Dancing On One Foot

“Dancing On One Foot” confronts a major issue—World War II observed during the author’s childhood in Nazi Germany. It explores the psychological imprint of that experience and the healing in later years after the author settles in the High Desert of the American Southwest. The book is also a tribute to the ability of women and children to survive hardships and celebrate life in all its straight and crooked ways—to dance, even if there’s only one foot left to stand on. Here is the account of a woman’s lifelong journey to understand what she came to face about war and her native country’s part in a great crime. She is driven by a deep urge to lift the veil around the dark mystery of human violence. Yet, an undercurrent of vibrant joy runs inside her and through this book. It infuses all the layers of her memory, as if her wounding and the darkness of her story have fertilized her love of life. SHANTI ELKE BANNWART was born in Hamburg, Germany at the onset of World War II. She moved to the United States in 1983 and studied at Lesley University, Cambridge, for her master’s degree in Expressive Therapies. She also received a MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College and is now a Life-Coach and psychotherapist in private practice in Santa Fe, New Mexico and a clay artist educated at the Institute of American Indian Arts. Her essays have been published in national and international magazines and she has been awarded various winning prizes in literary competitions.