Performing Communism in the American Dance: Culture, Politics and the New Dance Group

Abstract

The artist is simply reflecting his time. (Martha Graham) On the stage set of Sing for Your Supper, a limousine transforms into a Madison Avenue bus and a fence holding back a crowd in tuxedos and top hats breaks down. The men don blackened glasses and insert ‘‘I Am Blind’’ signs into their hats. From stage left, four United States Senators enter and perform ‘‘an eccentric dance. ...They go through an investigation with futile results.’’ As the Senators prance off, the company sings: ‘‘Sell your stocks to your mother, buy them back from your brother.’’ As another scene opens, they continue, ‘‘It tickles all of Karl Marx’ men/to wreck Tuxedo Park’s men.’’ 1 Sing for Your Supper opened in 1939 as one of the final productions of the Works Project Administration (WPA), a US government relief agency. As a WPA musical revue, it satirized Uncle Sam as a character who could not keep tune. The production had been in rehearsals for over a year, and government officials had reviewed and sanctioned content that highlighted the weaknesses of capitalism and demanded governmental support for the nation’s people. 2 Its dance scenes were choreographed by Anna Sokolow, who employed dancers from the New Dance Group (NDG) and was also a member of the nongovernmental Workers Dance League (WDL), an offshoot of the Sovietinspired Workers Cultural Federation (WCF). *Victoria Phillips Geduld is PhD candidate in History at Columbia University. She has an MA in History from Columbia, an MA in English from NYU, and an MBA from Columbia’s Business School. She has worked with various dance companies, has extensive management experience, and has written about dance history both in professional and academic journals. She presented the keynote address at the 2008 ‘‘Dance is a Weapon’’ conference held by the Centre National de la Danse Pantin, France, and is the founder and head of the Historic Dance Theatre. Email: LVB3@columbia.edu