Dance criticism is not thumbs up or thumbs down. What Deborah has done consistently over the years, better than any living writer, is to see and respond to dance. She is one of the most articulate observers of the form and this is her genre of criticism. It takes much more skill to be able to understand a dance than to slam it.

I studied dance criticism with Marcia Siegel who drilled in us the power of observation. To write about a dance, you have to have the ability to conjure it up for the reader. Then you can analyze its form and evaluate its success or failure. The writer’s imperative is, first and foremost, to share the experience of the choreography. If you can hold off the rush to judgment–not an easy thing to do–you might actually discover something unexpected about the work. It’s also possible to develop an appreciation for choreography that rubbed you the wrong way at first.

Having written reviews (for The Voice, ages ago, among other publications) and having taught dance writing workshops, I can say how hard it is to delay passing judgment long enough to open the mind to seeing. Deborah’s sustained generosity of vision is a singular gift. I don’t know how she manages to sit through so many performances without her writing growing dull or her spirit jaded. I certainly don’t have that kind of tolerance.

I’ve been lucky enough to be reviewed by Deborah a few times. The experience was of being seen in print. What I got from her response to my choreography was positive, yes, but not uncritical. I could tell where she felt the work succeeded and where my choreographic vision was not quite fulfilled.

Writing a negative review every now and then does not constitute “balanced” criticism any more than balanced journalism means quoting, say, an advocate for climate change intervention and a climate change denier.

We live in the age opinion, where editorials substitute for reporting and punditry proliferates. In criticism and in journalism, there should be a quest for the TRUTH. Let’s value and respect the truth-seekers, Deborah Jowitt, among them!

Coincidentally, my “take-it-easy” sentence coincided with auditions for a new company member and the beginning of rehearsals for Turbulence. My interpretation of doctor’s orders: ok to to stretch and mobilize gently, but not to strain or overly exert myself. Probably I was not supposed to be lugging my costume-suitcase up subway stairs. I was going to sit back, be a folding-chair choreographer and let my dancers work.

For the auditions, I marked a phrase for my current dancers and they taught it to the newcomers. Gosh, that’s how it should always work. I generally choreograph collaboratively with dancers, but for this process I’ve had to rely on them particularly to generate movement vocabulary. We’ve used many improvisational techniques and focused on specific imagery. The upside of my sitting out, is that the range of movement dynamics my six dancers have invented is much greater than if it had all come out of my own body.

Once I had the go ahead to start dancing again, I had to figure out how to do so in my newly-expanded body.

A pregnant woman at full term has a 50% increase of blood volume. Don’t know what % I’m up to now, but here’s what I can say: inversions are out. I can’t hang over my legs, or pose in downward dog, for more than about 5 seconds, before my head feels like it’s going to explode. Forget about handstands.

All that extra blood means extra work for the heart. And a good chunk of the O2 in the blood going around has to feed the baby. I walk up a flight of stairs and my head is pounding. With the uterus pushing the stomach up into the diaphragm, my lungs don’t have their full capacity. I can workout now, but won’t be running any marathons. So nothing too aerobic, no jumps (with the extra weight couldn’t get much elevation anyway). Getting into and out of the floor, too, require careful consideration — and hands.

On the plus side, being pregnant gets you pumped up on hormones that make your ligaments lax. Even after a month without dancing, I was loosey-goosey and moving fluidly. More importantly, I feel as if a spell of well-being were cast on me, concocted from everyone’s love, good wishes and protective impulses. That spell and, of course my own joy and anticipation, have made me feel like dancing.

Limitations offer freedom. It’s been fun figuring out what my big-bellied body can do now. One thing that feels absolutely amazing is back-bending. Arching the spine and expanding the ribcage makes more room for the baby and for my lungs to fill-up with air (whoopee!).

I’ve also been getting a kick out doing a ballet-barre. If I squeeze my pelvic floor and engage the transverse abs like crazy, I can actually tendue without keeling over. As my belly keeps growing, my balance point changes every day — just keeps it interesting.

The past few weeks I’ve been working on a solo, Not Here Yet, which I’ll perform at my company’s season June 22-25 at the Baryshnikov Arts Center. My challenge is to use the physical resources I still have to express the presence of she-who-has-not-yet-arrived. In much of my work, I’m interested in how dance can capture invisible, ineffable forces. My baby on-the-way has already created quite a happy stir in many people’s lives and it’s this stir that’s making me want to move right now.

This quote just about sums up my whole “time-lapse” philosophy. I find myself saying this in different ways every day. Aside from this passage, am abs0lutely loving Chance and Circumstance so far!

A couple of weeks later, I found myself in Montreal as the subject of an Art Nouveau makeover. My own elaborate hairdo and make-up were for a video shoot arranged by Moment Factory, a multi-media installation company based in that city. The idea was to make video projections of me dancing “a La Loie” which will be included as part of the Fête des lumières in Lyon, France this coming December. The projections will be large-scale, so the organizers wanted to make the face and overall effect quite dramatic. Loie herself embodied the spirit of Art Nouveau, so the makeover was period-appropriate. As inspiration, the office wall where I was being “done” was adorned with images of Nouveau-style women: trailing locks of hair adorned, seemingly spontaneously, with garlands of flowers. After three hours in the hands of make-up artist Laurie Deraps, I had abundant hair-extensions, false eyelashes, faux flowers and pearls artfully arranged in around my hair and face. Looking in the mirror, I saw myself transformed into a fantasy from another century.

The music is Quentin Chiappetta’s percussion-only “click-track” version of “Anitra’s Dance” from Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite. Lighting is by David Ferri. Recorded at Vassar College, August 8, 2009