Video: Iris Pell Floor Exercises
The following video clip is an excerpt from the PBS presentation, “Conversations About the Dance”, hosted by Agnes de Mille. The clip is a demonstration of Bella Lewitzky’s technique, with Iris Pell performing solo floor exercises. This was first performed…
Dance Events for the 1984 Olympic Arts Festival
Sharon Took-Zozaya writes about her work as an Assistant to the Executive Director of the Olympics Dance Festival. 1984 Olympic Arts Festival Dance Component (Hereafter referred to as Olympics Dance Festival) The citywide arts festival which preceded the Los Angeles…
Dance at the Music Center: A Brief History
Renae Williams is the Director of Programming for the series Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance at the Music Center, Performing Arts Center of Los Angeles County. In this article, she provides a history of dance events (from 1966 to the present)…
John Martin at UCLA 1965-1970
In the formative years of Modern Dance during the late 1920’s to 1940, John Martin was the most influential dance critic in America, writing for the New York Times from 1927- 1962. He received his By-Line in 1930 after he…
UCLA Department of Dance From 1960-1990
There are as many histories of the Department of Dance at UCLA as there are students that have passed through the program and faculty who were an integral part of the program. What follows is one point of view that…
Rudy Perez – I Could Have Gone Bowling
The following is based on an interview with Fred Strickler I videotaped, April 22, 2012, during Rudy’s class and rehearsal. For two hours he effortlessly shifted from memory to teaching to creativity, talking about his life and work while giving…
Notes on The Tap Renaissance
In January, 1979, the Jazz Tap Ensemble was created by three dancers and three musicians: Lynn Dally, Camden Richman and Fred Strickler; Paul Arlanian, pianist, Tom Dannenberg, guitarist, and Keith Terry, percussionist. They made their debut at Pacific Motion Dance…
Notes on Ballet: History and Teaching in the L.A. Area
This article appears in two parts: In Part 1, Don Hewitt writes of his life as a ballet artist/teacher in Los Angeles for more than forty years. In Part 2, he provides an extensive overview of Southern California’s many important ballet teachers, their schools…