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GETTING 2008 DANCE TEACHER AWARD FOR HIGHER EDUCATION:

(From Dance Teacher Magazine) It's really nice to be recognized for your work. Dance is not a well-known field. It's not a widely accepted form of evening entertainment, especially in this area. You often feel like you're struggling to get some kind of notoriety. So, to have national recognition is wonderful.

I think in the South ballet has always had a strong presence, and music certainly has a strong presence in Greensboro. But there has been no tradition of modern dance, and when I got here 20 years ago, I thought, "There is so much work to do," ... to feel like people are actually interested. We're still struggling with that. I do the (N.C. Dance) festival partly for that reason, to bring attention to all of the artists that work in this state. A lot of them are excellent.

THE BIRTH OF THE N.C. DANCE FESTIVAL:

We have a wonderful theater that's perfect. The audience seats about 165, which is small, but considering the limitations of our field, it's good because we often sell out, and we feel great about that (laughs). John Gamble was head of the department then, and we wanted to share this and use it to the advantage of our students by bringing in artists from across the state - if you stay in North Carolina, these are people you could work with. ... After about five or six years of producing here, we had the idea, "Let's travel this across the state." This year, we're going to five different cities.

BUILDING A CAREER IN GREENSBORO:

I have felt really satisfied with being in a small community of dancers and being able to see the results of your work, see the impact of your effort, see the growth that you were able to make happen. Whereas if you're in New York, you could do your work and people will come to see it and appreciate it, but then it's over and there's no lasting impact there. So, the main good thing is that you can be your own person and build something.

HOW SHE STARTED:

I was one of these little girls that I was just always going to be a dancer. It seemed like the best possible thing you could do with your life. And my mother agreed to take me to dance classes when I was a little girl. We were living in Germany at the time - this was right after WWII - and my lucky break was that Germany was one of the only other countries, other than the U.S., that has modern dance. So, I started out in modern dance.

AREA OF DANCE SHE NEVER QUITE MASTERED:

Tap. And the first job I had out of college was doing summer stock. We did seven Broadway shows in six weeks. So, we had to learn them very quickly. One of the shows called for a tap dance, and I had to do it. I had heels and mesh tights, and I was out there having to tap dance, and it was really embarrassing because I couldn't learn to tap dance in one week. I had to fake it.

WHY SHE DANCES:

I think I would answer that question differently a number of times in my life. There have been times when I thought of quitting, but ... it's something I know a lot about and I feel like I can be helpful and make a contribution to this area. I love to dance, my body loves to dance, so it's always been a real pleasure. I think I like passing that on.

A TIME SHE WANTED TO QUIT:

I think making the transition from college into the work force is very difficult in this field because there are no jobs. You have to sort of make your own jobs and go to audition after audition. It's very difficult to see how you're going to fit in. So, my first year out of college, I went to New York, and at that point I studied dance, and I was going to some auditions, but I decided life would be easier if I became something else. And then one day, I got this summer stock job, and that made up my mind for me to stay in. I realized that my roommates were also auditioning, and they were not getting jobs, and I had gotten a job, so maybe that was telling me something.

IF SHE HADN'T BEEN A DANCER:

If I hadn't been a dancer, what I should have been is something like an animal anthropologist or something with animals to try to understand them because I love animals and I live with a lot of animals. I have two dogs and two cats. And then we've been fostering kittens from the animal shelter. I have to really fight myself to take them back at the end. The first time was the hardest. I cried. But I feel like I'm really helping them, and they'll be nicer cats in the long run because they had a pleasant place to grow up.

- Carla Kucinski Seward, carla@gotriad.com