The impolitic body. (Starting here).

It all began about a year ago when the production of a docudrama, Dying to Dance, was announced, a work which was to carefully parallel the worst media speculation on the death of a young ballerina at Boston Ballet. (The courts later found BB harmless, but that was not sensational, and besides it was old news by then.) Then a young auditioner for San Francisco Ballet School was paraded through national talk shows because, it was charged, she was turned down for reasons other than her talent. Some dance writers lost their objectivity and leapt on the story. Now, scandalous behavior goes on every day and night in opera, concert music, and theater, but it doesn't seem to draw the wolves in the same way dance does, and its exploitation damages the whole form and those who make their living thereby. In fairness, such prominence and bylines must be a temptation for some frustrated investigative reporters with pushy editors since we live in a community where the grapevine is infinitely faster than any wire service and so little about dance makes the front pages.

Our editorial staff sat brainstorming, trying to come up with a positive spin after the deluge. In an airport that weekend I had seen a tabloid headline: "Healthy Bodies Are Back." "No," maintained Wendy Perron, our New York editor, "not just the un-thin; that's not the point--Any Body Can Dance." And so was born the special section you see here in this issue. It's about the too tall and the too short, the large, and yes, the no longer very young, and those who dance even with outrageously difficult challenges. And it's not just that anybody can continue dancing all their lives; but, like Tom Dwyer of Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, anybody can begin to dance, even at a mature age, and perhaps perform professionally.

People can begin to dance, leave it for a while, and return. Jenifer Ringer, a luminous principal dancer with New York City Ballet, proves that it can be done, and her story may provide a model for Young Dancer Lyn Tally, who left Boston Ballet last spring to explore her options and opportunities. She may return to performing--or not. But she can.

Boys can dance, but not without some courage and some costs, it appears now. When Dance Magazine's columnist Rhee Gold opened his mailbox on this subject the stories of distress and abuse tumbled out from around the world--so many that we had to edit them severely in order to print them all. They came from both young and mature men dancers who say that the stigma of perceived weakness and effeminacy still persists just outside the studio--and these survivors speak out in the hope of changing the way outsiders see and think. Presumably, they also speak for the many who did not survive the pain and left the field. Perhaps some boys now studying or considering studying dance will take a measure of courage from these men who have made it--and dance.

It's true, we maintain, that any body can dance--as long as they are allowed and alive. Recently I saw Dance, the Spirit of Cambodia on its U.S. tour, and was reminded by the accompanying film The Tenth Dancer (1993) and its young dancer (who now performs with the company) that nine out often dancers were murdered by the Khmer Rouge regime in an effort to exterminate Cambodian traditions, religious practice, ritual, education, performance, and creativity. The effort, like that of oppressors time out of mind, was to reduce Cambodians to one monolithic common denominator by those obsessed with control and/or possessing an abundance of self-righteousness. Cambodia is now striving to document, restore, and rebuild its dance and musical legacy with the help of the Royal University of Fine Arts (RUFA), artists outside Southeast Asia, and members of the U.S. dance community such as the New England Foundation for the Arts, directed by Sam Miller. Miller speaks of the current tour as "shar[ing] with American audiences the beauty and complexity of Cambodia's performing arts and help[ing] increase the understanding of the history, beliefs, and values that inform these extraordinary traditions." The works include not only the traditional court dances but also the diversity of folk performances.

Similarly, the Camai Festival in Alaska brings the diverse indigenous peoples of that region together to share in the teachings and restoration of their culture, once stifled and proscribed by missionary zeal. Now, under haloed skies, young bodies and elder, small bodies and large, struggle to maintain life and memories--and they can dance.

Editor in Chief K. C. Patrick has worked for Dance Magazine, both in New York and California, since 1998. After dividing her time between the business world and motherhood, she returned to the arts. She was editor of Dance Teacher Now, a position she held for ten years.