Judy Fielman Rice, the ballet teacher whose 35-year tenure at the University of Michigan made her one of American dance education's most magnetic figures, died unexpectedly on May 12, 2026. She was 65.

Within hours, Rice's current and former students filled social media with their favorite "Judy-isms," comic anecdotes and, inevitably, the tendu combinations they could not forget. The outpouring traced back to what colleagues describe as a joyful, generous approach to a discipline often taught through fear.

Rice was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, on February 28, 1961. She fell for ballet as a child and trained at the National Ballet School of Canada. Her performing career spanned the Joffrey Ballet, the now-defunct American Ballet Comedy and The National Tap Dance Company of Canada. Television credits included "Fame," "All My Children," "The Great American Dance Challenge" and "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson," where she danced a slapstick pas de deux. She later collaborated with Tyce Diorio on his choreography for Season 9 of "So You Think You Can Dance" and worked as a private ballet coach for actresses Katie Holmes and Amy Adams.

Teaching began early in her performing life and became her calling. In 1990 she joined the University of Michigan faculty, teaching ballet in both the dance and musical theater departments. "Judy was a human generator with enough energy to power the entire building," says Peter Sparling, UM professor emeritus and the dance-department chair when Rice entered academia. "Her inherent passion empowered students for over three decades."

Technical rigor anchored her classes, but former students recall something rarer: she treated them as whole people. She took particular pride in teaching UM's first-year ballet courses, where advanced dancers and absolute beginners received equal respect. She urged students to care for their bodies and prioritize their mental health, and she taught professionalism beyond the stage — insisting her dancers understudy roles seriously and learn the names of theater-crew members.

Rice worked constantly to open doors for her pupils. Brooke Taylor, now a dancer in Moulin Rouge! on Broadway, credits her as a career-shaping force. "Judy was influential in my Broadway career," Taylor said in a recent Dance Teacher interview. "I felt like I didn't fit in when I came to UMich, and Judy was the one who got me enrolled in a musical-theater-styles course."

Her teaching reached far beyond Ann Arbor. Over more than 40 years, Rice taught at The Joffrey Ballet School, Joffrey Midwest, Broadway Dance Center, Peridance, Pace University and Steps on Broadway. A deeply musical instructor, she developed a line of ballet class CDs with accompanist Paul Lewis and producer Rob Martens. She became a sought-after competition adjudicator and a master teacher and trainer at conventions, roles that let her serve as an ambassador and recruiter for dance in higher education. The September 2013 cover of Dance Teacher featured her in an article titled "Ballerina in a Barefoot World: Judy Rice Makes a Case for Comp Kids in College."

She was still building. This past year, Rice partnered with MSA Agency to develop a first-of-its-kind commercial dance course at UM, with each semester culminating in an agency audition. "This partnership brought Judy so much joy," says MSA education agent Tina Oleff, who trained with Rice as a student. "We had already begun planning for the fall."

For the many dancers she mentored through detours and comebacks, that encouragement defined her. One former student, returning to ballet classes after two children and a six-year hiatus, found in Rice a model of focused work laced with laughter — and, like so many others, a cheerleader in her corner.

A celebration of Rice's life and legacy will take place on September 4, 2026, at the Power Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Michigan — the stage where generations of her students performed.