Rome 15th March 2014 at Casa delle Culture Roma
Photos by ©Elio Castoria

Having been raised in USA, English is my first language.  I was only 3 years old when my mother used to bring me with her to concerts, theatre and movies.  We lived in Detroit Michigan.  My mother would have rather become an artist than a lonely mother at the young age of 18, so she always encouraged me to dance. That very soon became  my only obsession. For me, to dance all the time, I mean literally all the time, was the only way to feel close with some mysterious quest which I knew since childhood to be the reason why I was on this earth. I just had no idea at the time what that quest was about; and the world, from the perspective of TV and grown-up people, seemed to me some rare place to live in.

Dance made me feel I could understand the message of this mystery within me.

We came to France; and quickly at the age 13,  I became a professional dancer in the Ballet Russe Irina Grjebina. But the professional life of most artists is not that romantic:  and I felt very soon that my inner voice was not reciprocated by living this kind of life.

I left home and school and dance for a lover.  I lived on the streets for 3 years. That was not the path either, but it gave me a perspective of “nowness”.

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