Most dancers end their careers in their 30s.
Not Deborah Mason, whose Performing Arts Center in Somerville is celebrating its 50th year.
The studio (and Mason) have undergone many changes in that time, but she still runs the show.
Mason grew up in East Cambridge in the 1950s and ’60s and began taking dance lessons as a child. When she was 14, her teacher hired her as an assistant; she continued working there until her early 20s. “By that point, I was pretty much running [my teacher’s] school,” Mason said in an interview. “I figured I should open up my school. And that’s what I did.”
She began searching for a location in 1975, finding instead a hard truth: “Nobody wanted to rent to me, since I was young and a woman.”
Mason eventually found a small space on Hampshire Street in Inman Square – only her studio’s first location. “I had to move six times. But my students followed. I guess I’m a bit like the pied piper of dance,” she said.
By 2000, Mason was in her fifth location, in North Cambridge. There she remained for 15 years as the numbers of students and teachers continued to grow.
It was there she formed the nonprofit Cambridge Youth Dance Program in 2005 and began curating the dance stage at the city’s Harvard Square-based MayFair festival – also still going strong. At this year’s May 4 event, its Deborah Mason Dance Stage featured more than 30 troupes.
Mason’s landlord had long signaled that the building hosting her studio would be knocked down and replaced with condominiums. In 2012, time ran out and she looked for a new location with urgency, turning to her faithful Cambridge community – and families rallied behind her without hesitation, she said, helping her raise $250,000 toward the purchase of a permanent home.
This time it was in Somerville. She arrived in late 2013 to a building at 624 Somerville Ave., just a few blocks outside of Porter Square.
“This school was built by the people of Cambridge. Everyone helped me raise the money, and the builders even worked on holidays so I could move in sooner,” Mason said.
Since its creation, her school has fostered a community: nearly 700 dancers a week ages 3 to 18 coming to learn ballet, en pointe, modern dance, tap, jazz, musical theater and hip-hop, according to the school; and more than 2,000 students over the years subsidized to attend if they couldn’t afford classes.
One of the students Mason helped – by making up a work-study program to fill – went on to become a Deborah Mason instructor. Paula Khelifi was on hand too to give testimony to the Cambridge City Council in 2012 to plead for help keeping the school alive.
“I was teased and bullied and cried myself to sleep at night from about the ages of 10 to 14. Something you never forget. It stays with you. Then I met Debbie,” Khelifi said at the time. “I wouldn’t even have been able to show up for the audition if I didn’t have Deborah Mason behind me telling me that I could do anything. Not only did I learn all the skills and technique, but I learned about self-confidence.”
In 2022, Mason documented her life in a book, “Life is But a Dance” – and now reflects on her role during her school’s golden anniversary.
“I really do love this school, and I love watching people be successful,” Mason said. “I love that the kids are enjoying themselves. Some will go on to dance professionally, and others won’t; either way, the lessons you learn from dance will help you throughout your life.”
“It is kind of strange that 50 years went by so fast,” Mason said. “I’ve just been doing what I love.”
A version of this story ran in The Register Forum, the student newspaper of the Cambridge Rindge and Latin high school.
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