Mary-Averett Seelye

Seelye was born in Chatham, New Jersey, the daughter of Laurens H. Seelye and Kate Chambers Seelye.{{Cite news|date=1919-03-15|title=Untitled social item|pages=5|work=The Chatham Press|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/73333659/mary-averett-seelye-birth/|access-date=2021-03-13|via=Newspapers.com}} She was raised in Beirut, where her father was a university professor and her mother taught at a girls' school.{{Cite news|date=August 22, 1960|title=Laurens Seelye, Educator, Dead: Ex-Head of St. Lawrence Taught in Middle East- Was Chairman of Finch|page=25|work=The New York Times|via=ProQuest}}{{Cite news|date=June 1, 1973|title=Mrs. Kate Seelye, Teacher in Lebanon and Turkey|page=38|work=The New York Times|via=ProQuest}} She earned a bachelor's degree at Bennington College in 1940, and completed a master's degree at the University of North Carolina in 1944.Mrdakin (January 6, 2017), [https://consecratedeminence.wordpress.com/2017/01/06/a-dancer-in-the-family-mary-averett-seelye/ "A Dancer in the Family: Mary-Averett Seelye"] The Consecrated Eminence: The Archives and Special Collections at Amherst College.

Her younger brother Talcott Williams Seelye was an American diplomat, ambassador to Tunisia and Syria; his daughter Kate Seelye became a journalist.{{Cite news|last=Fox|first=Margalit|date=June 15, 2006|title=T. W. Seelye, 84, Ambassador and Mideast Expert|work=The New York Times|url=http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F5071EFC3B550C768DDDAF0894DE404482&n=Top%2fReference%2fTimes%20Topics%2fPeople%2fF%2fFox,%20Margalit|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120916101934/http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F5071EFC3B550C768DDDAF0894DE404482&n=Top%2fReference%2fTimes%20Topics%2fPeople%2fF%2fFox,%20Margalit|url-status=live|access-date=March 12, 2021|archive-date=2012-09-16}} One great-grandfather was Julius Hawley Seelye, president of Amherst College, and his brother Laurenus Clark Seelye was president of Smith College. Other noted members of the extended Seelye family included Benjamin Rush Rhees, president of the University of Rochester, and his son, the philosopher Rush Rhees; and geologist Benjamin Kendall Emerson. Another of Seelye's great-grandfathers, William Frederic Williams, was a Presbyterian missionary in Turkey and Syria.{{Cite web |last=Chambers |first=Cornelia Williams |title=Williams-Chambers-Seelye-Franck Family Papers MA.00313 |url=https://archivesspace.amherst.edu/repositories/2/resources/369 |access-date=2023-03-08 |website=Amherst College}}

Seelye was co-founder and director (from 1949 to 1958) of the Theatre Lobby, an experimental theatre company in Washington, D.C.{{Cite news|date=1962-11-18|title=AAUW Coordinator of Art to Lead Discussion Here|pages=17|work=The Danville Register|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/73331588/aauw-coordinator-of-art-to-lead/|access-date=2021-03-13|via=Newspapers.com}} She was an arts associate on the staff of the American Association of University Women (AAUW) from 1950,{{Cite journal|date=March 1958|title=Headquarters Family: Mary Averett Seelye, Arts Resource Center Coordinator|url=https://archive.org/details/sim_outlook_1958-03_51_3/page/163/mode/1up?q=Mary+Averett+Seelye|journal=Journal of the American Association of University Women|volume=51|pages=163|via=Internet Archive}} and toured the United States in the 1960s and 1970s, giving workshops on creativity and performance, under the AAUW's sponsorship.{{Cite news|date=1961-09-27|title=Reservations Are Now Accepted for AAUW State Workshop on Arts|pages=7|work=Corvallis Gazette-Times|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/73318940/reservations-are-now-accepted-for-aauw/|access-date=2021-03-13|via=Newspapers.com}}{{Cite news|date=1964-09-29|title=Miss Seelye Will Conduct AAWU Meet|pages=7|work=Fremont Tribune|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/73318785/miss-seelye-will-conduct-aawu-meet/|access-date=2021-03-13|via=Newspapers.com}}{{Cite news|date=1969-08-07|title='Urban Space' AAUW Topic Next Tuesday|pages=32|work=Rutland Daily Herald|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/73331860/urban-space-aauw-topic-next-tuesday/|access-date=2021-03-13|via=Newspapers.com}} She was co-author of People Space (1969, with architect Melita Rodeck).{{Cite book|last1=Rodeck|first1=Melita|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=K31AOQAACAAJ|title=People Space|last2=Seelye|first2=Mary-Averett|date=1969|publisher=Educational Center, American Association of University Women|language=en}} Seelye was also involved in founding the Capital Area Modern Dance Council, with Pola Nirenska, Erika Thimey, and other Washington-based dancers.{{Cite web|title=Pola Nirenska|url=https://www.companye.org/generations.poland.interior.nirenska.html|access-date=2021-03-12|website=Company E}}{{Cite journal|date=June 1954|title=From Washington D.C.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=guAnAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Modern+Dance+Council%22+%22Seelye%22&pg=RA5-PT21|journal=Journal of Health, Physical Education, Recreation|volume=25|pages=34}}

In 1979, she gave an oral history interview for the Bennington Summer School of the Dance Project at the Columbia Center for Oral History Research.[https://oralhistoryportal.library.columbia.edu/document.php?id=ldpd_4073126 Reminiscences of Mary-Averett Seelye] : oral history, 1979; Bennington Summer School of the Dance project, Columbia Center for Oral History That same year, she was named one of seven distinguished alumnae at Bennington College's fiftieth anniversary celebrations.{{Cite news|date=1979-05-14|title=Bennington Honors Seven Alumnae|pages=7|work=North Adams Transcript|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/73333326/bennington-honors-seven-alumnae/|access-date=2021-03-13|via=Newspapers.com}}

Seelye was often described as tall, thin, and angular, all characteristics which gave shape to her performances, which she called "poetry-in-dance", and which she sometimes accentuated with flowing costumes.{{Cite news|last=Kisselgoff|first=Anna|date=1978-01-15|title=Mary-Averett Seelye Combines Poetry and Dance at Open Eye|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1978/01/15/archives/maryaverett-seelye-combines-poetry-and-dance-at-open-eye.html|access-date=2021-03-12|issn=0362-4331}} She sometimes included Turkish or Arabic poetry in her performances. Near the end of her career, she created a video archive of her works with filmmaker Vin Grabill.

Seelye died in a nursing home in Mitchellville, Maryland in 2013, aged 94 years.{{Cite news|last=Schudel|first=Matt|date=April 10, 2013|title=Mary-Averett Seelye, Performance Artist|newspaper=The Washington Post|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/mary-averett-seelye-performance-artist/2013/04/10/7ac3d630-a211-11e2-9c03-6952ff305f35_story.html}} Her papers are part of the Williams-Chambers-Seelye-Franck Family Papers at Amherst College.

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• [https://bakerartist.org/file/gentle-reader "Gentle Reader"] a poem by Josephine Jacobsen, performed by Mary-Averett Seelye, for Poetry Moves (1998)
• [https://crossettlibrary.dspacedirect.org/handle/11209/569 A photograph of Mary-Averett Seelye taken in 1936], from the Bennington College Archive
• [https://emro.libraries.psu.edu/record/index.php?id=636 Poetry Moves: A Collaboration of Poetry, Performance and Video] (1999), a videotape of work by Seelye
• [https://archivesspace.amherst.edu/repositories/2/resources/369 The Williams-Chambers-Seelye-Franck Papers ("The Franck Papers")] at the Amherst College Archives & Special Collections

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Category:1919 births

Category:2013 deaths

Category:Bennington College alumni

Category:University of North Carolina alumni

Category:American female dancers

Category:American actresses

Category:American women performance artists

Category:American performance artists

Category:People from Morris County, New Jersey

Category:21st-century American women