Shirley Robbins
Pomona College theater professor, performer   

Shirley Robbins, 62-year Claremont resident and 18-year faculty member of the Pomona College theater department, died of cancer at home on February 22, 2008. A devoted and passionate professor, Ms. Robbins continued teaching until the time of her death despite struggling with her illness. She was 79.

Ms. Robbins was a master teacher of the Alexander Technique, a method widely employed by premier theater, music and dance schools, in which the student learns kinesthetic observation, how thinking is expressed in movement and the ability to make new choices in spite of established habitual patterns. A pioneer of the Alexander Technique in southern California, Ms. Robbins established it as standard training for theater majors.  She also taught the Alexander Technique in the Scripps College dance department in recent years.

Deeply committed to teaching and to the academic, professional and personal lives of her students, Ms. Robinson was greatly admired and respected by those she taught. Student evaluations reported that her work enabled them to re-evaluate self-limiting assumptions and make life-altering changes, both in their performance skills and in their personal lives.

“People keep saying how much she affected their lives, either because, as a teacher, she had an uncanny way of seeing into people and helping them to find themselves,” said her daughter, Karen Risa Robbins. “Or, because people came regularly to her house and studied music for many years and it was a highlight of their week.”

Ms. Robbins’ Pomona College theater department colleague, Betty Bernhard, also recognized her talent for peering deeply into the dreams and aspirations of students.

“Shirley had a belief that we could probably all be better at what we were doing than we might have imagined,” Ms. Bernhard commented. “By that I mean that she had kind of an x-ray vision into the students as to where they really wanted to go and what they really wanted to become on stage. She gave them permission to do that, which is a tricky thing.”

Ms. Bernard also noted that many students were “absolutely devoted to her,” and their journal entries often spoke with respect and enthusiasm about how she had positively and significantly changed their lives. 

“She could be very tough and very loving at the same time,” Ms. Bernhard said.

In 2006, the American Society for the Alexander Technique recognized Ms. Robbins for her decades of contribution to the development of the technique.

Ms. Robbins was also a major force in the field of early music, which includes Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque.  She taught, played and performed music as a vocalist and an instrumentalist. Among the early music instruments she played were recorder, the crumhorn and the viola da gamba.

In 2007, she became the second person to receive the American Recorder Society’s Presidential Special Honor Award for her seminal role in teaching and performing ancient music.  For 25 years, she was on the faculty of the University of Southern California Idyllwild School of Music and the Arts (ISOMATA), where she directed the influential summer workshop on early music and dance. She also staged a number of Italian Renaissance performances, serving as producer, director and performer for the vignette productions that combined music and dance.

The performance group that Ms. Robbins founded, Canto Antiguo, performed widely in the southern California area.  Canto Antiguo’s 1994 recording, “Musical Traditions of the Sephardim,” is available through Titanic Records.  She enjoyed researching rare musical scores from the 13th to16th centuries, found in The Claremont College’s Honnold Library collection, and introduced them to audiences for the first time.  Her unique musical arrangements shaped contemporary concepts about authentic presentation of ancient music.

For over six decades, Ms. Robbins was a mainstay of the community’s cultural life.  She taught music to generations of Claremonters in her home, and was also known for hosting events that brought together a broad range of accomplished artists.  

Ms. Bernard had the opportunity to stroll around the neighborhood with Ms. Robbins shortly before her death, on a gorgeous, sunny day shortly after the heavy rains.

“[Shirley] was saying, ‘Look at that tree, aren’t my madrones doing well, ah, the snow in the mountains. You just don’t know what life really is until you think you might lose it’,” recounted Ms. Bernhard. “I never knew anyone like her. She was so enthusiastic about everything in a genuine way. She was so full of life. And she was a real character, always fun to be around…I think it was her love of life that carried a lot of people along with her.”

Ms. Robbins is survived by her daughter Karen Risa Robbins, a Pomona College graduate working as a lawyer in the Bay Area; by her son Alan Robbins, a dentist in Chicago, Illinois; and her sister, Goldie Shaw of Florida.

Ms. Robbins was buried in Oak Park Cemetery in Claremont on February 24, 2008.  A pubic memorial service will be held at Pomona College on April 20, 2008.  Further information on the public memorial service can be found at www.shirleyrobbins.com. 

Memorial donations may be made to the city of Claremont’s Family Emergency Fund or to a charity of choice.