Linda Belans launched her artistic life with a teacher who danced with Pavlova. She performed, taught, wrote, and talked about dance for the next 40 years, including as director of ADF’s International Critics Conferences. She returned to dance seven years ago with Murmurs, a solo Doug Varone generously made for her 71st birthday. Linda got serious about dancing again and has been studying primarily with ADF’s celebrated teacher Gerri Houlihan. The film version of Murmurs (2023) was made possible in part by a 2022-23 Durham Arts Council Emerging Artist Grant. It will be screened this Saturday, June 17, at the Rubenstein Arts Center as part of ADF’s Movies By Movers film festival. In recent years, Linda (she/her) has performed with Big Red Dance Project, Li Chiao-Ping Dance, Ronald K Brown/EVIDENCE—ADF/Scripps award, My Body Is My Own—Planned Parenthood/Glamour Magazine’s national campaign, and Recital 2023. She is a 2017 Bogliasco Fellow, author, and award-winning writer, journalist, and poet who has had the great good fortune to study with Naomi Shihab Nye. Working with Mark Haim on This Land Is Your Land has been glorious, challenging, exhilarating, revealing, and a constant learning experience. She hopes to always be emerging. Lindabelans.com. IG: thischapter.