The general consensus in the Valley is that our population is quite transient. Folks come looking for the pot of gold, and often move on for opportunities elsewhere. If you’ve lived here more than 10 years, you’re considered to be close to a native. But every once in a while, you come in contact with a true near-native. Frances Smith Cohen’s family moved from New Jersey to Tucson in 1936, when Fran was five. Her brother had asthma, and Tucson was then touted as the place to help relieve its symptoms.
Her mother wasted no time in finding a dance teacher for little Fran. Even before she was born, Fran’s father, a ballroom dancer himself, had declared, “If we have a girl, she’s going to be a dancer!”
From the time Fran was 3, she and her mother took a weekly four-hour bus trip for lessons in Newark, N.J. It would be much easier to continue her training in Tucson.
When asked about the Jewish community in Tucson at that time, Fran grins. “There were 13 Jewish families — and two synagogues!” she says.
Fran married Marvin Cohen, a prominent attorney in Tucson, while she was finishing her dance degree at Bennington College in Vermont. Upon their return to Arizona she was restless and bored. Marvin looked at her and said, “Make your own damn dance company!” In telling the story, Fran quickly adds, “That was the only time he ever swore at me.”
She contacted the Jewish Community Center in Tucson and suggested they establish a dance group. This suggestion evolved into her 18-year stint as the director of the Kadimah Dancers, the first touring dance group in Arizona. She was then called upon by the University of Arizona to assist in creating a dance program for the school.
In 1978, Marvin, who had been Tucson’s City Attorney, was asked to chair the federal Civil Aeronautics Board, and the family, which now included Jeff, Sam and Rachel, moved to Washington, D.C.
Fran knew better than to sit and kvetch. She taught movement for opera for Wolf Trap and received a National Opera Institute grant to tour regional opera companies as choreographer and assistant director. She was also director of opera at George Washington University from 1981 to 1986. Fran was honored with the Outstanding Artist Fellowship Award for Choreography from the Maryland State Arts Council.
The Cohens returned to Arizona, and made the move to Phoenix in 1988. At that time, Fran met Garry Moore, who was head of the not-yet-built Herberger Theater Center in downtown Phoenix. He immediately offered to help sponsor a Modern Dance troupe, and Fran couldn’t wait. She always tended toward modern dance and really thought it could work for a number of reasons. While the Herberger sponsorship lasted only one year, the independent Center Dance Ensemble remains an integral part of the offerings at that theater.
Fran is so proud of the high artistic standards of Center Dance and the fact that the troupe is able to make modern dance accessible to so many. She knows the term “modern dance” can be a little unclear to some, but she encourages people to give it a try. She says, to her, this type of dance embodies “warm beauty and thoughtful, universal truths.” The CDE dancers also take performances into more than 30 schools during the school year, presenting programs like “The ABC’s of Dance,” and “Poetry in Motion.”
And Fran’s face lights up when she talks about “her babies.” She studied the “Wolf Trap way” while she was in Washington, and talked Wolf Trap into allowing her to start Arizona Wolf Trap, for which she is regional director. This program takes dancers, puppeteers, actors and musicians to Head Start classrooms. They work with children ages 3 to 5 for seven weeks in the fall and seven weeks in the spring, twice a week. Hundreds of little ones are also brought to the theater for field trips, and such wonderful programs as “Rachel inside the Red Balloon” (teaching colors), “Rachel in the Land of Letters” (abc’s), and so on. Each program is tied to Arizona educational standards. Thanks to Fran’s initiative, there are now Wolf Trap programs in a number of states.
Teaching movement and dance to children has always been Fran’s first love. She and her friend Susan Silverman run Dance Theater West at Indian School Road and 40th Street in Phoenix. Fran prides herself on the fact that the studio works according to the concept of positive encouragement, rather than competition. She cringes when asked about the current dance reality shows on TV.
Dance Theater West doesn’t advertise — it doesn’t have to. The students are drawn to the studio through word of mouth. She comments that a number of the adult students have been with the school since they were children.
Fran is still choreographing and is still the active artistic director of Center Dance Ensemble. “It was easy once I got my hips fixed!” she says and laughs. And Dec. 1-16 the troupe will perform the 22nd annual production of Fran’s “Snow Queen” at the beautiful Herberger Theater. Loosely based on the original tale by Hans Christian Anderson, the performance is a treasured addition to the holiday season.
And Frances Smith Cohen is a treasured part of the performing arts in Arizona.
Janet Arnold is the former producing director of the Arizona Jewish Theatre Company. She has been an active member of the local Jewish community since arriving in Phoenix in 1957.
