Jean Erdman and Joseph Campbell: A Mythical Duet

Hawaii-born Jean Erdman began the explorations that would become the foundation of her extraordinary career as dancer, choreographer, and theatrical director at Sarah Lawrence College, which she attended from 1934 to 1937. There, she studied with famed choreographer Martha Graham, whose company she would later join, and with mythologist, Joseph Campbell, whom she married in 1938.

For sixty years, Erdman and Campbell’s careers intertwined in a remarkable mythical duet that impacted an array of artists and intellectuals around the world. In 1990 Erdman and Robert Walter, Campbell’s editor and literary executor founded the Joseph Campbell Foundation (JCF) to “preserve, protect and perpetuate” his pioneering work.

Join us at the Hawaii State Library as, Walter, president and executive director of the JCF shares stories and anecdotes as he traces and recounts highlights in the long collaboration between Jean and Joe, “a mythical duet.”