Selma Jeanne Cohen

Selma Jeanne Cohen (September 18, 1920 – December 23, 2005) was an American historian, teacher, author, and editor who devoted her career to advocating dance as an art worthy of the same scholarly respect traditionally awarded to painting, music, and literature. She was the founding editor of the six-volume International Encyclopedia of Dance, completed in 1998. Born in Chicago, Illinois, Cohen attended the University of Chicago Laboratory School and earned bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in English literature from the university. Her doctoral dissertation focused on the poetry and religious thought of Gerard Manley Hopkins. During her studies, she developed an interest in dance history after attending ballet classes and exploring Edna McRae's library. Cohen began her career teaching English literature at the University of California, Los Angeles, but soon shifted her focus to dance. She taught and worked at the American School of Dance in Hollywood, then moved to New York to teach dance history at Hunter College and the High School of Performing Arts. She also contributed to dance publications and served as an assistant to dance critic John Martin at The New York Times. From 1962, she taught dance history at the American Dance Festival. In 1959, Cohen co-founded *Dance Perspectives*, a quarterly journal of dance history, which she edited until 1976. She continued to teach at various institutions, including the University of Chicago and Sarah Lawrence College, before undertaking the editorship of the *International Encyclopedia of Dance*. She taught at the University of California, Riverside, from 1983 to 1989. Cohen was active in numerous national and international organizations and received several honors, including a Fulbright exchange scholarship and a Guggenheim fellowship. In 1981, she received a Dance Magazine Award, the first given to a dance historian. She was a founding member of the Society of Dance History Scholars, which established the Selma Jeanne Cohen Young Scholars Program and Award in her honor. In 2000, she established the Selma Jeanne Cohen Fund for International Scholarship on Dance. Cohen lived in Greenwich Village, New York City, where she hosted gatherings for friends and colleagues. She died in 2005 of complications from Alzheimer's disease and is interred at Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York.