Jeanne Robinson
Jeanne M. Rubbicco Robinson (March 30, 1948 – May 30, 2010) was an American-born Canadian choreographer who co-wrote three science fiction novels, The Stardance Saga, with her husband Spider Robinson.[1][2] Stardance won the Hugo Award and Nebula award for Best Novella in 1978 and 1977 respectively.[3][4]
Biography
Jeanne Robinson was born in Boston, Massachusetts to Dorothy and Peter Rubbicco. She studied dance at the Boston Conservatory, and at the Martha Graham, Alvin Ailey, and Erick Hawkins schools.[5] She performed with the Beverly Brown Dance Ensemble in New York City.[6]
Robinson was briefly married to Daniel Corrigan with whom she joined the back-to-the-land movement and began to practice Buddhism. She married fellow science-fiction writer Spider Robinson in 1975 and they had one daughter, Terri Luanna who died in 2014.[7][8][9] She moved to Nova Scotia, serving as the artistic director of the Nova Dance Theatre in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where she choreographed more than thirty original works.[5] In 1985 the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's hour-long coverage of the Dance in Canada Gala spent twenty minutes showing the performance of Robinson’s work, FICTION.[10]
Her plans to establish the art form of free-fall dance, outlined in the Stardance trilogy, were cut short by the loss of space shuttle Challenger and cancellation of the Teacher in Space Project in 1986, although footage of her dancing on a parabolic flight in 2007 survives.[11][12][13] In 1987 she closed her dance company due to trouble obtaining grants and moved to British Columbia with her family.[10][14]
In 2006 she and her husband were invited by the First Lady to speak at the National Book Festival in Washington, DC.[15] In addition to her dance and writing careers, Robinson was an active practitioner of Sōtō Zen Buddhism, a lay-ordained Buddhist monk.[16][17][10] She spoke of her work as involving "moving koans, visual parables" but did not overtly mention Buddhism in her work until her work Zenki-zu which she created for Vancouver's Women in View festival in 1992.[6] Along with her husband, she was awarded the Inkpot Award in 2001.[18]
She was diagnosed with biliary tract cancer in February 2009 and began undergoing numerous treatments. She died, age 62, on May 30, 2010 and is buried in Saint Peters Cemetery in Provincetown, Massachusetts.[19]
See also
- Biography portal
- Canada portal
- Science fiction portal
References
- ^ "Zero-gravity dance is a go; Dancer-choreographer Jeanne Robinson will realize a decades-old dream by staging a zero-G dance with the stars on Sunday". The Gazette. Montreal. December 27, 2007. Archived from the original on March 7, 2008.
- ^ Bear, Greg (May 7, 1978). "Nebula Awards give solid gains to science-fiction authors". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on October 24, 2012. Retrieved July 6, 2017.
- ^ "1978 Hugo Awards". The Hugo Awards. July 26, 2007. Retrieved March 19, 2020.
- ^ McIntyre, Vonda N. (April 18, 2016). "Stardance". The Nebula Awards®. Retrieved July 8, 2024.
- ^ a b "Jeanne Robinson". Capricon 30: Celebration! Program Book. 2010. p. 6.
- ^ a b Macpherson, Susan, ed. (2000). Encyclopedia of Theater Dance in Canada. pp. 489=491. ISBN 092900342X. Retrieved July 8, 2024.
- ^ "Warriors". Graceful Woman Warrior. November 7, 2018. Retrieved July 8, 2024.
- ^ "Terri da Silva Obituary (2014)". Legacy.com. December 11, 2014. Retrieved July 8, 2024.
- ^ Kimber, Stephen (December 20, 1980). "A Space Age Marriage". The Windsor Star. Retrieved July 8, 2024.
- ^ a b c Smith, Grace (June 15, 2010). "Jeanne Robinson, 1948-2010". The Dance Current. Retrieved July 8, 2024.
- ^ "Spider Robinson's star shines in Worldcon's sci-fi universe". Bowen Island Undercurrent. August 16, 2018. Retrieved July 8, 2024.
- ^ Meany, Ken (December 27, 2007). "Zero Gravity Dance is a Go". The Gazette. Montreal QC. Archived from the original on March 7, 2008. Retrieved July 8, 2024.
- ^ "Zero-G Test Footage for Stardance Movie". YouTube. March 6, 2024. Retrieved July 8, 2024.
- ^ "Nova Scotia Dance Group to Disbang". Ottawa Citizen. January 31, 1987. p. c14. Retrieved July 8, 2024.
- ^ "National Book Festival, hosted by First Lady Laura Bush" (PDF). September 30, 2006. Retrieved July 8, 2024.
- ^ Undercurrent, Bowen Island (May 7, 2012). "Not done with cancer". Bowen Island Undercurrent. Retrieved July 8, 2024.
- ^ Robinson, Spider (October 1, 1984). "Spider Robinson: Blog". Welcome to Spider Robinson's Official Website. Retrieved July 8, 2024.
- ^ Inkpot Award
- ^ Kowal, Mary Robinette (May 31, 2010). "RIP: Jeanne Robinson 1948–2010". Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Retrieved May 31, 2010.
External links
- Official website
- Stardance official movie website (archived 13 January 2016)
- Stardance movie blog
- Jeanne Robinson at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- v
- t
- e
- Who Goes There? by Don A. Stuart (1939)
- If This Goes On— by Robert A. Heinlein (1941)
- Waldo by Robert A. Heinlein (1943)
- The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1944)
- Killdozer! by Theodore Sturgeon (1945)
- Animal Farm by George Orwell (1946)
- The Man Who Sold the Moon by Robert A. Heinlein (1951)
- A Case of Conscience by James Blish (1954)
- Riders of the Purple Wage by Philip José Farmer /Weyr Search by Anne McCaffrey (1968)
- Nightwings by Robert Silverberg (1969)
- Ship of Shadows by Fritz Leiber (1970)
- Ill Met in Lankhmar by Fritz Leiber (1971)
- The Queen of Air and Darkness by Poul Anderson (1972)
- The Word for World Is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin (1973)
- The Girl Who Was Plugged In by James Tiptree Jr. (1974)
- A Song for Lya by George R. R. Martin (1975)
- Home Is the Hangman by Roger Zelazny (1976)
- By Any Other Name by Spider Robinson / Houston, Houston, Do You Read? by James Tiptree Jr. (1977)
- Stardance by Spider Robinson and Jeanne Robinson (1978)
- The Persistence of Vision by John Varley (1979)
- Enemy Mine by Barry B. Longyear (1980)
- Lost Dorsai by Gordon R. Dickson (1981)
- The Saturn Game by Poul Anderson (1982)
- Souls by Joanna Russ (1983)
- Cascade Point by Timothy Zahn (1984)
- Press Enter by John Varley (1985)
- 24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai by Roger Zelazny (1986)
- Gilgamesh in the Outback by Robert Silverberg (1987)
- Eye for Eye by Orson Scott Card (1988)
- The Last of the Winnebagos by Connie Willis (1989)
- The Mountains of Mourning by Lois McMaster Bujold (1990)
- The Hemingway Hoax by Joe Haldeman (1991)
- Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress (1992)
- Barnacle Bill the Spacer by Lucius Shepard (1993)
- Down in the Bottomlands by Harry Turtledove (1994)
- Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge by Mike Resnick (1995)
- The Death of Captain Future by Allen Steele (1996)
- Blood of the Dragon by George R. R. Martin (1997)
- ...Where Angels Fear to Tread by Allen Steele (1998)
- Oceanic by Greg Egan (1999)
- The Winds of Marble Arch by Connie Willis (2000)
- The Ultimate Earth by Jack Williamson (2001)
- Fast Times at Fairmont High by Vernor Vinge (2002)
- Coraline by Neil Gaiman (2003)
- The Cookie Monster by Vernor Vinge (2004)
- The Concrete Jungle by Charles Stross (2005)
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- All Seated on the Ground by Connie Willis (2008)
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- (No award given) (2015)
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