The day Merce Cunningham’s death was announced I went, as I did many times a week, to pick up one of my daughters from a dance class. This was a ballet class, taught by a wonderful teacher, Louanne Davis, from South Africa, living proof that a brilliant teacher of ballet does not have to be a monster. Her studio was in the basement of her house. I let myself in at the front door as all the parents did, and walked downstairs to the studio. Four girls, not yet on pointe, were rehearsing the Dance of the Four Cygnets. I did manage not to burst into tears, but I knew – as I said to Louanne, and she agreed – that nothing in the world could have done more to assuage Merce’s death, future, present, and past together, Tchaikovsky, Reisinger, Petipa, Ivanov, with Merce, still watching over us in a suburban basement in Denver, where dance was as alive and real as ever it has been anywhere in the world.