A 90-year-old VCU professor uses improvisational dance movements to defy gravity and age while teaching students to express themselves through movement.
Frances Wessells is passionate about her life’s work, she said she always has loved anything that moves and tried all forms of dancing, acrobatic, tap and ballet, before discovering modern dance.
“I was in love with dance all my life,” Wessells said. “My girlfriend and I used to make up dances when I was in grade school.”
Wessells helped form the department of dance and choreography and has been teaching dance for 67 years, 30 of those years at the university.
Department Chair James Frazier stated in a VCU View Web site article that despite Wessells years, she still burns with the same energy and enthusiasm he saw in her when he began working at the university in 2001.
“Frances Wessells is a dynamo,” Frazier stated in an e-mail. “The years have not diminished the strength of her will. She astounds us all with her unmitigated passion for dance and dance making.”
According to Wessells, one of her passions is helping non-dance majors develop confidence to express themselves through movement.
“Modern dance teaches freedom and skill to express people’s inner selves,” Wessells said. “The part they hide from most people.”
Wessells said some students are more hesitant at first and are afraid they won’t look good while dancing.
“The thing about modern dance is that anything goes,” Wessells said. “You don’t have to be beautiful, just interesting.”
Wessells said by teaching improvisational dance she is helping students through the difficulties of college life. According to Wessells, college is full of uncertainty and is a period of self-discovery. Improvisational dance allows students to break through the uncertainty and find themselves.
“What I teach is spontaneity in movement,” Wessells said. “And to me that helps bring spontaneity to life.”
In addition to teaching, Wessells has choreographed 30 traveling Broadway musicals that have been performed in the Richmond area. Some of these musical theaters’ productions include venues at Virginia Museum Theater, Barksdale, Swift Creek Mill, Haymarket and Fort Lee.
Wessells was also the dance critic for the Richmond Times-Dispatch for 25 years.
“Some people get high on pot. Some people get high on liquor,” Wessells said. “I get high on dance.”
Wessells studied for three years under Hanya Holm, who is one of the four originators of modern dance, according to the VCU Dance Web page.
Later, Wessells started teaching technique courses and gradually added improvisation, choreography and dance history, according the Web site. Most recently, Wessells is teaching improvisation exclusively, a basic requirement for VCU’s dance and choreography major.
“I have many students that write to me and tell me how my class has changed their lives,” Wessells said. “That means a lot to me because I feel that I am teaching life through movement.”
Wessells is performing at the London Opera House this December with a former VCU student who posted a YouTube video tribute to Wessells’ dancing. Wessells said the video is what earned her the invitation to perform at the London Opera House.
“It’s very exciting to know you don’t have to be feeble at 80 or 90. A lot of people expect to be,” Wessells said. “If you expect to be, you will be.”