Sokolow, Anna

born Feb. 9, 1910, Hartford, Conn., U.S.

died March 29, 2000, New York, N.Y.

U.S. modern dancer, choreographer, and teacher.

She studied with Martha Graham and danced with Graham's company (1930–38). In the early 1930s she also formed her own dance group, the Dance Unit. From 1939 to 1949 she spent part of each year as a teacher and choreographer in Mexico City, where she formed Mexico's first modern-dance group. Throughout her career and into the 1990s, she continued to form various companies and for them she often choreographed works on subjects of social concern.

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▪ 2001

      American dancer, choreographer, and teacher (b. Feb. 9, 1910, Hartford, Conn.—d. March 29, 2000, New York, N.Y.), created influential dramatic modern-dance works that often reflected the loneliness and alienation engendered by contemporary urban life and that often were punctuated with confrontational glares that the dancers directed at the audience. She taught and choreographed internationally, and her dances found expression in a number of prominent companies, as well as in musical theatre. Sokolow received her early dance training in a cultural centre on New York City's Lower East Side—Martha Graham was one of her teachers—and she later also studied ballet. She danced with Graham's company from 1930 to 1938 and during part of that time also had her own troupe, the Dance Unit. In 1939 she traveled to Mexico to perform and stayed on long enough to found a company. She returned there often, and in 1953 she also began visiting Israel to advise, teach, and choreograph. Perhaps Sokolow's best-known work was Rooms (1955), in which chairs served as symbols of the characters' isolation. With Rooms she became the first modern-dance choreographer to have a work presented on national television, and the dance also appeared in the short film Rooms (1966). Among the musicals that featured Sokolow's choreography were Street Scene (1947), Regina (1949), Candide (1956), and the Off-Broadway Hair (1967), although she withdrew from Hair before its opening. Sokolow continued working well into the 1990s and directed her own company in New York City, the Players' Project, choreographing for it works such as September Sonnet (1995).

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