KU Celebrates the Elizabeth Sherbon Centennial and
Murphy Hall’s 50th Anniversary

Elizabeth Sherbon, kneeling on left, looking up at Martha Graham, in Primitive Mysteries (late 1930s)

KU alumna and professor of dance Elizabeth Sherbon (1908-2000), a former member of the Martha Graham Dance Company and Graham’s assistant, will be honored in conjunction with the Murphy Hall 50th Anniversary 2007-08 celebration. Sherbon collaborated with her colleagues in music and theatre in Murphy Hall throughout her tenure at KU, and subsequent members of the dance faculty have continued the tradition. After the dance program moved to the School of Fine Arts in 1985, all dance concerts were performed in Crafton-Preyer Theatre until the opening of the Lied Center in 1993.

Celebration highlights include:

7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 17, and Friday, April 18, 2008:
University Dance Company (UDC) Concerts at the Lied Center featuring

• Solo performance by dance luminary Bill Evans

• Dance choreographed by Bill Evans for members of the UDC

• Restaging of Karole Armitage’s 2001 work for the UDC, Power Surge

Karole Armitage

Two alumni who performed in the work, Beau Hancock and Deanna Doyle Hodges, will reprise their roles. They are currently performing professionally in New York City and Kansas City respectively. Beau also was the 2004 Elizabeth Sherbon Dance Award recipient. To read more about guest choreographers Karole Armitage and Bill Evans, visit http://www.dance.ku.edu.

Saturday, April 19, 2008:

• Rededication of the Elizabeth Sherbon Dance Theatre by Bill Evans, who performed in Sherbon’s honor at the dedication in 1985

• Informal performance by KU faculty, Bill Evans and Beau Hancock in the Elizabeth Sherbon Dance Theatre following the rededication

• Panel discussion on Dance in a Global Society with KU faculty and Bill Evans

  Publicity shot, Bill Evans (2006). Dancer: Bill Evans. Photographer: Jim Dusen.

• Art of Dance exhibit in the Teaching Gallery at the Spencer Museum of Art highlighting the Martha Graham Dance Company and other images of dance and dancers as seen through photographs, prints, and drawings

• Book display in the KU Music and Dance Library throughout the month of April of Sherbon’s On the Count of One and books from her collection signed by Martha Graham and Louis Horst

*2008 is the 40th anniversary of the publication of Sherbon’s On the Count of One.

More about Elizabeth Sherbon
Sherbon moved to Lawrence in 1917 and took ballet lessons from Helen Topping, a former soloist with the Anna Pavlova Dance Company. She graduated from KU in 1930 and received her master’s degree from the University of Iowa in 1932. She traveled to New York City in the summer of 1931 to study at the Denishawn School with Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn, two founders of American modern dance. Sherbon attended the Bennington Summer School of Dance in 1934 and 1935, where Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, Charles Weidman, and Hanya Holm—the “Four Pioneers” of modern dance—were teaching. From Bennington, Sherbon moved to New York City to take advantage of a scholarship to study at Graham’s studio. She performed with the Martha Graham Dance Company from 1937 to 1940, in the New York City performances of Hanya Holm’s masterwork Trend in 1937 and 1938, and in several off-Broadway dance groups. She also was Graham’s teaching assistant. From 1942 to 1954 she danced in the Jean Erdman Dance Company in New York City. Sherbon and Erdman had met while both were members of Graham’s company. Sherbon supplemented her income by typing manuscripts for Erdman’s husband, philosopher and mythologist Joseph Campbell.

Beau Hancock and Deanna Doyle in choreographer Karole Armitage's Power Surge (2001).

She returned to KU in 1961 to teach dance in the Department of Health, Physical Education and Recreation until her retirement in 1975. While on the KU faculty she wrote On the Count of One, which became a widely used college text. She co-founded with her twin sister, Alice Bauman, the American Dance Symposia (1968-1972) in Wichita, which the National Endowment for the Arts called the “most innovative and important summer program to surface since Bennington.” The city of Lawrence awarded Sherbon the Cultural Enhancement Award in 1993 for her contributions to the city’s artistic and cultural life. She lived in Lawrence from 1961 until her death in 2000 at the age of 92.

2008 is the 40th anniversary of the first American Dance Symposium

The American Dance Symposia

Elizabeth Sherbon and her twin sister, Alice Bauman, are known nationally for the American Dance Symposia they directed in Wichita during the summers of 1968-72. Dance luminaries such as Leonide Massine, Arthur Mitchell, Paul Taylor, Jean Erdman, Bella Lewitzky, and Bill Evans joined experts in world dance forms, dance criticism, dance therapy, and other fields. They congregated in Wichita for master classes, panel discussions, and performances. Dance critic Walter Terry documented the events for the Saturday Review. The National Endowment for the Arts called the Wichita symposia “the most innovative and important summer dance program to surface since Bennington.” The Wichita symposia became the model for the American Dance Festival, today the most comprehensive annual summer dance festival in the United States.