KU News Release

Janet Hamburg

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LAWRENCE — University of Kansas Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little and dance department chair Michelle Heffner-Hayes issued the following statements today in response to the unexpected death of Janet Hamburg, professor of dance and an internationally known movement analyst and lecturer. She died Sept. 4 in New York City.

Chancellor Gray-Little: “This is a deep and painful loss for the university family. Janet Hamburg was an extraordinary teacher and researcher who had earned her colleagues’ highest respect, here and around the world. Countless people, particularly those in the Parkinson’s community, benefited immeasurably from her devotion to dance, exercise and movement analysis. On behalf of the entire KU community, I express my deepest sympathies to her partner, her family and friends.”

Michelle Heffner-Hayes, professor and chair of dance: “We are devastated by the loss of Janet Hamburg, a beloved teacher, mentor, colleague and friend. She has been a vital force in our lives, working tirelessly to build dance from its beginnings as a program to its current status as a department in the School of the Arts. Her groundbreaking work in Laban Movement Analysis and the treatment of Parkinson’s disease garnered international recognition, but it was her passion for dance at the University of Kansas that made her our champion. Her absence among us is unthinkable. Her permanent mark is on all that we do. Her support and enthusiasm have been a force, an anchor. She will be keenly missed.”

Hamburg is survived by her partner of 30 years, Lynn Bretz, of Lawrence; two aunts and many cousins.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Janet Hamburg Dance Scholarship in care of KU Endowment.

Hamburg earned a degree in civil engineering from the State University of New York in Buffalo. After working briefly in transportation engineering for the city of San Francisco, she devoted her life to her passion for dance and movement analysis and earned a master’s degree in dance from Mills College in California. She joined the KU faculty in 1979 and for many years served as chair of the dance program, now a department. She received a W.T. Kemper Fellowship for Teaching Excellence in 2005. The Lawrence Arts Commission presented her with a Phoenix Award for Exceptional Artistic Achievement.

Hamburg devoted her research and work to the field of movement analysis, in which she was certified by the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies in New York. She received the institute’s first Laban Award for Creative Achievement by an artist or researcher in 2004 and was named a senior research associate. As a KU Gerontology Center associate, Hamburg was the director of senior wellness and exercise for the Center for Movement Education and Research in Los Angeles. She was a registered somatic movement therapist through the International Somatic Movement Education and Therapy Association.

She developed an acclaimed exercise program for people with Parkinson’s disease, resulting in an exercise DVD/video titled “Motivating Moves for People with Parkinson’s,” originally co-produced and distributed internationally by the Parkinson's Disease Foundation in New York City and recommended by the major national and regional Parkinson’s foundations. The DVD now is distributed by the Parkinson Foundation of the Heartland.

Hamburg devoted many years to service to the Lawrence Parkinson’s Support Group and gave presentations to other Parkinson’s support organizations and meetings across the United States. She also worked with senior adults and with children suffering from coordination and sensorimotor problems and resulting social stigmas, producing a video in the 1980s titled “A Boy Learns to Skip and Jump.” In March, she was one of 32 movement experts invited to present at the Third International Congress on Gait and Mental Function in Washington, D.C.

Her work with athletes was featured on NBC national television and the U.S. Information Agency’s international program “Science World.” She developed pre-warm-ups for aerobic and resistance workouts, based on the theories of Bartenieff Fundamentals, that were featured in Shape magazine. She described her approach to exercise and fitness, “Moving and Motivating with Laban Movement Analysis,” in the popular press book “Mind-Body Fitness for Dummies.”

Hamburg taught in the Bill Evans Summer Institutes of Dance and was a frequent guest teacher at the Juilliard School of Music, the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies and the Sports Training Institute, all in New York City. She was a core faculty member of the New Mexico Laban Certification Program and a guest faculty member for the Laban Certification Program in Berlin, Germany. She presented her movement research at medical centers and national and international conferences and published in many journals. She taught movement analysis workshops and classes in Australia, Brazil, Canada, England, Germany, Mexico, the Netherlands and Switzerland, as well as throughout the United States.