Dance Theatre of Harlem announced April 6 that philanthropist Catherine B. Reynolds would be the new chair of the Board of Trustees, effective immediately. DTH has been in turmoil since the autumn of 2004, when financial difficulties forced it to close its doors. Although the school and Education & Community Ou treach programs have been restarted, the ballet company’s future has remained uncertain. Both artistic director Arthur Mitchell and executive director Lavee n Naidu expressed gratitude to Ms. Reynolds for her pledged leadership gift of $1 million. Ms. Reynolds previously worked in finance, restructuring the studen t loan business, and founded Servus Financial Corporation. After Servus was acq uired by Wells Fargo in March 2000, she established the Catherine B. Reynolds F oundation. Ms. Reynolds is a benefactor of many arts and educational organizatio ns, including the Black Student Fund and Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center for t he Performing Arts and National Gallery of Art.

The Joyce Theater and Signature Theater Company, two of the groups int ending to inhabit the planned Performing Arts Center near the World Tr ade Center site, have received much-needed financial support to aid th em in making that move. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has pledged gr ants of $1.2 million for each institution, with the requirement that t hey match the grant within three years’ time. The complex, designed by famed architect Frank Gehry, is scheduled for completion in 2010. (New York Times)

Deena Burton, a leading scholar and practitioner of Indonesian dance, died April 3 in Queens, NY, of lung cancer, aged 56. Ms. Burto n, a native New Yorker, became interested in Asian theater while attending the Uni versity of Wisconsin in Madison. She continued her studies at the Center for World Music in Berkeley and at the University of Hawaii, supporting herself by performin g in nightclubs and on cruise ships. For over six years she traveled throughout In donesia, researching and studying dance and other dramatic forms. She performed wi th dance troupes in Java, founded the Java Dance Theater in New York, and performe d her own and traditional dances in theaters and schools in the NYC area and on tou r. Ms. Burton also choreographed and performed in Off Off Broadway theater productions.

In 2000, Ms. Burton earned her doctorate in performance studies from New York Univers ity. Also involved in film documentation of Indonesian dance, she received a Fulbrigh t to show a collection she edited at the New York Public Library for the Performing A rts to artists around Indonesia. Ms. Burton taught world dance both at the New Schoo l University and at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. (New York Times)

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Joe Nash, who built up a significant co llection of materials on black dance in the United States, died on April 1 3 at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan, aged 85. Mr. Nash’s collection of books, dissertations, photographs, videos, and memorabilia was a source fo r Richard A. Long’s Black Tradition in American Dance (Rizzoli, 1989). Thro ughout the 1940s Mr. Nash danced on Broadway, with Charles Weidman, and in groups that featured black artists, alongside legends such as Pearl Primus and Donald McKayle. He set up dance history courses at the Ailey School and was a guest scholar at the American Dance Festival’s humanities and dance programs. He wrote the essay “ Pioneers in Negro Concert Dance,” on the challenges that faced early black ballet and modern dance companies, for the festival, and was also a scholar at the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in the Berkshires. (New York Times)

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Onna White, who choreographed musicals for both the stage and screen, died April 8 in West Hollywood, CA, aged 83. In a career that spanned three decades, Ms. White choreographed nineteen Broadway musicals, among them The Music Man and Mame. Born in Inverness, Nova Scotia, Ms. White trained as a ballet dancer before debuting on Broadway in the original production of Finian’s Rainbow, under the direction of choreographer Michael Kidd. She got her start as a choreographer when the show was revived in 1955. Although Ms. White never went home with a Tony, she was nominated for Best Choreography eight times. In 1969, she was recognized by the Motion Picture Academy and granted an honorary award at the Oscars for her work on the film Oliver! Ms. White also choreographed for other films, including Bye, Bye Birdie and the film versions of The Music Man and Mame. (Back Stage)

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Arthur Miller, one of the greatest contributors to American theater, died February 10 in Connecticut, aged 89, of congestive heart failure. Over the course of his career, Miller wrote seventeen plays, one screenplay, books, short stories, and an autobiography; he won many awards, including a Pulitzer, five Tonys, and a Special Lifetime Achievement Award. Miller’s plays mapped the individual’s moral struggle within American society, and his earlier works especially are beloved for their memorable characters and poetic language. The Death of a Salesman, his first major success, opened on Broadway in 1949. In his depiction of Willy Loman, an aging salesman struggling to hold on to his job, Miller dismantled the American dream. Miller’s own experiences coming of age during the Depression greatly influenced Salesman, as well as other plays to follow. In 1953, Miller took on McCarthyism through the prism of the 17th-century Salem witch hunts with The Crucible. When called upon to testify in front of Senator McCarthy’s Committee for Un-American Activities in 1956, Miller refused to inform on his colleagues and for two years was held in contempt of Congress, before charges were dismissed. Both his stand against McCarthyism and his short-lived but tumultuous marriage to the actress Marilyn Monroe made him a highly public figure in the late 1950s. Although many of his later plays were subject to mixed critical appraisal, his early plays are considered classics of the American stage and continue to be read and performed all over the world for their ability to inspire greater moral consciousness. (New York Times)

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