Cohen, Selma Jeanne, 1920-2005

Selma Jeanne Cohen was born in Chicago, IL in 1920. She received an A.A. degree from Stephens College and an A.B., M.A., and Ph.D. (in English) from the University of Chicago. Cohen was the only child of Frank and Minnie Cohen. Her interest in dance began early in her life, but her lack of natural talent turned her away from dancing to the study of the history of dance. In the late 1940s, after earning her doctorate in English Literature, she took her first teaching assignment at University of California at Los Angeles. She remained a teacher and lecturer throughout the 1950s and began publishing articles on the history of dance and theater in scholarly journals. Cohen took a position at the High School of the Performing Arts in New York in the 1950s. Cohen co-founded the Dance Perspectives quarterly journal in 1959. One of the first journals dedicated to international dance history, Dance Perspectives became a respected publication with Cohen as its editor from 1966-1976. During these same years Cohen authored her three major books, Modern Dance: Seven Statements of Belief in 1966, Doris Humphrey: An Artist First in 1972 and Dance as a Theater Art in 1974. She also authored articles in numerous publications, journals, encyclopedias, and anthologies. Cohen’s work with her Dance Perspectives Foundation culminated in her editing and compiling the International Dance Encyclopedia, a six volume, 4,000 page compendium published by the Oxford University Press in 1998. Cohen spent much of the 1960s teaching at the Connecticut College Dance Department, eventually becoming Founder-Director of the Connecticut College American Dance Festival Critics' Conferences in 1970-1972. Cohen held positions at Smith College and lectured for the Five College, Incorporated. In the 1970’s, Cohen held graduate seminars at Sarah Lawrence College and University of Chicago on dance history. She was Founder-Director of the University of Chicago Seminars in Dance History (1974-1976), a three-week course which was the first intensive seminar on dance history. Cohen also worked to development a dance history curriculum at University of California Riverside. Among the awards and honors received by Cohen have been a Rockefeller Foundation Research Grant (1969), the Professional Achievement Award, University of Chicago (1974), the American Dance Guild Award (1976), and the Dance Magazine Award (1981). She was a charter member of the Dance Panel of the National Endowment for the Arts (1966-1971).

Dance historian, writer, and educator, Selma Jeanne Cohen (b. 1920) has been a major force in the world of dance publications.

With a background in literature and dance history, Cohen co-founded the quarterly journal, Dance Perspectives, in 1959. One of the first journals dedicated to international dance history, Dance Perspectives became a respected publication; Cohen served as its editor from 1966 through 1976. During these same years, Cohen authored her three major books, including Doris Humphrey: An Artist First (1972). She also wrote articles that appeared in numerous journals, encyclopedias, and anthologies. Cohen's work with the Dance Perspectives Foundation culminated in the publication of the International Dance Encyclopedia, by the Oxford University Press in 1998. She also worked extensively as a professor and lecturer and helped to develop the dance history curriculum at many institutions, including the graduate program at the University of California, Riverside. Among the awards and honors received by Cohen have been a Rockefeller Foundation Research Grant (1969), the Professional Achievement Award, University of Chicago (1974), the American Dance Guild Award (1976), and the Dance Magazine Award (1981). She was a charter member of the Dance Panel of the National Endowment for the Arts (1966-1971).

The reference book, International Encyclopedia of Dance (IED), initially began as a proposal raised separately at the 1974 Dance Critics Association conference by both Selma Jeanne Cohen and Arlene Croce.

A committee chaired by Cohen met in New York soon after the conference and began planning for a publication that would attempt to address the need for a comprehensive scholarly encyclopedia for the field of dance. The project gained momentum in 1976 when Cohen's Dance Perspectives Foundation, Inc. (DPF) received a National Endowment of the Arts (NEH) grant to help fund a planning conference of leading dance scholars, at which Lincoln Kirstein gave the keynote address. The IED was planned as a multivolume work, international in scope, that would cover all forms of dance in all countries of the world. After being awarded a second NEH grant, the DPF undertook full sponsorship of the IED in 1977 and formed an editorial board, of which Cohen became the editor-in-chief. A highly complex undertaking with a troubled publication history, the encyclopedia's publication date would be delayed several times. The original publisher in 1981 was to be Charles Scribner's Sons, which was sold to the Macmillan Publishing Company in 1986. Some of the IED manuscript and editorial correspondence were lost during the transition from Scribner's to Macmillan. By 1987, the board had become dissatisfied with the handling of the project and the agreement with the publisher was terminated. The University of California Press agreed to take on the publication in 1988. While work progressed steadily, budget cuts in the California university system in 1993 eventually forced the Press to drop the project. Ultimately, the IED would be realized when the Oxford University Press agreed to take over in 1994. Manuscripts were revised, additional articles were commissioned, and a more rigorous style scheme was adopted. With this expansion, along with the addition of numerous illustrations, the IED finally appeared as as a six volume set in in 1998.

Selma Jeanne Cohen was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1920. She received an A.A. degree from Stephens College and an A.B., M.A., and Ph.D. (in English) from the University of Chicago. She received her dance education from Edna McRae, Eugene Loring, Martha Graham, Hanya Holm, and Jose Limon. She has been active as an author, editor, lecturer, and teacher.

Cohen was managing and associate editor of the monograph Dance Perspectives from its founding in 1960 until 1965 and editor from 1965 until its demise in 1976. She is the author of articles in numerous publications, journals, encyclopedias, and anthologies. She is also the author or editor of numerous books, including The Modern Dance: Seven Statements of Belief (1966), Doris Humphrey, An Artist First (1972), and Next Week, Swan Lake: Reflections on Dance and Dancers (1982).

Cohen has taught courses in dance history and critical writing at colleges and universities throughout the United States and Canada. She was Founder-Director of the University of Chicago Seminars in Dance History (1974-1976), a three-week course which was the first intensive seminar on dance history. She was Founder-Director of the Connecticut College American Dance Festival Critics' Conferences (1970-1972), which she began as a forum to permit professional dance critics from around the country to discuss common artistic and journalistic problems, to develop writing skills, and to attend a range of dance performances.

Among the awards and honors received by Cohen have been a Rockefeller Foundation Research Grant (1969), the Professional Achievement Award, University of Chicago (1974), the American Dance Guild Award (1976), and the Dance Magazine Award (1981). She was a charter member of the Dance Panel of the National Endowment for the Arts (1966-1971).

Selma Jeanne Cohen is currently the editor of the first comprehensive multi-volume reference work on dance, the International Encyclopedia of Dance, to be published by Charles Scribner's Sons.

Dance Perspectives was a quarterly founded in 1958 with A.J. Pishl as editor, Selma Jeanne Cohen as associate editor, and Sheppard Black as assistant editor. It was described in its first brochure as being “devoted to publishing scholarly dance monographs. In addition to recovering the past through historical essays, it will examine the present and suggest the future. The attempt is to provide the entire dance audience with historical and critical material to enlarge existing bases for judgment.”

The first issue, “Winter 1959,” was published November 25, 1958, by Dance Perspectives, Inc. With the publication of the second issue, A.J. Pishl and Selma Jeanne Cohen were listed as editors. Cohen purchased Dance Perspectives from Sheppard Black in 1965 and, beginning with issue #21, she was listed as editor, a position she retained until the quarterly ceased publication.

John Martin was listed as consulting editor from issue #25 in the spring of 1966 through the final issue, #66, in the summer of 1976. Karl Leabo was credited with the cover design, which he continued to do until 1962, after which he was listed variously as art editor, art director and associate editor, almost continuously until the summer of 1970. Clell Mize was the art director from issue #43 in 1970 through issue #54 in 1973.

In October 1975, the total average distribution of the quarterly was 1,741, with 2,500 copies of a single issue published. In 1976, the Board of Directors of the tax-exempt, educational Dance Perspectives Foundation consisted of Clive Barnes, Selma Jeanne Cohen, George Dorris, Jane Hermann, Anna Kisselgoff, Mary Ann Liebert, Jean Nuchtern, Elinor Rogosin, Ben Sommers, Walter Terry, Michael Truppin, David Vaughan, and Violette Verdy.

Marcel Dekker, Inc. became the publisher of Dance Perspectives with issue #61 in the spring of 1975 and continued through the final issue, #66, in the summer of 1976.

Selma Jeanne Cohen was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1920. She received an A.A. degree from Stephens College and an A.B., M.A., and Ph.D. (in English) from the University of Chicago. She received her dance education from Edna McRae, Eugene Loring, Martha Graham, Hanya Holm, and Jose Limon. She has been active as an author, editor, lecturer, and teacher.

Cohen was managing and associate editor of the monograph Dance Perspectives from its founding in 1960 until 1965 and editor from 1965 until its demise in 1976. She is the author of articles in numerous publications, journals, encyclopedias, and anthologies. She is also the author or editor of numerous books, including The Modern Dance: Seven Statements of Belief (1966), Doris Humphrey, An Artist First (1972), and Next Week, Swan Lake: Reflections on Dance and Dancers (1982).

Cohen has taught courses in dance history and critical writing at colleges and universities throughout the United States and Canada. She was Founder-Director of the University of Chicago Seminars in Dance History (1974-1976), a three-week course which was the first intensive seminar on dance history. She was Founder-Director of the Connecticut College American Dance Festival Critics' Conferences (1970-1972), which she began as a forum to permit professional dance critics from around the country to discuss common artistic and journalistic problems, to develop writing skills, and to attend a range of dance performances.

Among the awards and honors received by Cohen have been a Rockefeller Foundation Research Grant (1969), the Professional Achievement Award, University of Chicago (1974), the American Dance Guild Award (1976), and the Dance Magazine Award (1981). She was a charter member of the Dance Panel of the National Endowment for the Arts (1966-1971).

Selma Jeanne Cohen is currently the editor of the first comprehensive multi-volume reference work on dance, the International Encyclopedia of Dance, to be published by Charles Scribner's Sons.

Selma Jeanne Cohen was born in Chicago, IL in 1920. She received an A.A. degree from Stephens College and an A.B., M.A., and Ph.D. (in English) from the University of Chicago. In the late 1940s, after earning her doctorate in English Literature, and took her first teaching assignment at University of California at Los Angeles. She remained a teacher and lecturer throughout the 1950s and began publishing articles on the history of dance and theater in scholarly journals. Cohen co-founded the Dance Perspectives quarterly journal in 1959. One of the first journals dedicated to international dance history, Dance Perspectives became a respected publication with Cohen as its editor from 1966-1976. Cohen spent much of the 1960s teaching at the Connecticut College Dance Department, eventually becoming Founder-Director of the Connecticut College American Dance Festival Critics' Conferences in 1970-1972. Cohen held positions at Smith College and lectured for the Five College, Incorporated. In the 1970’s, Cohen held graduate seminars at Sarah Lawrence College and University of Chicago on dance history. She was Founder-Director of the University of Chicago Seminars in Dance History (1974-1976), a three-week course which was the first intensive seminar on dance history.

The International Encyclopedia of Dance (IED) began as a project of the Dance Critics Association intended to address the need for a comprehensive scholarly encyclopedia for the field of dance. The first National Endowment of the Arts (NEH) grant in support of the encyclopedia was awarded to the Dance Perspectives Foundation, Inc. in 1976 to help fund a planning conference of leading dance scholars. The scholars in attendance at this meeting would help set up the structure and content of the proposed encyclopedia. The IED was planned to be a multivolume work with an international scope covering all forms of dance in all countries of the world. After being awarded a second grant, the Dance Perspectives Foundation undertook full sponsorship of the IED in 1977 and formed an editorial board that could help realize the publication. As the project grew, the editorial board found it necessary to expand the number of commissioned articles to adequately meet its objective of worldwide coverage. Due to difficulties of communication between the editorial board and international consultants, the encyclopedia’s publication date was delayed over the course of the 1980s. The project passed from Charles Scribner’s Sons to Macmillan Publishing and was delayed by publication cost issues, and the lack of editorial knowledge on behalf of the publishers’ copyeditors. Since much of the material written for the IED was original, it proved difficult for the publishers to fact check the articles, some of which were not written in English. Sadly, parts of the IED manuscript and editorial correspondence were lost during the physical transition from Scribner’s to Macmillan. The University of California Press agreed to take on the project in 1988, a relationship that would last until 1993 when budget cuts in the California university system forced the publisher to abandon the project. Ultimately, the IED achieved realization when the Oxford University Press agreed to edit, restore and expand the manuscript in 1994. Manuscripts were retyped, dance scholars were allowed to act as editorial consultants, and to develop a rigorous style scheme and format. Two thousand illustrations and three hundred new articles were commissioned. The IED was published as a six volume large format set in 1998.

Selma Jeanne Cohen (1920-2005) was a pioneering dance historian, writer and educator who helped revolutionize the field of dance research and history. Cohen received her degree in English from the University of Chicago and began her career teaching English Literature. Upon moving to New York in 1953, she discovered her interest lay in dance scholarship and review. From 1955 to 1958 she was a dance critic at The New York Times, assisting John Martin. She was also the dance critic for The Saturday Review in 1965 and 1966.

Cohen was a founder and later editor of the magazine, Dance Perspectives (1959-1976) and established the Dance Perspectives Foundation, which promoted dance scholarship and publication. Dance Perspectives was the first dance publication of its kind. The magazine was published quarterly and was devoted to developing a historical research base for dance scholarship, which at the time had no precedent.

From 1963 to 1977, Cohen held a series of dance-related teaching positions at a number of colleges and universities, including Connecticut College, New York University, Amherst College, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College and University of Massachusetts. She also ran a number of workshops and conferences. Cohen was a pioneer of the very first graduate level accredited programs and courses in dance history.

Cohen served on the boards of the American Society for Aesthetics and the American Society for Theatre Research, received a Rockefeller grant and a Guggenheim Fellowship and became a member of the advisory panel on dance for the National Endowment for the Arts.

She is the author of articles in numerous publications, journals, encyclopedias, and anthologies, and published several books including The Modern Dance: Seven Statements of Belief ; Doris Humphrey: An Artist First and Next Week, Swan Lake, regarding dance aesthetics.

The most notable of Cohen's publications is her two decade project: editing the International Encyclopedia of Dance . Published in 1998, it continues to be the most comprehensive dance resource of its kind. The encyclopedia became feasible when the Dance Perspectives Foundation received a National Endowment of the Arts grant in 1976. This funding allowed the foundation to move forward on the task of assembling the encyclopedia. Cohen was involved in almost every aspect of the encyclopedia's creation.

After Dance Perspectives ceased publication, Cohen focused on conferences and symposiums, lecturing and attending dance history related events all over the globe, including travel to the Soviet bloc during the late 1970s. Much of her travel and conference attendance was related in some way to her research for the International Encyclopedia of Dance .

Cohen spent her later years in her home in Greenwich Village, New York City.