Abstract: The Dance Claimed Me: The Biography of Pearl Primus, on which this essay is based, tells this important dancer’s life story in three ways: in narrative form, as a photographic essay, and as a timeline of her professional activities. Each way of telling contributes to the richness of the whole, as together they weave a critical, visual, and compelling story of Pearl Primus’s life not only in dance but in American and world culture. Her contributions have led many others to examine the connection between heritage, culture and self-definition.

A brilliant dancer and choreographer, a superb story teller, a PhD in anthropology, a lecturer, and educator, Pearl Primus left an important mark on the many cultures that she claimed as her own and that claimed her. Her biography is composed from various places, from libraries in the United States to dancing fields in Ghana, and over 100 interviews. Primary sources include interviews with former colleagues, family members, students, and friends. Archives contained letters, diaries, reviews and photographs and other historical material. Travel to Trinidad, Barbados, Africa and the American South filled out the research. This complex research enabled the authors to create a full narrative of Pearl Primus’s life and work.

Key Words: Pearl Primus, biography, dance, anthropology, academia.

Peggy Schwartz’s career of forty years began by developing a rhythm and movement program for the Pilot Program for Head Start in Berkeley, California (1960s); continued as the founding Chairperson of the Buffalo Academy for the Visual and Performing Arts Dance Department (1970s) ; she joined the Five College Dance Department first at Hampshire College (1983) and then the University of Massachusetts Amherst (1991).  She served as Chair of the FCDD and Director of the Dance Program at UMass Amherst and was the founder and artistic director of the Sankofa Dance Project: Celebrating African Roots in American Dance.  Peggy has published, lectured and consulted in dance education, curriculum design, national standards in arts education, and the work of Pearl Primus, nationally and internationally.  In October, 2013, Peggy was recognized with the Lifetime Achievement Award in Dance by the National Dance Education Organization.

Together, Peggy and Murray wrote The Dance Claimed Me: A Biography of Pearl Primus published by Yale University Press in 2011.

For over forty years, Murray Schwartz has taught Shakespeare,  psychoanalysis and Holocaust literature.  His writing spans a wide range of interdisciplinary interests and includes essays on Shakespeare’s last plays, the work of Erik Erikson, applied  psychoanalysis, modern poetry and trauma studies.  He has also co-edited several anthologies, including Representing Shakespeare: New Psychoanalytic Essays (1980), Memory and Desire: Psychoanalysis, Literature, Aging (1985). He is President of the PsyArt Foundation and edits the online journal, PsyArt (www.psyartjournal.com). Murray was Dean of the Colleges at SUNY/Buffalo (1979-83), Dean of Humanities and Fine Arts at UMass Amherst (1983-91), Provost of the Claremont Graduate University (1991-97) and Academic Vice President at Emerson College (1997-99). He is a scholar member of the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, and has participated in studies of the effects of the September 11, 2001 attacks, and the writing of  psychoanalytic history.  Currently, he teaches at Emerson College in Boston.