Famous Choregraphers, Dance Teachers “C...-D...-”
for performance, language & visual arts, music, social studies, classrooms, home schoolers.

Jean Coralli
Jacques d'Amboise
Carmen De Lavallade

Émile Jaques-Dalcroze
Agnes de Mille
Sergei Diaghilev

Jean Coralli (née Peracini)
b. 1-15-1779; France
d. 5-1-1854

Dancer Jean Coralli, who became the First Balletmaster of the Paris Opera Ballet, is best known for choreographing the Romantic ballet Giselle (1841) with Jules Perrot.

FYI - Théophile Gautier, a notable dance critic, also collaborated on Giselle.

Jacques d'Amboise,
née Joseph Jacques Ahearn
b. 7-28-1934; Dedham, MA

Jacques D'Amboise, a principal dancer with the NYC Ballet and performer in musical films Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and Carousel, founded National Dance Institute which has been teaching school children how to dance since 1976.

FYI - A documentary film about Jacques d'Amboise and National Dance Institute won an Academy Award.

Carmen & Geoffrey DVD

Carmen De Lavallade
b. 6-3-1931; New Orleans, LA

Dancer, choreographer, professor and actress Carmen De Lavallade danced with Lester Horton, Alvin Ailey and Agnes de Mille. De Lavallade is married to actor and dancer Geoffrey Holder.

Émile Jaques-Dalcroze
b. 7-6-1865; Switzerland
d. 7-1-1950

Swiss composer, musician and music educator Émile Jaques-Dalcroze developed eurhythmics, a method of learning and experiencing music through movement.

The Orff Schulwerk pedagogy, which is common in public school music education throughout the United States, was influenced by eurhythmics.

Agnes de Mille Making Notes for New Dance Book at Table in Drugstore, Photographic Print

Agnes deMille
b. 9-18-1905; Harlem, NY
d. 10-7-1993

Agnes de Mille was the choreographer of such notable works as the ballet Rodeo and the musical Oklahoma!.

De Mille was from a theatrical family (she was the niece of Hollywood director Cecil B. DeMille) and wanted to be an actress, but was told she wasn't pretty enough.

• No Intermissions: The Life of Agnes de Mille

Isadora Duncan and Her Pupils from The Grunewald School, 1908, Giclee Print

Isadora Duncan
b. 5-26-1877; San Francisco
d. 9-14-1926

• more Isadora Duncan posters

Great Black Innovators - Katherine Dunham Poster

Katherine Dunham
b. 6-22-1909; Joliet, IL
d. 5-21-2006; NYC

Katherine Dunham is a noted dancer and choreographer who brought the dance styles of black people of the Caribbean and the United States to the attention of America at large. Born in Chicago, she attended the university there and majored in anthropology. She did a year of field work in the West Indies. This helped give her the insight she needed to develop innovative dance forms expressing Caribbean cultural styles.

Dancer Katherine Dunham Performing, Photographic Print

She choreographed and performed in a number of stage productions and films during the 1930s and '40s. She also founded the first black dance troupe – the Katherine Dunham Dance Company. But she is most proud of the Perfoming Arts Training Center, which she founded in East St. Louis, Illinois, in 1967 – and where, in her later years, she continues to touch and offer her guidance. This oasis in the middle of the poverty-stricken city has offered hope and a way out for countless numbers of troubled youth. It is here where her legacy continues, and where many young lives are changed. (published before 2006)

• Great Black Innovators Posters
• women and music posters