HISTORY OF THE NEW DANCE GROUP

THE NEW DANCE GROUP was a rare American phenomenon. It was born in the 1930s and it flourished despite the chaotic events of that bitter period. In the United States, the 1929 Wall Street crash and catastrophic bank failures drained people's life savings. Demoralizing mass unemployment spread from coast to coast, creating a depression of apple sellers, breadlines, soup kitchens, tenant evictions and itinerant homeless. Veteran soldiers marched on Washington demanding bonus reparations. Southern lynchings symbolized miscarriages of justice as social inequities headlined the papers. Labor emerged as a force, demanding recognition in steel plants, coal mines, auto plants and elsewhere. Strike followed strike. Radical groups organized among the 14 million unemployed to seek support and to expedite relief. Americans petitioning their grievances were confronted with tear gas, fire hoses, mounted police and violence. At the same time, in the west and south, nature's dust-bowl drought and soil erosion laid waste the land, disenfranchising the people and forcing tenant farmers, migrant workers and sharecroppers to live in degrading poverty. The American Dream had become a nightmare. 

Overseas, Europe watched as ruthless political organizations grew in strength in Germany and Italy. Spain erupted into brutal civil war and in the Far East, Japan barbarously invaded China. Global conflict was on the horizon. To some, only Russia's revolution with its Marxist solution of socialism and communism seemed to offer hope. In 1932 Hitler assumed sweeping dictatorial powers and destroyed the Weimar Republic, using his storm troopers to worsen violence against polarized Communists. The reality of fascism and war threatened American democracy and with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, left- and right-wing organizations were impelled to join together to create a United Front against fascism. 

Amid this chaos in 1932 a group of second-generation professional American dancers from Hanya Holm's Wigman School were inspired by the agitprop theater's concept of "theater as a weapon in the class struggle." Among them were Nell Anyon, Miriam Blecher, Fanya Geltman, Edith Langbert, Rebecca Lee, Edna Ocko, Pauline Schrifman and Grace Wylie. Following technique classes, dressing-room discussions centered on social issues. These radical, idealistic young women (guided by their mentor Fe Alf, Hanya Holm's assistant), usually performed as soloists for left-wing audiences in union cultural and social centers. As artistic innovators, they aimed to make dance a viable weapon against the evils of capitalism, with its deepening crises and foreboding threats of fascism and war. They changed their name from the Workers Dance Group to the New Dance Group to influence a broader audience. When Harry Sims, a young union organizer, was murdered by police, the dancers marched in the protest parade. Nell Anyon wrote in the program of their first annual recital in 1933; "...It was just a week since the New Dance Group had been organized, and we...felt our appearance at the mass funeral at 6 a.m. on February 17, 1932, was...a manifestation of our willingness to enter the ranks of the working class revolutionary movement." As committed women, they believed they had the obligation and power to change the world. 

From the beginning, the New Dance Group made clear the revolutionary purpose of the school. They offered an agenda that was intercultural and interracial, making dance a vital contemporary artistic experience. Their first rule was that one must not dance or choreograph in a vacuum but address everyday problems in a coherent style that would connect with a working-class audience. Jane Dudley recalls climbing three flights of stairs to the Group's studio on 14th street where for 10 cents she received one hour of technique (Wigman), one hour of improvisation (on a specific social theme which was explored for two weeks), and one hour of Marxist theory (whereby the enlightened dancers as political leaders would help raise the consciousness of the oppressed classes). Despite relocating from studio to studio, usually at the landlord's request and frequently with telephone service disconnected, the Group continued activities. Students were divided into classes of 30 (according to their ability) to choreograph and analyze their work, at the same time building a repertory of dances to provoke and promote social change. 

Praised right from the start, this first professional dance collective flourished as a humanistic and pluralistic multifaceted dance community. Known for their choreographic and technical ability, which was augmented by their artistic and organizational expertise, the New Dance Group dancers were continually in demand. They performed anywhere and anytime, before union audiences, at settlement houses, demonstrations, marches, picket lines and left-wing events, while nourishing similar groups in unions and community centers across the nation. Maintaining its revolutionary character and its warm and encouraging atmosphere the Group grew to more than 300 members in its first year.

The New Dance Group's First Anniversary Recital at the Hecksher Theater in New York City, March 26, 1933, involved a company of 40 dancers. They celebrated the one-year mark with student and faculty choreography drawn from Norwegian and Slavic Folk idioms, barbed social satires and political cartoons. On the program were satires entitled Jingoism, Parasite, and Peace Conference, and dramatic dances: Strike, Uprisings, Hunger, and War Trilogy. 

In 1934, the New Dance Group joined the Workers Dance League, a group of 12 radical dance companies. At the League's annual Spartakiad competition, the New Dance Group won first prize for Van Der Lubbe's Head, a collectively choreographed work led by Miriam Blecker. Based on an anti-Nazi poem by Alfred Hayes condemning the Nazi's murderous repression, it used words, masks, props and movement theatrically to heighten the terror. 

After President Roosevelt's social programs were established in 1935, the WPA Federal Dance Project offered work to unemployed dancers in four separate units: Modern Dance, Ballet, Vaudeville (sponsoring entertainment in public institutions), and Service (providing teachers and choreographers for community and recreational programs). This splintered the Workers Dance League, as many dancers went on relief to qualify for the opportunity to work for a steady $23.86 a week. Yet the New Dance Group's activities continued to expand and flourish. 

In 1944 the New Dance Group became a non-profit organization with Jane Dudley as its president, Judith Delman as its forceful executive secretary, and a faculty-run board of directors. The Group became the cornerstone of the modern dance movement. Everyone who came to New York to study dance had heard of the studio's vitality. Maintaining an impressive curriculum of graded techniques, the New Dance Group kept its two studios and small stage on East 59th street busy with a wide range of offerings. These included Humphrey/Weidman, Holm, Graham, African, Afro-Caribbean, ballet, Hindu, Hawaiian, tap and ballroom, composition, teacher-training, a survey of dance styles, sources for dance activity, and movement for the deaf. The Group, in its encouraging and supportive environment, remained dedicated to fostering the art of dance at affordable prices. It was a place of artistry and community. 

The 1950s ushered in the repressive anti-communist crusade of Senator Joseph McCarthy. His blacklisting witchhunt vilified liberals, made pariahs of radicals and stigmatized progressive causes. The New Dance Group felt threatened, but maintained its progressive philosophy, urging political action on many issues as diverse as opposing the poll-tax bill and supporting the right of soldiers to vote.

Among the renowned faculty were Mary Anthony, Bill Bales, Irving Burton, Jean-Léon Destiné, Paul Draper, Jane Dudley, Jean Erdman, Eve Gentry, Joseph Gifford, Hadassah, Billie Kirpich, Donald McKayle, Muriel Manings, Lilli Mann, Sophie Maslow, Marjorie Mazia, Pearl Primus, Nona Schurman and Charles Weidman. The passing decades brought other teachers: Percival Borde, Nanette Charisse, Margot Colbert, Carmen De Lavallade, Judith Dunn, Don Farnsworth, Anna-Marie Forsythe, Penny Frank, Thelma Hill, Celene Keller, Walter Nicks, Dorene Richardson, Bertram Ross, Peter Saul, Joyce Trisler and James Truitte. 
The New Dance Group's school had a unique and inclusive atmosphere for its student body. Billie Kirpich described this nurturing and non-threatening attitude: "The New Dance Group offered classes for children, ages 6-16, where the main emphasis was creativity: play and improvisation for the younger ones; 

improvisation, composition and repertory for the pre-teens. These classes did not eschew technique, which was taught at an appropriate level, but (used) technique to shape and energize each child for expression of his or her dreams, wishes, and ideas." By the early 1950s there were 300 children and 1000 adults enrolled taking 1800 classes a week. The New Dance Group's scholarship program helped launch such artists as Stanley Berke, Louis Falco, Eliot Feld, Paula Kelly, Keith Lee, Muriel Manings, Donald McKayle, Pearl Primus, Dorene Richardson, Jaime Rogers, Dimitra Sundeen, Raymond Sawyer, Otis Sallid and Sylvia Waters, among a host of others. The subsidized Performing Workshop gave dimension to the training of talented young student dancers by providing performance experience through studio demonstrations and through appearances in schools, colleges and communities. 

From the 1940s on the New Dance Group functioned as a presenting organization to critical acclaim, making rehearsal space available and encouraging its faculty to produce new works. Their artists concertized throughout New York City, appearing in the annual Needle Trades High School Student Series, a festival series held at Times Hall, the Civic Repertory Theater, dozens of performances at the 92nd Street Y's Kaufman Hall, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Center Theater at Rockefeller Center, a festival series at the Mansfield and Ziegfeld theaters, the Theater at the Riverside Church, the Theater at St. Clement's and the Museum of Natural History Dance Series. The list is long. 

The Group had numerous offshoots, one of which was the Jane Dudley, Sophie Maslow, William Bales Trio. That ensemble led to the establishment of the New Dance Group Company. These three choreographers created major group works for the New Dance Group, toured the country, and were in residence at the American Dance Festival at Connecticut College from 1949-1953. 

New Dance Group Festivals at the Mansfield and Ziegfeld Theaters presented Mary Anthony, William Bales, Valerie Bettis, Jane Dudley, Jean Erdman and Company, Eve Gentry, Joseph Gifford, Hadassah, Sophie Maslow, Donald McKayle and Company, Daniel Nagrin, Pearl Primus and Company, and the New Dance Group Company. Other festivals saw Jean-Léon Destiné, Ronne Aul, Talley Beatty and Company, Irving Burton, Anna Sokolow, Joyce Trisler, Charles Weidman and others. Bulging at the seams, the New Dance Group was forced to move again in 1954 when the 59th-street building was scheduled for demolition. They bought the four-story West 47th-street building with money raised by selling "bricks" for a dollar and up to their members and friends and with an improvement loan from the bank. 

Over these four decades from the 1930s to the 1970s, the New Dance Group presented more than 300 performances, introduced new choreographers and premiered works that are now classics of the modern dance. A sampling of major premieres includes Sophie Maslow's Folksay, Poem, Champion, The Village I Knew and Prologue; Anna Sokolow's Lyric Suite, Forms, and Rooms; Donald McKayle's Games and Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder; Jane Dudley's Harmonica Breakdown and The Lonely Ones; Hadassah's Shuvi Nafshi, Broadway Hindu and Fable; Talley Beatty's Dance Au Nouveau Cirque Paris, 1896; Jean Erdman's Daughters of the Lonesome Isle, The Transformations of Medusa and Hamadryad; Pearl Primus's Hard Time Blues and Strange Fruit; Bill Bales's Es Mujér and To A Green Mountain Boy; and Joyce Trisler's Rite of Spring, Four Temperaments and Dance for Six. These works represent a minuscule part of the choreographic effort of these artists. The output of important pieces not listed above is just as abundant. 

The passing years brought change. Jane Dudley resigned as president in 1969 to become the artistic director of the Bathsheva Dance Company in Israel and Sophie Maslow assumed the presidency. Bill Bales was invited to design and then be dean of the new dance department of the State University of New York at Purchase in 1971. He met the challenge while maintaining his position on the board. Many of the original faculty left to teach in academia or to pursue other careers. A popular postmodern "downtown" dance scene emerged, drawing potential New Dance Group students. Landlord responsibilities burdened the Group while the area around the studio became blighted. Attendance dropped as families moved to the suburbs. Children's classes had to be  suspended. The New Dance Group continued to serve many students--with a renowned and diverse faculty-but primarily on a beginners' level. Works of blossoming young choreographers were presented, and, with Harry Rubenstein as its executive director, the New Dance Group established two new companies, the Sophie Maslow Dance Company and Joyce Trisler's Danscompany. They performed frequently at the Theater of the Riverside Church. 

A former student, Marcia Bender, spoke of her learning experience with the New Dance Group: "My education in this studio was not only in dance, it was an education in living. I became involved in experiences that were not ends in themselves, but rather means of expression, moving out in many directions. I learned how many infinite things could be discovered. I danced to a poem or to a folk song. I looked at a painting and analyzed it with movement... and I danced about men, and I danced about war... and I learned about peace." (Dance Magazine, July 1958) 

The New Dance Group, now called the New Dance Group Arts Center, still exists at West 47th street, understandably with a different focus, but the floors and the walls reverberate with echoes of an important history. (Written in 1993)

ABOUT THE NEW DANCE GROUP RETROSPECTIVE CONCERT

This concert of 18 recreated dances and excerpts celebrates and honors the achievements of the New Dance Group in its heyday as a dramatic voice for the individual and a force for social change. The Group, through its school, dance company and committed artists,' developed or greatly influenced several generations of important modern dancers and choreographers. 

The concert presents a sampling of New Dance Group work by bringing the original choreographers or their heirs together with dancers of today in a program of influential creations that show the spirit and range of the New Dance Group as it was from the 1930s through the 1970s. Included on the cassette are mini-interviews with the choreographers taped in 1993. The Gala Concert was organized and presented by the American Dance Guild, with Muriel Manings as producer, for a June 11-13, 1993 conference, Of, By and for the People, that was held at Lincoln Center. The conference was sponsored by the Congress on Research in Dance and the Society of Dance History Scholars. 

The DVD of The New Dance Group Retrospective Concert is available from The American Dance Guild: https://www.americandanceguild.org/products