“The understanding Instinct”
Terese Capucilli
Interviewed on December 19th, 2022
by Anabella Lenzu
Anabella: Thank you so much for being here. It’s an honor to interview you. How was your artistic life before and after you became a mom?
Terese: When I think about motherhood, I think of my own mother. I came from a very close Italian family. There were seven children in my family, and we did everything together. From the moment I could realize myself as a thinker, which was pretty young, I knew I wanted children. I would buy little pieces of clothing. When I was about nine, I had three very distinct pieces of clothing for my future child and I saved these until the day I finally had a baby. I remember thinking to myself that I wanted to have ten children. That may have come from my mother, who always said that she wanted to have ten children, but she had seven. Those things we carry in our bloodstream become so important to us. Both of my parents were extremely loving. You know, we didn’t have much money, but they always made sure we had what we needed and more.
When I think of my dad, he died at seventy-three years old in 1997, but my mom is now ninety-seven years old and still living at home in Syracuse, New York, where I grew up. My father lost his mother when he was six years old, and I think about that often. I wonder about the role each parent plays and then, when that parent is gone, how it plays into our lives. There were five children in my father’s family, and his older brothers and sisters took care of him. They were very caring and loving, which made him in turn a very caring and lovable person. He met my mom at sixteen, so there was no lack of love and traditions in my life. I believe my dad, because he really had nothing as a child, wanted to be sure we all had a house full of gifts under the Christmas tree. He showed his love in vastly beautiful ways and he could be so very funny. Our home was full of laughter.
When I was in college, I never thought twice about going home for a holiday; it was just what you did and I always looked forward to it. To this day, I miss everyone being together as often as we were when growing up. Now, we don’t have the time to spend together as frequently. When I think about the generations that are brewing in each of our bloodstreams, I remember how important those roots are, and I try to stress this importance to my son and my students. We tend to be very self-absorbed when we are in our teens. Even before I was a parent, coming from a loving and caring family, I carried that strength into the classroom in so many ways. You become caring to the students in a motherly fashion. I know that I’m very transparent in that way.
I have one beautiful son, Thompson, who is now nineteen and who I adore. It was very difficult to decide when to have a child when I was performing all the time. I met my husband, Bill Randolph, in 1975, at the end of my freshman year at SUNY Purchase where I was in the dance division. He was an actor at Purchase and was two years ahead of me. We’ve known each other for many, many years! This is enduring love. We lived together for many years and finally got married in 1984. The decision to get married was very organic. We had been together for nine years already, and we just said, “Let’s do it!” It was all about the timing. Being aware of timing in your life is always important because you can have a lot of regret for not being aware of how fast time flies. I kept putting off having a child, I was traveling the world for twenty-six years with the Martha Graham Dance Company. In 1978, I went right into the Graham School out of college on full scholarship; six months later, I was in the Company. Bill and I were living together in New York. He was performing on Broadway in Gemini and also traveling to California to do TV series and movies, so there was never any doubt whether he would perform or not. Again, organically, it was like time was ticking here, so we better think about having a child. It wasn’t an easy road, but at 45 years old, I was finally pregnant.
At ten weeks, I lost the first baby, but then I thankfully got pregnant again with Thompson, and everything slowed down. When I got pregnant this second time, Zena Rommett, whom I loved, took me under her wing and gave me private classes for free. Prior to this, I was doing way too much, moving too much, and keeping up with our active lives and because as dancers we think we think we are invincible I knew I needed to slow down. Some of our bodies fight back, especially because I was older and was having a child. I did not want to lose this child. After I lost the first baby, I was fortunate enough to conceive again, and I moved into what I call my “pregnant mode.” To this day, I still use my “pregnant mode.’ I just let the world pass by me –– the quickness of the city, like streams of light flying by me and recognizing the weight of my own footsteps, like how an elephant walks, just purposely placing its feet on the ground, slowly and decidedly. I still use that feeling to this day when I am overwhelmed and need to just slow down. I had a really beautiful pregnancy, and I loved being pregnant. Finally, to be carrying a life after seeing so many of my colleagues and peers already have their children! I helped them raise these beautiful children, so I felt a little bit alone, as it was different for me because my friends’ children were all grown. I wasn’t having babies at the same time as my friends, so I felt like I needed to bring everyone to me. Bill and I started to do these little soirees and have all of these people over to our home sharing in a communal dinner and conversation. It was hard for us to go out, so we developed this really incredible pool of very close-knit friends, Jacqulyn Buglisi, and Christine Dakin, Penny Frank, some were dancers, some were not, and some from the theater. It was a resource for us while Thompson was growing up.
Anabella: Very Italian! I did the same [being Argentinian and Italian]. Being Italian is about embracing the community.
Terese: Thompson was born in 2003, and I had been in the Graham company since 1979. At that point, Christine Dakin and I were Co-Artistic Directors. I had to decide how I was going to manage motherhood while directing. I was still intending to perform again in time. When I got pregnant, I wasn’t doing anything besides working with Zena Rommett privately in her Floor Barre technique, but when I finally was out on tour again I made sure to take Thompson on tour with me. Through the first three years, he was on my breast, traveling the world, and it was hard but wonderful to have him with me. I did not want to leave him behind. One of the things that faces us as dancers is where we’re at economically. I had a babysitter in New York City, Agnes, who we loved. I don’t know if you know Nancy Bielski; she's a wonderful ballet teacher whom I met through David Howard. She teaches at Steps on Broadway. Her daughters were grown up, so she brought Agnes to us. Agnes wasn’t able to travel, so in order to retain Agnes in New York City, I had to bring someone else with me while touring. Basically, I would have a young dancer with me to take care of Thompson which was wonderful, but I would be giving my salary to the babysitters. I had to pay the babysitter in New York and pay someone to come on tour with me. I do not regret this as it allowed me to do what I needed to do. It was great to have Thompson exposed to all of the music, dance and the people that surrounded us in the Company. He was this young boy traveling with all of these fabulous dancers and crew. He had his second birthday in Austin, Texas where we traveled in a rock-n-roll bus. It was fun as well as an important time and a difficult time. Many colors! We face this dilemma as performers. I’m also not sure how that felt for my husband not to be with Thompson for those weeks. In fact, I’ve never really asked him what it was like when we were away. We were never gone for weeks or months; it was very broken up, so that was good. It wasn’t an easy time, though, to be traveling with a child. The child is on your timing; you’re coming home from the theater at 11:00 PM or later. I would be sleeping in the same bed as the babysitter and the baby in the hotel room, which was not a problem as long as the babysitter was okay with that. You make a lot of sacrifices as a mother in order to do what you feel is best for your children and you can only purely go by your instinct. He breastfed for a long time, three years, and I didn’t want to give that up until he was ready. He weaned himself in time. I went through a very painful time in the beginning with breastfeeding; everything was so painful. I’d be in the shower with a bag of peas or an ice pack on my chest. People asked me, “Why don’t you just stop breastfeeding?” I said, “No!” For me, I thought that was a very important aspect of motherhood and I was not going to give it up so easily no matter the pain. In time, my perseverance paid off to quiet beautiful times with Thompson that I will cherish forever as I will never have that kind of closeness again.
You know how you go through all of the Lamaze classes when having a kid, you learn how to breathe together, but when the reality comes, it’s a different story. I had thirty-three hours of back labor and a c-section, so even after all of those hours of Lamaze with my husband, it came down to needing to have a c-section for a number of reasons, and you just need to go with it. I was in a lot of pain, and although my pain tolerance was quite high due to my dance background, I was crawling on the floor trying to find comfort. The doctors told me my uterus was wrapped around Thompson like an hourglass and they’d only heard about this and never saw it before. Maybe it was all those years of intense contractions! I will say there is nothing like seeing that little face looking up at you…and the tears come.
I had my mother with me, and she stayed with us in our little apartment on W. 76th Street for about three months after I delivered. We had this little studio apartment in a brownstone; we were there for twenty-six years.. It was a really nice place; the parlor floor with twelve-foot high ceilings, beautiful wood paneling, and a fireplace. Bill had built this handy loft bed, so during my pregnancy I was going up and down to this loft bed. When Thompson was born, I was carrying him up and down the staircase to the loft bed as an infant, taking him up there with me to sleep between Bill and me. It was six feet high up there with an actual staircase, so everything worked out, but I wouldn’t say it was easy. We just had this one big room, and as he got older, we had a crib smack in the middle of the living room. My mom stayed there with us and helped through all of the healing because labor and early motherhood take such a toll on your body! Eventually, we moved in November of 2003 buying the place that we’re in now.
Do I feel I missed something by not having a natural birth? I never really thought about that until just now. Did that bother me? I think not. The most important thing to me was that I had a healthy child. Do I regret not having ten children? That’s a hard question, even though I’m asking it myself. Sometimes I think to myself what would have happened if that was the case? I always say to myself, “Okay, just one more season, just one more season….” As a New Yorker, what would it mean to have more children? We certainly never had the room here. If I had started having children earlier, not only would I not have had Thompson, but where would we be, what would my career have been like? Would we have left New York or crammed a couple of children into our small apartment? I don’t know, but I don’t have regrets about that. Those feelings of having ten kids when I was a young child were so strong; they felt real. I remember I used to make lists of baby names. Of course, growing up Catholic –– I’m not very religious, but I grew up Catholic –– most of the names were biblical names: Mark, Luke, John. I didn’t like John. I knew that. I liked Luke and Mathew, but I would make big lists of baby names. Why, as young children, do we have those ideas of parenting? I guess it’s the same as taking care of our little dolls, and it comes from the strong matriarchal element in our lives. My grandmother was very prominent in my life and I had a number of strong aunts who were also very present. My dad was a beautiful combination of strength and gentleness. Even though he lost his mother so young, his sisters and brothers were there for him. He married my mom, who is strong and selfless. She is very loving, and she nurtured us in such a way that we were able to reveal our own strengths. Both had a love of laughter and adventure and our household was always filled with music. Dad was a self-taught pianist and found comfort and relaxation in playing.
Anabella: That’s beautiful.
Terese: They both loved to dance. I consider my father as my first dance teacher. He would put me on his feet, and we would do the box step on the kitchen floor. I remember looking down at our feet. When I think about the people in my life, they were all dedicated and nurturing individuals. My first dance teacher, Ms. Augustine, taught out of Possi’s Barre, which is now a bookstore. I go by that corner every time I go home, where Ms. Augustine taught me to dance, and she had a very long connection to my mother. At 12 years old, Ms. Augustine was teaching dance to my mother and my aunts, so there was always that community of people in her life. She lived down the street from where my dad lived as a child so there was that incredible thread that binds us to the people who most influence us.
I met Ms. Augustine in the 2nd grade, in our Catholic community, after taking tap/jazz/ballet classes in the basement of our church with her. Even though I’m not a very religious person, I am very spiritual. The church was very prominent in my life because it connected my family to this spiritual community. That is the beauty of those kinds of relationships. When I think back to who I’ve become and how I feel about certain elements in my life, these kinds of roots to people like Ms. Augustine, or these places in my life like the church basement, it is because there are elements that touched me as a child that I still remember imagistically the power of these places…I remember the feeling of the space, the scent, the sounds. In the church basement –– I can still see it –– if you walk over to the right, there’s a small door, and it goes into this beautiful little grotto where there are streams, pictures of the Virgin Mary, and statuettes, like a little cave. It was very mysterious and in some ways scary but in a good way. It was like a theater! The beauty and mystery of that space is strongly etched in my mind. It was my church, St. Cecilia’s Church in Solvay, New York; it was where I got married and where my son was baptized…and when my father passed away it was there in the basement that his friends and family met after his funeral. In the back of this church, there was a huge organ. I would always look back at the organ. To me, it was like a majestic theater and the music beautifully surrounded me. When we were first going to church as young people, it was in Latin. Just the sound of Latin and how it moves through your tongue and body, even though you don’t know what you’re always saying. There are all of these elements that penetrate the fabric and the fibers of your body. You’re not aware of it until you are older, but these small moments become so important to the fabric of your life, the tapestry that’s been woven of all your experiences: the family, the first taste of dance movement in your body, along with the spirituality of the surrounding community, the beauty of the sun streaming behind you through stained glass, or when they had folk mass and they’re playing guitars; the Latin voice moving through you. We used to sit on the left front side of the church, and directly in front of me was a statue of St. Teresa –– which is also my mother’s name, but mom’s is spelled with T-H, and St. Teresa is T-E –– and she holds this beautiful bouquet of roses. I would always stare at her and the more I stared, the more it felt like she was moving. I was named after my mother, but she wanted me to have my own spelling…thus T-e-r-e-s-e! These kinds of memories float through our bloodstream and become important in making you, you. Individually they might not seem important, but if I look back at all of those images, as an artist I feel like I’m still drawing from them. In New York, it’s hard to always find that kind of community and inspiration. This is probably where I’m going to cry because there’s an element of that that I wasn’t able to give to my son. Aside from celebrating Catholic holidays, he didn’t really grow up with religion. We felt like we would let him decide on his own what his own beliefs were. My husband grew up Lutheran and there was a time when we started to look for a kind of universal church for our son just so we could embrace a spiritual community. I do believe there’s a lot of corruption in organized religion, but the community aspect, if embracing, was very important to my life. This also translated into other places besides my dance studio, which was a youth center I frequented so often in grammar school. I would go there to swim, and as a cheerleader, I would be there working. I had my school, church, and youth center, and all of those things were right there for me in this small triangle in the town of Solvay, New York, where my parents grew up. We’d pass the houses they were born in all the time. The town is spelled Solvay, but “Salve” is also an Italian word for hello. Many Italians moved to this area to take advantage of the work available in the factories there. We also have the State Fair there so this was a big draw.
Anabella: I would like to hear more about the guilt you said you feel. I feel the same way as a mother! I'm also from a small town and from a Catholic Italian family.
Terese: It’s interesting, when I go home I almost feel like an foreigner of sorts sometimes! My mother is ninety-seven and still lives in Syracuse. Four of my siblings still live in Syracuse. I’m the only one –– well, one of my older brothers was here for a little while but he moved north of the city –– so I’m the only one who still lives here in NYC as far as my siblings go. I always made it very important to bring Thompson to the family, but it hurt me in some way when he was in his early teens that he sometimes didn’t feel close to them, and felt judged a lot. It was hard for him as a teenager, but little by little growing up and understanding himself and his relationships to his family things are changing. He’s always been very close to his grandmother, who he calls Nonna. We always feel guilty as parents, thinking we did not do enough, but in my heart I do believe I did everything in my power to bring that closeness. We had every holiday upstate together that we could and still do family vacation in the Adirondacks. My mother would come down to stay with us in NYC as well, so there is a beautiful connection between him and his grandmother. Thompson didn’t know my father or his paternal grandfather, which is a shame because they both would have absolutely loved him. When all of the cousins were young, they had relationships that were so pure, so they would have a blast when Thompson visited. Now that everyone is growing up, he’s expressing all of these complicated emotions, He still would love to do all those things they did as children. I believe these relationships will continue to change and nurture with time. I guess in some ways I feel a little guilty that we did not live closer to his extended family so that he could spend more time with them, in an everyday sort of way, growing up…going every Sunday to enjoy dinner at his grandmother’s home, family discussions and the like. Our lives were different in New York City and he feels he is a different animal in some ways having grown up in the city.
Anabella: It’s tough because you have to make your life and be happy with it. Growing up in a small city, I saw my dance teachers be very frustrated and bitter because they couldn’t have a professional career. I saw that and said to myself I don't want this for my life because that bitterness would then pass down to my kids and students. To be able to realize our individual dreams as an artist and as a mother is almost impossible, and then there is the guilt.
Terese: I was also aware not to push my art form onto Thompson. I didn’t push him into dance although it was always accessible to him and he saw so much. He started with hip hop, but he’s actually a very good actor, and my husband was an actor and a graphic artist. Thompson naturally went into acting and has a beautiful voice. I introduced him to the National Dance Institute, and he performed there for four years. I used to volunteer for NDI when they needed an actor or dancer to do the older role. We loved Jacques d’Amboise dearly. Thompson is creative in so many ways we just tried to make everything available to him.
Anabella: I have a question regarding that. Why do we have this guilt? Do you think it’s our connection with Catholicism? At nine years old, I auditioned for a ballet school, and I got accepted. This dance school was a Russian school where they took measurements of your body and your flexibility and asked for full commitment and devotion to dance from you as a child. When my mom picked me up from the audition, I was crying. She asked why I was crying, and I said, “Because if I go here, I know I can’t have kids because I would have to devote my life to dance.” I knew that at nine years old! This idea of devoting your life to your art or your children and the guilt of being halfway with both of these things…but why?
Terese: I fortunately had extremely inspiring individuals surrounding me throughout all my formative years so I was very blessed to not have the kind of negativity you are speaking of. I followed my brothers and sisters into musical theater and Ms. Augustine was everything to me at the start as she was also choreographing many of the shows of our community group St. Cecilia Players. If you are lucky enough to be surrounded by inspiring and giving people in your life and situations that nurture your creativity, you just become a sponge for learning which I believe I did. Because of this I have done all that I could to make a mark in my career simply by doing it with love and respect for those carrying me on their wings and remaining curious and adventurous to carry their legacy forward with my own. I have done so much, and I’m so grateful for this. As a mother, of course I want this for my son as well. I knew I wanted to keep Thompson close to me while I was still performing, so I don’t feel any guilt about that, fortunately. Where I start to feel guilty is when I feel I haven’t done enough for him. I believe as parents we are always questioning and wondering, ‘what if I had done this instead’. It’s a strange feeling and one that I feel always haunts, but in truth one has to believe our children will find themselves in time and giving them wings to do so may be enough.
Everything certainly changes when they have their own places. My son has his own apartment as he is going to school in New York City. He’s trying to find himself, and he is so creative in so many ways. He does his art. He did modeling. He loves fashion. COVID was hard for all of these young people, but I think it was very hard for artists. When we get to a point where they become teenagers, we reassess and think about what we did wrong when they were young. Should I have done this differently or put him in that school instead? You make choices about where you instinctively feel they should be and then constantly question those choices. It is a vicious cycle that sometimes you just have to be more generous with yourself and move on. My husband is a very good balance for me. I’m a Gemini, and he’s a Libra, so he’s able to compartmentalize things in a certain way. I brew, and I masticate decisions over and over again. That did come from my Catholic upbringing and feeling guilty for things that are not really in my control. I do not like to feel out of control and integrity is everything to me. My parents’ home wasn’t a really religious place, but I think they tried to uphold the tradition of going to church every Sunday and the Catholic sacraments where, in themselves, there are these elements that laden us with guilt.
There was a time when one of my siblings revealed some nasty things about how mean the nuns were to them, so my mother and father took the three youngest children out of Catholic school. My mother is religious in that she believes in God and prays for her family always. She has a photo of Jesus right next to a photo of my dad on her walker, and she holds onto a strong belief that she will see my father again. I asked her once how she handled dealing with so many children as the depth of responsibility for one child could be so overwhelming for me. She said, “I just pray for all of you as there is nothing else I can do except love and pray.” After every single morning phone call to her she says, “Give everyone hugs and kisses for me.” A mother’s love is like none other.
Anabella: You said something about the instinct of blame; the mother needs to sacrifice sometimes, but men don’t feel it. Who assigned this role? Why self-sacrifice? I rememb.’er after I left the hospital after having my son, I was walking, and I felt like I finally understood what gravity was. Not during pregnancy but afterward. Having the responsibility of someone else made me understand gravity and responsibility. My body transformed. Can you talk about your body and these changes or how you changed psychologically?
Terese: Everything felt very organic to me from the moment I was carrying this child. I certainly had an assault on my body with the C-section; however, even with that, the mentality becomes not about you anymore. It’s about the “We” and how you are going to nurture this child. I feel that my focus was not that I was in a hurry to get my body back to a place of being able to perform again. I was not in a hurry at all. I let the body heal. I went through the pain of breastfeeding in the beginning until it was fine and it felt natural to me. Those moments right after giving birth –– I felt so grounded as a pregnant woman. I always go back to that feeling of groundedness I felt while pregnant, and I talk about that with my students: the weight and that feeling of your feet moving into the ground. The purposefulness of it. Especially after losing a child, you nurture the body by giving it calm and feeling the feet pressing into the earth. I was already very much aware of that because the kind of dancing that I did prior to being pregnant focused on finding that gravity into the earth and moving into and out of it. The visceral quality of the Graham technique; I lived with that for so many years prior and since. I was a mature individual [when I became pregnant]; I wasn’t 20 years old. I had already lived through so much of my career that there was no hysteria that I needed to get back to dancing quickly. I knew I would, but I wasn’t in a hurry. Being present in those moments was really nurturing to my child. Not only that, but my mother was there with us. I think these generations together for those three months were also really important –– my mom holding him cheek to cheek and rocking him. We take those things for granted, but they’re really important.
Anabella: I’m so moved when I hear you because I see the holistic part of you. With everything, you are taking your time. Do you think this way of listening to your body and knowing how to wait comes from your dance training or just you?
Terese: I think there are a number of elements that brought me to an instinctual understanding. I’m looking back on it now, I wouldn’t have thought this way back then. My lifelong desire was to have a child, and now that I had given birth to a full-term healthy child, I knew that my body needed to heal after pregnancy. Not only that, but I was also at a point in the Graham company where I was relinquishing some of my dance roles to younger dancers in the company and working as an Artistic Director passing down information and helping other young artists to grow. I was still dancing but I was relinquishing those roles little by little. Since 1991, I had been simultaneously working with the Buglisi Dance Theatre (formerly Buglisi/Foreman Dance.) Jacqulyn Buglisi and Donlin Foreman were continually creating work for me. Martha Graham died in 1991, so I had choreographers who had a very strong vision and shared roots in a place we all deeply knew. Losing Martha and then losing Jacqulyn’s own mother, while at the same time Jacque was pregnant with her son, my god-child, brought us into the studio to create the exquisite Threshold, a signature duet of Jacque’s. We had strong roots together: Don, Christine, Jacque, and myself along with Kevin Predmore. Work together grew out of necessity. I wasn’t worried I was going to miss anything in the Graham Company because I was still directing during my pregnancy and had the support to continue doing what I needed to do. It was amazing to be continually working and nurturing and directing the younger members of the company, so it just felt organically correct. Jacqulyn and I are very close, so at the time I knew there were upcoming opportunities to perform for Buglisi Dance Theatre. My son was born in March 2003, and by the end of the summer, I was very voluptuous. I loved my large breasts, but I was definitely not my skinny self. Jacqulyn redid costumes for me, and we performed up in Chautauqua, NY for Jean Pierre Bonnefeux and Patricia McBride. These were mostly studio performances at first; then, I went on a small tour, bringing Thompson with me later in the fall.
Everything felt like it was slowing down, but it felt like it moved beautifully forward because I had Jacqulyn, who was continuously asking me, “Are you ready to perform?” When someone knows your body and your physical language, it’s different and it is a gift. If Martha had still been alive, I might have had to deal with it differently. Martha Graham did not have children, but she loved children. I remember she was holding Jacqulyn’s son in her arms in her apartment. Martha was very nurturing to Jacque when she had her son, but I think I would have felt much more pressure to quickly get back to my normal performance weight. Having Jacqulyn’s work to fall slowly back into and her eyes to make me look womanly and beautiful, helped me to more organically bring my mothering self seamlessly threaded into my work. New experiences to draw upon.
Everybody’s journey is so different depending on where they are in their life. I think if you have a child at the very beginning of your career, which many of my students have, then you make that choice, and you work to make this life what you choose it to be. It’s a very different journey than having a child in your 40’s. My career had peaked, so I didn’t feel like I was losing out on anything, just defining a new path. I am so fortunate that I didn’t have someone say I couldn’t do this as you spoke of. Going back to my upbringing, I also knew nothing about concert dance, but the support I received to just follow my heart carried me everywhere. My dance teacher brought me to New York twice in my high school years to take class at Carnegie Hall and to do the Dance Masters of America Convention at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Being a musical theater kid, I didn’t know much about modern dance until I went to college. My first modern teacher in my senior year in high school, Joni Consroe, was a magical creature in every way; she told me about SUNY Purchase. Originally, I planned to attend some theater school in New York City; I had never heard about Purchase or Juilliard for that matter. In high school, I studied voice and received a trophy for ‘most outstanding vocalist’. I was singing soprano arias from the Messiah in a gown my mother sewed me, sang “I don’t know how to love him’ from Jesus Christ Superstar, and choreographed for my high school production of Tommy. St. Cecilia Players I started in the 8th grade and I was in another community theater group called The Pompeiian Players where I was the youngest member at 14 years old dancing and singing in Hello, Dolly. I had all of these community places that I was working in and eating it all up! If I have one regret, it is not finding something like that for my son. Where is his place? I was always thinking that I wanted him to find his place. I believe he is on that path now. Giving wings to our child is so hard to do sometimes.
Anabella: I notice this sometimes, between my colleagues who have kids and who don't have kids, there’s a difference in their upbringing, a certain aspect, and patience. Do you notice this too?
Terese: The other thing is to be true to the space you inhabit. I was not hiding the fact that I was a mother. I was breastfeeding in front of the dancers in the studio. I brought my child into the ABT studios where the Graham company was rehearsing at the time. I went into a room to pump, I breastfed when I needed to. I think you have to be comfortable with yourself. I know some women have to hide the fact that they need to breastfeed, and to me this is not right. Many people make women feel uncomfortable to be who they are, nurturing and loving.
Anabella: Yes! I pumped during the APAP Conference for years! I remember once, I was in the corner of the room at the same time and in the same room as the Merce Cunningham company while they were signing contracts for the two-year international tour after Merce died. Last question, what does it mean for you to be a female in the world?
Terese: In the world that I travel and have journeyed in my life and work, being female has been my strength. Martha’s work was a vehicle to explore all that I am as a woman, a mother in a plethora of characters and colors that allowed me to bring my life experiences into many rich places of discovery on stage. I feel I am not just maternal but paternal as well. I believe we all have that duality. My father was maternal. My mother can be paternal. It’s my perspective. To embrace all that one wants to be the only way I’ve been able to express it is to talk about archetypes.
In staging work, for example, my work in staging The Rite of Spring on the Juilliard students, how do I deal with gender? The way that I deal with it is by explaining how Martha worked in archetypes. Her men were ‘Men’; that’s the character's name. The females were ‘Women’; the character was an archetype of the female. You bring whoever you are to that knowledge. They understand who their characters are. They could be any gender they choose, but once you step into a particular role, that is your responsibility. I deal with archetypes, and everyone understands what that is and falls into a work knowing and exploring the choreographer's vision for the work. I’ve also tried to embrace the desire of every student of any gender who is interested in the archetype of the female roles, of Martha’s roles. What I love to do in my repertory classes is embrace everyone who wants to explore physically these incredible roles and what they require in an acting sense. I just did a rep class of Medea’s first solo from Martha Graham’s 1956 Cave of the Heart. I allowed anyone of any gender to take the class, not just female-identifying students. When I did The Chosen One in The Rite of Spring also for a repertory class, again any gender could take the class. They all learned The Chosen One’s solos. I later staged the full work at Juilliard with two full casts of dancers; everyone understanding and devouring the archetypes they were going to portray.
Anabella: I use a text because I teach a dance theater class at NYU about Eugenio Barba, a theater director from Italy, The Odin Teatret. He’s Italian, and he had a company in Sweden for many years. He has a dictionary for performers where he uses anthropology to define the male and female in terms of energy. It’s an amazing book, I’ll send it to you! The book talks about the female and the masculine aspects as an archetype. When you studied with Martha, she talked about the uterus as a center of energy. She talked about contraction and release. How is this translated to a man?
Terese: I’ve been asked this question before. It’s not even a question that I ever really think about. I suppose that is because I watched years and years of brilliant male Graham dancers who were so sensual and expressive in every form, whether it be strength or vulnerability, so it never crossed my mind! It’s very interesting because you know in my mind sensuality is sensuality. You either understand it or you do not. To me, It has nothing to do with the uterus per se but a place of life and core fire in the body. To me it is not the place but the sensation. The muscles of the pelvic floor are like a brewing volcano that swells through the body. I find it very funny now that I’m getting all of these questions on how the male body could possibly feel this. We all have senses and the ability to taste, feel, listen and explore these deeply in our bodies in a visceral, sensual way. We all can understand sensuality if you are open to it. We have an inner core and a fire within if you use your power of imagination to access it, so it doesn’t matter what gender you are. This is something that we, as individuals who are part of the human race, can understand when free to embrace without being stifled. I personally have never heard Martha say anything about the ‘uterus’. It was always about truth in movement. What does that mean to you? Obviously, the core of Martha’s work comes from an understanding of your own sensuality and sexuality, but how you find those vibrant and expressive colors in your body is your own investigation.
Everyone has chakras through the body, and the root chakra is the Earth. What is the Earth? The Earth is roots. The Earth is fire. The Earth is the core. Why should that differ in anybody? It’s just about listening to it and understanding the sensory elements in your own core. I have known so many beautifully sensual male dancers in the Graham technique. You have to allow that truth to be present in your body. I think everyone likes to call upon Martha’s feminist side when really it’s just her human side. Martha created works that she wanted to dance to express what was most revealing about the human spirit and the characterization, obviously because she was dancing the work herself, was from the female point of view. In reality, it’s the understanding of the human capacity for feeling and emotion.
Anabella: I love that! It’s just about embracing the body, the mind, and the spirit. We are not just the organs. Our genitals are not dictating it.
Terese: Absolutely! The first thing I tell my students is this: The challenge is to bring yourself to the full capacity of expression and be that for your audience because when your audience comes to the theater, they want to feel a part of themselves in you. It is more than yourself, but in order to get to that place, you have to be truthful to the exploration of your own capacity for expression. I constantly go back to this awareness of the generations of individuals that make us who we are and to ‘taste’ the importance of this. To taste the space, to taste the essence of life in their muscles and in their bones so that the fibers and sinews generate a kind of truthfulness from within.
Anabella: That’s why you’re an amazing artist and teacher. It has been a real pleasure to talk to you. You are as wonderful and generous on the stage as you are in person.
Terese: Thank you so much. It was a pleasure to talk to you too.
Terese Capucilli, dancer, director, educator, was a driving force of the Martha Graham Dance Company from 1979 to 2005, as principal dancer to artistic director and artistic director laureate. World renowned for her performances of Graham’s classic roles and noted for her broad dramatic scope from Joan of Arc to Medea, she was heralded by The New York Times in 1984 as, "...the most powerful dramatic dancer of the decade". Capucilli is one in the last generation of dancers to be coached and directed by Graham herself. Since 1990, her collaboration as a founder, artistic associate and dance artist with Buglisi Dance Theatre has left an indelible imprint in the repertory and continues to bring numerous works to the stage, including the yearly 9/11 Table of Silence Project at Lincoln Center with over 150 dancers live-streamed throughout the world. Honors include a 2001 Dance Magazine Award, the Presidential Distinguished Alumni Award 2010 from Purchase College. The Fini International Lifetime Achievement Award (2017) and, as a three-time Princess Grace Foundation-USA award recipient she received a Special Projects Grant for her documentary, Lawrence 'Reed' Hansen: The Sacrosanct Accompanist—a musical journey through Martha Graham's dance technique. In 2017, the Juilliard School awarded her The John Erskine Faculty Prize; an award given to one faculty member per year, for continued archiving of her film. On the dance faculty at Juilliard since 1999, she has staged Graham's classic work for Juilliard’s Spring Dancers including Appalachian Spring (2008), Dark Meadow (2015), Rite of Spring (2018), and the recreation of Deep Song to its original score for Focus Festival 2022 at the invitation of Joel Sachs. Capucilli serves on the Arts Advisory Board for the Princess Grace Foundation—USA and the Board of Directors of Buglisi Dance Theatre. A Syracuse native, Capucilli is the middle child of seven children and lives in NYC with her husband and son.
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.