Professor Jill Sweet co-author of Pueblo Dancing

Professor Emerita of Anthropology Jill D. Sweet is co-author with Nancy Hunter Warren of Pueblo Dancing, published this fall by Schiffer. 

The book provides a look at Pueblo dance through striking black and white photographs of dancers in traditional dress from the Pueblo villages of San Ildefonso, Santa Clara, San Juan, Jemez, and Tesuque. Warren, a well-known Southwest photographer, had permission when she took the photographs 30-40 years ago. Dances portrayed include the Buffalo, Comanche, Corn, Deer, and Matachine.

In her preface Sweet explains the book "is born of a shared passion." She and Hunter came to the Southwest in 1972. "Soon after our separate arrivals in New Mexico, we each independently discovered the powerful, beautiful, and sometimes comic Pueblo ritual dances," she explains. Hunter's passion for the dances was linked to her career as a professional photographer while Sweet "became passionate about them as a former dancer/choreographer and soon-to-be anthropologist."

Thirty years later, they learned of each other's work and created the book "to document and honor the dance events that, in no small way, transformed each of our lives," notes Sweet. But there is more to this collaboration. "Due to an unfortunate medical condition, Nancy recently lost her sight and, after 30 years of successfully living with multiple sclerosis, I recently lost my ability to walk or even stand," writes Sweet. Nevertheless, the blind photographer and the wheelchair-bound dance ethnologist were eager to collaborate on the book.

Read more here about Pueblo Dancing. Click here for more information on Sweet.