BELLA, and Bella Lewitzky
My Teacher, and a New Film of Her Life in Dance and Activism
"Freedom is not a given, you have to fight for it." - Bella Lewitzky
Yesterday I had the most extraordinary experience. I re-lived a part of my life as a young dancer.
I’d been invited to a private screening of a new film, a full-length documentary about Bella Lewitzky, the doyenne of modern dance in Los Angeles in the 20th century, and my teacher.
Bella was one of the strongest influences in my life; as a dancer, a teacher, a mentor, and as a woman. Entering her world of movement again was deeply affecting, in some ways expected and in others surprisingly unexpected.
As a little girl dancer in Palm Springs, dressed in a royal blue leotard and pink tights and wearing my first but not last painful pink satin toe shoes, I did lots of ballet with the Park and Rec and a local ballet school. At age eleven I was at last introduced to what felt like bliss: barefoot dancing with the marvelous modern dancer, Angiola Sartorio. It was there, in the rented social hall of a desert trailer park under the blue shadow of Mt. San Jacinto, that I first heard about the legendary dancer Bella Lewitzky.
Of course I wanted to study with her.
When my family moved to Los Angeles a couple of years later I got that chance. Bella was teaching weekly classes at the University of Judaism in Hollywood, a short bus ride from my home. Throughout high school, in a teen class after school, I trained with her rigorous regime. The company class followed. I was doing my homework in the dressing room before and between classes.
Those three hours a week, over years, ingrained in me the solid foundations of her brilliant virtuosic technique and movement concepts of space, dynamics, flow, phrasing, power, and performance. Alignment. Articulation of the torso. Flat back extensions. Balances and counter balances. Hinges. Line. Spirals everywhere, down to the floor and up again. Footwork, often at presto tempo, flying across the floor. Floor work. Reciprocal stretching. We practiced improvisation and the beginnings of “dance design”, all tools that I continued to hone in my next years at the new California Institute of the Arts, with Bella as the founding dean of the School of Dance.
Bella was also my official mentor at CalArts. We had regular meetings in her elegant office with it’s sweeping view of the valley. I remember one significant conversation in that office, one that’s had a lifelong impact on me. I had come to know Bella mostly as a fierce and committed teacher but I also saw her as a performer, a company director, choreographer, dean, and a wife and mother.
I asked her how she did it, how is it possible to have a full artistic life and a personal life at the same time?
She sat back in her chair and gave me a wry smile. “Well, it is possible, but you can’t do it all at the same time.” She pointed out that she had times when she was focused on work, and times when she was with her family. Her August holiday time was sacrosanct. Work/life balance was real, and it was possible. But like all balance, it’s not a still point of perfection, but an activity.
Thank you, Bella, for those words.
Yesterday I made a cup of tea and settled in to the screening along with many friends and team members of the project: her former dancers, colleagues, and supporters, some whom I knew from years ago and some of more recent acquaintance, including the director/producer, Bridget Murnane. With Zoom, we could all see each other! It was quite a reunion, very emotional and, yes, moving.
I was excited to see Bella dancing again, her marvelous dancers dancing her dances, and to peek into studios where she was teaching. I remembered being there, in some of the same studios, and in the audience at Royce Hall at UCLA. I remember the actual movements, the phrases, even some of the choreography. I could feel them in my muscle memory, my music memory, and even recognize them in my own style of teaching (that I thought was my own, ha). Even some of my recent spontaneous movement phrases are not, alas, my own at all, but deeply imprinted from very early formative practice with a master.
Beyond the dance, I was thrilled to hear Bella’s own voice once again, to learn more about the depth and breadth of her convictions about the art of dance, and of her view of the role of the arts in our culture and society. I was floored to learn more about her activism and sacrifices on behalf of freedom of expression for us all.
After the closing images, I wasn’t alone in wiping tears from my eyes. What a story! What a woman! What an artist!
Here’s the film’s trailer.
Here’s more about Bella, and BELLA, and how you can join me and many others to support the film’s production.
Love this, thank you for sharing!