Why install a marley dance floor? We’re so glad you asked!
After years of holding classes in the gorgeous Carole’s Dance Studio at 33 Hawley, the Northampton Center for the Arts has decided to invest in a marley dance floor. While we love the beautiful wood floor, a marley is safer and better suited for all the types of dance and dancers who frequent Carole’s Studio, and especially for ballet, which can be dangerous on the slippery wood floor. A marley will also accommodate percussive types of dance, which would otherwise be damaging to the wood.
We are thrilled to announce that Bill Newman and Dale Melcher will match up to $2,500 of the $5,000 cost of the new flooring! We are inviting our dancers, friends, and arts lovers to match this generous donation and help make Carole’s Dance Studio perfect for all dancers. Donations can be accepted via PayPal here or Venmo @Northampton-CenterForTheArts, or by mailing a check made out to NCFA to PO Box 366, Northampton, MA 01061. Please note “Marley for Carole’s Studio” in the memo line of your payment.
Carole’s Dance Studio is named for Bill Newman’s mother, Carole Newman, who passed in 2012 and whose life - bookended by Martha Graham, with whom she studied at Bennington College in the 1940s and the Paul Taylor Dance Company, on whose board she served for many years - was filled with dance and the love of dance. From her ballet lessons as a child, to a solo performance at the 92nd Street Y in New York City, to helping found the Westchester Dance Players dance troupe, to a career as a dance therapist and, finally, to her position as an board member and officer of the Paul Taylor Dance Company (and beloved elder and advisor to the dancers), Carole’s devotion to dance infused her entire life. At her death, the Paul Taylor Dance Company placed a notice in the New York Times obituary page mourning her loss: “Supporter and friend to all in the Taylor organization, Carole’s love of the dancers and the dances was second to none. We dance this week in celebration of her life.”
After Carole’s death, Bill and his late brother Jeffrey and sister Cynthia, found in her library a copy of the 1937 book Martha Graham, inscribed to Carole, which is a collection of essays about the founder of modern dance, including one piece written by Graham herself. In that essay, Graham articulated Carole’s own insights into dance as an art form:
“I refuse to admit that the dance has limitations that prevent its acceptance and understanding---or that the intrinsic purity of the art itself need be touched. The reality of the dance is its truth to our inner life. Therein lies its power to move and communicate experience…. We are a visually stimulated world today. The eye is not to be denied. Dance need not change—it has only to stand revealed.”
Carole would have loved the dance studio at 33 Hawley and we love the photo of her, performing at the 92nd Street Y, that hangs by the studio door. Most of all, Carole would have loved that the studio named in her honor and memory provides a beautiful space for so many dancers of all ages to practice their craft.
Please join Bill and Dale and the Center in continuing to honor and remember Carole by helping make Carole’s Dance Studio an even better home for all dance and dancers.