Nadia Chilkovsky-Nahumck was born in Kiev, Ukraine in 1908; soon after, her family immigrated to the United States, settling in North Philadelphia.  In grade school Nadia would hold performances in her back yard and invite the neighborhood children. As admission to attend the event, she would ask attendees to bring safety pins so she could hold her costume together.

Nadia  studied at the Isadora Duncan School in Philadelphia, where she worked to pay for classes.  By 1927 Nadia was offered a position in the Duncan Company in New York City. Shortly after, when Mary Wigman arrived in the United States, Nadia was selected to join the Wigman Company, directed by Hanya Holm.

Nadia co-founded The New Dance Group in February 1932 with other dancers from Hanya Holm’s Wigman Company. They believed they had the “power and obligation to change the world”. Their choreographic practice and commitment to composing expressive and original dance drove the group into an amazing artistic contribution to the revolutionary social movements of the time. For ten cents the New Dance Group offered an hour of each class: technique, improvisation on social themes, and Marxist theory. In addition they offered opportunities for all students to present choreographies and empower the creative expression of dance responding to social struggle.

After 1938 Nadia stopped choreographing for 8 years and did not begin creating dances again until 1946. This time period represents a radical shift in Nadia’s artistic focus, goals, and outspoken nature. She maintained many of her social beliefs from the left-wing view; her focus, however,  shifted to dance education and preservation of dance through Labanotation. The exact reasons for this dramatic change in Nadia’s life are unknown, but a number of factors played into this period of time. As World War II was beginning, Nadia’s husband was called to military service, which prompted Nadia to return to Philadelphia in order to be closer to her family. Around the same time, Nadia was seriously injured which ended her performance career.

Nadia remained in Philadelphia for the rest of her life, where she left a legacy through dance education, which has been at the core of the development of Modern Dance in Philadelphia and has influenced generations of dancers and dance makers.  In her pioneering work in dance, Nadia was committed to equality and making Dance available to all students despite of race or socio-economic class in the development of her own integrated performing arts school. These efforts led to the integration of arts and academic curriculums in the Philadelphia Dance Academy.  The Philadelphia Dance Academy was eventually assimilated into the University of the Arts as its Department of Dance.  

- Compiled By Erin Grothouse and Marion Ramirez