Dance Is the Answer

By Genevieve Scandone

I started taking modern dance and ballet classes 40 years ago, when I was 22. For most of those years, I had a great time, doing something I had only dreamed of as a kid.

The exception to this idyllic picture is that from 1991 to 1999, I pretty much couldn’t walk. For no apparent reason, my knees stopped bending and straightening. They had a range of motion of only a few degrees, which made walking and just about everything else difficult. I also was in quite a lot of pain. As an added wrinkle, I couldn’t lift my right arm above shoulder height. For two years I went from one chiropractor to another, one masseuse to another, in addition to MDs and an osteopath, and I tried a dozen prescriptions. Nothing helped much, or for long. Finally, in 1993, I had arthroscopic surgery in both knees. I had expected to be able to run, play tennis, certainly walk! But that was not the case. I still had a long road ahead.

I know this sounds impossible, but during the year before my surgery I was dancing at Astoria Dance Centre in Queens, New York. The school’s owner, Maureen Gelchion, had started an adult tap class with Rhonda Price—a “hoofing” class, so I didn’t have to move around too much. I performed in the first recital of my life in June 1993.

Over the next two years, my mobility got worse. My motto was “I can’t walk, but I can dance!” The doctors thought I had rheumatoid arthritis. I was terrified that I would be using a wheelchair by the time my 10-year-old daughter entered high school. I’ve always been good in an emergency; I just never imagined that an emergency could last for years.

What gave me hope was that although I was barely able to shuffle to class, after dancing for an hour I would bounce down the stairs and sashay home as if there were nothing wrong with my knees!

I refused to stop dancing. I would creep the five blocks to the studio, pull myself up the stairs by the banister, and take tap class with Debbie Frye. What gave me hope was that although I was barely able to shuffle to class, after dancing for an hour I would bounce down the stairs and sashay home as if there were nothing wrong with my knees!

This unbelievable but undeniable fact convinced me that I could and would get better. For the 1995–1996 season, Maureen hired Paula Bentivenga to teach tap and modern. Of course, crazy person that I am, I signed up for both, even though, among other things, I still could not lift my right arm. Paula’s release technique involved a lot of arm swinging. My shoulder started to loosen up, and my whole body started to get stronger. And when the tap number in that year’s recital called for us to raise our arms overhead, I could do it! I was happier than I’d been in a very long time. My husband and my masseuse were cheering from their sixth-row seats.

After that I kept taking class—mostly tap, some ballet—but I did not have the opportunity to perform again until 2004. And then last year, at the age of 61, I fulfilled a childhood dream—I performed in my first ballet recital.

Was it the loose-limbed movement of tap and modern? The “be here now” of dance class? The fun? My refusal to be sick? Endorphins? Some indefinable combination? Whatever it was, I don’t think I could have recovered my mobility without dancing. At Astoria Dance Center I never heard a word of criticism or complaint, was never made to feel that I was a burden or too out of commission to participate.

I still can’t do a grand plié in first, and I doubt that I’ll ever again do a grand jeté en tournant, but I can do a passé (even a pirouette!), several kinds of time steps, and Graham spirals and sparkles.

These days, I have a new motto: “Dance is the answer!”