Anna Sokolow

Anna Sokolow
Anna Sokolow, 1961
Born	(1910-02-09)February 9, 1910 Hartford, Connecticut
Died	March 29, 2000(2000-03-29) (aged 90) Manhattan, New York City
Occupation	modern dancer and choreographer

Anna Sokolow (February 9, 1910, Hartford, Connecticut – March 29, 2000 in Manhattan, New York City was an American dancer and choreographer. She was also a co-founder of the Actors Studio.

Sokolow began studying dance and performing with instructors at the Emanuel Sisterhood Settlement House; in early adolescence, she left school to train full-time. She began studying in earnest at what became the Neighborhood Playhouse, where her teachers included Blanche Talmud, Bird Larson, Martha Graham and Louis Horst.

She started her professional career in 1929 as a member of Martha Graham's company. Beginning in the 1930s, she affiliated herself with the politicized "radical dance" movement, out of which developed her work Anti-War Trilogy (1933). By 1936, she had organized her first company, Dance Unit. Sokolow was also associated with the socially conscious collective the New Dance Group and the larger Workers Dance League. According to dance historian Ellen Graff, Sokolow's work with these groups was instrumental in transforming the "agitprop style" associated with early political dance by melding it with "emerging professional and artistic standards in 'new' dance." Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, she performed and choreographed both solo and ensemble works, which tackled subject matter that included the exploitation of workers and growing troubles of Jews in Germany. Several works from this period, including Anti-War Trilogy, were set to music by the composer Alex North.

In 1939, Sokolow began a lifelong association with the dance in Mexico and Israel. Her work for the Secretariat of Public Education facilitated the establishment of the National Academy of Dance. In Israel, she choreographed for major dance companies, including Batsheva, Inbal, and the Lyric Theatre.