Call Number:

ACC2263

Repository:

Temple University Libraries Special Collections Research Center

Extent:

0.5 linear feet

Language:

English

Date:

1955-1983

Form:

Correspondence, Photograph albums, and Scrapbooks

Abstract:

Arthur Hall (1934-2000) was an internationally known dancer and choreographer. He founded the Afro-American Dance Ensemble in Philadelphia in 1958, and was its artistic director for thirty years. He also founded the Ile Ife Black Humanitarian Center on Germantown Avenue in 1968. He was a movement specialist for the National Endowment for the Arts and an instructor of dance at Dartmouth College. Hall's major works include his direction of the ballet Orpheus, A City Called Heaven, Aida, Fat Tuesday & All That Jazz, and Eulogy for John Coltrane, which was staged at Dartmouth College, where he was an adjunct professor. He also choreographed What's Going On, a ballet set to the music of Marvin Gaye. Late in his life, Arthur Hall moved to Camden, Maine, where founded and served as the artistic director of Ile Ife Films and the Arthur Hall Collection and International Dance Center.

This is a small collection of materials related to Arthur Hall's career as a dancer and to his Afro-American Dance Ensemble. Materials include: a scrapbook of correspondence, press releases, and programs (1969-1972); an album of photographs of Hall and other dancers, primarily from the mid-1950s; catalogs and brochures related to the arts in Philadelphia; articles about Hall and the Afro-American Dance Ensemble; copies of Dance Magazine Annual from 1975 and 1977; newsletters of the Ile Ife Center for the Arts and Humanities (1976-1977); and playbills and posters.