SOPHIE MASLOW FACT SHEET



Date/Place of Birth
  • Born on March 22, 1911 on the lower east side of New York City

Background/Training
  • At seven years old she began to take her first classes in interpretive dance, music, and elocution at a socialist school on 16th Street
  • Attended Camp Kinderland, where she learned folk dances
  • Attended the Neighborhood Playhouse, a popular theatre on the Lower East Side that grew out of the Henry Street Settlement, where she took classes from Martha Graham and Louis Horst

Performing Highlights
  • Joined Graham's company in 1931 and performed many solo roles including one of the Bronte sisters in Deaths and Entrances
  • Performed with Jane Dudley and William Bales as the Dudley-Maslow-Bales Trio between the years of 1942 and 1954

Choreographic Highlights
  • Most notable choreographic achievements, all of which were socially-minded in nature, include Dust Bowl Ballads (1941), Folksay (1942), Festival (1949), The Village I Knew (1950), and reconstructions of Graham's Primitive Mysteries and Celebration
  • Maslow's works have been performed by companies including the Batsheva Dance Company, Harkness Ballet, the Bat-Dor Company, and the New York City Opera Company

Teaching/Directing/Personal Company Highlights
  • Taught dance to members of the Office Worker's Union
  • Taught and choreographed on members of the New Dance Group in addition to serving as president of the organization


Where to find more about Sophie Maslow

Print

Dzhermolinska, Helen. "The Village I Knew," Dance Magazine. March 1951: 12-13.

Graff, Ellen. Stepping Left: Dance and Politics in New York City, 1928-1942. Durham: Duke University Press, 1997.

Harris, Joanna Gervertz. "From Tenement to Theater: Jewish Women as Dance Pioneers, Helen Becker (Tamiris), Anna Sokolow, Sophie Maslow." Judaism. Summer 1996: 259-276.

Jackson, Naomi. Converging Movements: Modern Dance and Jewish Culture at the 92nd Street Y. Hanover: University Press of New England, 2000.


Video

Dance and Social Consciousness in the '30s and '40s. Host: Celia Ipiotis. Prods. Celia Ipiotis and Jeff Bush. Eye on Dance. Videocassette. ARC Videodance. Rec. 23 April 1984.

Dance On: Sophie Maslow. Dance On: With Billie Mahoney. Prod. Billie Mahoney. Videocassette. 5 Feb. 1984.