DANCE SCHOLAR GRETCHEN WARD WARREN TO PRESENT 2002 SELMA JEANNE COHEN LECTURE AT FULBRIGHT ASSOCIATION 25TH ANNIVERSARY CONFERENCE  

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Sept. xx, 2002) -- The Fulbright Association announced today that dance scholar and Fulbright alumna Gretchen Ward Warren will present the 2002 Selma Jeanne Cohen Lecture in International Dance Scholarship on Saturday, Oct. 12, at 4 p.m. at the Madison Hotel in Washington, D.C.  Dr. Warren, a professor of dance at the College of Fine Arts of the University of South Florida in Tampa, will discuss the making of "Dreamtime, Our Time:  The Eternal Circle,” a cultural event involving Native American, Australian and non-indigenous artists that grew out of her Fulbright experience in Australia in 1997.  

Dr. Warren mounted "Dreamtime…” at the University of South Florida in January 2001.  It included an exhibition of aboriginal bark paintings and Native American art, performances of "Dancing with the Wheel of Ever Returning,” which Dr. Warren choreographed, a film series and a lecture symposium.  The rare Aboriginal bark paintings shown in the exhibition had been given to two University of South Florida anthropology professors while on their Fulbright awards to Australia in 1953.  Banula Marika, an Australian dancer recruited by Dr. Warren for the performance, arrived in Tampa to discover that the bark paintings, about which little had been known, were created by members of his family.   "Although my main intent for the dance-theatre production was to create a dynamic work of art—weaving text, dance, and music together in a moving and visually powerful way—it was also my desire that the production provoke questions about our concept of the word ‘civilized,’ inspiring performers and audience alike to consider where we are headed in the 21st century,” said Dr. Warren.  

A professor at the University of South Florida in Tampa since 1983, Dr. Warren was a soloist with Pennsylvania Ballet from 1965 to 1976 and ballet mistress of American Ballet Theatre II in New York from 1978 to 1983, where she worked closely with Richard Englund and Mikhail Baryshnikov.  On her Fulbright award, Dr. Warren taught ballet and conducted research on aboriginal dance.  The Australian Ballet School has twice invited her to return to teach.  

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.  The Selma Jeanne Cohen Fund for International Scholarship on Dance was created in 1999.  Previous lectures have been given by Leslie Friedman, dancer, choreographer and artistic director of the Lively Foundation in San Francisco in 2000, and Robin Marshall Grove, senior lecturer in the Department of English with Cultural Studies, University of Melbourne, Australia in 2001.  

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.