Young Dancers Get a Lift

Photo: Jim Carmody

Yesterday, I received word that UC San Diego had just received a $100,000 gift from Professor Emerita Margaret C. Marshall. The money is earmarked for dance productions to be put on by the Department of Theatre and Dance.

While I’m not an alumna of the UC system, I am a fan of dance and also a member of the amateur dance world (I take adult ballet classes). I was very happy to see dance getting more support. I hope this is happening at other schools, too. I know that my alma mater, the University of Southern California, just established the USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance. In a New York Times story reporting on this, the writer said Glorya wouldn’t disclose how much money she’d endowed, but he knew it was more than $20 million. Hot damn!

I wonder if all the dance shows on TV—DWTS on ABC, SYTYCD on Fox, Dance Moms on Lifetime, and Breaking Pointe on the CW—are truly promoting the dance world and having an effect on young would-bes and wannabes. I hope this is a trend.

Anyway, congrats to the professionals and students of UC San Diego who will benefit from this gift, and I’ll sign off with this vintage photo of UCSD’s first dance concert on March 19, 1977. (This pic left me a little teary-eyed, as it was taken at Mandeville Auditorium, where, starting just a few years later, all my childhood dance recitals would take place (shout out to Hammond Studio of Dance in Solana Beach!).)

Young Dancers Get a Lift

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