Anson Dorrance Wife M’Liss Gary Is A Professional Ballet Dancer
Anson Dorrance wife M’Liss Gary is a ballet dancer who founded Chapel Hill Ballet Company. Gary taught at Duke University.
Dorance and Gary met in Ethiopia as toddling seven years olds. Over the years, they crossed paths multiple times. Since marrying in 1974, they have become parents to three children as well as doting grandparents.
He was born as the son of an American oil executive and started playing soccer in Kenya. It was during his stay in Africa that he crossed paths with M’Liss for the first time.
Anson is an American soccer coach currently serving in the women’s soccer program at the University of North Carolina. Under the leadership of Anson, UNC has won 21 of the 31 NCAA Women’s Soccer Championships.
His successful coaching career in college soccer helped him to be part of the U.S. Women’s National Team as a head coach and lead the team to win the first Women’s World Cup.
Anson Dorrance And His Wife M’Liss Gary Have Been Married For Four Decades
Anson Dorrance married his wife M’Liss Gary in 1974 after graduating from UNC with two degrees.
Dorrance and Gary have been married for 48 years and reside in Chapel Hill, Carolina, where they once lived with their three kids.
His spouse is a professional ballet dancer and the daughter of an Air Force attache. They had known each other since childhood, with their families crossing several times. In his Chapel Hill office, Anson still has photos of M’Liss in Ethiopia when she was seven years old.
Money was tight when they married. To make ends meet, the two sold insurance by going door-to-door. A meeting with two missionaries led them on a journey to faith and Mormonism. They were baptized on January 31, 1976. Gary lost her parents and younger sister to a fire three days later.
Almost a year after their wedding, M’Liss took up two positions at the Duke University Dance Program from 1975 to 2007. She taught ballet dance and was co-director of the Duke Ballet Repertory Ensemble.
Anson had not yet started his coaching career. It would be five years before he was picked as the coach of the UNC women’s soccer team. With Dorrance finding his dream job, Gary felt it was time for her to start her own company and co-founded the Ballet School of Chapel Hill.
M’Liss Gary Is A Professional Ballet Dancer
M’Liss Gary is a professional ballet dancer and a former dance instructor at Duke University.
The daughter of an Air Force attache, M’Liss has a long journey in her dancing career. Passionate about dance from an early age, she won scholarships to the National Ballet Academic School and the Harkness and Joffrey Ballets. The schools presented an opportunity to learn more skills to become a professional dancer.
M’Liss started her professional ballet dancing career as a member of the National Ballet and has performed in Eliot Feld’s American Ballet Company and the theatre of Arlington Dance. Many in the Chapel Hill area know her as an excellent teacher.
Apart from that, the former Eliot Feld dancer is the founding member of the Ballet School of Chapel Hill company and has served as a partner and president since 1980.
Before the establishment of her company, she was associated with the Duke University Dance Program as a Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Dance Program and co-director of the ballet ensemble.
Dorrance And Gary Are Parents To Three Kids
Dorance and Gary became parents to three children in their 48 years of married life.
This couple was blessed with two daughters, Michelle Dorrance and Natalie Dorrance Harris, and one son Donovan Dorrance.
Michelle Dorrance
Anson and M’Liss were blessed with their first daughter, Michelle Dorrance on September 12, 1979. Their oldest child is an American tap dancer, teacher, choreographer, and director. She was raised in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, with her two younger siblings.
Following the path of her mother, Michelle also became one of the famous dancers of Chapel Hill. She was very interested in dancing and joined the Ballet School of Chapel Hill for her early training from where she learned ballet, jazz, and tap dance.
After dancing for many years, she establish her own company named Dorrance Dance with the motive of generating more new dancers of diverse backgrounds and experiences. Their first performance won a Bessie Award for blasting open notions about tap. Currently, she works as a choreographer at New York City Center.
Natalie Dorrance Harris
Dorance’s second daughter Natalie Dorrance Harris is a talented tennis player.
On her Instagram, most of her pictures are of her spending time on the tennis court. Natalie is married to David Harris and has three sons. Recently, she watched a live tennis match at the Winston-Salem Open with her husband and kids.
Donovan Dorrance
Anson’s only son Donovan Dorrance is a composer, producer, and Audio Engineer. He has worked with his sister’s dance company, Dorrance Dance.
While working with the company, he and his partner Gregory Richardson received a New Music USA project grant to score Dorrance Dance’s Myelination.
Apart from his professional life, he is a very kind-hearted person who donated his kidney to save his mother’s life in 2017. Natalie shared the post about kidney transplantation and mentioned that her new kidney works great.
