THE MAKING OF "EM"

A website, a blog are not things I ever thought about till nine weeks ago.

Today Fran and Sue got the first "stats." Fran the designer was proud, Sue, who's handling the PR, was proud. "Em" was back in Edinburgh, in the great grand theater where my dressing room was where the greatest Shakespearean actors of Great Britain once upon a time powdered, prepared.

Huge old theater, at least three balconies. No heat. Winter. A morning performance. The members of my dance company were peeved, cold, sleepy, outraged that we were on stage, warming up on ancient floor boards, with vapor from our breathing visible as we said "Good morning."

Grim performance. There were only 30 people in the audience. But I was in Edinburgh, and in my mind, it was a precious memory, cold as I was, an achievement to be there.

There were four people in the audience when I performed in Sidney Australia.. The program was me alone, dancing Opus 10, all of Vivaldi's "Four Seasons." I wanted to pay them for their tickets, pay them extra if only they'd be willing to leave.

Once, just one time, I danced for 10,000 in an outdoor stadium.

Most of the time, practically all of the time on my 1000 one-night-stands which became more than a 1000 before I finally decided I CANNOT DO THIS ANYMORE, the audiences were small...90, 50, 125, maybe 250. A modern dancer and her troupe on a college campus concert series is not a big draw.

In New York, on Broadway, when John Cullum and Emily Frankel did "Kings" at the Alvin Theatre on four Saturday nights, the house had to be papered. ("Paper" means tickets were given away.) When I did "Zinnia" at the Colonnades for 55 performances, it was the most performances I'd ever done in one theater, whereas, when John unpacks his makeup kit in a Broadway house, the kit stays there -- the same dressing room has often been his for a year or longer.

No, I don't think about this very often. When I was little and dreamed of being a dancer "till death do me part," I would have been thrilled to know that I would do in Dance what I've done. But today, when Fran and Sue showed me the stats, how many hits on our Website, how many files, pages, chapters downloaded, how many visitors ...... My eyes fill with tears. A website barely one week old, and more eyes have been on "Em" then ever before.