Dear Nadia

When I was a teen I enrolled in dance classes because I loved to dance. But those lessons were jazz, hot and crazy, and I wanted something more like Isadora Duncan, free and flowing. But in my Vancouver suburb, I could not find such classes. When I turned twenty, I moved to Toronto in search of an acting career. And in my quest to fine-tune my instrument by studying dance I discovered the Pavlychenko Studio.

That celebrated studio was your brainchild, Nadia, and from the moment I walked through the door I felt like I’d arrived at some long-yearned-for place, both in the world and in my heart.

Your studio was filled with soft daylight from windows that made the cream-coloured walls and carpet glow with warmth. In the warm-up room, clad in tights and legwarmers I could relax into a big cushion on the floor and gaze up at lazy clouds through the skylight.

Away from the hustle of trying to figure out how to be an actor or just how to be, every time I went to your studio, I felt a rush of unfettered energy - call it pure joy or perfect peace, I only know that for me, it was salvation.

And I didn’t have to worry about having the right jazz shoes; this was barefoot dancing, à la Duncan and Martha Graham. You taught me and your other students the spiralling moves of the Graham technique. Along with your demonstrations and explanations, this gave me an awareness of my body in space that has never left me. The technique is a knowledge that gets deep inside bones and muscles to inform the way a body moves through the world. It's a way of being that has helped me to understand all that's good about myself and this universe. And you gave me that, Nadia Pavlychenko.

I convinced my friend Scottie to study with you too, and together we formed a joyous duo, our youthful legs dancing up the stairs to your third floor studio on Yonge near Wellesley, right across from Morningstar and its free-flowing hippie clothes.

The scent of incense and the sound of bongos drifted through the studio hallways, inviting us in. A statue of Buddha greeted us as we entered the change rooms. Then, settling into the studio with its wall of mirrors, we prepared for the focused matter of mindful movement.

Earlier in your life, your fine bone structure and tall stature led you to enter beauty pageants and you were a skilled Ukrainian folk dancer too, eventually heading up your own company in your hometown of Saskatoon. You were always a dancing beauty, one I'd come to know when you were in your late thirties, as you graced the spaces of your studio, passing through the rooms and our lives, leaving inspiration and joy in your wake.

Each class began with the choosing of a partner. Taking turns digging into each other's shoulders with our elbows and fingers, we massaged away the day's tensions. Then, as you took your place at the front of the class, we took our places sitting on the floor, legs outstretched. The drummer kept time as we flexed and extended our feet and also as we stood up to roll down our spines. To this day, when I roll down and up my spine, vertebrae by vertebrae, I hear that drumbeat in my head, an inspirational sound even in memory.

“You should try sitting on a carrot,” you said to Scott one day. “Go home and sit on a carrot. You have a tight ass." Without skipping a beat, he replied: “I wish.” And you laughed at that.

Your advice to me was that I was too lazy to be a dancer. “You don’t want to work,” you said, and you were right. I just wanted to fling my body around in momentary joy, a disciplined flinging perhaps, certainly an informed flinging, but a very nonprofessional way to dance. I was, after all, an actor not a dancer, although dancing was and still is a big part of my life. And you drew that out of me and gave me the tools to feel joy in movement.

Scott and I danced our way through the last of the 70s at every disco in Toronto. Not barefoot, not Graham, but definitely fun. By day, I went to auditions and/or sold flowers on the street. And I continued to study with you. Sometimes you were away and then your trusted co-dancers would take over at the studio. One day, we learned that you’d left for good. We were told you had gone to Tibet to become a Buddhist nun in a monastery in the Himalayas.

A few weeks after your departure, our substitute teacher showed us a picture of you with a group of nuns and monks, your head shaved, your smile radiant. She told us you had terminal cancer and that this was how you wanted to spend your last days. Not much later, you shuffled off your mortal coil.

Thank you, Nadia, for sharing your splendid coil, spirit and heart with me.