My Body is My Country: Anabella Lenzu on Motherhood, Immigrant Identity and Dance as a Political Act

You take your chances — actually, you don’t take chances. You make choices that feel right for you. And so you’re building up yourself, you’re constructing yourself. -Anabella Lenzu

Photo above by Todd Carroll

Session Summary

Ten years after her first appearance on the podcast, Anabella Lenzu returns for an in-person conversation recorded in her New York City studio — and the growth since is staggering. In this episode, Anabella traces the eleven-year journey behind her second book, Teaching and Learning Dance Through Meaningful Gestures, born from kitchen-table conversations with students while she breastfed her newborn daughter and shaped, years later, into a manifesto on technique, energy, and the body as an instrument of expression. She opens up about the panic attacks that shadowed the book’s final years, the making of her deeply personal work Listen to Your Mother — a piece exploring immigrant motherhood and artistry that she performs alongside her own twelve-year-old daughter — and what it means to lead the American Dance Guild into its seventieth year as its president. Along the way, the conversation moves through dance history, AI and the irreplaceable friction of live performance, and what Anabella calls the responsibility of being “the connector” between generations of artists.

Takeaways from this session:

• The book took eleven years because translating the stage into words is its own art form. Anabella began recording conversations with students and interns over lunch at her home — starting with questions, not a manuscript — because she believes writing, unlike podcasts or tutorials, leaves space for the reader to complete the puzzle rather than handing them a formula.
• Prolific output can sit right alongside real struggle. While finishing the book, premiering a new show, and stepping into a national leadership role, Anabella was also privately navigating panic attacks — a reminder that outward accomplishment and inner difficulty aren’t mutually exclusive, and that naming the struggle is part of the artist’s excavation.
• “My body is my country” — motherhood, immigration, and the stage as the one place to be seen. Listen to Your Mother grew out of interviews with thirty immigrant mother-artists in New York City. Anabella now performs alongside her daughter Fiamma, teaching her the family’s Argentine repertory and telling her that the stage is often the only place an immigrant artist feels fully visible.
• Leadership, for Anabella, means being the bridge between generations. As President of the American Dance Guild, she launched the first-ever Dance Book Fair, expanded a summer intensive preserving techniques from disappearing modern dance lineages, and is digitizing decades of archival material — all in service of what she calls ADG’s role as “the window to the past, but the doorway to the future.”
• Energy is the first stone of performance — before technique, before muscle. Anabella teaches that understanding your center of energy, your intention, and your awareness of who’s watching is the true foundation of performance craft; without it, movement is just muscle on display, not communication.
• AI is a tool, not a replacement for friction. Anabella and her husband, who teaches AI at the university level, experiment with it at home — but she’s clear that art requires the unpredictability, imperfection, and human connection that only live performance and real friction can offer.

Featured Links and Credits:

• Teaching and Learning Dance Through Meaningful Gestures — Anabella’s second book
• Anabella Lenzu’s website
• American Dance Guild
• La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club — where Listen to Your Mother premiered in 2024
• Peridance Center — site of ADG’s annual Modern Dance Intensive

Other episodes of interest:

Session #214: How to Be A Better Dance Artist with Anabella Lenzu

Session #204: Balancing Between Life and Ballet with John Lam

Session #203: Diversity and Inclusivity in Dance

Connect with Annett

Instagram: @annettbone

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About the author, Annett

Annett Bone is the creator and host of The DancePreneuring Studio where she guides her listeners on a journey of transformation inspired by dance, life, and business. The podcast is a reflection of her personal adventure overcoming her fears and returning to her passion for dance after a 20+ year hiatus, the lessons that she has learned along the way, and proving that it’s never too late to be great.