Join the Lee Historical Society for a conversation with Madeline Cantarella Culpo, Founder-Artistic Director of Cantarella School of Dance and Albany Berkshire Ballet. She will be joined by some of her former students who took ballet classes in Lee from the 1950s to the 1980s.

Refreshments will be provided by the Lee Historical Society.

Culpo grew up in the Berkshires taking dance lessons with various local instructors. As a teenager in 1949 and 1950, she had the opportunity to take dance classes at Jacob’s Pillow. After attending the Juilliard School, Culpo returned to the Berkshires in 1955 and opened the Cantarella School of Dance on North Street in Pittsfield. Beginning that first year, she offered off-site lessons in both Lee and Adams.

"Miss Madeline" would bring her students to Jacob’s Pillow at least once a summer so they could see professional dance and see what they could become. Beginning in 1958, Ted Shawn, the founder of Jacob’s Pillow, attended Cantarella’s annual end of year recital in Pittsfield High School’s auditorium and awarded outstanding students scholarships to enroll in Jacob’s Pillow’s summer dance school, University of the Dance. Several outstanding dance students from Lee were scholarship recipients.

This discussion is presented as part of the month-long June exhibit in the Scolforo Gallery titled “Jacob’s Pillow in Lee, Mass.” The exhibit traces the long and often overlooked relationship between the internationally renowned dance hub Jacob’s Pillow, and the neighboring town of Lee from the early 1930s to today. This exhibit is made possible, in part, through a grant from the Lee Cultural Council, a local agency funded by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency.