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GREENSBORO - Marsha Paludan built her career around movement.

She taught a generation of performers how to keep their bodies aligned and agile, to use them as expressive tools on stage.

Now the woman who, not too long ago, could lift and swing a 200-pound man, struggles with one of her most difficult maneuvers yet.

Standing.

Diane Guinan, a physical therapist assistant, puts a belt around Paludan's waist to assist.

"Lean forward. You can do it," Guinan says as Paludan slowly lifts her thin, 5-foot-9-inch frame out of her wheelchair, her right hand holding a walker for support.

"Up tall. Beautiful. One more time."

* * * * * * *

Instead of spending her days teaching movement to UNCG theater students, Paludan spends them in a bed and wheelchair.

Strokes have left her partially paralyzed, partially blind and in a nursing home where at 67, she is one of its youngest residents.

Friends find it difficult to believe that this would happen to an indefatigable woman who began each morning with an hour of tai chi, yoga and meditation, taught all day, then finished with another workout.

"You tell people that Marsha Paludan had a stroke, and you have to tell them twice," says her daughter, Kari Paludan-Sorey, an opera singer in the Washington area. "No one believes it. People think my mother is indestructible."

In a place called WhiteStone, the teacher has become the student. This longtime master of movement strains to re-learn the simplest of motions that she once took for granted.

Standing.

Walking.

Feeding herself.

"All my training has been leading me toward this training," Paludan says. "It takes absolute concentration, like I have never had to do before. I don't think I have ever worked harder in my life."

What doesn't require training is Paludan's calm spirit. Even now, she still approaches life with her longtime philosophy of letting go what she can't control.

"There is no trace of self-pity," says her husband, Jim Ritchey.

To Paludan and Ritchey, each small improvement represents big strides.

She can move her left leg, once totally paralyzed.

She learned to feed herself and wheel her chair with her right hand.

Her field of vision, while small, has grown.

Her short-term memory remains fuzzy, but her speech is clear.

Stamina. Range of movement. Sensitivity.

All improved.

Still, there is the matter of standing and trying to walk.

"Marsha has an incredible sense of her body," Guinan says. "Her ability to put her focus here to try to control her body is exceptional."

In some therapy sessions, Guinan uses mild electrical stimulation to help create movement in Paludan's left leg.

"We are trying to re-educate the muscle to contract in response to the signal from the brain," Guinan says.

Paludan sits in her wheelchair as Guinan attaches electrodes to the leg. Paludan flexes her ankle to pull her toes up.

Each time the machine delivers a mild dose of current, Paludan strains and grimaces as she holds the contraction.

The exercise is one more step toward making walking possible.

"Beautiful!" Guinan says as they high-five each other and clasp hands. "Can you do two more?"

She does.

The session leaves Paludan exhausted, but encouraged.

"I am getting help from truly fine educators," she says. "Movement is still a joy, a sense of accomplishment."

And for as long as she can remember, an important part of her life.

* * * * * * *

Her training began at an early age in Pasadena, Calif., where she started ballet lessons and watched her father produce shows at the renowned Pasadena Playhouse.

Her love of performance led to degrees in dance, choreography, theater and film.

At the University of Kansas, she became a protege of Japanese classical theater expert Andrew Tsubaki. She would become a specialist in the field.

Daughters Kari and Kirsten remember her traveling as far as Japan and Australia to teach different styles of movement.

She collaborated with others to develop a dance form called release technique, now taught worldwide.

"She has influenced a whole generation of dancers and performers, whether they know it or not," says Robin Gilmore, longtime friend and colleague.

After arriving at UNCG in 1991, Paludan became known as "the Earth mother of the theater department," colleague John Gulley says.

On her way to campus, she sometimes picked lavender from her beloved garden and gave it to students who dropped by her office.

In class, Paludan became known as someone who could get students in touch with their physical selves.

"Some who come in are so uptight physically, and she had a way of loosening people up," Gulley says.

Over time, she developed a reputation as demanding but fair.

Todd Fisher, who studied at UNCG in the 1990s, describes her as "one of those professors who was always there with advice or a helping hand."

Paludan introduced Fisher to a dance technique called contact improvisation.

"Up to that point, I was struggling with my own physicality on stage," Fisher says. "It freed me up as a performer."

Paludan used her healing approach to tackle a controversial story she believed the city needed to hear, directing the university's 1999 local premiere of "Greensboro: A Requiem," playwright Emily Mann's documentary-style drama about the 1979 Klan-Nazi shootings that left five Communist Workers Party demonstrators dead.

"I could tell that the city was pretty much hurting from the event," Paludan recalls. "It was perfect for my interest in art as a socially healing process."

She took her expertise in movement and theater beyond campus borders and into the community.

She and Gilmore started a teacher training program in Greensboro on the Alexander Technique, which helps release tension and improve movement, balance and coordination.

With support from Paludan, Fisher helped to start the Informall Theatre Company and the annual Greensboro Fringe Festival, which showcases work from new and innovative performing artists.

They created the comedy "Koun Kukki," based on Japanese theater. Informall took it to the July 2007 Capital Fringe Festival in Washington, where it won a People's Choice Award.

"We brought down the house," Paludan remembers.

A few weeks later, a fall brought down Paludan.

* * * * * * *

Paludan says she doesn't remember the details of her fall or strokes. And she sees no point in dwelling on them.

"If you hold onto it, you are stuck in that place," she says.

But her family doesn't forget. Kirsten and Kari's father, Paludan's ex-husband, had died days before, and they were reeling from his death.

While visiting daughter Kirsten's apartment in Kansas City, Mo., Paludan leaned against a gate on a second-floor fire escape. It gave way, sending her down 12 steps.

Paludan used her stage combat training to roll. She walked back up and said she felt fine.

Then she fainted.

At the hospital, she fainted again.

A large hematoma on her left hip had filled with two liters of blood. Her blood pressure dropped. She suffered a minor stroke.

A transfusion eliminated the facial paralysis and slurred speech. Doctors there also put her on medication for an underactive thyroid. She left the hospital four days later.

Paludan returned to UNCG. But by November 2007, she wasn't feeling her usual self and took a leave of absence.

"Marsha knows her body better than any doctor," says Ritchey, her husband of 10 years. "Things just felt unfamiliar, and she couldn't get on the floor and do yoga or tai chi to make them go away."

* * * * * * *

Paludan had eaten large amounts of soy for years, and a nutritionist suggested she stop because of the hypothyroidism. Although she still ate well, she lost weight.

Fluid was also settling in her abdomen.

She underwent medical tests that confirmed pulmonary hypertension, which increased blood pressure in her heart. Doctors thought that caused the abdominal fluid, which they had to drain monthly.

"There were all of these theories, but no one could ever figure out where this all came from," Ritchey says.

Despite growing weakness, Paludan taught during spring semester 2008, then took a leave of absence.

On Sept. 8, the day after her 67th birthday, she suffered a stroke at home, then another at the hospital.

Scans showed massive damage on both sides of the brain, including the optic centers. She couldn't see.

She started to improve, navigating the halls of Moses Cone Rehabilitation Center with the aid of a walker.

Then a stroke paralyzed her left arm.

A week later, another stroke paralyzed her left leg.

She could no longer handle intensive rehabilitation. She needed skilled nursing and 24-hour care.

Being discharged was no longer an option. She had to be sent to a nursing home.

* * * * * * *

Ritchey, 61, blinks back tears at talk of the future. Like his wife, he tries to focus more on the present.

"My real ambition is for her to be as comfortable and as happy and loved as she can be," he says.

He plans his life around hers.

A singer/songwriter now self-employed in computer services, he schedules business calls so he can visit during lunch and dinner. He wheels her to physical therapy or back to her room, where they talk and he reads books to her.

In between, he counts his blessings.

Caring therapists.

Friends who leave meals on his porch.

Those who visit and send cards.

UNCG Opera Theatre, which dedicated its November production to her.

Most of all, his wife's progress and calm, fearless attitude.

"She doesn't worry about not being able to walk or see. She just processes it as necessary and deals with it in the moment and lets everything else go. She never said, 'Why me? What's going to happen to me?' "

But his tears well when he acknowledges that they likely will never travel to Ireland as they planned, never retire to her house in Kansas, never have quite the life they had before.

"She lets go of things she can't control, and they are things that I have to let go," he says.

Family and friends remain upbeat on visits -- because she is.

"She is still teaching me every month when I go down there," says Gilmore, who travels from Annapolis, Md. "These are life lessons, to appreciate every day and be patient and just be gentle with yourself. And she has never lost her sense of humor."

* * * * * * *

Paludan's pulmonary hypertension and hypothyroidism are now controlled by medication. Her abdominal fluid is gone.

But because she suffered so many strokes so close together, doctors say that more are likely -- and there is no way to predict their severity.

Ritchey says he openly shares such medical details with her. But she might not remember -- or might choose not to.

"I would rather not be limited in my personal prognosis," Paludan says.

Thinking of her husband and daughters keeps her pushing on. She describes Ritchey as "incredible, always sunny and positive" and calls her daughters "my best work."

"I want to be active in their lives," she says.

And they in hers.

"My mom is my touchstone," says Kirsten Paludan, 36, a singer/songwriter who now lives in Lawrence, Kan. "We have been given a reprieve to have this time with her."

Between visits, her daughters touch base by phone. Ritchey bought Paludan a programmed phone where she can just hit a button to call.

Family reminders fill her sterile room at WhiteStone.

A photo of Paludan and Ritchey with her mother at their June 7, 1998, wedding.

Another of Paludan and her daughters.

A multicolored mobile of concentric circles from Kari.

A handmade Christmas card from Kirsten.

A stuffed Wilbur the pig from the book "Charlotte's Web," Paludan's constant companion.

And a sign from her doting husband: "Marsha is cold-natured. Please make sure she has enough blankets. Thanks."

Paludan mentions a new performance piece that she has envisioned.

"I am never not dancing in my mind," she says.

She also envisions being able to perform it -- "down the road, not tomorrow," she adds. "Once you have been a performer all your life, it is something you see yourself as."

An aide arrives to wheel her to lunch. As she feeds herself, Ritchey arrives. A smile lights her face as he kisses her hand.

They talk about their day.

Then Guinan arrives for her daily therapy.

Contact Dawn DeCwikiel-Kane at 373-5204 or dawn.kane@news-record.com.