Modern dance makes more choreographers, I believe, than ballet does. A conventional modern dance company is a very small group working with the specific ideas of a single artist. There are a limited number of these situations and an extraordinary number of dancers in training. It is not always difference in ideology or the compulsive need to explore a single vision that produces a new modern dance choreographer. It is simply expedient to create a personal marketplace in which to exhibit one's wares. The leniency with which modern dance has come to treat the eccentricities of body structure and performance as opposed to continued restrictions in ballets, allows for great variety in style and stature. But the small company, with its specific vision, often does not. So, choreography, for some of us, is self-defense.

When I began performing publicly in other peoples’ work, I had a fairly goodlooking body, (though not a very flexible one), good height, good balance, and no training.