Baker, Kent, 1947-1994.

Kent Baker was the founder and choreographer of A Baker's Half Dozen, the first professional modern dance company based in Brooklyn, New York. Born in Oblong, Illinois, in 1947, he studied dance at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, and also at the University of California at Berkeley and Mills College in Oakland, California, before completing his masters degree in Theater and Dance at Southern Illinois in 1972. He began his choreographic career there, and continued it after he moved to New York City in 1972.

In New York City, Baker studied at the Nikolais-Louis Dance Theater Lab, Hunter College, American Ballet Center, and the Dance Theater Workshop, where he studied under Phyllis Lamhut. Baker joined her company, toured, and conducted master classes from 1974 to 1982. While a member of the Phyllis Lamhut Dance Company, he began his professional choreographic career with Changing Ambience, performed at a benefit for The Rockefeller Children's School in 1975.

Baker choreographed over fifty additional works over the next nineteen years, most for his own modern dance company, A Baker's Half-Dozen. He ran the company for twelve years, from its founding in 1976 through 1988. Baker firmly believed in a community-based company, and expressed his desire to choreograph works using community-based dancers whenever possible. The company, which consisted of six dancers including Baker, performed in spaces ranging from P.S. 9 in Brooklyn to Alice Tully Hall in Manhattan; averaged thirty performances a year; and was the dance company for the Brooklyn Bridge Centennial in 1983. In 1988, he closed down A Baker's Half Dozen, in part due to repeated injuries, and moved with Laurence Mercier, his companion and the company costume designer, to New Orleans.

In New Orleans, Baker worked as office manager of the Quality Assessment department at Children's Hospital. In 1991, he became an adjunct dance instructor and choreographer at Newcomb College of Tulane University, and performed as a dancer and guest choreographer for New Orleans Dance. Kent Baker died in New Orleans in February 1994.

From the guide to the Kent Baker papers, 1964-1994, (The New York Public Library. Jerome Robbins Dance Division.)