If you ask a bunch of little girls what they want to be when they grow up, odds are many of them will say they want to be ballerinas. While many of these girls stop dancing after childhood, a young Anne Megibow had her heart set on pursuing dance.
Megibow, who teaches the course "History of Modern Dance," started taking lessons at age 10. When she was 12, she went to a dance camp in Vermont where, in addition to taking traditional ballet classes, she was introduced to modern dance.
"That [camp] was the real turnaround for me," Megibow said. "But I still wanted to be a ballerina. I mean, didn't everybody?"
A group of her friends from the camp then decided to audition for the Juilliard Preparatory Division, which Megibow said she thought was a good idea, so she tried out as well. Megibow, however, only had a hodgepodge of ballet training.
"I auditioned for ballet, but they called me up after the audition and asked if I'd take an acceptance in modern because they liked to watch me move, and my technique was terrible," Megibow said.
After being accepted at Juilliard, she had her days filled between taking classes, attending the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance and all the while going to public high school.
"I hated the Graham School," Megibow said. "It was the most terrifying place I've ever been in. They would yell at you and humiliate you, but [the dancing] was just amazingly pretty."
Despite what she endured at the Martha Graham School, Megibow said the Graham technique was the one that has influenced her the most.
Graham's method "is not my favorite [style] to watch, but I like the strength of it, the long diagonals, the contractions, its drama. Not that I want to go dance great tragedies, but I liked its power. ... I think I'm much more that kind of dancer than a flowy one," she said.
With the encouragement of her teachers at Juilliard, Megibow went on to attend Grinnell College, where she continued dancing. Megibow has now been teaching dance at Piedmont Virginia Community College for 30 years. In addition to teaching at PVCC, she is the first to teach "The History of Modern Dance," a new course at the University.
The class was created with the push for a dance program at the University in mind, and Megibow said she enjoys being able to mold the class to her liking. She composed the class so that it's not just reading and lecturing but moving around so that students experience certain techniques and styles. She said she hopes that, with the addition of this class and maybe even more, a dance program at the University will be created in the near future.
"I think for a major university of the stature of the University of Virginia, which has such a strong commitment to theater and to drama, I don't understand why there's no dance department," she said. "I don't know a major university that doesn't."
Perhaps the hope for establishing a program lies within the students.
"I just really like it that I get students who do not necessarily want to go out and be professional dancers, but they've always wanted to dance and they're willing to take a chance and see if they like it," Megibow said. "I think that's true of this town in general -- that there is this sense of joy in movement -- and that's a wonderful world to be a part of"
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