Dance Legend Lewitzky Has Leg Amputated

In what she acknowledges as the worst thing that ever happened to her during a 60-year career as dancer, choreographer, teacher and arts advocate, 83-year-old California dance matriarch Bella Lewitzky has lost her right leg to a long-term arterial disease.

The amputation took place Oct. 27 at Lovelace Medical Center in Albuquerque, where Lewitzky and her husband, Newell Taylor Reynolds, had moved following the disbanding of her internationally known Southland modern dance company in 1997.

“I tended to get clots in my legs which were very dangerous,” Lewitzky explained in a phone conversation earlier this week. Diagnosed as atherosclerosis in 1978, the condition brought about the end of her performing career, she says, and worsened recently to the extent that she was in too much pain to be able to go to New York and accept the coveted Capezio Award for lifetime achievement this May.

“She was having it doctored here in Albuquerque,” Reynolds says, “and the circulation got so bad that she couldn’t walk and they were afraid she was going to lose her leg altogether from gangrene.”

Lewitzky admits to having been frightened at the thought of amputation. “I had nothing like this ever in my life, no physical disability of any kind,” she says. “But actually it’s very interesting because, as you probably know, you’re somehow on the outside in this kind of situation looking in at yourself and, as you do that, you begin to take into account who you are, where you are and what you’re doing. And it’s OK. You learn to live with it. There’s not a damn thing that you can do about it, so you learn to live with it.”

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Two months after the operation, Lewitzky is taking a blood-thinner--”to help me from getting more clots”--and learning how to use a prosthesis comfortably with what remains of her leg, which was amputated just above the knee.

The irony of the situation is not lost on her or Reynolds, for meticulous physical control was a hallmark of both her dancing and choreography. Now, Lewitzky says with a laugh, “that’s gone” and she has had to remaster movements that used to be part of her everyday routine.

“It was kind of a hoot watching Bella being instructed by the physical therapist on how to raise a leg to exercise it,” Reynolds says.

Her recuperation and therapy have indefinitely put on hold her plans to return to Los Angeles. “We would like to come back to Los Angeles,” Lewitzky says. “We miss it.” They have bought a condominium in L.A. that they intend to move to, but “we just can’t make it right now.”

Instead, she and Reynolds are living in a small apartment on the west side of Albuquerque--”perfect for us,” Reynolds says, close to their daughter Nora.

“That is very satisfying,” Lewitzky comments. “Our two grandsons are right here close and that works for us. And Nora visits us often, which is very nice because we didn’t get to visit her very often before.

“It evens out,” she says. “You just have to accept that things are going to be different. I’m very glad to be alive”--a gutsy laugh--”I’m glad I still have one leg and a half.”