The McLean Arts Center and McLean School of Ballet & Jazz will close its doors at the end of the month, some 50 years after it first opened. Founder and director Molly Vick looks back on five decades of running the small center, a former Baptist Church. Vick studied at the School of American Ballet in New York.
Describe McLean when you opened the center.
When I opened up, McLean isn’t the McLean you see today. There were only about three or four commercial things in the middle of McLean. [There was] this old Baptist Church – this is an old-timey white framed Baptist country church – there was a Safeway, there was a very small post office, there was a pool hall…and the Burns Brothers Cleaners, there was very little else.
How did the center get started?
I had about eight students in my basement. And the father of one of the students was an elder in the Baptist Church. He said we’re building a big, new church, why don’t you take the old one and make it into a school…As with everything else that starts, we did our best. Even from the outset I had a wonderful artist who opened in the art school in the basement, he was with me for 35 years – a really outstanding American artist…Then we had a school of music, we’ve had all kinds of dance, we’ve had yoga, pilates, we’ve had Bulgarian folk, Polish folk, Irish folk dancing, everything has come together.
Why are you shutting down?
Money. It’s broke. It’s just simply broke … and furthermore, the building needs a new roof, it leaks in the basement. We haven’t had the money to do those things. It needs new windows, the wind blows through.
What are your plans now?
During the time I was there, I became an artist. I had an accident where I couldn’t teach dance for a while, about a year, so I went to art school. Now my paintings are selling a bit. I really draw and paint out in West Virginia, the dirt farmers and the folks out there. I wanted to just switch gears, but it isn’t the same.
