About BARBARA METTLER

BARBARA METTLER Artist or Educator? Autobiographical Sketch 2 Page 2 of 3 In Sketch 1, I have written of my eight lost years in high school and college - lost because they offered me no opportunity to grow as a musician or dancer beyond the level which I had achieved in childhood. In addition to those described in the sketch the only dance experiences of that time I remember are the miseries of trying to dance at parties with young men whose dancing had no movement, no rhythm, no relationship to the music. The girl was supposed to follow her partner who, while holding her at a discreet distance, tried to walk around without bumping into other couples who were doing the same. The partners were expected to talk while they danced, but I wanted to move - freely, rhythmically, in union with the music. Once out of college, I began to realize that dance was a field which could be studied seriously and pursued as a vocation. I knew that this was what I wanted but was told by everyone that I was to old to begin. While vacationing in Europe from a job on a magazine, I accompanied a friend who visited the Mary Wigman School of Dance in Berlin. It became immediately clear that I was not too old. After coming home and rearranging my life, I went back to Germany and spent two and a half years at the Mary Wigman Central Institute in Dresden, completing the three- year professional course and receiving a diploma in June, 1933, six months after Hitler had been made chancellor. Returning to this country in the depths of depression, I opened my own studio in New York. I wanted to dance, and I wanted to share the joy of dancing with everyone in the world - this had been the two-sided motivation of all my dance work. I am a child of Isadora Duncan,"I see America dancing". I am also an heir to the democratic philosophy of art in Germany during the Weimar Republic, when modern artists and educators were striking out in new directions to satisfy a popular demand for creative approaches to art. Am I artist or educator? This is a question which seems to puzzle those who would like to categorize my role in modern American Dance. Must there be a separation? My need to dance, and my need to draw others into the dance experience with me, are inseparable. I have always danced. At the Mary Wigman school in Dresden there were many opportunities to perform. While my studio was in New York City, I danced continuously alone and with my groups, for schools, colleges, museums, clubs and art associations, in neighboring states as well as in New York. Once I rented the Heckscher Theater. We were always "off Broadway" so I never received a review by John Martin, dance critic of New York, but he knew of my work and gave me encouragement. At my New Hampshire school I gave weekly performances with my groups. Before moving to Arizona, I toured for six months down the East Coast and into the Middle West, performing and teaching in a group of five. Since building my studio in Tucson the running of my school, in addition to teaching in various parts of this country and abroad, has limited my own dancing. I have often had to choose between myself and providing dance experiences for others. <<< previous next >>>