<Begin Segment 38>

SY: There were many things that inspired you to choreograph. And way back in 1951, you created another solo for yourself called "Shepherdess." What inspired this dance?

MN: I think, basically, it was my maternal instinct because all my friends had married and had children, and I had an urge to have a child. And in those days you could have a child, and you didn't have to have a husband, you could just have a child if you wanted.

SY: In those days?

MN: (Yes).

SY: You could do that in these days. [Laughs]

MN: (Yes). But anyway, I couldn't do that because even though I wanted a child of my own very badly, because I couldn't teach then, if I were pregnant. So I thought, well, I'll go to Hawaii and I'll adopt a beautiful child, Eurasian, maybe part-Chinese and part-Hawaiian or something. But it would be a beautiful little girl and I could bring her back and then have a child of my own. But then I thought, that's not very practical, because I'd be teaching on the dinner hour, and I would never be able to put her to bed. So I just thought about it for a while, and then as time went on, this maternal urge left me. And so I didn't have to -- didn't worry about having a child. And I decided, well, I've got everybody else's child. I've had hundreds of little children that belong to other people, but they were mine, too.

SY: So what this dance was, then, was an expression of your yearning for a child?

MN: Yeah, my maternal instinct. So I called it the "Shepherdess," because it was based on affection and loving a little lamb. So that's how I, it was like holding a child or holding a lamb, same idea.

SY: What happens to you when you dance this, knowing that the whole choreography has been inspired by this feeling inside? What happens to you, as the dancer, when you dance this?

MN: Well, it's a very good, satisfying feeling, one of the nicest feelings that I've ever had in dancing.

SY: Does it happen to you every time you dance the piece, or is it just sort of at different moments, you're lucky when you catch it?

MN: Well, it's almost every time. But I haven't danced it for a long time. But it's one of the dances that I have the strongest feeling for.

SY: Actually, you performed this "Shepherdess" dance at the Connecticut College Summer School of Dance.

MN: Uh-huh.

SY: What was the audience response to this piece?

MN: Well, I was surprised because it was mostly the faculty and other people that were witnessing it. And when I got through, the head of the music department at Julliard said, "That music was too slow. That piece is never played that slow." And I said, "This is a recording from an album that was done in Italy, and so I didn't make it this slow. That's the way it was." And then somebody else said -- I carried a little crook, like shepherdesses do. I came in with it, and I put it down. And then I did all this dance about the little lamb and about the lovely weather and everything. And then I picked up my crook and the little lamb in my arms, and I exited. And somebody says, "You can't bring a prop on stage and not use it." And I thought well, never heard about that before, but it was a situation where I didn't need to use it. And then, so I went out and stood on the porch, and I was thinking about this. (...) I felt kinda low about it all. And then one of my, one of the dancers, the modern dance teacher, came up and he says, "Martha, your dance was beautiful." So then I felt a lot better.

<End Segment 38> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.