“Dance of the Happy Shades” takes place in southern Ontario, Canada, in the mid-20th century. The narrator is a middle-class teenage girl who takes piano lessons from Miss Marsalles, an elderly music teacher. Miss Marsalles is having another party, or music recital, in June. The narrator’s mother—one of Miss Marsalles’s former students—doesn’t want to attend, so she tries making various excuses. She suggests that Miss Marsalles shouldn’t have the party at all because she’s too old and because the older Marsalles sister has recently had a stroke. However, Miss Marsalles is too enthusiastic to cancel the party. The narrator’s mother regards Miss Marsalles with condescending pity but politely agrees to attend the party. Then the narrator’s mother calls her friend on the phone to commiserate about Miss Marsalles’s awkward parties.
Overhearing her mother’s conversations, the narrator considers her own memories of Miss Marsalles’s annual festivities. The parties have become uncomfortable lately because fewer people are attending them, which worries the narrator’s mother. All Miss Marsalles cares about, though, is teaching music to children. The narrator remembers that, in the past, Miss Marsalles’s parties weren’t bad. The food was good, the students’ performances were lackluster but usually not disastrous, and the whole event was reliably consistent. Miss Marsalles always looked the same, “kindly and grotesque,” dressed in an old-fashioned style. Year after year, Miss Marsalles’s lifestyle has persisted without change. She maintains old traditions—such as giving gifts to her pupils at recitals—even when she likely can no longer afford them.
On the day of Miss Marsalles’s party, the narrator and her mother reluctantly arrive at the small half-house on Bala Street, where Miss Marsalles merrily waits to greet them. Curiously, Miss Marsalles seems to be expecting more arrivals. Inside the house, there are only a few other party guests. The narrator’s mother is upset that her friend hasn’t come but tries to act pleasant. She speaks to Mrs. Clegg, Miss Marsalles’s neighbor, about the older Marsalles sister, who is bedridden upstairs and not doing well. The narrator’s mother suddenly notices that flies are crawling all over the food Miss Marsalles prepared. The narrator’s mother grows dismayed but stops Mrs. Clegg from impolitely gossiping about their hostess.
Finally, the younger children start to perform. Miss Marsalles and Mrs. Clegg encourage them with enthusiastic applause, while the uneasy mothers are relieved that the recital is nearing its end. While the narrator performs, a new group of children arrive, startling everyone except for Miss Marsalles. Miss Marsalles welcomes them, but the other women now appear to feel trapped and offended. The newly arrived children are Miss Marsalles’s pupils from Greenhill School, and they have Down syndrome. The women’s distress increases as each of these children also performs. Then a girl named Dolores Boyle skillfully plays a beautiful, cheerful piece of music. The mothers are caught in a “profound anxiety,” but Miss Marsalles is as happy with Dolores as with any of her other students. She doesn’t view Dolores’s musicality as an extraordinary miracle or an affront to propriety; instead, she celebrates Dolores’s talent as an ordinary joy. When Dolores’s performance is over, the narrator observes that the women are troubled. They view Dolores’s ability as “useless” and “out-of-place” because she has Down syndrome. Desperately trying to remain polite, however, they ask what the piece she played is called. Miss Marsalles answers that it is called The Dance of the Happy Shades.
On her way home from Miss Marsalles’s house, where she will never attend another party, the narrator realizes she can’t pity Miss Marsalles as she expected to. “The Dance of the Happy Shades”—as a “communiqué from the other country” in which Miss Marsalles seems to exist—has taught her that Miss Marsalles isn’t to be pitied.
