LISA MCFARLANE WRITES MOVING WORDS

LISA MCFARLANE WRITES MOVING WORDS

Lisa McFarlane has been welcomed to Let The Show Begin with open arms – both by Tucson’s dance community and by us here at the website. Her generous gift of writing about dance and doing it for the love is in the true spirit of Let The Show Begin. Here is more about Lisa.

Growing up in the wide open spaces around Batchelor (population 358) in northern Australia, about a 90-minute drive from Darwin, little Lisa McFarlane was always writing something, usually either poems or stories. And she was outdoors a lot.

“I had a very active childhood,” she says with a twinkly smile.

A quick search on the internet reveals Batchelor to be a mining town in a very green landscape, best known as the gateway to the vast natural wonders of Litchfield National Park. Temperatures during the warm season are in the 90s, while the winter season highs are moderate in the 70s.

At age nine those animated outdoor activities took a terpsichorean turn when Lisa announced she would like to take dance lessons.

“I think I must have seen ‘Flash Dance’ and ‘Dirty Dancing’ by then,” McFarlane imagined. “Those were my two most influential pop culture references.”

True to the Australian can-do spirit, Lisa’s mom would make the 90-minute drive with Lisa to a dance studio in Darwin once a week, wait in the car and drive her ambitious dancing daughter back home.

“I’ve also spent the past 21 years of my life wondering about what drives me to be a dancer,” the 29-year-old adds. “I’d feel so foreign if I couldn’t dance.”

A dance scholarship brought Lisa to Ohio State University, and she never went back home Down Under. She’s also become an American citizen who appreciates the fragility of a dancer’s life.

“Five years ago I was in an auto accident in Virginia. It took 11 months for me to even walk again,” said Lisa. “That experience made me re-think everything.

“I realized my passion for dance won’t give out. But when the body goes, what else is there? Because I so appreciate my passion for dance, I had to shift my perspective.

“Writing about dance would be the culmination of my two passions.”

After her recovery in 2006, Lisa re-located to Yuma where some friends were living. She ran the dance program at Yuma High School for two years.

“That got me back to where I wanted to be as a dancer,” she explained. Then it was time for another move in 2008. Tucson was calling.

Lisa settled into daily life in the Old Pueblo. She performed with Thom Lewis’ dance company last year. She continues dancing as a member of NEWARTiculations Dance Theatre. But the need to write about dance has grown stronger.

Earlier this year Lisa contacted Margaret Regan, the Tucson Weekly’s veteran dance writer, to ask about the possibility of applying for a writing internship in dance. There is no such program at the Weekly, actually, but Reagan suggested Lisa contact Let The Show Begin.

Our meeting was like that old TV commercial where chocolate runs into peanut butter. Her talents and our needs are a perfect match. Last week we published Lisa’s feature on Brazilian dancer Aurora Gonçalves-Shaner newly appointed as director of the dance program at Pima Community College.

Plan on seeing plenty more from Lisa McFarlane.