Jane Dudley, 89; Used Modern Dance as Form of Social Protest

Jane Dudley, a champion of dance as social protest who worked with modern-dance pioneer Martha Graham and became a leading teacher and choreographer in the United States and Britain, has died, news reports said. She was 89.

The Times of London said Dudley died Wednesday in the British capital, where she had lived since 1970. No cause of death was given.

Born in New York in 1912, she began dancing at the age of 6, when her mother decided she needed to be more graceful. In her late teens, the young performer entered a new school formed by German Expressionist dancer Mary Wigman.

In 1942, Dudley helped found an informal collective of dancers with left-wing sympathies called the New Dance Group, which offered low tuition and inexpensive performances to make dance accessible to poorer workers.

Under titles like “In the Life of a Worker” and “Women of Spain,” Dudley’s works were often a form of social and political protest against the ravages of the Depression and the Spanish Civil War.

Among the better-known works Dudley presented for the New Dance Group was the blues solo “Harmonica Breakdown,” widely interpreted as a cry of desperation from the Dust Bowl.

Dudley became a member of Graham’s group in 1936, dancing there regularly for 10 years and later appearing as guest artist. Graham created several roles for Dudley, including one of the sisters in “Deaths and Entrances,” inspired by the Bronte sisters, and the Ancestress in “Letter to the World,” a meditation on the life and poetry of Emily Dickinson.

In 1942, Dudley formed a trio with fellow New Dance Group members Sophie Maslow and William Bales, and they toured with ballets that they wrote individually and collectively.

Arthritis compelled Dudley to cut back on her performances in the 1950s, and she taught at Graham’s school and elsewhere before becoming director of the Batsheva Dance Company in Tel Aviv in 1968. She led the company on its first foreign tours, to critical acclaim.

In 1970, she became director of contemporary dance studies at the London School of Contemporary Dance, founded by Graham patron Robin Howard to further modern dance in Britain. During the 20 years Dudley held this post, she taught technique and dance studies, and the methods of Graham collaborator Louis Horst.

Although arthritis restricted her activities in later years, Dudley continued to choreograph, appearing in “Dancing Inside,” a film about her work that was shown last year at the “Dance on Camera” festival at New York’s Lincoln Center.

Dudley was divorced from her husband, filmmaker Leo Hurwitz, who died in 1991. She is survived by a son, Tom Hurwitz.

Funeral arrangements were pending.