The Dance Claimed Me by Peggy Schwartz & Murray Schwartz

Author:Peggy Schwartz & Murray Schwartz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2011-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

EIGHT

The Turn to Teaching and Return to the Stage

She moved in circles, and those circles moved.

—Theodore Roethke

AFTER HER RETURN from Africa in 1963, Pearl continued to mature as an educator and artist. She was fully acknowledged in the dance world, but, living between cultures, and between the stage and educational institutions, she wanted “just folk” around her, her folk, and didn’t court celebrity status for its own sake. She felt at home having a ginger ale with an old friend or the mother of a former student, or visiting the director of a community center, or cooking her favorite African recipes. In her public life, she taught in academic settings, restaged work, choreographed, worked with community groups, and dreamed of founding an institute and of completing her lifelong work, “The Woman of Zor.” With Percy, she developed the Primus-Borde Earth Theater, planning tours and projects. She graced many stages and received many awards, but she also developed a reputation for being “high maintenance,” hard to work with, perpetually late. She could be brusque and go inward. Anyone who knew her would calibrate her mood of the day by the intonation of her “Y——e——e—ss——” as she answered the telephone in the morning.

In the mid-to-late 1960s, Pearl’s work focused on education, even as she and Percy continued to perform together. In 1969, Pearl began teaching at Hunter College, and soon after was traveling from New Rochelle, New York, where she bought a big brick house, a former synagogue, on Coligni Avenue, which steadily accumulated a lifetime of records and memorabilia. In 1970, Percy took a position in Binghamton, where he became truly established in the academic life. His performing fame included brilliant renditions of “Impinyuza,” which was added to his repertory in the 1950s and became his signature piece until his sudden death following a performance in 1979. It must have been complicated for Pearl to see Percy reaching goals that had been part of her life plan, but which she had not yet realized. Pearl was the more well-known artist, on the way to becoming the PhD in the family, yet Percy had the more secure academic appointment as an associate professor. Pearl would say that she didn’t want to move to Binghamton because there was too much snow and it was too cold, but in fact, Percy had a separate life there and shared a house with the playwright Lofton Mitchell and the artist Edward Wilson, and the trio were known on campus as “The Three Caballeros.”

Many people recognized Pearl’s fierce love for Percy. We know that she was initially Percy’s teacher, and that she sponsored his arrival to the States in 1953. They traveled to Africa together for extended periods to perform and teach, and maintained a studio and apartment on West Twenty-fourth Street. They each had special gifts, and they were charismatic in their own ways. Over and over, Percy is described as exceedingly handsome, tall, elegant, and gracious. “A real specimen,” said Eva Zirker. “That man had an Adonis look about him,” said former student Veleria Ramos.

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