En Pointe: Dance professor’s career spans 52 years
VCU dance professors met through university, finish each others’ sentences
VCU Dance professor Susan Massey teaches an Intro to Ballet Technique class.
Samantha Foster
Staff Writer
Susan and John Massey have been teaching at VCU for a collective total of more than 60 years, but their story together stretches far beyond the dance studio.
Susan Massey began teaching at VCU in 1976 but said she’s been teaching for about 52 years. While studying dance at the University of Utah, she started to work as a teacher in an afternoon dance class for children.
“I really wanted to perform,” Massey said. “I didn’t want to teach, but I got a lot of good experience going through school and teaching.”
Massey received her master’s degree in choreography from the University of Utah. She choreographed for a dance company in Utah before moving to Richmond.
“When I moved here, there wasn’t anywhere to perform, so I taught, and I just kept on teaching,” Massey said. “I always wanted to be a dancer, so it was not really deciding ‘oh, I think I’m going to teach dance.’ You just work into something like that.”
Massey said she simply called then-director and current improvisation teacher at VCU, Frances Wessells, and asked if she needed a teacher for a ballet class at VCU. Wessells hired her without an interview.
“She asked what I needed, and I said that I’d like to have a piano, and (Wessells) said ‘Okay, I’ll find you a piano’ and she did. By the next class it was stolen,” Massey said of her first week teaching at VCU.
Massey is currently an adjunct faculty member at VCU and teaches full time at Richmond Ballet. In the past 36 years, she has taught every level of ballet and a course in dance history. This year though, she is teaching only non-major dance classes at VCU, including Introduction to Ballet Technique I and II.
Junior theater major Emily Marsh took Massey’s Introduction to Ballet Technique I class last semester.
“She’s strict enough to keep people in line, and then at the same time, she really made ballet fun,” Marsh said. “She would always say little things, like in a changement, you’re supposed to point your feet, so her way of reminding us was to say, ‘You’ve got to be little bullets.’”
“I find that I enjoy teaching very much,” Massey said. “Today’s college-age students seem open to learning the art form and are eager to apply themselves.”
At the Richmond Ballet, Massey teaches all levels, from 10 and 12 year olds to adults. She also performs in Richmond Ballet productions as the grandmother in “The Nutcracker,” Giselle’s mother in “Giselle” and the queen in “Swan Lake.”
“I have the good fortune of performing those roles,” Massey said.
Susan Massey’s husband John Massey received his bachelor’s degree in drama in 1972 from VCU and has been teaching at VCU since 1980.
“I was helping the lady who was already teaching the class, and then she had to give it up, so it just fell into my lap (in 1983),” Massey said.
Prior to his teaching career, Massey was working toward becoming a stage dancer.
“I went to New York, and, of course, usually when you go to a place like New York you have to do everything else,” Massey said. “You have to work in a restaurant and do this, that and the other to earn a living.”
Massey was then given the opportunity to attend an Arthur Murray training class where he learned about ballroom dance. He then taught ballroom occasionally until 1980, when he started teaching ballroom dance full time at VCU.
“What I think I like most about (ballroom dance) is that, besides just moving with another person as one, ballroom people, people dancing together, they’re not angry with each other,” Susan Massey said. “They wouldn’t be dancing together. It’s a happy kind of thing to do.”
John Massey has never competed as a ballroom dancer but does encourage his students to aim for competitions.
“I just want them to set their sights high, and then, they may not become competitors, but they will certainly be better dancers,” he said.
Susan and John Massey met through working in the VCU dance department. John Massey taught in the evenings, and Susan Massey taught in the mornings, so they passed by each other every day at the door of the dance offices.
John Massey also pursued Susan to practice a dance with him.
“He kept after me, so I said, ‘all right, I have an hour on Tuesday,’” Susan Massey said. “That hour just flew by. He walked me to my car because he was such a nice man, such a gentleman, and said, ‘Well, it’s too bad you’re so busy,’ and I said, ‘Oh, well I have all day tomorrow.’”
“We just started dancing closer and closer together,” John Massey said.
“And then we were married,” Susan Massey said, completing his sentence.
Photos by Mel Kobran
I have enjoyed your article on Susan Massey and her accomplishments. Susan was an elegant lady even at the tender age of six. I knew her in elementary school as Susan Wheeler and she accomplished many things all through her time in school in The Dalles Oregon.
Susan was an excellent student and its obvious that she has achieved the many goals she had set for herself. Thankyou for the wonderful article.
Michael C. Vogel
Vancouver Washington
My most poignant memories of Susan hark back to the Fall of 1959 and the production of “Finian’s Rainbow” in our Senior Year at The Dalles High School in The Dalles, Oregon. Susan appropriately played the part of “Susan” and was the hapless recipient of the warblerings of a love-sick leprechaun, and his fickle, philanderous “When I ammm Not Neaarrr, the Girrlll I Luuuvvv, I Luuvv the Girrlll I’m Nearrr”. Susan was as graceful on the “boards” then, as she has remained throughout her life. Oh, by the way, in the last verse of the song, (if I’m not conflating the several songs I sang each night ) the line:”It’s Susan I’m Choosen…” occurs… and I’ve thought upon that line and that mindset throughout the years and often wondered…What If???? Sam Muller, Bend,Oregon
So good to read your article about Susan Wheeler Massey and her husband John. I fell in love with her at six , walked her home from first grade, and have always had great respect for her didication to dance and her regal character. Susan…Thank you for traveling all the way back to The Dalles, Oregon for our class reunions. Gary Betts, Dufur, Oregon
I am one of Susan’s classmates from both high school and junior high, and how well I remember her star performances from that time, in particular “Finian’s Rainbow” and “Rodeo.” Even in those early years, Susan was a dedicated dancer, graceful, poised, and clearly meant to make ballet a major part of her life. I am so glad she was able to achieve her dream and find a wonderful partner who shares her passions!
What a nice article! I remember meeting Susan for the first time in the 7th grade. She was an excellent student and on into high school we just knew that dancing would be her life. In 2010 we had the good fortune to see Susan and meet John and spend several hours visiting with them. Thanks for making the long trip back to Oregon, you made our reunion very special. Hope to see you in 2015! Wishing the Masseys the very best.
Jim & JoAnn Johnston
In our class, Susan was always the most graceful and gracious, best manicured and coiffed, the epitome of a ballerina in her whole life from the earliest years. It is wonderful how she has lived a life of sharing her beloved ballet with countless young people and best of all with her lifetime partner John Massey in another world far from the shores of the Columbia. We should all be so fortunate to find a lifetime of fulfillment and satisfaction as Susan has. Congratulations, Susan, well done!
Ken Fields