”—Diana is his wife “What do you think about me? What do you think about me? Who do you think I am?” I am looking for some sort of feedback. I'm gonna wait. You know they don’t have children. I don’t know if they will have children but you know what I always wish for, for my son to have the experience? Yes, because to me it was the best thing in the world! But it’s not for everybody. (They are expecting their first child, a girl today!)
Anabella: How do you feel now, not teaching?
Sara: Well, I miss the students. It became very hard, I was in my mid-seventies when I left. I was seventy-five, and it was difficult commuting, four to five times a week, the constant change over of students ––because I was not only teaching, I was running the program. Sarah Lawrence is a pretty amazing place, but I realized that I was no longer current with the dance practices that were happening. I was no longer interested in seeing every single dance concert and checking everything out, and I felt that was a detriment to my students. I taught part-time before I actually left and that was good. I was just teaching, I didn’t have to administer. But, I was always a nervous teacher. I was thinking, “Well I did that last year, I don’t wanna do the same thing.” “What am I going to do now? Oh my god! I think I’ll try this, I’ll see if this works! Is it working? I don’t know, let’s find out!” I was changing and doing a lot –– that part was always the challenge. Meeting the challenge and seeing the results of the challenge, whether it worked or not. And when you’re in a class, some students get it, some students don’t. There were big classes. They were twenty-plus years old, some older, graduates . And it was a lot of pressure–– the traveling and teaching. But now, I’m finding I’m doing the same kind of challenges but on my terms. Because when I was at Sarah Lawrence I refused to do my work on the students. It was all about their work. After teaching for twenty years, the only time I made work with and for the students was in my final half time semester, previously, I was attending to others, designing classes for others, or teaching. And then when I was by myself for months and months during the pandemic, you know, a year or more– I was just at home basically before the vaccinations. I wasn’t really sharing ideas or doing anything. So I wasn't working as deeply with my body and having bodily sensations. So now I’m, like, resurrecting. Even after operations –– two hip replacements, difficulty with this, difficulty with that –– I made simple material in a meeting room, here in Berkeley, simple rhythmic material, not difficult to do technically, along with Wendy Rogers, Theresa Dickinson, RouRou Ye, Belinda He, and Risa Jaroslow. But what is interesting is recombining the phrase in a process Wendy names “SPLICING.”
Anabella: What is that?
Sara: It’s a brain thing. Let’s say you have two phrases of movement; one is in 4:4 and one is in 3:4, one has seven sections, the other has five, then you start alternating them. And they were created very separately, they have nothing to do with each other. And you start splicing/ alternating the sections into a new variation. We say, “Where does this get us?” And you try to remember new transitions. When you make material, you’re going from one thing to the next thing to the next thing - but when you splice, you break that transition and you have to make a new transition. And then you break that, and you find a new one. So then, you get that in your memory so you can do a minute of it or two minutes of it, and then you ask “What does it feel like?” So I’m going deeper into material, and deep into very complex material. It doesn’t look complex on the outside, but the doing of it requires a lot of concentration and focus. My colleague said, “Well, let’s do that with other stuff!” So we’ve been doing that with other material as well. You used to get to do a movement in a certain space, but because you’ve done another set of material, all of a sudden you’re somewhere else– but you have to do the material you associated with that in another space. So there’s time displacement, there’s transitional displacement; I’ve always loved doing puzzles. I’m a puzzle person. So this is what we do and it keeps us very lively, and we can’t always do it. We start and we go, “Well let’s just keep working on it.” That’s the thing as dancers, being anything– being a parent– it doesn’t go well, you ought to keep working on it. So in a way, I’m reconnecting with my own dancing self. Not my teaching or choreographing self, but a melding. All the interest and ideas com eout-impulse-wise-during the improvisations before structuring. Then comes the “ brain work-out”; its is not initially conceptual, but structural ; I don’t work from a story, but during improvisations body stories emerge visiting different states of being and reaction. I find it really nice –– satisfying.
Anabella: Well, but again –– all the stories in our body. How do you feel after the pandemic? All the fear, the distance. Our perception of time and space changed completely.
Sara: Coming out here, I’m very limited to the people I see. I’m not in groups of people. I just see four of us that are in the meeting room, I see my family, I go shopping, I go to food stores. I still wear my mask here. It’s very essential. But also, I don’t have to deal with New York City. All the responsibility. I lived in a co-op, and I still have that place. I’m trying to be very responsible and help out, but we’ve hired a management company. So I’m very gradual, y’know? When they say “I’m ready to give away a lot of my clothing. My books.” I’m at that point where I walk out of the house, and I see trees, I see flowers. Were you born and raised in New York?
Anabella: No, I’m from Argentina. But I’ve been here since I was 23. Living or working in the City takes so much energy. Oh my God. You need to be ready when you walk out the door - Here we go...
Sara: Right. And for a long time, I had all the energy in the world to do that. I mean, I was born and raised in Brooklyn. I was raised in Midwood, near Brooklyn College. I went to Midwood High School. Then I moved to Manhattan. I went to Barnard College, and then I started dancing out of college. So in a way, that’s the life I know. This life is a little strange here. But I’m seeing the benefits for me –– I can take a walk and see maybe 10 people, not 200. When I walk on the street now, I can think about how are you walking? How are your shoulders? How are your legs? What’s going on? The street is my studio as well!
Anabella: I understand. You respect the different times in life. Talking to you gave me hope. Sometimes when you’re a mother, you’re thinking about the now– we need to eat, I need to do the laundry, and you don’t see the long term, and respect your body and your needs.
Sara: Well it can happen at any age. And my feelings about it is, I didn’t have very many role models who were dancing and working into their 70s at all. But now it’s different. When I was young, dancers weren’t having babies. What we forget is once we’ve had dance– once we’ve experienced things –– it’s with you forever. I saw a film of one of my colleagues from out here, Margaret Jenkins. She made a film with a spoken-word actor, and they were both moving! I looked at my friend and said, “Oh, I see… even though she’s just walking and picking something up, I see the years of dance. I feel that. Why should we cut that short?” Why should we not be doing it? Y’know? Jumping, turning in weird ways, okay yeah, that’s fun. But all of the shoulds, and the styles that you should dance this way. This looks like dance; that doesn’t look like dance. It’s changing in so many ways. And people deserve to explore fully and keep exploring even though things change. “I can’t be a dancer, I’m 42 and that’s too old to do that, or I’m whatever.” That’s changing.
Anabella: Yes! I remember after having my son, Lucio, 13 years ago, I studied Composition with Mary Anthony. She was calling all the Alumni that studied composition to a show– a fundraiser– to help pay the rent. So here we are in the studio, and I show the piece. She was like, “Okay. When you lose weight, then you’ll be able to perform.” I said, “Mary, it was 3 months ago that I had my kid, and I’m breastfeeding.” She said, “I don’t care.” So I walked out of the studio and I never went back. But she never had kids either! She was a wonderful teacher, but this is not our reality now. I was spending time– helping her– but her only comment is, “I love the piece, it’s well done, but you’re not able to perform it. You’re not in shape.” I was like wow. (Laughs)
Sara: This is my shape! What’s the problem? Well, that was very pervasive with Mary Anthony’s generation and others.
Anabella: That generation. I say Mary Anthony, but she’s part of many with that mentality. Thank God this is changing. As you said, Sara, it’s important that you share your story– that’s why I’m doing this project, to encourage thinking outside of the box.
Sara: Well, it’s also what happens. When Mary Anthony said that to you, it was like a wound– it hurts you. And that’s where it becomes bad –– when we turn it inward. I mean, we judge ourselves anyway, but that added external judgment and criticism. It’s not helpful. It’s careless, in the bad sense of careless… that is not understanding how you’re affecting another person. When you have a child, you start understanding how you’re affecting another person. You don’t know what’s right, you’re going on instinct, you’re trying your best. I used to say, “Ah, having a kid –– later on at 14 they’re going to turn around and tell you they hate you, and that you’re doing everything wrong.” And I go, “Ah, well, is it still worthwhile? …Yes.”
Anabella: Thank you so much, Sara. You are such a wonderful and generous spirit!
Sara: I’m inspired by communication. I’m very lucky I’ve received a tremendous amount of opportunity. There’s a phrase: “The love you take is equal to the love you make.” I’ve had a lot of disappointments, we all have, and that’s the only way we get through and learn. You can’t shelter and protect your child– you can’t even do that for yourself. You can just be open, and try not to lose the sense of yourself and the importance of movement and being in your body.
You know, you are very, very unique in your energy and willingness to take on so many different roles– but it’s your honesty that is so touching. And your energy!
Sara Rudner, a graduate of Barnard College, was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. She participated in the development and performance of Twyla Tharp’s modern dance repertory from 1965-1985. During this time she began to choreograph for a small group of dancers known as the Sara Rudner Performance Ensemble, conceiving and directing a series of dances that broke with conventional conventions, i.e., time frames, spaces and occasions. Since 1985 Sara has continued to pursue her interest in choreography, improvisation and performing collaborating with like minded colleagues including Dana Reitz, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Russell Dumas, Christopher Janney, Patricia Hoffbauer, Rona Pondick, Robert Feintuch, Jennifer Tipton, Jodi Melnick, Anastasia Lyras among others. She received a Bessie in 1984 and has been awarded grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the New York State Council on the Arts. She has been adjunct faculty at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, a teaching fellow at Bennington College while earning her MFA in choreography, guest faculty in composition at The Juilliard School and, at present, she is the Director of Dance at Sarah Lawrence College. Her work for theater and opera include the production of Caryl Churchill’s “The Skriker” directed by Mark Wing-Davy at the Public Theater in New York City; “The Greeks” directed by Gregory Boyd at the Alley Theater in Houston, Texas, Peter Sellar’s production of Olivier Messiaen’s opera “St. Francois D’Assise” co-produced by the Salzburg Festival and the Paris Opera Bastille; Hector Berlioz’s “Beatrice and Benedict” directed by Tim Albery for the Santa Fe Opera; Richard Strauss’ “The Egyptian Helena” directed Bruce Donnell for the Santa Fe Opera; and Alban Berg’s “Wozzeck” directed by Daniel Slater for the Santa Fe Opera. Sara appeared in the films “Amadeus,” “Ragtime” and “Hair” directed by Milos Foreman and choreographed by Twyla Tharp. She also danced in Ms. Tharp’s “The Catherine Wheel.”
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.