Joe Nash (1919-2005).

With his African regalia, gentle smile, and fount of knowledge about dance, archivist and historian Joe Nash touched many peoples' lives. If you had questions about vaudeville, Denishawn, the Harlem Renaissance, Ailey, McKayle, Pomare, but especially Dunham or Primus, Joe was the man. He amassed a vast archive of documents on African Americans in dance, which served as the basis for Richard Long's indispensable book The Black Tradition in American Dance, and is preserved in collections at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Hampton College, and other universities.

Nash danced with Charles Weidman, Donald McKayle, and Pearl Primus, and can be seen for a few seconds improvising with Primus in the early segment of the PBS documentary Free to Dance, for which he is also a commentator. He danced in musicals like Finian's Rainbow and Show Boat, served in the Army in World War II, and worked as an educator for the National Council of Churches. He coordinated the dance history course at Ailey/Fordham and lectured around the world, often in association with American Dance Festival.

In the African tradition, he often said, spirituality is expressed in movement. Scholar Thomas DeFrantz, who claims that Nash ushered in the field of African American dance studies in the 1970s, framed his book Dancing Many Drums as a tribute to him, and Aaron Davis Hall dedicated their last "e-mores" series to him. Memories of his warm celebratory greetings, his endless supply of dance stories, and his upbeat "Cheerio!" that ended every phone conversation, will linger.