The Christensen BrothersDebra Hickenlooper Sowell
With members of four generations deeply involved in music and dancing, the Christensen Brothers are indisputably the United States' closest equivalent to the European tradition of dance dynasties. Their story sheds light on the history of ballet in twentieth-century America, both through their accomplishments as dancers, teachers, and company directors, and through their association with movers and shakers of the dance world such as Lincoln Kirstein, George Balanchine, Sol Hurok, and the Ford Foundation's W. McNeil Lowry. This triple biography encompasses the brothers' Mormon pioneer heritage, the circumstances that led them to enter vaudeville with a ballet act, and the rise and fall-especially in the American West-of companies with which they were associated for over six decades. Published by Harwood Academic Publishers, this book provides an alternative to the New York-oriented volumes that so often pass as histories of American Dance. Illustrated, hardcover, 580 pp. Available fall, 1998. ISBN 90-5755-028-8.
Debra Hickenlooper Sowell has a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from New York University. She teaches at Brigham Young University and is an authority on dance among the Mormons. A former member of the Cambridge Court Dancers, she has interests that extend to Renaissance court performances and to the Romantic Ballet in Italy. In 1992 she received the John M. Ward Fellowship at the Harvard Theatre Collection. Sowell has served on the board of directors and as Secretary of the Society of Dance History Scholars.