Ask choreographer Patricia Sandback what her favorite dance is and her answer is always, “the next one.”

“It is when I am creating new work that I feel most complete,” says the retired San Diego State University dance professor.

“It is such a complex and exciting process for which one must be absolutely present. It’s like driving a coach pulled by wild horses, and you are trying to get them all to work together into one meaningful unit. You sort of have an idea where you’re going but you’re not sure, and the not knowing is perfectly OK.”

Sandback likens the collaborative aspect of creating a dance to being a member of a secret society.


The experience, she says, is intimate and the connections forged during the choreographic process are often deep and enduring, a group that “believes we will get there together.”

An octogenarian who lives in San Diego with KoKo the cat, Sandback has a reputation for making dances that are comical or have an element of surprise, for the audience as well as the dancers.

“I don’t necessarily start with the intention of making something funny, but things often go there,” she confesses.

“I think age has something to do with it. As you grow older, you really need a sense of humor, or life will get you by the throat.”


As a choreographer, Sandback has created more than 140 dances that have been performed locally and all over the world, in cities such as London, New York and Paris.

Earlier this year, for LITVAKdance, she choreographed “Girls With Balls,” a work that represented the strength of women.

To illustrate the theme, Sandback pursued the idea that girls with balls are “pretty nervy” and had the dancers tossing colored plastic balls to each other in one segment. In another, a soloist wrestled with a voluminous taffeta ballgown.

Then there’s “The Toast,” a piece about the benefit of perseverance and sharing adversity. The dancers participate in a celebratory raise of the glass, but they are costumed head-to-toe in terry cloth body bags. It was last performed at San Diego State University Studio Theatre in 2015, the year Sandback retired.


Sandback’s former student, Terri Shipman, performed in the work.

“We laughed until we cried,” says Shipman, now a teacher, dancer and choreographer.

“We were walking around, not being able to see, greeting each other and trying to sit in a chair and drink Champagne without falling off. Pat is an inspiring professor and big influence to so many of us.”

Sandback didn’t start seriously dancing until college.


After graduating from the University of Minnesota, she married, moved to San Diego in 1959 with her then-husband, raised two boys and continued her education at SDSU, earning a master’s degree in physical education.

Sandback also took a modern dance class once a week at the YMCA.

And that, she says, is where she found a deep love.

“Several of us who were in that class formed a group with the too-long name of The San Diego Repertory Dance Group,” Sandback recalls. “To my knowledge, we were the first organized modern dance group in town.”


Other local contemporary organizations sprung up, such as San Diego Dance Theater and Three’s Company.

Sandback attributes the growth of modern dance in San Diego to the National Endowment for the Arts, which enhanced public and student awareness by providing support for dance companies touring to universities. And there was Sushi Performance and Visual Art, an organization launched in 1980 that gained a reputation for adventurous programming. Ultimately, Sushi gave modern dance a stage in which to build an audience.

Sandback began teaching at SDSU in 1972 and went on to earn a master’s of fine arts degree in dance from University of California, Irvine.

As a former educator, she is proud of her far-reaching impact.


Sandback estimates that some 20 former students now teach dance at local high schools, colleges and universities. Others have gone on to become professional dancers, start a company or to support dance by attending performances.

Sandback’s future projects include presenting a work at an International Fringe Festival, and she’s choreographing a duet to be danced by Robby Johnson and Faith Jensen-Ismay, currently the artistic director of Mojalet Dance Collective and Sandback’s former student.

“Pat has pushed me past my comfort on numerous occasions, leading me into deeper and more fulfilling artistic endeavors,” Jensen-Ismay says.

“She now has become a mentor for not only me, but the dancers who have trained under me and have performed her work in the company.”


Sandback says she values her career as an educator because it taught her to be “accountable, passionate and humble.”

“I taught a lot of beginning classes and it didn’t bother me if a student didn’t have any talent or a sense of rhythm,” Sandback says.

“The idea was for them to express themselves with movement and not be self-conscious. I appreciate being part of that extraordinary lineage of modern dance, passing on to your students, through your body, what you learned from your experience. I still go to class.”

Future legend, as chosen by Patricia Sandback

Erica Buechner, choreographer-performer-community leader-educator


“There are so many talented people. But if I had to pick someone, it would be Erica Buechner. She is an accomplished dance artist invested in the San Diego dance community through performance, choreography, teaching and leadership. Her accomplishments belie her years, and I wonder what she will do next.”

Manna is a freelance writer.