Coming to Virginia Commonwealth University as a young dancer, Starr Foster’s first class with Frances Wessells had an unconventional start: Her new teacher asked everyone to lay on the floor.

“If anyone were to look in, they would probably think we were all sleeping,” recalls Foster, artistic director of Starr Foster Dance. “She would walk around the room and give us visualizations of how to actively breathe through our eyes, breathe through our ears. All of us thought this was the most bizarre way of approaching movement, but we were also 100% in.”

Whether educating trained dancers, undergraduates exploring an elective offering or senior citizens trying to stay active, Wessells wanted everyone to move. On Dec. 31, mere hours before the turn of the new year, Wessells passed away at the age of 105.

The city’s doyenne of dance held literal sway over generations of Richmonders. Her achievements include founding VCU’s Department of Choreography + Dance, serving as the Richmond Times-Dispatch’s dance critic for 25 years, choreographing more than two dozen local musicals, and teaching at Sweet Briar College, the University of Richmond and Virginia Commonwealth University.

“She was the grande dame of Richmond dance, without a doubt,” says Robbie Kinter, her longtime dance partner.

Born Frances Ann Davies on Aug. 18, 1919, Wessells began life in Colorado. She was the daughter of professional musicians whose careers were upended by the demise of vaudeville and the rise of talkies; silent movies were nearly always accompanied by live music.

Wessells grew up dancing, teaching tap dance by the age of 15, and worked as a professional chorus girl in high school and college. A lifechanging moment occurred when she witnessed an instructor tear across the length of her University of Denver dance studio with flying feet and arms akimbo. It was modern dance, and Wessells hadn’t seen anything like it before.

Founded as the 19th century turned into the 20th, modern dance was developed in rebellion to ballet. Movement was meant to be meaningful, instead of just for show. Dancers were free to explore space instead of being slaves to the rhythm of music.

This exposure to modern dance led Wessells to seek out two summers of study with Hanya Holm in Colorado Springs.

Alongside Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey and Charles Wiedman, Holm is considered one of the “Big Four” pioneers of modern dance. The German-born dancer would go on to choreograph the original Broadway productions of Cole Porter’s “Kiss Me, Kate” and Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s “My Fair Lady” and “Camelot.”

Wessells then attended New York University, one of three schools in the country that offered master’s degrees in dance education at the time. There, she bounced between her classes at NYU and Holm’s professional studio in New York, sometimes taking two-hour classes back to back.

These were the lessons that Wessells brought to Richmond.

“She was a direct descendant of the pioneers of modern American dance, one of the last of the people who was trained by the original pioneers of modern American dance,” says Julinda Lewis, a local dancer, teacher, dance critic and theater critic.

Though Wessells could be “sharp-tongued” and “brutally honest” with friends and colleagues, Foster says she was always encouraging to students and embraced everyone around her.

“She felt that everybody could dance, and, in her presence, everyone could dance,” Foster says. “She was a pillar of our community. A giant. A giant in a 5-foot frame.”

For Chris Burnside, Wessells’ encouragement led him to forgo a career in visual art to pursue one in dance. While an art student at Richmond Professional Institute, VCU’s predecessor, Burnside was so entranced by a performance of the national Broadway tour of “Hello, Dolly!” that he reached out to Wessells to train. He eventually asked her if he should pursue visual art or dance, even though he hadn’t grown up dancing professionally.

“She looked at me and said, ‘You have something, and you have this ability to perform,’” recalls Burnside, who went on to a career of dancing, choreography, teaching and serving as chair of VCU’s dance department. “Frances was always positive and had the ability to see what was individual to you.”

Wessells’ love of choreographing others took place offstage as well, including arranging large social events at her home in Goochland; at her 70th birthday party, she led attendees in a dance chain around her property.

“She had a vision for everything, and it was clear,” says Kinter, adding that her style of creation was cooperative but focused: “Very much collaborative, but she liked to have the final word.”

Wessells had a lifelong interest in dreams; sometimes, her choreography would incorporate movements she had seen in her sleep. Years ago, Wessells told Lewis that Holm, her one-time mentor, visited her in a dream. Holm held Wessells by the hand, took her over to the other side of the supernatural realm, and told her “It’s not time for you to come here yet.”

Kinter says that Wessells could show discomfort or a lack of confidence behind the scenes, but all of that was gone once she was onstage. One such moment occurred when she was given a lifetime achievement award by the Richmond Theatre Critics Circle in 2016 (Full disclosure: This reporter was part of the awarding body). Before the awarding, she was nervous.

“She walked on that stage and she lit up,” Kinter recalls. “When she got onstage, she just exuded grace and elegance and humility.”

Among other performances, Wessells played the Abuelita in the Latin Ballet of Virginia’s annual performance of “Legend of the Poinsettia” for 14 years; she was 100 during her last performance in the role.

“When she came out, it was like seeing a little goddess in person,” says Lewis of the staging. “Everyone treated her with such honor and respect.”

Asked the secret of her longevity, her response was simple: “Keep moving.”

In her later years, Wessells taught dance to seniors, both at a VCU studio and through Bifocals, a program offered through Barksdale Theatre/Virginia Rep. She was also a prolific sculptor, a member of nonprofit gallery Artspace and exhibited her work at the now defunct art6 gallery.

Wessells had three children with her first husband John Wessells, a journalist and speechwriter for five governors. After John Wessells’ death in 1988, Frances married John Bailey, a former student of hers and an accomplished artist and dancer; among his works is the iconic Marilyn Monroe mural in the Woodley Park neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Bailey died in 2019. In 2022, Artspace held an exhibition of works that Frances and Bailey had both created and acquired.

Wessells was dancing on her feet until about a year ago; in recent months, she and Kinter danced together with their hands, which Wessells had always used expressively to help explain her choreography.

Asked the secret of her longevity, her response was simple: “Keep moving.”

An online obituary from Wessells’ family reads that as she received a public celebration on her 100th birthday, those who wish to honor her spirit should create “a private dance with those you love.”

Decades on, Foster says she still reflects on many of the lessons Wessells taught her back when she was a student.

“If all of us could be just a little bit like Frances,” Foster says, “the world would be a better place.”