A dance teacher in Walla Walla is celebrating her retirement in no better way than with a ballet. Idalee Hutson-Fish, owner of the Dance Center of Walla Walla, will perform in The Final Bow on June 1, 2024 at Cordiner Hall. Rylee Fitzgerald reports. Read the whole story here: https://www.applevalleynewsnow.com/news/walla-walla-dance-teacher-set-to-retire-passing-studio-onto-walla-walla-summer-theater/article_a85b4df6-120f-11ef-bcbc-0706dd8da812.html
WALLA WALL, Wash. — A dance teacher in Walla Walla is celebrating her retirement in no better way than with a ballet. Idalee Hutson-Fish has been in Walla Walla since 1976, performing first for a summer’s production of ‘Trails West,’ choreographed by Charles Bennett, and then opening up her own ballet studio, the Dance Center of Walla Walla .
After decades in Walla Walla, owning that studio for decades, taking dancers on tours to Italy, teaching dance at Whitman College and much more, Idalee decided to pull her legacy into a full circle, passing the studio to the Walla Walla Summer Theater , the reason she came to the community all those years ago, as she prepared to retire.
“We had five weeks of rehearsal and it was six weeks of performing six nights a week. Charles Bennett was the choreographer for the show,” explained Idalee Hutson-Fish.
The show, ‘ Trails West ’ in 1976 and 1977, was choreographed by Bennett, the founder of First Chamber Dance Company in Seattle, where Hutson-Fish apprenticed after leaving Juilliard.
“‘I'm doing this big, huge musical theater piece in a place called Walla Walla and I need you,’ and this was Friday morning and he says, ‘You have till five o'clock Friday night to tell me yes, because you have to be here on Monday,’” quoted Hutson-Fish.
She packed up her things and crossed from the western Washington, to small-town Walla Walla. She set up shop in 1986: The Dance Center of Walla Walla.
She explained that her philosophy of dance was all about sharing the gift you love. “It didn't matter if they did a perfect pirouette to me. If they did a pirouette and loved it, that was what was important,” said Hutson-Fish.
Hutson-Fish had a professional ballet career as a soloist from 1981 to 1983 with the Arizona Metropolitan Ballet. For 10 years in the 2000s, she also taught ballet at the Umbra Institute in Perugia, Italy during the summers, and then continued to bring dancers for ballet tours in Italy for several years after that.
The Walla Walla Summer Theater (WWST) is planning to carry forward her legacy, and keep arts in the upstairs studio on the corner of Alder and Colville, in downtown Walla Walla. Taking over the space means the ability to accommodate larger class enrollments, and give more opportunities to students for the WWST.
“Our space right now is like a 250-square-foot studio below this room, and we've been at capacity with that space in a very short amount of time,” stated Tyson Kaup, the executive artistic director with WWST. “I mentioned to Idalee, maybe six months ago, you know, if you ever decide that you want to move on from this space, please let me know, because we could really use it. I didn't know how quickly that turnaround would come.”
“It was really laying fallow, just rotting, really, and the weeds were overgrown. It was like a jungle out there, and that made me sad,” said Kaup. “The experience that I had out there changed my life and led me on to graduating from NYU, living in New York and having a career, and I felt just disappointed that so many kids, in that interim time, hadn't been given the chance to discover that.”
Decades-worth of people have been impacted by Idalee’s dance school, like Tyson Kaup, one of her former students. The two are now working together to transition the studio from the Dance Center of Walla Walla, into the new facility for the Walla Walla Summer Theater. WWST will assume the space on July 1, and soon after that, announce summer and fall programming. The WWST hopes to turn the space into a musical theater conservatory and rehearsal space, to offer an array of classes , camps, workshops and showcases in acting, singing, dance or other theatrical art forms. The Walla Walla Summer Theater creates locally-produced performing arts events and accessible educational opportunities.
Idalee will continue to serve as a strategic advisor with WWST, ensuring the continuation of professional dance training.
As for ‘The Final Bow,’ Idalee Hutson-Fish’s last performance, it will be an evening of excerpts and moments from her greatest hits, performed by current and former students, including a restaged piece from Idalee’s own copyrighted ballet, Elegy .
“In the end, in the big finale, I’m having all of these alum come up on the stage with us, and it’ll be the big ‘Bolero’ music in this big finale, and everybody will be doing the steps, and at the end of it, everybody does a turn and then collapses to the floor, and when they all collapse to the floor...and it's my Final Bow,” said Hutson-Fish.
The event happens June 1, 2024 at 7 p.m. at Cordiner Hall on the Whitman College Campus. This event also acts as a fundraiser for the restoration of the Fort Walla Walla Amphitheater. Find tickets here .
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