Elizabeth Sherbon wasn’t born in Lawrence, but it was on this campus that the de facto mother of the dance program within the department of music and dance made her mark on countless students.

This weekend the University of Kansas will celebrate the Elizabeth Sherbon Centennial 100 years after her birth, honoring one of the pioneers of modern dance through student and guest performances, art exhibits and the rededication of the Elizabeth Sherbon Dance Theatre.

After graduating from the University in 1930, Sherbon moved to New York City to dance professionally, working along the way with dance luminaries such as Martha Graham and Ted Shawn. In 1961, Sherbon returned to the University to head the dance program, where she taught until her retirement in 1975. She lived in Lawrence until her death in 2000.

Janet Hamburg, professor of dance, said Sherbon’s contributions were the reason the 50 students currently declared as dance majors had the ability to earn their degrees from the School of Fine Arts. Under her leadership, the department of music and dance began admitting men into a program previously limited to women and grew until her retirement.

“She laid the groundwork, the foundation, for one of the most comprehensive dance programs in this region,” Hamburg said.

Previously, students interested in studying dance, Sherbon included, could only take classes through the School of Education. Sherbon built a curriculum that encouraged the creation of “artist scholars” as well as magnificent dancers, Hamburg said. Her textbook, On the Count of One, is still used in classrooms across the country.

Bill Evans, a world-renowned tap dancer and Sherbon’s longtime friend, has returned to the University periodically to teach and perform since Sherbon invited him to teach at a dance camp nearly 40 years ago.

“She was truly a pioneer at KU,” Bill Evans, a guest artist and choreographer of the centennial, said. “She had to fight to give dance a place of respect and dignity in the University, and she was up to the fight. Along the way she inspired countless numbers of students and young artists with whom she shared her passion and whom she encouraged.”

In addition to this year’s centennial celebration, each year a dance student is awarded the Elizabeth Sherbon Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance. Michelle Heffner Hayes, associate professor of dance, received the award in 1989 and used the financial leeway provided to attend the American Dance Festival — an experience she said changed her life.

Heffner Hayes returned to Lawrence to teach in 2006. She said Sherbon’s vision of incorporating every aspect of the world around you into dance remained the goal of the department today.

“In her vision of the degree program there was always this idea that as dancers, as artists and as art makers we are an important voice in any culture,” Heffner Hayes said. “We are working in response to the world around us and that we have a certain responsibility in that role. It was never this idea that you were in an ivory tower or isolated from the world around you. There has always been a very strong humanities component to this degree program. We are thinkers as well as movers.

— Edited by Katherine Loeck