Authentic Movement pioneer Janet Adler passed away on July 19, 2023.
Here’s a beautiful tribute by photographer Jens Wazel, to be found on his YouTube channel, Jens Wazel Photography, where you can find a longer interview with her as well:
That same day, working on Charlotte Selver’s biography, I wrote about Janet’s memories of her. I had an email exchange with Janet just a few weeks ago, and I’m so touched that she would have taken the time to respond to several emails from me promptly and generously, only weeks before her death.
I had contacted Janet to ask about her memories of working with Charlotte and also about her teacher Mary Whitehouse, whose Los Angeles studio Charlotte used in the early 1960s, when Mary Whitehouse also took workshops with Charlotte.
Here is some of what Janet shared with me about workshops she took in the early 1970s on Monhegan Island in Maine: “What an amazing experience to be teetering out on the edges of giant rocks, in some unusual precarious position, being asked by Charlotte to feel the space between our fingers! Inside the old school house I remember her sitting in front of all of us, using the giant hearing device as she listened to our questions and responded, always with her wondrous smile.”
Some 15 years later they met again. “I remember when I moved from the east coast with my young sons to Sebastopol, CA, one of the first things I did once settled, was to find Charlotte. I wrote to her at Green Gulch. She was prompt in replying and asked me to come for tea in her apartment there. I vividly see her, already her torso arching forward into a curved shape, so as she spoke I had to listen well as her head was just above the tea tray. I somehow did not know that she and Mary Whitehouse were colleagues, friends maybe, so I was surprised and very touched as she told me that the first thing she would do every Spring when she and Charles arrived on Monhegan Island for a summer of teaching, was to go to Mary’s grave and brush off the debris gathered on her stone from winter storms. Such a loving, ancient gesture…..Mary, a beloved teacher of mine, asked to be buried there because of her deep memories of spending childhood summers on that island.”