La Meri’s Writings

There is much evidence of La Meri’s lifelong commitment to writing, which seems to have been as central to her life as dance. Fortunately, her thoughts, feelings, and insights survive not only in her published poetry, articles, and books but also in the hundreds of notes and notebooks, dance descriptions, letters, and other materials in her archives. At an early age, La Meri began publishing her poetry, and, later, works about her own life experiences and about dance and its many manifestations. After some discussion of La Meri’s poetry and the books of poems that she published, this chapter focuses mostly on the six books that deal with dance. These books include her autobiography (a memoir of her professional life) and five works that provide information and discussion about dance as an art form: including Spanish dance, Indian dance, choreography, and “ethnic dance,” a term she claimed to have coined. In her dance writings she also sets forth her theoretical, aesthetic and pedagogical conceptions and ideas.