Dance as Life Force

Abstract

The summers I spent in New Mexico I remember for the smell of pinon wood after a rainstorm, the narrow sidewalks on dusty Canyon Road, a Shubert piano concert, Indians wrapped in blankets in scorching midday heat, and my mother’s ramada where, as the sun set behind the Sangre de Cristo mountains, we cooked out and smoked cigarettes. Best of all I remember the Indian dances we witnessed in the hot summer sun: the anticipation, waiting in the empty plaza of Taos pueblo, the sun beating down, Anglos like us lining the walls, waiting.