Person
Biography
Marjorie Perces trained and danced with the Lester Horton Dance Theater in the 1940s and became one of the leading experts on the Horton Technique. After launching her teaching career with Horton, she later taught for Bella Lewitzky in the 1950s, at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center beginning in 1971, and at various universities and dance programs. She began teaching at New York’s Clark Center in 1976 and directed the scholarship program there beginning in 1979. That same year, she received a research grant to establish the Lester Horton Reconstruction Committee at CUNY, and she later received support from the New York State Council for the Arts for her Lester Horton Project. Her devotion to Horton resulted in three instructional videos and a book on the Horton Technique which she co-authored with Ana Marie Forsythe and Cheryl Bell. She owned a home in the Berkshires and was a frequent Pillow audience member and loyal supporter as well as an occasional performer. In 1993, she took part in a work entitled
Here, co-created by Tom Truss and Dana Salisbury, and also participated in an Inside/Out presentation with Berkshire Farm students in 1994. Most notably, she recreated a Ruth St. Denis photograph as part of Ann Carlson’s
Night Light in 2001.
Source of Biography
Written by Norton Owen for Jacob's Pillow Remembers.
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