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ABSTRACT
Edith Segal reimagined her relationship to her audience and created new methods of performing to support political causes during the three years she lived in Detroit, Michigan. She broke away from the expectations associated with modernist aesthetics championed by New York City dance critics and immersed herself in various roles within the Federal Theatre Project (FTP). In oral history interviews and her own writing, Segal described recruiting interested labor groups to attend the FTP's productions, which in turn created new audiences for theater and bolstered her view of how socially relevant productions could impact audiences. She adapted modern dance movement vocabulary to support theatrical scenarios and worked as part of a production team to communicate the main concepts of several plays. Throughout this process, Segal redefined how modernism could support leftist performance and shifted her focus to the audiences she most wanted to serve.
Acknowledgements
My research for this article was supported by a 2018 New York Public Library Short-Term Fellowship in the Jerome Robbins Dance Division. Special thanks to Allison Van Deventer for her feedback and assistance with this project.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Image Credit
Portrait of Edith Segal by Yosl Cutler, Edith Segal Papers, Additions, The New York Public Library Jerome Robbins Dance Division. Reprinted with the permission of Shari Segel Goldberg.
Notes
1 Segal, “Communist Party Oral Histories.” Segal arrived in Detroit in the fall of 1936 and departed for New York City in spring of 1939. Edith Segal: Remembrances and Highlights, n.d., pgs. 1-15, Box 2, Notes and Lectures 1940s Folder 38, Edith Segal Papers.
2 For more about how Ocko and other dance critics in New York City received Segal’s work, see Manning, Modern Dance/Negro Dance; Graff, Stepping Left; Prickett, “Marxism, Modernism and Realism;” Prickett, “’The People;’” Prickett, “Reviewing the Left.”
3 I was inspired in part by Anusha Kedhar’s approach to “de-centering dance studies” that examines the material conditions that surround dance production, “privilege[es] the voices, bodies and perspectives of dancers,” and “de-center[s] the stage as the primary site of meaning-making … by privileging movement in spaces off stage” Kedhar, Flexible Bodies, 27-28.
4 Dance historian Stacey Prickett addressed Segal's time in Detroit in her 2013 text Embodied Politics: Dance, Protest and Identities. My intervention is viewing Segal's time in Detroit as a turning point in her career when she engaged with new audiences and redefined modernism.
5 The May 2021 version of the UAW website states: “On February 11, 1937, the GM Flint Sit-Down Strike ended after a 44-day occupation of four plants by workers. The strike led to recognition of the UAW by a major automaker and opened an incredible period of organizing for our union.”
6 Segal directed two pieces in The New Theatre Union of Detroit and the New Dance Group performance which raised money for the Scottsboro Boys and Angelo Herndon International Labor Defense (ILD). New Theatre Union of Detroit and New Dance Group at the Detroit Art Institute. Performance Program. May 24-25, circa 1937. Box 3, Detroit Federal Theatre 1937–38 Folder 20, Edith Segal Papers, Additions.
James A. Miller wrote that the Scottsboro Boys trial was “one of the most highly visible—and carefully orchestrated—racial spectacles in the decades preceding the emergence of the modern Civil Rights Movement,” and Communist Party viewed the Scottsboro Boys case as “an indictment of the American social, economic, and judicial system.” Miller, Remembering Scottsboro, 7, 39.
7 According to Brill.com in May 2021, “The Daily Worker, the official mouthpiece of the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) between 1924 and 1958.”
8 Triece, On the Picket Line, 100.
9 Slutz, Donald. “Branded Red Unit: Detroit Actor Makes the Complaint, Council to Hear Charges Against WPA Theater Wednesday.” June 26, 1938, The Detroit News. Box 3, Federal Theatre 1936–1938 Folder 15, Edith Segal Paper, Additions.
10 Ellen Graff explains that the Workers Dance League changed its name to the New Dance League in 1935 “in an attempt to broaden its influence and downplay class associations” Graff, Stepping Left, 47. Stacey Prickett writes that “A shift occurred with the instigation of Popular Front policies by the Comintern (the Communist International), although the WDL was not officially a Communist Party organization. During its three years of existence, the WDL helped a vibrant left-wing dance movement flourish in the United States by taking dance to workers, bringing workers into the dance world, and reinforcing a proletarian identity.” Prickett, “Workers Dance League.”
11 Edith Segal: Remembrances and Highlights, 1-15.
12 Segal, “Communist Party Oral Histories.”
13 Ibid.
14 Prickett, Embodied Politics, 50.
15 Foster, “Choreographies of Protest,” 412.
16 Segal: Remembrances and Highlights, 1-15.
17 Segal, Interview with Lesley Farlow, 43.
18 Segal, Edith. Interview with Paul Sporn. 1979. Box 5, Reviews and Articles 1970s, Folder 71, Edith Segal Papers (Citation1920-Citation1997).
19 “Solidarity Forever.” Photograph Copyright Detroit Times. Box 3, Federal Theatre 1937–38 Folder 16, Edith Segal Papers, Additions (Citation1915-Citation1991).
20 “Women led the throng … ” Photograph. Box 3, Detroit 1936–37 Folder 24, Edith Segal Papers, Additions (Citation1915-Citation1991).
21 Lynch, "Sit down! Sit down!" 5.
22 Ibid, 2.
23 According to Prickett, selling blocks of tickets to workers was common in New York City and this influenced Segal's decision to pursue this strategy. Embodied Politics, 49.
24 “Theatre in Action: Unions See Many Labor Plays Produced by the Federal Theatre.” Detroit News, 1937. Box 3, Detroit Federal Theatre 1937–38 Folder 19, Edith Segal Papers, Additions (Citation1915-Citation1991).
25 Let Freedom Ring, Detroit Federal Theatre May 21-30, 1937. Performance Program. Programs and Announcements Box 4, 1930s Folder 55, Edith Segal Papers (Citation1920-Citation1997).
26 “Economic Theme is Basis of Drama: City Get View of ‘Let Freedom Ring’” Free Press, May 23, 1937. Box 3, Detroit Federal Theatre 1937–38 Folder 19, Edith Segal Papers, Additions (Citation1915-Citation1991).
27 “Economic Theme is Basis of Drama” Free Press. “Theatre in Action” Detroit News.
28 “Theatre in Action” Detroit News.
29 “’ … one Third of a Nation … ’ Powerful Play at LaFayette.” n.d. Box 3, Detroit Federal Theatre 1937–38 Folder 19, Edith Segal Papers, Additions (Citation1915-Citation1991).
30 Segal, Interview with Paul Sporn.
31 Manning, Modern Dance/Negro Dance, 63.
32 The New York City–based leftist critic Edna Ocko was critical of Segal’s choreography: “In review after review Ocko criticized Segal’s agitprop style. At her most severe, Ocko dismissed Segal’s entire corpus, although she did not call the choreographer by name but referred only to the groups Segal directed, as was the convention in leftist dance criticism.” Manning, Modern Dance/Negro Dance, 74. See also Prickett, “Reviewing the Left: The Dance Criticism of Edna Ocko.”
33 Segal, Interview with Paul Sporn.
34 For more about the workers’ dance groups that Segal directed in New York City, see Graff, Stepping Left; Manning, Modern Dance/Negro Dance; Prickett, "Dance and the Workers' Struggle;" Prickett, “’The People.’”
35 Segal wrote a letter to the editor of New Theatre in response to a review by Edna Ocko. Segal resisted the idea that simple and clear choreography could be equated with “low artistic quality:” “Let us not add to the already high percentage of dance concert-goers who sadly admit ’it was interesting, but what was it all about?’ Let us learn from the worker who said, in discussing revolutionary dance, ‘in order to lift you must penetrate.’ This applies to all audiences … Simple form does not necessarily imply low artistic quality, nor complex form high artistic quality. The particular form to be used, agit-prop, dramatic, concert, should be determined by our particular needs.” Letter to the Editor of New Theatre. N.d. Box 2, Notes and Lectures 1940s Folder 38, Edith Segal Papers (Citation1920-Citation1997).
36 Edith Segal: Remembrances and Highlights, 1–15
37 Edith Segal: Remembrances and Highlights, 1–15
38 Segal, Edith. “Martha Graham.” 1934. Box 2, Notes and Lectures 1940s Folder 38, Edith Segal Papers (Citation1920-Citation1997).
39 Franko, Dancing Modernism / Performing Politics, 39.
40 Ibid, 33.
41 Graff, Stepping Left, 105.
42 In her 1934 reflection about Graham, Segal wrote: “While [Graham] speaks of going on past all struggle, being able to create her own perfect world, yet she is vitally interested in the really new world, she is inspired by Stalin’s speech at the grave of Lenin, which she recently read. Here she finds conviction, sincerity and fire. It is confusing, but while she speaks of perfection, she implies that during this next year she may do something which ‘some people will call propaganda.’ We hope it will be. Propaganda for the revolution.” Segal, “Martha Graham.” 1934.
43 Franko writes that “the danger of relying on Graham technique, for example, was that by redeploying Graham’s so-called bourgeois heritage the younger choreographer unwittingly reiterated the bourgeois ideology subtending it,” while Graff writes that “debates over technique receded when the Communist Party adopted a new policy called socialist realism, which urged collaboration with bourgeois artists.” Franko, Dancing Modernism, 28; Graff, Stepping Left, 10. Segal’s writing reveals that the debate continued regarding which techniques should be used, and she relied upon the method of “imbuing” on bourgeois techniques, such as Graham’s, with working class ideology. Segal, Edith. “Prospects for the Artistic Development in the Field of Proletarian Dance,” circa 1935, Box 2, Notes and Lectures 1940s Folder 38, Edith Segal Papers (Citation1920-Citation1997). This document is circa 1935 because Segal referred to founding the Red Dancers five years prior, and Graff lists the first Red Dancers event in 1930. Graff, Stepping Left, 179.
44 Graff, Stepping Left, 47.
45 Segal, “Communist Party Oral Histories.”
46 Ibid.
47 It is notable that Segal lists her training in Wigman technique in the Fall of 1936, because dance critic Edna Ocko called for a boycott of Wigman’s technique in November 1935 due to Wigman’s complicity with the Nazi regime and her plan to appear in the 1936 Olympics. Graff, Stepping Left, 115. Segal mentioned participating in the Olympics boycott, yet she continued to list Wigman technique as part of her training. Segal, “Communist Party Oral Histories.” “Fall Activities: Lucy Thurman Branch Detroit YWCA.” 1936. Box 3, Detroit 1936-37, Folder 24, Edith Segal Papers, Additions (Citation1915-Citation1991).
48 When asked about how she trained her dancers, she stated: “Well I was studying with Graham … and of course I had ballet and I used some basic movements but it was mainly Graham technique.” Segal, Interview with Lesley Farlow, 77.
49 Segal, “Prospects for the Artistic Development in the Field of Proletarian Dance.”
50 Cox, “The Loudspeaker and the Little Man,”121-147.
51 Kiell, Norman. “One-Third of a Nation: Theatre.” Michigan Daily, October 25, 1938. Box 3, Detroit Federal Theatre 1937–38 Folder 19, Edith Segal Papers, Additions (Citation1915-Citation1991).
52 “’ … one Third of a Nation … ’ Powerful Play at LaFayette.” n.d. Box 3, Detroit Federal Theatre 1937–38 Folder 19, Edith Segal Papers, Additions (Citation1915-Citation1991).
53 Segal, Edith. Report on Choreography “ … one third of a nation … ” 1938. Box 3, Federal Theater Choreography Reports Folder 22, Edith Segal Papers, Additions (Citation1915-Citation1991).
54 Ibid.
55 Ibid.
56 Ibid.
57 Ibid.
58 Ibid.
59 Ibid.
60 Ibid. Segal, “Prospects for the Artistic Development in the Field of Proletarian Dance.”
61 Regarding the charge that the FTP was “New Deal Propaganda,” Sporn writes “The accusation did not originate in Detroit. Its source was multiple, coming especially from the yellow press and conservative congressmen, and it was leveled against all WPA arts projects, throughout the whole history of New Deal patronage, although most steadily and venomously against the Theatre Project.” Sporn, Against Itself, 174-175.
62 Slutz, “Branded Red Unit.”
63 David Carnes, an FTP, actor stated: “Matthews is right when he says Edith Segal dominates the theater. It seems she came here with recommendations from Hallie Flannagan, national director of the Federal Theater. Half of the time she’s never around but when she is around she has her nose in everybody’s business.” Slutz, “Branded Red Unit.”
64 Sporn, Against Itself, 176.
65 Slutz, “Branded Red Unit.”
66 In a 1939 letter, Acting State Director of Detroit Federal Theatre Project Verner Haldene praised Segal for her “honesty and artistic integrity.” Letter from Verner Haldene to Edith Segal. March 3, 1939. Box 3, Correspondence 1930s Folder 46, Edith Segal Papers (Citation1920-Citation1997).
67 Segal, Edith. Interview with Paul Sporn
68 “Following a stint with the Federal Theatre Project in Detroit, Segal retired from professional performing at the end of the 1930s.” Manning, Modern Dance / Negro Dance, 68.
69 Describing the climate for dance in New York City in 1939, Manning writes “Although leftist choreographers continued to stage dances of social protest, they never again commanded the audience they had enjoyed during the heyday of the Workers Dance League, the New Dance League, and the Federal Theatre Project.” Modern Dance / Negro Dance, 119.
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Colleen Hooper
Colleen Hooper researches how dance connects to economic and cultural transformations in the 20th and 21st centuries. She is an assistant professor, chair of the department of dance, and associate artistic director of the Conservatory of Performing Arts at Point Park University. Her writing has been published in Dance Research Journal, the International Journal of Screendance, Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies, and Dance: Current Selected Research. She received her PhD and MFA degrees in Dance from Temple University and her choreography has been presented in a variety of site-specific and traditional stage venues since 2002.