King, Eleanor Parker

Dancer, choreographer, educator, and author.

Eleanor King, possibly of Liverpool, England.

Modern dancer and choreographer.

A pioneer in the field of modern dance, Eleanor King was a noted choreographer and a teacher.

She was born Eleanor Campbell King on February 8, 1906, in Middleton, Pennsylvania. Eleanor, who was one of six children, moved with her family to Brooklyn, New York in 1926. King lived at home until age 28, when she moved to an apartment in Manhattan. King did not begin dance lessons at age 20. Her first teacher was Priscilla Roineau, who taught at Clare Tree Major's School of the Theatre in New York City. Her professional dance training and performing began with her enrollment in Denishawn in 1927. An original dancer of the Humphrey-Weidman group, King was with the company from 1928 through 1935. King worked as an independent dancer and choreographer in New York from 1935 to 1942. Her first choreographed large scale work was Icaro, based upon a poem by Lauro de Bosis, with music created by David Diamond and Franziska Boas. Jack Cole danced the role of Icarus. Icaro premiered at the Brooklyn Museum Dance Center in May 1937.

King became one of the first academic dance instructors in the United States. After leaving New York City, she went to Northfield, Minnesota to teach at Carleton College for the 1942-1943 school year. In the summer of 1943, King moved to Seattle, Washington, where she taught at the Cornish School of the Arts. For the next eight years, King taught, choreographed, and traveled throughout the Pacific Northwest, as a soloist and with her own dance company. In 1951 King began teaching dance and mime at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. She retired from teaching at the University of Arkansas in the spring of 1971 and later moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico where she became involved with the burgeoning dance and theater culture of the area.

A prolific writer, King authored numerous journal articles and three books. Her research interests included Asian dance. King, who received several grants for study, traveled periodically to Japan between 1958-1967. She also studied in Bali, Burma, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Korea during the 1970s. In 1978, King's autobiography, Transformations: the Humphrey-Weidman Era was published. She also completed a second volume, Transformations II: To the West, which has not been published. In addition, King wrote The Way of the Japanese Dance, which was optioned by Shambhala Press, but never published; though it was issued later in a special limited edition. She also possessed a talent for sketching. During her lifetime, she produced several thousand sketches, many of which were included in The Way of Japanese Dance. Early sketches were of still lifes and nudes. Sketches from her middle years were nearly all from her many trips to Asia. Later sketches were inspired by her visits to the museums of the Santa Fe area.

In 1989, King moved to the Actor's Home in Haddonfield, New Jersey, where she died on February 27, 1991. At the time of her death, she was a co-director of the American Dance Repertory Theater with Mino Nicholas. The American Dance Repertory Theater created revivals of Miss King's dances, as well as the dances of Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman.