Best Foot Forward: Dance At SDSU



The Black Repertory Total Theatrical Experience dance troupe members in action, 1987. (University Archives Photographic Collection)

Dance at San Diego State University has had a home in the School of Music and Dance for twenty years, but the department was once based in the department of Physical Education. In 1948, Professor Evelyn Lockman (1909-1991) joined the faculty and played a key role in establishing the dance major. During her twenty-nine years at the university, Lockman taught workshops, presented lectures, and brought many great dancers to San Diego. She retired in 1977. Evelyn Lockman's personal papers, housed in the SDSU Archives, include correspondence, scrapbooks, performance programs, and photographs that help trace dance students' activities over four decades, plus Lockman's own.

Image to the left: Future SDSU professor of dance Evelyn Lockman in costume for a performance of Song of India. From 1936 to 1939, Lockman operated her own dance studio in Kentucky. Photograph. (Evelyn Lockman Papers)

Image to the left: Modern Dance Club students performing during Founders' Day Open House, 1960. Photograph. (Evelyn Lockman Papers)

The year 1977 marked the arrival of another educator who influenced dance at SDSU, Professor Danny Scarborough. Assistant professor of the literature, drama, and Afro-American Studies departments (he became chair of the latter), Scarborough founded the Black Repertory Total Theatrical Experience. Approximately thirty-five student dancers, singers, and technicians belonged to this performing troupe and class, which Scarborough established to preserve African American culture through movement, dance, and music. He died in 1989. Images in the University Archives Photographic Collection preserve the memory of his creation.

Image above: Members of the Black Repertory Total Theatrical Experience perform at a benefit, 1987. (University Archives Photographic Collection)


Image to the right:
A campus dance concert program from 1953. (Evelyn Lockman Papers)