Professional dancer, choreographer and instructor Marceline “Marcy” Freeman died Thursday night at home in Denver, with colleague Cleo Parker Robinson and other friends at her side.
She turned 55 on Tuesday and had stomach cancer, friends said. She had been under hospice care at her home for about a week, said close friend Rhetta Shead.
Funeral arrangements are pending.
Freeman was an original member of the revered progressive troupe the Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble, which is based in Denver, and danced with the group for more than 30 years.
According to published accounts, the two met in the early 1970s, when Robinson visited Denver East High School to find students. Freeman, who was 16, was a shy assistant to the dance teacher, mostly doing chores.
Robinson saw an introverted potential dancer and became Freeman’s dedicated mentor.
“My mother took me to dance classes when I was a child, but I wasn’t interested,” Freeman told The Denver Post in 1992. “Then at East High School, there was a dance teacher, and I was getting extra credit — you know, putting on the records and taking attendance.
“Then Cleo came to the school and I got interested. She was there offering classes for 25 cents a class. That’s how I started.”
Later in her life, Freeman danced the lead role in the ensemble’s show “Granny” in front of hundreds of high- school students.
When not starring in its performances, Freeman served the troupe in other ways, including filling the demanding role of rehearsal director.
In 2005, Robinson said of Freeman, “She is the Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble.”
“There is no one left who has her knowledge, her experience, her passion or her patience,” Robinson told The Post five years ago.
Soon after that, Freeman lost her eyesight from shingles but remained a presence at rehearsals and performances before she became too ill. A special role of “Ancestral Spirit” was created for her in the troupe’s 2009 holiday performance of “Granny.”
Freeman was always at her best when teaching children as a senior faculty member with the troupe’s dance school — sharing her spirit and movement, said Shead, who knew Freeman for 30 years.
“You felt every inch of her,” Shead said. “She just radiated grace and beauty, and her spirit will always be with me and with my children.”
The dance ensemble’s website called Freeman “a brilliant performer.” She was a favorite dancer of many of the world’s most famous choreographers, including Katherine Dunham, Donald McKayle, Milton Myers, Eleo Pomare, Rod Rodgers, Chuck Davis and David Rousseve.
“Marceline Freeman has been an integral part of the power, beauty and passion of Cleo Parker Robinson Dance for over three decades,” her official biography states. “As a member of the ensemble, she has taught around the world, and many of her students have gone on to perform, choreograph and direct for major companies around the nation.”
Joey Bunch: 303-954-1174 or jbunch@denverpost.com
