My Experience as a Los Angeles Dancer 1970-1985 (Part 1)
In this first article, Iris Pell, writes of her dance studies at California Institute of the Arts with Bella Lewitzky, founder of the School of Dance, where she also studied with Donald McKayle, and Mia Slavenska. Iris was in the…
For My Daughter, Sarita
1 Three flights above the hardware store on Main Street a brown wooden door opens off a musty hallway into the studio. There, my ten year old legs carry me to my first true home. Splotches of light from three…
Photo Gallery: Ruth St. Denis
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Working With Bella Lewitzky, 1967-1975
From 2004-2007, Fred Strickler spoke with dance historian Lizbeth Langston and videographer Robert Backstrand in a series of four video interviews about his life in dance. This article on Bella Lewitzky is largely based on the January 2004 interview. The…
Before There Was a UCLA Dance Department
In 1952 Carol Scothorn came to UCLA from Mills College to teach dance and begin a nascent dance program from what was then a Physical Education elective in dance. Carol, along with Pia Gilbert, began to develop a dance program…
Amidst Flocks of Angels
A personal history in arabesque time (Part I) IN THE BEGINNING . . . The storefront ballet studio was in East Los Angeles, Lincoln Heights to be exact, across from Height’s Cooperative Nursery School where my mother brought me every…
Gloria Newman: Early (Beginning) Years in Southern California (Mainly L.A.)
Gloria Newman arrived in Los Angeles from New York City in 1954, and soon began teaching at Eugene Loring’s American School of Dance located in a hotel basement on Hollywood Blvd across from Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. There she…
Talkin’ ‘Bout My Generation: Dancing in L.A. 1970-2000
The gravitational pull of light, space, geography and Hollywood has long lured artists to Los Angeles. Sun, air and vista radiate endless possibility in this iconographic land of promise – yet, are also its Siren’s song. Sundays in the studio…
Creating with Marion Scott
I met Marion in late 1969 when she arrived from New York. I was teaching some technique classes at UCLA and performing with the Bella Lewitzky Dance Company and she was just starting out as a guest artist in the…
Photo Gallery: L. Martina Young
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