Mura Dehn: Champion of Black Social Dance and the Traditional Jazz Dance Company

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This book tells the relatively unknown story of Mura Dehn (1902- 1987) a white, Jewish dancer from Russia, once deemed among the most beautiful classical dancers in Europe, who emigrated to the United States in the 1930s.

For the first time the efforts of Dehn to record, analyse and champion the development of jazz dance in America during the 1930s, 40s and 50s are brought to life. The book celebrates and explores her long-term commitment to supporting and nurturing Black American jazz dancers, and devoting her life to heralding and chronicling its innovators and creators through performance, teaching and film-making.

This work includes both first-hand accounts with people who knew and worked with Dehn, including her company manager Allen Blitz, friend Eiko Otake, and notable urban dance scholars such as Sally Sommer; and material from Dehns archival collection in the New York Public Library.

The book offers a flavour of the dance halls, the first places of social-racial integration in America, where jazz was born out of African-American social dances, and gives credence to the growing acceptance of this form of art as equivalent to classical dance and music.

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Mura Dehn: Champion of Jazz Dance and Black Narratives illuminates the life and career of Russian dancer and filmmaker Mura Dehn whose film series, The Spirit Moves, documents Black jazz dance during the twentieth century. The book offers insights into the network of artists and cultural institutions that promoted and preserved African American cultural dances. * Anita Gonzalez, Professor of Performing Arts and Black Studies, Georgetown University, USA *

Author Bio

Kim Chandler Vaccaro is Professor Emerita of Dance at Rider University, USA, where she developed the curriculum and directed the Dance program for 25 years. She created the movement system and authored CoMBo: Conditioning for Mindbody, is co-author of Jazz Dance Today with Lorraine Person Kreigel, the editor of Dance in My Life, and a contributing author to Jazz Dance: A History of the Roots and Branches.