Today’s blog began with one photo.
Dancer Maddie Rodrigue as photographed by Maria Morales, WMAR 2 New
The story:
Howard County dancer lives her dream as Radio City Rockette, Maria Morales, WMAR 2 News
A Howard County woman who fell in love with the Radio City Rockettes as a 12-year-old girl is now living her dream on the famous New York stage.
Rodrigue started dancing when she was 3 years old. Her first teacher was her mom, who's also a dancer. She performed in school productions at Marriotts Ridge High School, where she graduated from, and trained at Peabody Ballet in Baltimore and Maryland Youth Ballet before heading to New York at 18.
I saved it but I didn’t know what I would do with. I’m always looking for interesting local stories about the arts. I don’t see all that many about dance.
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And yet, somehow, the dance story found me. The next photo came into view not all that long after.
Terri Royster, a professional dancer raised in Columbia, was an artist who ‘lived out loud, Sara Ruberg, Baltimore Banner
Terri Royster trained for hours every week as a young dancer growing up in Columbia, cultivating dreams of one day performing professionally.
Later in life, she would achieve that dream at the Dance Theatre of Harlem. But Royster had many other achievements in her life — she became a model, a mother and, later in life, a paraeducator in Howard County schools, said her younger brother, George Hunter III.
Ms. Royster’s studies at Harper’s Choice Middle School continued at Centennial High School as a member of the first class to enter as freshmen and graduate from the school in 1981. She began her career as a professional dancer and ended it as a paraeducator in the Howard County Schools.
There’s so much hard work in just that one sentence that I wish I knew more. One of the comments in her obituary touched me:
A great Columbian. And an enduring inspiration for young people. I hope her life can continued to be shared by some recognition, perhaps in our art and education institutions.
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As I contemplated these two dancers another photo found me.
Meet the DC Native Taking Over Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Michael McCarthy, Modern Luxury
Alicia Graf Mack (@aliciagrafmack) remembers the first time she understood what it meant to be a dancer. She wasn’t on a stage or in a studio, but in the living room of her childhood home in Columbia, Md.
“There was always music in the house,” she recalls. Her family wasn’t a dancing family, per se, but they kept the record player spinning. “We played records all the time. I would make up dances to various songs and move around the house.”
Graf Mack is a 1997 graduate of Centennial High School. Interestingly, Ms. Graf remembers the strength of the humanities program at Centennial during her years there and feels it prepared her for “a life outside of dance.” She was featured in an article by John Williams of The Baltimore Sun in 2018 when she was appointed the Director of the Juilliard Dance Division and a number of smaller items in the Sun during that time period.
In July of this year she began her tenure as the Artistic Director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.
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Post Script:
Celebrations of the life and work of Jim Rouse, Columbia’s founder, have often included the arts.
The creative process is not controlled by a switch you can simply turn on or off; it's with you all the time. - - Alvin Ailey
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