Quick Facts
Biography
For other people named Jane Dudley, see Jane Dudley, Duchess of Northumberland and Lady Jane Grey
Jane Dudley (April 3, 1912 - September 19, 2001) was an American modern dancer, choreographer, and teacher.
Biography
Dudley was born in New York City and attended the Walden School there. She studied dance with Hanya Holm, Louis Horst, and Martha Graham. Between 1937 and 1944 she was a leading dancer in the Martha Graham Company and created roles in Deaths and Entrances and Letter to the World. In 1934 she joined the New Dance Group, and also performed with Sophie Maslow and William Bales in the Dudley-Maslow-Bales Trio, a collaborative dance troupe that was active for twelve years. Many of Dudley's works dealt with issues of social protest. She was a leading teacher at the Martha Graham School from 1938 through 1958.
In 1970 Dudley moved to London to teach at the London Contemporary Dance School. She died in London at the age of 89.
Selected choreography
- In the Life of a Worker (1934)
- Time is Money (1934)
- Middle Class Portraits (1935)
- Songs of Protest (1936)
- Under the Swastika (1937)
- My Body, My Carcass (1937)
- Harmonica Breakdown (1938)
- Jazz Lyric (1938)
- Ballad of Molly Pitcher (1939)
- Adolescence (1940)
- Skatter-brain (1941)
- The Kiss of Judas (1941)
- Pavane (1941)
- Swing Your Lady (1944)
- New World A Comin' (1945)
- The Lonely Ones (1946)
- Ballads for Dancers (1946)
- Vagary (1949)
- Passional (1950)
- Family Portrait (1953)