AMAN International Folk Ensemble 
~  50th Anniversary Reunion Honoree  ~

                   ANTHONY SHAY                                          50th Anniversary Gala Award Dinner - 10/12/13
           Bio from the AMAN50 souvenir program book                                     (Plaque presented by Bonita Edelberg and LADO video by Željko Jergan)

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Anthony holds the position of Associate Professor of Dance and Cultural Studies in the Department of Theatre and Dance at Pomona College. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of California, Riverside in Dance History and Theory. He is the author of four books: Choreophobia: Solo Improvised Dance in the Iranian World (1999); Cho-reographic Politics: State Folk Dance Companies, Representation and Power (2002), for which he was awarded the Outstanding Scholarly Dance Publication Award by the Congress on Research in Dance (2003); Choreographing Identities: Folk Dance, Ethnicity and Festival in the United States and Canada (2005); and Dancing Across Borders: The American Fascination with Exotic Dance Forms (2008). He also edited or co-edited three anthologies: Belly Dance: Orientalism, Transnationalism, and Harem Fantasy (with Barbara Sellers-Young, 2005), Balkan Dance: Essays on Characteristics, Performance and Teaching (2007) to honor the life and career of Dick Crum, and When Men Dance: Dancing Across Borders of Masculinity (with Jennifer Fisher, 2009). He has completed editing the Oxford Handbook of Dance and Ethnicity (forthcoming 2014), and a monograph, Dirty Dancing: Public Entertainers, Sex and Effeminacy (forthcoming 2014). He is the author of over forty scholarly articles.He founded the UCLA Village Dancers in 1960, which was renamed AMAN in 1963. He served as Co-artistic Director 1963-1976. He served as Founding Artistic Director of the AVAZ International Dance Theatre 1976-2006. During this period among his many awards he received five NEA Choreographic Fellowships, NEA Artist-in-Residence in La Napoule, France, 1990, a James Irvine Choreographic Fellow in 1998, an NEH Fellowship in 2004, two NEH summer scholar fellowships, and the California Arts Council Lifetime Achievement Award.

“I wish to thank all of the artists who  worked with me over the span of my artistic and creative life for inspiring my career as choreographer and scholar.”