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| Marsh and Mack, student and mentor, now side by side By RICH RIEGEL THE MID-COUNTY MEMO
The 52-year-old Marsh will gush with accolades for the legendary dance teacher Mack. Marsh and Mack continue to carry forward the tradition of teaching young men and women the fundamentals of dance. And now that Sally Mack has moved next door to the Judy Marsh School of Dance, it’s all good. Both the Judy Marsh School of Dance and Sally Mack’s School of Dance are now located at Northeast Halsey Street and 119th Avenue in Portland. “Basically,” Marsh said, “everything that I have learned, and everything I teach my students, I learned from Sally. All the technique I learned from her, along with working to give the kids self-esteem. “Sally really taught me a lot,” Marsh confessed. “She taught me how to do the basic teaching, staging and costuming. I learned everything from Sally.” In an interview with the two dance experts, the Memo found kindred spirits bubbling with the joy of their work. Their work is having fun teaching dance. “I’m very proud and happy to now be with Judy Marsh,” Mack told the Memo. “Even though we maintain separate dance schools, we have a wonderful professional camaraderie, which started way back when Judy was a student of mine. “Watching her success,” Mack said of Marsh, in a convivial way, “I take all the credit for that.” Marsh was born and raised in the Portland area, graduating from Centennial High School. After getting her start at another dance studio, Marsh began teaching for Mack when she was a sophomore in high school, at the age of 15. “I fell in love with her style,” Marsh said, “and the way she treated people, her very upbeat personality with children.” Marsh continued to work for Mack even after she graduated from high school. It wasn’t long, though, before Mack was encouraging Marsh to open her own dance studio. Marsh’s beginnings were, as they say, humble. Marsh opened a small dance studio in her mother’s garage. Marsh began by teaching a dozen neighborhood people. She was 20 years old. At the same time she was working in the Lloyd Center in Northeast Portland as a secretary and receptionist. Marsh was candid in saying that while she worked for a time as a secretary and receptionist, her em-ployer noticed her heart was not in her work, and encouraged her to be occupied doing what she loved to do best: Teach dance. “I moved here on Halsey Street in 1974,” Marsh said. She began with 36 students. She’s had students that have gone onto to dance professionally, including those who have been dancers with the Portland Trail Blazer organization. Marsh’s son Scott Coffman has recently been accepted to dance professionally on a cruise ship. Marsh is married to Jim Hardy. These days, Marsh teaches students from age 3 on up the fun and fundamentals of dance, including jazz, tap, ballet, hip-hop and musical theater. Mack offers dance instruction along with gymnastics and tumbling for students from preschool on up. Dance instruction includes tap, jazz and ballet. “It’s really been a great venture to have her here,” said Marsh, “because she has a lot of classes to offer. So the classes that I don’t offer, I can refer to her, and vice versa. Which is wonderful. “What I like most about Sally is that she’s always very ‘up,’ very positive, always has a kind word to say,” said Marsh. “If I need her, she’s always there. When she walks into a room, you know Sally’s there.” Mack is an Oregon native, born in Eugene. The family moved to Portland when she was an infant. Mack’s mother was a dance instructor; Mack herself began dancing at age four. “My mom didn’t want me to go to the closest dance instructor,” said Mack, “she researched and found the best instructor in the city of Portland. I studied very hard.” Mack, like Marsh, taught dance in high school. She’d leave school in the afternoon, take a bus to Vancouver, Wash., and teach dance part time. As soon as she graduated from high school, “I was gone,” she said. “I headed to Los Angeles, where there’s better training.” After two years in L.A., Mack received an offer to teach dance in Vancouver and Longview, Wash. “It sounded good,” she said, “and I was running out of money.” Over the years, Mack never really stopped dancing professionally, but did find time to marry Robert Heine and raise the four Heine boys, Jeff, Troy, Darrin and Brett. Mack is especially proud of Brett, who has danced professionally for the past 20 years. Mack loves dancing and teaching dancing. “I used my talent for instructing,” she said, “I really had a love for it then, and I still do.” In 1961 Mack began teaching dance at the Richard Billings studio in the Hollywood District of Northeast Portland. Mack said that after a time, she found herself doing most of the work. She said Billings came in less and less, and she thought to herself, “Gee, I’m doing all the work, maybe I should turn this into my own dance studio.” She opened Sally Mack’s School of Dance in 1964. The studio was located at Northeast 37th Avenue and Sandy Boulevard for 25 years. Mack has taught mostly tap and jazz dance. “I have enough ballet training to know the technical aspects of that dance,” Mack said. Mack remembers the beginning of jazz dance, which she saw sprout in L.A. She said jazz dance is based on ballet. Between the Hollywood location and her present location, Mack spent five years at a studio in inner Southeast Portland, near Southeast Fifth Avenue and Ankeny Street. And her reason for moving next door to her former student and dance teaching assistant? She wanted to cut down on the commute, because she lives only five minutes from her new studio. “Judy’s and my world are so connected,” said Mack. “Through pageants and competitions, there’s just so much coming together of our two worlds.” Mack worked with the original Walt Disney Mouseketeers in the late 1950s. Her students have gone onto to perform on Broadway in New York City. Mack is training Lucy Fleck, the current Miss Oregon, for the Miss America Pageant Jan. 21. Marsh has been the executive director of the Miss Portland and Multnomah County Scholarship Program for the past eight years. In fact, as Marsh operates the program for the Miss Portland and Multnomah County Scholarship Program, Mack teaches the choreography. The program is affiliated with the Miss America Pageant. Marsh is looking for contestants for the local scholarship program, women 18 to 24 years old. She’s proud to say she’s helped foster two Miss Oregon winners, April Robinson and Fleck, along with one Miss America, Katie Harmon. |
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