Testimonials
Love Letters for Kathleen
Before Kathleen’s passing, a YouTube channel was created in dedication to “the super powerful punk rock magic that is KATHLEEN HERMESDORF from all of her love army.”
There has also been an outpouring of love shared on Kathleen’s facebook page.
After Kathleen’s passing, a call went out for folks to share memories and artifacts of love, in time for her birthday on January 31, 2021. Friends, students, collaborators, and colleagues form 1990-2020 answered the invitation, and below are their offerings (in alphabetical order, by last name).
Esther Baker-Tarpaga (student, colleague)
Best Knew Kathleen between 1990-2009
I lived in San Francisco in 1999-2000. It was then that I met Kathleen, during her Monday/Wednesday/Friday ODC morning classes. She took me into the journey of contemporary dance and improvisation. My favorite part of the class was the improvisation. I will always remember the ocean improvisation where we started low and slow on the ocean floor, and then moved to the mid level range with swimming through water, and then finally we were iceskating on top of the water—turning better and more than I ever did. Taking risks. I also appreciated the circling up with Qigong, as a way of arriving and seeing each other. Lubricating the joints and connecting with my breath. Kathleen always welcomed me. She made folks feel welcome. And of course with Albert's amazing music scores, it took us to another level. Punk rhythms and jazz hands. Electronic innovations that supported and lifted us up, as we flew with Kathleen's combinations. I remember her talking about her Chicago roots and being a jazz kid. Kathleen was so generous. She did acupressure on me one time, when I was injured. She was a wealth of body knowledge. And she was so cool—she came up with so many dance combinations over the years, and pushed folks to fly at all levels. We loved showing up to her class, after the night before we were up late doing contact improvisation at the weekly jam at 858 Divisadero. Kathleen deeply impacted me as a dancer, and the way she structured her classes also influenced me as an educator. Love you Kathleen. Rest in powerful peace friend.
Shura Baryshnikov (colleague)
Best Knew Kathleen between 2010-2020
Dance on, Queen. I’ll echo those words. They filled the pages of social media the days and weeks after she passed. I brought Kathleen to guest teach twice at Brown University, my home institution. The last time was only October 2019—barely over a year ago. She taught a packed class to the Providence community, bringing everyone in with her infectious attack, love, and celebration. She blasted David Bowie and Missy Elliott and moved dancers through space like weather systems. The pursuit. The joy. She also taught an intimate class to my small contemporary technique class, feeding the group with hands on work, completely tender and present and fearless with these young dancers. I was overfilled to get to share her with them, to watch them watch her, to see them take in the wisdom and abandon and guts she gave away so readily. I don't have a stitch of video or even a photo from those sessions because I danced the whole time. As my friend Gabriel Forestieri said to me when we reflected together on her passing, "She fed and enlarged everyone." She did that for me too, even in the short time we spent together. I went back to the text chain she and I exchanged last year, from the day after she left Rhode Island, and was reminded of her generosity of spirit. She had written: "I also just want to say what a glorious dancer and wonderful teacher you are." She seemed to never miss the opportunity to celebrate someone’s dancing, and we claimed a mutual admiration society. I wish we were still in the race to heal our injuries—Kathleen your hip, and my knee—and get back in the studio together. I send my love to all who loved you. I send my love to Albert and celebrate all who nurtured you along the way. Dance on, Queen.
Jules Beckman (friend, collaborator)
Best Knew Kathleen between 1990-1999
We danced in Contraband, and were in SF dance/performance community together.
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I wrote this to Kathleen days before she died. Steph Maher read it aloud to her.
Dear Kathleen,
You have given so Beautifully, and so Fully of your Dancing Body. You have travelled far and wide to share the Smiling Body. You have Helped the young ones Breathe and be Brave in their Bodies. Your Dance connected Earth to Sky, Foot to Thigh, Crown to Eye, Your sweat glistening and Listening, throwing Light around the room, Your Limbs Spread Wider than the Great Oak. Your Dance said, “Dont be so Alone! Let’s Come Together and Rejoice!” It is no exaggeration to say, Your Dance Classes with Albert Healed Hearts and Saved Lives. You have not squandered the Gift of incarnation, the Gift of the Body. You have Deeply Explored and Widely Shared the Great Instrument of the Body, For the Good of the People. You showed us, step by step, How Courage Works. You have been Ecstatically Embodied. You have Encouraged so many to be Brave. You put your Foot upon the Path for all to see, until your walking became the Dance and the Dance became the Great River, to which we flock to Quench our deepest Thirst, to Play, and Pray, and to Come Clean. You helped the fearful to Dance Bravely. You have Led people out of fear and into Brave Dancing. You have been a Brave Leader. I found an old photo of us dancing together almost 30 years ago. In the photo I am lifting you off the ground. You had just spun your beautiful young body to meet mine and I am holding your Warm Weight in my arms and against my chest. Mother Earth was waiting patiently in her Benevolent Magnetism to receive your Full Weight. And now, gazing upon the photo, I can still feel your warm weight in my arms and against my chest. And still today Mother Earth is waiting patiently in her Benevolent Magnetism to Receive your Full Weight, Into Her own Eternal Body, Into the proverbial Waters of her Living Womb.
Kathleen, your Life has been Ambrosia. Your Life has been nourishment for the Great and Hungry Dance. Your Life has been the Nectar of Love. For you have Always been Love, and you shall Always be Love. For your Passion has changed this World. And you are Beloved.
And now, here you are, Surrounded by the Great Love of your Beautiful Family, And your dear Friends all around this world. And now, here you are, Safe in God’s warm and Loving Hands. And now, you can Surrender your Weight absolutely into His Everlasting Arms. As you graduate from Earth school, and let go of Body and Mind, There remains only Pure Soul, only the Diamond Heart. And now, here you are, the Great Boat is patient upon the shore. It is Solid and Sure. The voyage is perfectly Safe. There is only Grace and Sweet Surrender. I will meet you there, Kathleen, And we will Dance and laugh and Dance and laugh and Dance and laugh forever.
To Kathleen’s Family: I again want to express my gratitude to you, and wished you much love and courage. I mean it with genuine sincerity.
Helena Birecki (student)
Best Knew Kathleen between 2010-2020
Class: Enter to an under-sea rumble, a gathering of energy and the beginning of sweat. Witness, love, ferocity, the fur-energy between bodies whether in contact or through space... Wild discipline. Gathering to heal, then expand.
Kathleen gobbled everyone up to absorb their energy and then spit them out better than they came in.
Albert's musical container made that safe.
Alfonso Cervera (friend, student, colleague)
Best Knew Kathleen between 2010-2020
Find breathe Find kindness Find comfort Find energy Find joy
Unas palabras (words) to the wise and kind hearted community healer Kathleen Hermesdorf.
It goes without saying that you have impacted, nurtured, and blessed the many who have crossed your path.It goes without saying that you have provided so many memories that we’ll carry in our corazones. It goes without saying that as I write these words, tears shed down my face knowing that a mentor, hermana, mama, and ally has left our community. Take these palabras as a tribute to your relentless legacy that will forever live on in my espiritu, mente, y corazon (spirit, mind, and heart).
Rigor, heat, energy,upside downness, and malleability are the ingredients you place for the room to feel satisfaction. Sweeping through, diving in, and discovering new possibilities, are the aspects that provide nourishment for the community. Being able to learn your techniques these past few years is knowledge I will carry throughout my body and mind. When I dance, I will offer you space to dance by my side, when I draw breathe, I will draw breath for us, when I move from the guts,I will relish the power and creativity you have given me to carry through my practice. I will forever carry you as my ancestor … eres parte de mi familia (you are my family).
To hear of your passing was a hit to many hearts Therefore, it’s important to remember you as
A…
Lioness Angel Goddess Healer Methodical unworldly creator Loving human willing to give and provide generosity to all
Te queremos, te extrañamos, estás para siempre en nuestros corazones.
Jess Curtis (friend, collaborator)
Best Knew Kathleen between 1990-2020
What a bright and shining star she was. I remember her and Scott Wells, taking SF by storm. I remember seeing her dance at Laney College with Contraband. It was the first Contraband show after I left the company and so my first time to 'see' Contraband from the house, and I remember Kathleen and Peter Overton/Kadyk dancing a duet that was so riveting and razor sharp that it blew my mind. I remember her commanding the stage at Harvard in Margie's company tour one summer. I remember her floppy release-y dancing with Stephanie Maher, Peter, and me in my show "Sex and Gravity," and feeling so lucky to have such a beautiful performer in my work. I remember her sitting around a fire pit at Ponderosa late on many summer nights talking until dawn sometimes. I remember subbing for her classes at ODC occasionally and just being amazed at what an amazing crew of dancers she attracted. I remember being so happy that she had the vision and the gumption to make the Fresh Festival happen. I will miss you Ms. Hermesdorf...
Heidi Jones Eggert (student, collaborator)
Best Knew Kathleen between 2000-2009
My heart ached when I learned of the loss of this epically-influential-wild-animal-art-inspiring-dance-woman, with a generous soul and instinctually vivid approach to life. At the same time, my heart, mind, and body are still swelling with the visceral memories of dancing with, and in, the community that Kathleen and Albert built everywhere they went. Early 2000s SF dancing WAS this community for me. They shaped me as a dancer, and influenced me as a teacher, to empower through positive energy, an open heart, grit, sweat, risks, love, and laughter.
Sending love.
Shelley Etkin (student, collegue)
Best Knew Kathleen between 2010-2020
When a tree falls and lays its body to rest in the forest, after standing as a lightning rod between heaven and earth, its essence spreads with generosity to nourish all the other life that is part of its world. This is your parting gift to us, a potent cocktail of grief and gratitude. Kathleen Hermesdorf, you have been a firecracker, a stallion, a jaguar, a shooting star, and so much more in this forest of bodies and places that you helped steward, encourage, transform...you cheeky visionary. I'm catching sight of your grin as I see you slinking through the Ponderosa garden, sweeping across the studio, guiding qi on the dock, resting by the lake, dancing your heart out on the kitchen floor, processing in your caravan, shining on stage in bright lights and ranting late at night on the porch. As we walked backwards in your honour, I could sense you in the wind, becoming weather. We move with you, are moved by you eternally. We feel your reach below the forest ground and beyond the skies. Thank you. Love you.
Leah Fournier (student)
Best Knew Kathleen between 2010-2020
I wrote this on November 29, 2020 at 7:45pm Eastern Time.
It was a full moon last night. I think of you like a high wind up in the stratosphere. I think you belong in the sky. I think your soul could not be contained by a planet. But your heart strings extend beyond you, down deep into the roots of the earth, in through the cold crust and down into the soul of the earth where the soft, hot rock pulses and tumbles.
Some of your threads anchor, and the rest of you reaches beyond, beyond, into the black and beyond that too. I think you will be the first to see a new world. You will extend forever, weaving through the universe.
Where would we have been without you?
We needed you and you gave it all.
You made us all better.
I only knew you a little but you live in me so truly. Maybe I only knew my perception of you. I wish there had been more time.
You woke us into activation and wildness. Power, depth, memory, future, hot lava pouring forth into the world.
I hear that you also burrowed. For you to reach so high, you needed the rest.
You knew.
And now your rest is infinite.
You are so loved.
Katharine L. Gibson (student)
Best Knew Kathleen between 1990-2009
I took class from April 1997 - January 2020. A lot the first few years, and then more few and far between, but I always went to "church" when I needed it and could go.
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Kathleen the queen of the warriors Dance warriors standing in circle preparing our bodies and minds to slide , slither and fly we dance we dance we dance you cultivate in us the inner awareness the guiding of touch the link to one another here, we don't stand with our backs to each other only facing ourselves here we face each other we dance together we cultivate an inner and outer awareness a depthening yes, no typo, a depthening a deep discovery of out depth our connection our love our touch the movement the possibility of flight the trust the honoring i shake i twirl i fly upside down i stomp i hurl i find crevices in others that are somehow safe and from that safe place we push away polarity speed length Your mastery of words in exploration of the body are my solace my refuge the loss of the church that is your class is immense for so many so many you have opened given flight to so many you have given a deep internal world to an understanding of ourselves our capacities thank you this gratitude is beyond immense may you find your flight may your internal strength guide you out past these out beyond this physical constraint your spirit body will fly and we here will learn how to navigate it on our own with your spirit to guide us I love you so much the hugs and recognition i get whenever I surprise you by walking into class the comfort /the solace/ the flight may you have all these things all these things that you have given to all of us so much fly flitter swim skate dive delve be you will always be
Douglas Gillespie (friend, student)
Best Knew Kathleen between 2000-2020
My first encounter with Kathleen was at Bates Dance Festival in 2004 (I believe). I was so green to dance still, and was working as an assistant to the festival, where I happened to land myself in her class and no idea what I was in store for. The movement that seethed from her body was both inspiring and intriguing, awkward and elegant, powerful and subtle, all wrapped up in this force of a person. I was hooked—this was everything I wanted dance to be and more. The extraordinary combination of Kathleen and Albert was the visceral sanctuary that I knew my spirit belonged to. Kathleen always made each and every artist in the room feel welcome, validated, and recognized in the space. From the connections through breath during the Qi Gong movements, or a hoot and holler of your name during class, Kathleen SAW every dancer in the space. There was another time at Bates when I had taken her class and I had been dealing with a hamstring strain. Toward the end of class on the final day the strain had acted up and I was forced to sit out at the end because of the pain—I was devastated. Laying close to Albert as he played, feeling the sound wash over me, I began to cry because I was so desperate to be back on the floor. Without saying a word Kathleen came over close to me, put her hand on my head and said "Hey, we had a good run, babe." This of course made me cry more, but also made me recognize and appreciate the fleeting beauty of each moment in the sanctuary she and Albert created, and that I so dearly cherished. I learned so much in her classes, like handstands—I never knew handstands were a part of dance back then! What did fire look like in an improvisation? I found out. Her improvisation prompts elicited such forceful energetics, it was like being taken over by an idea. Each class was the conjuring of dance as an entity, and learning to invoke that spirit and live inside it's fierce and limitless skin. I continued to seek out Kathleen's class when I could, and as I had the opportunity to teach, I knew whose class I wanted to emulate. I knew I wanted to be an open, generous, welcoming, funny, real and inspiring teacher, just as Kathleen always was. I credit her in nearly all of my classes as the inspiration for how I format the class, and to how my dancing was forever changed after experiencing her classes. Kathleen's impact on my life has been nothing short of monumental. I felt she had unlocked who I was as a dancer and a human, and allowed me to let go of who I thought I was supposed to be.
Amelia Koper Heintzelman (student)
Best Knew Kathleen between 2010-2020
January is deep incubation, like clockwork, a ritual re-experiencing of the psychedelic cradle.
CONFIDENCE
I remember her telling us in class that, when she was younger, she was so shy she couldn't speak. And I thought, “That’s me!”. And I loved her, admired her, even more than before, which didn't feel possible. I almost wrote her before she died to say:
“I regret not having all the conversations I was too afraid to start with you. I was so afraid of you because I wanted to be you.”
I never wrote her. I’m sure she knew many people who acted this way around her and, as an ex-shy person, I'm sure she once felt that way too.
My favorite memory of her was making us go across the floor to One Direction doing a pantomime Charleston. We witnessed her imagining, without apologizing, an infinite reshaping of collective architecture—the horizon all supple and sweating. Being honest was the only way to dance in her class fully.
ADVICE
When we performed at her festival, she told us she noticed all the younger choreographers overusing the phrase, “I think.” I stopped mid-sentence during a talkback after using, “I think,” in a moment of well disguised self deprecation. I couldn't see her stage left out of the corner of my eye without obviously turning my head, but I felt her burning.
Leah adopted the term “WWKD”, standing for “What Would Kathleen Do.” She says it to me during brief, but fairly regular moments of doubt, insecurity, or inferiority in my personal and professional life. It works well, because the solution to a conflict is often, simply, clarity.
RAGE
It was obvious she wasn’t up for a contrived, choreographed goodbye, so we just followed her to the car carrying boxes silently in awe of her anger and unapologetic feeling. Kathleen said, "So, am I ever going to see you again?” It was an honest moment, albeit jarring and uncomfortable. This was the last time I saw her, always celestial in her poetic arrangement of language, knowing of everything in this plane and beyond. She was even cooler when she was mad.
ONWARD
The arrangement of kombucha and oranges on my kitchen counter, an unintentional alter to FRESH Festival, and my intensive time with Kathleen. In this moment, I felt my dance elders in my unconscious behavior. I knew they lived on in my body—now I know they also occupy the subliminal.
I still want to be her. When I am asked about future goals and aspirations, my gut says, "To be feared out of deep respect.”
Jesse Hewit (friend, student, collaborator, colleague)
Best Knew Kathleen between 2010-2020
My friend, Kathleen, has died.
Kathleen was my first dance teacher in San Francisco. Like soooo many other young dancers arriving in the bay and asking around about what class to take, I walked into the Fisher Family Studio at ODC on a Wednesday morning at 10am in 2006, and got the literal wind knocked outta me. That day was actually a bit of a blur because I was so self-conscious of my clumsy new-to-KK-movement body, that it was all I could do to keep breathing, not slip too much in my own sweat, and get my ass across the floor with that tribe of disciples that she had gathered. During class, she kept nodding at me, the newbie, giving my little leo-rising ego the fuel it needed to just keep letting go. After class, she found me out in the hallway, having never met me until that day, and she threw her arms out to me, shouting, "There's my boy!!!" The outrageous love of a brilliant aquarian femme is always going to disorient in the best way; it changes the weather and all your expectations of what warmth and YES can look and feel like. Kathleen was and is the epitome of this.
Over the 15 years since, she and I have worked and grown in each other's periphery, but always in close community. When I was in more of a Euro-festival and teaching circuit, seeing and hugging and catching up with Kathleen at Ponderosa or in Berlin or Vienna always allowed my breath to drop down into my real body. She has a way of being home for people. She's a fucking down-home gal. She brings familiarity and scraggly honest real-talk energy when you need it most. I fucking love her for that.
I also got to be there for some of her puzzling over her own career, and got to witness moments of her questioning her contribution—her legacy. I learned about how dance teachers (especially women) weave sustaining magic and change lives, and how many many of these dance teachers don't always understand the efficacy and the hugeness of what they make happen. Witnessing Kathleen's tension between the successes of teaching and the successes of making work brought me into an honest reconciliation around what a good life in the arts can/should look like. It's fucking hard. As humans who are also artists, "identity" can be a thing that we wake up to realize that we didn't quite author ourselves, and I related deeply to—and took to heart—her schisms of understanding herself as an artist and understanding herself as a teacher. To me, however, she is an artist who is much more important than an artist: she is a person who serves the relentless proliferation of physical freedom and of creative impulse, and who authored (and widely spread) critical information about how to live by the bible of the expressive body. Her pedagogy is singular, and the precise way that it changes lives just lingers so much longer than nearly any piece of work I've ever experienced. Teaching, to me, is art and sociology and psychotherapy and anatomy/physiology and activism and church, all rolled into one. And FUCK she was the best at it. Just ask the army of her many thousands of students. Yes, THOUSANDS.
As an aside, Kathleen also gave the best birthday presents and cards! Year after year, in Stolzenhagen (where I turned another year older in the summers for a while there), I would come back to my room or tent to find a little sculpture made out of baggie ties, or a tiny wind up pink robot, or a small piece of completely beautiful visual art that she had made, or a box of weird artsy band-aids (I was the kind of dancer who hadn't really felt the spirit unless I was bleeding after a performance), with a handmade card attached. I honestly don't know how, but...she always took the time to give clear and direct attention to people, and her birthday love specifically floored me. Every time.
I have been very lucky to know Kathleen over time and space. It has allowed me to learn from her triumphs and learn from her struggles, and the lessons I've garnered in each vein are permanent; treasured immeasurably.
Almost two years ago now, she and I performed a duet by Sara (the picture here is from that work) at the 2019 FRESH Festival, one of Kathleen's many inimitable contributions to our ecology. (Yes, Kathleen was a singularly important curator of dance). I had been in many a work by Sara, and duet-ed with many a brilliant artist within those works, but I had never experienced anything like what Kathleen brought to the work. For the festival, she was wearing approximately 13 hats, was profoundly overworked, and was flailing around from role to role. But to her, it was kind of just another day in the office, because to her, she was simply giving what she had to give, and that was the obvious course of action. The way it manifested inside Sara's work with me was that Kathleen was literally dancing and performing in liminal space. The usual wrought determination that I felt from fellow Sara-dancers (and from myself) was gone. The need to get anything "right" was gone, and she was simply offering up her tired body to whatever happened to pass through it at that moment. And it was gorgeous. It was weathered and relatable and perfect. She basically did a lot of possessed long-form laughter and easeful studying of her limbs and random objects in the room during that work. 🙂 It was a different Kathleen than the usual legendary cyclone whirl'n'twirl. She was giving a kind of master class in what spellbinding and loving power there is in showing people all the things that you are made of. I bow to what she is and was made of.
I think that Kathleen's absolutely epic generosity was an invitation to us all. She let us watch her live inside of both her freedom and release, and inside of her frustration and tension. And these ways that Kathleen was in the world muscled and muddled through, side by side, and they told us, and SHOWED us, something very very important:
Get the fuck out of your own way, dear. Give the gifts. Take what is given. Love your own brilliance. ...and trust that these bright-eyed people who have gathered around you ARE your legacy, and that you are forever real, in the most important and enduring ways.
Yes, KK, YES. You are a planet. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Cherie Hill (student)
Best Knew Kathleen between 2010-2020
For Kathleen:
Kathleen Hermesdorf and Albert Mathias were two of my first improvisation teachers. I had taken a couple of workshops from them while a student at UC Berkeley in 2005, and then they were guest artists during my graduate studies at CU Boulder around 2010.
During their residency, I soaked them up like a dry sponge in need of freshwater. I took all the classes, I performed in their piece, I hung out with them around town. I admired Kathleen for her power, edginess, mastering of elements and improvisation, and her phrase work. Albert’s music took me to other places. The unification of music and dance is a special treat, especially within improvisation.
After graduating and returning to the Bay Area, I continued to drop-in to their classes—at Kunstoff, ODC, the Fresh Festival. There was a way that Kathleen took doing whatever you want and pinned it to the fundamentals and meaning of releasing what it is you wanted to do. The across the floor periods after partnering in her classes are some of my most cherished dance moments. Improvising while thinking about function; the cosmos; what you need; self-care. There were always prompts that gave me exactly what I needed within doing what was needed to find interesting and new discoveries about myself and my movement.
Kathleen's classes were a blast of creative energy for my brain, heart, and soul. Sometimes I’d be stuck as a mover and a choreographer. I didn’t feel free or energized. Then I’d dance with Kathleen, and all this stuff started to come. My body couldn’t stop moving—ideas for a phrase or new piece would pour in. It was godly.
After classes, I’d do my life check-ins with each of them, because they are the type of friends that no matter how much time passed, we could start right where we left off. In my last in-person check-in with Kathleen (2020), I was 39 years old getting close to 40, and I said, “You know, I remember in grad school when you came and you said you were in the best shape ever at 40, and I said I wanted to be like you.” She said, “Yes, I was and I still am.” “How do you do it?” I asked. Kathleen then began to dance around and go upside down as she shared some tips including the importance of dancing while teaching so you stay active. We then talked some more about some of my projects and community roles. “We’re doing it,” she said.
Well, I’m happy to share that as I write this I am 40 years and 7 months old, and I am in the best shape I’ve ever been, at least from a holistic perspective (spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and physically), a goal I’ve kept thanks to Kathleen. Thank you star spirit Kathleen. I love you!
Arina Hunter (student)
Best Knew Kathleen between 2010-2020
Kathleen's classes felt like entering another world. A sacred space. A special moment in time and energy. Kathleen held a magical space for creation and exploration. Feeling seen yet safe to let what happened happen, and dance as you were that day. I felt so aware of the magic of my body moving in time and space. So grounded into the community, Albert's music and Kathleen's prompting. So free to just move, dance, create, and respond. Free to release emotions from life and the day. Free to explore and take risks. I remember many moments while improvising across the floor, the group watching her in awe as she demonstrated a prompt, then her commanding bodies into the space to move, not watch. I remember coming into class new and a little timid, and within moments I felt engulfed in the magic of the sacred space she and Albert cultivated. You felt part of this long time community within your first moments. Welcomed, seen, and supported. No matter your mood going in, you always came out of class more alive, awake, enlivened, released, sweat drenched, and heart happy. The class melted to the floor at the end of class with happy, sweaty smiles. Resonating in the magic of moving. I found a heightened sense of awareness of my body in movement in her classes. Going to class felt like going to church, and celebrating movement with the amazing community of movers around you. A heightened awareness of your muscles, bones and joints. Of the way energy transferred through and around you. Of how your body and those around you cultivated time and space. It felt like a dance within yourself, while also aware of the dances happening around you. Fluid. Playful. Aware. Open. Receptive. Explorative, and Free. Her magic, these moments live and resonate within my being, and I feel them each time I move.
Kimya Imani Jackson (student)
Best Knew Kathleen between 2010-2020
What I learned: - Kidneys: Gently pounding kidneys regularly can release in the moment and in life. - Walking backward: Walking backward with your eyes closed in a group with Kathleen at Ponderosa Movement. - Discovery: I learned you can touch the sky—imagination and community support are always at your fingertips.
Thank you, KK!
Monique Jenkinson (friend, student, collaborator, colleague)
Best Knew Kathleen between 2000-2020
The incredible Kathleen Hermesdorf has left this plane. Watching her dance, she made it look like the movement was happening to her, a mysterious outside force acting upon her astounded being. She reminded us that the earth is moving. She was an alchemist of movement, turning her own wonder at gravity and its effects into something wonderous to behold. That was a word she loved: alchemy.
Kathleen was a true teacher, my teacher, and for many years her class was my church. A holy, joyous place. She was a Catholic witch (one of a few I have known). With rigor and kindness, she made you want to dance hard. Kathleen taught me the gleeful joy of falling, but also how to keep the landing nice and soft and easy. In FRESH Festival, she curated in that same spirit, making space for artists to truly experiment, and giving them a place to land. She was always totally supportive of my work, a real sister who took joy in other women’s success. A big sister who always remembered to bring a bag of snacks.
She was a life force and she is with us in the bodies of everyone who had the fortune to dance with her. Words can’t possibly do her justice, so thank you to everyone who has contributed video. Watch it. And read the words of many others writing from their broken hearts about the deep impact of this person, this dancer.
Amy Kingwill (friend, student, collaborator, collegue)
Best Knew Kathleen between 2000-2020
I took a bath in your bathtub before I even met you, Kathleen Hermesdorf. Because you were the kind of human that would hear that someone was without a place to stay, in a state far away, and say hey, I've got a bed she can lie on.
I discovered the wonders of your many and various blue bottles, filled with countless essentials and healing potions. I soaked them in at your insisted request, feeling how deeply you took care of your precious body and taking note I would do well to do the same.
You showed me how to cook chard (hell, what it even was) for the first time as we prepped for your birthday party. I'll never forget your face looking at my juvenile surprise seeing the results. "Welcome to California" you said. And I was. You made it home through welcoming me into yours.
You hired me, barely out of college with so few skills or knowledge but hungry to do good and serve via my little entrepreneurial "business". You trusted me with so much when I knew so little. Just the other day I found some old posters I designed for you. Free the Birds is still one of my favorite shows I was blessed to witness.
I danced countless hours in your classes and at your parties and soaked up the juicy life and world of the great Kathleen and Albert's MOTION LAB like it was the nectar of the gods. Because it was. So raw, so real, so bold and powerful and unique in every way. It was an honor to pay worship to the dance, and to your dazzling genius time and time again.
The years went on. I took great pleasure in occasionally seeing from a distance you continuing on with your life work, just as fierce as ever.
I'll never forget, after years of dancing in a very different community, the day I saw another dancer across the ballroom who was dancing like you. From fifty feet away I could feel your influence in her movements in my bones. I found her, knew you through her, and together we danced joyously, hilariously laughing at the shared knowledge and history we shared.
I'd been in a deep depression and had hidden myself from dance classes for some odd years. But after that I finally, timidly, I returned to your class. I worried I couldn't "keep up with the kids" but almost immediately I found my body still remembered. Still knew the movement - your unique ritualistic sequences. They were, and are so deeply pressed into the makeup of my body. I dropped in and found myself dancing just as I did when I was 22 .
It breaks my heart to think of all the students that will come and go and not get to know your brilliance. To dance wild to the sounds of Albert's music and you cheering us on, in that studio that was a church for so many. And yet I know you have made the impact you were meant to, and it will live on in the countless bodies and bones you've filled with your passion. The coming generations will still benefit from the gift that was you - whether they know it or not.
The other night I dreamt I was helping you pack. You were off on your next adventure. You were yourself, strong and clear eyed and questioning what was to come next for the community. But you didn't seem worried, and you didn't seem tethered to what has passed. I awoke sad, but glad to have been able to talk with you one last time. To help you pack your animal print pants for the trip.
I wish all the little blue bottles could have healed you, kept you here with us forever. I know you must have tried so hard to stay. I'd looked forward to seeing you as a wise, old woman, still able to give us a show with your high kicks. My god those hamstrings! What a gift to see them put to such good use.
Kathleen, you have always been a wild, free and ethereal bird, and no one, nothing will ever cage you. You are off on your next adventure. Fly my dear teacher. Go with the love of all of us. Free the Bird indeed.
Jo Kreiter (friend, collaborator, colleague)
Best Knew Kathleen between 1990-2020
She was elegant. Blond and asymmetrical. Long limbed. She wore an eight and a half size shoe. She arrived slowly and moved like glass cutting space. She was precise with her clothing. She always ran late. When I picked her up to go to a show, I’d sit on her bed while she got dressed. She poured defined layers under a chic dress. Even in those last months of her life, where a trip out was a trip to the doctor or for a procedural test, she layered her sweats with magnificent intention.
Kathleen’s life was complicated. She was a rockstar super hero of experimental contemporary dance. She was an influence in multiple countries. She danced, produced, visioned and performed. She was an essential collaborator. She built a life for herself as a dance artist, in a path that was all her own. That was her greatest success. She did dance her own way, and had sustained impact. She brought wizard energy into the studio when teaching. She influenced thousands of young dancers. Brought them closer to their own power. Modeled joy in the body, and force.
She carried sorrow. Mostly held privately. She sat in uncertainty about her place in the world, desiring a kind of validation that so few artists actually receive. She desired love and partnership that did not come, in her abbreviated life. “I’m going to die without finding my partner.” This was one of our last exchanges.
In the file cabinets in Kathleen’s apartment, there were drawers full of binders, posters and laminated papers, documenting her work with Margie. Bebe. Sara. Scott. Stephanie. Kim. Albert. Fresh Festival. She organized her own archive with meticulous intention. She validated herself in those drawers.
Where she lives most now is in our bodies--the bodies of those with whom she shared time, motion and physical intent. It’s in my body and in the sacred church of the studio that I miss her most.
In the last weeks of her life, when her death was imminent, we had our final conversation. She spoke about the recent death of Nancy Stark Smith, and how she and Nancy talked about how to untether from this life. Below is my last letter to Kathleen. Her Mom read it to her a day before her death.
Written on 1/31/21 (Kathleen’s 54th Birthday)
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Untether
You’ve done it a million times in a dance, improvising. Let the 360 degrees of the unknown come take you. Absolutely no one knows where you’ll go. But we will go on telling your story. Dancing the joys you taught us
Fall off the incline. Let the rope slip through the anchor. Sink into the lateral plane
You Carried in our muscle memory
We will play laugh collide Dance more
Mashed potatoes at Blue Plate on Mission Mojitos in the late afternoon
I’m just gonna say it
Die without sorrow Die knowing that dance itself and cobalt skies and the way water flows have been changed because of you
Sue Lauther (colleague)
Best Knew Kathleen between 2000-2009
This video is of Kathleen Hermesdorf performing in 2001
- Music by Albert Mathias - Pants by Melody EggenKathleen was a guest choreographer for a week and is playing with material in response to 9-11 to set on Emma Willard School students.
Megan Lowe (friend, student, collaborator)
Best Knew Kathleen from 2010-2020
Building this memorial website for someone as cherished as Kathleen has been incredibly challenging and daunting. It is hard to gather all of the materials and memories of a being so expansive. Seeing the images shared and the words written by all the folks who loved her has been simultaneously heart-rending and heart-warming. Here are some images and words of my own to share, to add to the sea of infinite adoration for Kathleen.
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Love Letter - November 12, 2020
After not seeing the magic that is Marit Brook-kothlow and Mindy Zarem for 8 months, we joined together to create this dance (click button below to see) and song homage to the one and only, Kathleen Hermesdorf—a most inspiring teacher, stellar dancer, powerful performer, wonderful friend, and phenomenal human creature. We love you Kathleen!
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Love Letter - November 29, 2020
Love you Kathleen...wish I could be rolling and squishing and dancing and playing and throwing colorful spheres into the air with you, right now. Missing you with all my heart!
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Love Letter - December 1, 2020
I remember showing up to this photoshoot for Scott Wells & Dancers' 2017 Season. I had a huge bag of costume options, in the usual aesthetic of SW&D. Coming from work, I arrived in my favorite tiger dress, with no intention of wearing it for the photos. Kathleen roared, "Yes! That's what you should wear!" My fellow tigress, and the fiercest of them all. I like to imagine she now resides as a star in the tiger constellation.
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Love Letter - December 9, 2020
Asymmetrical haircut in homage to Kathleen Hermesdorf.
I recently discovered Kathleen’s middle name was Margaret. My mother’s name was Kathleen Margaret...they both died in their 50s from cancer. My middle name is Margaret...
This hit me pretty hard—continuing to discover new connections to someone who has passed. Not sure what to do with all those feelings, I got this haircut as some sort of catharsis. Remembering Kathleen and all her glorious asymmetry.
Jennifer Perfilio (student, colleague)
Best Knew Kathleen between 2000-2020
My relationship to Kathleen grew over the course of 20 years. When I first moved to SF from NYC, she was one of the first performers I witnessed. I was mind blown, and an instant admirer and fan. I got to know Kathleen personally by attending her classes for years. We worked together in SF Trolley Dances in 2011, and continued to have professional engagements locally in San Francisco. The last time I had the honor of hanging out with KK was in January of 2020 at FRESH Fest, before quarantine. We had two honest conversations over the course of the festival that I’ll never forget. One was about being older dancers and the wisdom and sincerity that comes with making work in an older body. The other was about speaking frankly, and it made me laugh heartily. I am eternally grateful for those final moments with Kathleen. At Ocean beach in December, I was honored to gather with a small group of KK’s dear friends to move and love and honor some of her departing words—“Carry the torch.”-
Dear Kathleen,Today I smile remembering your laugh, and laugh remembering your uninhibited honesty. I wish more than anything that today I could be moving in a steamy dance studio, sharing sweat and breath and spirals with the SF dance community, while you call out with your wildly open heart for us to fall off our axis, to rebound, to redirect our pathway, to see with clarity where we are in space. Today I conjure memories of the first time I witnessed you perform. It was 2001. I was charged with your electric. Nothing else on this earth moves or ever will move like you did... A gazelle? A punk-star? A whirlpool? A moonbeam? A lightening bolt? I weep thinking of your beauty and your strength, and I am blessed and wiser to have known you. You have always been, and always will be, a dance angel.
Aurora Prelevic (student)
Best Knew Kathleen between 2010-2020
I wrote this and posted it to fb on November 26, 2020 after KK's family, on the CaringBridge, made it clear that she was in her final days among us. They also wrote that they were sharing all of the notes and images and videos that everyone was sending with Kathleen and that she was smiling and blowing kisses and basking in their glow. So I wrote this as if I imagined it being read to her. I don't know if it was, but this seems as inconsequential then as it does now. The point is that I wrote it as a love letter of gratitude and of goodbye: I envisioned bone-deep rest and peace being sent her way as she was moving towards her big transition.
I have a photo framed on my shelf. It’s of my own feet in my favourite old boots leaning over a beautiful basket that I bought by the side of the road in Poland, when I rode a bike borrowed from Pondi over the Oder river one day years ago. It is filled with the most colourful rainbow of flowers from the garden, those ones Steph’s fine hands and so many other helpers’ grew, that year and every year. I picked them all for you, dear KK. In the basket there are rose petals of many colours—fuschia and pale pink and yellow, too—and calendula as bright as sunshine and handfuls of elder I can still smell from here.
We drew you a bath. In the old clawfoot tub that sat scrubbed clean in the garden that I was so fond of that summer. We dragged it down to the area outside of the old sauna so you could be in peace, and carried out big soup pots full of warm water from the kitchen and filled it to the brim and sprinkled all of the petals over it for extra magic. Flower magic to meet your fire magic. Water magic to meet your spark magic.
It was the end of the first session of PORCH in 2015 and us Porchies wanted to do something sweet for you as if it could possibly approximate the immensity of our gratitude towards you. As if we could hold you even a fraction as much as you’d held all of us. So we drew you a bath. A small gesture.
A magical bath full of multi-coloured flowers and I set you up with some tunes and you said, “Aurora, play that singer you’re always telling me I’ll love,” and I said, no, not right now, I’ll play you that later. That was the music of fierce mama, of fiery passion, of righteous rage, of action in the face of gaping injustice, of all of the things that I associated with you as a human and you as a dancer and you as a teacher and you as a mentor (it was Tanya Tagaq) but in that moment I wanted to play you something more tender, more calm, more restful. I put on a band called A Winged Victory for the Sullen—an instrumental, ambient outfit with sweeping songs that have words like “requiem” in their titles and tracks called “All Farewells Are Sudden”—and told I you their band name as I left you alone to soak and you smile scoffed and said, “Sullen? What?! No! Not sullen!”
I laughed through tears as I remembered all of these little details this morning. Your incredible unfailing sparkle, that deep ancient fire stoked within you that would never, never let up, never, never go out. Burning bright. It’s simply not possible for me to find words to describe the revolution in me that that unnameable thing in you sparked. I want this little story to do it justice, but I know your life in a thousand such tiny stories of the brightest shades of coloured light like petals did just that. Over and over and over again.
I see you floating in that bath all crowned in flowers. Our queen, KK. The water sparkling in the late day sun just like you. Your fire within. Shining bright like a diamond all the way out.
We’re laying this warm bath for you in our dreams, sprinkling all the petals around. We’re circling up in the grass, grief sweeping like you taught us to.
I hear you singing, Take me home, country road… to the place where I belong… traipsing through the garden. A winged victory rising, rising, rising to the stars.
Julie P. Rose (student)
Best Knew Kathleen between 2010-2020
Only took 1 class ever but it made such an impact that I have been mourning. FOR Real!
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The night before I took Kathleen's class, I had a dream where I entered the classroom and she came right over and began whooshing me across the dance floor. It felt like we were flying and invincible and like I could do anything. The next morning I woke up and thought it was really witchy because we had never met, and I wasn't even sure I knew what she looked like. I went to her class for real and then exactly what happened in the dream happened in person. I entered a packed class and lingered by the door for a second, nervous and intimidated, and this strong beaming blonde person came bounding across the room without speaking and took me literally under her wing as her dance partner and we began dancing, while her other students made pairs and joined. We all began whooshing quickly around the floor doing contact improv and weight sharing. Her firm guidance holding me up and giving me confidence was exactly like the dream the night before and I felt dizzy/spiritual/alarmed, questioning my own sanity. Then she demonstrated inversions (with her insane like twelve pack of abs), and she had the class do about a thousand, while Albert Mathias played wild music that opened up a portal to another realm. I did more inversions than I've ever done in my life. I just kind of blacked out and kept going and knew I could do it, even though inversions usually made me shake like a leaf. We learned a dance combination, but I couldn't keep up, and another student helped me out tons. When class was over, I wandered outside kind of stunned and paralyzed. Kathleen came out and found me and took my hands firmly in hers. She told me that was a company member who had helped me in class. Then she looked at me with wild firey eyes, pushed me to keep going, and bounded off. Her strength and fierce support for me as someone new in her class was unmatched to anything I had ever experienced. I think that was the last class she taught in the Bay and she mentioned she was moving to the northeast. I made a plan to end up in more of her classes, even if they were in other cities, but now I have just been crying and have watched some of her dances online, trying to find out more about her and her art. It's an odd thing to mourn someone you've only met just once, but she was so exceptionally radiating with love and power/magical love powers.
Caitlyn Schrader (student)
Best Knew Kathleen between 2010-2020
Kathleen and her transformative teaching may have only consisted of several "lily pad moments" that I experienced in a span of 5 years whilst I was living and dancing in Boston, MA, USA, but her impact has been continuously felt since, and I imagine will carry into my foreseeable future. I was a student of her's and Albert's magic during various masterclasses and workshops—we may not have known each other well on a personal level, but we knew each other enough to stop and acknowledge each others presence and energy through a smile, a hello, a good to see you again, and a juicy loving squeeze between two hearts...
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It took me a while to articulate and share with the world some thoughts about your transformative impact after I had heard the news of your passing. In that time, I witnessed the continued outpouring of love from those whom you've touched with your magic on social media. Beyond echoing what others have already expressed and shared, I can only say, "Thank You, Kathleen." Thank you for your presence, your heart, your soul, your guts, your magic, your energy, your love, your support, your wisdom, your spirit...You have profoundly impacted my life—how I feel, see, listen, pay attention, respond, embody, share, live, and dance. I will, "Fret not and carry the torch," for you, always—for when I dance, I will take you along with me. When I heard of your passing, I revisited a video from one of your classes, and I fondly remembered my times with you and Albert from my years in Boston—from our times at the Dance Complex, to Green Street Studios, to Bates Dance Festival, and finally to the Lion’s Jaw performance + dance festival where we bumped into each other on the green stairs of Green Street Studios. We smiled, laughed, and "squeezed" for what I now know was my last time in your presence. The video also allowed me to stop for a moment with sincere gratitude for the humans I danced alongside at that time in my life, and who have played a crucial role in my life's journey, including you Kathleen. May we all dance on in your honor. Rest in power, rest is peace, and ride the magic cosmic wave that you are and always will be.
Video Description: Masterclass Series at the Dance Complex, Boston, MA, USA (Spring 2016). - Video by: Leslie Armstrong. - Dancers in Video: Caitlyn Schrader, Audrey MacLean, Michael Figueroa, Melissa Molinar, and Jess Smith. *This video from a class is a Facebook link. It was posted by another dancer who was present at class, but not in the video. Her name is Leslie Armstrong.
Stephanie Ann Sherman (friend, student)
Best Knew Kathleen between 2010-2020
She was one of the most important forces in my life and her teaching has deeply influenced who I am as a person, a dancer, a choreographer, and a teacher.
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Before taking Kathleen Hermesdorf's class, I always battled with the idea of being "pretty" in dance. I tried my best, but was often told that I shouldn't dance with my mouth open, or that my flat feet just weren't pretty enough. I always felt that I was lacking in the looking like a doll or acting like a princess category. The dance world is comprised of some of the most normatively attractive people on the planet, so it can be hard to grapple with...
And then I met this teacher who had everything you needed to be "pretty" in dance: bright blue eyes, arched feet, and every bit of technique we could all dream of. And yet, Kathleen did not dance "pretty." She twisted her face, let out loud belly laughs and guttural screams. She sliced the air like a ninja with her limbs. She was fierce and fearless and did not give a crap about how "pretty" or not she looked. She got low to the ground and danced like a powerful animal. She was no princess. She had no fear of looking ridiculous. She was a fucking queen. She slashed any idea that female dancers should be demure and unthreatening. I thought, "This woman is the most gorgeous dancer I have ever seen." Inspired by her, in her class, I started celebrating my own raw ugliness, and I never felt more beautiful, more empowered, more confident as a dancer.
Kathleen epitomized beauty to me. Not safe prettiness but vulnerable, risk-taking unafraid beauty. Kathleen's ability to get ugly was her ability to be real, authentic, guttural, visceral, unique, and mind-blowingly beautiful.
Shannon Stewart (friend, student, mentee)
Best Knew Kathleen between 2000-2009
This is a part of the last letter I sent her:
You pushed me to teach and make my own class, inviting me to sub for you (we were always so sad when you disappeared to Europe for a while). After I did it for a little while, you said, “Teaching looks good on you.” That was about 13 years ago. I think about you introducing the warm up improvs across the floor—a kind of energy/nervousness/excitement that always built in the group as you were giving the directive words for us to employ in our explorations—some dense multi-layered thing that you would deliver as a poem with words and immediately follow with a poem in your body. Albert’s music would fade up and then we would set forth on a constantly shapeshifting task, somehow riding an unseen energy path through space that you made for us. I feel like I’m still there and that I will always be in this space of riding that energy and following this path you made, you make, you continue making. I worked on ?Fate & Longing? with you as you investigated string theory and the three fates, and maybe for this reason I feel how time is not linear, that we are somehow still there working with these webs and connections.
Excerpts from performances with Kathleen Hermesdorf in Amsterdam at OT301: Ghost in The Machine (2013) and Limbo (2012)
Manuela Lucia Tessi (friend, student, colleague)
Best Knew Kathleen between 2010-2020
Kathleen had an enormous impact on my dancing, teaching, and being an artist in this time and community building.
I've learned from her numerous skills. The first time I took her class I was so amazed by the way she seamlessly integrated movement research, and set material weaving in and out of it in a way that has forever impacted the way I experience one and the other. I started doing that in my practice more and more. Somehow her dance phrases made sense to my body like nothing else I ve learned before—memorisation of pathways was so natural to me in her classes. I felt myself screaming inside, “It makes so much sense, and I love this, thank you for coming up with such beauty and joy!!!” I had a dream of dancing in one of her pieces, but I think I never told her cause I was too shy. I won the fear of upside down. Partnering made a lot more sense in her classes. And her wonderful Qigong inspired warm-up—I integrated that into my own warm-up, and it makes me feel so rooted.
I have had the pleasure and fortune to know Kathleen a little better personally at Ponderosa, and in a workshop she gave once in the Czech Republic. I was so flattered she agreed to come teach that workshop, despite the fact there were only 6 participants. My great colleague and friend Katerina Dietzova had organised that at a residency space in Tabor, CZ. It was just incredible to share studio and social time with Kathleen. She was the kind of person you cannot lie to. She saw a lot in people, getting right to the point. I admired her fast, highly intuitive mind. She approached the work with abundance. In her presence, I almost felt ashamed of the times I was thinking narrow mindedly of myself, as in comparing myself to others—like we often do in dance. In her presence, I recognised I am good and worthy as an artist, and that implies the responsibility of carrying that through and sharing that with others. Confidence as generosity—she lead that by example.
We danced together a couple of times in Amsterdam, at OT301 venue (see excerpts of in vimeo link). We put together these improvisation performances with musicians, lighting designers, and other dance colleagues of ours. Sharing the stage with Kathleen was thrilling. I was happy my community here would meet her. Amsterdam should have seen more of her stunning dancing, and got to know her more. As I was editing, I was reminded of how gracefully she held the tension and the space for the group.
I cannot tell how much I was touched by Kathleen’s work and personality—such an empowering, wonderful woman. I will miss forever. Her passing was devastating. I take her memory with me as I am on stage, teaching, carrying on the passion for the work and life.
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Video Description
Excerpts from performances with Kathleen Hermesdorf in Amsterdam at OT301: "Ghost in The Machine" (2013) and "Limbo" (2012)
-Curated by: Manuela Tessi, Raoul Germano, and Kathleen Hermesdorf -Dance: Kathleen Hermesdorf, Christine Bonansea, Katerina Dietzova, Manuela Tessi, Katie Duck, Raoul Germano, Mary Lachman, Miguel Fiol, and Zuzana Sykorova -Music: Oscar Jan Hoogland, Gerri Jaeger, Petr Vrba, George Cremaschi, Alfredo Genovesi, and Josephine Bode -Lights: Ellen Knops (2013) and Emese Csornai (2012)
In memory of Kathleen.
If you would like to have the full length performances, please email Manuela at lunamatisse@yahoo.it
Mollie Wolf (student)
Best Knew Kathleen between 2010-2020
Kathleen felt like a pivotal mentor in my life. I met her while I was in college and sought out her classes & workshops in San Francisco and at Ponderosa in Germany over the next few years of my entry into a professional dancing career.
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I have been thinking a great deal about creative facilitation lately, and thinking about teachers who have been transformative in my life. Creative facilitation is central to the research that I am pursuing in grad school, so I have been spending a lot of time thinking about experiences when I have encountered remarkably inspiring facilitators. Every time I go down memory lane to pull from those who have been transformational in my life, Kathleen Hermesdorf is always on whatever list I’m making.
Kathleen is a huge role model for me. I was lucky enough to work with her repeatedly over the years in my early adulthood. Working with her redirected and focused my career pursuits. She lives in my memory as a pivotal mentor because she was present and willing enough as a facilitator to create genuine connections with every student who came to her class.
Being in Kathleen’s class was like being awoken to all of the possibilities before you that you didn’t realize were there. It was a creative laboratory where you got to experiment, make messy choices, and be who you are in your fullest. Everyone felt gutsy in her classes. Everyone. It did not matter how much dance training they had; it did not matter how strong or aggressive of performers they were before they met her; everyone became their most beautiful beasts of themselves when they were around her. They became these beasts not because they were trying to impress her, but because they were matching the commitment, the playfulness, and the willingness to work hard, that she demonstrated and cultivated out of every single one of her students. I’ve heard countless dancers say that she changed their outlook on movement, and for many people, changed their outlook on life.
Kathleen will be memorialized in our fierce, monstrous spirits. She will live on through our bodies, in our present sharing of space with those around us, and in our commitment to the work that lights our fires. May we be gutsy in this work in honor of Kathleen.