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By Ben Mattison
31 Jan 2006
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| Rebecca Wright |
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| photo by Washington Ballet |
Rebecca Wright, a former dancer with the Joffrey Ballet and American Ballet Theatre, died on January 29, the Washington Post reports. She was 58, and had suffered from cancer.
Most recently, Wright was the director of the Washington School of Ballet, which is affiliated with Washington Ballet.
Born in Springfield, Ohio, Wright studied at Dayton Ballet. She was a principal dancer in the Joffrey from 1966 to 1975 and a soloist with ABT from 1975 to 1982. She also appeared in the Broadway musical Merlin, for which she received a Drama Desk nomination, and toured with On Your Toes as Leslie Caron's understudy.
In the 1980s and '90s, she taught at California State University Long Beach, directed the dance program at Adelphi University, chaired the Joffrey/New School University dance program, and taught at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire. From 1997 to 2003, she directed ABT's summer training programs.
In 2004, Wright took on the unenviable task of succeeding Mary Day, the legendary founder of the Washington School of Ballet and Washington Ballet, at the school's helm. According to the Post, she succeeded in boosting enrollment from 350 to 450.
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