I have always had a soft spot for the underdog. 

My older brother was born with physical differences and special needs.  We played on the floor together for a long time.  At 16 months, I finally started to walk and my brother followed, at 3 ½.  I remember giving long stares back to the kids on the playground who watched him curiously.  I defended him fiercely.

In school I always got seated next to the boy who was the class clown or misfit. I had a hard enough time paying attention and sitting still, so my sympathies towards these types didn’t help.

My hero was Fred Astaire. I had a dream he would come wandering down the street,  see me doing my jump rope-tap dance routine in front of the Coolidge Corner Movie House, and take me to Hollywood to put me in his next film. 

As a teenager, when my inner world began to present its turmoil and while my friends had posters of rock stars on their walls, I had a poster of Buster Keaton, the master celebrator of all that goes wrong!  His face made my heart ache…

Dance was my passion and my solace.  I took classes in all styles. In my senior year of high school I took my first choreography class. We performed a mysterious feature length dance-circus piece, complete with all the archetypal circus characters. I was the sad clown.  A seed was planted.

After 2 rigorous years of dancing in a performing arts conservatory I realized I wouldn’t last in a setting where so much perfection was necessary. It was then that I realized, though I loved and craved beautiful movement, discipline, and hard work,     imperfection was far more interesting (with a beauty all its own). Conformity seemed to have disconnected me from a whole spectrum of society and community life.  I realized I wanted a dance that was from the inside out, not the outside in, as I put it then, and one that anyone could join into. I didn’t know it, but I was longing for a circus, and especially for clowns…

Many years and a family with 4 kids later, I was living in a Camphill Village; a spiritual community shared with adults with special needs. Here, the dormant seed was warmed, nourished, and sprouted! I needed a project, so I created a Village Circus of about 100 people, some with special needs, some without. Some were kids, some were old folks, and some were young foreign volunteers.  I was trying to find a way to unite all ages, ethnicities and abilities in a creative process where new wings could be safely tested.  Applying old and new forms of movement training and mixing the endless elements of community, imagination and spectacle, I began a journey of surprising discovery. Since that time I have added Spacial Dynamics, CircusYoga (so inspiring!), handstands, stilting, riding unicycle and playing accordion to my repertoire and have participated in the creation and production of dozens of school and community circuses, camps, and special events. Taking much inspiration from my specially developed friends in Camphill Village, I also teach clowning as a pathway into the discovery of living truer to ourselves—as lovable, unique, and liberated as we were meant to be.