Dancing with Integrity: The Legacy of Ethel Butler at GDS

From the time our school’s founders first opened its doors, and consistently for eighty years, GDS has been known for its extraordinary faculty. Ask any alum, and they will tell you about at least one GDS teacher who was their first inspiration or who has made some lasting impact on their life, helping to shape the person they have become in many ways.

Allison Noble ‘78 put it best: “I cannot remember ever having a bad teacher. To a person, they were dedicated and competent. Some of the best were more than that: They were engaging, inspiring, humane, sincere, and genuinely fun to be around.”

In this arena, one of GDS’s most notable founding teachers, Ethel Butler, was responsible for getting GDS off on the right foot, so to speak.

Ethel taught dance at GDS. In her early career, she had been a protégé and student of Martha Graham, the American modern dancer, teacher, and choreographer whose technique created a paradigm shift within the world of dance, and is still taught worldwide.

Ethel joined the Graham troupe in 1933, eventually becoming Martha’s teaching assistant.

When she settled in Washington, DC, in the early 1940s, she continued to be a pioneering teacher of modern dance and is credited with discovering famed dancers Merce Cunningham and Paul Taylor, among others.

Ethel’s passion for dance and for teaching set a standard at GDS, and as the school grew, founder Aggie O’Neil looked for other teachers who were as passionate. But Ethel’s legacy at GDS stretches beyond setting the bar for future teachers. Eighty years later, GDS also has a robust, multi-divisional dance program. 

Much in keeping with the school’s philosophic embrace of authenticity, dance classes today are meant to serve students as avenues for self-expression, to build discipline, and to help them form connections to the world, to themselves, and to each other.

“One of my primary goals in addressing improvisation with the students is to get them to open their minds and to think critically about what options are available to them at any given moment, not just on what they can come up with individually, but what they can come up with collectively,” said Will Robinson, a consulting dance teacher with the Dana Tai Soon Burgess Dance Company who worked recently with our Lower and Middle School students. 

In the Lower School, students study dance weekly, with a focus on understanding spatial awareness and physical expression, eventually learning the fundamentals of choreography and improvisation. In the Middle School, dance study is optional but for those who choose this direction, the focus is on learning global dance styles and different techniques, and each grade performs in two highly anticipated evening showcases. In the High School, dance is offered to students of all levels of training, with a focus on learning and honing technique and choreography. The High School also hosts an extracurricular student-run dance company, Fata Morgana, with featured performances twice a year.

GDS alum and Broadway actor and dancer Daniel Thimm '16 said of the program: “The GDS High School allowed me to take charge and build a community of dancers through Fata Morgana, which was the highlight of my entire school experience.”

GDS also hosts master dance instructors from a variety of different styles and disciplines annually for a day of classes for High School students.

Throughout the GDS dance curriculum, you will find the element of joy, something that our school’s founders felt was integral to learning, community, and purpose. Ethel’s philosophy was very much aligned. She is quoted in her obit, written in 1996 by Alan M. Kriegsman for The Washington Post, as saying:

“...I strive always to generate joy in the discovery of learning; I believe in and stress the uniqueness of the individual student, and courage, and allow that to come shining through."

Shortly before she died, Ethel was honored by the American Dance Festival with the Balasaraswati/Joy Ann Beinecke Chair for Distinguished Teaching. 

Kreigsman, with his obit, secures her legacy with: “...what she gave to her many hundreds of pupils was inimitable -- not just a thorough education in dance technique and expression, but an object lesson in integrity and personal bravery, and an understanding of the deepest roots and meanings of the art she served so unselfishly.”

For eighty years, our teachers have shared this spirit of passion, expertise, and joy. We are especially grateful for the integrity, authenticity, and care Ethel brought to her teaching, qualities that remain at the heart of GDS education.