‘Struck down’ was part of the headline in the SMH, Tanya Liedtke struck by a garbage truck in the mist of a morning, in the middle of a life.
Tanya Liedtke danced and directed her way from Germany to leading the Sydney Dance Company, following in the dance steps of Graham Murphy.
The grossness of chance, negative, bad, unfair, unavoidable chance.
I am the same age as Tanya was. Last week I’d written a letter to her, introducing her to The Red Room Company and the poets, in the excited hope of a future collaboration between dance and poetry, a choreographed rhyme. That letter is sitting on my desk as last Friday I forgot to post box it, running out the university door late for viewing art on the walls of Customs House.
Less than 10 hours later Tanya was dead. Is dead. From the loud land to the silent land.
The Red Room Company offers all of its thoughts and condolences to Tanya’s family and friends and fellow dancers.
The activity which in retrospect we can name “grieving” seemed at the time like a surprise from without, a cousin jumping out from behind a door.
Lyn Hejinian My Life [Green Integer 39, 2002]
