Honor Judith Rosenbaum's leadership on her 10th anniversary as JWA’s CEO by making a donation!
Close [x]

Show [+]

Sophie Maslow

Content type
Collection

Victoria Marks

Victoria Marks (b. 1956) is an American dancer, choreographer, professor, and activist. Marks began dancing as a child and later expanded her career as the founder of Victoria Marks Performance Company and a professor at various conservatories around the world. She is also an advocate for mental health and accessibility, collaborating on films that investigate the effects of mental illness and founding the Dancing Disability Lab at UCLA in 2014.

Wendy Perron

Wendy Perron is a dance writer, educator, teacher, performer, and choreographer. Across her thirteen-year tenure at Dance Magazine, Perron contributed nearly 1,000 individual pieces of dance journalism.

Jewish Women Dance Educators and Writers

As in modern dance performance, a disproportionate number of American Jewish women have specialized in dance education and writers, with a longstanding interest in analyzing dance and establishing its place within academic artistic disciplines.

Sophie Maslow, 1911 - 2006

Like many New York dancers of her era, Maslow became involved in leftist politics. She taught dance classes for the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, and participated, alongside lifelong friend <a href="/womenofvalor/sokolow">Anna Sokolow</a>, in Workers Dance League concerts.

Premiere of Sophie Maslow's "The Village I Knew"

August 18, 1950

The American Dance Festival premiered Sophie Maslow's The Village I Knew on August 18, 1950, in New London, Connecticut.

Sophie Maslow

A leader of the New Dance Group, Sophie Maslow was among the generation of dancers involved in the labor movement of the 1930s. Maslow saw her work as inspired by a personal heritage rather than by political ideology; she believed that dance “could enrich the lives of workers in and of itself.”

Modern Dance Performance in the United States

Jewish immigrants to the New World brought with them their ritual and celebratory Jewish dances, but these traditional forms of Jewish dance waned in the United States. Working-class and poor Jewish immigrants parents sought out culture and education in the arts for their children, often as a vehicle for assimilation. Jewish women were particularly attracted to the field of modern dance.

Donate

Help us elevate the voices of Jewish women.

donate now

Get JWA in your inbox

Read the latest from JWA from your inbox.

sign up now