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Dance

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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.

Corinne Chochem

Best remembered for her contribution to Jewish cultural life and for her unique ability to inspire those around her, Corinne Chochem had a distinct impact on Hebrew folk dance, both in her teaching and her two books, Palestine Dances (1941) and Jewish Holiday Dances (1948).

Brazil, Contemporary

Brazil is home to the second largest Jewish community in South America. Jewish women played important roles in the absorption of Jewish immigrants from Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, and also made important contributions to Brazilian intellectual and artistic life.

Susan Braun

Susan Braun preserved what were thought to be inherently fleeting experiences when, in 1956, she founded Dance Films Association to support, promote, and archive films of dance performances. Her efforts helped establish a community of dancers and filmmakers and formed a new genre of film.

Gertrud Bodenwieser

A member of the first generation of modern dancers in Vienna, Gertrud Bodenwieser developed her own style of modern Ausdruckstanz (expressionist dance). From her studio in Vienna, she established the Bodenwieser Dance Group and went on to tour Europe, Japan, and Columbia. In 1938, she immigrated to Australia and played a significant role in the development of modern dance there.

Deborah Bertonoff

From her debut at age nine through her performances in her late seventies and teaching into her late eighties, Deborah Bertonoff made dance her life’s work. Bertonoff began studying at the Bolshoi School before moving to Israel and joining the Habimah Theater. After studying dance in Europe she began choreographing, and in 1944 she founded a dance studio. She was honored with the 1991 Israel Prize.

Leah Bergstein

Leah Bergstein was the first of the choreographers in Palestine who, at the beginning of the 1930s, created festival dances at kibbutzim that depicted life in pre-state Israel and on agricultural settlements. The unique festival pageants she created, often with poet-composer Mattityahu Shelem, contributed to the development of rural Israeli festivals and holiday celebrations and the creation of the first Israeli dances.

Shulamit Bat-Dori

Shulamit Bat-Dori defied notions about the inappropriateness of theater in the kibbutz, creating popular and acclaimed plays for the masses. Bat-Dori joined Ha-Shomer ha-Za’ir and made Aliyah in 1923, bringing her passion for theater, dance, music, and languages to Kibbutz B (later Mishmar ha-Emek). She wrote plays and founded the Kibbutz theater.

Tatjana Barbakoff

The daughter of a Chinese mother and a Russian Jewish father, Tatjana Barbakoff used her mixed heritage as inspiration for stunning and innovative dance performances. Her expressive technique entranced critics, while her costumes inspired dozens of painters and sculptors to capture her likeness. In 1944, she was killed in Auschwitz.

Cora Baird

In a reverse of the usual sequence of events, Cora Eisenberg Baird started playing with dolls when she grew up and married puppeteer Bil Baird. They performed at the 1939 and 1940 World’s Fairs and in the 1941 Ziegfeld Follies. They created educational and public service films and founded the American Puppet Arts Council.

Yehudit Arnon

After surviving the Holocaust and immigrating to Palestine, Yehudit Arnon played an influential role in shaping modern dance in Israel. In 1948 Arnon and her husband helped to smuggle more than 100 orphaned children to Palestine and settled in Kibbutz Ga'aton, where she founded the  Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company. 

Mia Arbatova

Told first by her parents that dancing was immodest and then by Israeli pioneers that dancing was bourgeois, Mia Arbatova defied her critics and became a pioneer of ballet in Israel. Her efforts produced three generations of distinguished dancers and her studio achieved international respect in the world of dance.

Radical Dancing Annas!

Evan Namerow

Seventy-one years ago today, Broadway got a little bit feistier when 27-year-old choreographer and dancer Anna Sokolow made her debut with several politically and socially charged compositions.

Anna Schön, a 23-year-old graduate of Barnard College, is a present-day radical dancer of another kind.

Emma's Revolution!

Jordan Namerow

It's unlikely that Emma Goldman predicted her legacy would inspire the name of an activist folk music duo, but perhaps she did. Over the weekend, I had the delight of seeing Emma's Revolution, a "musical uprising of truth and hope from award-winning, activist songwriters" perform with feminist folk music pioneer Holly Near.

Topics: Activism, Music, Dance

Anna Sokolow: Using Art as Activism

Jordan Namerow

Most of the time, harsh world realities leave us feeling powerless. Violence, illness, prejudice, and war cause us to ask: does our work really matter? Artists might be confronted with this question more often than others. When families can’t put food on the table, Art may seem irrelevant. But modern dance pioneer, Anna Sokolow, reminds us that nothing could be further from the truth.

Topics: Activism, Dance

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