Martha Hill Collection Finding Aid

The Martha Hill Collection provides an overview of Hill's career as a dance educator, her professional involvement in various organizations, and her personal life. Materials contained in the collection include correspondence, subject files, photographs, certificates, plaques/awards, articles/newspaper clippings, programs, oral history transcripts, college catalogs, artwork, a scrapbook, and music. Digitization was supported by a generous grant from the Leon Levy Foundation. Photography is by Ardon Bar-Hama.

Juilliard President William Schuman established the Dance Division in 1951 with the appointment of Martha Hill as director. Miss Hill had been trained in both ballet and modern dance and was a member of Martha Graham's first company. An experienced and creative dance educator, Miss Hill was instrumental in the establishment of dance programs at Bennington College, New York University, Columbia University's Teachers College, and Connecticut College. She created an innovative curriculum at Juilliard that required studies in ballet, modern dance, folk idioms, and musical training for all students. Up to that time dancers were trained in one technique only and companies were generally organized in the same fashion; Juilliard became the first major teaching institution to combine equal dance instruction in both modern and ballet techniques. President Schuman, a composer who had already written works for choreographers Martha Graham and Antony Tudor, thought it important to add dance to Juilliard's curriculum.

An extraordinary faculty was assembled during the department's initial years, representing some of the most prominent performers and teachers of the century: Alfredo Corvino, Margaret Craske, Agnes de Mille, Martha Graham, Louis Horst, Doris Humphrey, Ann Hutchinson Guest, José Limón, Jerome Robbins, Anna Sokolow, Antony Tudor, and Miss Hill herself. In 1985 Muriel Topaz, former director of the Dance Notation Bureau, was appointed head of the division, and Miss Hill served as Artistic Director Emeritus until her death in 1995 at the age of 94. The Dance Division's original artistic vision remains intact, with Alicia Graf Mack as Dean and Director since 2018. Students continue to be trained in both centuries-old techniques of ballet and in techniques of modern dance to create "fusion dancers" of our time.

In addition to Miss Hill's eclectic, forward-thinking vision for the curriculum, she also maintained an archival sensibility. She ensured that the repertory was photographed and filmed for study and dance preservation purposes. The Library and Archives house collections of dance films and videos of productions from 1951 to present, thousands of photographs, programs, and thirty-six Dance Division scrapbooks that were meticulously prepared from 1951 to 1991.