Dance school founder Polly Thomas, 86, dies

The grand dame of dance for Greater Bangor is being remembered as a strict but caring teacher who raised the standards for the art in central Maine.

Polly L. Thomas died Feb. 18 in Ormond Beach, Fla., at the age of 86. Thomas is best known for founding and operating the Thomas School of Dance for 50 years until her retirement in 1983. At the school, she taught generations of students, some of whom went on to become dance professionals or teachers themselves. She also founded the Maine State Ballet in 1966. The dance studio in the Maine Center for the Arts at the University of Maine is named in her honor.

Thomas began teaching dance at age 14 in Bangor and never left. She regularly took off each summer for advanced training in Boston or New York. She operated the school first at the Bangor-Brewer YWCA, then at Dorothy Memorial Hall, then finally at 42 Broadway. Her late husband, Arthur, served as the school’s business manager.

“That was her life, her calling,” said her son, Calvin M. “Cal” Thomas II. “She never had a big desire to perform. Teaching was her profession.”

Perhaps Thomas’ greatest accomplishment was training the teachers who would reach future generations. These include Morita Tapley, owner of Morita’s School of Dance in Hermon; Kelly Holyoke, choreographer for the Robinson Ballet and instructor at the River City Dance Company; and four members of the current staff at the Thomas School of Dance: Gene Syphers, his sister, Sally Frost; his daughter, Michelle Syphers; and Lori Lovett.

Robert Newall, an arts critic at the Bangor Daily News for 35 years before his retirement in 1986, said Thomas brought dance to a new level.

“She brought a certain elan which [students] never had before,” said Newall. “She got them to be aware of manners on the dance floor. Through the Maine State Ballet, she made people aware of dance and what it could be. I don’t think the area had ever seen anything like her productions, and they responded warmly to them. She was a woman who demanded standards, and [her students] didn’t get away with sloppiness.”

Jane Bragg became the new owner of the Thomas School of Dance in August 1983.

“One reason I had for taking over was that it was a tremendous asset to the community, and it wasn’t something we should lose,” Bragg explained.

Bragg first met Thomas as her student, when she took an adult ballet class in 1977.

“I remember her saying how much fun she had teaching adults, because adults weren’t aspiring to become prima ballerinas,” she said.

Thomas’ son naturally took lessons from his mother, and ended up teaching dance with her for several years.

“She was very strict, and expected people to follow her directions, but she was always fair,” said Cal Thomas, who now operates TSD Co., a consulting firm that secures corporate funding for national and international television productions.

Joseph Kelley, now living in Tamarack, Fla., spent 20 years with Thomas, first as a student, then later as a teacher.

“She was a fantastic teacher,” said Kelley, who is again teaching ballroom classes. “She expected a great deal from her students, but it always showed when they performed.”

Through the Maine State Ballet, Thomas took performances all over the state, including isolated communities, and also brought dance to Maine schools through an endowment program, Kelley said. “She added a lot to the culture of Maine,” he said. She also taught at Husson College for a year, he said.

The other part of Thomas’ formula was proper etiquette.

“You learned all of the manners, and they were ingrained for life,” said Kelley, who is also teaching etiquette classes using Thomas’ old syllabus.

Thomas brought full-length ballets, including “Giselle” and “The Silent Woman,” to Bangor, but “The Nutcracker” remained the most popular with the public. For that show, she eliminated the mice characters, since she detested the creatures.

Newall reviewed many of her productions, not all of them favorably, yet their relationship remained cordial.

“She never interfered with anything I wrote,” he said. “If she didn’t like it, she kept it to herself. We got on fine. It didn’t matter what I wrote.”

Her students also went on to dance companies and musical theater productions. She even produced a line of Rockettes, beginning with Sandra Esslin Bryant and ending with an unlikely candidate, veteran Broadway actor Joel Robertson, who played Santa Claus in a traveling production of the Radio City Christmas Spectacular.

That experience allowed Robertson to use the long-neglected tap skills Thomas insisted he learn.

“She’d say, ‘You have to take tap, Joel,’ but I hated it,” Robertson recalled. “It was not something that I enjoyed. There was a lot of money going into the ballet companies back then, and [ballet] seemed more romantic to me, because you got to partner with the girls. I said, ‘For you, Polly, I’ll take it.’ Now, 30 years down the line, I get to dance with the Rockettes. You never know when something you say to people might kick in.”

Thomas also inspired Robertson, who appeared in “Cats” and “Les Miserables” on Broadway, to start, with his wife, Kathleen Kellaigh, the Action Theatre Conservatory in Clifton, N.J.

Sandra Esslin Bryant said Thomas was her mentor, “a major part of my growing up.” The dance school was Bryant’s home away from home.While she was proud of the professionals and teachers who came out of her school, Thomas felt that dance was beneficial for every child.”She felt dance training was good for kids, regardless what they ended up doing,” her son said.

Funeral details for Polly Thomas will be forthcoming.