MARCIA P. PLAVIN MALS’84

MARCIA P. PLAVIN MALS’84, a dance professor at Bates College, died Nov. 3, 2016. She was 84. An alumna of the University of Maine, in 1953 she started to teach dance at the Y in Auburn, Maine, which led to a position at Bates College in 1965, where she started to build the dance program. In 1969 she founded the Bates College Modern Dance Company, which produced and performed multiple dance concerts under her direction and became a haven for Bates dancers. In 1983 she founded the Bates College Dance Festival, at which world-class dancers teach college-age students and adults during the summer, and in 1984 she received her MALS degree from Wesleyan. The Marcy Plavin Dance Award and the Marcy Plavin Dance Studios at Bates are named in her honor. She also received the Distinguished Service Award from Bates. A short-term course she created, in which her students presented dance programs to area school children, resulted in more than 4,000 children getting their initial exposure to modern dance. Predeceased by her husband, Leonard N. Plavin, one daughter, two sons, and five grandchildren survive.