DANCE SCHOLAR MILLICENT HODSON  TO PRESENT 2004 SELMA JEANNE COHEN LECTURE AT 27th ANNUAL FULBRIGHT CONFERENCE IN ATHENS, GREECE              

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Sept. 18, 2004) -- The Fulbright Association announced today that Millicent Hodson, dance historian and choreographer, will present the 2004 Selma Jeanne Cohen Lecture in International Dance Scholarship on Thursday, Oct. 7, at the Royal Olympic Hotel in Athens, Greece.  Dr. Hodson will speak on "Reconstructing Jeux, Nijinsky’s Bloomsbury Ballet.”                                   

Vaslav Nijinsky choreographed Jeux in 1913 to a commissioned score by Claude Debussy with designs and costumes by Leon Bakst.  In 1996, the Verona Ballet commissioned Dr. Hodson and scenic consultant Dr. Kenneth Archer to reconstruct Jeux.  Drs. Hodson and Archer reconstruct modern masterpieces and create new works through their partnership Ballets Old & New based in London. Their acclaimed reconstruction was restaged by the Royal Ballet, London, in 2000 and by the Rome Opera Ballet and by the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago in 2001.               

During her work on the ballet, Dr. Hodson sought to locate a manuscript score reputedly annotated by Nijinsky.  She learned this year that the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University had acquired the manuscript score with annotations by Nijinsky and by Debussy and also an earlier version of the printed score with further annotations by both choreographer and composer.  The materials enabled her to compare Nijinsky’s annotated intentions with the results recorded in 1913 and to reconsider her choreographic decisions for the reconstruction.              

"My lecture is about the whole process of recovering the ‘lost’ ballet—a kind of dance archaeology—and how the recent discovery of Nijinsky’s notes affects what has been staged.  I will screen extracts of the Jeux reconstruction as well as a video dialogue about the discovery with Deborah Bull, whom I directed in Jeux,” Dr. Hodson said.  "I am honored to receive the award Selma Jeanne Cohen made possible and believe she would appreciate the ‘dance detective’ work on Jeux to be discussed in my lecture.”              

Dr. Selma Jeanne Cohen, preeminent dance historian and founding editor of the International Encyclopedia of Dance, endowed the dance lecture at the Fulbright Association’s annual conference to highlight dance scholarship in a multidisciplinary, international forum.  Previous lecturers are Leslie Friedman, dancer, choreographer and artistic director of the Lively Foundation in San Francisco (2000); Robin Marshall Grove, senior lecturer in the Department of English with Cultural Studies, University of Melbourne, Australia (2001); Gretchen Ward Warren, professor, School of Theater and Dance, University of South Florida (2002); and Wayne B. Kraft, professor of German at Eastern Washington University and director of the Erdély (Dance) Ensemble (2003).              

The Fulbright Association is a private, non-profit organization that supports and promotes the Fulbright Program, an international educational and cultural exchange initiative created in 1946 by legislation sponsored by the late Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas.  There are now over 200,000 Fulbright alumni worldwide.