Alison Mott

Alison Mott lives in Putney with her family, teaches dance at the Brattleboro School of Dance (BSD), practices Zero Balancing Bodywork in West Brattleboro, milks goats to make fabulous cheese, choreographs….. Here is one focused woman.

She was born in 1960 while her father was a student at The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. When she was two years of age, she and her family moved first to New York City, then back to the family homestead in Wilton CT, where her father “did things: photography, sound engineering…. He was searching for his passion. I did the same.” She grew up on fifteen acres of farmland in an old farmhouse in an otherwise classic Connecticut suburban community.

She attended the local schools and started ballet lessons at age seven; seven years later quarter-horses entered the picture. Seeing her commitment, her family bought a horse for her. Lorraine, who lived in their barn apartment, taught her how to ride: “At fifteen, I spent hours and hours with my horse and Lorraine in our meadows. I trained in show jumping for a year at a stable in Upstate New York while balancing my studies at Wilton High School. A year into that I realized the costs of getting serious about showing horses were mounting. I was putting too much pressure on my parents. I pretty much stopped riding by my junior year in high school.

“I applied for and was accepted to a Youth for Understanding program to live and study in Denmark for a year. I lived in a town on the peninsula just north of the German/Danish border. My host father enrolled me in a HOJSKOLE – a high school but closer to a residential community college. That’s where I learned to speak and read Danish. I was learning a sense of social obligation; learning that my life was certainly my own but at the same time learning how to coordinate with others, a way of life that was different from that in the US. I enrolled in a 12-week session of rhythmic gymnastics. I realized, here’s a way to do movement that is not so much about body-building or standing up on point-shoes. It’s about people performing simple sequences together. At eighteen, I couldn’t know but this was exactly what I would spend a great deal of my future doing: dance and teaching. I returned to Wilton and my family a changed person.

“In 1978, I enrolled in Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, initially thinking I would major in French and Chemistry, but my time in Denmark had changed me. Among other classes, I enrolled in a modern dance class. That pointed me to my future. My dance teacher at Bryn Mawr was a member of Zero Moving Dance Company, based at Temple University in Philadelphia.  She invited us to a performance. I was SPELLBOUND out there in the audience. I thought, “Please don’t stop!” This experience was the seed for my later work as a choreographer.

“I graduated in 1982, moved to California and over two years deepened my understanding of dance, but the East Coast drew me back. Because my parents had a summer house in Marlboro, Vermont, I decided in 1988 to take some science classes at Marlboro College. Then I met Patricia Wilson who was teaching Dunham classes, a form that combines the structure of ballet with the energy and rhythms of Africa. I began teaching part-time at the BSD and Marlboro College.”

“In 1990, Kathy Keller, the owner of the BSD, invited me to teach a modern dance class. For seventeen years, we shepherded aspiring high school dancers through all facets of a well-rounded dance education through the local Career Center. Eventually, I was teaching dance at The BSD, the BUHS Career Center and Marlboro College.

“I stopped teaching in 2008. I realized I was getting older yet my ever-changing students stayed the same age. I couldn’t do what I used to be able to do with ease. Then in 2021, Bridget Struthers, a former high school dancer from the Career Center program and current owner of the BSD, invited me to offer a modern class. With the caveat that it would be /gentle, /I said yes. Imagine my delight when many of my former students, now in their 30s and 40s *showed up*! We’re still there on Monday evenings!

“I should add one other passion. In 2008, I was working at the Brattleboro Food Coop. I was given a gift certificate, as all employees get on their birthday. Mine enabled me to attend a Zero Balancing (ZB) session with Suzan Sutton, an experienced practitioner in West Brattleboro. She put her hands on my shins and I thought, “Wow, she’s touching my bones!” I had never experienced anything like that. Eventually, I became certified and now offer ZB sessions, too. In my BSD classroom, I use my ZB knowledge to help dancers.

“I should mention that my partner, Meg Mott and I bought land in Putney with our daughter Lucia Turino and her husband and that’s where we live today. We stayed in a yurt while a local builder, Jim McBean, helped us build a little jewel box of a house. Then in 2010 we got goats and by reading books and watching videos, I learned how to make cheese (and continued until 2023). We call our place Panic Swamp Farm.

“But through all this, Vermont gave me the “small pond” I needed. I had the skills to move to New York City but I knew I didn’t have a classical dancer’s body. I didn’t have a classical dancer’s drive and competitive urge. I wanted to explore what was within me. Life in Putney and Brattleboro gave me that. And I know that, like every teacher of any disciple, you never know what impact you’ll have on your students. My teaching legacy over these years lives on in those I’ve touched.”