dancepulse

“The liberal arts virtues of problem solving and intellectual discipline and self-reflection and critical deliberation are rarely better tested or better witnessed than they are in dance.”

— Robert A. Oden, Jr., President, Carleton College

When I graduated from Carleton College, a student could major in music or visual art, but not dance. Dance was a PE elective. We had to take PE for six terms, but we could only take the same elective twice, so after two terms dancing, I had to audit dance and take another PE elective for credit.  As it happened, the woman who taught modern dance — Linda Osborne — was a professional dancer from Minneapolis, commuting south for the teaching gig in Carleton’s PE department. She danced with Choreogram Dance Company, founded and directed by Margret Dietz, who danced with Mary Wigman before WW II.  Linda was a persuasive teacher. It didn’t take long before there was a car, driving to the city each Friday, for technique and choreography class with Margret Dietz herself, at Choreogram’s studio.

Nowadays Carleton College allows a major in dance — thanks to Mary M. Easter, who was the driver on those weekly trips to Minneapolis. A faculty wife at the time, she pursued her art with vision and persistence over the years — along with forging a place for her art at Carleton.  So definitively that Carleton’s president perceived through her work the embodiment in dance of all the thinking processes most valued in education.

Problem solving, intellectual discipline, self-reflection, and critical deliberation.

Evidently, Mary’s retiring this year, leaving a beautiful legacy.