Dancing Down the Years

Daniel Nagrin
From: Medical Problems of Performing Artists: Volume 14 Number 2: Page 62 (June 1999)

Abstract: We are finally arriving at the blessed time when "being old" really requires quotation marks. "Old people" are revising the expectations that hemmed in their parents. Sex, sport, creativity, and best of all the work that defined them in their youth and "maturity" are all there to be lived. This is still a pioneer time, but there are enough defiant ones who are setting a style of perennial vitality.
There are youngsters out there whose minds are tangled with traditional anticipations and regard this unremitting love of living and doing with what? Distaste? Disapproval? Unease? Perhaps they feel threatened? Whatever. That's their problem.
In 1988, I published a book titled, How to Dance Forever, which I presume gives me the right to write this article. It is a matter of pride that over the years, I have received a number of letters from dancers who, after reading the book, were encouraged to continue dancing past the stone wall of 40 years or to return to their first love'the dance. At this time, is there anything further to add to that book? Essentially, it examined the many aspects of the dancer's life with the view to preserve and enrich the power to continue the life of dancing.

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