Pain

"An artist is one who has many barriers and finds a way around them. An artist is one who has to survive. It’s a life and death quest. You’ll go around any barrier to survive. You almost have a better chance of success if you are not good technically. I danced in severe pain for several years. If I was not in pain, I was flat on my back. Dancing almost killed me. After being told I couldn’t dance anymore, I enjoyed each class and performance for the first time, because I thought it would be my last."

Connie Moker-Wernikowski: “What I find really amazing – what strikes me – is that her career was very short. She went on to this bodywork practice very young. There was no 40 or 50 for her as a dancer. Once you start with pain it pushes you into learning new things – but many of us address that so much later in our life. She was very young when pain pushed her into the new.”

Kana Nemoto: “Amelia used to tell us how she used to go home after performances and make a cup of tea, but when she drank the tea it would be ice cold. She came to realize that (as performance adrenalin subsided) she was going into shock from the pain and having time lapses where hours could feel like minutes and she would lose connection with real time.”

Peter Randazzo: “There is the question of pain and dancers. Many dancers develop extremely high pain thresholds. When I started dancing, (according to Martha Graham) in a few months I did what few people do in a lifetime. I think that you can’t do what I did and be aware of what you are doing and be aware of your body. It's true of many dancers – when Twyla Tharp was studying Graham, you couldn't even lookat her feet –  they were always all bloody. I remember Edward Villella would continue dancing on broken toes. You know Amelia went to a clinic in the States – I’m not sure what the actual issue was – but they told her that if she didn’t get her spine fused, she'd never walk again. She came back to Toronto and danced like a complete maniac.”

Patricia Beatty: “She had enough dance training, but not a body that danced easily. She probably couldn’t have kept up this powerful full blast dancing for 25 years.” 

Kerry Flamon: “Before opening night, she was in such discomfort at the theatre that Beatty sent her quickly to masseur Karl Elief, who used a soft gentle touch over her skin – seemingly forever, she later said. When she stood up, her muscles had released and bones returned to their normal position. She was in no pain that night.”