April 16, 1999

Gayle Parmelee offers Loyola her last dance

by Karen Beck, A’82

“Everything is beautiful at the ballet.” Gayle Parmelee, retiring director of the Loyola Ballet, knew that long before Marvin Hamlisch and Michael Bennett.

For the past 21 years, Parmelee has cheerfully and lovingly trained many young men and women in the art of dance through the university’s preparatory and repertory ballet programs. She also has skillfully built a ballet program based on the Vaganova Russian syllabus–something many people thought was impossible to do in the United States.

“I truly appreciate all of the freedom and flexibility the university gave me to develop the Vaganova system at Loyola,” Parmelee said. “The program has been a success, and it has enabled us to perform the classics well and to produce professional dancers.

“Our audiences have enjoyed our presentation of the classics, and I’m proud of the fact that we have helped keep the classics alive. Dancing the classics is so important in the development of a dancer.”

In looking back at her 21-year career at Loyola, Parmelee said she is most proud of the fact that even though Loyola only has a minor degree in dance, a large percentage of the graduates are professional dancers, teachers, and directors.

“More than 50 ballet minors have graduated from Loyola and pursued dance as a profession,” she says. “These graduates are making a living –or at least part of their living–because of the program here at Loyola.”

Included in that number are Paul Vasterling, artistic director with the Nashville Ballet; Diane Lala, professor at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music; and Laura Zambrano, former ballet mistress with Ballet Iowa and current ballet repetitrice with Loyola Ballet.

“Another joy has been to see the Vaganova method branch out across the United States through my students to their students,” Parmelee affirms. “The method is spreading throughout the country and it is working.”

Parmelee was first exposed to the Russian ballet method as a young girl while studying with Tatiana Seme-nova in New Orleans and Baton Rouge. After joining Loyola’s faculty and becoming director of the Loyola Ballet in the fall of 1978–following the retirement of her former ballet teacher Lelia Haller, founder of the Loyola Ballet–Parmelee’s fascination with and appreciation of the Russian method was rekindled. Parmelee visited the Soviet Union several times during the 1980s and early 1990s both to attend international ballet competitions as well as to become certified in the Vaganova method of teaching.

“The Russian method gave me such a wonderful standard to work toward in the education of ballet,” she remembers. “It answered all the questions I had about training and gave me more confidence in my abilities as a teacher. It also helped me to teach in a more enjoyable way. The accomplishments of the dancers can be seen so clearly in this method.”

Parmelee also helped organize courses in the Vaganova method– which were conducted in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Tbilisi, the Republic of Georgia–for teachers from North, Central, and South America.

“My trips to Russia and my friendship with Olga Smoak also helped open the door to an exchange program between Loyola’s College of Music and schools in Tbilisi,” Parmelee says. “Several Loyola music and ballet students benefited from that exchange program.”

Loyola Ballet repetitrice Zambrano was the first foreign exchange student of Loyola University to complete the two-year pedagogy program in 1991 at the State Choreographic School of Tbilisi. She currently teaches two classes at the university level as well as several classes in the preparatory ballet program.

Parmelee says she enjoys watching students such as Zambrano continue to develop the art of dance and is ready to assume a less demanding role.

“I didn’t retire; my body did!” she laughs. “I’m retiring from a very demanding schedule to a less demanding one–but I’m not quitting!”

Parmelee’s influence on the art of dance will certainly be felt for years to come.