Mary Anthony

Mary Anthony (November 11, 1916 – May 31, 2014) was an American modern dancer, choreographer, and dance teacher born in Newport, Kentucky, and died in Manhattan. Her artistic development was shaped significantly by two major figures in American modern dance: Martha Graham and Hanya Holm.

Anthony was raised in Kentucky and pursued theater studies at Grinnell College in Iowa before relocating to New York City, where she trained at the Hanya Holm School. She subsequently studied dance with Martha Graham and acting at HB Studio in Greenwich Village. From 1943 to 1949, she performed as a member of Hanya Holm's dance company. Her Broadway career included a featured dancer role in the 1949–50 musical Touch and Go, which was choreographed by Helen Tamiris. During the 1950s she performed in multiple productions with the New York City Opera and choreographed several musicals in Italy.

In 1956, Anthony established the Mary Anthony Dance Company, which included former dance partners Joseph Gifford and Cameron McCosh. The company performed Anthony's original choreography, which frequently drew on literary sources. Among her best-known works were Lady Macbeth, derived from Shakespeare's play of the same name, and Threnody, based on John Millington Synge's Riders to the Sea.

Anthony began teaching at the New Dance Group in 1946, a position she held for many years. Her students there included Arthur Mitchell, Donald McKayle, Ulysses Dove, Ronald K. Brown, Yuriko Kimura, Elisa Monte, and Richard Siegal. Kimura also performed with Anthony on occasion. In 1988, Anthony served as a guest modern dance teacher in the Department of Dance at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where she reconstructed Charles Weidman's Fables for our Times, a work based on James Thurber's Fables For Our Times and Famous Poems Illustrated.