The Gay Delanghe papers document a range of Delanghe's professional activities, with particular focus on choreography, teaching, and performing. The bulk of the records originate from the time of her graduation from the University of Michigan in 1965 through the first twenty years of her tenure in the University of Michigan Dance Department. There are few records from her childhood and college years, or from her late career. The records serve to illuminate her engagements as a dancer, and as a teacher, as well as the processes that went into her choreography and the staging of her work. In addition to this finding aid, a performance list exists which attempts to compile information on all of Delanghe's performances for which documentation exists in the collection. This list is available in Performance and Publicity series and upon request.
The collection is divided into ten series of materials relating to various aspects of the professional and artistic activities of Gay Delanghe. These series are: Biographical Materials, Choreography, Correspondence, Funding and Awards, Notebooks, Photographs, Programs and Publicity, Teaching, University of Michigan Department of Dance, and Audiovisual Materials.
Gay Ann Delanghe was born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1941. She attended Cass Technical High School in Detroit, graduating in 1958, and earned her bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan in 1962. She went on to complete a Master of Fine Arts degree in dance from UM in 1965, and then moved east to New York.
While in New York, Delanghe commenced her teaching career, joining the dance faculty at Barnard College, as well as serving on the faculty of the Connecticut College American Dance Festival from 1970 to 1973, and Interlochen National Music Camp starting in 1965. While at Barnard, Delanghe gained recognition for her interactive semi-spontaneous dance events such as Space Ruckus (1969). Alongside teaching, Delanghe maintained an active career as a performer and choreographer. From 1965 to 1972 she was a principle dancer with the Lucas Hoving Dance Company, touring extensively with this famed modern dance group. She also danced with other New York choreographers, including Yvonne Rainier and Janet Soares. Delanghe also actively created her own work during this New York period, such as Bomb (1969), Sidetrack (1969), Summer Dance 1-9 (1970), and Figures (1969), which were performed by Dance Uptown, The Dance Theatre Workshop, and the Lucas Hoving Company.
In 1972, Delanghe joined the Dance Department at the University of Michigan, recruited by her long-time colleague and then department chairman, Liz Bergmann. As part of the dance department, she was a founding member and organizational force for the Ann Arbor Dance Works (AADW), the residential faculty dance company, from 1984 to 2005. AADW served as a venue for many of her choreographed works, and through its active touring schedule, particularly in the 1980s, it brought her work to regional and national attention. In addition to AADW, Delanghe was also consistently engaged with the University Dance Company, the department's student performance company, as well as with various independent student productions, and graduate student projects.
Delanghe's departmental activities reflect her emphasis on dance pedagogy and educating students to become teachers. She taught courses in this area, and helped students to attain teaching practica in Ann Arbor area schools. She also organized the School of Education's accreditation of the Dance Department's teacher's training program, in which students could attain a teaching certificate along with their degree in dance. Many of her students went on to pursue active teaching careers in dance programs across the country.
During her tenure at Michigan, Delanghe remained an active performer and teacher in companies and venues around the world. In addition to serving on the Modern Dance faculty at Interlochen National Music Camp from 1965 to 1997, she taught during the summer at such institutions as Centre Formation Professionelle de Danse in Poitiers, France (1986, 1988), and Manhattenville College Jose Limon Summer Dance Residency in Purchase, NY (1977-78).
Throughout her career, Delanghe was an active promoter of the work of Lucas Hoving, reconstructing several of his major pieces after coming to the University of Michigan. In 1973 she staged Aubade with the University of Michigan Dancers in the Power Center. The following year she reconstructed Uppercase, and in 1990, she staged the acclaimed Icarus with the Ann Arbor Dance Works. The AADW took the performance on tour in 1992 with a performance at the Cunningham Studio in New York City.
Delanghe remained chair of the Dance Department until 2001 and continued to be an active faculty member and choreographer until her retirement in 2006. She died of cancer on August 1, 2006, at the age of 65.
