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Sharwan Smith Student Center, Cedar City, UT 84720, USA

https://www.suu.edu/arts #TheDanceHistorianIsIn
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Schedule

January 22, 2025 · Nancy Dalva on Gus Solomons, Jr.

  • Nancy Dalva explores Gus Solomons Jr.'s life in dance with photos and video from the Jerome Robbins Dance Division archive. Solomons began his training in modern dance and ballet while studying architecture at MIT. Upon graduating he moved to New York City to dance, including an early stint with Martha Graham's company, which he left to dance for Merce Cunningham from 1965 to 1968. Cunningham left a lasting influence on Solomons' life-long choreography practice, which like Cunningham's, was technology-forward. The founder of The Solomons Company/Dance, as well as the fabulous collective of later career superstars called PARADIGM, Solomons also danced in the companies of Pearl Lang, Donald McKayle, Joyce Trisler, and Paul Sanasardo, he wrote highly perceptive dance criticism, taught generations of students at New York University, and served as a mentor to many. Join Merce Cunningham Trust Scholar-in-Residence Nancy Dalva as she explains why, as she says, "Everyone loved Gus."

February 26, 2025 · Barbara A. Jones on Mama Lu Parks and Lindy Hop

  • Barbara A. Jones is the Founder and Executive Director of The Harlem Swing Dance Society, the premiere Harlem nonprofit organization with the purpose of promoting, preserving and protecting the Lindy Hop dance and various forms of Swing Dance culture in its Harlem birthplace. The mission is to see the Harlem area once again embrace its signature cultural dance and energize community youth to be future innovators of this historic art form. While the Savoy Ballroom closed in 1958, a new Lindy Hop foundation was born with Mama Lu Parks and her dance troupes. Under her direction, Harlem youth made history and brought future attention to Lindy Hop by lessons, performances, and dance contests. For close to 30 years they traveled and hopped the globe as one of the longest-running jazz dance groups. This "hidden" history will be brought back to life with film, artifacts, and experiences from her dancers.

March 26, 2025 · Janice Ross on The Hidden Archives of Dancers' Homes

  • In this month’s Dance Historian Is In, Janice Ross, an interdisciplinary scholar who focuses on intersections between dance and cultural politics, traces the influence of homes and landscape architecture on choreography through the work of the California dancer Anna Halprin. 

    Drawing on the methodology of her new book on Halprin and her husband, landscape architect Lawrence Halprin, Ross explores rare footage from the Library for the Performing Arts archives linking Halprin’s inspiration as a postmodern dance trendsetter to ordinary domestic objects and landscapes. Ross offers a new perspective on Halprin’s career as a postmodern dance trendsetter based on her decades of research and interviews with the Halprins and their associates, and after spending time in their homes, and watching archival films from Halprin’s workshops, rehearsals, and classes on her outdoor studio, the dance deck.

 

All of these sessions take place at 11:00 a.m. and will be streamed from the Sharwan Smith Center Theatre, 161. You can watch from home by visiting the links above and registering through Eventbrite. If you have any questions, please contact Prof. Danielle Lydia Sheather at daniellesheather@suu.edu.

About the Lecture Series

For more than 10 years, The Dance Historian Is In at the Library for the Performing Arts has highlighted a diverse range of dancers and choreographers across history. This series began when archivist and historian David Vaughan started volunteering at the Jerome Robbins Dance Division. Vaughan began a monthly program showing his favorite dance films from the Division's extensive collection, through which he unearthed many treasures, and helped acquire even more. Vaughan continued the series until the end of his life. Today, we honor his memory and work by inviting dance historians from all over the world each month to carry on the tradition of highlighting dance history through the Dance Division's moving image collection.

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