Selma Jeanne Cohen Award
Encyclopedia
The Selma Jeanne Cohen Award is a writing award offered by the Society of Dance History Scholars
for the best graduate student paper submission to the annual conference. The award was established in 1995 to honor Selma Jeanne Cohen
's contributions to the field of dance history, and to encourage and recognize exemplary scholarship among students researching dance. The award includes a travel grant and registration fee waiver for the annual conference.
Society of Dance History Scholars
The Society of Dance History Scholars is a professional organization for dance historians in the United States and worldwide. Founded in 1978, it became a non-profit organization in 1983...
for the best graduate student paper submission to the annual conference. The award was established in 1995 to honor Selma Jeanne Cohen
Selma Jeanne Cohen
Selma Jeanne Cohen was a dance historian, editor, and teacher who devoted her career to advocating dance as an art worthy of the same scholarly respect traditionally awarded to painting, music, and literature...
's contributions to the field of dance history, and to encourage and recognize exemplary scholarship among students researching dance. The award includes a travel grant and registration fee waiver for the annual conference.
Award winners
- 2010 - No prize awarded.
- 2009 - Anusha Kedhar, "The Specter of the Devadasi: Bharata Natyam and Indian Ethnicity in the U.S."
- 2009 - Hannah Kosstrin, "Of Dreams and Prayers: Topographies of Anna Sokolow's Holocaust Work During and After World War II"
- 2008 - Elizabeth Arden Thomas, "Moving Forward by Being Still: Anna HalprinAnna HalprinAnna Halprin helped pioneer the experimental art form known as postmodern dance and referred to herself as the breaker of modern dance. Halprin, along with her contemporaries such as Trisha Brown, Simone Forti, Yvonne Rainer, John Cage, and Robert Morris, collaborated and built a community based...
's Still Dance with Nature"
- 2008 - Victoria Phillips Geduld, "Cultural Diplomacy and the Construction of Empire: Martha GrahamMartha GrahamMartha Graham was an American modern dancer and choreographer whose influence on dance has been compared with the influence Picasso had on modern visual arts, Stravinsky had on music, or Frank Lloyd Wright had on architecture.She danced and choreographed for over seventy years...
's Appalachian Spring and the State Department Tour of 1955-1956"
- 2008 - Victoria Fortuna, "Decelerating Movement: The Identity Politics of Time and Space in Rudy Perez's Countdown"
- 2007 - Clare Croft, "Photographs and Dancing Bodies: Alvin AileyAlvin AileyAlvin Ailey, Jr. was an American choreographer and activist who founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in New York. Ailey is credited with popularizing modern dance and revolutionizing African-American participation in 20th century concert dance...
's 1967 US State Department Sponsored Tour of Africa"
- 2007 - Samuel N. Dorf, "'Greek' Desires in Paris: Isadora DuncanIsadora DuncanIsadora Duncan was a dancer, considered by many to be the creator of modern dance. Born in the United States, she lived in Western Europe and the Soviet Union from the age of 22 until her death at age 50. In the United States she was popular only in New York, and only later in her life...
Dances Antiquity in the Lesbian Salon"
- 2007 - Sydney Hutchinson, "When Women Lead: Changing Gender Roles in the New York SalsaSalsa musicSalsa music is a genre of music, generally defined as a modern style of playing Cuban Son, Son Montuno, and Guaracha with touches from other genres of music...
Scene"
- 2006 - No prize awarded.
- 2005 - Juliet Bellow, "Picasso's Puppets: Petrouchka, PierrotPierrotPierrot is a stock character of pantomime and Commedia dell'Arte whose origins are in the late 17th-century Italian troupe of players performing in Paris and known as the Comédie-Italienne; the name is a hypocorism of Pierre , via the suffix -ot. His character in postmodern popular culture—in...
and Parade"
- 2005 - Öykü Potuoglu-Cook, "From Backstage to Back Streets: An Urban Ethnography of the Post-1980s Turkish Belly Dance"
- 2004 - Danielle Robinson, "Invisible Men: The Professionalization of Black Dance Teaching in Jazz Age Manhattan"
- 2004 - Emily Winerock, "Dance References in the Records of Early English Drama: Alternative Sources for Non-Courtly Dancing, 1500-1650"
- 2003 - Yvonne Hardt, "Relational Movement Patterns: Movement Choirs and their Social Potential in the Weimar Republic"
- 2002 - Victoria Watts, "How Do Dances Make Us Laugh?: A Comparative Analysis of the Joking Structure at Play in Tere O'Connor's Hi Everybody! (1999) and Twyla TharpTwyla TharpTwyla Tharp is an American dancer and choreographer, who lives and works in New York City.-Early years:Tharp was born in 1941 on a farm in Portland, Indiana, and was named after Twila Thornburg, the "Pig Princess" of the 89th Annual Muncie Fair in Indiana.she spend hours working on it to help her...
's Push Comes to Shove (1976)"
- 2001 - Jonathan David Jackson, "Gender Representation in the Latest Form of the Black/Latino(a) Sexual Minority Dance Called 'Voguing'"
- 2000 - Martin Hargreaves, "Haunted by Failure, Doomed by Success: Melancholic Masculinity in AMP’s Swan Lake"
- 1999 - Virginia Taylor, "Respect, Antipathy, and Tenderness: Why Do Girls 'Go to BalletBalletBallet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...
'?"
- 1999 - Anthea Kraut, "The Vernacular Transformations of Black Female Choreographers: Josephine BakerJosephine BakerJosephine Baker was an American dancer, singer, and actress who found fame in her adopted homeland of France. She was given such nicknames as the "Bronze Venus", the "Black Pearl", and the "Créole Goddess"....
, Zora Neale HurstonZora Neale HurstonZora Neale Hurston was an American folklorist, anthropologist, and author during the time of the Harlem Renaissance...
, and Katherine DunhamKatherine DunhamKatherine Mary Dunham was an American dancer, choreographer, songwriter, author, educator, and activist...
"
- 1998 - Janet O'Shea, "Unbalancing the Authentic/Partnering Tradition: Shobana Jeyasingh’s Romance... with Footnotes"
- 1997 - Michelle Heffner, "Blood Wedding: Tradition and Innovation in Contemporary FlamencoFlamencoFlamenco is a genre of music and dance which has its foundation in Andalusian music and dance and in whose evolution Andalusian Gypsies played an important part....
"
- 1997 - Karen A. Mozingo, "Fractured Images: Montage and Gender in Pina BauschPina BauschPhilippina "Pina" Bausch was a German performer of modern dance, choreographer, dance teacher and ballet director...
's Tanztheater"
- 1996 - Ananya Chatterjea, "The Choreography of ChandralekhaChandralekha-Films:*Chandralekha , a Tamil film directed and produced by S. S. Vasan starring M. K. Radha*Chandralekha , a Tamil film directed by Nambirajan starring Vijay...
"
- 1996 - Julia L. Foulkes, "Feminists, in a Way: How Women Shaped Modern DanceModern danceModern dance is a dance form developed in the early 20th century. Although the term Modern dance has also been applied to a category of 20th Century ballroom dances, Modern dance as a term usually refers to 20th century concert dance.-Intro:...
"
- 1996 - Barbejoy A. Ponzio, "Mythic Images of the West and the Renewed Popularity of Country Dance"
- 1995 - Constance Valis Hill, "From Bharata Natyam to JiveJive (dance)In Ballroom dancing, Jive is a dance style in 4/4 time that originated in the United States from African-Americans in the early 1930s. It was originally presented to the public as 'Jive' in 1934 by Cab Calloway. It is a lively and uninhibited variation of the Jitterbug, a form of Swing dance...
: Jack Cole's 'Modern' Jazz Dance" [See Jack Cole (choreographer)Jack Cole (choreographer)Jack Cole was an American dancer, choreographer, and theatre director known as the father of theatrical jazz dance.-Early life:...
.]
- 1995 - Maribeth Clark, "The Contredanse, That Musical Plague"