Gertrude Prokosch Kurath

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Gertrude Prokosch Kurath (1903-1992) was an American dancer, researcher, and musicologist. She wrote extensively on the study of dance, with her main areas of interest being ethnomusicology and dance ethnology. She made substantial contributions to the study of Amerindian dance, and to dance theory and notation. From 1958 to January 1972 she was dance editor for the journal Ethnomusicology.

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[edit] Biography

Kurath was born in August 19, 1903 in Chicago, Illinois.[1] She graduated from Bryn Mawr College, receiving a BA in 1922, and an MA in art history in 1928, concurrently studying music and dance in Berlin, Philadelphia, New York, and Providence, Rhode Island from 1922-1928. She then studied music and dance at the Yale School of Drama at Yale University, from 1929-1930. She danced under the stage name of Tula, starting in 1922. From 1923-1946 she was a teacher, performer, producer, and choreographer of modern dance. In the mid-1940s, she turned her focus to the study of American Indian dance, doing extensive fieldwork on the musical traditions of Michigan's Anishinaabe and others.[2] She was employed as a field research worker by the Wenner-Gren Foundation from 1949-1973, the American Philosophical Society from 1951-1965, and the National Museum of Canada (1962-1965, 1969-1970). She wrote about Iroquois, Pueblo, Six Nations, and Great Lakes Indian dances, as well as on the subjects of dance theory and dance notation. In 1962, she founded the Dance Research Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan.[3]

Her other scholarly interests included the fields of folk liturgy and rock music. Robert Commanday of San Francisco Chronicle praised her addition to The New Grove Dictionary of American Music,[4] saying, "For the first time in the country's history, a comprehensive survey of its music and musicians is available in a single reference work. It encompasses the spectrum, the fields of concert, opera, traditional, folk and popular music, and areas related to and touching on American music in every conceivable way - industry, technology, education, religion, literature... Two treatments must be singled out as unique and outstanding. One is the 20-page study on "Indians, American" by Bruno Nettl and Charlotte Heth on the music, Gertrude Kurath on the dance. In addition, there are separate articles on the music of nearly 40 tribes and tribal groups. Equally impressive is the 22-page article on "European-American Music," treating in sequence the musical cultures and influences here of 19 European countries."[5]

Kurath died on August 1, 1992. Her collection of research is maintained in the archive of the Cross-Cultural Dance Resources in Arizona, which published her work Half a Century of Dance Research.[6][7]

[edit] Selected works

  • Kurath, Gertrude Prokosch; Garcia, Antonio. Music and Dance of the Tewa Pueblos, 1970[8]
  • Gertrude Prokosch Kurath / Jane Ettawageshik / Fred Ettawageshik / Michael D. McNally / Frank Ettawageshik, Sacred Music, Dance, and Myth of Michigan's Anishinaabe, 1946-1955
  • Kurath, Gertrude Prokosch. Half a Century of Dance Research
  • Helm, June, Nancy Oestreich Lurie, and Gertrude Prokosch Kurath. The Dogrib Hand Game. Ottawa: [Queen's Printer], 1966.
  • Kurath, Gertrude Prokosch (Jul.-Sept. 1956). "Dance Relatives of Mid-Europe and Middle America: A Venture in Comparative Choreology". The Journal of American Folklore 69 (273, Slavic Folklore: A Symposium): 286–298. doi:10.2307/537145. ISSN 0021-8715. 
  • Kurath, Gertrude Prokosch (Apr.-Jun., 1998). "Mexican Moriscas: A Problem in Dance Acculturation". The Journal of American Folklore 62 (244): 87–106. doi:10.2307/536304. ISSN 0021-8715. 

[edit] References

  1. ^ Kealiinohomoku, Joann (Autumn 1992). "Gertrude Prokosch Kurath August 19, 1903-August 1, 1992". Dance Research Journal 24: p. 70. University of Illinois Press on behalf of Congress on Research in Dance. 
  2. ^ Art of Tradition
  3. ^ Dyen, Doris J.. Kurath, Gertrude Prokosch (Tula). phonoarchive.org. Retrieved on 2008-06-01.
  4. ^ (1986-11-03) The New Grove Dictionary of American Music (4 volumes), Grove's Dictionaries of Music, Inc., 2635 pages. 
  5. ^ Commanday, Robert. "2635 Pages of Musical Americana", The San Francisco Chronicle, 1986-11-16. 
  6. ^ Novack, Cynthia J. (Winter 1989). "Review: Half a Century of Dance Research: Essays by Gertrude Prokosch Kurath". Ethnomusicology 33: pp. 158-161. University of Illinois Press on behalf of Society for Ethnomusicology. 
  7. ^ Kaeppler, Adrienne L. (Summer, 1988). "Review: Half A Century of Dance Research by Gertrude Prokosch Kurath". Dance Research Journal 20 (1): pp. 47-48. University of Illinois Press on behalf of Congress on Research in Dance. 
  8. ^ "A few notable "Daughters of the Desert"", The Santa Fe New Mexican, 1998-04-12. 

[edit] External links