Helen McGehee (1921–2020)

Helen Gray McGehee was born in Lynchburg, Virginia. Her father William McGehee worked for a clothing manufacturing company and her mother, Helen (Mahood) McGehee, was an artist who came from a family of women over several generations who painted. In 1942, she graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Randolph-Macon Woman’s College (now Randolph College) with a major in Greek and Latin. The same day, she got on a train to New York City to study at Martha Graham’s dance school.

In 1950, she married Rafael Alfonso Umaña Mendez, a Colombian-born artist known professionally as Umaña. Ms. McGehee became a member of the Graham troupe and performed there for 29 years, creating principal roles in works such as "Diversion of Angels" and "Clytemnestra." In 1947, she took on her most celebrated role as the leader of a Greek chorus in "Night Journey," Martha Graham’s retelling of the Jocasta-Oedipus story. Ms. McGehee participated in the new-famous tours of Europe, Asia and the Middle East in which the Martha Graham Dance Company served as cultural ambassadors for the U.S. State Department. She also was a frequent guest artist, choreographer and teacher in Canada, the UK, Europe and the USA. She also directed her own company and became a costume designer. She wrote the books Helen McGehee: Dancer (1074) and To Be a Dancer (1989).