Jean Erdman (1916–2020)

Jean Erdman, director of the Dance Program at Bard College from 1954 to 1957, died May 4. She was 104. Born and raised in Hawaii, Erdman embraced hula and other forms of world dance, was soloist in the Martha Graham Dance Company from 1938 to 1943, and collaborated with artists including composers John Cage, Henry Cowell, Lou Harrison, Louis Horst, Alan Hovanhess, Teiji Ito, and Ezra Laderman; poet e.e. cummings; visual artists Peter Max and Paul Jenkins; and filmmaker Maya Deren. She was also involved in theater, including directing and choreographing a production of William Saroyan’s Otherman or The Beginning of a New Nation at Bard in 1954. The following year she went to Japan and became the first American dancer to perform there after World War II. Erdman was married to writer-mythologist-literature professor Joseph Campbell from 1938 until his death in 1987.

Post Date: 05-04-2020