The Dance Goes On Part 1

Documentary on the life of Elizabeth Twistington Higgins, a dancer and teacher whose active career was cut short by polio. Though confined to a wheelchair by day and an iron lung by night, she contrived to continue her activities as a teacher and director-choreographer of a liturgical dance group, the Chelmsford Dancers. In addition, she began to paint with a paintbrush held in her mouth, and a number of her paintings of dancers and other subjects are displayed in this program. Joanna Lumley is seen opening an art exhibition that included Higgins’s works, and interviewing her at the exhibition. The documentary includes commentaries by Higgins and many of the people in her life, among them dancers Karen Perry and Sheila Large, biographer Marc Alexander, engineer Doug Adams, painter Rosemary Howard, and others. Rudolf Nureyev, who narrates the program, appears briefly on camera at the beginning and end. The program includes rehearsal and performance footage of the Chelmsford Dancers, closing with a performa