Background
Rice was born in Hingham, Massachusetts, settled in Fitchburg, Massachusetts and founded the "Marion Rice Studio of the Dance" where she taught and performed Denishawn technique for over 60 years.
Rice was born in Hingham, Massachusetts, settled in Fitchburg, Massachusetts and founded the "Marion Rice Studio of the Dance" where she taught and performed Denishawn technique for over 60 years.
She studied in the late 1920s and early 30"s with Ted Shawn, Ruth Saint Denis, Miriam Winslow and the Braggiotti sisters at the Braggiotti-Denishawn School of Dance in Boston, often performing Denishawn works in their concerts.
She also operated her own dance company, the Marion Rice Denishawn Dancers, and in 1980 staged her version of "Soaring," for Les Grands Ballets Canadiens in Montreal. Marion Rice Denishawn performed at the Jacob"s Pillow Dance Festival in 1972, the Marymount Manhattan Theater (New York) in 1976 and City College (New York) in 1986 at the "Roots: Foundations of American Modern Dance Festival". In 2000, Marion Rice Denishawn performed in the "Dance in Millennium" Festival in Washington, District of Columbia. The company presented "Boston Braggiotti and Denishawn", a lecture demonstration illuminating a select number of the early Denishawn works.
Anna Kisselgoff wrote in the New York Times: "Marion Rice"s stagings of Denishawn works are always fresh and beautiful – the perfect example was the Saint Denis Valse Number.
14 in which Robin Rice and Rebecca Rice were also swathed in swirling fabric – but much more actively so than in theFuller solo. The amount of basic ballet taught in the Denishawn schools was evident in Robin Rice"s luminous performance of Shawn"s Red Radiance.