Marcy Plavin, who won a devoted following of friends as she built �ֲ���ý’ academic dance program, often said that “modern dance is many points of view.”

From the very beginning of her work at �ֲ���ý, in the 1960s, “Marcy never felt that dance students should only get her perspective or the perspective of any single faculty member,” says Rachel Boggia, associate professor of dance. “So we believe that exposing students to a lot of different artistic perspectives is important for them to understand the field.”

A pause for reflection: Students appear in a mirrored wall at the Marcy Plavin Dance Studio. The dancers are rehearsing the dance Passing, celebrating the life and works of dance program founder Plavin. (Theophil Syslo/�ֲ���ý College)

Which makes it only fitting that the college has chosen to commemorate Plavin, who died in November 2016, by renaming, in perpetuity, its annual Fall Dance Concert after her. Known henceforth as the Marcy Plavin Fall Dance Concert, this event has always featured work by visiting dance artists.

“We choose them to bring diverse points of view about contemporary dance,” says Boggia, “so we felt that this concert really represents Marcy’s legacy in terms of the philosophy of the �ֲ���ý dance program.”

This year’s program, in in Schaeffer Theatre, incorporates work by recent visitors including Marlies Yearby, Vanessa Justice, and the late Trisha Brown, taught to the �ֲ���ý company by Trisha Brown Dance Company member Samuel Wentz.

The Plavin concert also features thesis work by a senior, as well as Passing, a tribute to Plavin by Boggia, dance professor Carol Dilley, and composer William Matthews, Alice Swanson Esty Professor of Music.

Marcy and Leonard Plavin pose for a portrait at their Mountain Avenue home in 1999. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

A genuine �ֲ���ý legend, Plavin brought heart and mind to building dance at the college. Her dedication to dance — and to her students, many of whom remained close friends long after graduation — was fierce, deep, and irresistible.

Marcy Plavin was predeceased, in 2010, by her husband, Leonard, an avid photographer of �ֲ���ý dance. The couple’s children “wanted �ֲ���ý to do something to honor Marcy,” says one of those children, David Plavin ’77.

It was Boggia who “suggested renaming the fall concert, and I thought it was a great idea,” says Plavin, whose siblings are Stephen Plavin and Lynda Plavin Fitzgerald ’79.

Previewed in September as a work in progress, Passing will be a fully realized premiere for the December performances. Dilley, who succeeded Plavin as head of �ֲ���ý’ dance program and is on leave this year, returned to campus to collaborate with Boggia in creating the choreography for the 26 student dancers.

Dance professor Rachel Boggia. (Mike Bradley/�ֲ���ý College)

Matthews’ participation is striking in part, says Boggia, “because he did so many collaborations with Marcy over the years and was a big part of the dance program. For him to be accompanying this homage to her feels really right.”

As for the guest artists represented on the program, Yearby is known for her choreographic contributions to the Broadway hit Rent. At �ֲ���ý, she worked with students on a piece reflecting concerns about genetically modified foods.

The work has a score by keyboardist Divyamaan Sahoo ’17, who will perform the music live for the Plavin performances. A double major in math and music from India, Sahoo has stayed on at �ֲ���ý to work with the dance program as a guest composer and dance accompanist.

Justice’s piece on the Plavin program pays homage to the so-called analytic post-modern choreographers. Working in the 1970s, these dance artists minimized considerations of rhythm, musicality, and drama to achieve the purest possible focus on movement. Justice’s piece, set to music excerpted from Philip Glass’ Einstein on the Beach, “is hypnotic, interesting work,” says Boggia.

Justice has also worked with �ֲ���ý dancers on the Alexander Technique, an approach to movement that enhances mindfulness and aims to resolve physical tensions and inefficiencies. “It’s a chance for our students to understand the kind of subtle training that supports a long life in dance,” says Boggia.

“This concert really represents Marcie’s legacy.”

The third visiting artist, Wentz, has taught the �ֲ���ý dancers — or set on them, as dance artists say — Son of Gone Fishin’ Restaging Project, based on the original Son of Gone Fishin’, choreographed by Trisha Brown and premiered in the early 1980s. Wentz is a former member of Brown’s company who is now with Backhausdance, in California.

Offering senior thesis work is Riley Hopkins of Augusta, Maine. Presenting an excerpt from another Brown piece, Forêt Foray, Hopkins is �ֲ���ý’ first dance major to undertake a thesis in performance, rather than choreography. (Performances of the complete Forêt Foray, Boggia notes, usually include a marching band playing outside the performance space. For his four-and-a-half-minute excerpt, Hopkins will use a recording.)

The student performers — and, of course, their audiences — will experience not only aesthetic but historical diversity in the inaugural Marcy Plavin Fall Dance Concerts, Boggia points out. Alongside the new work on the program, Justice’s work looks back to the 1970s, and the Trisha Brown pieces are from the 1980s and ’90s (Yearby’s work on Rent also dates to the 1990s).

“So, in some ways, all of these pieces are giving the students a sense of recent dance history from an experiential perspective.”

Holding the microphone, Marcy Plavin acknowledges applause following a performance that concluded a three-day �ֲ���ý dancers’ reunion in 2015. Next to Plavin is daughter Lynda Plavin Fitzgerald ’79, at right, and dance professor Carol Dilley. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

The �ֲ���ý Modern Dance Company performs “Appalachian Spring” in 1979. (Leonard Plavin, courtesy of Marcy Plavin)

Marcy Plavin, who created the modern �ֲ���ý College dance program in 1965 and retired 40 years later, stays in touch with many of her former students.

Marcy Plavin in 1999. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

How many? “Probably 100,” says Plavin, who keeps track of birthdays and anniversaries, and whether her former students still have dance in their lives. “We’re a tight group.”

In �ֲ���ý circles, Plavin is celebrated not just for the dance program she established, but for doing so with a warmth and inclusiveness that made her a legend among her students. On May 2, dozens of those students will return to �ֲ���ý, some from as far away as California and Florida, to perform in a reunion concert that will pay tribute to this remarkable teacher and friend.

“We’re bringing back my work,” Plavin says, “but we’re celebrating just getting together, which we always do.”

Titled The Art of Living Through Dance, the reunion performance takes place at 8 p.m. Saturday, May 2, in �ֲ���ý College’s Schaeffer Theatre, 329 College St. Admission is open to the public at no cost. For more information, please contact 207-786-8294.

Members of the �ֲ���ý Dance Company perform “Power Lines,” a senior thesis piece by Isaiah Rice ’15. Performed at the 2015 Spring Dance Concert, the piece will be reprised in the May 2 dance alumni reunion concert. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

The first part of the program consists of dances choreographed and performed by alumni, many of whom are still active in dance, as well as by current students. For the second part, dozens of dancers will present a piece — created during the day of the concert — based on 16 of Plavin’s favorite pieces from her time at �ֲ���ý.

The 11 works in the opening half of the concert run a gamut of styles, from ballroom to modern, from hula to hip hop. Choreographers include Marcy Plavin’s daughter Lynda Plavin Fitzgerald, who attended �ֲ���ý and is director of dance at Anne Arundel Community College; Michael Foley ’89, assistant professor of dance at the University of South Florida; and two current seniors, Leroy Barnes of Woodbridge, Va., and Isaiah Rice of Charlotte, N.C.

For the second half, “Marcy’s Legacy” will represent dances made at �ֲ���ý throughout Plavin’s tenure, ranging back to the �ֲ���ý Modern Dance Company’s public debut, in 1969. The dancers will be arranged into eight teams according to class year, dating back to 1970, and each team will choreograph and perform one segment of “Marcy’s Legacy.”

The �ֲ���ý Modern Dance Company performs “A Romp” in 1997. Dance alumni perform on May 2. (Leonard Plavin, courtesy of Marcy Plavin)

To create each section, the dancers will base their choreography on just the accompanying music, short descriptions and two images from the original dance — images taken by Plavin’s husband, Leonard Plavin, a prolific photographer who passed away in 2010.

“The dancers get together and in a few hours make small sections of choreography that all get put together into a big piece,” explains Carol Dilley, associate professor of dance and Plavin’s successor as dance program director.

Current �ֲ���ý undergraduates have taken part in previous dance alumni reunions, but they will be more prominent than ever in the May 2 concert as both performers and choreographers.

That’s significant. In a program designed with legacies in mind, it’s important to emphasize the continuity in the �ֲ���ý dance community, says Hannah Miller, a reunion organizer who graduated from �ֲ���ý in 2014 and is now a member of the theater and dance department staff. (A dancer herself, Miller served as stage manager for �ֲ���ý dance performances as a student, a role she will reprise for the reunion concert.)

The reunion is an opportunity for the younger dancers to “see how dance can be a part of your life even if it’s not necessarily your profession,” Miller says. “It’ll be great for our students to meet the alumni, see where our program has come from and think about how it’s much bigger than we are, and about how a relationship with �ֲ���ý can expand beyond your four years here.”

With an image of Marcy and the late Leonard Plavin in the background, retired �ֲ���ý dance director Marcy Plavin applauds dancers during the April 30, 2011, dance alumni reunion. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College).

In addition, Miller says, works like those by Isaiah Rice and Leroy Barnes — the hip hop pieces in the first half of the program — “are a true reflection of what the program looks like now. We are a very diverse group with different stylistic and cultural interests.”

Reunion organizers expect 90 or more dance alumni to attend the reunion. Some 70 will perform. Why such loyalty? Part of it is loyalty to Plavin herself. “Dance alumni all talk about Marcy and what she did for them, and how she brought people together,” Miller says. “The relationships they’ve formed with each other are really amazing, and Marcy is at the center of that.”

But dance itself, especially at �ֲ���ý, is a powerful unifying force all on its own. “The community that we make in dance is really strong,” Dilley explains. “What you remember from college, regardless of your major or who you lived with, are the dances that you made and the people that you made them with.

“Building things together is just amazingly bonding.”

While dance at �ֲ���ý dates back to the 1930s, the current program took shape under Plavin. Her remarkable legacy includes the creation of the student dance company, now known as the �ֲ���ý Dance Company; the 33-year-old, internationally renowned �ֲ���ý Dance Festival; robust visiting programs in local schools; and generations of devoted alumni — some of whom, like choreographer John Carrafa and dance historian Suzanne Carbonneau, are major names in the national dance scene.

Incorporating theory, technique and composition, “the dance program still has all of the courses that I got from Marcy when I first came,” says Dilley, whose own considerable accomplishments include the establishment of a dance major at �ֲ���ý, in 2011 — the first dance-only major at a Maine college. “That core is still there — we just have a lot more of all of it.

“And Marcy’s other real legacy is her inclusiveness. If she could get you in the room, you were going to dance, and if she could keep you in the room, you were going to dance for all four years. And we still have a very open door.”

More than 150 alumni of the �ֲ���ý College Modern Dance Company came from as far away as Japan to take part in a May 1 dance performance marking the company’s 35th anniversary and honoring company founder Marcy Plavin.

In addition to the performance, the dance alumni, along with the Plavin family and friends of dance, offered two lasting and visible thank-yous to this revered �ֲ���ý mentor: a collective gift of more than $450,000 to fund two new dance studios within Merrill Gymnasium, and an original, mixed-media charcoal drawing of Plavin, that will hang in the studio space.

The studios, to be named after Plavin and scheduled to open in September will be the first home for the dance program, whose rehearsal spaces over four decades have included dorm basements and a variety of gyms.

The Schaeffer Theatre performance on Saturday evening included the current Modern Dance Company performing “Canonic 3/4 Studies,” a piece by acclaimed choreographer Mark Morris, and Alwin Nikolais’ 1953 “Tensile Involvement.” Alumni from as far back as the Class of 1969 danced in both a variety of short pieces and a long suite that constituted the entire second half of the program.

That suite included choreography by two alumni who have made dance their professions: Michael Foley ’89, who is assistant professor of modern dance at the University of South Florida, and John Carrafa ’76, a Tony Award-nominated choreographer acclaimed for his work on the Broadway hits Urinetown and Into the Woods.

The performance was rich in tributes to Plavin, of Lewiston, who started at �ֲ���ý in 1965 and retires as director of dance this year. Plavin is known at the college as both an early advocate for an expanded role for arts in the curriculum and a close friend and mentor to many of the students who worked with her. Saturday’s event was “almost solely about devotion to Marcy and what she contributed to our experience at �ֲ���ý,” said dance company veteran Suzanne Carbonneau ’76, who is now a dance critic and dance historian.

This wasn’t the first MDC anniversary for which alumni have trekked back to Lewiston, but was an especially significant one because of the impending retirement of Plavin, who was first hired at �ֲ���ý by the director of women’s physical education. “Marcy might have been the first adult who wanted me to call her by her first name,” said Geri FitzGerald ’75, now a �ֲ���ý Trustee, told in 2000. “In many ways, she was the first adult friend that I had.”

“They’re my extended family,” Plavin says. “We’ve had great times together. Dance seems to build those kinds of friendships.”

During Plavin’s tenure, the dance program has grown dramatically — from two courses in the PE department to a rich slate of academic offerings that students can take as a secondary concentration. In the not-too-distant future, �ֲ���ý hopes to offer a dance major. Since 1983 the college has been home to the �ֲ���ý Dance Festival, which Plavin founded and which today ranks in the top tier of such events in the United States.

Plavin will remain a presence at �ֲ���ý, but succeeding her as head of the dance program is Carol Dilley, who arrived last fall. Dilley’s resume includes teaching at the University of Washington and in a variety of dance programs in Sydney, Australia. She has also run a dance company in Barcelona, and attended the �ֲ���ý Dance Festival as a student in the early 1990s.

“Carol will do wonderful things,” Plavin says.

For information on making a gift to support the ongoing dance-studio project as well as dance programming at �ֲ���ý, e-mail Shanna Bruno, Office of College Advancement, or phone 207-786-8254.

Highlights of the performance include “Canonic 3/4 Studies,” a 1982 piece by Mark Morris, one of America’s most respected choreographers, and Alwin Nikolais’ 1953 “Tensile Involvement.” For more information call 207-786-6157. No seat reservations will be accepted.

The Modern Dance Company was founded by Marcy Plavin, of Lewiston, who started at �ֲ���ý in 1965 and retires as director of dance this year. A program that helped pave the way for the college’s current robust offerings in the arts, including the nationally renowned �ֲ���ý Dance Festival, Plavin and the company are the object of deep loyalty among its veterans — many of whom will dance on May 1.

“In the midst of this very intensive academic experience, it was incredibly different and open and freeing to have part of our experience be about being creative,” Suzanne Carbonneau told the college’s alumni magazine in 1998. A member of the class of 1976, Carbonneau is a dance critic and historian. “It was always about exposing us to a lot of different stuff and encouraging us to go where our interests were.”

Alumni from classes as far back as the mid-1960s will take part in the May 1 performance. The first half of the program features two pieces danced by current members of the dance company: the Nikolais work, for which the dancers perform with elastic bands stretched across the stage like a giant cat’s cradle, and Morris’s teasing takeoff on traditional ballet, for which obtaining performance rights was something of a coup. “We’re all honored by this great gift,” Plavin says.

Short works danced by alumni constitute the remainder of the first half. The program’s entire second half will be choreographed and danced by alumni, with an opening section choreographed by Michael Foley — class of 1989 and assistant professor of modern dance at the University of South Florida — and a closing by John Carrafa, class of 1976, a Tony Award-nominated choreographer acclaimed for his work on the Broadway hits “Urinetown” and “Into the Woods,” among other credits.

This isn’t the first MDC anniversary for which alumni have trekked back to Lewiston, but it’s an especially significant one because of the impending retirement of Plavin, who was first hired at �ֲ���ý by the director of women’s physical education. “Marcy might have been the first adult who wanted me to call her by her first name,” Geri FitzGerald, a member of the class of 1975 and a �ֲ���ý trustee, told the college magazine. “In many ways, she was the first adult friend that I had.”

“They’re my extended family,” Plavin says. “We’ve had great times together. Dance seems to build those kinds of friendships.”

During Plavin’s tenure, the dance program has grown dramatically — from two courses in the PE department to a rich slate of academic offerings that students can take as a secondary concentration. In the not-too-distant future, �ֲ���ý hopes to offer a dance major. Since 1983 the college has been home to the �ֲ���ý Dance Festival, which Plavin founded and which today ranks in the top tier of such events in the United States.

Plavin will remain a presence at �ֲ���ý, but succeeding her as head of the dance program is Carol Dilley, who arrived last fall. Dilley’s resume includes stints on faculty at the University of Washington and in a variety of dance programs in Sydney, Australia. She has also run a dance company in Barcelona, and attended the �ֲ���ý Dance Festival as a student in the early 1990s.

“Carol will do wonderful things,” Plavin says.

�ֲ���ý students, faculty and a New York choreographer all show dances in the �ֲ���ý College Modern Dance Company’s Annual Spring Concert of New Work. A profusion of material means the concert is presented in two programs in Schaeffer Theatre, 305 College Street: Program A, 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 20, and 4 p.m. Saturday, March 22; and Program B, 7:30 p.m. Friday, March 21, and 2 p.m. Sunday, March 23.

The public is welcome to attend at no charge; seats fill fast. For more information, please call the Schaeffer box office at 207-786-6161.

The Dance Company’s Amy Hempstead, a junior from Yarmouth, choreographed “Déjà Vu,” a work for six dancers that depicts the emotional confusion around a failed relationship. Julie Yeterian, a first-year student from Waterville, offers the trio dance “I Almost Went to Bed Without Remembering,” which explores the sleeper’s resistance to awakening.

Two dancers each present multiple works. Yuzo Yamazaki, a junior from Kanagawa, Japan, has created a duet, a large-ensemble piece and a solo that he will dance himself. Aisha Bell, a senior from St. Louis, Mo., offers two quartets, a quintet and the solo “Spiritual,” which she will perform.

The concerts also feature large-ensemble pieces by two faculty members: “Luna Amor” by Robin Vermilion, who teaches ballet, and “Didn’t Find It” by W. Barry Dean, who teaches hip-hop. A work by Ben Munisteri, a well-known New York City choreographer, will also be performed.

Marcy Plavin , director of the college dance program and founder of the dance company, directs the concerts.

�ֲ���ý alumnus John Carrafa ’76 was nominated May 6 for two Tony Awards for Best Choreography for Urinetown, The Musical and Into The Woods.

The American Theatre Wing’s 56th annual Tony Awards ceremony will take place on June 2, 2002 at New York City’s Radio City Music Hall. CBS and PBS will broadcast the ceremony live on national television. Broadway shows that opened between May 3, 2001 and May 1, 2002 were eligible for 2002 Tony Awards.

Carrafa, a New York-based choreographer is increasingly well-known in show-business circles, thanks to his work on such projects as the megamusical Dance of the Vampires and the production of The Pajama Game in which Carrafa challenged the Fosse legend with a newly choreographed “Steam Heat.”

And all this with a biology degree. “I didn’t go to �ֲ���ý for dance,” says Carrafa. Yet he clearly sees a path leading from his present success back to �ֲ���ý. He is one of countless students who worked with, and was captivated by, longtime dance program director Marcy Plavin.

Plavin exposes her classes to all different styles of dance and to its best practitioners, many of whom she brings to campus. “Marcy helped us have a wider view of what dance was,” says Carrafa.

Just as influential was a rigorous intellectual climate at �ֲ���ý that taught Carrafa the importance of research to the authenticity, the sense of sheer “rightness,” that distinguishes a living dance from a mere collection of moves. That kind of perspective can be lost on choreographers who have studied only dance. “Many of the people I work with started dancing when they were teenagers or even younger,” Carrafa says. “And that’s all they’ve done.”

The �ֲ���ý College Modern Dance Company, under the artistic direction of Marcy Plavin, showcases the talents of students and a guest choreographer in concerts at 8 p.m. Friday, Jan. 11; 8 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 12; and 2 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 13, in Schaeffer Theatre, 350 College Street. The public is invited to attend free of charge. No reservations are accepted and seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. For more information, call the Schaeffer Theatre box office at 207-786-6161.

The concert features a five-dance suite, More Drama than Advisable, choreographed by Portsmouth, N.H., senior Kate Nies, as a component of an interdisciplinary senior thesis in the fields of dance and women’s studies. “Unlike pieces I’ve choreographed in the past that were psychologically driven, this work is about movement,” Nies says. “I wanted to move in different ways and develop a style.”

The program includes a solo, Pangs, by �ֲ���ý senior Devon Fitchett of Woburn, Mass., and The Shark Attack and Other Dating Rituals, a dance/theater work by New York choreographer Alexandra Beller that examines the struggle and hilarity of human mating habits. A member of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company from 1995 through 2001, Beller has performed in more than 50 countries and throughout the United States. She teaches at Dance Space and Sal Anthony’s Movement Salon in New York. Beller’s work will be performed next month at Joyce Soho in New York.

Coordinated by Marcy Plavin, director of the �ֲ���ý College Modern Dance Company, the ACDF at �ֲ���ý is the first of eight regional festivals to be performed in 2000. The 25-year-old American College Dance Festival has a two fold purpose: to provide classes, workshops and performance experiences for college dancers and an opportunity for the dancers to have their works adjudicated and critiqued by established professionals.

This year, 30 institutions will present 45 pieces for adjudication. The three adjudicators for the 2000 festival are dance critic and historian Suzanne Carbonneau `76, who is resident scholar and director of audience enrichment at ; Alan Kriegsman, Pulitzer Prize winning dance writer for The Washington Post; and Gus Solomons Jr., dance critic, dancer and company director.

The at �ֲ���ý also includes a performance by New York-based dancer Michael Foley`89 and his company at 8 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 22. This performance is sold out.

For more information about the performances, call 207-786-6157.

The program includes student-choreographed dances on a range of topics from a piece about mental health by sophomore Kate Nies of Portsmouth, N.H., to “Empty,” an exploration of loss by sophomore Devon Fitchett of Woburn, Mass. A collaboration piece of movement, dance and words about experiencing a new culture by senior Anna Israelsson of Seattle will also be featured.

“Just A Moment,” choreographed for 13 �ֲ���ý students by guest choreographer Terese Freedman, uses references from the last 50 years to make a statement about this moment in time, according to Plavin. The dance “downplays all the hoopla surrounding the millennium, yet refers to moments throughout our recent history,” Plavin says.

�ֲ���ý dancers for “Just A Moment” include junior Rhea Chase of Vernon, Conn.; senior Lisa DeTora of Auburn; senior Erika Fulenweider of Houston, Texas; senior Susannah Canfield of New York City; first-year student Kevin Fournier of Woodstock, Conn.; first-year student Isabelle Lam of Hong Kong; senior Sarah Putnam of Cumberland; sophomore Justin Stebbins of Hinsdale, N.H.; first-year student Sarah Hannigen of Taipei, Taiwan; Nies; sophomore Laura Medina of Burke, Va.; Fitchett; and sophomore Kristin Smith of Plattsburgh, N.Y.

Freedman is co-artistic director of the Freedman/Coleman Dance Company and artist in residence at Mount Holyoke College in the Five College Dance Department in western Massachusetts. Before forming her company with Jim Coleman, Freedman was a member of the Nancy Spanier Dance Theater in Colorado and the Bill Evans Repertory Company in Seattle. Freedman and Coleman have taught, danced and choreographed throughout the United States, Europe and Asia.

Winners of joint choreographic fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the duo has also received many choreographic commissions from dance companies as well as university and college dance programs.