“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 956 (Saturday) – dancers

It was a colorful ride to Ashby, Mass. and a nice couple hours at the reception for the Marion Rice Dance Legacy Project Photography Exhibit. The Gallery of Art at the Ashby Free Public Library was hung with dozens of images of Mrs. Rice and her dance group through the years from the 1930s to 70s. 

The dance legacy of Marion Rice includes her daughter Carolyn Brown, founding member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company; daughter-in-law Mona Irvine Rice, founder of the dance department at Cushing Academy; and granddaughters Rebecca Rice, founder of Rebecca Rice Dance; and dancer Robin Rice.

Marion Rice in "Impromptu,"
choreography by Ted Shawn.

It’s always nice to spend time in the company of dancers from the dance studio of my high school years. Some of my favorite moments and memories are tied to Mrs. Rice's Main Street studio with the seafoam green walls and the big window to the fire escape that was opened to serve as the air conditioning in the summer. 

We chuckled over our current posture and its deviation from the “four points of good posture.” “Heads up, shoulders back, tummy in, and hips forward” was taught beginning with the “Baby Class” of three- and four-year-olds and continuously reviewed. As teens, our studio training included how to walk confidently to always look like we knew where we were going even if we didn’t, and especially if we were in a city like Boston or New York City for auditions. Great life lessons.

Today, we studied the photos, and looked at old newspaper clippings about Mrs. Rice and the studio that belonged to a friend’s mother, both of whom were dancers with Mrs. Rice. There was even the handbook for Camp Maristuda, the summer dance camp held for many years at Mrs. Rice’s Ashby home at Rice Acres. 

Some of the dancers still gather weekly to run through the studio repertoire of Denishawn and Marion Rice choreography. During the pandemic they danced outside, even in the cold. You can take the dancer out of the studio, but you can’t take the dance out of the dancer.