Author Reading at The Arts Club of Washington

Don't Miss This Enlightening Grantee Event

Event:  

Yaël Tamar Lewin on Night's Dancer: The Life of Janet Collins

Date & Time:  

Wednesday, May 9th at 7:00pm

Location:  

The Arts Club of Washington / 2017 I Street, NW / Washington, DC / 20006

Description:   

Yaël Tamar Lewin, winner of the Sixth Annual Marfield Prize National Award for Arts Writing, will present a free public reading from her prize winning biography, Night's Dancer: The Life of Janet Collins (Wesleyan University Press: 2011) . Night's Dancer chronicles the career of Janet Collins (1917-2003), a classical and modern dancer who in 1951 became the first African-American prima ballerina with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet. She also worked with influential Lester Horton and Katherine Dunham; taught at George Balanchine’s School of American Ballet; and appeared in films and on Broadway for Agnes de Mille and Hanya Holm.

Beginning with Collins’ unfinished memoir detailing her early life, Lewin continues the fascinating portrait of the pioneering dancer, drawing on her own extensive research and interviews with Collins and her family, friends, and colleagues. Lewin is a dance historian, writer, and dancer living in New York. This program was funded in part by a grant from the Humanities Council of Washington, DC. Book signing and reception to follow.