Thirty-six years ago, a newly graduated ballerina from across the country began her journey toward a teaching career at the University of Wyoming.
Marsha Knight has been teaching at the UW since she graduated with her master of fine arts degree from the University of Utah in 1983. Knight is originally from Richmond, Virginia, where she began her ballet career with the Richmond Ballet.
Knight chose to trek westward in pursuit of training under a University of Utah professor and“pioneer of Western ballet”who had inspired one of her previous instructors. Upon graduating, she chose to teach at UW and has never looked back.
“I really appreciated the notion of teaching at a state institution,” said Knight. “I like the fact that it was not a private school. I had applied to other schools that were preferential to men or to women. I believe in the state system of education and I like the location of UW.”
While at UW, Knight has practiced the art she loves while sharing it with others as a professor of ballet, historical dance, choreography and period movement for actors. In her time at UW Knight has been able to develop her creative abilities in ways that other institutions may have restrained.
“In terms of my creative endeavors UW has never been a place where someone has pigeon holed me and said, ‘This is what you do, exclusively.’ There’s been creative freedom and the ability to have creative imagination and realization here. So I have really appreciated that freedom and that support within the theater and dance department.”
Knight has won various awards over the years, locally and nationally, for her teaching and original work. Notable among these is Knight’s contemporary ballet “Of a Mind” award, presented at the Kennedy Center in May 2006 by the American College Dance Festival. She also recently received the University of Wyoming President’s Speaker Series Award for her research on “Six Songs from Ellis,” a theater production about immigrants who passed through Ellis Island to enter the U.S.
Though Knight holds the research and production of “Six Songs from Ellis” close to her, there is one thing that she holds dearer: being able to share this passion and her knowledge with her students.
“The best thing about being a professor here is the students, absolutely, hands down,” said Knight. “There are some complexities and changes, some for the good and some that are in waters that are slightly strange to us. However, the positive ongoing nature of interaction with students remains the finest part of our work endeavors, and there’s no question.”
