Julia Bennett (left) and Edna Dieman (right) were strict teachers, expecting their students to learn both the techniques and emotional meaning of every dance they performed, whether it was classical ballet, Bharata Natyam, or Spanish dance. Photo courtesy of Iowa Women’s Archives at the University of Iowa
By Jane Claspy Nesmith
On a warm July evening during the summer of 1974, a dance troupe took the outdoor stage at the renowned South Bear summer arts festival near Highland in northeast Iowa. The audience was there to see “Swan Lake,” the folk story that became a 19th century ballet featuring beautiful maidens turned into swans by an evil sorcerer and a handsome prince who falls in love with one of them.
But on that Iowa stage, there were no toe shoes, no tutus. Barefoot and dressed in luminous silk saris, silvery ankle bells jingling, the dancers moved in the style of Bharata Natyam, classical Hindu dance. Knees flexed, their feet beating out rhythms to accompany Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s score, the dancers used their expressive arms, hands and faces to tell the story of swans, sorcerer and prince — “Hindu Swan Lake.”
These dancers were not a visiting troupe from India. They were members of the Dance Theatre of the Hemispheres, a dance company based in Cedar Rapids from 1961 to 1997. Besides Bharata Natyam, their repertoire included varieties of Spanish dance such as jota and flamenco, as well as Kathak dance from northern India.
During the 30 years of its existence, Dance Theatre of the Hemispheres performed throughout Iowa as well as in far-flung locales such as the renowned Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in Massachusetts and the Edinburgh Arts Festival in Scotland. The company, which collaborated with many Iowa organizations, from the Cedar Rapids Symphony, to Coe College, to the Brucemore National Trust Site, was known for their excellence in both eastern and western dance styles at a time when most dance companies focused on western dance only.
How did a dance company from a medium-sized Iowa city become widely renowned for its ability to perform classical dance from Spain and India, and for its passion for educating Iowans about those cultures?
To understand the story of Dance Theatre of the Hemispheres and its commitment to “diversity in dance,” it is important to know a bit about the company’s two founders, Edna Dieman and Julia Bennett. It was their interest in diversity in dance, as well as their knowledge, hard work and passion, that gave Dance Theatre of the Hemispheres its unique repertoire of both eastern and western dance.
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