"Dancing History:" Anna Sokolow Lecture and Performance

Dancing History: A Reconstruction of Anna Sokolow's "Rooms" PerformancePerformance & Lecture by Dance Historian Hannah Kosstrin, Reed College

Rooms (1955), featuring music composed by Kenyon Hopkins for a jazz ensemble, is a powerful portrayal of the terrifying loneliness that afflicts even people living in the closest proximity to each other. After the dance performance of Rooms, Dr. Hannah Kosstrin, Assistant Professor at Reed College, will give a lecture, followed by a discussion. Anna Sokolow began her training at the Neighborhood Playhouse with Martha Graham and Louis Horst. In the 1930's she was a member of the Graham Dance Company and assisted Mr. Horst in his dance composition classes. During this period, she formed her own company and began choreographing and performing solo concerts and ensemble works. Her vast range of repertory includes drama, comedy, and lyricism with her commentaries on humanity and social justice threaded into each of her works. This event is part of the series of satellite events organized as part of Ms. @ 40 and the Future of Feminism.

Hannah Kosstrin researches Jewishness and gender in 20th-century concert dance. She teaches courses covering dance histories of the U.S., Latin America, Europe, the Jewish diaspora, and the African diaspora, as well as courses in dance technique and the movement notation system Labanotation. Kosstrin has presented her research at national and international conferences. Before coming to Reed, Hannah taught dance and dance studies in Boston, MA and central Ohio. Her current research project examines elements of Jewishness, radicalism, and modernism in the early and mid-career work of choreographer Anna Sokolow.