Still Dancing

By Arlene Mandell

Sophie Maslow died in late June. She was 95. Half a century ago, when I was a wispy 15-year-old with romantic delusions of becoming a dancer, she was my teacher. Though I knew she had been a Martha Graham dancer, I didn't realize she was anyone famous, or even semi-famous.

Every Saturday morning I would board the "A" train for midtown Manhattan wearing my black Danskin leotards under my jeans and sweater. My hair was pulled in a high ponytail, and my posture was erect, chin tilted slightly upward, like the dancers I saw flitting through midtown on their way to auditions and romantic assignations, or so I imagined. Though I don't recall what the lessons cost, I know I paid for them by baby-sitting, a job I loathed when it involved changing diapers or pacing the floors with a sobbing toddler on my shoulder.

The dance studio Miss Maslow rented had dirty windows with a distant view of Broadway. It held a scarred-top baby grand piano, streaked mirrors, a dusty wood floor and the mingled odors of sweat, cologne and baby powder. We began our warm-up exercises at the barre, a gaggle of about 15 mostly young, pale women and one odd man with a scraggly beard who wore torn layers of grungy shirts and leg warmers.

Miss Maslow was stern and unsmiling, pounding a drum or banging a walking stick on the floor as we tried our best to emulate Lisette, a six-foot-tall blonde with a scornful manner who was the teaching assistant. I was competent at the barre, and reasonably supple at the stretching-on-the-floor routines. Once, as I stretched with legs extended in a wide "V", Miss Maslow stopped next to me. I held my breath. She knelt down to examine my bare feet.

You have a fine dancer's instep, she proclaimed. Keep those feet arched and those toes pointed.

I was elated. I had Dancer's Insteps! What I lacked, however, was the ability to race diagonally across the studio and leap with my right arm and left leg extended, or vice versa. I could blame this peculiar coordination problem on my first grade teacher, Miss Livingston, who forced me to write with my right hand although I was left-handed. Or maybe the synapses in my brain misfired. Sometimes I managed to get the right/left sequence, but I had to concentrate so hard that when she added a turn in the middle, I was a flailing mass of limbs. OK, maybe I'm exaggerating, but only a little.

In reading Miss Maslow's obituary in The New York Times, I learned all sorts of fascinating things about her. She was a first cousin of the well-known artist Leonard Baskin. She joined the Martha Graham company in 1931 and remained with it for 12 years. During the time she was paying her bills by teaching klutzes and wannabees, she choreographed "Manhattan Transfer" to a boogie-woogie beat. Later she composed "Poem," set in a San Francisco beatnik hangout, featuring music by Duke Ellington and the recitation of a poem by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Ferlinghetti! Somehow, I was unaware of these achievements.

I had to discontinue my dance lessons when I graduated from high school. Between working all day, taking classes at NYU at night, and dating cute guys, there just wasn't time to become a famous dancer.

Many years passed. For dramatic effect you might imagine thousands of calendar pages fluttering down. Then one summer day in 1987, I'm at Lincoln Center, attending a celebration for their dance notation program. Dance notation is a way of diagramming, movement by movement, everything that dancers do on stage in ballet or modern dance. This was a way of preserving for dance history all the work that had not been recorded on film.

My modest role at the event is to represent Freixenet, a Catalan sparkling wine company, who has donated the wine for the celebration. I'm wearing a pink linen suit with pale shoes and stockings, an appropriate outfit for a public relations executive at such an event. And there, seated regally in a high-backed chair, is Miss Maslow, one of the guests of honor.

I approach, sort of curtsey, and introduce myself. She is much smaller than I remember.

"Do you still dance?" she asks.

"No, but I write."

"About dance?"

"About consumer products," I explain, "like the champagne that's being served here."

The spark of interest in her eyes fades. I'm dismissed.

Later, as I'm walking back to my office, I'm thinking about the report I'll write to my client. I'll certainly list the famous celebrities who came out for the event, such as Leonard Bernstein, but won't mention Miss Maslow. I make my way down Broadway, back straight, head held high, striding gracefully with arms and legs in perfect opposition, my dancer's insteps flexing in my pale leather pumps.