Mary Adele "Della" Davidson (1951/1952 – March 13, 2012) was an American modern dancer, choreographer, and dance professor at the

University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Davis, California, United States. It is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University ...

Department of Theatre and Dance.

Life

Mary Adele Davidson was born in Texas, but grew up in Michigan. While she had trained in ballet since elementary school, she discovered modern dance in college, attending

Michigan State Michigan State University (Michigan State or MSU) is a public land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan, United States. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the first of its kind in the ...

, the

University of Utah The University of Utah (the U, U of U, or simply Utah) is a public university, public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. It was established in 1850 as the University of Deseret (Book of Mormon), Deseret by the General A ...

, and the

University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona, United States. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it ...

. She joined the faculty of the University of California, Davis in 2001. While there, she co-created ''The Weight of Memory'' with Ellen Bromberg, a choreographer/dance filmmaker, and ''Collapse (suddenly falling down)'', with the KeckCAVES institute. At the time of her death, she was working with Bromberg on a piece titled ''and the snow fell softly on all the living and the dead''. She was Artistic Director of Della Davidson Dance Theater since 1986 and Sideshow Physical Theater at UC Davis since 2001. She created more than forty works in her lifetime, many of them multidisciplinary, combining dance and film.

Assessment

''Driven by an urge to get away from the "roles" she and other women had been brought up to inhabit, she often created dance that evoked the raw energy of forceful women, their strength, physicality and sensuality. Heavily ironic, pieces such as ''10 P.M. Dream'' or ''Fierce/Pink/House'' displayed gender stereotypes only to expose them as insidious traps, and she was firmly committed to feminism as a challenge to oppression and small-mindedness.''

''Night Stories''

In 1997, Davidson adapted for dance three stories from the book ''

The Stories of Eva Luna ''The Stories of Eva Luna'' () is a collection of Spanish-language short stories by the Chilean-American writer Isabel Allende. It consists of stories told by the title character of Allende's earlier novel '' Eva Luna''. The literary critic B� ...

'' by

Isabel Allende Isabel Angélica Allende Llona (; born 2 August 1942) is a Chilean-American writer. Allende, whose works sometimes contain aspects of the magical realism genre, is known for novels such as '' The House of the Spirits'' (''La casa de los espír ...

: ''Wicked Girl'', ''Tosca'', and ''Revenge''. The dance was titled ''Night Stories: The Eva Luna Project First Cycle'' and was first performed at the Theater Artaud in San Francisco, California.

Awards

*Isadora Duncan Award for Outstanding Achievement in Choreography *1990 North American Award for Choreography

Legacy

The Della Davidson Prize is an annual award of $1,220 to support "innovative dance and dance/theater artists."

Personal

Davidson was married to Mark Reiff. She died on March 13, 2012, in

Santa Fe, New Mexico Santa Fe ( ; , literal translation, lit. "Holy Faith") is the capital city, capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico, and the county seat of Santa Fe County. With over 89,000 residents, Santa Fe is the List of municipalities in New Mexico, fourt ...

References

Sources

* * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Davidson, Della 1950s births 2012 deaths American female dancers Dancers from New Mexico American modern dancers Deaths from breast cancer in the United States University of California, Davis faculty Michigan State University alumni University of Utah alumni University of Arizona alumni Deaths from cancer in New Mexico 21st-century American women Date of birth missing Place of birth missing 21st-century American dancers