San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
MISS TILLY
and Willam Christensen.
Her first role was playing one of Mother Ginger’s “buffoon” children in the “Nutcracker.”
“I had the best training from the Christensen brothers,” said Abbe. “When the children (I taught) came along, if they really had the talent to become a dancer, they were going to be well prepared because of my own training.”
Abbe attended the Hamlin School, a connection that would be key when starting her ballet studio. She became a company member at San Francisco Ballet at age 15 and toured internationally with them on behalf of the U.S. State Department. While on tour, she published a series of travelogues in The Chronicle in the form of letters to her mother.
In one piece published in 1957, “Seeing Tokyo with Tilly,” Abbe wrote: “Everything in the hotel room is small size: the wash basin, closets, doors, so Suki (Schorer, daughter of UC Professor Mark Schorer) and I are right at home. We no longer feel small alongside other people.”
Abbe left San Francisco Ballet to marry her first husband in 1959, and together they had a daughter, Jennifer Abbe. She returned to teach at the company’s school from 1961 until 1966.
With her second husband, she had another daughter, Iliza Abbe, who began the theater arts program at Miss Tilly’s.
In 1969, Abbe opened her first studio in the basement of her home, a California Street Victorian house she rented. Over the years, all three of her studio spaces have been on California Street.
After teaching 20 classes a week for decades, she estimates she’s taught tens of thousands of young dancers. And while many of them came from private schools, Abbe said she’s had students from many backgrounds and provided scholarships when needed, including
offering classes for free to students living at the family shelter Raphael House.
But for many of her former students, it isn’t just the dancing they remember.
Stina Skewes-Cox Trainor,
who is head of global policy engagements at Meta and previously worked for the Obama administration as well as for Pelosi, credits performing through Miss Tilly’s with building professional confidence.
“That didn’t go to waste,” Skewes-Cox Trainor said.
“She instilled in me a deep love of dance and the movements arts,” added Catherine Geeslin, who took classes in the ‘90s at the California and Divisadero
studio. “While I didn’t end up a principal dancer at San Francisco Ballet, I am grateful for the experience.”
Ultimately, Iliza Abbe said, she and her mother “were not measuring our success by whether our students go on to be professional. We wanted students to feel like they can tell their stories, whether it’s with the voice or body.”
When Abbe’s students performed at Herbst Theatre in May 2022 for the first time since the pandemic began, she didn’t know it would be the last time. In August, when she announced the decision not to reopen the studio for classes in the fall, there was an outpouring from current families and alumnae. Among the memorable ones, Abbe recalled, was a letter from Cathy Wall, who now lives in Oregon.
“She had been my student at San Francisco Ballet,” Abbe said. “She said she never forgot the excitement of being chosen to be a buffoon in the ‘Nutcracker’ and performing on the San Francisco Opera House stage.”
Abbe insists that even though her school has closed, she’s not retiring. Among other projects, she has written a children’s book with her granddaughter, Callie Lawler, titled “The Big Day at Miss Tilly’s Ballet,” and hopes to find a publisher once illustrations are complete. She also plans to keep her website active so alumnae can continue to connect with her. She even hopes a school reunion can be planned.
After 52 years training generations of students, Abbe believes that teaching has kept her young.
“I might have to do Pilates now to stay in better shape and strong,” she said about no longer teaching, “but I know that being around the children is what made me come to life every day.”