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Mississippi-born dancer comes home with ballet company to share her passion

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mississippitoday.org – Sherry Lucas – 2025-01-23 10:49:00

Mary Kate Shearer’s vision for her future leaped nearly as high as the dancers did that summer afternoon she saw her first ballet onstage. She was only 3 years old, knocking on 4, at the time, and maybe mature enough for a USA International Ballet Competition matinee in her mom’s view.

“I bought tickets way at the back, in case we needed to sneak out,” her mother Janet Shearer recalled. No need, as it turned out. “She was rapt … just so attentive through the whole thing.

“When we walked out of Thalia Mara Hall that afternoon, she looked up and said, ‘Mommy, I want to do that.’”

“Since then, I have not stopped,” Mary Kate Shearer said, “except when injury forced me to.” The young dancer is now a company member of Chattanooga Ballet (CHA Ballet), a small regional company bound for Jackson as part of its Art/Motion tour Friday and Saturday, Jan. 24-25. The homecoming highlights Shearer in performance, with the opportunity, too, to share her newfound love of teaching.

The weekend’s two performances in Jackson showcase works by legends in contemporary ballet — a rare treat for area dance fans — and newer works as well. The flirty, energetic “Tarantella” by New York City Ballet co-founder George Balanchine and the deeply romantic “Sea Shadow” by Joffrey Ballet co-founder Gerald Arpino are key showpieces on a program that also features the new “Intersections of Life” by Dance Theatre of Harlem member Ingrid Silva, and “Copacetic,” a fun and jazzy work choreographed by Chattanooga Ballet Artistic Director Brian McSween. This is CHA Ballet’s 50th anniversary season. Shows will also include contemporary ballet performances by Belhaven University dance students (“In One Accord,” choreographed by Belhaven dance alum Rachel Bitgood) and by Mississippi Metropolitan Ballet (“Timelapse” by Andrew Brader).

“Sea Shadow” CHA Ballet dancers Alessandra Ferarri-Wong and Eli Diersing, Credit: Wizardly Studio

Performances will be held at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 24, and at 2 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 25, at Belhaven University Bitsy Irby Visual Arts and Dance Center’s Studio Theatre.

CHA Ballet’s tour includes master classes for local dance students Saturday morning, with intermediate and advanced sessions for ages 12-15 at 9 a.m. and for advanced students ages 16 and older at 10:30 a.m. Find tickets to CHA Ballet performances and master classes and more information at https://givebutter.com/Belhaven. Advance purchase is recommended; parking is available in the lot behind the building.

The tour’s Jackson leg is sponsored by Janet Shearer Fine Art. “I wanted Mary Kate to come home and dance so that family and friends can see her locally, but more importantly, what Chattanooga Ballet does, serving communities with world-class dance,” Janet Shearer said.

The daughter of Janet and Dale Shearer grew up in Ridgeland, developing the passion she pegged as a pre-schooler through lessons with the Madison-based Mississippi Metropolitan Ballet and summer camp training. Shearer, 26, graduated from Indiana State University and its Jacobs School of Music’s dance department in May 2021 and joined CHA Ballet just months later as one of its seven professional dancers. 

Credit: Wizardly Studio

“She’s a very determined and dynamic dancer, and highly intelligent,” CHA Ballet CEO/Artistic Director McSween said of Shearer, also praising her range across contemporary, modern and classical works and even character roles. “She’s a great technician. She’s an even better artist.”

“I love to dance and I think it’s incredible that I get to do that as my job,” Shearer said. 

When company director McSween floated the possibility of a Jackson tour, she thought it was a fantastic idea. 

“That would be so much fun, for a lot of reasons,” she said. “It’ll be really cool because I haven’t had the opportunity to teach in Jackson much at all. … Since I’ve been at Chattanooga Ballet, teaching is a part of my job that I’ve fallen in love with in a way that I didn’t really expect. So, I’m excited to share with my hometown this newfound love of sharing my knowledge about my art form, not just performing.”

In classes, she continues ballet’s strong oral tradition of passing down instruction from one generation to the next. In Chattanooga, she embraces teaching 8-, 9- and 10-year-olds. 

“Something about that age group — it’s their first year where they come to ballet twice a week, and they’re not self-conscious yet, so they’re still just so excited and wanting to try new things. It’s just been really cool to share my knowledge with the next generation of future dancers and dance lovers,” Shearer said.

She recalls her own childhood ballet classes at MMB, and some of the imagery MMB Artistic Associate Crystal Skelton used to describe steps. 

Mary Kate Shearer Credit: Courtesy of Mary Kate Shearer

“It’s still stuff I tell my students now, like talking about our hip bones as the headlights of our car, and making sure they’re staying facing forward all the time at the barre, and things like that,” Shearer said. “Young, young dancers can say, ‘I don’t know what my hip bones are, but I know what the headlights of a car look like.’”

MMB Artistic Director Jennifer Beasley recalled Shearer’s dedication, strong work ethic and her sponge-like eagerness to learn. “I always knew she could have a career in professional ballet if she wanted it. … I’m really excited to see her dance — I haven’t in a little while, and I’m most excited because our students get to meet her and take class and see that dancing professionally is attainable if that is something they want to pursue. Seeing her, being from here and from the school, is going to be great for them.”

Belhaven University Dance Department Chair and Dean of the School of Fine Arts Krista Bower welcomed the opportunity for her students, too, in classes, demonstrations and Q&A with McSween and Shearer. “That’s a great opportunity for the Belhaven dance students to hear about pathways to a professional career, and it’s wonderful for them to get to see a professional dance performance right here in Jackson.”

For Shearer, the tour’s hometown spotlight weaves artistry and memory in a reach back to her roots and a reach out to young dancers who may want to follow in her footsteps. Her self-described strengths and personality that come through in her dance easily trace back to her earliest intro to the art form. “I love to jump , so that’s one thing,” she said with a chuckle. “So, I’m very dynamic in that way.

“I really try and show the audience that I’m up there having fun, and I think that comes through onstage — that I love what I’m doing and I want other people to feel that love, too.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Mississippi Today

On this day in 1944

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mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2025-02-16 07:00:00

Feb. 16, 1944

Credit: Courtesy U.S. Navy

The U.S. Navy began training for its first Black officers. 

Sixteen officer candidates began their work at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center. All 16 passed the course, but the Navy only commissioned 13. 

They overcame racism and became known as “the Golden 13” for their excellence, paving the way for President Harry Truman to desegregate the military four years later. 

In Paul Stillwell’s book on the men, Gen. Colin Powell wrote that these men understood that “history had dealt them a stern obligation. They realized that in their hands rested the chance to help open the blind moral eye that America had turned on the question of race.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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Mississippi Today

House gasoline tax proposal would hurt most when prices are highest

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mississippitoday.org – Bobby Harrison – 2025-02-16 06:00:00

Legislation passed by the state House would increase the tax burden on Mississippi drivers as the price of gasoline rises.

That cruel reality, which would be especially onerous for low income Mississippians, is a simple fact of how a sales tax works.

Mississippi’s current tax on motor fuel of 18.4 cents per gallon is the second lowest in the nation.

Transportation officials and others say the state needs additional revenue to pay for the ever-increasing costs of building new roads and bridges and maintaining the existing transportation system.

It is not surprising that both chambers are responding to those concerns of the need for more funding for transportation.

But the leaders of the two chambers are taking very different approaches to increasing the tax to pay for transportation needs. Senate leaders, led by Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, are proposing increasing the tax 3 cents per gallon for three years until it caps out at 27.4 cents per gallon – which would still be lower than the gasoline tax in most states.

The House proposal would move Mississippi out of the mainstream of how states levy taxes on gasoline. The House, led by Speaker Jason White and Ways and Means Chair Trey Lamar, has passed out of the House legislation to impose a 5% sales tax on the cost of each purchase of motor fuel, both diesel and gasoline.

Simply put, the Senate plan taxes a gallon of gas. The House proposal places a tax on the cost of a gallon of gas.

For instance, a tax of 5% would be added to the purchase of $40 of gas. The Senate plan, when fully enacted, would add 9 cents to each gallon of gas – whether the gallon cost $1 or $5.

Only 10 states levy a sales tax on gasoline, according to the Tax Policy Center.

Already, the gasoline tax increase proposed by the House is higher than the Senate plan would be when fully enacted. According to AAA, the average cost of a gallon of gasoline in the state is currently $2.67, meaning Mississippi drivers would be paying about 13.4 cents more per gallon than they are paying now if the House tax hike is enacted. Drivers of diesel vehicles would be paying an extra 16.5 cents per gallon since the average cost of a gallon of diesel is currently $3.31 cents per gallon.

Remember, that tax would be in addition to the 18.4 cents already levied on a gallon of motor fuel.

Under the House plan, as the cost of gasoline increases making it more difficult to afford, the tax levied by the state also would increase, creating a double whammy. The double whammy would be exacerbated in a state with a large rural population often driving long distances to work. The average commute time in Mississippi is 25.2 minutes.

Despite that hardship, there is some logic to the House plan. The 18.4 cent per gallon tax on a gallon of gas has been in effect since 1987. Since that tax was imposed, vehicles have become much more energy efficient, meaning less gasoline is being purchased resulting in the revenue collected from the 18.4 cent-per gallon tax decreasing over time when adjusted for inflation. A sales tax most likely would ensure the revenue generated would not be static.

To offset the lost revenue from a tax on a gallon of gas, some states have tried to impose a tax based on the miles driven.

In the past fiscal year, the 18.4-cent per gallon levy generated $440 million in revenue with the bulk (71%) going directly to the state Department of Transportation for road and bridge construction.

Both chambers are proposing increasing the tax on motor fuels while reducing other taxes. The House would totally eliminate the income tax and reduce the tax on groceries while increasing the sales tax on most retail items by 1.5 cents. The Senate wants to reduce both the income tax and the tax on groceries.

As lieutenant governor, current Gov. Tate Reeves blocked all efforts to increase the tax on motor fuels to pay for transportation needs.

As governor, Reeves badly wants his legacy to be the elimination of the income tax. He calls it his No. 1 priority.

Whether he would sign legislation increasing the tax on gasoline in exchange for the elimination of the income tax is questionable. On social media, though, he has expressed support for the House plan to eliminate the income tax while increasing the gasoline tax and the sales tax on most retail items.

Whether such a tax swap would benefit the working poor, who comprise a large portion of the Mississippi population, is debatable.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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Mississippi Today

On this day in 1848

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mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2025-02-15 07:00:00

Feb. 15, 1848

Like the Black children shown in this engraving from the Anti-Slavery Almanac in Boston, Sarah Roberts was denied entrance to school because of the color of her skin. Credit: Public Domain

Sarah Roberts, a 5-year-old Black American, entered an all-white school in Boston, only to be turned away. She wound up entering four more white schools, and each time she was shown the door. And so she found herself walking from home, passing five all-white schools on the way to an all-black school the city of Boston was forcing her to attend. 

This angered her father, Benjamin, one of the nation’s first Black American printers, and he sued the city. Robert Morris, one of the nation’s first Black lawyers, took up the case. 

“Any child unlawfully excluded from public school shall recover damages therefore against the city or town by which such public instruction is supported,” Morris wrote. 

He and co-counsel Charles Sumner argued that the Constitution of Massachusetts held all are equal before the law, regardless of race, and that the laws creating public schools made no distinctions. 

Sumner wrote, “Prejudice is the child of ignorance … sure to prevail where people do not know each other.” 

In 1850, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld the racial segregation of public schools. The attorneys brought the issue to state lawmakers. In 1855, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts banned segregated schools — the first law barring segregated schools in the U.S.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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