<Begin Segment 45>

SY: In some ways, you did get a chance to be a mother. And you got a chance to do everything you've wanted to do, because you said... I mean, even now, you teach young children.

MN: Yes.

SY: What would you say you're doing? What's your life like now? What are you doing currently?

MN: Well, I'm still teaching. Not on a large scale, like I did before, so it's a pleasure. And I've been teaching for so long, that it's not difficult to teach. And I can work on individuals. Like there's one girl (...) she's a lovely dancer, but she has such flat feet. And I'm working on that, to get her to stand correctly and get off her arches. It's little things like that, (...) and I'm a real stickler for body alignment. And I know how to get people to stand up straight and I know all about leg alignment and how to get people to have their legs lined up, their knees lined up. So if I can't teach 'em anything else, I can teach 'em how to stand up straight, so that they can enter a room with dignity. [Laughs]

SY: If you were to choreograph a solo piece for yourself right now, what would inspire your movements?

MN: Oh, let me see. What would inspire my movements today, now? Well, I might, it might be a certain amount of loneliness in it, because I'm between four walls an awful lot of the day. And also I have my cat, and I, I love my cat very much. And I've always had a cat. I've never been without a cat. So I might choreograph something about a cat. [Laughs] But I'm not so sure I'd ever do that. But I do have a fondness for all animals.

SY: Now that dance is not so much a part of your life, but a comfortable part of your life, what other things are in your life that you didn't have time for before?

MN: Oh, well, since the dance is not constantly such a demand, (...) at one time, I said to myself, "You just can't do this. You gotta do somethin' else, too." So I joined my graduating Lincoln High School class of single women, divorced women, just women. So we have lunch together a couple times a year. And then the class of '39, everybody gets together a couple times a year. And I'm the official photographer. I take pictures and then give 'em to the director. I don't know what he does with them. But anyway, so those two things. I've joined (two) classes of '39, but I don't go to church. But I go to all the dance concerts that I can, and I go to the opera. That's about all I do.

SY: But you teach several times a week. Isn't that right?

MN: Yeah, about five times a week.

SY: So you still keep pretty busy?

MN: Oh, yeah. Friday's my day off, but otherwise, I'm busy.

SY: Because you're also doing, you continue to choreograph and lecture. Is that right?

MN: Not so much. Not so much. Well, I did, I do some lecturing, but I don't do an awful lot of choreography. What I do is with the students in the class, but not for concerts. I finally gave up doing concerts, because it was too expensive to get a hall and do all the advertising and everything. But a lot of concerts I did, in all the universities around the Northwest, where they'd pay for your transportation and overnight, if you had to, and things like that. But I don't do that very much, either.

SY: I thought you just choreographed a piece not too long ago for a university?

MN: Oh, that was for the Seattle University. Yeah, I did. It was for Roshomon.

SY: That was not too long ago, wasn't it?

MN: No, it was about a month ago, a month-and-a-half ago.

<End Segment 45> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.