Wendy Hilton, a specialist in Baroque and Renaissance dance who taught at Juilliard from 1972 until 1994, died on September 21 in Manhattan at the age of 71.

A native of Britain, Hilton arrived in the U.S. in 1969 to direct the Dance Collegium of Rosalyn Tureck's International Bach Society in New York. Her efforts were influential in creating an interest in early dance forms in this country, beginning in the early 1970s. Hilton joined Juilliard's faculty in both the Drama and Dance Divisions in 1972, and continued teaching in the Dance Division until 1994. She began a summer workshop in Baroque music and dance at Stanford University in 1974 that has continued to be an important training ground for dancers and musicians for more than a quarter century.

Hilton was the author of the book Dance of the Court and Theatre: The French Noble Style, 1690-1725 (published in 1981), as well as numerous articles. As a dancer and choreographer in early dance styles, she worked for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, BBC-TV, the Handel Opera Society, New York Pro-Musica Antiqua, the San Francisco Opera, and the New York City Opera (where she created the dances for Thea Musgrave's Mary, Queen of Scots in 1981). Her "vivid and revealing" reconstructions of Baroque dance (as The New York Times described them) were a feature of Juilliard dance workshops and performances for many years.