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Tuesday, April 1, 1975
University Daily Kansan
Elizabeth Sherbon, professor of health, physical education and recreation, belies her years while leading her advanced modern dance class in exercises. Sherbon will retire at the end of this semester after 14 years at the University of Kansas.
Staff photos by DON PIERCE
Rv.JANHYATT
By JAN HYATT Kansan Staff Reporter
There is a woman you may have seen in Robinson Gymnasium, a small figure wearing purple leotards and tights, dressed cliff drapery and tiny pink slippers.
Her face looks younger than she is. It is dominated by thrusting cheekbones, but the brown eyes and the small mouth hold your attention. Her hair is a thick mass of white and variegated grays, clasped in back and just touching her shoulders.
The woman is Elizabeth Sherbon, professor of health, physical education and recreation, or more commonly, "the舞教师." She has been teaching dance at the University of Kansas since 1961, but this semester is her last. She will retire in May.
When Sherbon came to KU, the dance department offered three hours of dance for
She leaves a dance department that offers 28 hours to all students. Besides beginning courses in ballet, modern, folk, square and ballroom dancing, and intermediate courses in ballet and modern dance, there are classes in dance production, composition, ensemble and the history and philosophy of dance.
Sherbon has served as faculty adviser to the KU chapter of Tau Sigma, national dance society. She has directed the group's annual KU concert and other appearances.
Sherbon began thinking of herself as a dancer at age five, she said recently, but her formal training began at age nine with ballet lessons.
In 1933, Sherborn moved to New York, where dance was exploding and exploring under the leadership of the greatest names in American dance—Martha Graham, Charles Weidman, Doris Humphrey and Hanna Holm.
She studied dance while getting her bachelor's and master's degrees in physical education from KU and the University of Iowa.
Sherbon was soon to study and perform under the great ones. But like most artists newly arrived in the city of culture, she initially had to settle for second-best.
"One of the first things I got into in New York was the ballet company of the Hip-podrome Opera. We performed in this big building that isn't there anymore. There
were prize fights there during the week and onera on the weekends," she recalled.
"in those days, modern dancers wouldn't speak to ballet dancers, and ballet dancers despised modern dancer, so I was considered a maverick for duoing both," Sherbon said.
Sherborn stayed in New York for 18 years. She performed in concerts with the companies of Graham and Jean Erdman. She studied at the modern dance studios of Holm, Humphrey and Weidman, as well as at Robert Joffrey's ballet school.
In the summer of 1951, Sherborn spent a month in Wichita teaching dance and music.
After one and one-half hours of dance practice under Sherbon, students generally feel invigorated.
munity Theatre. They were enthusiastic about her and about dance and asked her to
Sherborn went back to New York that fall, but the end of the year she returned to Wichita.
"It was time for me to get out of New York," she said. "There seemed to be something going on here that was missing there. It was a creativity of a special kind ...
"The dancers didn't have good technique in many cases, but they had a vitality and energy."
The Sherborn Dance Studio on South
Drummond Island 10 years. Then she
joined the KIU faculty.
She said that she enjoyed teaching college students and that the most creative dance dance classes were to her.
Sheron's goal in teaching is to try to develop each student individually, to get him to know his body and his abilities, she learns how to keep from learny accent themselves, she said.
Sherborn has encouraged men to study dance and she rejects the notion that dancing is only for women.
"if he's going to be deformate, then the roots of it are there long before he becomes mature."
Sherbon said total sexual equality didn't belong in the world of dance performance.
"We need a balance of men and women in dance. Men's dance is strong and vital; women dancers portray strength too, but it's of a different quality. The two are polarities and we need both to be complete."
Sherbon said an audience would be disturbed by the sight of a danger, lifting a man's
While teaching at KU, Sheron helped organize the Kansas Dance Council, an organization that promotes the teaching and performance of dance in the state.
In 1988 she published "Or the Count of One," a textbook for beginning dancers. The book is in its fifth printing and is used by her students and universities, according to Sherborn.
Although dance is her major interest, Sheron also is a history buff, especially for American art.
"I think it helps to know where you came from. You build on the past but you live in the present."
Always striving for perfection in her students, Sherbon catches an imperfection in the stance of Barbara O'Brien, Bonner Springs junior.
Not even a small thing like the arch of the foot escapes Sheron's instruction (left). Above, Sheron ponders her next class routines, which are often accompanied by recorded music or the