{"id":7111,"date":"2022-04-17T14:20:14","date_gmt":"2022-04-17T18:20:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/?p=7111"},"modified":"2022-04-17T19:38:20","modified_gmt":"2022-04-17T23:38:20","slug":"dancing-through-the-century","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/2022\/04\/dancing-through-the-century\/","title":{"rendered":"Dancing Through The Century"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Ann Hutchinson Guest celebrates her 103 birthday<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

by Deborah Jowitt<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m sitting at a table miles from New York City staring at a small, yellow, lined piece of paper and hoping I can decipher my scribbles racing across it. The task? Martialling my memories of a woman I knew, respected, loved, and was amazed by: Ann Hutchinson Guest. She passed away in her sleep on Saturday, April 9, 2022 at the age of 103\u2014almost making it to the anniversary of the November 11th<\/sup> Armistice that ended World War 1. Still dancing. Loving to do so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2018, her husband, dance historian Ivor Guest predeceased her, slipping out of their fifty-six years of married life, and one of my more fleeting memories of the pair is the two of them, bright-eyed, turning in their seats to chat with me, as I sat behind them on a hired bus that was (I think) driving visitors to sites near Copenhagen, where one of three Bournonville Festivals was taking place. At Ann\u2019s 103rd birthday, three parties were held in her honor\u2014too many people to fit into one celebration. And she didn\u2019t put the awarded MBE (Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) after her name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ann (and, yes, I called her that) should be named the Queen of Dance Notation, for all the work she did and all the help she gave others who were eager to learn Laban\u2019s system.  She was at Jacob\u2019s Pillow in the summers (1941-1979). With money that I believe she accumulated when she was dancing in Broadway musicals during the 1950s, she and Ivor bought a cabin on Goose Pond, where she was to spend sixty-seven summers, working at the Pillow and enjoying its programs.  To visit her there, you maybe called her from a pay phone at a grocery store on the highway before driving along a narrow winding road in Lee, Massachusetts, parking your car high above a lake, and waiting for Ann to bring the suspended Hill Hiker (whose little compartment could hold perhaps four people) up its ropes to bring you down. I still remember the outhouse behind the cabin that you had to clamber partway back up that hill to reach. At Jacob\u2019s Pillow\u2019s Opening Gala in June of 2019, Murray and I, Jennifer Scanlon, and someone else (Norton Owen, the Pillow\u2019s Director of Preservation or. . .?) sat together at one of the tables in the enormous tent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But however many awards she received, hoity-toity wasn\u2019t part of Ann Hutchinson Guest\u2019s vocabulary, and how she loved to dance! In March of 2019, wearing one of her many becomingly colored pantsuits, she graced The Horse\u2019s Mouth<\/em>, Tina Croll and Jamie Cunningham\u2019s version for New York Public Library for the Performing Arts\u2014her steps assured, her rhythm astute. Of course, in her life, she had helpers: personal assistants Kellie and Gerry, the man whom she called gratefully \u201cChicago Mike\u201d  (Mike Boxser), and a multitude of friends. Of course, she occasionally fell and was injured. Of course, she sometimes lacked energy. But the Christmas letters that she sent via e-mail, illustrated with tiny drawings, present her busy life\u2014travelling worldwide, seeing dances, teaching them, notating them, and celebrating simply being alive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On July 25, 2021, aided by Norton Owen, she performed at Jacob\u2019s Pillow for a horde of fascinated theatergoers. Well prepared she! The pianist knew just the music she needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve attached it here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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