Hello, this is Ayn Cates Sullivan, one of the SuperPower Up hosts. And you’re listening to Wisdom of the Ages. Are you ready to put on your wings of wisdom and dance with the higher source? If so, if you’re ready to move today, you’re going to love this show. Because we’re going to be exploring movement and dance.
Last night I went to sleep and I was thinking about this very profound quote by Linda Foster, who’s our guest today. It goes like this, “You must learn to think with the body. To listen to it, and to live with it in harmony.” It’s so profound. It’s a profound thought. When I woke up, I realized … or maybe I remembered, that in each moment we can choose to live in alignment with our body and our mind and our spirit. Or not, which do we choose? What are we choosing right now?
Healing With Movement
I would like to introduce one of my favorite people on the planet. Linda Foster is a former dancer, a dance educator, and choreographer. Is known by some as Italy’s high priestess of fitness. With a deep love of classical Pilates and mind body integration. She is hailed by some as the premier body stylist. Highly creative. She has also choreographed live dance events such as, Water, Fire, Roma. Which we’re going to hear about.
I’m very excited to discuss the wisdom behind healing with movement and dance. I hope by the end of the show we’ll all be up and dancing. So, Linda, welcome.
Thank you, Ayn. It’s wonderful to be here and hello everyone out there.
I’m excited about this today. I have a lot to learn about body, mind, spirit integration. I feel like our culture somehow has over the years divided us. I think there is this revolution taking place. That somehow the mind spirit’s been really important. The body, the earth, the feminine got left behind. So, I’m really excited about what we’re going to discuss today about the alignment of body, mind, maybe heart and spirit.
Yes. Mind, body, spirit, and the heart. Yes. In fact, it’s so, so important. Growing up in the country, I always needed to move and I love to run and dance. It was just in my blood. I say, think many dance feel that way, that you just have to dance. I’ve seen that in everyone, in the people that I teach and people I work with. Some of the people who are the most reticent and afraid of moving or don’t feel like they have a relationship with their body. Gradually, step-by-step, if they can learn to feel comfortable in their body and they can learn to move.
There are many ways to dance. It doesn’t have to be classical, it doesn’t have to be perfect. But you have to feel in harmony in this rhythm and it’s your rhythm. That’s the point. Healing With Movement
What inspired you to become a dancer?
Well, as I said, it was sort of in my blood. But when I was very small, I went to visit my cousin, Lorena in South Carolina. She was studying dance. She showed me, she was dressed for her rehearsal in a pink tutu. I thought it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen in my life. I wanted to be a ballerina. I remember in about the second grade, our teacher … which I felt this was a great exercise for children. She says, “Draw two of your dreams. Your dream of what you want in your life or who you want to be.” I drew a black horse rearing on his hind legs and a woman in a tutu on her toes, dancing, a ballerina. I’ve had both of those in my life. So, I guess that guided me.
I would dance and dance. I remember, I would dance on the front porch with my best friend and doing the … I think it was called the mashed potato, I don’t know. But even before that, I talked my mother into taking me to tap and ballet classes in my hometown. There was a teacher there from the university, the local university. I went to take tap and ballet. I was thrilled. Between the ballet class and the barre and the tap dancing, which I can still remember the little steps, tap, tap, pa, pa, pa. That there was a free dance period. That’s when I felt really, really alive.
Then I can convince my mother the second year, to buy me a pair of toe shoes. Now I was only about four years old. We go to the next year of dance class opening, and I go in with my little chest. I still have it, a little round thing with all my tights and my leotard and my new pink toe shoes. The dance teacher says, “Well Linda, what are these toe shoes for?” I said, “Well, I want to dance on my toes.” She goes, “But you’re four. You have to wait until you’re eight.”
Oh, my goodness. I still have the … no, I don’t have those toe shoes. But it did me right. I didn’t get to dance on point. It was part of my dream. Then one thing led to another.
I hear the shoes are a little better now. It’s probably better you didn’t dance on point.
Oh, my goodness.
How did you get from dance to Pilates to mind body integration, mind body stretch. Tell us about this process.
I was only able to dance in my little tap and belly classes for a few years before the teacher graduated and went away. There was a period when I danced for myself. I made up dances. Until I went away.
Always wanted to major in psychology. At the same time I was taking dance classes there. I was a member of the dance company there that’s called Orchesis and still is. I danced and loved it. I had wonderful teachers. We did some technique and Cunningham everything. There was also a choreographic part where we could create dances.
I created my first choreography my last year at William and Mary. By chance … but maybe not by chance, I chose a very abstract piece of music by an Italian composer. That was my first choreography. Which I still think was valid, and it was called, They Here, They See, but They Don’t Feel. It had to do with just what you mentioned, about being cut off from the body. People reaching out, but not quite making it. Not quite breaking through the physical barriers between one and another. Which is a psychological barrier.
I had to choose at the end of my college career, what I wanted to do. If I wanted to go with a more advanced degree in psychology. But I knew that if I wanted to dance, I had to do it while I was young.
So, then I moved to Boston where I had the wonderful opportunity of working at a place called Sunlight House. Which was a residence for blind and I put in parentheses retarded adults. But many of them were perfectly functioning adults. Because they were blind, they had enough money to be able to stay in this wonderful place, which was in Scituate, Massachusetts. Which was run by the Massachusetts Institute for the blind. I was a resident there, I lived with them. Learned so much from them. Healing With Movement
While I was working there, I was dancing in Boston. I had the opportunity … two incredible opportunities. One working with these wonderful people at Sunlight House. Then I auditioned for California Institute of the Arts.
Oh, my goodness-
My great surprise they took me. I was launched at that point, on my dream. Psychology was put aside. I said, “When I’m older, I’ll get an advanced degree in psychology.” But later in our conversation, I’ll explain to you why I never felt I needed to go to get that advanced degree in psychology. I mean, it would have been great. But I also knew that I was working to help people to integrate their mind and their body and to be sound. Or in their mind and their body, through movement. In many different types of movements.
I mean, it does sound like, … well, we’re going to find out how you were and are, actually, behind this fitness revolution. That we’re all a part of, I suppose. Where can people find out more about you and your courses, your personal retreats, your dances? Is there a website people can go?
Yes, there’s a website. I’m building the website now. It’s lindafostermoves.com. They’re many different things. You can find out what’s going on, you can find about the teacher training courses that I teach. Because as you know, from dance I also work in fitness. When I came to Italy, I sort of followed the course or the path towards fitness for a while. Which has been and still is wonderful.
Okay.
But it’s all parallel with-
Let’s return back to that in a minute. I’m sorry, we’ve got to take a break.
Okay.
Then we’ll come right back and we’ll continue on with this fabulous fitness revolution.
Wonderful.
So we’ll take a break.
To listen to the entire show click on the player above or go to the SuperPower Up! podcast on iTunes.
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