Skin of Glass

Dunya's intense passion for dance took her from a small seaside New England town in 1972 to the Juilliard School in the heart of NYC s vibrant, edgy art scene. A decade later, healing from a serious injury, she turned away from a successful performing career and retreated to a monastic mountaintop community directed by a charismatic Iraqi Sufi Master a sojourn that opened a mysterious, beautiful inner world, and an understanding of dance as moving prayer. Her path became...
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Dunya's intense passion for dance took her from a small seaside New England town in 1972 to the Juilliard School in the heart of NYC s vibrant, edgy art scene. A decade later, healing from a serious injury, she turned away from a successful performing career and retreated to a monastic mountaintop community directed by a charismatic Iraqi Sufi Master a sojourn that opened a mysterious, beautiful inner world, and an understanding of dance as moving prayer. Her path became Dancemeditation. Part dance memoir, part erotic memoir, and part guidebook, this rich account of life in the body takes dance beyond performance into a transformative realm where the physical, emotional and spiritual powerfully entwine.Praise for Skin of Glass"Memoir, prose poem, erotic journey, mystical discourse and cultural commentary Dunya's brave book also launches a new genre of writing from the body. It is a book sorely needed by a disembodied culture?"- Mary Bond, MA, author of New Rules of Posture and Your Body Mandala"McPherson succeeds admirably in the almost impossible task she sets for herself: putting into words what is wholly nonverbal dance, and describing what is utterly indescribable mystical experience. Boldly experimenting with writing style and form, taking risks most writers wouldn't dare, she writes her memoir from the body, not just about it."- Ruth Vincent, Chelsea Now, NYC"Dreamy, deeply searching, and so smart kinesthetically, this book beautifully punctuates poetic narrative with startling reality checks?She journeys through organs, bones, muscles, delving into an other realm of thinking. A wondrous and thought-provoking excursion."- Janet Soares, Professor of Dance Emerita, Barnard College, Columbia University