Lampkin, Lucy

Dance teacher, Lucy Phelps Lampkin (born 1903), who trained with many notable figures in the fields of modern dance and dance education (including Lucile Marsh and Ruth St. Denis), operated her own dance studio in her native Athens, Georgia for many years.

Lampkin opened the Lucy Lampkin School of the Dance and Related Arts in 1928 and continued to direct it through 1968. She had studied many dance forms intensively in New York and Europe, working with Michel Fokine (ballet), Ruth St. Denis, Ted Shawn, and Mary Wigman, among others. Examples of choreographic notes, syllabi, and other teaching materials in the collection appear to indicate that Lampkin had been profoundly influenced as a teacher by Lucile Marsh, as well as the Isadora Duncan System (Lampkin studied with both Elizabeth and Irma Duncan). She also did extensive research on sculpture and painting in relation to dance at a number of museums in America and in Europe, eventually publishing a book on the subject, The Dance in Art (1935). Lampkin had some performing experience, briefly appearing as a soloist with a concert group, the Marsh Dancers (run by Agnes and Lucile Marsh), in New York City. After closing her studio, Lampkin retired from active teaching.

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