Julie Adams Strandberg did not set out to be a dancer. She’d taken dance classes when she was younger, but it was her sister Carolyn Adams who took the first leap into dancing with the Paul Taylor Dance Company from 1965-1982. The sisters would later become life-long collaborators, but when Julie entered Cornell University in 1960, she had other aspirations. “I wanted to be a doctor,” Julie said. “But dance kept chasing me.”
After graduation in 1964 with a BA in French Literature, Julie married Josiah Strandberg, an ensign in the US Navy. In 1966 they moved to a British navy base on Bahrain Island in the Persian Gulf. Here, she found herself giving dance lessons to the children of British and American families.
In 1967 Julie moved to RI when her husband entered Brown University for his PhD in philosophy. In 1969 she was invited to teach dance in the women’s PE department at Pembroke, Brown’s women’s college. It was then that she had an epiphany: since dance kept chasing her, maybe she should stop running. She recognized that she had been drawn to medicine as a way to heal and that dance and mentoring others were her own ways of achieving that goal. The dance programs she developed have been nothing less than groundbreaking. For more than a decade, Strandberg was the only dance instructor at Brown University, but under her leadership, dance expanded to become an academic curriculum within the Department of Theatre Arts and Performance Studies.
Strandberg’s teaching philosophy grew, in part, from her recognition of American concert dance as a uniquely home-grown American art form along with jazz. Since the birth of the nation, dancers in the USA from diverse cultures have integrated their styles and stories, merging ideas and crossing racial lines. American choreographers created dances that reflected the unique, inherent multiculturalism of the USA, but making these forms understandable and accessible was a far more difficult task. To that end, in 1998 she and her sister created Repertory Etudes, short dances based on signature works by American choreographers. In 2011 they established Dancing Legacy as the umbrella organization to support their community engagement programs, research, educational projects, and the Repertory Etudes Collection.
In 2012, Julie and fellow dancer Rachel Balaban co-founded Artists and Scientists as Partners as an initiative to utilize the art of dance in helping those with neurological disorders, most notably Autism Spectrum Disorders and Parkinson’s Disease (PD). It was a move that brought Arts and Medicine together in a significant way. In the ASaP courses, students had site placements with organizations for these two neurological disorders. Students interested in PD interned with DAPpers (Dance for All People). This intergenerational dance class, directed by Balaban, was specifically designed for people with PD and other movement challenges. Participants from DAPpers also had access to the RepEtudes which provided them with professional dance experiences and a direct connection to the legacy of American dance.
Julie explains: “The RepEtude allows students, dancers, and the general public to have access to modern dance masterpieces for learning, performing, and viewing. As with the informed study of details in a painting or a musical motif, the larger work and the choreographer are brought to light in the RepEtude through study, reflection, and performance.”
Strandberg’s efforts have created a self-perpetuating community that continues to grow: “We now have a multigenerational performing company that includes Dancing Legacy Ensemble, DAPpers Rep – Dancing Legacy, young students from Fusionworks Dance Center, and dancers from Brown University all dancing together.”
During Julie’s 60-year career in the dance field, she developed and designed materials and programs to provide broad access for all people to the art form of dance. Her audience has grown to include pre-professional and professional dancers, students and youth in grades K-university, and the aging. She provides healing and outlets for those with neurodiverse challenges – including people with Parkinson’s disease, those on the autism spectrum, and others with cognitive and physical challenges.
At 83, retirement has not slowed Strandberg’s drive. She continues to teach and choreograph. In addition, she is currently collaborating with The Hattie Ide Chaffee Home in East Providence, RI to establish an Arts Academy within the Home that will create a place where elderhood is valued, supported, and celebrated – and where joy and quality of life are central to its daily life. (See more about their latest project on page 23.)
Julie Adams Strandberg may not have become a doctor – but she has become a healer, a mentor, and an enlightened nurturer. Through dance, she has embraced every purpose that drew her to medicine in the first place.