Balancing Act

Mary Sherman’s ballet career started with her first plié at the age of 7. She studied the Cecchetti methods with renowned instructors Sam Lovett, Amy Ingham, Claudann Solwald and Rose Marie Floyd, and began teaching by the age of 15.

She received her bachelor’s degree from Oakland University in 1976. Putting her plan for a master’s degree in social work on hold, she opened the Romeo Civic Dance Center that year with her parents’ help.

“Dance taught me structure and sociology made me want to help people succeed in life,” says Sherman, assistant director at the Macomb Ballet Company who translates that discipline to her sociology degree. “I’m super proud to call myself an OU alumni and be part of that history. It’s a great school.”

Her OU education gave her qualities that she transfers to her students: a worldview, a love of learning, and the desire “to be open to correction.”

She continued studying dance at OU, Michigan State University, Hope College and in New York and Chicago, earning the Michigan Council of the Arts’ 1990 Michigan Dance Teacher of the Year award.

Her best former students joined such professional companies as the Joffrey Ballet, St. Louis Ballet and BalletMet.

Sherman sold her studio in 2001. “For a year I didn’t teach and I could not stand it!” she said. She missed teaching so much, “Miss Mary,” as her students call her, started leading ballet classes at JLP’s Leap of Faith Dance Studio and Underground Dance Company before joining the Macomb Ballet Company as a co-artistic director in 2007.

Sherman earned the 2012 Jane Carol Miller Scholarship, a Cecchetti Council of America award that allowed Sherman, certified since 1975 as a Cecchetti instructor, to advance her teaching skills.

These days, Sherman toys with bowing out of her 43-year career to spend time with her husband of 17 years, David, and their blended family: two adult daughters, Carrie Krieg (a former Macomb Ballet Company principal dancer) and Janece Johnson; stepchildren Andrea Wood, CAS ‘06, (founder of Christian Arts Academy), Jeremy and Darren; and 13 grandchildren.

“I tell everyone I was nearly born in the studio! My mom worked up until the day before she went into labor,” says Krieg, a 2013 OU social work grad. Like her mom, Krieg is also a part-time ballet teacher. “My mom is my hero. She taught me to have a really good work ethic, that whatever you do, do it with passion.”

Years of ballet have eroded Sherman’s knees, so her recent stage roles have been confined more to acting than dancing. She’s slowed down a little, she says, but she’s far from giving it all up.

“I can’t imagine giving up dance,” Sherman says, adding, “They may have to wheel me around in the studio.”