Deborah Jowitt is an American dance critic, author, and

choreographer Choreography is the art or practice of designing sequences of movements of physical bodies (or their depictions) in which motion or form or both are specified. ''Choreography'' may also refer to the design itself. A choreographer is one who c ...

. Her career in dance began as a performer and choreographer. Jowitt has received several awards for her work, including a ''Bessie'' (New York Dance and Performance Award) for her work in dance criticism. Beginning in 1967, she wrote a weekly dance column for the

Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the cr ...

, providing frequent reviews of dance performances in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. From some time in the 1970s until 1994, the Voice had a page and a half for dance coverage: Jowitt contributed 1600 words or a full page of this, week after week, plus occasional features. Collections of her reviews from the Voice and numerous other publications have appeared as books - Dance Beat: Views and Reviews, New York: Marcel Dekker, 1977 and The Dance in Mind: Profiles and Reviews, 1976–1983, Boston: David R. Godine, 1985. In 2007 her column in the Village Voice was increased in length to 3/4 page, having been earlier reduced to a half-page; in 2008, however, her position as dance critic was converted from full-time to freelance. However, Jowitt continues to write 3/4 page reviews for the Voice and writes reviews for th
Voice on-line edition
She is a faculty member at the

Tisch School of the Arts The New York University Tisch School of the Arts (commonly referred to as Tisch) is the performing, cinematic and media arts school of New York University. Founded on August 17, 1965, Tisch is a training ground for artists, scholars of the a ...

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, th ...

(NYU).

Awards

* 2005, a special citation from the

Society of Dance History Scholars The Society of Dance History Scholars (SDHS) was a professional organization for dance historians in the United States and internationally. Founded in 1978, it became a non-profit in 1983. SDHS became a member of the American Council of Learned Soc ...

(SDHS) for ''Jerome Robbins: His Life, His Theater, His Dance''. * 2001, the "Outstanding Contribution to Dance Research" award from

Congress on Research in Dance Congress on Research in Dance was a professional organization for dance historians in the United States and worldwide that was founded in 1964 and then merged in 2017 with the Society of Dance History Scholars to form the Dance Studies Association ...

(CORD). * 1988, the

de la Torre Bueno Prize The de la Torre Bueno Prize is an annual award offered by the Dance Studies Association for the best book published in English in the field of dance studies. The award honors José Rollin de la Torre Bueno, the first university press editor to dev ...

for the best book in the field of dance studies for ''Time and the Dancing Image''. * 1985, a special citation from the SDHS for ''The Dance in Mind''.

External links

NYU Faculty: Deborah Jowitt

Arts Catter

Village Voice
Living people American choreographers American dance critics Dance historians Tisch School of the Arts faculty Bessie Award winners American women journalists 21st-century American historians American women historians American women critics 21st-century American women writers Year of birth missing (living people) {{Dance-bio-stub