Martha Hill

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Martha Hill
Born	(1900-12-01)December 1, 1900 East Palestine, Ohio, U.S.
Died	November 19, 1995(1995-11-19) (aged 94) Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
Occupation	Dance instructor
Spouse	Thurston Davies

Martha Hill (December 1, 1900 – November 19, 1995)^[1] was one of the most influential American dance instructors in history. She was the first Director of Dance at the Juilliard School, and held that position for almost 35 years.

Early life

Hill was born in

in 1926.

Career

After arriving in New York, she studied with various dance teachers; one of note was Martha Graham who would have a lasting impact on Hill. She was hired in 1927 as Assistant Professor of Dance at the University of Oregon where Bessie Schonberg was one of Hill's students.

By 1929, Hill had saved up enough money to move back to New York. She joined the

, as Chairman of the Dance Department. She held the positions at NYU and Bennington College simultaneously until 1951.

In the summer of 1934, Hill initiated a summer dance festival on the Bennington College campus, named the "Bennington School of the Dance", which ran until 1942, with a brief interlude at

were key faculty members.

Hill received her master's degree from New York University in 1941. In 1948 she formed a School of the Dance at Connecticut College calling it the "Connecticut College School of the Dance". The new summer festival employed many of the same teachers/choreographers from the Bennington festival. Hill was a co-director of the festival until 1952. The festival was later renamed the American Dance Festival and is currently housed at Duke University in North Carolina.

In 1951, William Schuman, president of The Juilliard School, hired Hill to be the first Director of Dance.^[1] Schuman and Hill had the bold new concept of creating a training ground for dancers that would be equally split between ballet and modern dance.

Hill married Dr. Thurston Davies in 1952. Davies died in 1961.

Hill remained the director of dance at Juilliard until 1985, training generations of dancers to the highest level of technique and artistry. She continued to teach at Juilliard for several more years after stepping down as director. Her students included

, Vernon Scott, Janet Eilber, Megan Williams, Elizabeth McPherson, Rebecca Stenn, Rebecca Lazier, and Stanley Love.

Legacy

A documentary about her, Miss Hill: Making Dance Matter, directed by Greg Vander Veer and produced by the Martha Hill Dance Fund, premiered at the Dance on Camera Festival in New York City in 2014.[2]^[3][4]

References

• Much of this information was culled from primary source materials at The Juilliard Library and from audiotaped and videotaped interviews with Hill housed in the Jerome Robbins Dance Division at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.
• McPherson, Elizabeth M. (2013), The Bennington School of the Dance: A History in Writings and Interviews, McFarland,
  ISBN 9780786474172
• The Contributions of Martha Hill to American Dance and Dance Education, 1900-1995 by Elizabeth McPherson, Edwin Mellen Press, 2008. https://mellenpress.com/book/Contributions-of-Martha-Hill-to-American-Dance-and-Dance-Education-1900-1995/7358/
• Martha Hill and the Making of American Dance by Janet Mansfield Soares, Wesleyan University Press, 2009. https://www.hfsbooks.com/books/martha-hill-and-the-making-of-american-dance-soares/

Notes

External links

• The Martha Hill Dance Fund, a dance service organization promoting Martha Hill's legacy