Obituary of Maggie Newman

October 10, 2025

Margaret Janie Newman, whose life traced a rare and graceful arc from modern dance to Kabuki to T’ai Chi, passed away on October 8, 2025. She was a singular artist and teacher, weaving together traditions of East and West into a lifetime of movement, discipline, and deep spirit.

Born in Lanett Alabama, Maggie’s early fascination with form led her first to sports, then to dance. After studies at the University of Alabama and summers at Jacob’s Pillow, she moved to New York in 1950, where she immersed herself in the Katherine Dunham School of Dance, the School of American Ballet, the Metropolitan Opera Ballet School, and the Louis Johnson Company. She performed tirelessly, appearing in modern dance concerts, nightclubs, and on television, and toured internationally with the Paul Taylor Dance Company. Dance critics and colleagues alike praised her as a performer of versatility, rigor, and elegance.

Yet Maggie’s genius lay not only in performance, but in her ceaseless curiosity. In the early 1960s, her path turned toward Asia’s great embodied arts. She studied meditation with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and Zen master Nakagawa Sōen Rōshi, and trained in martial disciplines including karate and aikido, earning her black belt under Sensei Yamada and Master Kōichi Tōhei. For fifty years she also devoted herself to Japanese classical Kabuki dance, a practice that enriched her understanding of theater, gesture, and presence.

The deepest of these lifelong studies began in 1964, when Maggie met Professor Cheng Man-ch’ing, the renowned Yang-style T’ai Chi master. She became one of his six senior students in New York, entrusted with carrying forward his teaching. Maggie went on to nurture learners in Rochester, Philadelphia, New York City, and beyond, teaching workshops, camps, and weekly classes for over half a century. She was widely recognized as one of the pillars of Professor Cheng’s lineage in America.

Maggie’s teaching was marked by humility and insight. She often said the teacher’s task was “not to squelch the student’s spirit,” but to create a structure in which discipline and spontaneity could meet. Students recall her precision of eye, her warmth, and her quiet humor—whether guiding them through the subtleties of push-hands, demonstrating the sword, or encouraging them to “stay awake” within the form. For Maggie, T’ai Chi was never just technique; it was the daily practice of discovering one’s body, mind, and heart anew.

In every art she touched—dance, Kabuki, martial arts, calligraphy, painting, and above all, T’ai Chi—Maggie Newman embodied balance, refinement, and openness. She carried traditions forward while leaving space for others to find their own way within them. Her students, colleagues, and countless admirers will remember her not only as a master, but as a rare presence: grounded yet light, disciplined yet free, precise yet compassionate.

Her legacy endures in the bodies, minds and spirits of those she knew and taught, and in the living lineage of movement and mindfulness that she helped cultivate for future generations.