Dancing Spiders

     My husband and I went to the Hopkins Center at Dartmouth College to see the Mark Morris Dance Group, one of my favorites. I have loved modern dance since I was about twelve years old. My husband finally heard my laments that I've been too far too many Red Sox games without him ever reciprocating and buying tickets to something I'd like to see. So he bought tickets to see Morris. I had to teach an online class from 6-7 p.m. and the performance began at 7 p.m., so I brought my laptop and taught it from the Dartmouth concert. Would it be a stretch to say "I've taught at Dartmouth"? Yes, I thought so ...
     I was recently asked to write a piece about what it's like to teach online for the Concord Monitor. Here it is:
     http://www.concordmonitor.com/home/8261769-95/whats-it-like-to-actually-teach-online
     We ran into Louise Bourgeois' famous spider sculpture at Dartmouth, which gives me mixed feelings. Bourgeois once said, "... spiders are helpful and protective, just like my mother." There have been many spiders in my life lately. Those in Chartlotte's Web and Martha White's recent talk, those climbing through the dock at the lake, and those making webs in my windows at home and catching the last few mosquitoes of the year.
     The dances were not very spidery (for that you'd want the late Merce Cunningham, perhaps) but captured the synchronicity and tugs-of-war in relationships, the bonding of individuals through culture and movement, and what many critics call Morris' "musicality," all with a lot of humor.