Mapping the Role of Higher Education in the Development
of the 20th century U.S. Dance Avant-Gardes

My dissertation examines the development of modern dance in American higher education, beginning with Margaret H’Doubler’s pioneering experiments in dance education in 1917. To develop dance for higher education, H’Doubler developed a radically new approach to the study of dance that emphasized somatic* experience, experimentation, and creative inquiry as foundations for artistic knowledge.

The project traces the development and transformation of H’Doubler’s modernism through the institutionalization and professionalization of modern dance in the 1930’s, highlights a similar modernism at work in the experimental educational community of Black Mountain College in the 1930’s and 40’s, and asserts their shaping influence on the postwar artistic practices of Merce Cunningham and Anna Halprin in the 1950’s.

Central to this research is a history of competing ideas about what dance education is for, how artistic knowledge is produced, and the relationships among pedagogy, creative practice, and institutional life. These historical recoveries offer critical resources for reimagining contemporary dance education, and inform my ongoing work toward a philosophy of contemporary dance education grounded in artistic inquiry and democratic practice.

PhD in Dance Studies
Temple University
Dissertation advisor: Mark Franko
Anticipated completion Fall 2027