Most anyone in South Carolina with the slightest interest in dance would recognize the name Robert Ivey. After all, for decades, the late local legend attached to that name was a beloved dancer, choreographer, instructor and College of Charleston professor. In each of those roles, he lifted others up, often in every sense of the word. In doing so, Ivey was able to share with them the moving power of dance.
In 2017, the College of Charleston’s Robert Ivey Scholarship in Dance became fully endowed thanks to a reinvigorated effort by friends and family. Among those leading the philanthropic charge were Matthew Kennedy ’01, a former student of Ivey while on a dance scholarship at the College, and adjunct professor Eliza Ingle, a close colleague of Ivey.
Because of these efforts, which doubled the fund, the scholarship is primed to ensure that others are able to follow in Ivey’s path and similarly uplift others.
“He was one of the first people to teach dance at the College,” says Todd McNerney, associate dean of the School of the Arts, who attributes Ivey as being instrumental in starting the dance program at the College.
Ivey began teaching at the College in the early 1980s and became a full-time professor in 1993. He taught dance technique in ballet and modern 20th-century dance, introduction to theater, history of dance, choreography, dance ensemble and the popular Maymester course on the Spoleto Festival.