Each summer for the past 25 years, ballet dancers from across the country and around the world have descended on downtown Holland for two weeks of intense training and fun.
Celebration of Life Scheduled in Remembrance of Maxine DeBruyn hope.edu - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from hope.edu Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Maxine DeBruyn, founder of Hope Collegeâs dance program, dead at 83 By Peg McNichol
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a breaking-news story and will be updated.
HOLLAND (WHTC-AM/FM) The people who knew and loved her best simply called her Max.
Maxine DeBruyn “matriarch and founder of the Hope College Dance Department” died Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2020, according to a statement by Hope College Dance Department Chair Matthew Farmer, which he shared on the department’s Facebook just before 7:30 p.m. Wednesday. Farmer, a Hope 2004 grad, is a former student of Mrs. DeBruyn, who was 83.
“We grieve for her passing, and we mourn her absence,” he wrote. “She was a teacher, a mentor, and a friend to many of us, and was an inspiration for us all. Her dedication to dance, education, Hope College, and the Holland community is a legacy that will live on for ages to come, and her gift of love and passion is an eternal fire that will never be extinguished.
Dance Department Founder Maxine DeBruyn Dies
December 10, 2020 by Greg Olgers
Dance Department Founder Maxine DeBruyn Dies Retired faculty member Maxine DeBruyn, who pioneered the creation of the college’s nationally accredited dance department beginning in the 1960s and was active in dance education internationally for more than half a century, died on Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2020. She was 83.
She initiated the Department of Dance at Hope with a single course shortly after coming to the college in 1965. From that first class, the program grew into a department in 1974 and a major in 1984. The academic program has been accredited by the National Association of Schools of Dance (NASD) since 1982.