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 Still
Giving After All
These Years
By Crystal Chapman
Retired teacher Gwen Bowen believes in arts for all
How well I
remember the first day my mother and I walked into that dance
studio in Denver. There she was, my soon-to-be teacher,
reaching over the front desk to greet me. I was only 4, and
little did I know that this place was to become my home away
from home. I had just laid eyes on my earliest mentor and
second mother, Gwen Bowen.
Bowen was
born and raised in Denver and started dancing at age 3. When a
foot injury in her teens crushed any hopes of a professional
career (doctors told her she would never dance again), she was
determined to overcome it. She continued to dance as she
attended the University of Denver, where she obtained a degree
in education. After teaching in the Denver public schools, she
opened the Gwen Bowen School of Dance Arts in 1953. In
addition to teaching, she is the regional director of National
Dance Week and has choreographed more than 100 operas,
ballets, and musicals.
“Miss B,”
as she likes to be called, offered the usual curriculum at her
dance school, along with lovingly taught and correct training.
The tap warm-up I learned years ago is the one she still uses
today. How well I remember that! “Shine on, shine on, harvest
moon . . .” I still teach bits and pieces of it myself. I used
to love to look at the photos hanging on the studio wall by
the barre. I’d gaze at them and secretly hope that I’d be up
there someday. It is an honor to say that I made it to that
special wall.
Miss Bowen
produced many fine people who have made dance a profession.
Her former students include dance
teachers and studio owners; professional dancers (at such
companies as Pacific Northwest Ballet and Colorado Ballet);
Lynn Taylor-Corbett, the Drama Desk and Tony Award nominee for
the Broadway musical Swing; and myself, a faculty
member at Broadway Dance Center in New York and a
musical-theater performer and choreographer.
But perhaps
Miss Bowen’s greatest successes are the children whose
self-esteem she raised and in whom she instilled the
confidence to be better people in adulthood. She didn’t just
teach
her
students to dance; she taught us to love it. She guided and
inspired, encouraged and disciplined us. She taught us how to
be good people, whether or not we wanted to become
professional dancers, and she didn’t merely use words for
these life lessons. She led us by example.
Miss Bowen
is a model of giving to her community. She has been honored
with the Carson- Brierly Dance Library’s Living Legends in
Dance Award (2005), the Colorado Dance Alliance’s Lifetime
Achievement Award (2005), and the Dance Teacher
Magazine Award in the private studio category (2004).
For 53
years this devoted teacher has given, and now it’s time for
her to slow down. The Gwen Bowen School of Dance Arts is gone.
The building has been sold and Miss B has retired. Or has she?
No, not this woman, who still has dreams. She will continue
teaching a few classes per week, but mostly she will focus on
her finest and biggest dream: Arts for All, a new nonprofit
program. “My dream of giving back to a community that has
given to me all these years will become a reality in my
lifetime,” says Bowen. Arts for All’s goal is “to create a
visual
and
performing arts center in Denver that provides equal
opportunity to participate for all individuals regardless of
gender, race, ethnicity, religion, political affiliation, age,
sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, physical ability, or
mental capacity.” Without doubt, Gwen Bowen will cajole,
inspire, and lead until her dreams come true.
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