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A Leap to the West: Barbara Mettler and the Making of the Tucson Creative Dance Center

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A Leap to the West: Barbara Mettler and the Making of the Tucson Creative Dance Center A Leap to the West: Barbara Mettler and the Making of the Tucson Creative Dance Center The Tucson Creative Dance Center shortly after its completion in 1963. By the time Barbara Mettler decided to leave Boston and venture west in the early 1960s, she had already led an impressive life. Her extraordinary self- discipline and unique vision had resulted in several successive incarnations of her school, a well-received national tour with her company, the publication of her books and films about her radical approach to dance, and a devoted student following. She could have stopped there and felt a justified sense of estimable accomplishment, especially considering what she had endured to achieve that much. The Boston sojourn, however, had never been more than a stopover for her, a time to consolidate her efforts and publish her ideas. When the way finally became clear for her to take her work west, Mettler was ready to leap and explore once again. All of her accomplishments and travails were soon to feed into the glorious second half of her remarkable life. As she contemplated leaving the East behind, future decades of even broader success and fulfillment lay ahead, but how could any artist have possibly known such a thing and counted on it? In her mid-fifties by then, Barbara Mettler, had no doubt felt the new chill that seeps into one’s bones at that age, the realization that, no matter how open-ended and promising everything might have seemed throughout earlier decades of her life, the years remaining were not Dobson /A Leap to the West 2 numberless. For any ambitious artist with big dreams still waiting to be brought to life, there is never time to waste. Once again Barbara Mettler had to muster every bit of her considerable courage, stubbornness, and conviction to head west, just as some of her maternal ancestors had done when they sought the pioneering life in Illinois. She often proudly acknowledged that pioneer heritage. It is actually a wonder Barbara Mettler lasted in the East as long as she did. Few Midwesterners ever feel totally at home in the East, no matter what the attraction or how long the stay. Although Barbara Mettler always thrived on a diet of high-minded culture, for which Boston is known perhaps more than any other city in America, even in the world of fine art she played the role of rebel and had necessarily butted heads repeatedly with eastern cautiousness and traditionalism. Her very nature went against the grain in Boston. Midwesterners are born with a smile on their faces and a right hand extended in a ready handshake. Straightforward openness comes standard. Cool Yankees have difficulty relating to it. The bluebloods and bluestockings would never have admitted Mettler as a full member, nor would she ever have wanted such membership. She knew all along that she would always be happier on a frontier, both literally and figuratively. Actually, no big city ever would have suited her for the long haul. It was not just Boston, but urban life itself that Barbara Mettler chafed at as a true child of nature. Now, just as she had left New York City for rural New Hampshire, she left downtown Boston for the Arizona desert, thereby embodying her own theory about the rhythmic pulse inherent in all life. After years in the city, it was time once again for direct contact with the natural world. How did Mettler survive the narrow brownstones of the Back Bay for as many years as she did? No doubt her feelings on leaving Boston were quite mixed, but oh, the relief to leave it all behind! To run and skip and fly and soar toward the unknown expanse of the West! If nothing else, room to move! She had no idea what glories the Sonoran Desert held in store for her. Many an artist and spiritual seeker before and after her has felt the mysterious pull of the West. In fact, Barbara Mettler preceded a vast influx of them by just a few years. Throughout the 1970s Tucson, Arizona, in particular would draw huge numbers of young people seeking a more expanded life, something new, a fresh start, a warmer and friendlier universe. Mettler would zero in on Tucson for similar reasons, build herself the studio of her dreams, and Dobson /A Leap to the West 3 set herself on a course that would soon cross the paths of many of these young seekers. But, just as in an improvised dance, she knew she had to begin, had to trust, had to feel that the adventure would bear fruit. Barbara Mettler believed in herself, that much is for sure. At this point in her life, she was still quite strong, fairly healthy, and determined as ever. It took courage to leave everything behind and start over completely. It proved to be the right choice. In the dance of her life, it was definitely the next right move, the perfect organic development. Now the intrepid pioneer sets forth in her 1953 Ford sedan, her own Conestoga, for the West! Who among her students does not relish the mental image of Barbara Mettler tootling along cross-country in that car, sitting up perfectly straight with up-thrust chin and peering down her nose toward the new horizon? Mettler’s first Arizona teaching seems to have been workshops in December 1960 in Phoenix and Tempe. Then, preceded by her usual supremely professional publicity in the form of a brochure touting her accomplishments and reputation, she taught an intensive workshop at Arizona State College in Flagstaff in February 1961 for a group of fifty college students, about half of them men. Mettler settled in at the Cedar Post Motel while she explored her new environment. 1 She taught again at Arizona State College for two weeks in July specifically for students interested in learning more about teaching her approach. She also taught a more mixed group of art students, dance teachers, and Sedona residents at a five-week summer course immediately afterwards at the Art Center of Arizona State University in Sedona. The school made graduate credit available for both courses. Before this trip Mettler had probably never visited the property she had purchased sight unseen in Sedona during the 1953-54 tour in hopes of settling there immediately after the tour. When she finally got to see it eight years later, she no doubt found the environment enchanting. Sedona boasts one of the most beautiful settings in America, at the mouth of Oak Creek Canyon with its famous dramatic red rock formations. The town was vigorously promoting itself as an arts center, but Mettler ultimately decided that it was still just too remote to be practical for a studio she expected would have numerous students coming and going constantly and needing transportation, housing, and various accessible facilities. She visited Albuquerque, New Mexico, briefly but dismissed it as “too windy,” according to Will Carbo. 2 It was time to head for Tucson, about a four- hour drive to the south. She had taught a brief workshop one evening at the Dobson /A Leap to the West 4 Tucson Art Center in February 1961. By the fall of that year she had moved her entire operation to Tucson. Although Mettler later stated that she could have settled almost anywhere, because the dance challenges at that time were the same everywhere in America, there now seems, in hindsight, a kind of perfect destiny about her choice of Tucson as her next home. With a population of about 200,000, Tucson in 1961 was just beginning to emerge from its sleepy past as a former frontier town and enter into the transformation that took it to major city status over the next few decades. Despite a limited economic base consisting primarily of the University of Arizona and Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Tucson exuded a certain flair and mystique as a sort of mythological western town turned winter resort haven. Barbara Mettler participated in the beginning of its boom. Tucson, nonetheless, for all its urban development, still vibrates with a kind of subtle ancient magic available to one who notices. There is an unmistakable spiritual quality to deserts, and many of the world’s great religions have arisen from them. Tucson, at the northern edge of the Sonoran Desert, is indeed a powerful place, inhabited by Native Americans for eons and still today home to the O’odham (formerly Papago) and more recently the Yaqui from Mexico, with other Native peoples surrounding it in all directions. Visible about fifty miles to the southwest is a sharp peak called Baboquivari, or Waw Kiwulik in the language of the O’odham, who consider this sacred mountain the center of the universe. 3 Native peoples have been living—and dancing—in the Tucson area for a very long time. Mettler acknowledged these venerable cultures early on, 4 and she eventually taught workshops and presented her performing groups at many of the Indian reservations. These Native people would prove to be some of her most sensitive and appreciative audiences. To a new arrival Tucson can be utterly enchanting. In spring the orange trees’ intoxicating perfume wafts through the entire town. The sky is huge and accommodating, the prickly vegetation otherworldly, the atmosphere generally soft and mild. The cooing of Inca and white-winged doves and the small squawks of Gambrel’s quail form a soothing soundtrack always playing in the background. The place has a social atmosphere to match: laidback, easygoing, live-and-let-live.
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