Sophie Maslow (1911-2006).

Sophie Maslow, one of the 20th century's leading realist choreographers, died in New York on June 24. Unlike many other socially conscious dancers and choreographers, she did not think belligerently. Her works had an optimistic undertone.

She was often inspired by the folk musicians of the time, with Woody Guthrie as a favorite. Her solo to his Dust Bowl Ballads (1941) used a limp fedora almost like a partner as she beat away at imaginary dust. Even more enduring was her group work Folksay (1942), based upon Carl Sandburg's poem "The People, Yes." It glowed with faith in the common man.

Maslow was born in New York of Russian-Jewish parents. Her early dance training was with Blanche Talmud and Martha Graham at the Neighborhood Playhouse. In 1931 she joined the Graham Company as a dancer whose roles extended from a New England adolescent in Letter to the World to a "doom-eager" Bronte sister in Deaths and Entrances.

In 1942 Jane Dudley, Maslow, and William Bales formed a spirited trio that toured extensively. They also taught at the New Dance Group Studio and used its resident company in larger works. An audience favorite was Maslow's The Village I Knew (1950), a series of heart-warming vignettes of life in a Russian shtetl whose final exodus, although sad, was more attuned to hope than despair.

In 1956 Maslow organized her own company. She also staged 12 annual Hanukah Festivals at Madison Square Garden and ventured into dances for musicals and New York City Opera. During the latter years of her career, she broadened the range of her subject matter.

Her final contact with the theater came in 1999 when the Limon Dance Company invited her to restage Champion (1948), an early work about a prize-fighter who was an antihero.