Hadassah (dancer)

Hadassah died from cancer on November 18, 1992, in New York. In 1995, Milton Epstein donated her papers from 1938 to 1988 to the Jerome Robbins Dance Collection at the New York Public Library.

Hadassah taught Indian and Israeli dance at many locations in the United States through the mid-1980s. Her workshops included "classical Hindu, Moroccan, Persian and East Indian folk dance". She served as a faculty member, board member and chairperson of the Ethnic Division of the New Dance Group, the largest school of dance in New York. She also taught students at Dance Masters of America, The Dance Congress, Pennsylvania Association of Dance Teachers, Columbia University Teachers College, Jacob's Pillow, and Henry Street Playhouse. Her classes extended to Jewish community centers and residents at the Menorah Home for the Aged.

Hadassah continued performing into the mid-1970s, displaying almost the same vigor in her senior years as she had in her prime.

For the centennial celebration of Rabindranath Tagore in 1961, the Tagore Centenary Committee commissioned Hadassah to choreograph the "Tagore Suite", which included a narration of Tagore's poetry by Saeed Jaffrey. After the death of Mahatma Gandhi, Hadassah choreographed "Chant" to Gandhi's favorite hymn, Vaishnava Jana To. For the Gandhi centenary celebration in 1969, Hadassah choreographed Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech as a dance/theatre work, reflecting the influence of Gandhi's philosophy on King.

Hadassah toured India and Israel in 1959–1960 on a Rockefeller Brothers Fund grant. She expanded her knowledge of classical Indian dance by studying Manipuri dance with Ritha Devi, Kathak with Damayanti Joshi, and Bharatanatyam with Raghavan Nair and Ram Gopal. The celebrated Indian dancer Balasaraswati gave her a private performance of the latter style. Hadassah also undertook research on the Bene Israel and Cochin Jews of India. In Israel, she visited the Druze village of Daliyat al-Karmel to observe "ancient ritual dancing and chanting". She performed on the Tel Aviv stage and before thousands of spectators in the Ein Harod amphitheater. She was asked to stay in Israel to teach dance, but wanted to return to the United States.

Hadassah started her own dance company, Hadassah and Company, which staged its first performance at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan on June 4, 1950. Hadassah received good notices from critics; John Martin, dance critic for The New York Times, called her an "exceptionally gifted artist...One of the best!" In 1952, she choreographed an "Indonesian Suite" for the company, featuring "a trance section based on Balinese Sanghyang".

Hadassah's Broadway Hindu (1949) was a parody of Hindu dances seen in American films and those that were popularly performed to jazz music in nightclubs.

Hadassah's signature dance was "Shuvi Nafshi" ("Return O My Soul"), a composition based on a verse in Psalm 116. The solo dance was performed to the Hebrew words of the verse sung by Cantor Waldman. Hadassah debuted the piece at the 92nd Street Y on February 12, 1947, and performed it many times thereafter. Her final performance of the dance in 1974, honoring the Y's 100th anniversary, was preserved on videotape.

On January 11, 1945, she made her professional debut as a solo artist at New York City's Town Hall with her dance "Golek", described as "a ceremonial court dance of Java". She went on to perform at "Carnegie Hall, the Ziegfeld Theatre, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, many Broadway theaters, every major dance series in New York, the Habibi nightclub and Jacob's Pillow in New England". Hadassah was a featured performer at four Jacob's Pillow Dance Festivals in Becket, Massachusetts, during the 1950s and 1960s. She was credited with introducing Jewish dance to the United States beginning with the first Congress on Jewish Dance in 1949 in New York City.

Spira Epstein began studying dance under Ruth St. Denis and Jack Cole, who both incorporated eastern ideas in their works. She also studied with La Meri, founder of the Ethnologic Dance Center of New York, and Nala Najan, the leading Hindu dance scholar in the United States. During the 1939 New York World's Fair, she studied with Javanese dancers who were performing there. She studied dances from the Court of Surakarta and received a teacher's diploma in Javanese dance from Radem Mas Kodrat and Radem Mas Wiradat. She also studied Japanese expressional dance with Kenji Hinoki.

Hadassah began performing in New York City in 1938 and made her professional debut as a solo artist in 1945. She performed through the mid-1970s. She was widely praised for her choreography and performance; an obituary in The New York Times described her as "a performer of special eloquence". She opened her own dance company in 1950. Later she taught many students in the United States, and was a faculty member, board member, and chairperson of the Ethnic Division of the New Dance Group, the largest school of dance in New York.

Hadassah decided to use her first name only for her professional career. She was first affiliated with the Kenji Hinoke Japanese Dance Company, with whom she made her New York debut in 1938.

Hadassah married Milton Epstein, a painter and bookstore owner, in New York in October 1933. Besides encouraging her to study Asian dance, Epstein managed Hadassah's career and often lectured at her performances.

Spira's family was forced to leave Jerusalem due to a misstatement by one of their relatives working in the diplomatic service. The family lived in Vienna and Constantinople during their two-year sojourn, finally reaching the United States in 1924. According to Long, Spira viewed at least one performance of the Denishawn Dancers at Lewisohn Stadium before 1931, and was particularly impressed with Ted Shawn, who was known for his Whirling Dervish. After her marriage in 1933, Spira's husband, Milton Epstein, encouraged her to familiarize herself with New York's theatre and dance culture.

Hadassah Spira Epstein (December 30, 1909 – November 18, 1992), professional name Hadassah, was a Jerusalem-born American dancer, choreographer, and instructor specializing in Indian, Javanese, Balinese, and Jewish dance. Credited as a pioneer of Indian and Israeli dance in the United States, her choreography reflected both aspects and styles of ethnic and folk culture and her own deeply-held spiritual beliefs. Her signature dance, "Shuvi Nafshi" ("Return O My Soul") (1947) was based on a verse in Psalm 116.

Hadassah Spira was born in Jerusalem, Ottoman Palestine, on December 30, 1909. She was the eldest of five children of Rabbi Isaac Spira and Menucha Landau Spira. She had three brothers and a sister. Her ancestors on both sides were rabbis. Her maternal grandfather co-founded the School of Mysticism in Jerusalem, and she herself was "trained in the mysticism of Hasidic Judaism".