Celebrating Danspace’s 50th Anniversary

The Natural History of the American Dancer collective has been largely forgotten, but this improvisational ensemble of women, founded in 1971 by Barbara (Lloyd) Dilley and others, were the first performers at Danspace Project in 1974. Poet Larry Fagin told the New Yorker in 1999, that their performance birthed St. Mark’s Danspace Project in 1974. 

On the 50th anniversary of Danspace Project, the Library for the Performing Arts celebrates the seminal and iconic dance presenting organization with a discussion on archival footage featuring Danspace's co-founders: Barbara Dilley and Mary Overlie, plus the other four members of the Natural History of the American Dancer—Cynthia Hedstrom, Carmen Beuchat, Judy Padow, and Suzanne Harris, and Danspace Executive Director & Chief Curator, Judy Hussie-Taylor.

Photo Credit: Grand Union. Photo by Susan Horwitz. Jerome Robbins Dance Division.

SEATING POLICY | Programs are free and open to all, but registration is requested. Check-in line forms 45 minutes before the advertised start time. Registered guests are given priority check-in 15 to 30 minutes before start time. Five minutes before the advertised start time, all seats are released, regardless of registration, to our patrons in the stand-by line. If you arrive after the program starts, you will be seated at the discretion of our front-of-house staff.

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