About Me

I have lived most of my life as a dancer, but I have also been child, sister, lover, wife, mother, and more recently, grandmother, writer, sculptor, musician and visual artist. My attempts to balance all the aspects of my life have been a challenge. Therefore I have chosen to use this blog to explore and share my particular dance of balance. At the age of sixty-five, one is tempted to settle into complacency, to say I have done the best I can; so be it. I would rather die.

I was born on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, but have also lived in New Orleans, Texas, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York City. My father was the artist and naturalist, Walter Inglis Anderson and my mother was Agnes Grinstead Anderson, an elementary school teacher and a writer. I grew up among people for whom art and pottery making was a way of life, so my passion for dance was acceptable and encouraged, especially by my mother. During my junior and senior years of highschool I commuted on weekends to New Orleans to study ballet with Lelia Haller, a remarkably “old school” sort of teacher who had been a ballerina with the Paris Opera as a young woman. After highschool I moved to New Orleans to continue my ballet studies more intensely, working part time at the Newcomb Art School as an artist’s model.

At this time my need for balance began to assert itself. The preponderance of ballet deprived me of healthy social interraction and relaxation. The aura of competition in classes and for solo roles in performance made for much stress. One felt one could never be good enough. This left me lonely and vulnerable, and led to some poor choices.  In 1965, three things happened to free me from the tyrannical world of ballet, and move me further toward the balance my soul craved. I discovered Isadora Duncan, the great revolutionist of modern dance; I gave birth to my daughter, Moira; my artist father died, leaving behind an accessible artistic legacy. From here on, I would claim the freedom to explore and express the whole of my life through dancing. I would be free to become the many-faceted star I was born to be.

Since then I have danced, raised two children, and taught the dance technique I called Airth. I have written poetry, memoirs, children’s books and one novel. Two books have been published: DANCING THROUGH AIRTH and DANCING WITH MY FATHER. My sculptures, drawings, and paintings dance through the houses of friends and strangers.  I am a grandmother to four and  share my life with two dogs and a cat. I am still dancing, and still discovering facets to the star.

Related: walter inglis anderson, self fulfillment, lelia haller, leif anderson, isadora duncan, dance, balancing art  and family life.