Cochran, Jerry Bywaters, 1936-

Jerry Bywaters Cochran grew up in a Dallas family that was actively involved in the arts. Her father, a nationally recognized painter, was for many years the director of the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, the predecessor of today's Dallas Museum of Art. He was also a longtime member of the art faculty of Southern Methodist University. Her mother, a musician by training, had a lifelong interest in dance and was one of the founders of both the Dallas Civic Ballet and the Dallas Dance Council.

Among Jerry's early teachers were Alexandra Danilova and Hanya Holm. After high school she attended the Juilliard School in New York, where her teachers included Martha Graham and Jose' Limon for modern dance, Anthony Tudor and Margaret Craske for ballet, and Louis Horst and Doris Humphrey for choreography. While at Juilliard she also took classes at the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance and the Metropolitan Opera Ballet School. She received a Juilliard degree with majors in both modern dance and ballet, and on graduation received an award from the American Guild of Musical Artists as the outstanding graduate in her field. Thereafter, she received a Fulbright fellowship for study in Paris under Marcel Marceau and 'Etienne Decroux, the noted mimes.

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