Don Oscar Becque papers

1920-1983

Don Oscar Becque, also known as William Oscar Beck, was a dancer, choreographer, director, and teacher of modern dance. According to Becque's résumé, he studied at the American Laboratory Theatre School under Boleslavsky and Oupenskaya; studied musical composition under Frederick Schlieder; ballet under Mordkin, Vestoff, Fokine, and Cecchetti; American dance under Denishawn; and Japanese dance under Michio Ito. However, his most influential teacher was Mabel Elsworth Todd, the founder of Ideokinesis and the author of The Thinking Body. Becque was a dance student and then a research assistant for Todd for approximately fifteen years. Ideokinesis, an approach to body mechanics, was influential to the pioneers of modern dance, whom Becque counted himself among. Regardless, Todd's work developed Becque's interest in the study of body mechanics, which greatly informed his teaching.

Becque's career-long interest in dance education began in 1928 with the opening of the Becque School of the Dance. According to his résumé, he taught the first modern dance courses at New York University. After the peak of his dance career, he taught dance, body mechanics and movement theory, primarily in New York and Texas. In New York City, he founded the Body and Movement Arts Institute in the 1970s, where he taught the Becque approach to body and movement. As a flier states, "Movement skills and techniques are developed as an organic unit through the three synergies of energy release (STRUCTURAL action, GESTURAL action, SHAPING action) for both expressive and functional movement." This was the basis for BODY ALIVE!, a proposed book about the Becque system of synergy release, and the title of his workshops.

In addition to dance education, over the years Becque was involved with various youth organizations promoting the arts. In association with the Neighborhood Youth Corps, the Teens-In-Action Theatre Project acted to build self-esteem for high school dropouts by dramatizing ideas and problems, in which Becque acted as Executive Director, coordinator, and producer in 1967. Later, Becque and his wife, Elizabeth, founded the Dance Education Center, a non-profit organization that sought to provide creative outlets for underprivileged and low-income group children and young adults. In the early 1980s, Becque participated in a public works program for the Department of Cultural Affairs in New York City via the Group for the Authentic Gesture, a non-profit organization formed in 1978.

Although Becque's most lasting legacy may be his educational career, he is also notable for his participation in the Federal Dance Theatre. A program of the Works Progress Administration, the Federal Dance Theatre grew out of the Federal Theatre Project and employed out-of-work professional dancers, choreographers, and stage personnel to bring dance to new audiences. Appointed the first national administrator of the Federal Dance Theatre, Becque's tenure was plagued by problems. Although his affiliation with the Federal Theatre Project lasted from 1935-1937, in 1936 alone Becque was appointed director of the Federal Dance Theatre, choreographed The Young Tramps, an original production, and resigned as director by the year's end.