Anna Sokolow: The Rebel

Anna Sokolow was a ground-breaking contemporary dance artist who believed dance was more than entertainment. Her works were often political and explored the human stuggles in society. She was an individualist who valued change and viewed a non-conformist approach to modern dance. She is a key figure in the modern dance development in Mexico and Israel. She also brought her works to Broadway and Off-Broadway productions. She often found inspiration in her Jewish roots and explored Jewish themes, rituals, and the Holocaust. Sokolow's dramatic movement is stripped of fabrication and expresses raw human conflict.

"Do what you feel you are, not what you think you want to be. Go ahead and be a bastard. Then you can be an artist."

Sokolow's Lineage

Anna Sokolow was born on February 9, 1910, in Hartford, Connecticut. Her parents were immigrants from Pinsk, Russia and like many other immigrants in the early 1900s; they had a difficult time adjusting to American life. At ten years old, Anna and her older sister Rose started taking dance classes sponsored by the Emanuel Sisterhood of Personal Service. The dance they learned was interpretive dancing influenced by dance pioneer Isadora Duncan. Anna stated that she quickly “fell madly in love with dancing.”

When Anna reached fifteen years old, she had already learned everything she could from her teachers at the Sisterhood. The sent her to continue her training at the Neighborhood Playhouse, one of the first major “Off-Broadway” theaters. At this age, Anna had already moved out of her house and dropped out of school. She supported herself by working in factories. In 1928, the Playhouse opened into a professional School of the Theater. Dancer Martha Graham and composer Louis Horst revolutionized the dance training at the Playhouse.

Sokolow finished her training at the Playhouse and joined Martha Graham’s company in 1929 at 19 years old. For the next decade Sokolow studied and danced with Graham in some of her most influential works like Primitive Mysteries (1931) and Celebration (1934). Graham and Sokolow had a difficult relationship because they had different focuses in concert dance. Sokolow wanted to explore her own Russian-Jewish background and Graham was consumed with finding the American form of dance. In approximately 1938, Anna Sokolow left the Graham Company with a bit of tension; however, she maintained her relationship with Louis Horst who was the most influential figure in her dance development. He encouraged her to explore her own ideas and she often look to him for approval.

"From the very first day I studied with Louis Horst, I knew that for me, it wasn't just enough to be a soloist. His way of working introduced us to music. Because you know a lot of dancers don't know anything about music, to this day. They hear it, it goes in one ear and out the other. But this man made us aware of the significance and the beauty of music, all kinds of music.

"Even today I think, 'Would Louis Horst like this? Would Louis Horst like this?' He had impeccable taste, and he was probably one of the most truthful people in the dance world. He never, never lied. He was never polite, but he was noble."

Sokolow became a strong figure in the “radical dance movement” and searched for a new revolutionary approach to concert dance. She found inspiration in cultural events and created dances to provoke societal change. Through her dramatic works, Sokolow aimed to inspire the audience to resolve crises such as the Depression, World War II, and fascism. Her pieces also explored Jewish history and their strength and courage during the Holocaust.

"Most people feel that have to 'fix' a dance, they have to make it 'neat.' No-it's better to have disordered life, but to have life. The modern dance is an individual quest for an individual expression of life."

Dreams 1961

Anna Sokolow choreographed Dreams in 1961 and based the piece on horrors from the Holocaust and concentration camps in WWII. Like Martha Graham, Sokolow was not afraid to enter the darker side of dance often portraying the struggles and injustices of human life. When I watched Dreams I had goosebumps and was captivated by the honest movement. In the beginning, a woman opens her mouth wide as if she was screaming, but she doesn’t make a sound. Sokolow’s use of stillness and silence in this dance is superb and gives the piece a raw, human quality. There are percussive sounds and rhythms in the piece with breath, stomps, and sticks. The quality that seemed the most prominent to me about this piece was how believable and realistic it is. I did not see dancers acting, I saw humans suffering.

I admire Anna Sokolow's ability to dig into the social injustices of our world and formulate powerful dances that the audience can experience and relate to. I also love her movement in “Dreams.” She brilliantly balances stillness and chaos as well as fluid and tense movements. In a newspaper from 1965, Allen Hughes writes,

“One of Miss Sokolow’s greatest gifts is that of being able to incorporate “found”

movements in her choreography as contemporary painters and sculptors use “found” objects in their works.” Her work has meaning and purpose in the choreography and acting and even audiences who are not educated in dance can relate to the experiences. From the book Anna Sokolow: The Rebelious Spirit, William Baled states, “Anna Sokolow has been called the rebel of the contemporary dance world throughout her career because she has rebelled against any dictum that prevented the individual artist from developing a personal vision of the content and form of his or her art.”

Influences on Sokolow's Work

Anna choreographed Dreams in the early 1960s, which was movement away from the conservative 50s and the age of youth. This movement resulted in revolutionary ways of thinking and changed the American cultural lifestyle. Also, the Civil Rights Movement created great change in the 1960s. In 1954, the Brown v. Board of Education declared segregation in public schools as unconstitutional, which catapulted the Civil Rights Movement. This movement affected Anna Sokolow, especially as a Jewish American. She connected the struggle for civil rights in America to the tragedy of the Holocaust. She states, “I can’t explain because I have never been in that situation ever but the thing (Holocaust) hit me so deeply that I found myself saying that I’m going to do this.”

The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) was created in 1952. This act upheld the national origin quota system established by the Immigration Act of 1924, which reinforced the system of immigrant selection. The INA ended the exclusion of Asians from immigration into the U.S. and introduced a new system of preference based on skill sets and family reunification. This selective process for immigrants could have affected Anna Sokolow since her mother was a struggling working class American who emigrated from Russia. Perhaps she felt the INA continued to segregate and discriminate immigrants. This event could have also influenced Sokolow’s creation of Dreams. She had the ability to dig into the social injustices of the world and formulate powerful dances that the audience could experience and relate to. Sokolow states, “In Holland, it was the most fantastic reaction, there was no applause. People just sat and rightly so because there is nothing to applaud on a theme like that.”

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were American communists who were electrocuted in 1953 after being found guilty to commit espionage. This occurred during the period of Cold War in which the United States and Russia were in a continuing state of political conflict, military tension, and economic tension. Perhaps this event affected Anna Sokolow and her political activism. She believed people should stand firm to their beliefs and belong to society without feeling to need to conform to it. Therefore, we can infer that she believed the charges of the Rosenberg trial to be unconstitutional. This could have inspired her to choreograph Dreams because the trial demonstrates the execution of Americans who did not conform to society, just like how Hitler executed the Jews and non-conformists who did not fit his perception of an ideal society.

"The artist should belong to his society, yet without feeling that he has to conform to it. He must feel that there is a place for him in society, a place for what he is. He must see life fully, and then say what he feels about it. Then, although he belongs to his society, he can change it, presenting it with fresh feelings, fresh ideas."

The Form of Sokolow's Work

Anna Sokolow was a firm believer that modern dance should be non-conformist. She believed the strength of modern dance is in its lack of tradition and its constant growth and change. Sokolow stated, “There must be form as well as concept.” First the choreographer has a spontaneous vision for the dance through movement; just as any artist is initially inspired. These movements are not intellectually developed but are evoked by emotional images. The intellectual process is putting these movements together into a form that works as a whole. Sokolow believed that a sense of form can be learned but there are no rules.

“I don’t like elaborated design. I like naked structure. In the theatre, I am anti-décor and anti-costume.”

Sokolow stripped away the decoration of dance and was willing for it to be ugly and unentertaining. She firmly believed that “progress in art comes through the quest for new forms.” She admired the artists who broke away from the traditional forms in order to find an abstraction from reality; a pure form with life as its main source. “True form comes from reducing reality to its essential shape.” Sokolow’s form is pure, stripped down to the bare essentials, which makes it beautiful.

Sokolow's Legacy

Sokolow’s work has greatly impacted concert dance in our present time. She shifted modern dance by connecting its purpose to society in order to provoke change. To her dance is life, and it is an outlet to inspire the audience and change society. Her powerful contributions to modern dance have impacted actors and dancers like Robin Williams and Alvin Ailey. The Sokolow Dance Foundation was established in 2003 and it is dedicated to preserving, educating, and presenting the legacy of Anna Sokolow.

"I became a dancer because of the pure joy and spirit of dance. I remained in the field ever since because such pioneers as Anna Sokolow showed me the deep commitment and intense humanism that dance is capable of expressing. Her indomitable spirit, her courage, her uncompromising truths are beacons not only for the dance world but for all humankind."

-Gerald Arpino, artistic director of the Joffrey Ballet from 1995 to 2007.

Anna Sokolow passed away on March 29, 2000 at the age of 90. Her rebellious, non-conformist view on modern dance has opened opportunities for many artists to explore new ideas and create pure, beautiful art.

"My works never have real endings; they just stop and fade out, because I don't believe there is any final solution to the problems we have today. All I can do is provoke the audience into an awareness of them."