Jean Erdman
Encyclopedia
Jean Erdman is a dancer and choreographer of modern dance
as well as an avant-garde theater director.
. Her father, John Piney Erdman, a doctor of divinity and missionary from New England, settled in Honolulu as a minister at the non-denominational Protestant Church of the Crossroads where he preached, in both English and Japanese, to a multi-ethnic congregation. Her mother, Marion Dillingham Erdman was a member of one of the founding industrialist families of Hawaii. She enjoyed singing, often songs composed by Hawaiian composers, and with her husband, performing in amateur theatrical productions.
Erdman's earliest dance experience was of the hula, the indigenous Hawaiian dance whose lyrical swaying hip movements and hand gestures combine to create a polyrhythmic style that is both narrative and abstract. She attended the Punahou School
in Honolulu where she learned, as a form of physical education, Isadora Duncan
interpretive dance. Reflecting on her early dance training Erdman said these two influences taught her that dancing is an "expression of something meaningful to the dancer, not a mere series of lively steps."
From Hawaii, Erdman went to Miss Hall's School
for Girls in Pittsfield, Massachusetts from which she graduated in 1934. There her intellect was ignited, but she was troubled by the attitude towards dancing that caused her to be disciplined for teaching the hula to her classmates. Later, in the open intellectual atmosphere of Sarah Lawrence College
that she attended from 1934 to 1937, she was able to explore more freely her multiple interests in theater, dance, and aesthetic philosophy.
At Sarah Lawrence
she encountered her two greatest influences: Joseph Campbell
and Martha Graham
. Campbell, a professor of comparative literature who later became one of the world's foremost authorities on mythology was her tutorial advisor. This began a dialogue about the process of individual psycho-spiritual transformation and the nature of art that was to continue throughout their lives. Erdman was also captivated by the modern dance technique she learned in Martha Graham's classes at Sarah Lawrence
and at the Bennington College
Summer School of Dance that she attended during the summers of 1935 and '36.
In 1937 Erdman joined her parents and younger sister on a trip around the world during which she saw the traditional dance and theater of many countries including Bali, Java, India, Cambodia and Spain. Speaking of her experiences on this trip and of her later study of world dance cultures inspired by it Erdman said, "by studying and analyzing the traditional dance styles of the world, I discovered that the particular dance of each culture is the perfect expression of that culture's world view and is achieved by deliberate choices drawn from the unlimited possibilities of movement." Shortly after Erdman returned to New York she married Campbell on May 5, 1938 and following a brief honeymoon began rehearsal as a member of the Martha Graham Dance Company.
. Dance critic Margaret Lloyd
of the Christian Science Monitor praised the "felicitous humor" Erdman brought to her role as the Speaking Fate and called her "irreplaceable" in the 1941 revival of Letter to the World. Working with Graham, Erdman had re-shaped the role, originally played by actress Margaret Meredith, from that of a static seated figure to a moving, integrated element in the groundbreaking dance-theater work. In The Complete Guide to Modern Dance, historian Don McDonagh writes of the "profound effect" that these speaking roles had on Erdman. He attributes her many explorations of the dynamic between word and movement to these early experiences.
As all female Graham dancers of the period Erdman was required to study choreography with Louis Horst
, Graham's musical director. Horst presented lecture-demonstrations on his principles in pre-classic dance forms, and his students demonstrated his ideas through their own compositions. Her first solo, The Transformations of Medusa, which premiered at the Bennington Summer Festival of the Arts in 1942, began as an assignment for his class. The final version, with a commissioned score by Horst, remained in her repertory through the 1990s. Erdman's performance of this dance was also the subject of Maya Deren's unfinished 1949 film Medusa.
Originally an exploration of primitive style or archaic style, The Transformations of Medusa developed from a short study of the two-dimensional form into a complete dance of three sections. Erdman described the yearlong evolution of the piece as the process through which she came to understand that every posture contains "a whole state of being or attitude toward life." The dance evolved as she attuned herself to the physical sensations of the stylized positions and followed where they led her. It was Campbell, informed by his deep well of mythological imagery, who identified the psycho-spiritual transformations of the dance as the inner life of Medusa
, the beautiful Greek virgin raped by Poseidon
and then condemned for her own defilement to life as a snakey-headed Gorgon by Athena
. Throughout her career, Erdman pointed to this experience to demonstrate her aesthetic process of exploring the dynamic rhythms inherent in a seed movement idea to create a unique, organic form.
In 1943, at the urging of Campbell and composer, John Cage
, Erdman and fellow Graham Company member, Merce Cunningham
, presented a joint concert sponsored by the Arts Club of Chicago
. They each presented three solos and collaborated on three duets. Erdman's solos included The Transformations of Medusa, Forever and Sunsmell with a commissioned score by Cage and a spoken text from the titular poem by E. E. Cummings
, and Creature on a Journey, a comic antic to a percussion score by Lou Harrison
. Cunningham's solos included Totem Ancestor, In the Name of the Holocaust and Shimmera, all with scores by Cage. The three collaborative duets were Seeds of Brightness, a lyrical dance with a commissioned score by Norman Lloyd
, Credo in Us
, a dramatic dance with a text by Cunningham and Ad Lib, both with commissioned scores by Cage. According to Erdman, Ad Lib "was considered rather shocking because it incorporated improvisations. At that time it was not considered acceptable to perform inprovs in public. That was for the privacy of your studio."
In 1943, Erdman left the Graham Company—though she continued to appear as a guest artist in her role in Letter to the World into the 1970s—in order to explore her own dance vision. In 1944 she formed the Jean Erdman Dance Group and for the next six years presented annual concerts of her solo and group works in New York City. Simultaneously she was invited to join the New Dance Group
, an avant-garde dancers’ collective with which she presented her work often. At the New Dance Group Erdman also taught "fundamentals of modern movement," hula, and Spanish dance and along with Pearl Primus
and Hadassah
, was head of the Ethnic Dance Division. Erdman resigned from the New Dance Group
in 1949 over aesthetic differences. The Group was strongly committed to social change through dance whereas Erdman was equally committed to individual transformation through disciplined exploration of the art form.
Among Erdman's other important works of the 1940s were Daughters of the Lonesome Isle (1945) and Ophelia
(1946) with commissioned scores by John Cage
on prepared and standard piano respectively, Passage
(1946) with a commissioned score by Otto Janowitz, Hamadryad
(1948) to Debussy's Syrinx
, The Perilous Chapel (1949) and Solstice
(1950), both with commissioned scores by Lou Harrison
. Of The Perilous Chapel which featured a moving sculptural set by Carlus Dyer and was selected as one of the Best New Works of the Season by Dance Magazine, Doris Hering wrote, "When the dance was over one realized that by means of purely physical and visual elements, Miss Erdman had succeeded in giving a moving picture of the experience of an artist through phases of isolation and realization."
Other dance critics of the time noted her unique approach to dance making. New York Times dance critic John Martin
remarked, "that Erdman's movement is perhaps as near to being non-associative as movement can be, yet it is freely creative. The method of composition, though naturally without story content, avoids any connotation of being merely decorative, much as non-objective painting avoids it, and manages to be just as strongly evocative." Reporting on a group concert at the 92nd St YM/YWHA in which Erdman participated Edwin Denby
wrote in the New York Herald Tribune, "Miss Erdman's (approach) is a more original and refreshing one to encounter. There was a lightness in the rhythm, a quality of generosity and spaciousness in the movement that struck me as a dance should, as a poetic presence." Walter Terry
also writing for the Tribune commented, "(Her dance) attracts through rare beauty of pattern, through gently shaded dynamics and through that intangible essence we call quality. It does not appeal directly to the intellect nor to the emotions, but rather it seems to carry its message on its own short-wave system to the senses themselves."
From 1950 to 1954 Erdman toured annually with her company in the US. In 1954-55 she toured India and Japan as a solo artist, the first dancer to do so since World War II. The report she filed with U.S. State Department helped initiate cultural exchange programs with India and many countries in the Far East. From 1955 through 1960 Erdman toured extensively as a solo artist throughout the U.S. Notable works from her repertory of that period include Changingwoman (1951) with a commissioned score by Henry Cowell
including vocalizations by Erdman as she moved through a multi-colored abstract projected environment, Portrait of a Lady created to jazz recordings that were layered by John Cage
into his eight track commissioned score, Dawn Song
, a lyrical solo with commissioned score by Alan Hovhaness
, Fearful Symmetry (1956) an allegory in six visions inspired by William Blake
's poem, The Tyger
to Ezra Laderman
's Sonata for Violincello in which Erdman emerged from and interacted with a metal sculpture by Carlus Dyer, and Four Portraits from Duke Ellington
's Shakespeare Album (1958), a suite of comic portrayals of Shakespearean heroines.
In 1960, Erdman reorganized and renamed her dance company to reflect her explorations of the inter-relationship of movement, music, visual arts and spoken text. As noted above this interest began much earlier for Erdman. As early as 1946, John Martin
noted, "She is keenly alert to modern experiments in the other arts music, poetry, visual design and employs them freely." Her musical collaborations with composer Ezra Laderman
which had begun in 1956 with Duet for Flute and Dancer, inspired by Erdman's interpretation of Debussy's solo flute composition Syrinx
in her 1948 solo Hamadryad and culminating in the 1957 group work Harlequinade
, featuring dancer Donald McKayle
, were the subject of a feature story in Time Magazine in April 1957. In the theater Erdman had choreographed a production of Jean-Paul Sartre
's The Flies
(1947) for the Vassar Experimental Theatre, the Broadway production of Jean Giraudoux
's The Enchanted
(1950) and collaborating with writer William Saroyan
and composer Alan Hovhaness
, she directed and choreographed Otherman or The Beginning of a New Nation (1954) at Bard College
. The newly named Jean Erdman Theater of Dance toured the U.S. and gave concerts in New York City. Among the notable works of this period are Twenty Poems (1960), a cycle of E. E. Cummings
's poems for eight dancers and one actor with a commissioned score by Teiji Ito
, performed in the round at the Circle in the Square Theatre
in Greenwich Village and The Castle
, an exploration of improvised and structured movement with jazz clarinetist-saxophonist Jimmy Guiffre at the Brooklyn Academy of Music
(1970).
In 1962 with the aid of a grant from the Ingram Merrill Foundation, Erdman began what was to become her best-known work, The Coach with the Six Insides, an adaptation of James Joyce
's, Finnegans Wake
. The title is a line from the text found in episode 11.3.359. She had become well acquainted with the novel during the four and a half year period that her husband collaborated with Henry Morton Robinson
to write A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake
(1944). While Joyce's story is told from the perspective of the male barkeeper Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker, Erdman's work a combination of dance, mime, and Joycean stream of consciousness language focuses on the female psyche, as seen through the many incarnations of the main female character Anna Livia Plurabelle. Erdman danced all the aspects of Anna Livia from young woman, to old crone, to the rain itself that becomes the River Liffey flowing through the heart of Dublin. Actors Anita Dangler, Van Dexter, Leonard Frey
and Sheila Roy created the other characters from Joyce's labyrinthine work. Teiji Ito
was the musical director and composed the musical score on a vast array of instruments from around the world including among others, Japanese bass drums, Tibetan cymbals, a violin and an accordion. Robert DeMora designed the scenery and costumes.
The Coach with the Six Insides premiered at the Village South Theatre
in Greenwich Village on November 26, 1962. It ran for 114 performances and received the OBIE
and Vernon Rice Awards for Outstanding Achievement in theater. Following the first New York season it began a world tour including engagements at the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy, the Theatre des Nations in Paris, the Dublin Arts Festival in Ireland, and the Sogetsu Kaikan Theater Center in Tokyo. Three other North American tours as well as another New York season in 1967 followed. In 1964 the work was featured on the CBS Camera Three series and in 1966 WNET Channel 13 produced an interview with both Erdman and Campbell called, A Viewer's Guide to the Coach with the Six Insides. Many dance historians continue to regard The Coach with the Six Insides as "the most successful—and celebrated—attempt to unite dance and words."
Other theater productions Erdman choreographed during this period include the Helen Hayes Repertory production of Shakespeare's Hamlet
(1964), the Lincoln Center Repertory production of García Lorca's Yerma
(1962) and the New York Shakespeare Festival
production of the rock-opera Two Gentleman of Verona (1971) which ran on Broadway for two years and for which Erdman received the Drama Desk Award
and a Tony nomination.
Erdman was an active teacher throughout her career. In 1948 she opened her own studio where she taught a style-neutral, concept-based technique she developed by combining her study of world dance with anatomical principles. She described it as, "a basic dance training that would, in its most elementary form give the novice an essential experience of the art form, and in more complex variations create a professional dance artist with a completely articulate instrument capable of responding in movement to any choreographic impulse." From 1949 to 1951 she directed the modern dance department at Teachers College of Columbia University
. In the summers from 1949 to 1955 she was the artist in residence and head of the dance department at the University of Colorado
in Boulder. From 1954 – 57 she was the chairman of the dance department at Bard College
. She was also the founding director of the dance program at New York University
's School of the Arts and taught there from 1966 to 1971.
In 1972 Erdman and Campbell, recently retired from teaching at Sarah Lawrence College
, founded the Theater of The Open Eye. As artistic director of the theater for fifteen years, Erdman presented over one hundred works of traditional and experimental dance and theater. She created many productions for the theater including Moon Mysteries: Three Plays for Dancers by William Butler Yeats
, Fire and Ice
(a cycle of poems by Robert Frost
commissioned by the Library of Congress
), Gauguin in Tahiti and The Shining House: A Dance Opera of Pagan Hawaii. The Open Eye was also the venue for Campbell's lectures on comparative mythology
, later captured in the PBS series with Bill Moyers
, The Power of Myth
.
In the 1980s Erdman began reviving her early dance repertory and presenting it annually at The Open Eye. These performances culminated in the NEA
funded 1985 Jean Erdman Retrospective at Hunter Playhouse in New York City, about which New York Times dance critic Anna Kisslegoff wrote, "anyone wishing to know something about where modern dance is today can find the roots in this retrospective." From 1987 through 1993 Erdman served as artistic director of an NEA funded project to create a three volume video archive of these early dance works, Dance and Myth: The World of Jean Erdman. Today her dances are presented and staged through Jean Erdman Dance, a company dedicated to promoting Erdman's repertory and aesthetic vision.
in New York City. In the 1980s they also purchased an apartment in Honolulu and divided their time between the two cities. Campbell died in 1987. In 1990, Erdman became the founding president of the Joseph Campbell Foundation
and continues as its president emeritus. Since 1995 Erdman has lived exclusively in Hawaii.
Nominations
Modern dance
Modern dance is a dance form developed in the early 20th century. Although the term Modern dance has also been applied to a category of 20th Century ballroom dances, Modern dance as a term usually refers to 20th century concert dance.-Intro:...
as well as an avant-garde theater director.
Early years
Erdman was born on February 20, 1916 in Honolulu, HawaiiHawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
. Her father, John Piney Erdman, a doctor of divinity and missionary from New England, settled in Honolulu as a minister at the non-denominational Protestant Church of the Crossroads where he preached, in both English and Japanese, to a multi-ethnic congregation. Her mother, Marion Dillingham Erdman was a member of one of the founding industrialist families of Hawaii. She enjoyed singing, often songs composed by Hawaiian composers, and with her husband, performing in amateur theatrical productions.
Erdman's earliest dance experience was of the hula, the indigenous Hawaiian dance whose lyrical swaying hip movements and hand gestures combine to create a polyrhythmic style that is both narrative and abstract. She attended the Punahou School
Punahou School
Punahou School, once known as Oahu College, is a private, co-educational, college preparatory school located in Honolulu CDP, City and County of Honolulu in the U.S. State of Hawaii...
in Honolulu where she learned, as a form of physical education, Isadora Duncan
Isadora Duncan
Isadora Duncan was a dancer, considered by many to be the creator of modern dance. Born in the United States, she lived in Western Europe and the Soviet Union from the age of 22 until her death at age 50. In the United States she was popular only in New York, and only later in her life...
interpretive dance. Reflecting on her early dance training Erdman said these two influences taught her that dancing is an "expression of something meaningful to the dancer, not a mere series of lively steps."
From Hawaii, Erdman went to Miss Hall's School
Miss Hall's School
Miss Hall's School, located in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, is a highly selective independent school for girls aged 14–18. It was one of the first girls' boarding schools established in New England....
for Girls in Pittsfield, Massachusetts from which she graduated in 1934. There her intellect was ignited, but she was troubled by the attitude towards dancing that caused her to be disciplined for teaching the hula to her classmates. Later, in the open intellectual atmosphere of Sarah Lawrence College
Sarah Lawrence College
Sarah Lawrence College is a private liberal arts college in the United States, and a leader in progressive education since its founding in 1926. Located just 30 minutes north of Midtown Manhattan in southern Westchester County, New York, in the city of Yonkers, this coeducational college offers...
that she attended from 1934 to 1937, she was able to explore more freely her multiple interests in theater, dance, and aesthetic philosophy.
At Sarah Lawrence
Sarah Lawrence
Sarah Lawrence may refer to;* Sarah Lawrence College, an Arts college in Westchester County, New York* Sarah Lawrence , wife of Joseph Smith-See also:* Sara Lawrence, who represented Jamaica in the 2006 Miss World Contest...
she encountered her two greatest influences: Joseph Campbell
Joseph Campbell
Joseph John Campbell was an American mythologist, writer and lecturer, best known for his work in comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work is vast, covering many aspects of the human experience...
and Martha Graham
Martha Graham
Martha Graham was an American modern dancer and choreographer whose influence on dance has been compared with the influence Picasso had on modern visual arts, Stravinsky had on music, or Frank Lloyd Wright had on architecture.She danced and choreographed for over seventy years...
. Campbell, a professor of comparative literature who later became one of the world's foremost authorities on mythology was her tutorial advisor. This began a dialogue about the process of individual psycho-spiritual transformation and the nature of art that was to continue throughout their lives. Erdman was also captivated by the modern dance technique she learned in Martha Graham's classes at Sarah Lawrence
Sarah Lawrence
Sarah Lawrence may refer to;* Sarah Lawrence College, an Arts college in Westchester County, New York* Sarah Lawrence , wife of Joseph Smith-See also:* Sara Lawrence, who represented Jamaica in the 2006 Miss World Contest...
and at the Bennington College
Bennington College
Bennington College is a liberal arts college located in Bennington, Vermont, USA. The college was founded in 1932 as a women's college and became co-educational in 1969.-History:-Early years:...
Summer School of Dance that she attended during the summers of 1935 and '36.
In 1937 Erdman joined her parents and younger sister on a trip around the world during which she saw the traditional dance and theater of many countries including Bali, Java, India, Cambodia and Spain. Speaking of her experiences on this trip and of her later study of world dance cultures inspired by it Erdman said, "by studying and analyzing the traditional dance styles of the world, I discovered that the particular dance of each culture is the perfect expression of that culture's world view and is achieved by deliberate choices drawn from the unlimited possibilities of movement." Shortly after Erdman returned to New York she married Campbell on May 5, 1938 and following a brief honeymoon began rehearsal as a member of the Martha Graham Dance Company.
Career
Erdman distinguished herself as a principal dancer in Graham's company in solo roles such as the Ideal Spectator in Every Soul is a Circus, the Speaking Fate in Punch and the Judy and the One Who Speaks in Letter to the World, Graham's ode to the American poet, Emily DickinsonEmily Dickinson
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was an American poet. Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, to a successful family with strong community ties, she lived a mostly introverted and reclusive life...
. Dance critic Margaret Lloyd
Margaret Lloyd
Margaret Lloyd is an American soprano who is particularly known for her performances in contemporary operas and concert works. She has sung in the world premieres of several operas, most notably portraying the role of Lightfoot McClendon in the premiere of Carlisle Floyd's Cold Sassy Tree at the...
of the Christian Science Monitor praised the "felicitous humor" Erdman brought to her role as the Speaking Fate and called her "irreplaceable" in the 1941 revival of Letter to the World. Working with Graham, Erdman had re-shaped the role, originally played by actress Margaret Meredith, from that of a static seated figure to a moving, integrated element in the groundbreaking dance-theater work. In The Complete Guide to Modern Dance, historian Don McDonagh writes of the "profound effect" that these speaking roles had on Erdman. He attributes her many explorations of the dynamic between word and movement to these early experiences.
As all female Graham dancers of the period Erdman was required to study choreography with Louis Horst
Louis Horst
Louis Horst was a choreographer, composer, and pianist...
, Graham's musical director. Horst presented lecture-demonstrations on his principles in pre-classic dance forms, and his students demonstrated his ideas through their own compositions. Her first solo, The Transformations of Medusa, which premiered at the Bennington Summer Festival of the Arts in 1942, began as an assignment for his class. The final version, with a commissioned score by Horst, remained in her repertory through the 1990s. Erdman's performance of this dance was also the subject of Maya Deren's unfinished 1949 film Medusa.
Originally an exploration of primitive style or archaic style, The Transformations of Medusa developed from a short study of the two-dimensional form into a complete dance of three sections. Erdman described the yearlong evolution of the piece as the process through which she came to understand that every posture contains "a whole state of being or attitude toward life." The dance evolved as she attuned herself to the physical sensations of the stylized positions and followed where they led her. It was Campbell, informed by his deep well of mythological imagery, who identified the psycho-spiritual transformations of the dance as the inner life of Medusa
Medusa
In Greek mythology Medusa , " guardian, protectress") was a Gorgon, a chthonic monster, and a daughter of Phorcys and Ceto. The author Hyginus, interposes a generation and gives Medusa another chthonic pair as parents. Gazing directly upon her would turn onlookers to stone...
, the beautiful Greek virgin raped by Poseidon
Poseidon
Poseidon was the god of the sea, and, as "Earth-Shaker," of the earthquakes in Greek mythology. The name of the sea-god Nethuns in Etruscan was adopted in Latin for Neptune in Roman mythology: both were sea gods analogous to Poseidon...
and then condemned for her own defilement to life as a snakey-headed Gorgon by Athena
Athena
In Greek mythology, Athena, Athenê, or Athene , also referred to as Pallas Athena/Athene , is the goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, warfare, strength, strategy, the arts, crafts, justice, and skill. Minerva, Athena's Roman incarnation, embodies similar attributes. Athena is...
. Throughout her career, Erdman pointed to this experience to demonstrate her aesthetic process of exploring the dynamic rhythms inherent in a seed movement idea to create a unique, organic form.
In 1943, at the urging of Campbell and composer, John Cage
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...
, Erdman and fellow Graham Company member, Merce Cunningham
Merce Cunningham
Mercier "Merce" Philip Cunningham was an American dancer and choreographer who was at the forefront of the American avant-garde for more than 50 years. Throughout much of his life, Cunningham was considered one of the greatest creative forces in American dance...
, presented a joint concert sponsored by the Arts Club of Chicago
Arts Club of Chicago
Arts Club of Chicago is a private club located in the Near North Side community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States, a block east of the Magnificent Mile, that exhibits international contemporary art. It was founded in 1916, inspired by the success of the Art Institute of...
. They each presented three solos and collaborated on three duets. Erdman's solos included The Transformations of Medusa, Forever and Sunsmell with a commissioned score by Cage and a spoken text from the titular poem by E. E. Cummings
E. E. Cummings
Edward Estlin Cummings , popularly known as E. E. Cummings, with the abbreviated form of his name often written by others in lowercase letters as e.e. cummings , was an American poet, painter, essayist, author, and playwright...
, and Creature on a Journey, a comic antic to a percussion score by Lou Harrison
Lou Harrison
Lou Silver Harrison was an American composer. He was a student of Henry Cowell, Arnold Schoenberg, and K. P. H. Notoprojo Lou Silver Harrison (May 14, 1917 – February 2, 2003) was an American composer. He was a student of Henry Cowell, Arnold Schoenberg, and K. P. H. Notoprojo Lou Silver Harrison...
. Cunningham's solos included Totem Ancestor, In the Name of the Holocaust and Shimmera, all with scores by Cage. The three collaborative duets were Seeds of Brightness, a lyrical dance with a commissioned score by Norman Lloyd
Norman Lloyd
Norman Lloyd is an American actor, producer, and director with a career in entertainment spanning more than seven decades. Lloyd, who currently resides in Los Angeles, has appeared in over sixty films and television shows....
, Credo in Us
Credo in Us
Credo in Us is a musical composition by the American experimental music composer, writer and visual artist John Cage. It was written in July 1942 and revised in October of that year...
, a dramatic dance with a text by Cunningham and Ad Lib, both with commissioned scores by Cage. According to Erdman, Ad Lib "was considered rather shocking because it incorporated improvisations. At that time it was not considered acceptable to perform inprovs in public. That was for the privacy of your studio."
In 1943, Erdman left the Graham Company—though she continued to appear as a guest artist in her role in Letter to the World into the 1970s—in order to explore her own dance vision. In 1944 she formed the Jean Erdman Dance Group and for the next six years presented annual concerts of her solo and group works in New York City. Simultaneously she was invited to join the New Dance Group
New Dance Group
New Dance Group, or more casually NDG, is a performing arts organization in New York City, USA.-History:New Dance Group was established in 1932 by a group of artists and choreographers dedicated to social change through dance and movement...
, an avant-garde dancers’ collective with which she presented her work often. At the New Dance Group Erdman also taught "fundamentals of modern movement," hula, and Spanish dance and along with Pearl Primus
Pearl Primus
Pearl Primus was a dancer, choreographer and anthropologist. Primus played an important role in the presentation of African dance to American audiences. Early in her career she saw the needs to promote African dance as an art form worthy of study and performance...
and Hadassah
Hadassah
Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America is an American Jewish volunteer women's organization. Founded in 1912 by Henrietta Szold, it is one of the largest international Jewish organizations, with around...
, was head of the Ethnic Dance Division. Erdman resigned from the New Dance Group
New Dance Group
New Dance Group, or more casually NDG, is a performing arts organization in New York City, USA.-History:New Dance Group was established in 1932 by a group of artists and choreographers dedicated to social change through dance and movement...
in 1949 over aesthetic differences. The Group was strongly committed to social change through dance whereas Erdman was equally committed to individual transformation through disciplined exploration of the art form.
Among Erdman's other important works of the 1940s were Daughters of the Lonesome Isle (1945) and Ophelia
Ophelia
Ophelia is a fictional character in the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare. She is a young noblewoman of Denmark, the daughter of Polonius, sister of Laertes, and potential wife of Prince Hamlet.-Plot:...
(1946) with commissioned scores by John Cage
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...
on prepared and standard piano respectively, Passage
Passage
-Other meanings:* Passage , a long room or hall leading to other rooms* Passage , a form of trained slow, animated trot performed by a horse* Passage , the process of approving a proposed law...
(1946) with a commissioned score by Otto Janowitz, Hamadryad
Hamadryad
Hamadryads are Greek mythological beings that live in trees. They are a particular type of dryad, which in turn are a particular type of nymph. Hamadryads are born bonded to a particular tree. Some believe that hamadryads are the actual tree, while normal dryads are simply the entities, or...
(1948) to Debussy's Syrinx
Syrinx (Debussy)
Syrinx is a piece of music for solo flute which Claude Debussy wrote in 1913 . It was the first significant piece for solo flute after the Sonata in A min composed by C. P. E. Bach exactly 150 years before , and it is the first such solo composition for the modern Böhm flute, perfected in 1847...
, The Perilous Chapel (1949) and Solstice
Solstice
A solstice is an astronomical event that happens twice each year when the Sun's apparent position in the sky, as viewed from Earth, reaches its northernmost or southernmost extremes...
(1950), both with commissioned scores by Lou Harrison
Lou Harrison
Lou Silver Harrison was an American composer. He was a student of Henry Cowell, Arnold Schoenberg, and K. P. H. Notoprojo Lou Silver Harrison (May 14, 1917 – February 2, 2003) was an American composer. He was a student of Henry Cowell, Arnold Schoenberg, and K. P. H. Notoprojo Lou Silver Harrison...
. Of The Perilous Chapel which featured a moving sculptural set by Carlus Dyer and was selected as one of the Best New Works of the Season by Dance Magazine, Doris Hering wrote, "When the dance was over one realized that by means of purely physical and visual elements, Miss Erdman had succeeded in giving a moving picture of the experience of an artist through phases of isolation and realization."
Other dance critics of the time noted her unique approach to dance making. New York Times dance critic John Martin
John Martin (dance critic)
John Martin became America’s first major dance critic in 1927. Focusing his efforts on propelling the modern dance movement, he greatly influenced the careers of dancers such as Martha Graham...
remarked, "that Erdman's movement is perhaps as near to being non-associative as movement can be, yet it is freely creative. The method of composition, though naturally without story content, avoids any connotation of being merely decorative, much as non-objective painting avoids it, and manages to be just as strongly evocative." Reporting on a group concert at the 92nd St YM/YWHA in which Erdman participated Edwin Denby
Edwin Denby (poet)
Edwin Orr Denby was one of the most important and influential American dance critics of the 20th century, as well as a poet and novelist. His dance reviews and essays were collected in Looking at the Dance , Dancers, Buildings, and People in the Streets and Dance Writings...
wrote in the New York Herald Tribune, "Miss Erdman's (approach) is a more original and refreshing one to encounter. There was a lightness in the rhythm, a quality of generosity and spaciousness in the movement that struck me as a dance should, as a poetic presence." Walter Terry
Walter Terry
Walter E. Terry was a Wisconsin Politician who served as a member of the Wisconsin State Assembly from 1959 to 1965 and later Wisconsin Senate, serving the 27th Senate district of Wisconsin from 1967 to 1969. Terry was a graduate of Baraboo High School and Notre Dame University...
also writing for the Tribune commented, "(Her dance) attracts through rare beauty of pattern, through gently shaded dynamics and through that intangible essence we call quality. It does not appeal directly to the intellect nor to the emotions, but rather it seems to carry its message on its own short-wave system to the senses themselves."
From 1950 to 1954 Erdman toured annually with her company in the US. In 1954-55 she toured India and Japan as a solo artist, the first dancer to do so since World War II. The report she filed with U.S. State Department helped initiate cultural exchange programs with India and many countries in the Far East. From 1955 through 1960 Erdman toured extensively as a solo artist throughout the U.S. Notable works from her repertory of that period include Changingwoman (1951) with a commissioned score by Henry Cowell
Henry Cowell
Henry Cowell was an American composer, music theorist, pianist, teacher, publisher, and impresario. His contribution to the world of music was summed up by Virgil Thomson, writing in the early 1950s:...
including vocalizations by Erdman as she moved through a multi-colored abstract projected environment, Portrait of a Lady created to jazz recordings that were layered by John Cage
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...
into his eight track commissioned score, Dawn Song
Dawn Song
Dawn Song is an associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley, in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department.She received a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 2010.-Life and work:...
, a lyrical solo with commissioned score by Alan Hovhaness
Alan Hovhaness
Alan Hovhaness was an Armenian-American composer.His music is accessible to the lay listener and often evokes a mood of mystery or contemplation...
, Fearful Symmetry (1956) an allegory in six visions inspired by William Blake
William Blake
William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...
's poem, The Tyger
The Tyger
"The Tyger" is a poem by the English poet William Blake. It was published as part of his collection Songs of Experience in 1794 . It is one of Blake's best-known and most analyzed poems...
to Ezra Laderman
Ezra Laderman
Ezra Laderman is an American composer of classical music.-Biography:His parents, Isidor and Leah, both emigrated to the United States from Poland. Though poor, the family had a piano. Ezra writes, "At four, I was improvising at the piano; at seven, I began to compose music, writing it down...
's Sonata for Violincello in which Erdman emerged from and interacted with a metal sculpture by Carlus Dyer, and Four Portraits from Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...
's Shakespeare Album (1958), a suite of comic portrayals of Shakespearean heroines.
In 1960, Erdman reorganized and renamed her dance company to reflect her explorations of the inter-relationship of movement, music, visual arts and spoken text. As noted above this interest began much earlier for Erdman. As early as 1946, John Martin
John Martin (dance critic)
John Martin became America’s first major dance critic in 1927. Focusing his efforts on propelling the modern dance movement, he greatly influenced the careers of dancers such as Martha Graham...
noted, "She is keenly alert to modern experiments in the other arts music, poetry, visual design and employs them freely." Her musical collaborations with composer Ezra Laderman
Ezra Laderman
Ezra Laderman is an American composer of classical music.-Biography:His parents, Isidor and Leah, both emigrated to the United States from Poland. Though poor, the family had a piano. Ezra writes, "At four, I was improvising at the piano; at seven, I began to compose music, writing it down...
which had begun in 1956 with Duet for Flute and Dancer, inspired by Erdman's interpretation of Debussy's solo flute composition Syrinx
Syrinx (Debussy)
Syrinx is a piece of music for solo flute which Claude Debussy wrote in 1913 . It was the first significant piece for solo flute after the Sonata in A min composed by C. P. E. Bach exactly 150 years before , and it is the first such solo composition for the modern Böhm flute, perfected in 1847...
in her 1948 solo Hamadryad and culminating in the 1957 group work Harlequinade
Harlequinade
Harlequinade is a comic theatrical genre, defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as "that part of a pantomime in which the harlequin and clown play the principal parts". It developed in England between the 17th and mid-19th centuries...
, featuring dancer Donald McKayle
Donald McKayle
Donald McKayle is an African American modern dancer, choreographer, teacher, director and writer best known for creating socially conscious concert works during the 1950s and 60s that focus on expressing the human condition and more specifically, the black experience in America...
, were the subject of a feature story in Time Magazine in April 1957. In the theater Erdman had choreographed a production of Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...
's The Flies
The Flies
The Flies is a play by Jean-Paul Sartre, written in 1943. It is an adaptation of the Electra myth, previously used by the Greek playwrights Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides....
(1947) for the Vassar Experimental Theatre, the Broadway production of Jean Giraudoux
Jean Giraudoux
Hippolyte Jean Giraudoux was a French novelist, essayist, diplomat and playwright. He is considered among the most important French dramatists of the period between World War I and World War II. His work is noted for its stylistic elegance and poetic fantasy...
's The Enchanted
The Enchanted (play)
The Enchanted is a 1950 English adaptation by Maurice Valency of the play Intermezzo written in 1933 by French dramatist Jean Giraudoux.-Original productions:...
(1950) and collaborating with writer William Saroyan
William Saroyan
William Saroyan was an Armenian American dramatist and author. The setting of many of his stories and plays is the center of Armenian-American life in California in his native Fresno.-Early years:...
and composer Alan Hovhaness
Alan Hovhaness
Alan Hovhaness was an Armenian-American composer.His music is accessible to the lay listener and often evokes a mood of mystery or contemplation...
, she directed and choreographed Otherman or The Beginning of a New Nation (1954) at Bard College
Bard College
Bard College, founded in 1860 as "St. Stephen's College", is a small four-year liberal arts college located in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.-Location:...
. The newly named Jean Erdman Theater of Dance toured the U.S. and gave concerts in New York City. Among the notable works of this period are Twenty Poems (1960), a cycle of E. E. Cummings
E. E. Cummings
Edward Estlin Cummings , popularly known as E. E. Cummings, with the abbreviated form of his name often written by others in lowercase letters as e.e. cummings , was an American poet, painter, essayist, author, and playwright...
's poems for eight dancers and one actor with a commissioned score by Teiji Ito
Teiji Ito
was a Japanese composer and performer. He is best known for his scores for the avant-garde films by Maya Deren.Ito was born in Tokyo, Japan into a theatrical family. His father, Yuji Itō, was a composer and costume designer, and his mother, Teiko Ono, was a dancer who worked in both traditional...
, performed in the round at the Circle in the Square Theatre
Circle in the Square Theatre
The Circle in the Square Theatre is a legitimate Broadway theatre in midtown Manhattan on 50th Street in the Paramount Plaza building.The original Circle in the Square was founded by Paul Libin, Theodore Mann and Jose Quintero in 1951 and was located at 5 Sheridan Square in Greenwich Village...
in Greenwich Village and The Castle
The Castle
The Castle is a novel by Franz Kafka. In it a protagonist, known only as K., struggles to gain access to the mysterious authorities of a castle who govern the village for unknown reasons...
, an exploration of improvised and structured movement with jazz clarinetist-saxophonist Jimmy Guiffre at the Brooklyn Academy of Music
Brooklyn Academy of Music
Brooklyn Academy of Music is a major performing arts venue in Brooklyn, a borough of New York City, United States, known as a center for progressive and avant garde performance....
(1970).
In 1962 with the aid of a grant from the Ingram Merrill Foundation, Erdman began what was to become her best-known work, The Coach with the Six Insides, an adaptation of James Joyce
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
's, Finnegans Wake
Finnegans Wake
Finnegans Wake is a novel by Irish author James Joyce, significant for its experimental style and resulting reputation as one of the most difficult works of fiction in the English language. Written in Paris over a period of seventeen years, and published in 1939, two years before the author's...
. The title is a line from the text found in episode 11.3.359. She had become well acquainted with the novel during the four and a half year period that her husband collaborated with Henry Morton Robinson
Henry Morton Robinson
Henry Morton Robinson was an American novelist, best known for A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake written with Joseph Campbell and his 1950 novel The Cardinal, which Time magazine reported was "The year's most popular book, fiction or nonfiction."-Biography:Robinson was born in Boston and graduated...
to write A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake
A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake
A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake by mythologist Joseph Campbell and Henry Morton Robinson is a work of literary criticism. One of the first major texts to provide an in-depth analysis of Finnegans Wake , A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake is considered by many scholars to be a seminal work on the...
(1944). While Joyce's story is told from the perspective of the male barkeeper Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker, Erdman's work a combination of dance, mime, and Joycean stream of consciousness language focuses on the female psyche, as seen through the many incarnations of the main female character Anna Livia Plurabelle. Erdman danced all the aspects of Anna Livia from young woman, to old crone, to the rain itself that becomes the River Liffey flowing through the heart of Dublin. Actors Anita Dangler, Van Dexter, Leonard Frey
Leonard Frey
- Biography :Frey was born in Brooklyn, New York. After college, where he studied art with designs on being a painter, he studied acting at New York City's prestigious Neighborhood Playhouse under famed acting coach Sanford Meisner, and pursued a career in theater instead...
and Sheila Roy created the other characters from Joyce's labyrinthine work. Teiji Ito
Teiji Ito
was a Japanese composer and performer. He is best known for his scores for the avant-garde films by Maya Deren.Ito was born in Tokyo, Japan into a theatrical family. His father, Yuji Itō, was a composer and costume designer, and his mother, Teiko Ono, was a dancer who worked in both traditional...
was the musical director and composed the musical score on a vast array of instruments from around the world including among others, Japanese bass drums, Tibetan cymbals, a violin and an accordion. Robert DeMora designed the scenery and costumes.
The Coach with the Six Insides premiered at the Village South Theatre
Village South Theatre
The Village South Theatre was an Off-Broadway theatre in New York City that was active during the 1960s.Located on Vandam Street in Greenwich Village, the theatre opened in 1962 with the original production of Jean Erdman's award-winning musical play The Coach with the Six Insides which was based...
in Greenwich Village on November 26, 1962. It ran for 114 performances and received the OBIE
Obie
Obie may refer to:* Bill "Obie" O'Billovich , a former coach in the Canadian Football League* Obie Award, off-Broadway Theater Award* Obie Baizley , Canadian politician* Obie Bermúdez , pop singer and composer...
and Vernon Rice Awards for Outstanding Achievement in theater. Following the first New York season it began a world tour including engagements at the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy, the Theatre des Nations in Paris, the Dublin Arts Festival in Ireland, and the Sogetsu Kaikan Theater Center in Tokyo. Three other North American tours as well as another New York season in 1967 followed. In 1964 the work was featured on the CBS Camera Three series and in 1966 WNET Channel 13 produced an interview with both Erdman and Campbell called, A Viewer's Guide to the Coach with the Six Insides. Many dance historians continue to regard The Coach with the Six Insides as "the most successful—and celebrated—attempt to unite dance and words."
Other theater productions Erdman choreographed during this period include the Helen Hayes Repertory production of Shakespeare's Hamlet
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
(1964), the Lincoln Center Repertory production of García Lorca's Yerma
Yerma
Yerma is a play by the Spanish dramatist Federico García Lorca. It was written in 1934, and first performed that same year. Lorca describes the play as "a tragic poem."-Plot:...
(1962) and the New York Shakespeare Festival
New York Shakespeare Festival
New York Shakespeare Festival is the previous name of the New York City theatrical producing organization now known as the Public Theater. The Festival produced shows at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, as part of its free Shakespeare in the Park series, at the Public Theatre near Astor Place...
production of the rock-opera Two Gentleman of Verona (1971) which ran on Broadway for two years and for which Erdman received the Drama Desk Award
Drama Desk Award
The Drama Desk Awards, which are given annually in a number of categories, are the only major New York theater honors for which productions on Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway compete against each other in the same category...
and a Tony nomination.
Erdman was an active teacher throughout her career. In 1948 she opened her own studio where she taught a style-neutral, concept-based technique she developed by combining her study of world dance with anatomical principles. She described it as, "a basic dance training that would, in its most elementary form give the novice an essential experience of the art form, and in more complex variations create a professional dance artist with a completely articulate instrument capable of responding in movement to any choreographic impulse." From 1949 to 1951 she directed the modern dance department at Teachers College of Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
. In the summers from 1949 to 1955 she was the artist in residence and head of the dance department at the University of Colorado
University of Colorado at Boulder
The University of Colorado Boulder is a public research university located in Boulder, Colorado...
in Boulder. From 1954 – 57 she was the chairman of the dance department at Bard College
Bard College
Bard College, founded in 1860 as "St. Stephen's College", is a small four-year liberal arts college located in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.-Location:...
. She was also the founding director of the dance program at New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
's School of the Arts and taught there from 1966 to 1971.
In 1972 Erdman and Campbell, recently retired from teaching at Sarah Lawrence College
Sarah Lawrence College
Sarah Lawrence College is a private liberal arts college in the United States, and a leader in progressive education since its founding in 1926. Located just 30 minutes north of Midtown Manhattan in southern Westchester County, New York, in the city of Yonkers, this coeducational college offers...
, founded the Theater of The Open Eye. As artistic director of the theater for fifteen years, Erdman presented over one hundred works of traditional and experimental dance and theater. She created many productions for the theater including Moon Mysteries: Three Plays for Dancers by William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and playwright, and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years he served as an Irish Senator for two terms...
, Fire and Ice
Fire and Ice (poem)
"Fire and Ice" is one of Robert Frost's most popular poems, published in December 1920 in Harper's Magazine and in 1923 in his Pulitzer-prize winning book New Hampshire. It discusses the end of the world, likening the elemental force of fire with the emotion of desire, and ice with hate...
(a cycle of poems by Robert Frost
Robert Frost
Robert Lee Frost was an American poet. He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech. His work frequently employed settings from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century, using them to examine complex social and...
commissioned by the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
), Gauguin in Tahiti and The Shining House: A Dance Opera of Pagan Hawaii. The Open Eye was also the venue for Campbell's lectures on comparative mythology
Comparative mythology
Comparative mythology is the comparison of myths from different cultures in an attempt to identify shared themes and characteristics. Comparative mythology has served a variety of academic purposes...
, later captured in the PBS series with Bill Moyers
Bill Moyers
Bill Moyers is an American journalist and public commentator. He served as White House Press Secretary in the United States President Lyndon B. Johnson Administration from 1965 to 1967. He worked as a news commentator on television for ten years. Moyers has had an extensive involvement with public...
, The Power of Myth
The Power of Myth
The companion book for the series, The Power of Myth, was released in 1988 at the same time the series aired on PBS...
.
In the 1980s Erdman began reviving her early dance repertory and presenting it annually at The Open Eye. These performances culminated in the NEA
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
funded 1985 Jean Erdman Retrospective at Hunter Playhouse in New York City, about which New York Times dance critic Anna Kisslegoff wrote, "anyone wishing to know something about where modern dance is today can find the roots in this retrospective." From 1987 through 1993 Erdman served as artistic director of an NEA funded project to create a three volume video archive of these early dance works, Dance and Myth: The World of Jean Erdman. Today her dances are presented and staged through Jean Erdman Dance, a company dedicated to promoting Erdman's repertory and aesthetic vision.
Personal life
Erdman and Campbell did not have any children. For most of their forty-nine years of marriage they shared a two-room apartment in Greenwich VillageGreenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
in New York City. In the 1980s they also purchased an apartment in Honolulu and divided their time between the two cities. Campbell died in 1987. In 1990, Erdman became the founding president of the Joseph Campbell Foundation
Joseph Campbell Foundation
The Joseph Campbell Foundation is a US not-for-profit organization dedicated to preserve, protect and perpetuate the work of influential American mythologist Joseph Campbell...
and continues as its president emeritus. Since 1995 Erdman has lived exclusively in Hawaii.
Filmography
- Invocation: Maya Deren (1987)
- The Hero's Journey: The World of Joseph Campbell (1987)
- Dance and Myth - The World of Jean Erdman (1990)
Awards and nominations
Awards- 1972: Drama Desk Award for Outstanding ChoreographyDrama Desk Award for Outstanding Choreography-1970s:* 1970: Ron Field – Applause** No nominees* 1971: Michael Bennett – Follies and Donald Saddler – No, No, Nanette** No nominees* 1972: Patricia Birch – Grease and Jean Erdman – Two Gentlemen of Verona...
- The Two Gentlemen of Verona - 1963: Obie AwardObie AwardThe Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards given by The Village Voice newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City...
- Special Citation - The Coach with the Six Insides - 1963: Vernon Rice Award for Outstanding Achievement in Theatre - The Coach with the Six Insides
- 1993: Heritage Award from the National Dance AssociationNational Dance AssociationThe , headquartered in Reston, VA, is an association within the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance...
for contributions to dance education
Nominations
- 1972: Tony Award for Best ChoreographyTony Award for Best Choreography-1940s:* 1947: Agnes de Mille – Brigadoon / Michael Kidd – Finian's Rainbow* 1948: Jerome Robbins – High Button Shoes* 1949: Gower Champion – Lend An Ear-1950s:* 1950: Helen Tamiris – Touch and Go* 1951: Michael Kidd – Guys and Dolls...
- The Two Gentlemen of Verona