Mura Dehn : champion of Black social dance and the traditional jazz dance company / Kimberly Vaccaro.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Vaccaro, Kim Chandler, author.

Contributor:

Bloomsbury (Firm), publisher.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Dehn, Mura.

Dancers--New York (State)--New York--Biography.

Dancers.

Jazz dance.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (240 pages)

Edition:

1st edition.

Place of Publication:

London : Methuen Drama, 2026.

Summary:

This book tells the relatively unknown story of Mura Dehn (1902- 1987) a white, Jewish dancer from Russia, once deemed among the most beautiful classical dancers in Europe, who emigrated to the United States in the 1930s. For the first time the efforts of Dehn to record, analyse and champion the development of jazz dance in America during the 1930s, 40s and 50s are brought to life. The book celebrates and explores her long-term commitment to supporting and nurturing Black American jazz dancers, and devoting her life to heralding and chronicling its innovators and creators through performance, teaching and film-making. This work includes both first-hand accounts with people who knew and worked with Dehn, including her company manager Allen Blitz, friend Eiko Otake, and notable urban dance scholars such as Sally Sommer; and material from Dehn's archival collection in the New York Public Library. The book offers a flavour of the dance halls, the first places of social-racial integration in America, where jazz was born out of African-American social dances, and gives credence to the growing acceptance of this form of art as equivalent to classical dance and music.

Contents:

Introduction: Mura Dehn: Performer, Impresario, Writer, Filmmaker

Section 1: Augmenting and Illuminating Jazz Dance History 1930-1985

Chapter 1: Roger Dodge, Asadata Dafora, and Zora Neale Hurston

Chapter 2: The Traditional Jazz Dance Company, James Berry

Chapter 3: Documenting The Savoy, Break Dancing in Brooklyn 1978

Section 2: Dance as Cultural Artifact

Chapter 4: The Body Becomes Percussive

Chapter 5: Jazz Dance as a Barometer of American Culture

Chapter 6: Form, Function, Characteristics: A Model for Analysing Dance

Denouement: Lessons Learned from History

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-350-42806-X

OCLC:

1520505735