- This article refers to the dancer. For Dick Crum, the American football coach, see Dick Crum (American football)
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Richard George Crum (December 8, 1928 – December 12, 2005) was a prominent international folk dance researcher, teacher and choreographer. He conducted extensive field research in Eastern Europe in the 1950s (Shay, p, 121) and was choreographer for the Duquesne University Tamburitzans. He ran several international folk dance festivals, including those at St. Paul, Minnesota and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.[1]
Early life
Dick Crum was born to German and Irish parents, the oldest of five children (including his sister Lois) and grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota. He attended a Romanian school and impressed them with his interest in their culture. His mother, Florence "Fee Fee" Crum, taught some folk dancing, and Dick and Lois attended the Serbian Days festival in Hibbing and Chisholm, Minnesota and the St. Louis, Missouri Folk Dance Festival.[1]
He attended the University of Pittsburgh to receive a Bachelor's in Romance Languages, and Harvard University to receive a Master's in Slavic Languages and Literature.[1]
International folk dancing
Crum was a dancer, technical adviser, and choreographer with the Duquesne University Tamburitzans starting in 1950. He was named program director of the Festival of Nations at St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1952. He also consulted and choreographed for the AMAN Folk Ensemble.[1]
In 1951, his popularity as an international folk teacher increased rapidly. He did research on folk dances in the Balkans, visiting there seven times. Not only did he teach dances from the Balkans, but also Slovenian couple dances and other European dances.[1]
Crum worked as an editor for Agnew Tech-Tran, a translation service in Los Angeles, California. He learned many languages, including Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbo-Croatian, Slovene, Spanish, and Romanian. He also knew some Chinese, German, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Swedish, and Old Church Slavonic.[1]
In 1996, Crum was a panelist at a conference for the National Endowment for the Arts entitled "Vernacular Dance in America".[1]
See also
References
Source books
- Casey, Betty (1981). International Folk Dancing U. S. A. Doubleday. ISBN 9781574411188.
- Laušević, Mirjana (2007). Balkan Fascination: Creating an Alternative Music Culture in America. Oxford University Press. pp. 190–194, et al. ISBN 978-0190269425.
- Shay, Anthony (2006). Choreographing Identities: Folk Dance, Ethnicity and Festival in the United States and Canada. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co. pp. ix, 12, 19, 39, 97, 121, 162. ISBN 978-0786426003.
External links
- "Dick Crum". East European Folklife Center.
- "Dick Crum". Archived from the original on August 29, 2018. Originally published by Dick Oakes' Phantom Ranch. This page has numerous photographs.
- "Interview with Dick Crum, 1974".
- "Dick Crum Culture Session 1980".
- "Dick Crum Culture Session 1981".
- "Dick Crum Culture Session 1989".
- "Costumes". Short article by Dick Crum.