Biography of helen tamiris

Helen Tamiris (1903-1966) was one of the founders of modern dance in the United States. Trained in ballet and influenced by social issues of the 1920s and 1930s, she developed the concert dance form of modern dance. A white woman, Tamiris choreographed eight dances that were known as the Negro Spirituals between 1928 and 1941, which rank among her finest and most often restaged works. Later in her career, she entered musical theater and choreographed Broadway plays such as Annie Get Your Gun and Showboat. She received the Antoinette Perry Award in 1949 for best choreography for Touch and Go. After co-founding the Tamiris-Nagrin Dance Company with her husband, Daniel Nagrin, in 1960, Tamiris continued to teach and dance until her death in 1966.

Studied Rigid Ballet Techniques

Born Helen Becker on April 24, 1903, in New York City to parents who emigrated from Russia, Tamiris grew up on the Lower East Side of New York City. At the age of eight, she began studying dance with Irene Lewisohn at the Henry Street Settlement then studied with the children's chorus of the Metropolitan Opera Company and later learned Italian ballet techniques at the Met. From 1918 to 1920 she studied modern dance at the Neighborhood Playhouse before the Playhouse began to teach the style of Louis Horst.

Tamiris also studied natural dancing at an Isadora Duncan studio but disliked its emphasis on personal expression and lyrical movements. Restless at the studio, she soon left to develop her own approach to dance, a quest that would make her one of the pioneers in modern dance. She spent a couple of years as a specialty dancer playing in stage shows of movie houses and making nightclub appearances.

In 1922, Bracale Opera Company borrowed Tamiris from the Met to dance lead solo ballet in its productions that toured South America. Traveling outside the United States exposed her to international dance forms. When she returned to New York, she resigned from the Met and aba

Art is international but the artist is a product of a nationality. . . . There are no general rules. Each original work of art creates its own code. – Helen Tamiris 1928

Born April 24, 1905, New York, NY.. Died Died Aug. 4, 1966, New York City, NY.
Helen Tamiris, born Helen Becker, originally trained in free movement at the Henry Street Settlement in New York. She danced with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet and the Bracale Opera Company before studying briefly with Michel Fokine and with a disciple of Isadora Duncan. In 1927, she made her premiere as a solo modern dancer and two years later formed her own school and company. Concerned with establishing modern dance as a viable art form, Tamiris was active in organizing young artists through the Concert Dancers League, Dance Repertory Theatre, Dancers Emergency Association, and American Dance Association. She also played an integral role in establishing the Federal Dance Project under the WPA. Tamiris was one of the first choreographers to use jazz and African American spirituals in her work. Many of the approximately 135 dances she choreographed between 1930 and 1945 reflected her concern for social and political inequities. Her best-known concert piece, How Long Brethren, a dance for the Federal Dance Project, depicted the despair of unemployed Southern African-Americans and was danced to Lawrence Gellert’s Negro Songs of Protest sung live by an African American chorus. Also interested in musical theater, Tamiris created dances for Annie Get Your Gun, Plain and Fancy, and Touch and Go, for which she won the Antoinette Perry Award for choreography.

Helen Tamiris' Works

TAMIRIS, HELEN (née Becker; 1905–1966), U.S. choreographer and pioneer in the development of modern dance. Helen Tamiris, who was born in New York, made her debut as a concert dancer in 1927. Her interest in American themes and rhythms was expressed in her Negro Spirituals in the 1930s and in her works of social protest. In 1930 Helen Tamiris, together with Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, and Charles Weidman, formed the Dance Repertory Theater. She served as dance director for the Group Theater in 1932. As chief choreographer of the W.P.A. Federal Dance Theater, she created How Long Brethren? (1937). She did the choreography for Broadway musicals including Annie Get Your Gun (1946). In 1957 she returned to the concert dance field. She established a company in 1960 with her husband Daniel Nagrin, who was noted for his solo portrayals and had appeared in several Broadway shows.

Sources:Encyclopaedia Judaica. © 2007 The Gale Group. All Rights Reserved.

American modern dancer and choreographer (1902/1905–1966)

Helen Tamiris (born Helen Becker; April 23, 1902 – August 4, 1966) was an American choreographer, modern dancer, and teacher.

Tamiris began her studies in modern dance at the Henry Street Settlement as a child, and began her career in the field of ballet. Tamiris refocused to modern dance, making her solo debut in 1928, with a focus on social activism. Tamiris was a leader in the Federal Theatre Project and its sister projects, arguing for modern dance as an art form, and choreographing multiple productions. In her later career, Tamiris choreographed on Broadway, winning a Tony Award in 1949 for her choreography in Touch and Go.

Early life

Tamiris was born Helen Becker in New York City on April 23, 1902, to Isor and Rose (Simonov) Becker. Her parents and brothers Maurice and Charles Becker immigrated from Nizhny Novgorod, Russia a decade earlier, fleeing pogroms. The family settled on the Lower East Side, where many other Russian Jewish immigrants lived at that time. Two more children Samuel and Peter, in addition to Helen, were born in New York City. Becker's siblings were similarly artistic. Her oldest brother Maurice became a well-known artist and illustrator; and brothers Samuel and Peter took up sculpting and art collecting, respectively. Rose died when Helen was three, leaving the family in the care of Isor.

As a child, Becker was constantly in motion, and her father enrolled her in dance classes at the Henry Street Settlement at the age