International Committee for the Dance Library of Israel
inducts Genevieve Oswald and Miriam Roskin Berger into
The Dance Library of Israel Hall of Fame

Joan S. Ingalls

What was the Dance Library of Israel and why was a dance therapist being inducted into its Hall of Fame? Those were my questions as I arrived at the Scaletta’s Ristorante on West 77th Street Monday evening May 2, 2005. I was there to get answers. I got both answers and inspiration.

“Dance libraries,” Genevieve (“Gigi”) Oswald, the creator (and for many years the curator) of the Dance Collection of the Library-Museum of the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, said she accepted her engraved bronze plaque, “are our hope for the future of the discipline that we all love so much.”

She admonished us that a new commitment is required: There are dance libraries all over the world, but there is no genuine exploration in the history of dance, we have no idea how vast the history of dance is. There are no serious biographies of the great dancers of the 18th and 19th centuries. And surely if they were written, we would find that these dancers made contributions at least as significant as Petipas or Balanchine. We have only a scant understanding of the movements, periods, and tendencies of earlier centuries. The story of the Italian contribution of the 17th century is only recently in print, and it may turn out to be more significant than the French contribution. Dance is slow to develop its history. So, Gigi counsels us to gather everything, collect; a renaissance in dance publication is coming; build your collection as if it’s “just around the corner!” It will illuminate; it will create a cultured, knowledgeable, interested public like that in the art world.

Gigi’s admonition is only part of her inspiring message. Her achievements are also an inspiration. She is an archivist, scholar-historian, teacher, consultant and administrator. For more than five decades she mentored many dance and dance-therapy researchers. One of those she mentored more than thirty years ago was Ann Wilson Wangh, the founder of the library. Ann suggested to her that there should be a dance library in Israel. “Yes,” Gigi thought, “Why didn’t we think of that before?” Over the years, the New York Public Library gave Gigi permission to support the building of The Dance Library of Israel. She trained librarians and sent library materials. Located in Tel Aviv, today, the Library is one of the largest dance research collections in the world.

And what about Miriam (“Mimi”) Roskin Berger? Mimi was a student of Marion Chace’s, and one of the founders of the American Dance Therapy Association. She was its president 1994 – 1998. She was director of the Creative Arts Therapies Department at Bronx psychiatric Center 1970 - 1990, director of the Program in Dance Education at New York University 1993 – 2002, and recipient in 2002 of the Maria Chace Award for fostering the international growth of dance therapy (to mention just a few highlights from her long list of accomplishments).

The Library honored Mimi for her almost fifty-year history as a dance therapy pioneer, educator and clinician, her work for the Library as a Board member, and her contribution to the cultural life of the library. In 2004, she was the keynote speaker on “Dance Education in the 21st Century” at the Dance Education Conference in Israel that the Library sponsored. She also gave several days of dance therapy workshops at the conference. Many dance therapists, including the directors of all four dance-movement training programs in Israel, attended. These workshops illuminated the resources of the Library for the large dance therapy community in Israel.

How and why has Mimi been able to support a dance library in Israel? Martha Davis, who introduced Mimi, offered possible answers to this question. Mimi is according to Martha, both the straightest and most unconventional person she knows. She sees frontiers and kindred spirits, and gets projects on their feet. She has stamina and commitment. She has a special facility for working with different personalities and political issues, and she keeps her integrity through it all. Martha said that someone should interview Mimi and get her secret, but Martha, herself, suggests what it is: She is both “sweet and subversive.” And with family – Holocaust survivors – in Israel, Mimi has always felt deep roots in there. She believes the Library is highly deserving of support from American dance movement therapists.

Mimi said, as she accepted her award, that she always wanted to teach and have the excitement of seeing students develop. When students once asked her what she would have done if she hadn’t become a dance therapist, she said that she would have liked to be a choreographer, or a researcher in brain science. As a dance therapist, she tells them, she is doing both. With an understanding of the science of psychology, she is helping people choreograph their lives. Dance therapy is for Mimi a modality to explore personality, culture and emotionality – an opportunity to learn about the cultural commonalities and differences of other countries. And so she has. She has consulted, taught, and given presentations, in not just Israel, but also Greece, Sweden, Czech Republic, Holland, Korea, Poland, Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy, Norway, Hungary, and Russia.

The Dance Library of Israel is the only such library in Israel. It serves the whole country. It consists of thousands of books in different languages, magazines, videos, slides, and other archival material covering all aspects of dance from all over the world. Like Mimi it is international in its outlook. It is the perfect place to learn about the commonalities and differences of other cultures. It documents dance in Israel from the beginning of recorded history to the present day. That history includes artistic dance, folk dancing, religious ceremonies and ethnic Israeli folklore.

To learn more about the library visit its web site: http://www.dancelibrary.org.il/ or contact The International Committee for the Dance Library of Israel, 136 East 39th Street, NYC, 10016, 212 725 3735, email: ICDLI@aol.com, Gayle Miller, president or David K. Manion, Executive Director. The Library welcomes contributions of books, videos, and journals as well as money which will help complete the library construction and expand its collection.