One Year Later (In Memoriam)

One year ago today, I hugged my dear friend, teacher, and mentor, Patri Pugliese, good-bye and walked out the door to run a Regency-era tea dance.  The dance was remarkably successful, but when I came back to tell him about it, he was gone.

Yesterday, I ran the same dance.  It was even more successful this year.  I will never again have the joy of sharing my dance accomplishments with Patri, but today, in his memory, I'm going to talk about three lessons I learned from him about dance reconstruction.

Lesson #1: Trust no one; check the sources
Once, when I barely knew Patri and was on one of my earliest visits to his house, I challenged him on an aspect of his reconstruction of a Victorian quadrille.  He stood up and walked out of the room.  I sat frozen with horror, thinking that I'd offended him.  He walked back into the room a few minutes later carrying a five-inch-high stack of photocopies of 19th-century dance manuals, thumped them down in front of me, and said "look it up!"  I sat there staring at him; he stared back.  I started flipping through photocopies to find the dance in question.  It took a good hour of reading before he would let me simply give up my challenge and agree with him.

Some time later, I told him, in regards to a dance reconstruction, that I didn't need to look it up; I trusted him.  He got quite sharp with me: "Don't trust me! Don't trust anyone.  Do your own research; check the original sources."  He was quite sincere; not only did he want to instill good research habits and make crystal-clear the difference between documented historical material, speculation, and material that was made up from non-historical scratch, he wanted the cross-check on his own work, and was confident that I was tenacious enough to do the work needed.  He didn't want to hear "because so-and-so says so", even if he was the so-and-so in question.  History, not hearsay!

Patri never actually taught me much dance history or answered many of my research questions.  He taught me to how find my own answers.

Lesson #2: Don't be too embarrassed to make changes
One of the moments that still sticks in my mind is the first time I caught Patri in an actual reconstruction error.  (One of the very few times this ever happened!)  The dance was a Regency-era Scotch Reel.  Patri and I had both reconstructed it; I watched his group dance his reconstruction, and I thought "that's wrong!"  I told Patri, and we of course went to look at the original source to check it out.  And for the first time ever, very clearly, I was right and he was wrong.  He looked at the source quietly for awhile; I held my breath.  And then he looked straight at me and said "Well, I'll have to change what I'm teaching."  No argument, no defensiveness, no avoiding the issue.

I've met other dance teachers who stick with a bad reconstruction even when they know it's wrong, just because it would be too difficult to get people to change, or the incorrect version is pretty and popular, or it's just too embarrassing to tell people they'd made a mistake or that new research had changed their reconstruction.  I can understand that.  But I'll never forget Patri's reaction, that commitment to doing it the right way, even if it makes life more difficult.  It's wrong, so he'll change.  I try to follow this as well, and have certainly had plenty of opportunities to correct myself!  My most frequent students have suffered from this: I walk into class and announce apologetically that I'm making a change.  They moan and groan a little, but - I hope - they respect that commitment to following the research wherever it takes me, even if it means periodically looking like an idiot.

Lesson #3: Pay it forward
From day one, Patri was generous not only with his time and advice and support for my baby steps as a teacher and dance organizer, but also with research help.  He had long made photocopies available for sale of dozens of 19th and early 20th century dance manuals, and he gave me stacks of them for free to help in my research.  When I asked about paying, he told me not to worry - I would find him sources just as good in the future.  In the last few years, as my research savvy increased, I'd begun to find new material.  I'd make a photocopy and bring it up to him, and we'd sit at the dining room table and look it over together and share the excitement of new information.  We called them "dead mice", since I would arrive with the same air of pleased accomplishment as a cat presenting a dead mouse to its human.

Most people don't actually want thousands of pages of research material (I can't imagine why not), but what they do want is the results of the research - the dances, the stories, the background.  That's what I'm putting on Capering and Kickery, bit by bit.  This blog is, in large part, my memorial to Patri, without whom I would not be the dance historian I am today.

Patri Jones Pugliese
May 11, 1950 - February 11, 2007

Patri and his beloved wife Barbara waltzing at the Regency Assembly in New Haven, Connecticut, in October, 2006.

Comments

[Cathy]

Its so hard to believe it's only been a year.

This is a beautiful entry and a fitting tribute to a man I held in the highest respect, though we only met briefly.

[Serge]

I never met Patri, but I very much remember your telling me about him. I'm glad that my recent help with your translation added a tiny brick to your ever-growing tribute to him.

[Marilee J. Layman]

He seems like a lovely man. I'm sorry for your loss.

[jennie1ofmany]

Marilee, I'm not sure "lovely," is the word I'd use to describe Patri. He was relentless, uncompromising, and could be very sharp. He brought the same precision and energy to teaching steps as he did to researching them. He could make people nervous. He was also, as Susan has beautifully recounted, generous and dedicated, and brought a formidable arsenal of research skills, dance ability, and passion to his chosen subjects. He welcomed new researchers, teachers, dancers to the community, and supported any number of us as we took our early steps. He could make people feel welcome, but not always entirely comfortable.

The second time I met Patri, when Michael took me to tea at the Pugliese's, Patri plied me with sources. He was brimming over with information he wanted to share, about the Scotch Reel and the reconstruction of Scottish steps, about the Lancers, about waltz, about everything. He issued me a standing invitation to rehearsal (one on which I was thrilled to take him up whenever I could). I felt very welcome, and also a bit breathless.

One of the last times I saw him, at a ball, he was sitting out a quadrille, and I stood with him to watch it, whereupon we engaged in a nice meaty discussion of the problems with that particular reconstruction.

I feel his absence at every vintage dance event. At the same time, I look at the community we have, and I'm thankful that he put his passion and his dedication here, and left such a legacy.

I wish, as all of us do, that he was still here, keeping us all honest.