<Begin Segment 27>

SY: And I understand that besides studying modern dance, you also studied Japanese dance, ballet, Spanish dance, and Kyogen-ko Mai, which is a Japanese comic dance?

MN: Uh-huh.

SY: I mean, when did you have time to study these other dance forms?

MN: Well, they were usually once a week and then not very long. So that's when Eleanor King was still in town that I'd go up to Cornish and take ballet classes because I knew that that was, that ballet was important, an important technique and I wanted to have (...). And then May Tsutsumoto was in Eleanor King's dance company, and she was a Japanese classical dancer. And she studied with Madam Nakatani. And so we'd go down with her once a week, take a class. And there was a Greek girl and a black girl and me and May. [Laughs] (...) So that was our little class, and we'd have a lesson once a week. But that didn't last very long. It was only a few months. But, but I continued to take ballet.

SY: You know what...

MN: With the Ladres and Mary Ann Wells. So actually, I've had more ballet classes than I've had modern. I mean, I've studied more ballet (...) than modern. So I studied with Mary Ann Wells and I studied with the Ladres and I studied at Cornish (School).

SY: You've had so many different dance teachers. From which teachers would you say you drew the most technique or perspectives?

MN: Well, I think, I think I got most of my dance from Eleanor King because she taught me (...) technique and she taught me composition.

SY: Was it with Eleanor King that you began to consider dance as a career, then?

MN: (Yes), I think so. I think I was hooked, and I knew I wanted to be a dancer.

<End Segment 27> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.