Studio Stories: Reminiscing on Twin Cities Dance with Margie Fargnoli - Season 13, Episode 148

For over forty-five years I was a movement educator, dancer and
choreographer devoted to the exploration of the expression of the
mind through the body. I graduated from the Juilliard School in
1971 and my first professional job was working in dance pioneer
Anna Sokolow’s Players’ Projects. I continued to dance and
perform professionally until 1995. My creative work as a
choreographer and dancer always focused on how movement could
fully express the states and conditions of the mind and heart.
The objectification of movement has never been my interest;
rather my concerns were always about excavating and exposing the
roots of the subjective
experience through my work. As a director of two dance companies
and an independent
choreographer I received numerous grants from private
foundations, the states of Indiana and Minnesota and a National
Endowment for the Arts Choreography Fellowship. I was a dance
teacher throughout my dance career and taught all over the United
States and Canada. I was on the faculty at the University of
Minnesota from 1980 –1988 and then again from 1996 through
2019.

In 1990 I began my transition from dancer, choreographer and
dance teacher to body-worker and movement educator. I graduated
from the School for Body-Mind Centering in 1994 and became a
Certified Practitioner and Registered Somatic Movement Therapist
and Educator. As a bodyworker and movement educator I help
individuals discover and use the body's intelligence as they
journey towards health and balance. My practice served women and
men who wanted to find fuller physical presence, compassion for
themselves and freedom from movement or behavioral patterns that
are recapitulations of past trauma. Although much of my practice
concerned psychotherapeutic application, I also worked with
individuals (lots of dancers)
recovering from physical injury, surgery or living with chronic
pain. A small but important part of my practice included children
who had developmental challenges.

An important dimension of my work in the world was and is my
ongoing practice in Buddhist mindfulness meditation. I integrated
the methodology of mindfulness both in my private practice and in
my coursework at the University. Teaching clients and students
how to clarify the direct experience of mental activity and body
sensations through awareness lead to a much fuller embodied
presence in the here and now, whether that was dancing,
performing or just living your life.

I began teaching Body-Mind Centering at the University of
Minnesota in 1996 first at the introductory level and advanced
levels. These courses included an Introduction to Body-Mind
Centering, graduate level courses covering a five-semester
series, (the graduate level courses in Body-Mind Centering were
discontinued in 2009 due to draconian budget cuts that affected
the entire University) and The Articulate Body, a required course
for Dance Majors enrolled in the BFA program.

In 2018 I retired from private practice and then in 2019 I taught
my last class at the UM, mostly due to hearing loss and a
reluctance to do so much driving. I have lived in the country
north of Elk River for over twenty-five years, am an avid
gardener with a large vegetable patch, perennial gardens and
borders, growing food and flowers. I have three children, nine
grandchildren and much beauty in my life for which I am deeply
grateful.