Book liner notes draft for Dancer Legs-A Memoir (in progress)
Jean Compton’s memoir, Dancer Legs, about moving to New York City to pursue a career as a professional dancer in the Eighties, finds her experiencing all the things that go along with an artist living in a big city. The competition, the difficulty in finding love (all the guys are either gay or too busy pursuing their own careers) not to mention all the distractions one of the greatest cities in the world has to offer can be a bit much to handle for a shy girl from the midwest.
As a child, her mother studied with a French dancing dynasty. At age 6, Jean took her first ballet class, hated it, and switched to tap-which would always be a big influence in her approach to movement.
After spending time apart from professional training, she took an African dance class in college at the University of Michigan and swiftly changed her major to Dance Education. She found like-minded creatives in the department and sailed through the last two years of her four year degree performing as an independent student with them for credit.
After a brief stint studying with an in-house dance company at the University of Utah, she returned Ann Arbor to work with some of her dance department buddies pursuing masters degrees. She met and danced with Madonna while there, before they both separately and unknowingly…
