<Begin Segment 11>

SY: And then how about if you were to look back at your high school experience at Lincoln High School? Is there anything that really stood out for you as influencing your life, or staying with you today?

MN: Well, that's when I first started dancing.

SY: In high school?

MN: Yes, because tap dance was the thing. So when it came to PE time, I signed up for tap dance. But then the tap dancers (...) were dismissed early (...) to take their showers because they could do it a lot faster than the modern dancers. And I didn't know anything about modern dance, but on the way to the shower room, I peeked in the gym, and I saw these modern dancers, and they were in beautiful drapes. And they were rising and falling and dancing around, and I thought, "That's for me. I mean, that's what I want." So the next quarter, I signed up for modern dance, and all the rest of my gym in high school was in dance, modern dance.

SY: Actually, almost the rest of your life was in modern dance after that.

MN: Yeah. And that's how it started. I can still visualize looking through that gym door and seeing those dancers.

SY: And the PE teacher at the time was Katherine Wolfe?

MN: Yes.

SY: And she became a very important person to you. What did she do to...?

MN: Well, she knew I loved dance. I guess she could sense it. And when we had auditions to get into dance drama, somehow, I was number two from the top. Somebody was better than me. But anyway, I was surprised because we had to do a little piece of choreography, and I think that's what put me up there in second place.

SY: The choreography?

MN: Because I wasn't too, I wasn't very limber, as far as the technique goes. I wasn't outstanding.

SY: Was there something that she said to you that made you realize that you had a particular talent in choreography?

MN: No, she didn't. But she, she stayed kind of friends, and she wanted me to take another year in high school so I could continue, but then I wanted to go on. And then the -- Pearl Harbor -- and she came to see me. I mean, she wanted to know if everything was all right.

SY: You mean she came to see you while you were at home?

MN: I was at home, yeah, at home. And she came with a pretense of buying a geranium or something. But anyway, she wanted to see that I was all right.

SY: So she kept in touch with you after high school? Is that what you're saying?

MN: Yes. And then after we got back from evacuation, she started a little dance group called the Intercultural Dance Workshop. And she had me, a Japanese, and she had a colored girl, and she had a, there was a Jewish girl and, then there was a beautiful blond, I don't know what she was. But anyway, we met once a week. And we danced and we choreographed, and she taught us dances. And then every three months, we'd go to one of the recreation field houses and put on a program because I think it was partly sponsored by the Park Department, this program.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.