the ethereal physicality of dance

Annie Dwyer

I live a mile from C.F.S.,

and I often go by there on weekends:

to photocopy, to pick up something, to take something,

part of my cleaning at home has me take stuff to school,

part of my cleaning at school has me take stuff to home,

while there I look over to the Center Building,

and more times than not,

Annie’s car is there, often just Annie there,

doing all the prep work for her kids in dance,

her kids are there, too, at times,

as the Winter Dance Concert comes together,

or any extra gift of dance she is working out for us,

Annie has lived a definition of self as teacher

as “called,” as feeling no limit to what she can give,

except for the limitations of finite energy,

now staff also often feel a call to do more,

to expand their gifts to students and school

beyond the most narrow of a job description,

and extra compensation can be a goal that drives them,

Annie is of a different time, a different hearing of the “calling,”

our business manager laughed, and appreciated Annie,

when she said that if we paid Annie

for all the gifts of time and expertise to the students,

it would bankrupt the school,

I have long marveled at Annie and her work,

I check in with her often,

and I use my camera to chronicle process and product,

as for decades Annie has seen

the mover, the person, the dancer, the choreographer,

in the Lower School,

in the Middle School,

in the Upper School,

even in the Early Schools,

and nurtured that self to find its “voice,”

the way body and movement can express self,

I have joyed in witnessing countless young people

come into the power of themselves in dance,

as she and they open doors to that power

and she helps with the coaxing of the hesitant to step forward,

to use dance as vehicle for self to be and express,

even nurturing the male student for whom the door can seem distant,

my whole self as educator believes in the power within

that can reveal itself in writing, in discussion, in science, in art,

in the interaction of self with an explicable universe,

accessible to understanding and revelation,

Annie is guardian for paths and selves

for which and for whom

my talents are of the observer, the appreciator,

while Annie’s talents are as guide,

a guide who has helped hundreds of young people

find and reveal the strengths

that could have lain dormant within them,

hidden and atrophying,

instead, Annie has midwifed glory after glory

to find and reveal itself in movement,

as self and other interact and dance upon the stage,

countless times I have dropped by the Center

and seen Annie intense with a current student, 

with a former student, an alum, still supporting them 

in their quests for how their lives can make a difference,

Annie has made a difference,

helping the world improve

one step at a time, one leap at a time,

one moment at a time as the soul reveals itself

in the ethereal physicality we call dance.

by Henry H. Walker

March 28, ‘20