Anna Sokolow in Slaughter of the Innocents, 1939.

This dance, depicting the suffering of innocent women and children caused by war, was inspired by the Spanish Civil War. Reviewer Marjorie Church described the piece as "a solo commenting on the fantastic injustice of the wanton destruction which inevitably accompanies war,...an expression of mature understanding, a plea for the preservation of human values which are fast falling asunder, with implications applicable to the present conflicts occurring in various parts of the world, in which peaceful peoples have been uprooted and slaughtered, and their homes destroyed, for the sake of the destructive ambitions of a few demagogues."

Notes: Marjorie Church, "Anna Sokolow and Dance Unit," The Dance Observer, December 1937, 127.

Image courtesy of the Sokolow Dance Foundation.