Bessie Schönberg
Pioneer Dance Educator and Choreographic Mentor
Description:... Hagood (dance, Mills College), claiming that dance became one of the respected arts through its incorporation into the university, begins his history gradually, with the beginnings of the European and American university systems. Then moving to his main topic, Hagood discusses America's first dance departments, with especial attention given to Margaret H'Doubler, who initiated the first major American dance curriculum. Hagood's other historical highpoints include the "Bennington Experience," through which the first professional dance education standards emerged; the formation of the first national organization for dance educators, namely, the National Section on Dancing of the American Physical Education Association; and events of the 1950s and beyond where dance carved out an academic status apart from physical education, and became a discipline fleshed out with scholarship in history, sociology, aesthetics, and cultural studies. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
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