February 8
Born Today:
Deborah Jowitt
Dance author/critic Deborah Jowitt (1934-) trained as a modern/contemporary dancer and appeared in the works of Doris Humphrey (1895-1958) and Anna Sokolow (1910-2000), among others. Jowitt began writing a weekly column for The Village Voice newspaper in 1967 and she serves on the faculty of Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. She has written several books, including the seminal text, Time and the Dancing Image (1989), which has often been used as a resource for dance history courses. Her writing style favors both sumptuous description and clear prose.
Also Born Today: French cabaret singer/dancer Georges Guétary (1915-1997) is best known for Stairway to Paradise number on lighted stairs in the movie An American in Paris (1951), alongside Gene Kelly (1912-1996).