In those days, male dancers were a rarer breed than women. as they are still today, A good male dancer, one as strong as we were, was very difficult to come by if you couldn`t afford to pay them.
In terms of individuals who actually inspired me, very few of the academic people that I had access to had that power over me. Maybe it`s simply because I wasn`t that committed to geometry.
I would have to challenge the term, modern dance. I don`t really use that term in relation to my work. I simply think of it as dancing. I think of it as moving.