What's in a Name?

I have had some curiosity thrown my way regarding the name of my blog. So here is the (semi) interesting story. 

Back when I began dancing, we didn't have the Interweb and such. We had libraries. And as young dancer, I could not get enough information about dance. Photography books. History books. Collections of dance reviews. You name it. I read it. I was voracious in my need to know everything about the mysteries of dance. There were also biographies of dancers. Some good. Some bad. One of the books I stumbled across was Dance to the Piper by Agnes de Mille. 

I was already familiar with de Mille because my dance teacher would often regale us with stories about having danced in the movie Oklahoma under her direction. Additionally, she had presented 2 very entertaining (and informative) specials (The Art of Ballet and The Art of Dance) on television. On TV, she had a very intelligent, dry, humorous, yet intense way of speaking. 

The book, itself, was pretty nondescript. It had no photos. There was nothing visually memorable about it, but...

The writing was a revelation. It was not the story of an artist written by a 3rd party. It was a series of essays in the artist's own voice. She was having a passionate conversation about something that I was very passionate about. Later, I would discover that she brought this intelligence and passion to everything she spoke about from theatre to civil rights. 

Needless to say, I poured through that book.

When the time came to create a blog and leave my thoughts in this corner of the Internet, perhaps forever, I could think of no more aspirational reminder of speaking in an artistic, passionate (yet entertaining) way then to name the blog after that book A book that fed that need I had as a young dancer so well.

"To dance is to be out of yourself. Larger. More beautiful. More powerful. This is power, it is glory on Earth and it is yours for the taking." - Agnes de Mille