Marie Cassady Dances On

By Sara Crutchfield

At 92, Marie Cassady attributes her longevity and good health to her lifelong interest in folk dancing. It's excellent physical activity and “stimulating to the mind, as well,” she says. Her passion for dancing has taken her throughout the world, visiting and studying the customs and people of other countries. Marie's home is filled with books, musical albums and souvenir items collected during her travels. Until last year she shared her home and interest in dancing with her husband, Frank. Now, after 12 years of attending him in his illness, she finds herself “free to travel once again.”

After spending an early spring in Paris , Marie will take another trip in June, sailing aboard a ship that begins its voyage in Venice , Italy . She and 80 of her kindred folk dancers, along with an instructor, will travel the Adriatic Sea, stopping at several places including the Croatian city of Dubrovnic and ending at the island of Corfu in Greece . The weeklong trip includes day tours of cities and “meetings with local dancers in the evenings. We will dance every night,” Marie says with anticipation.

Even before she became interested in folk dancing Marie “was always interested in overseas things.” She collected international music and wrote a college term paper about Russia . She took acrobatics and sang in the choir at the University of Louisville , where she received her degree in business.

Marie started dancing in 1956. For many years she held a full-time job as a bookkeeper. In the evenings, she recalls, “Instead of playing bridge or sitting around I discovered singing and folk dancing to keep me busy.” She describes the dances as “a wonderful combination of music and movement.”

During her half-century of interest, Marie has participated in all kinds of dance, attending schools in states from Maine to Hawaii . She has “met people from all over the country who share a love of the same thing.”

When she tried to join a club that didn't have a place for singles, she started her own, calling it the Peasant Dancers. She learned square and hula dancing, and spent “dance weekends” in Massachusetts . She took a “dance trip” to England , studying the Playford Dances, which date back 1651. “There are still balls celebrating and demonstrating the old dances,” says Marie. “People come from all over to participate in the Jane Austen Ball.” For a ball held at Farmington , Marie looked to the Smithsonian for the proper music.

Marie estimates she spent 15 summers at the folk dancing school sponsored by the Kentucky Dance Institute. “Admission was cheap,” she remembers. “We would meet at a college, take classes and eat our meals, then have parties at night.”

In 1974, her Peasant Dancers embarked on an eight-year affiliation with the Heritage Festivals that took place on the Belvedere during the summer. “It started when the Italians came to us,” she says. “They wanted to drink wine and learn the dances of their country.” Marie's photograph album is filled with groups of dancers in costume at the Heritage Festivals: Italian, French, Greek, Mexican. And Marie is in every picture.

“People in this country are preserving the dances,” she explains. They come here from all over the world, and they share not only their food and styles of dress, but also their native dances. They teach them to others.

Marie remembers this time on the Belvedere fondly. “The music is beautiful,” she says. “It takes you to other countries. When you do their dances and dress in the costumes you can identify with other cultures and learn about other people and their histories.”

Marie hasn't let her age interfere with her dancing. On Thursday nights she meets with a Scottish group at St. Andrews Church . Friday evenings she spends with the Peasant Dancers, now calling themselves the International Ethnic Dancers. And the third Sunday of each month she joins the English Country Dancers. Along with the exercise, there is the social aspect. “Lots of people in these groups have danced with me throughout the years,” she says. “And lots of them are senior citizens – because they can get away.”

As if that isn't enough, Marie also instructs from time to time, teaching English, Scottish, Irish and Balkan dances. And for 20 years she has taught hula dancing, usually to a multinational group of about 11 students. When Indianapolis held a hula seminar in 2003, Marie attended, dancing an exhibition before 200 people. “With folk dancing, you need a group of people to form the dance,” she explains. “But with hula it doesn't matter.” Another positive aspect of hula is that “when a folk dancer's knees get bad, they can switch to hula!”

Though she loves the costumes of Latin America, of the hundreds of dances Marie has known, her favorites are those from Greece and the Balkans because “the music has such unusual rhythms.”

Marie is not just a mother or grandmother, a widow three times, or even a dancer, she is a student of the music and dance of places the world over. “The history, the countries, the music – it all fits together,” she says.

Sara Crutchfield is a freelance writer for Kentuckiana HealthFitness Magazine. Sara has a B.A. in English from the University of Louisville .