The Way She Wants to Get There: Telling on Myself

The author traces her development as a dancer during of the decade between 1968 and 1979, a pivotal era in Black/white relations, women's rights, and other significant developments in social traditions. The sanctions that thread through the American fabric to limit black lives can be seen in the description of her journey, which looks forward to her eventual success but focuses more often on her difficulties in balancing the aspirational needs of her trickster body with the responsibilities of family life on a small-town campus. Meditative interludes take us back to Easter's upbringing in Richmond, Virginia, in the midst of a highly talented family of musicians and educators, and the recollections of her elder family members take us back to the era of slavery and abduction. Dance enthusiasts and anyone familiar with the highly charged emotional climate of a modern dance troupe will enjoy her descriptions of joining, managing, and creating dances for such a group.