Mary Cochran Legacy Endowed Scholarship

This is a merit-based scholarship will be awarded annually to a contemporary dance student who exhibits extraordinary promise as a performer, choreographer, and supportive community leader.

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Classmates, friends, family, and colleagues of the late Mary Cochran (1963-2017) came together to create a memorial scholarship at her beloved alma mater, University of North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA). Mary Cochran was a member of the founding UNCSA High School class of students in Contemporary Dance. After graduating, she went on to dance with Nikolais Dance Theatre, The Paul Taylor Dance Company, and numerous other contemporary choreographers.

“We are moved to create this legacy scholarship because of our love for Mary and because we know that it would make her happy to be helping a young artist get excellent training and to have the opportunity to form lasting bonds with their young peers – bonds that hopefully will last as long as those that we formed with her.”

“Mary was an outstanding dancer who inspired all of us to be better dancers. She was an artist whose passion for dance inspired many generations of young dancers through her directorship of the Taylor 2 Company, her leadership of the Columbia University Barnard College Department of Dance, and her widespread guest art residencies. She was a big thinker who was concerned about how to serve the entire field of Dance. She tirelessly helped her colleagues, friends, and students garner opportunities and she had progressive ideas about dance pedagogy and aesthetics.”

“Mary believed that Dance was an artform that had the capacity to communicate directly and swiftly. She believed that technique was in the service of expression, that musicality was a form of spirituality, and that movement, culture, and politics were inextricable.”

“For Mary, there was nothing more freeing and uplifting than being able to express oneself and seeing others express themselves echoed a universal need. In teaching she helped people achieve this and in this legacy scholarship we want to continue her legacy of a true love of expression.”

“We believe it is urgent and timely to help committed students receive the training and artistic exposure that UNCSA can offer. This scholarship ensures that Mary’s legacy continues and that the art and field of dance will be nurtured by future energetic, passionate, and exceptional dancers like her.”