Diane Jacobowitz

Diane Jacobowitz is an American choreographer, dancer, teacher, director and the founder of Dancewave.

Early Life and Education

Jacobowitz was born on October 30,1952 on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.n. Both her parents were Jewish and first generation Americans, whose parents had immigrated from Poland and Lithuania.Jacobowitz’s father Judah Jacobowitz, was a civil engineer who worked for Mobil Oil Corporation, and her mother Celia Dorothy Goldstein was employed as a secretary for various firms including her last position working for the President of Princeton University. Her older brother, Elliott Jacobowitz is a pianist and composer who lives in Andover, Massachussetts.s. When Diane turned 4, her family moved out of New York City to Elmsford, NY.From a very young age, she had a great passion for dance.She took lessons at a local dance studio in Greenburgh, New York under the direction of Greta Levart where she was exposed to the teachings of Donald McKayle and Percival Borde, husband of the famous Caribbean dancer Pearl Primus . When she was 9, her family moved to White Plains, NY. She attended the Westchester Music and Arts Camp in Croton-on-Hudson, and studied with Charlotte Walsh a dancer with the Charles Weidman Company and Anabelle Gamson , who had danced both on Broadway and with American Ballet Theater . Gamson founded Westchester Dance Theater, a small pre-professional company for talented young teen dancers. Jacobowitz danced in this company under Gamson’s direction until she graduated from White Plains High School in 1967. Several times weekly, Diane commuted to New York City to study at the Martha Graham Center for Contemporary Dance and at Preparatory Division of the Juilliard School. She attended the Ohio State University in 1970, where she majored in Dance. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Dance from Ohio State in 1974 and moved to New York City. During this time in New York, she produced over a dozen concerts with friends and continued to take dance classes in the Merce Cunningham technique with Viola Farber and Dan Wagoner. She danced with several modern choreographers including Grethe Holby, Kathy Duncan, Marta Renzi and Kenneth King. With Kenneth King, Diane appeared in the Michael Blackwood 19 film, ‘Making Dances, his performances at Battery Park, the Museum of Modern Art , the Cooper Hewitt Museum and at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Her hour-long improvised duet with King was mentioned in the book Terpsichore in Sneakers by Sally Banes . From 1982-84, she attended Connecticut College under a full fellowship and received her Master of Fine Arts degree in Dance.

Choreographic Career - Diane Jacobowitz Dance Theater

Jacobowitz's career in dance spans several decades, during which she has made significant contributions as a performer, choreographer, educator, and arts administrator.

In 1979, Jacobowitz founded Diane Jacobowitz Dance Theater, a contemporary company known for its innovative dance theater performances. Under her leadership, the company produced numerous critically acclaimed works that have been performed nationally and internationally.. In 1984,her company was awarded a residency at the Yellow Springs Institute in Chester, Pennsylvania where she created ‘Materials for a New World’. . She continued to produce company performances at New York City dance venues including Dance Theater Workshop , (which in 2022 was re-named New York Live Arts), Danspace Project at St. Marks Church in the Bowery , Marymount Manhattan Theater and Joyce Soho. In 1986, she was invited to Taipei, Taiwan where she taught modern technique and performed several pieces from her repertory. DJDT received favorable reviews from local and international press including the Village Voice, The New York Times, Soho Weekly News and Dance Magazine. Some of Jacobowitz’s notable pieces include ‘Lecture-Dem in Geeneewannaland’, ‘Last Dance’, ‘Lir Circle’,‘Materials for a New World’, ‘Earth Murmurs’, ‘Babel’, ‘Queen of Hearts’, ‘Beach’, ‘Oranges’, ‘Operation Dance’, ‘Kroll Opera House’, ‘Paul’s Passion’, ‘Red, Ned, Ted and Ed in Bed’, ‘Fugitive of the Dance World Coolies’, ‘Film Noir’.

In 1986, Jacobowitz was offered both a teaching and artist in residence position at Long Island University in Brooklyn’s Dance Program. The residency offered Jacobowitz’s company both rehearsal and performance space at the Triangle Theater on campus. During this time, Jacobowitz brought her company to perform at several NYC homeless shelters, a program she felt very committed to.

In 1990, she commissioned the renowned choreographer Anna Sokolow29 , to set ‘Steps of Silence’, a piece reflecting the horrors of the holocaust on her company. Sokolow also created a new work on DJDT entitled ‘Three Songs’. In 1994, the company performed at BAM’s LePerq Space, where she premiered ‘The Kroll Opera House’, ‘Red, Ned, Ted and Ed’ and ‘Paul’s Passion’. She collaborated with her husband Richard Merle, a conceptual artist and photographer in creating ‘The Kroll Opera House’ Despite the success of the BAM season, and discouraged by the enormous costs of running a nonprofit dance company, paying dancers, composers, musicians, and costume and set designers and producing new work, Jacobowitz disbanded her company in 1994 after the BAM season..As a new mom with a 2-year old daughter, she decided to focus on motherhood. But she wasn’t able to stop working for long. Inspired by her daughter, Eliana Merle, and passionate about supporting the training of promising young dancers, Jacobowitz founded Dancewave in 1995. With the mission of bringing dance to a broad spectrum of the city youth population, particularly to those talented dancers who lacked the means to afford pre-professional training, Jacobowitz focused the nonprofit on creating training and performing opportunities for young dancers from diverse backgrounds. Her focus was working with young people as artists in the making, connecting them early to professional artistry, and offering training and mentorship with world-renowned dance artists.

As Dancewave’s Founder and Artistic/Executive Director for 25 years, Diane developed innovative programming to capture the talents and imagination of young dancers from all parts of New York City. She grew the idea of Dancewave, while she was teaching modern and ballet technique as an Associate Professor of Dance at Long Island University in Brooklyn. During this time, she created Dancewave’s first Kids Cafe Festival at LIU’s Triangle Theater. She invited young dancers from Harlem, Westchester, East New York, Brooklyn and all over New York City to participate. The original festival, hosted by live musicians and professional dance emcees in an upbeat cabaret spirit, was a huge success, and brought large enthusiastic crowds cheering for the diverse group of young performers. Some of the artists who hosted the festival included the clowns, Fidget and Loon, Mecca Bodega, Circus Amok, Christalyn Wright, tap dancers and more. The Festival continued to grow and while Jacobowitz taught at LIU, Kids Cafe was presented there every year. In 1997, Kids Cafe was produced by the Kitchen, a downtown performance venue, and in 1999, it was produced at the Tribeca Performing Arts Center at Borough of Manhattan Community College. At the latter, Jacobowitz invited 2 young dance troupes from Germany–both East and West Germany to participate and perform in the Festival. On November 19, 2001, Dancewave’s Kids Company performed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as part of the 2001 New York State Governor’s Arts Awards which was broadcast on Channel 13, WNET television.

In 1995, Jacobowitz left her position at LIU and began teaching at local dance studios and the Berkeley Carroll School, a private school in Park Slope. In 2008, she rented a small storefront space in downtown Brooklyn where she had the back office renovated into a dance studio. With support from the city (New York City Department of Cultural Affairs), Borough President Marty Markowitz and a few individual donors, Dancewave began to grow not just a nonprofit organization, but as a school for young dancers and performers. Dancewave offered classes for toddlers through adults and created 5 performing companies for different age groups.The organization took root and expanded, creating new opportunities for dancers and the New York City public to enjoy the benefits of dance training and performance. A few of the many programs Jacobowitz developed which still operate today include the Dancewave Company model, Dancewave Through College and Beyond, the Dance Career Symposium, Strategies for Young Artist Citizens, as well as the Kids Cafe Festival.

Jacobowitz’s model of pairing young dancers with world-renowned modern choreographers was a unique concept in dance education, and is now widespread amongst modern teen repertory companies. Some of the dance artists who choreographed or created excerpts of famous works on the teen dance company include Mark Morris, David Dorfman, Twyla Tharp, Doug Varone, Paul Taylor, David Dorfman, Bill T. Jones, Kyle Abraham, Ron K. Brown, Camille Brown, Meredith Monk, Annie B. Parsons, Andrea Miller (Gallim), Larry Keigwin, Donald Byrd, Shen Wei and Urban Bushwomen.

In 2010, she brought the Dancewave Company to Scotland where they performed at the Aberdeen International Youth Festival and toured large theaters around Scotland.

Through Diane’s persistent efforts, Dancewave continued to grow. She developed a new, vibrant arts- in-education program for the New York City public school system that continues to grow today. By bringing professional teachers in African, Hiphop, Salsa, Modern, Ballet and more, to all 5 NYC boroughs, Dancewave offers tens of thousands of city kids the opportunity to study dance tuition-free from all over New York City. Through Dancewave Through College and Beyond, Jacobowitz created opportunities for young dancers to learn about college dance programs as well as audition for scholarships funded by the different participating colleges. In 2019, with support from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, a host of several foundations and private donors, Dancewave secured a 25-year lease from the Fifth Avenue Committee and a contract with the City Department of Design & Construction (DDC) to renovate an old glass factory space in Gowanus. The new construction remodeled the space into 2 modern fully-equipped air conditioned dance studios, a dressing room and office space. In 2019, Dancewave celebrated their new home and location where the organization currently lives and continues to grow. In 2020, Jacobowitz retired as ED/AD of Dancewave. The Dancewave Board invited Nicole Touzien, a former Dancewave employee to lead the organization.