Bereavement Notice

From the Sunday edition of the San Antonio Express-News:

Obituary: Dancer Ruffner taught at UIW, Palo Alto
Web Posted: 04/28/2007 07:48 PM CDT
Carmina Danini
Express-News

Dora Ruffner, an accomplished dancer, choreographer and yoga instructor who strived to bring wellness and the arts together, has died at 50.

She died of cancer Wednesday, her family said.

Ruffner was an associate professor of dance at Palo Alto College and was teaching yoga this semester at the University of the Incarnate Word.

Until about three years ago, she was the UIW community wellness coordinator, a position she held for 13 years.

At Trinity University, she taught jazz, modern dance and ballet for a year.

At the time of her death, she was pursuing a doctorate in dance at Texas Woman's University in Denton.

Mexico's Aztec dance was the emphasis of her thesis, said Amy Safrankova, an actress in New York City and the oldest of Ruffner's two daughters.

"She had been researching this for many years," Safrankova said.

"It was very important work to her."

Ruffner had recently been in Puebla, Mexico, to continue her research.

At UIW, she changed the culture, said Margaret Mitchell, professor of theater arts at the university.

"Instead of the whistle-wielding athletic type who would fit in with some of the good old boys around the water cooler, a kind of malevolent good fairy arrived, in sandals and linen, a soul aware of herself on multi-levels with a kind of pixie dust trailing behind her down the hall," Mitchell said in a speech last October when Ruffner received the Center Stage Award from the San Antonio Dance Umbrella, an organization that supports dance and dancers.

Until Ruffner's arrival on campus, yoga had not been taught at UIW.

"Hundreds of students practice yoga at UIW because of Dora's teaching. The wellness curriculum that Dora was so instrumental in developing is part of the core curriculum," Mitchell said.

In workshops, Ruffner included elements of yoga and dance meditation with contemporary movement.

"I'm combating the idea that wellness means you have to eat carrots and jog," she once said.

A trained dancer, the Colorado native received a master's degree in dance education from New York University, was an adjunct instructor at NYU and was an instructor and assistant to the director at the Milton Feher School of Dance and Relaxation in New York.
cdanini@express-news.net