C. Castleton State College, 1975-1982

Castleton State College 1979-1983

This era relates to my years since my undergraduate studies ended and my position on the Dance Faculty at Castleton State College. During this time, I performed with the Collaborative Ensemble of Dancers and Musicians, took a trip to California and Alaska, reconnected with my husband, Richard Sgorbati (we went to high school together), was invited to teach Dance at Williams College by Joy Dewey, lived over a bar in Rutland, Vermont, and built a house, raised all of our own food, and homesteaded in Sudbury, Vermont. I got the position on the Dance Faculty at Castleton while living in my own dance studio in Rutland, (over the bar), teaching anything I could, even teaching ballroom to the former Dean.

More explanation:
After I graduated from Bennington College in 1973, I toured with an ensemble of dancers and musicians who all met at Bennington. Some of the dancers I remember were Karen Radler, Paula Sepinuck and Annette LaRoque, and musicians, David Moss, Tommy Guralnick and Brad Hersey. I also connected with my future husband, Richard Sgorbati, and we left in a Volkswagon Minibus for California, and then on to Alaska. On the Alaskan highway that was all dirt in those days and in the middle of building the pipeline, on a very rainy day, when the highway turned to mud, our car slid off the highway on a curve around a mountain, and we rolled down the cliff and landed at the bottom of a valley. I was asleep in the back of the car and all I remember are things swirling around in my sleep, until I woke up standing at the bottom of a ravine on my two feet staring at a car that was a total wreck. It dawned on me that we had been in a terrible accident. I shouted out “Botch, Botch, are you okay?” (That was my husband’s nickname) and I heard a faint reply. I looked at the wreckage and he was curled up in a ball behind the driver’s seat.

He climbed out, and with a bunch of scratches, he was in good shape. We both looked at the car, how far we had fallen, and decided that our guardian angel had lifted me out of the car and placed me on my feet, and had protected him by keeping him in a hole behind the front seat.

Now, we realized it would be a miracle if anyone found us, because this was before cell phones were in the world. After a half hour of standing there, and trying to figure out if we could climb up the cliff wall, another miracle occurred by a tow truck coming up the highway, and the driver looking down over the cliff to see us standing there. He stopped, got out of his truck and shouted to us if we were okay. He threw a rope down to us, and then lowered a long chain that we hooked up to the wreckage which he towed up the mountain. He drove us to the nearest town, which was two hours away to Whitehorse, in the Yukon Territory. He told us about the one person who owned an auto body shop in the town, and we went to see him. The auto mechanic said that it would take two weeks to reassemble the car in a way that we could drive it and that it would cost us 2,000 dollars to fix. We wired our friends to loan us the money, and asked where we could stay in Whitehorse that would not cost us much money. They guided us to the Normic Hotel and to ask for Norm. Norm was a very nice man and said that we could stay there while our car was being fixed for a minimal sum: a small room on the first floor. After a few days, it was quite clear we were staying in a brothel, with business going on all day and all night. We basically kept to our room, played cards, watched old black and white movies on television, and went out to replenish peanut butter crackers. After two weeks, the car was fixed, we went on to camp all over Alaska and it was a beautiful and amazing trip, especially up on Mt. McKinley until the snow came and then we returned to Vermont.

While back in Vermont, I quit my career in dance once again, and spent all of my time, building a house in Sudbury, Vermont, raising all of our own food, growing vegetables, canning and freezing them. At twenty-six years old, I had an ectopic pregnancy, almost died, had a religious vision, read the entire Bible, Old and New Testament, and started to attend Jewish and Christian services of all kinds. I have since read the Koran as well, being tutored by my close friend and Imam, Vahidin Omanovic, realizing that the same God is worshipped by all three of the great religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. I consider myself very religious in a spiritual way, not identifying with any particular denomination. At this time, Joy Dewey contacted me, who was the Chair of the Williams College Dance Program. She was going on sabbatical and needed someone to teach her Modern Dance classes. I was twenty-seven years old. She found me up in Sudbury, and explained to me on the phone that she knew that I had “dropped out” of the dance world, and wanted to bring me back to teach, even though I had no experience. Always having a hard time saying no, I agreed.

I taught at Williams College two days a week and really enjoyed working with the students. During the end of that term, I got a call from the Chair of the Castleton State College Dance Program, (one of the Vermont State Colleges), she had heard about me from Joy Dewey, and asked if I would come teach at Castleton the following semester, while she was on sabbatical. That is how I got to Castleton.

Castleton Ste. College was very different from Bennington College. Most of the students were residents of Vermont, and were on specific career tracks. The Dance program was part of the Theater Arts program, and the Fine Arts and Performing Arts were all in the same building. The dance studio was down in the basement and around the corner from the small sculpture studio. It was counter-intuitive, but I loved those students in Dance at Castleton Ste. College.

They were so committed and passionate about dance even though they all knew they were not pursuing it as a career. A very talented student, Dottie O”Dea, ended up marrying a dairy farmer and having a bunch of kids. Three very gifted dancers were in my classes: Agnes Klauz, Barbara Cunningham and Kathleen Little. The four of us decided to work together and perform. This was the first time since Bennington College that I decided to choreograph again and revisit my improvisation work. The first series of dances were called,

“Site Dances”, (also catalogued in this Archive). Since I had decided not to pursue a professional career in Dance in New York City, I became very interested in dances in particular outdoor environments. Along with the Site Dance series, I collaborated with a very talented visual artist William Ramage, (who’s permanent work is exhibited in Rutland, Vermont). We made two remarkable pieces together, one that had to do with Portraits, and was remade into a film in 2019. (available on the Archive linked to Castleton Ste. College) The other was built inside a set that included Bill and I listening to a song by Johnny Mathis that only we could hear, not the audience. Those years were very productive and brought me back to Dance. I also choreographed pieces for the students at Castleton Ste. College. One of them “Nightwatchers” won a prize and we performed at a New England Dance Festival in Boston, Mass. Another, “Journey of Abraham”, was a liturgical piece performed in several churches. The last piece I made at Castleton Ste. College resulted in a tour of Vermont through a grant from the Vermont Council on the Arts. It was called, “Rites of Passage”. We performed in Montpelier, Bennington, Rutland, Middlebury, Benson and Castleton. The sets were made by my close friend and Bennington College roommate, Grey Gundaker. During this period, I created the Vermont Choreographer’s Workshop with Penny Campbell and Tarin Chaplin, which later became the Vermont Dance Alliance. We collaborated with Tony Micocci, the Director of the new Flynn Theater in Burlington to create the Vermont Dance Festival, to showcase Vermont choreographers. For the Vermont Dance Festival, I made my first piece after dropping out of Dance for a while, called, “Bird Descending”.

Photographs, Newspaper Articles, Program Information
Journey of Abraham
Nightwatchers
Rites of Passage
Bird Descending
Portraits in 1981, Made as a film called, Reunion in 2019