Cover of the Martha Hill Memorial Tribute Program. (Photo by Jane Rady)

1996 Juilliard celebrated the life of Martha Hill, the founder and longtime director of the Dance Division, with a memorial tribute on September 30, 1996. The program included guest appearances by the dance companies of Martha Graham (Lamentation, El Penitente), José Limón (There Is a Time), and Paul Taylor (his A Musical Offering and Tudor's Dark Elegies), in addition to choreography by Juilliard students Philip Colucci, Amber Merkins, Adam Hougland, Asha Thomas, and Gelan Lambert.

Symposium panelists Janet Soars (in foreground), Linda Kent, and Daniel Louis. (Photo by Julie Lemberger)

President Joseph W. Polisi and Benjamin Harkarvy, the Dance Division's director from 1992-2002, gave personal addresses, and alumni Daniel Lewis, Bonnie Oda Homsey, and Dennis Nahat also offered reminiscences. Before the performance tribute, a symposium on Miss Hill's contributions to 20th-century dance was held; Madeleine Nichols, then curator of the Dance Collection (now the Jerome Robbins Dance Division) at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, moderated a panel discussion with Janet Soares, Ethel Winter, Bessie Schönberg, Margot Lehman, Daniel Lewis, Linda Kent, Laura Glenn, and June Dunbar. Juilliard's Lila Acheson Wallace Library displayed an exhibition of photographs and memorabilia documenting Miss Hill's career.

Jeni Dahmus is Juilliard's archivist.