EP 167: Making Friends with Yourself through Aging with Barbara Dilley

Sex Birth Trauma with Kimberly Ann Johnson

In this episode, Kimberly and Barbara discuss Barbara’s iconic career as a dancer and performer in the 1960s, her work as a founder and President of Naropa University, and her pedagogy which combined dance and performance with mindboby practices and various spiritual traditions. She also discussed the early days of Naropa University which symbolized the creative and expansive, alternative movements that were happening culturally at the time. Barbara then shares her reflections on aging, sickness, and internalized ageism as well as creative ways for aging people to live and embrace the end of life.

Bio

Barbara Dilley (Lloyd) (born 1938) is an American dancer, performance artist, improvisor, choreographer and educator, best known for her work as a prominent member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company and The Grand Union, from 1969 to 1976. She has taught movement and dance at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, since 1974, developing a pedagogy that emphasizes what she calls “embodied awareness,” an approach that combines dance and movement studies with meditation, “mind training” and improvisational composition. She served as the president of Naropa University from 1985 to 1993.

What She Shares:

—Early career as a dancer

—Performing as a young mother

—First President of Naropa University

—Origins of Mind-Body practices in 60s and 70s

—Ageism in spiritual and New Age communities

—Kindness through sickness, aging, and death

What You’ll Hear:

—Being the “first” in various fields

—First President of Naropa University

—Transition from ballet into modern dance

—Pregnancy and mothering while performing

—Shadow-side of touring the world as a young mother

—Modern dancing in India in the 1960s

—Strain on family life while touring

—Leaving marriage and family during 60s

—Personal drive to pursue performing career

—Cultural environment of new thoughts, opportunities, creativity, avant-garde world

—Origins of Movement Studies work

—Improvisation performance technique styles emerging

—Began teaching at Naropa in 1974

—Created dance program at Naropa and leaving NYC

—Teaching alongside Ram Dass and Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche

—Contemplative Education from East and West at Naropa

—Incorporating Mind-Body practices into Dance courses

—Spiritual appointment of serving as President at Naropa

—Transitioning to retirement from writing and teaching

—Feeling emotionally and physically drained leading to health issues

—Learning through aging and cultural ageism

—Working through cultural imprints around aging

—Feeling in competition with younger self

—Ageism in spiritual and New Age communities

—Kindness through aging which is inevitable

—Accepting inevitability of aging and death instead of turning away

—”Spiritual materialism”

—Becoming invisible as an aging woman

—No cultural appreciation for elders

—Holistic understanding of human journey including aging and death

—Multicultural and multigenerational living instead of nuclear families

—Finding small community to discuss sickness, old age, and death

—Stormy waves of birth, old age, sickness, and death