Janice Ross
Janice Ross | |
|---|---|
| Academic background | |
| Education | |
| Thesis | The Feminization of Physical Culture (1998) |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Dance |
| Institutions | Stanford University |
Janice L. Ross is an American dance historian and emerita professor of dance at Stanford University.[1][2] Ross is the author of a number of books, including The Choreography of Environments: How the Home of Anna and Lawrence Halprin Home Transformed Contemporary Dance and Urban Design. Ross also served as an editor of Dance Magazine and a dance critic for the Oakland Tribune.
Early life and education
[edit]Ross was born about 1951,[3] the daughter of Arthur and Grace Ross.[citation needed] She received her bachelor's degree in art history from the University of California, Berkeley in 1973. This was followed by a master's in dance history/curriculum and teacher education in 1975 from Stanford University and a PhD in the history of dance education in 1998.[4]
Career
[edit]After receiving her doctorate, Ross began her teaching career at Stanford University as lecturer in the dance division. She was promoted to associate professor in 2004, and full professor in 2008. In 2010, Ross was invited to the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance as a Visiting Professor.[4] In 2013, she was the founding faculty director of Immersion in the Arts: Living in Culture, Stanford's freshman arts immersion program.[5]
Ross has published and lectured significantly on the lives and works of Anna Halprin and Lawrence Halprin[6] and Leonid Yakobson.[7]
Ross has served as an editor of Dance Magazine for about 20 years and a dance critic for the Oakland Tribune for approximately 10 years.[8][9]
Critical reception
[edit]In a review in In Dance magazine, Marlena Gittleman said of Ross's book The Choreography of Environments, she "situates each Halprin as a choreographer in their respective field: Anna in dance and Larry in landscape architecture and urban design... Ross draws out resonances... and a bit of embodied imagination. In doing so, she follows the Halprins in modeling a receptivity to environment that invites readers to not only cognitively understand but also feel into the spaces she describes.... Finally, The Choreography of Environments tells a history of the Bay Area, one filled with tensions between postwar suburban life, 1960s countercultural aspirations, and liberal blind spots."[6]
Doria E. Charlson in the Theatre Journal worte said the book "is an exciting project that reveals the depth of Anna and Lawrence "Larry" Halprin's co-creative processes using everyday objects... Bringing together dance studies, architecture and design, and art history, the book illustrates how the Halprins' domestic environment shaped their aesthetic sensibilities, their understanding of movement and choreography, and their ability to mobilize the ordinary as a tool for civic and societal change."[10]
Personal life
[edit]Ross is Jewish, of Eastern European descent.[8] She was married to attorney Keith Bartel.[9] The couple married in 1979.[3] He died in 2014.[11] The couple had two children,[8][9] their son having predeceased his father.[11]
Awards
[edit]- Dean's Award for Distinguished Lifetime Teaching at Stanford University (2021-2022)[2]
- Honorary Fellow of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, Israel (2022)[12]
- Bogliasco Foundation Fellowship, Italy (2022)[citation needed]
- NYU Center for Ballet and the Arts Mellon Fellowship (2018)[citation needed]
- Fulbright Scholar Fellowship (2010-2011)[13]
- Stanford Humanities Center Fellowships (2011-2012; 2001-2002)[citation needed]
- John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (2001-2002)[citation needed]
Selected works
[edit]Books
[edit]- Ross, Janice. The Choreography of Environments: How the Home of Anna and Lawrence Halprin Home Transformed Contemporary Dance and Urban Design. Oxford University Press. 2025. ISBN 9780197775622.[6]
- Manning, Susan; Ross, Janice; Schneider, Rebecca, eds. (2020). Futures of Dance Studies. The University of Wisconsin Press.[14]
- Ross, Janice. Like A Bomb Going Off: Leonid Yakobson and Ballet as Resistance in Soviet Russia. Yale University Press. 2015. ISBN 9780300207637.[15]
- Ross, Janice. Anna Halprin: Experience as Dance. University of California Press. 2007. ISBN 9780520247574.[16]
- Ross, Janice. San Francisco Ballet at Seventy-Five (Chronicle, 2007)
- Ross, Janice. Moving Lessons: Margaret H'Doubler and The Beginning of Dance In American Education. University of Wisconsin Press. 2000.[17]
Book chapters
[edit]- The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Ballet (2020)
- The Oxford Handbook of Improvisation in Dance (2019)
- Ingber, Judith Brin, ed. (2011). "Jewish Culture and Identity in the Russian Ballet: The Case of Leonid Jacobson". Seeing Israeli and Jewish Dance. Wayne State University Press. ISBN 9780814333303.
- Ingber, Judith Brin, ed. (2008). Perspectives on Israeli and Jewish Dance.
Articles
[edit]- Ross, Janice L. (2022-10-21). "Ballet and the Renegotiation of Identity among Jewish Orthodox Women in Israel". Arts. 11 (5): 107. doi:10.3390/arts11050107. ISSN 2076-0752.
- Ross, Janice L. (2009). "Atomizing Cause and Effect: Ann Halprin's 1960s Summer Dance Workshops". Art Journal. 69 (2): 62–75. doi:10.1080/00043249.2009.10791346.
- Ross, Janice L. (2007-02-06). "Where they danced: patrons, institutions, spaces: Institutional forces and the shaping of dance in the American university". Dance Chronicle. 25: 115–124. doi:10.1081/DNC-120003122.
- Ross, Janice L. (2004-06-01). "Anna Halprin's Urban Rituals". The Drama Review. 48 (2): 49–67. doi:10.1162/105420404323063391.
References
[edit]- ↑ "TAPS: Emeriti Professors". Stanford University. Retrieved 2026-07-21.
- 1 2 "Dean's Awards (for Distinguished Teaching)". Stanford University: School of Humanities and Sciences. Retrieved 21 July 2026.
- 1 2 "California, Marriage Index, 1960-1985: Entry for Janice L Ross and Keith P Bartel, 1979". Family Search. 1979. Retrieved 21 July 2026.
- 1 2 "Janice Ross' Profile | Stanford Profiles". Stanford University. Retrieved 2026-07-22.
- ↑ Lyons, Gwynn (2013-11-08). "ITALIC, SIMILE programs met with mixed student reactions". The Stanford Daily. Retrieved 2026-07-22.
- 1 2 3 Reviews of The Choreography of Environments
- Gittleman, Marlena (February 17, 2025). "Book Review: From Marin 'Domestic Choreography' to West Coast Postmodern Dance". In Dance.
- Charlson, Doria E (September 2025). "The Choreography of Environments: How the Anna and Lawrence Halprin Home Transformed Contemporary Dance and Urban Design by Janice Ross (review)". Theatre Journal. 77 (3): 416–417. doi:10.1353/tj.2025.a971586.
- ↑ "Author author: new books by Bay Area writers". J. 2015-02-06. Retrieved 2026-07-21.
- 1 2 3 Ghent, Janet Silver (2007-04-06). "Anna Halprin, the dancer, now Anna Halprin, the book". J. Retrieved 2026-07-21.
- 1 2 3 Ghent, Janet Silver (2007-12-28). "Peering behind the curtain". Palo Alto Online. Retrieved 2026-07-21.
- ↑ Charlson, Doria E (September 2025). "The Choreography of Environments: How the Anna and Lawrence Halprin Home Transformed Contemporary Dance and Urban Design by Janice Ross (review)". Theatre Journal. 77 (3): 416–417. doi:10.1353/tj.2025.a971586.
- 1 2 "Deaths: Keith Paul Bartel (June 3, 1950–Feb. 19, 2014)". J. 2014-02-28. Retrieved 2026-07-21.
- ↑ "Honorary Fellow Awards | The Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance". jamd.ac.il. Retrieved 2026-07-22.
- ↑ "Ross's Russian venture | The Jerusalem Post". The Jerusalem Post | JPost.com. December 30, 2010.
- ↑ Reviews of Futures of Dance Studies
- Chao, Chi-Fang (2021-11-02). "Susan Manning, Janice Ross and Rebecca Schneider (eds), Futures of Dance Studies". Dance Research. 39 (2): 277–278. doi:10.3366/drs.2021.0348. ISSN 0264-2875.
Future is a dynamic category. It reminds us of our relationship to both the present and the past, which are always in flux.... The editors Manning, Ross and Schneider have grouped the articles into seven themes....At first glance, these themes seem to be rather independent, but a closer look at the texts often uncovers a rhetoric of modernity mixed with post-colonial reflection or critique.
- Nereson, Ariel (2021). "Futures of Dance Studies ed. by Susan Manning, Janice Ross, and Rebecca Schneider". Theatre Journal. 73 (4): 603–605. doi:10.1353/tj.2021.0139. ISSN 1086-332X.
Futures of Dance Studies is an unusual collection in that among its voluminous chapters there is no weak link. Chapters span time periods from the medieval... to the present... as well as geographies, from Cuba... to Greece... to China... Topics range widely as well
- Richter, Kat Echevarria (2021). "The Bloomsbury Companion to Dance Studies ed. by Sherril Dodds, and: Futures of Dance Studies ed. by Susan Manning, Janice Ross, and Rebecca Schneider (review)". Dance Research Journal. 53 (1): 96–101. doi:10.1017/S0149767721000127. ISSN 1940-509X.
Edited anthologies such as these have become a mainstay of academic publishing in dance. It is unsurprising, therefore, that both volumes are impeccably researched, insightful, and timely. They offer fresh perspectives on well-worn subjects, introducing readers to entirely new sites and modes of conducting dance research, while eschewing geographical and chronological constraints.
- Chao, Chi-Fang (2021-11-02). "Susan Manning, Janice Ross and Rebecca Schneider (eds), Futures of Dance Studies". Dance Research. 39 (2): 277–278. doi:10.3366/drs.2021.0348. ISSN 0264-2875.
- ↑ Järvinen, Hanna (August 2017). "Like a Bomb Going Off: Leonid Yakobson and Ballet as Resistance in Soviet Russia by Janice Ross . 2015. New Haven & London: Yale University Press. 522 pp., b/w illustrations., $40.00. ISBN 9780300207637". Dance Research Journal. 49 (2): 100–104. doi:10.1017/S0149767717000316. ISSN 0149-7677.
- ↑ Felciano, Rita (2007-11-05). "The Remarkable Dance of Anna Halprin: Anna Halprin: Experience as Dance By Janice Ross. 445 pp. Illustrated. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007. $34.95. ISBN 978-0-520-24757-4". Dance Chronicle. 30 (3): 519–522. doi:10.1080/01472520701639027. ISSN 0147-2526.
- ↑ Hagood, Tom (2014-07-22). "Moving Lessions: Margaret H'Doubler and the Beginning of Dance in American Education, by Janice Ross. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2000, 24.95 paperback". Dance Research Journal. 36 (2): 176–179. doi:10.2307/20444606. ISSN 0149-7677. JSTOR 20444606.
External links
[edit]- "Dance Studies Colloquium: Janice Ross". January 24, 2025 – via YouTube.
- "Directory of Fellows". Bogliasco Center. Retrieved 2025-09-21.
- "It Takes One: Janice Ross". The Cultural Landscape Foundation (Interview).
- "Janice Ross (Fellow profile)". Ballet Center, New York University.
- "Janice Ross". Stanford University (Profile). Retrieved 2025-09-21.
- "Guggenheim Fellows: Janice Ross". Guggenheim.
- Vu, Kelvin (Oct 28, 2025). "New Books in Performing Arts Podcast: Janice Ross "The Choreography of Environments"". New Books Network. Retrieved 21 July 2026.
