BY KAREN BOSSICK

MacKenzie King was two years old when she donned her mother's scarves and began performing interpretive dances for the neighbors on her driveway.

She had not been asked to do this. She did not need an audience. She simply moved, and the movement made sense in a way that nothing else quite did.

"My parents loved PBS, so I was exposed to dance early on TV," she recalled. "I started dance when I was 3 and I knew immediately what I wanted to do.”

Hilarie Neely and MacKenzie King both profess a passion for dance. PHOTO: Karen Bossick

King is marking her first Spring Dance performance as Footlight Dance Centre’s director after stepping into the role of Hilarie Neely, who founded the company 42 years ago. The organization’s dancers, who range in age from 5 to adult, will perform “Hansel & Gretel” Friday through Sunday, May 1-3, at the Wood River High School Performing Arts Theatre.

Neely hasn’t danced away into the sunset, however. She has continued to serve on the board and teach as Footlight has transitioned into a 501©3 organization to ensure a stable future.

"Retirement? Not an option," Neely said, without hesitation. "I love teaching."

Neely's own childhood path to dance was not without a few hiccups. Her mother enrolled her in a dance class in kindergarten, and she did not like it. Not one bit. She backed out and did not put on dancing shoes again until sixth grade, when a neighbor who taught dance suggested she choreograph a piece about Camp Fire Girls for a Camp Fire project.

Running Footlight Dance has meant taking care of everything from costumes to writing original school enrichment presentations.

She loved it.

"Can I keep dancing?" she asked. She could, and she trained in the Chicago area before heading to Southern Methodist University in Dallas. She started in ballet, as most dancers do, but decided she did not have a ballerina’s body and so switched to modern.

After college, she joined a modern company in Portland, one of four such companies on the West Coast at the time. They toured throughout the West, performing in Sun Valley at the invitation of what is now the Sun Valley Museum of Arts in 1979.

In those days, Neely said, the only arts organizations in town were the Sun Valley Center for the Arts, Laughing Stock Theater and a fledgling ballet school that Clara Spiegel, who was instrumental in founding The Community Library, had started. The Sun Valley Center for the Arts had a modern dance program, along with ceramics, watercolor, photography classes.

Hilarie Neely has stepped down from her administrative duties, but she can’t stop teaching.

One of the dancers invited her to dinner at the Ore House, now the Boiler Room, which was then run by Kathy Wygle and, like the Pioneer Saloon, was the place to eat in Sun Valley. Sitting across the table was Steve Jobs, a landscape architect who had come to Sun Valley to fish and never left.

“We started a long-distance relationship for a year and half while I was in Portland. In the meantime, the Sun Valley Center for the Art closed its dancing component, and the woman who taught ballet left. I moved to Sun Valley and started Footlight Dance Center in 1984.”

Neely named her new dance center with precision: “We attempt to dance light on foot,” she explained, "And it's under lights."

What she built reflects everything she believes dance should be in a small community. Footlight has offered ballet, modern, jazz, tap, and hip hop from the beginning, in what she describes as a conservatory environment.

“It’s important in a small community to offer everything," she said, "so anyone can decide which way they want to go. Today's performers need a broad palette."

She established a pre-professional company for high school students. She has overseen 32 original ballet productions and 29 original education performances presented in Blaine County schools every January. She has watched dozens of graduating seniors go on to pursue dance as majors or in college. And today three alumni are on the faculty.

She also helped found the National Dance Education Organization in the late 1990s, currently serves as secretary of the Idaho Dance Education Organization, helped found the Wood River Arts Alliance in 1991, and for more than 20 years served as a dance specialist at Sun Valley Community School.

Along the way, Footlight has collaborated with many community endeavors, performing for The Senior Connection, performing with the Sun Valley Music Festival Music Institute students, dancing at Bloom truck stops and even working with The Advocates on a piece addressing bullying.

Perhaps her favorite collaboration is the Trailing of the Sheep Festival, where Neely dresses up dance students in Basque outfits to carry signs announcing parade entries down the street.

"I've always loved collaboration," Neely said. "It's the excitement of working with others. That was the mission of Footlight Dance from the beginning. And the sheep are part of our heritage, going up and down the valley between summer and winter pastures.”

King grew up in a small town and never forgot what that meant for a young dancer. She moved to Chicago after her own training and performed with the Joffrey Ballet, while founding Moonwater Dance Project, a small company of six.

She fell in love with a man who loved Sun Valley, and when they closed on their house here, she called Hilarie Neely. The timing turned out to be remarkably good. One of Footlight's teachers had just gone on bedrest, and Neely needed someone immediately.

King came for three weeks. That was the fall of 2023. By fall of 2024 she was working full-time.

"It's not hard to fall in love with the valley," King said. "It's similar to Carmel, only in the mountains instead of on the coast. When I first heard of the Trailing of the Sheep Festival, I thought: What in the world? Where do I live? My parents were asking me to send them pictures — they couldn't believe it.”

Neely said she knew immediately that King was the right fit to succeed her.

"She had the background and the passion. You need to have the passion. You can't live without it."

The transition to nonprofit status is the next chapter Neely believes the school needs. Dance, she noted, operates on a smaller financial margin than many other arts. Going to 501(c)(3) status will allow patrons to donate and will open new possibilities, including bringing in master teachers and establishing a scholarship fund for summer intensives, which she has produced for years without additional funding, bringing in guest artists on her own.

"My dream is a scholarship fund for summer projects," she said. "We had one child go to Ballet West last summer. We get to help them along their journey. Many have gone on to dance with other programs and we'd like to help more with that."