Nadia Chilkovsky Nahumck

Nadia Chilkovsky Nahumck (born January 8, 1908, Kiev, Tsarist Russia - died April 23, 2006) was a pioneer in modern dance, dance pedagogy and Labanotation.

History

She began her dance studies in Philadelphia in 1924 at the studio of Riva Hoffman, a proponent of Isadora Duncan's dance style. Nahumck danced with the Irma Duncan company from 1930–1931 and was well known as a premier Duncan dancer. In 1929 she moved to New York and studied with Hanya Holm, Mary Wigman, Martha Graham, Louis Horst, and at the Anna Duncan studio. In 1931 she was a co-founder of the New Dance Group.

She returned from New York to Philadelphia in 1943 and in 1944 established a dance school, the Philadelphia Dance Academy, which incorporated modern, folk, ballet, Duncan and other dance traditions, as well as Labanotation. Nahumck's Philadelphia Dance Academy was absorbed by the Philadelphia College of the Performing Arts in 1977 and continues today as the University of the Arts School of Dance.

Family

Nicholas Nahumck, who married Nadia Chilkovsky in 1941, died in 1993.

References

• International Encyclopedia of Dance: A Project of Dance Perspectives, Inc. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
• Lloyd, Margaret. The Borzoi Book of Modern Dance. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1949.
• "N. C. Nahumck, 98, dance innovator". (obituary) Philadelphia Inquirer, May 1, 2006, page B14.
• Foulkes, Julia L. "'Angels Rewolt!': Jewish Women in Modern Dance in the 1930s." American Jewish History, v. 88, no. 2 (June 2000), p. 233-252.
• Kevles, Barbara. "A 20th Century School of Dance." Dance Magazine, v. 38 (May 1964), p. 20-22.
• Nahumck biography at the University of the Arts website