Maurice Hines, a dazzling member of tap dance and Broadway royalty, died on December 29, 2023, two weeks after his 80th birthday. If you were fortunate enough to meet the dapper dancer, actor, and singer—even if only briefly—Hines had a way of making you feel like you were a star in your own right. Family […]
Ballerina and teacher Delores Browne Abelson, known professionally as Delores Browne, transitioned on October 2, 2023. Her close friend, Marilyn Napoli, confirmed that Browne had battled kidney cancer for several months. Born and raised in Philadelphia, Browne started her love affair with ballet in middle school. In 1949, she was awarded a scholarship by Marion Cuyjet, […]
Striking performer. Adventurous choreographer. Unforgettable teacher. Straight-from-the-hip reviewer. Inspiring mentor. Gustave Martinez Solomons jr was all these things and more. With boldly energetic dancing, a Hollywood face, and a ready laugh, Solomons—known as Gus—seemed comfortable in any dance genre. He moved fluidly between the largely white postmodern community and various dance communities of color. He […]
John White Jr., a former soloist with the Ballet Nacional de Cuba and co-founder and director of the Pennsylvania Academy of Ballet (PAB), passed away on December 28, 2022. Through his love and lifelong commitment to the art and technique of classical ballet, he had an enormous impact on generations of dancers and teachers around […]
Othella Dallas, one of the last living early members of the Katherine Dunham Company, passed away from lung cancer on November 28 at a nursing home outside of Basel, Switzerland. She was 95. A celebrated dancer, teacher, and jazz and blues musician, Dallas’ studio in Basel is considered to be the only school in Europe […]
An anchor of the Humphrey-Limón legacy for more than 70 years, Betty Jones died at her home in Honolulu on November 17, 2020. She remained active well into her 90s, most recently leading a New York workshop with her husband and partner, Fritz Ludin, in October 2019. Betty May Jones was born on June 11, […]
Dance Magazine led a series in 1994 about teachers who had trained remarkable young dancers with a profile about Jacqueline Ann Cronsberg, founder of the Ballet Workshop in New England. At the time, Cronsberg had been running the school in suburban Boston for nearly 30 years, but she was just getting started. The following year, […]
The brilliant dance writer Sally Banes, who pioneered a new way to write about dance as a social phenomenon, died on June 14, 2020 of ovarian cancer. Banes visited New York in October 1973 with a standard assignment: to write a book on modern dance for Chicago Review Press. Because of her curiosity about choreography, […]
Co-creator of Contact Improvisation, improviser extraordinaire, and founder and co-editor of Contact Quarterly, Nancy Stark Smith passed away on May 1. A force as a dancer and an educator, she created a network of love for improvisation on a global scale. She died in her home in Florence, MA, of ovarian cancer. Messages from all […]
Update March 31, 2020: This article was first published in Dance Teacher, February 2009. One of today’s leading ballet masters, German-born Wilhelm Burmann exerts a magnetic attraction on the professional students he teaches five days a week at Steps on Broadway in New York City. “Taking Willie’s class” has become a tradition for many top […]