Jennifer Oliver
On the fourth Saturday in May, every year, I wake up early to begin a day that continues to ground me in the field of arts education. I arrive at Dance Place San Diego to set up for the Carrie Anne Fipps Memorial Scholarship. Typically, Carrie’s family and friends are hanging banners and posting direction signs as I walk up. I am greeted by warm and cheerful embraces before I run upstairs to set up the check-in tables, the audition space and the judges table. It is an hour before the event will begin and parents and children have already begun to line up in the narrow hallway.
Once the doors open, students are signed in, given their number and ushered into the large dance space. The room quiets as I approach the middle of the floor to greet students and families, “Thank you all for coming today to support your child and this gift. We are all here because of one child – one young dancer who believed that dancing was a gift worth fighting for and one family whose mission has been to provide that gift to others – help me in welcoming Carrie Anne Fipps’ parents and brother to the microphone.”
I first met Carrie Fipps family – her parents Dennis and Maria, and brother John – ten years ago as a dance teaching artist with the non-profit, City Moves!. I was teaching a series of after school creative dance classes at Harley Knox and Edison Elementary. My director at the time explained that if I felt I had a student in my class that was “exceptional in spirit, learning ability, collaboration and leadership,” I was to nominate that child for the Carrie Anne Fipps Memorial Scholarship. This scholarship included a full year of unlimited dance classes at a dance school of that child’s choice. Sounds fantastic, I thought. How do I choose? Then it hit me, I knew just the child. He was perfect. This was his second year in my 4-6th grade creative dance class and not only did he fit the qualities expected for the scholarship, his family fit the financial need requirements and he had just recently expressed to me his desire to pursue a future in dance. I contacted my director and scheduled a site visit with the Fipps family. One week later Maria and Dennis showed up at my class. Sitting in the background, observing my students. Maria was charming. A petite woman with a smile so warm you immediately feel invited to consider her as family. Dennis, from a military service background, contrasted Maria with his tall stature and direct nature. One month later, in front of an audience of City Moves! supporters, I presented the 2004 Carrie Anne Fipps Scholarship to my student, Malcolm Allen.
Carrie Fipps
At the time, I knew very little of the scholarship’s namesake, Carrie. Over the course of the following years, working closely with the Fipps family, I learned. Carrie Anne Fipps, born 1981, lived the life of a young dancer. She began dancing at the age of four at the local Parks and Recreation Center. At the age of nine, she audition for and was selected to join the City Moves! dance company, a youth company that worked with well-known choreographers and performed elaborate annual performances. Carrie was a perfectionist and prided herself in getting the choreography down perfectly while also helping to make sure her fellow dancers were on point. City Moves! quickly became Carrie’s second home.
Jenn & judges table
Throughout her devotion to dance, Carrie was fighting a battle against cancer. At the age of six Carrie was diagnosed with Leukemia. Carrie underwent chemotherapy until the age of nine, and her health improved. When Carrie was eleven, and in rehearsals for City Moves!’s third production, her leukemia relapsed. Throughout her struggles with the disease she continued to dance with City Moves!. When her body was too weak to dance, she acted on stage, when she was too weak to appear on stage, she took on the role of the choreographer’s assistant. She was an inspiration to all that she met. In a local Filipino newspaper, Carrie said she loved to dance because it allowed her to think about something else, focus on the music and the movement. She wanted to be known for something other than the girl with no hair and cancer. At the age of fifteen Carrie’s body could no longer take on the disease and she passed away quietly with her mom, dad, and brother at her side. Soon after, the City Moves! community offered the Fipps family an opportunity and seed funding to set up a dance scholarship in Carrie’s name.
Through an organizational merger that shifted the scholarship, and myself, from City Moves! to Young Audiences of San Diego in 2005, Carrie’s memorial scholarship has remained a constant in my life. To date, fifteen students have received the scholarship. Three of the students have been from my own dance classes and nine of them under my leadership. Presently, the Carrie Anne Fipps Memorial Scholarship takes the shape of a dance audition, with flyers and permission slips sent out in April and approximately 35 students showing up to audition in May. The event is created with the intention to inform, inspire and promote dance in young people’s lives. Students are greeted with gifts, live dance performances and motivational speeches. Their audition is a dance workshop in front of a panel of judges composed of a representative from Carrie’s family and representatives from the dance, education and Young Audiences’ communities. Throughout all of the events structure, the Fipps family are active and integral participants. Dennis speaks over muffled tears about Carrie’s legacy and the scholarship, John handles all of the sound equipment, Maria prepares the thank you gifts and everyone stands together for the final awarding pictures. Every year tears are shed and we stand together outside of Dance Place San Diego marveling over the chosen scholar that will carry on Carrie’s name.
I can track my career in arts education, as a teaching artist, and an arts administrator through my involvement with Carrie’s scholarship. In some way, I feel like she is riding this path with me, reminding me what a gift dance is in a child’s life. Dance brings a child presence in the moment while building necessary skills for a successful future. Dance has rooted my life in the arts, and Carrie continues to ground my career as an arts education provider. Carrie, I thank you. We do this work together and I am honored to carry on your legacy.
