Amelia’s Nehemia

“I was watching him working on a body with his hands and manipulating it with his hands and I would see a change in the body – things I had been working for years to accomplish within myself.”

M. Cohen-Nehemia arrived in Winnipeg in 1971 from Israel; after working in clinical and dance settings there, he moved to Toronto.

Patricia Beatty: “I couldn’t put full weight on my left leg. I couldn’t find relief or a solution. I’d go have a little session with Amelia. She’d direct me verbally, that was one thing. But when she put her hands on me, it was powerful. Then she convinced me to study with M. Cohen-Nehemia. Amelia told me:

"You are going to see things you never saw before.”

I did. She was very important, influenced my learning hugely. They didn’t call it mitzvah yet. Nehemiah was a master and people were in awe of him. I could tease Nehemia, I don’t know why. I Took a lot of teasing myself, growing up, so I knew how to tease.

Anyway, Amelia was my transition, and after nine months with Nehemia I did the best dancing of my entire career. It was tricky coming back – they let me do it because of what I already knew about Graham. And after that, the way I taught, no one got hurt. The classes were deep but they worked. Threading this stuff into the Graham technique, I could see differently. I was able to instantly see peoples’ potential in a way I couldn’t before. Of course I was in my 40’s then, that was part of it too. I think I taught myself right out of the artform – the ideas in the classes really got more like a martial art or something! I recall thinking “I think I am teaching soloists – they look fabulous and they didn’t want to come back!”