70 Years of Juilliard Dance

We’re paying tribute to four Juilliard anniversaries this year—20 years of Juilliard Jazz, 30 of the Music Advancement Program (MAP), 70 of Juilliard Dance, and 75 of the Juilliard String Quartet.

We will be posting articles about all four throughout the year, some of which, including this one, are adapted from exhibits in the Larkin Lobby of the Diamond building at Juilliard.

Juilliard Dance presents New Dances: Edition 2021 from December 8 to 12.

Juilliard Dance 1951-2021

As I look at the anniversary exhibition photographs, I think of Martha Hill (founding director, faculty 1951–95), who was a pioneer in dance education. She set a new standard for dance conservatories, training her students in ballet and various styles of modern dance. From the first years of the program, the dancers gained valuable tools to not only perform, but to choreograph and collaborate with their fellow music peers. Hill successfully recruited the world’s most renowned teaching artists to the faculty, including Martha Graham (1951–77), José Limón (1951–72), Donald McKayle (1957–64), and Antony Tudor (1951–71), to name a few. The photographs also show that Hill’s program was racially integrated from its inception, at a time when there were still so many barriers preventing dancers of color from training in ballet and modern dance.

In fact, the very word integration, broadly understood, underlies and describes the entire Juilliard Dance experience. It’s rare to find a group of dancers who embody such a versatile movement vocabulary. Our students aren’t simply adept in a range of styles because of their talents or personal interests; they are studied in those styles and they continue to innovate the field of dance upon graduation. The possibilities for Juilliard dancers are limitless.

—Alicia Graf Mack, dean and director of the Dance Division