Selma Jeanne Cohen

Content type
Collection

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.

"International Encyclopedia of Dance" Front Cover, Edited by Selma Jeanne Cohen

Selma Jeanne Cohen, 1920 - 2005

Despite the difficulty of translating the evanescent nature of dance into words, Selma Jeanne Cohen believed that dance, as much as painting, music and literature, deserved a history of its own. She spent a lifetime creating the structures necessary to making the recording of that history possible….

http://jwa.org/weremember/cohen-selma
"International Encyclopedia of Dance" Front Cover, Edited by Selma Jeanne Cohen

Birth of dance scholar Selma Jeanne Cohen

September 18, 1920

Selma Jeanne Cohen, who sought to make dance scholarship a respected academic discipline, was born on September 18, 1920.

http://jwa.org/thisweek/sep/18/1920/selma-jeanne-cohen
"International Encyclopedia of Dance" Front Cover, Edited by Selma Jeanne Cohen

Selma Jeanne Cohen's "Encyclopedia of Dance"

July 26, 1998

"The fact of its existence is the most important thing about it," the New York Times reviewer wrote of The International Encyclopedia of Dance in a review published on July 26, 19

http://jwa.org/thisweek/jul/26/1998/selma-jeanne-cohen
Selma Jeanne Cohen's Encyclopedia of Dance

Selma Jeanne Cohen

It was Selma Jeanne Cohen’s mission in life to make dance scholarship a respected field, taking its place with the study of the other arts both in society and, particularly, the university. As a writer, editor, and teacher, she was a leader in transforming dance history, aesthetics, and criticism into respected disciplines. Cohen founded the Society of Dance History Scholars and received the first Dance Magazine Award ever given to a dance historian.

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