The Bennington

School of the Dance

compiled and edited by Elizabeth McPherson

McFarland, 2013

$45, 340 pages

The Bennington School of the Dance’s first summer session in 1934 paved the way for radical choreographers, including inaugural teachers-in-residence Martha Graham, Hanya Holm, Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman. A must-read for modern dance enthusiasts and dance history students, Elizabeth McPherson’s The Bennington School of the Dance: A History in Writings and Interviews, traces the evolution of the program that became today’s internationally respected American Dance Festival. A Montclair State University assistant professor and dance writer, McPherson pored over archives and interviewed participants for firsthand accounts of the summers that provided choreographers with the resources to sustain and teach their art. Archival photos and performance programs document how the school sparked a new dance movement. —Kristin Schwab