Deborah Jowitt

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Deborah Jowitt (born February 8, 1934 in Los Angeles , California ) is one of the leading American dance critics. She was a modern dance dancer and choreographer before shaping a new style of dance criticism with her columns in The Village Voice .

life and work

Deborah Jowitt began her career as a dancer. After studying theater for a year at UCLA , she went to New York in 1953 to dance professionally in the Harriette Ann Gray Company and other ensembles. From 1957 to 1959 she was a member of the Juilliard Tanz Theater, with whom she appeared in works by pioneers of modern American dance such as Anna Sokolow , Valerie Bettis and Doris Humphrey . From 1961 she also performed her own choreographies.

According to her own statements, she became a dance critic by chance. In 1965, a radio journalist invited her to take part in a series on architecture, art, theater, dance, in which each guest was given five minutes of broadcasting time to talk about their art form. The show became popular, and Jowitt participated in it until 1968.

In 1967 The Village Voice published their first dance review. This became longer and longer weekly columns about performances in New York City . Inspired by the liberating colloquial style of Jill Johnstons , who was a cultural critic for the Village Voice, and by Susan Sontag's essay book Against Interpretation (German title: Kunst und Antikunst ), she developed her own new language to write about dance, and thus influenced American dance review. In her texts, she concentrated on what she had really seen ("really seeing") and combined this with an intellectual analysis. Soon she got a full page for an article. Her reviews and features have appeared in other publications including The New York Times , Dance Magazine, Ballet International, and the Dance Research Journal, and have been published in book form. She penned a history of dance style honored by the Society of Dance History Scholars and a 2004 biography of Jerome Robbins . She wrote her regular dance columns until 2012. She is one of the dance critics who have decisively shaped the discourse on modern and post-modern American dance.

Deborah Jowitt has taught and given workshops on dance criticism at American and European universities. She has been a faculty member at the Tisch School of the Arts in New York since 1975 . In 2002 she was a Guggenheim Fellow .

Awards (selection)

  • 1985: New York Dance and Performance Award for her dance reviews (informally called 'Bessie' in honor of the dancer and choreographer Bessie Schönberg )
  • 1988: de la Torre Bueno Prize of the international Society of Dance History Scholars for her book Time and the Dancing Image
  • 1991: Recognized by the American Dance Guild
  • 1997: Admission to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
  • 1998: 'Ernie' Award from Dance / USA
  • 2008: 'Bessie' Award for her longstanding commitment as chronicler of the dance community

Book publications

  • Dance beat. Selected views and reviews, 1967-1976 , Marcel Dekker Publishing, New York 1977
  • The dance in mind. Profiles and reviews 1976-83 , David R. Godine Publisher, Boston 1985
  • Time and the dancing image , University of California Press, Berkley / Los Angeles 1988 (partly available from Google Books )
  • Meredith Monk , Eds. And Introduction, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 1997
  • Jerome Robbins. His life, his theater, his dance , Simon & Schuster, New York 2004

literature

  • Diana Theodores: The Deborah Jowitt File , in: dies .: First We Take Manhattan. Four American Women and the New York School of Dance Criticism , Routledge Verlag , London 1996, ISBN 978-3-7186-5886-2 , pp. 131-144

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Diana Theodores, pp. 131f
  2. ^ Diana Theodores, p. 2
  3. ^ Diana Theodores, p. 132
  4. ^ Ann Dils, Ann Cooper Albright :: The pleasure of studying dance history , in: dies. (Ed.): Moving History / Dancing Cultures , p. 3
  5. ^ Last article by Deborah Jowitt in The Village Voice
  6. ↑ Ann Dils, Ann Cooper Albright: First Seps: Moving into the Study of Dance History , Introduction by the editors in: Moving History / Dancing Cultures. A Dance History Reader , Wesleyan University Press, 2001, ISBN 978-0-8195-6413-9 , pp. Xvii
  7. ↑ Biography: Deborah Jowitt, website of the School of the Arts, New York University
  8. ^ Society of Dance History Scholars: de la Torre Bueno Prize awards 1973–2001 ( Memento of the original from August 7, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / sdhs.org
  9. ↑ Deborah Jowitt in the Bessie Award Archive. New York Dance and Performance Awards
personal data
SURNAME Jowitt, Deborah
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American choreographer, dance critic, and author
DATE OF BIRTH February 8, 1934
PLACE OF BIRTH los Angeles