Oldest dance program becomes newest department

While finalizing preparations for this weekend’s Lathrop Hall centennial celebration, the UW–Madison Dance Program received an added reason to rejoice — the nation’s first college program to offer a dance degree had just been granted departmental status.

The ground-breaking Dance Program was founded in 1926 by Margaret H’Doubler, who set high standards.

Dance programming has expanded in recent years to include national and international exchanges and opportunities for faculty and students to study, teach and engage with a wide range of choreographers and dance artists.

Until the latest move, the program had operated under the wing of the Department of Kinesiology in the School of Education.

“The Dance Program has been on a progressively innovative path since its founding,” says Julie Underwood, dean of the School of Education. “We are thrilled that the faculty, staff and students can operate in the future with this long-deserved autonomy.”

“We are humbled and honored to uphold and enhance the university’s great legacy of dance onto the world stage,” says Jin-Wen Yu, chair of the new Dance Department.

H’Doubler’s legacy has spread far beyond the Madison campus. Dance alumni have created programs and departments at universities across the country. More than 30 graduates have served as dance chairs at their respective institutions.

Prominent Dance Program alumni include:

• Mary Hinkson, (B.S. ’46, M.S. ’47), who joined the Martha Graham Dance Company in 1952, where she became a leading soloist; she subsequently was a guest artist for numerous companies and taught at Graham’s school and at Juilliard in New York City.
• Matt Hart Turney (B.S. ’47), a principal dancer with Graham’s company in 1950s through the 70s.
• Anna Halprin (B.S. ’42), who received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from UW–Madison in 1994 in recognition of her pioneering work in choreography and dance as healing.
• Joan Woodbury (B.S. ’50, MS ’51), co-artistic director of Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company in Salt Lake City and professor emerita and former chair of the Department of Dance at the University of Utah, where she taught for almost 50 years. Murray Louis of The Nikolais/Louis Foundation for Dance selected Woodbury’s company to house the works of 20th century master Alwin Nikolais.
• Sharon Gersten Luckman (B.S. ’67), executive director of the Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation in New York City, who has been selected as a 2010 recipient of the School of Education’s Alumni Achievement Award.
• Rosalind Newman (B.S. ’74), an internationally known educator, choreographer, and artistic director of her own company in New York, who received the School’s Alumni Achievement Award in 2006.
• Dance alumni will play prominent roles in the Lathrop celebration, which includes a host of activities open to the campus community and Madison-area residents. For more about the celebration, go online to: 100 Years of Lathrop.