Selma Jeanne Cohen, 85, a Historian of Dance
Selma Jeanne Cohen, historian, editor and teacher died recently at her home in Greenwich Village. She was 85. The cause was complications from Alzheimer's disease.
Ms. Cohen waged a tireless campaign against scholars who maintained that dance was inherently frivolous, and her efforts led her to become America's leading figure in dance scholarship. She edited The International Encyclopedia of Dance for Oxford University Press. That six-volume work remains as the most comprehensive guide of its kind.
When a childhood friend started taking ballet lessons from Edna McRae, a respected Chicago teacher, Ms. Cohen went along. Ms. Cohen soon realized she had no dancing talent. But she had great curiosity, and McRae had a dance library, which Ms. Cohen devoured. She began teaching English at the University of California at Los Angeles in 1946 and, at the same time, worked with the Los Angeles teacher and choreographer Eugene Loring. After moving to New York in 1953, she devoted herself to dance and started reviewing for Dance Observer. From 1955 to 1958 she was a dance critic at The New York Times, where she assisted John Martin, who was chief dance critic. She was dance critic for The Saturday Review in 1965 and 1966.
Ms. Cohen was a member of the first National Endowment for the Arts Dance Panel in 1966; organized a critics' conference at the American Dance Festival in New London, Conn., in 1970; and taught over the years at many colleges. She wrote and edited several important books: The Modern Dance: Seven Statements of Belief, an anthology of essays by contemporary choreographers; Doris Humphrey: An Artist First, a biography of a pioneering modern dancer; and Next Week, Swan Lake, a study of dance aesthetics. She also edited a very popular college text entitled, Dance as a Theater Art, a history of dance since the Renaissance.
No immediate family members survive.