Anna Sokolow: a Surrealist Iconoclast?

Abstract

Half a dozen of sentences could summarize, assertively, the artistic path of the great American choreographer, Anna Sokolow: Jewish by birth, she became a dancer by passion and a choreographer – of great and uncompromising integrity – by vocation; she took “modern dance” from the United States of America to Mexico and Israel – and to other countries around the world – having shown, with enormous vigor, what Art asked from her, of her life and of her work; her keen interest in humanistic themes led her to create works of great dramatic intensity, always associated with contemporary and often provocative imagery; in her creations, in which we can see a few traces of surrealist aesthetics, she did as much as she could do to awake the conscience of the public that flocked, then, to the New York theaters and her artistic goals always reflected humanitarian and social justice practices, making her a unique Woman and Artist in the spectrum of the 20^th century dance.