Queer Places:
215 W 20th St, New York, NY 10011
219 W 19th St, New York, NY 10011
Lakeview Memorial Gardens
Longview, Gregg County, Texas, USA
Thomas Jefferson "Jeff" Duncan Jr. (February 4, 1930 - May 26, 1989) began his dance training in college after seeing performances by the American Ballet Theatre, Martha Graham, and José Limon companies. Initially, he wanted to be concert pianist before realizing his dream to become a dancer.
Thomas Jefferson Duncan Jr. was born in Longview, Tex. He was a student at North Texas State University when he saw the Martha Graham Dance Company and decided to be a dancer. He transferred to Denver University and studied dance in 1949 with Hanya Holm at Colorado Springs. ''Inside of six weeks, my body opened,'' he said of the experience. ''I was a dancer.'' Duncan moved to New York City and trained with Alwin Nikolais and Betty Jones of the Jose Limon company, where Dorothy Humphrey noticed him and asked him to be her assistant for the Juilliard Dance Ensemble at the 92nd Street Y.
Duncan was a leading dancer in Anna Sokolow's company in the 1950's, creating the chief male role in her ''Lyric Suite'' and becoming her assistant in 1954. His own choreography, often concerned with characterization and themes of solitude and dreams, owed something to her spirit. Among his best-known works were ''Winesburg Portraits,'' based on Sherwood Anderson's novel ''Winesburg, Ohio''; ''Antique Epigrams''; ''Resonances,'' and ''Diminishing Landscape.''
After studying dance, Duncan became the principal dancer with Anna Sokolow for 12 years, before starting his own dance company, the Jeff Duncan Dance Company, in 1956. Between 1964 and 1975 Duncan’s main goal was to promote emerging choreographers. He started the Dance Theater Workshop, where he choreographed many shows, including Diminishing Landscape and Statement. The company eventually moved to the Jerome Robbins' American Theater Lab, which still exists today.
In 1963, after producing two concerts that left him financially strapped, Duncan rented a small loft at 215 West 20th Street. ''I thought I'd do my creative work and invite people down to see me, as Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman used to do on 16th Street,'' he said. ''Soon friends and colleagues gathered, asking to perform there.''
In 1965, Duncan, with Jack Moore and Art Bauman, a younger choreographer, organized the workshop as a sponsor of regular dance seasons that included both new and known choreographers. The workshop moved in 1975 to 219 West 19th Street.
Duncan helped a collective of choreographers - among them Martha Clarke, Deborah Jowitt, Linda Tarnay, Elizabeth Keene, Kathryn Posin, Lenore Latimer, Wendy Perron, Cliff Keuter, Kei Takai, Judith Dunn, Rudy Perez, James Cunningham, Frances Alenikoff, Ze'eva Cohen, and Tina Croll.
In 1975, Duncan expanded his role as promoter and teacher of dance. He accepted a position to teach dance at the University of Maryland and directed its resident touring company, Impetus, while managing to perform and produce in New York. During this time, he received two grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Creative Artists Public Service Guild, the American College Dance Festival Association, and a Fulbright Fellowship in 1988 for his work in Mexico. In the final months of Duncan’s life, he performed his signature work La Mesa Del Brujo.
He died of complications resulting from AIDS on May 26, 1989, in Baltimore at the Don Miller House, which offers care to AIDS patients. He was 59 years old.
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