DANCING IN THE DASH: My Story of Empowerment, Diplomacy, and Resilience

by Lauri J. Fitz-Pegado

Dancing in the Dash tells the inspiring and compelling story of a woman whose experiences have taken her around the world. Lauri Fitz-Pegado has had a remarkable life performing in the arts, embracing activism and advocacy, and working in the world of policy, politics, and diplomacy. She became a career diplomat, a presidential appointee in the Clinton Administration at the Department of Commerce under Secretary Ron Brown, and she met with renowned world leaders. Ballet provided ballast and grace throughout the rigors of her life and career, beginning with her training at the prestigious Jones-Haywood School of Ballet in Washington, D.C.

In Dancing in the Dash, the author explores her life’s journey, and how her training in dance helped establish the skills—balance, endurance, perseverance—that informed her approach to the challenges that she faced, both professionally and personally, as an African American woman.

This memoir is particularly relevant today, during our national conversation reassessing our assumptions, our past, as well as our path forward. In telling her story, the author reveals her insights and observations about history and its consequences, about opportunity and obstacles, and about loss and redemption.