ILLUSTRATED FOLK POEMS

In 1970, when I was a professor in the Mathematics and Statistics Department at the University of New Mexico, the students struck in protest of the university’s complacent support of the Vietnam War. In the aftermath of that turmoil, the Honors Department initiated courses that professor could suggest and teach to try to make studies more “relevant”. Another professor and I, with student prompting, suggested and taught a course in “Non-Violent Protesting”. As an incentive to the faculty, these course provided a stipend and a release from one of our usual courses.

The next semester, I suggested and taught a course in “Film—Just Do It!!”. I used the stipend to buy a cheap 8mm camera and a roll of film for each student in the class and during class times we would listen to and comment on the stories that students wanted to film. That experience started my entrance into the folk world which I have pursued from then with much enthusiasm, I love folk art; I love doing folk art. I have always loved folk art. I think I have always loved FOLK anything! What I seem to mean by that and what I have learned about myself in my life, is that I love things that are “just there”and things that one can access without doing all the background work that is necessary to become really good at something. And that’s how I became a dancer and a choreographer and a poet. I just started doing it, with a lot of help from my friends!

ILLUSTRATED FOLK POEMS BASED ON MY DANCE VIDEOS

As a faculty member of the University of New Mexico, I could take classes in any subject. In 1976, I had become a Rolf Practitioner and I began an interest in body movement. In the summer of 1977, when I was 45, I signed up for a class in Body Movement with a professor from out of state. When that professor had an illness, the class became a class in contact improvisation dance. I loved it! So in the fall, I was taking Beginning Modern Dance and kept at it. Then I met a director of a local dance company who was looking for a mature male dancer to be a member of her company and because I was the same age as her husband, I qualified even though I was a beginner. I danced in that company for several years and even got interested in choreography. Then I helped found a second-stage rehabilitation program for the spinal chord injured and started a dance program there for people with movement limitations. Sometime after I had reviewed the video of some of my dances, I was worried that my thoughts behind the making of the dance would not be clear. That prompted me to write what I called “folk poems” about the reason for the dance. In some cases I have added those poems to the dance videos.