Dancers Lost in 2023
JANUARY
4 - Arthur Duncan (born September 25, 1925) is best known as a gifted tap dancer who performed on the Betty White TV variety show, with Bob Hope’s USO tours in the 1950s, and on the Lawrence Welk TV show from 1964-1982.
13 - Modern dancer, choreographer and educator Rena Gluck (born January 14, 1933) helped found the Batsheva modern dance company in Israel, the first company allowed to perform the works of Martha Graham (1894-1991) outside of the Graham company.
15 - Jean Veloz (born March 1, 1924) is best known as a lindy hop dancer who performed in several B movies in the 1940s and performed with Latin-style ballroom dancer Frank Veloz (1906-1981) in the 1960s, whom she married.
16 - Lupe Serrano (born December 7, 1930) is known as the first Latina ballerina to be hired by American Ballet Theatre in 1953, performing in pieces by George Balanchine (1904-1983) and Jerome Robbins (1918-1998), until retiring in 1974.
17 - Gino Landi (born August 2, 1933) was one of the most famous and prolific choreographers for television, theatre, and television in Italy during the 20th century.
20 - Olivia Geerolf (born 1950) was a Belgian choreographer who founded the Bruge Ballet School in 1970 and choreographed the Procession of the Holy Blood, a UNESCO protected celebration, from 1971-2015.
21 - Ming Wei Ma - was the beloved owner/teacher at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio. He was killed in the Monterey Park mass shooting during a celebration of the Lunar New Year. Dance enthusiasts Nancy Liu and My Nhan also died in the attack.
26 - Attilio Labis (born September 5, 1936) was a French ballet dancer, teacher, and choreographer who performed with the Paris Opera from 1952-1972 and went on to teach the company and encourage the performance of a pirouette turn with the toe lifted to the knee versus the older style position at the ankle.
FEBRUARY
17 - Michaël Denard (born November 5, 1944) is best known for dancing with the Paris Opera ballet from 1966-1989, notably in the works of Pierre Lacotte (1932-2023) - see his entry, below in April.
17 - Ballerina Elissa Minet Fuchs (born March 10, 1919) danced with the Metropolitan Opera ballet company from 1938-1950, founded the Baton Rouge Ballet Theatre in the 1950s and worked with the Greensboro Ballet in North Carolina.
20 - Actor/dancer Bela Bose (born January 1, 1943?) initially began dancing in films to help out her family financially, appearing in over 30 films during her career, including Shikar (1968) and Jai Santoshi Maa (1975).
22 - Kabuki dancer Fujima Kansuma (aka Sumako Hamaguchi, born May 9, 1918) relocated to Japan from San Francisco in 1934 to study. Upon being released from the Japanese Internment camps following WWII, she opened a studio in Los Angeles and worked on projects with Walt Disney.
22 - Indian dancer Kanak Rele (born June 11, 1937) is best known for championing the classical technique of Mohiniyattam, for creating a notation system for the dance, and for writing several books on the subject of dance.
24 - Norwegian dancer and choreographer Edith Roger (born May 29, 1922) performed with Norwegian National Opera and Ballet.
MARCH
6 - Masum Babul (born December 31, 1962) was a Bangladeshi film dance director and choreographer with a great many credits to his name. He won the Bangladesh National Film award for choreography for the films Dola (1993) and Ki Jadu Karila (2008).
7 - Ballerina Lynn Seymour (born March 8, 1939) danced for the Royal Ballet between 1958 and 1981, often in works by Kenneth MacMillan (1929-1992), and she also guested at many other companies and was often paired with Rudolf Nureyev (1938-1993).
15 - Modern dancer Stuart Hodes (born November 27, 1924) performed with Martha Graham (1894-1991) in the 1940s and 1950s, following his service in WWII, and you can see him in the filmed version of Appalachian Spring.
29 - Contemporary dancer/choreographer Jennifer Muller (born October 16, 1944) created dances for Louis Falco (1942-1993) and founded The Works company in 1974, touring internationally, teaching, and creating community amongst her students and other choreographers.
30 - Royal Academy of Dance-trained ballet dancer Martin Rubinstein (born October 25, 1924) performed with the Borovansky Ballet (later The Australian Ballet) and became an RAD examiner and respected dance figure in Australia.
APRIL
2 - Burlesque dancer Satin Doll, aka Toni Elling, (born May 13, 1928) got into the field in 1960 while working an unsatisfactory job, and danced until retiring in 1974. She believed in following the ‘tease’ in strip tease, preferring to preserve the mystery.
7 - Indian dancer Kalamandalam Devaki (born November 25, 1946) became the first female practitioner of Ottan Thullal, a recite-and-dance form mostly performed by men, in 1960, later teaching the form as a recognized maestro.
9 - Contemporary dancer Valda Setterfield (born September 17, 1934) is best known for performing with Merce Cunningham (1919-2009) and for dancing for and collaborating with her husband and fellow dancer/choreographer David Gordon (1961-2022)
10 - French ballet dancer and choreographer Pierre Lacotte (born April 4, 1932) is best known for researching and restaging 19th century ballets for the Paris Opera Ballet and other companies, and for helping fellow dancer Rudolf Nureyev (1938-1993) defect from the Soviet Union in 1961.
18 - Ballet dancer and singer Väino Aren (born August 11, 1933) danced with the Estonian Theatre from 1950-1971, and continued as a singer from 1971-1978.
19 - Singer/actor/dancer Moonbin (born January 26, 1998) was part of the Korean boy band Astro and had recently begun a sub-group Moonbin and Sanha and was part of the cast of Saturday Night Live Korea.
22 - Champion ballroom dancer Len Goodman (born April 25, 1944) is best known as a judge on the TV shows Dancing with the Stars (2005-2022) and Strictly Come Dancing (from 2004-2016).
26 - Dee Dee Wood (born June 7, 1927) is best known for choreographing the movies Mary Poppins (1964), The Sound of Music (1965), and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968).
MAY
17 - Taiwanese choreographer and dance researcher Liu Feng-shueh (born 1925) was the first person to earn a doctorate in dance and she spent her career staging dances and researching Taiwanese indigenous dances, dance during the Tang Dynasty, and modern dance.
19 - Slovenian ethnochoreologist Mirko Ramovš (born October 5, 1935) directed the France Marolt Student Folkdance Group and lectured on folk dance at the University of Ljublijana.
21 - Choreographer Dougie Squires (born February 16, 1932) created work for BBC - TV shows in the UK beginning in the 1950s, heading groups including The Young Generation, who danced on The Rolf Harris Show, Show of the Week, and the International Cabaret.
JUNE
8 - Dancer Kerri-Anne Donaldson (born 1985?) joined the cast of the Irish Dancing with the Stars in 2019 after dancing with the group Kings and Queens, which appeared on Britain’s Got Talent in 2014.
11- Egyptian ballerina Magda Saleh (born April 2, 1944) studied dance in Moscow and was a founding member of the Cairo Opera ballet company and moved between Egypt and the United States during her career.
14 - Editor and balletomane Robert Gottlieb (born April 29, 1931) published a great many dance books through the Knopf company, wrote dance criticism for The New York Observer, served on the Board of the NYCB, and wrote a biography of George Balanchine (1904-1983).
27 - Known mostly as a singer, Carmen Sevilla (born October 16, 1930) danced from an early age and appeared in both Spanish and American movies during the Golden Age of Hollywood, including Vengeance (1958), the first Spanish film to be nominated for the Foreign Film Academy Award.
28 - Wheelchair dancer Paula Moulton (born 1971?) appeared on the TV show Britain’s Got Talent in 2012 paired with her dance partner Gary Lyness, and co-founded the group Strictly Wheels in 2016 to provide classes and bring awareness to wheelchair dancing.
JULY
4 - Ballet dancer Chris McKennon (born 1957?) was a beloved teacher who relocated to Miami in the 1980s after performing with Dance Theatre of Harlem, ABT, NYCB, and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre.
6 - Ballerina Regina Plokstis (born February 25, 1939) performed with Ballet Rambert before returning to Australia to dance with the last iteration of the Borovansky Ballet and opening a studio near Melbourne.
14 - Nishikawa Senzo (born 1928?) was a Japanese traditional Nihon Buyo dancer, who began performing at the age of 5 and founded the Nihon Buyo Foundation to support the preservation of the dance form in 1990.
23 - Original A Chorus Line dancer Pamela Blair (born December 5, 1949) was the first to play the role of Val, a character who resorted to plastic surgery enhancements to get Broadway dance jobs. She also appeared in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and on several soap operas, TV shows, and in the movie Annie (1982).
24 - Dancer Ethel Bruneau (born 1936?) was called the tap dancing queen of Montreal, performing in all the local nightclubs and spent her later years teaching students at her studio.
29 - Canadian dancer Danny Grossman (born September 13, 1942) performed with Paul Taylor (1930-2018) for a decade before founding his own company and producing politically-tinged dance works.
29 - Vogue dancer and choreographer O'Shae Sibley (born September 1, 1994) studied at Philadanco and danced during the Black Lives Matter protests, was killed while dancing at a gas station.
31 - Argentinian dancer/choreographer María Fux (born January 2, 1922) developed a dance therapy training system and wrote multiple books on the subject.
AUGUST
1 - Dancer/choreographer Annabelle Gamson (born August 6, 1928) danced on Broadway and in the works of both modern and ballet choreographers, but she is perhaps best known for her work studying, recreating, and performing the works of Isadora Duncan (1877-1927), dispelling the myth that Duncan’s dances were entirely improvised.
7? - DJ Casper (Willie Perry, Jr., born May 31, 1965) created the Cha Cha Slide song and accompanying dance in the early 2000. The line dance has become a staple at weddings, parties, and other events.
11 - Modern dancer/choreographer Gus Solomons Jr. (born August 27, 1938) began dancing in college, while still an Architecture student at MIT, and performed with Merce Cunningham (1919-2009) before starting his own company in 1972 and later becoming a published dance critic.
16 - South African ballet dancer Johaar Mosaval (born January 28, 1928) escaped Apartheid practices in his home country to dance with the Royal Ballet from 1951-1975, returning to Cape Town afterwards to support the cause for integration in the arts..
23 - Myra Jean Woodruff (Aug 11, 1958) danced with the Longview Ballet as a teenager and with Martha Graham for 20+ years before teaching at the Bejart School in Switzerland and at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.
SEPTEMBER
1 - Jack Pointer Mackenzie (born 1988?) was a back-up dancer for the UK boy band JLS from 2009-2021 and also worked with Justin Bieber and Katy Perry.
9 - Danish dance historian and critic Erik Aschengreen (born August 31, 1935) wrote for the Berlingske Tidende newspaper for more than 40 years, published multiple books, and lectured on Danish ballet history in Denmark and the United States.
14 - Kenneth Tillson (born January 31, 1930) danced with Ballet Rambert and appeared on TV and in movies, including Fire Down Below (1957), and is best known for joining the Borovansky Ballet from 1960 onwards (later The Australian Ballet) into the early 1980s.
17 - French dancer, choreographer, and musician Catherine May Atlani (born May 12, 1946) founded La Ballet de la Cité in 1967 and toured in France until settling in Paris to co-direct Café de la Danse in 1985.
20 - Bangladeshi dancer and television actress Zeenat Barkatullah (born 1951?) appeared in over 80 TV productions and was named one of the directors of the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy in 2002.
21- Indian Bharatanatyam dancer Saroja Vaidyanathan (born September 19, 1937) gave up performing publicly after marriage and focused instead on teaching children, choreographing works, and writing books on Bharatanatyam.
29 - Minimalist choreographer Rudy Perez (born November 24, 1929) was part of the Judson Dance Theatre group in the 1960s and continued creating multidisciplinary works featuring pedestrian movement in Los Angeles after being hired by the University of California and forming his own company.
29 - Choreographer/teacher Yacov Sharir (born August 22, 1940) danced with Batsheva in Israel before relocating to Austin and teaching at the University of Texas while leading the Sharir Dance Company (aka Sharir + Bustamante Danceworks) from 1982-2007.
OCTOBER
2 - Indian dancer Satyaram Reang (born 1943) is best known for his contribution to the preservation of Hojagiri Dance, performed by the Tripuri people in northeastern India.
2 - Black ballerina Delores Browne (born ?) was trained during segregation in the 1950s and performed with black ballet companies and with black contemporary dance artists, but was never hired by white dance companies. She dedicated herself to teaching and commuted between the Ailey School in NYC and in Philadelphia for over 40 years.
2 - Tap dancer Barbara Phillips (born February 21, 1955) was the creative force behind the Third Coast Rhythm Project in San Antonio, Texas.
4 - Heart Uy (born October 29, 2004) is best known for dancing with the Filipino hip hop group Upeepz since the age of 10 and appeared on the World of Dance TV show.
10 - Academic Graham McFee (born 1951) specialized in the areas of aesthetics, dance, and dance education at the University of Brighton and California State University, Fullerton, authoring many books and numerous papers.
11- Australian choreographer Ian Spink (born October 8, 1947) danced with the Australian Ballet and Merce Cunningham (1919-2009) before relocating to London and founding Second Stride in 1982 with Siobhan Davies (1950-) and Richard Alston (1948-).
12 - Kevin Wynn (born May 6, 1956) danced with José Limón (1908-1972) and Dianne McIntyre (1946-) and taught contemporary dance at the Conservatory of Dance at Purchase college for over 30 years, inspiring other dance artists such as choreographer Kyle Abraham (1977-) and vogue artist Jason Rodriguez (1990-).
13 - Spanish classical dancer Sonia del Rio (born January 29, 1940) performed with luminaries Pilar Lopez (1912-2008) and Jose Greco (1918-2000) and spent many years splitting her time between Spain, France, and Quebec as a choreographer.
14 - Arthur Leeth (born February 5, 1953) - danced for Boston Ballet from 1976-1989 before taking on the role of the company’s ballet master and music librarian, later teaching at the Dance Complex in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
20 - Dance critic and historian Jack Anderson (born June 15, 1935) wrote many books on dance and reviewed performances for the New York Times and Dance Magazine beginning in the late 1950s.
23 - Finnish dance teacher Aira Samulin (born September 27, 1927) is best known for founding a fashion dance school called Rhythmical Mannequins in the 1960s.
26 - New Zealand ballet dancer Jon Trimmer (born September 18, 1939) performed with the New Zealand Ballet Company in the 1950s and later with the Royal Danish Ballet and Australian Ballet companies, returning later to help revive the Royal New Zealand Ballet in the 1970s.
30? - Polish dancer Cezary Olszewski (born 1981?) is best known for performing on the TV show Dancing with the Stars (UK) from 2008-2010, winning series 7 with hs partner Magdalena Walach.
NOVEMBER
11 - Spanish Romani flamenco dancer/singer Angelita Vargas (born 1946) began dancing at the age of three and performed all over the globe, particularly at the Flamenco Puro show (which was featured on Broadway) and she presented he own group at the 1998 Expo in Lisbon.
12 - British dancer and activist Joan Jara (born July 20, 1927) danced for the Chilean National Ballet and dedicated the remainder of her career to furthering the memory of her husband, Victor Jara, a theatre director and folklorist/musician who was killed during the 1973 coup.
DECEMBER
2 - Childhood polio patient and beloved teacher Janet Panetta (born December 12, 1948) was best known for teaching ballet to contemporary dancers and for working with Pina Bausch’s Tanztheatre Wuppertal company for two decades.
8 - Former Kansas City ballet dancer Robert Skafte (born 1957?) performed with the company 1984-1994 and will be remembered for his mesmerizing stage presence and for also dancing with the Ballet of the Dolls in Minneapolis.
18 - Russian dancer Dmitriy Krasilov, aka Pukhlyash (born June 22, 1994) is best known for dancing in the music video, UNO, for the group Little Big, representing Russia at the Eurovision Contest of 2020, which was canceled due to the pandemic.
18 - Ballet dancer/choreographer Valery Lagunov (born June 2, 1942) performed with the Bolshoi Ballet from 1962-1983, afterwards teaching and serving as a repetiteur at the Bolshoi school.
19 - French dancer/choreographer and musician Philippe Oyhamburu (born 1921) was a proponent of Basque dance culture and he founded the performing group Etorki.
29 - Tap dancer Maurice Hines (born December 13, 1943) was the older brother of tap dancer Gregory Hines (1946-2003) and for a while they performed as a duo. He later appeared in many Broadway shows, including Eubie! (1978) and Sophisticated Ladies (1981).
