Memorial For Elizabeth Sherbon - American dancer and dance instructor - Brief Article - Obituary

Dance Magazine, March, 2001 by Janet Hamburg

Tributes from Jean Erdman, Bill Evans and Bella Lewitzky were among those read at a memorial celebration for Elizabeth Sherbon, a former member of the Martha Graham and the Jean Erdman dance companies. She co-founded the American Dance Symposia (1968-1972), which the National Endowment for the Arts called the "most innovative and important summer program to surface since Bennington."

Sherbon was 92 when she died June 7. The memorial celebration took place November 4 at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, where she was a professor of dance from 1961 to 1975.

Sherbon attended Denishawn in 1931 and Bennington in Vermont during the summers of 1934 and 1935. She moved to New York City to perform with the Martha Graham Dance Company, appearing in Primitive Mysteries and Celebration, among other works, from 1937 to 1940. She also served as Graham's teaching assistant. She performed in Hanya Holm's Trend in 1937-38. From 1942 to 1954, she performed in Erdman's company. Her book, On the Count of One, is a catechism for beginning dance and movement teachers.

The celebration began with a memorial dance concert in the Elizabeth Sherbon Dance Theatre. Dance faculty members and scholarship students performed, including the resident dance company, Cohan/Suzeau. The celebration continued with a reception where former colleagues, students and friends shared remembrances. Lewitzky said in hers, "I first heard of this 'mad' woman because she called a group of professional dance artists from all over the United States to come to Wichita [Kansas] for the American Dance Symposia, and all of us came. Her thinking was bold, and what she thought, she practiced."