I'm not sure why I love the arts. I just do.
I glommed onto dance at 14 — late for a dancer — and spent the next 14 years training and performing as a professional modern dancer. I first studied Martha Graham technique. But seeing Merce Cunningham in 1971 converted me into a lifelong Cunningham devote. Living in New York, I studied at the Westbeth studio with Merce and his acolytes.
I always loved classical ballet. As a teen, I pored over the high school library's limited dance collection. My favorite was Balanchine's New Complete Stories of the Great Ballets. I memorized photos like this one from Agon in which Arthur Mitchell supports Diana Adams in a penche arabesque. There was something startling and reckless in the image, but also perfectly composed and beautiful. The unexpected commingling of the earthy and the ideal still draws me to Balanchine's work.
While living in Hong Kong in the mid-1980s, I began to write about dance for the South China Morning Post.
When the Cunningham company performed in Hong Kong in 1984, the publicist told me that Merce read my advance piece and that he found it amusing that I called his dancers "the brainiest in New York."
After the performance, my then boyfriend, a Hong Kong-born classical pianist chatted casually with John Cage as he knocked down his synthesizer. A wonderful memory. Here's a piece about Merce Cunningham from 2005.
After returning to the U.S. and opting for California, I wrote for the Long Beach Press Telegram throughout the 1990s. I then formed a wonderful relationship with La Opinion, L.A.'s Spanish-language newspaper. I now contribute to the Los Angeles Times as well as The Huffington Post. More clips are available on my arts journalism page.
A treasured experience was interviewing Edward Villella, the former New York City Ballet star and now artistic director of Miami City Ballet. Chatting about Balanchine and Robbins with Mr. Villella — a beautiful person as well as a great dancer – was a high point of my life. Read the article.
Last June I was a fellow at the National Endowment for the Arts Dance Criticism Institute at the American Dance Festival at Duke University. Then in August I co-founded a successful grassroots protest movement, "Save Film at LACMA," in which thousands of film lovers successfully prevailed upon the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to reverse its decision to cancel its 40-year-old classic film program.
To learn about my work as a corporate writer, please see my website: Levine & Associates.
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