Chrystelle Trump Bond facts for kids

Chrystelle Lee Trump Bond (born January 1, 1938 – died May 6, 2020) was an American dancer, choreographer, and writer. She was also a dance historian, meaning she studied and wrote about the history of dance. Bond was very important at Goucher College, where she started and led the dance department. She also helped create and direct Chorégraphie Antique, a group at Goucher that brought dance history to life. For many years, she wrote about dance for The Baltimore Sun newspaper.

Early Life and Education

Chrystelle Bond was born in Manchester, Maryland. Her parents were Viva V. Fridinger and George Elwood Trump Sr. Her father worked as an auto mechanic before becoming a businessman. She had one brother, George Elwood Jr.

Bond went to the Women's College of University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in dance in 1960. She continued her studies there, teaching while she completed her Master of Fine Arts degree in Dance in 1963. She also took graduate classes at Connecticut College and Stephen F. Austin State University.

Dance Training

Chrystelle Bond trained with many famous dancers and teachers. She learned modern dance from people like Martha Graham, José Limón, Alvin Ailey, and Paul Taylor.

For ballet, she trained at the Peabody Institute and the School of Baltimore Ballet. She also learned from dancers like Alfredo Corvino. Bond studied older dance styles too. She learned Renaissance dance and Baroque dance, which are dances from hundreds of years ago. She also trained in 19th and early 20th-century dance. Bond even learned English Country Dancing and Morris dancing. She attended special workshops to learn about dance in rural life and how to "read" old dance artifacts.

Career Highlights

Chrystelle Bond had a busy career as a dance historian, choreographer, dancer, and writer. She was the dance critic for The Baltimore Sun for 14 years. This meant she wrote reviews and articles about dance performances.

She was also a visiting expert at several universities, including Pennsylvania State University and Virginia Tech. Bond performed or gave lectures at other well-known universities like George Washington University and University of Pennsylvania. Early in her career, from 1960 to 1962, she taught dance and directed the dance company at Cedar Crest College.

Bond also advised important libraries and collections. She helped the New York Public Library, the Library of Congress, and the Harvard Theatre Collection.

Goucher College

Bond started working at Goucher College in 1963. She began in the Physical Education Department. By 1969, she was an assistant professor and directed the dance program.

Later, she helped create the official Dance Department at Goucher. In 1975, Bond became the first leader, or founding chair, of this new department. From 1985 to 1990, she held a special teaching position called the Elizabeth Conolly Todd Distinguished Professorship. She also researched the history of dance in the United Service Organizations (USO).

In the early 1990s, Bond received a grant to research American ballroom dances from before the 20th century. This research led to performances at famous places like the Smithsonian Institution, Colonial Williamsburg, and the Walters Art Museum.

Chrystelle Bond also collected many historical dance items. She had a collection of dance sheet music from the 1820s to the mid-20th century. She also collected dance notation sources, which are ways of writing down dance steps, from the 16th century onwards.

She received another grant from Goucher College to help organize and study two important dance collections: the Estelle Dennis Dance Theatre and Louise Muse-Alicia Markova Collections. Bond created special courses for students to research these collections. She used the Estelle Dennis collection to study the history of dance in Baltimore from 1780 to 1960. She also worked on a book about Lillian Moore and the history of dance at Goucher College.

Bond later gave her own personal library to Goucher College. This collection has about 1,000 items, mostly American and European popular and dance music from 1820 to 1962. It covers social and theater dance, and how dance has been rebuilt from historical records.

Chorégraphie Antique

Chrystelle Bond was the director and co-founder of Chorégraphie Antique. This was a special dance history group at Goucher College. She started it with a student to help preserve and share the history of dance. In 1989, she explained that the group wanted to show how dance was a part of everyday life in history, from the 17th to the 19th centuries. They performed historical dances to help people understand the past better.

Community Involvement

In 1967, Bond taught a dance history course for a Summer Arts Institute at Goucher. This program was supported by the Rockefeller Foundation. She also served on the board of directors for the World Dance Alliance Americas Center for four years.

In 1986, she led a workshop on 16th-century court dancing for the Maryland Council for Dance. From 1985 to 1986, Bond was the president of the Congress on Research in Dance. She was also on their board of directors for several years.

Bond was a member of many different groups. These included the World Dance Alliance, the American Society for Theatre Research, and the Society of Dance History Scholars. She was also part of the Maryland Center for History and Culture and the Jane Austen Society of North America.

Personal Life

Chrystelle Bond married William Timothy Bond on June 25, 1966. They were married at the Goucher College Habeler Memorial Chapel.

Chrystelle Bond passed away at her home on May 6, 2020.

Awards and Honors

Chrystelle Bond received several important awards for her work.

• In 1984, she received the Goucher Distinguished Faculty award. This award recognized her excellent teaching at Goucher College.
• In 1991, she received a distinguished alumni award from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. This honored her as a notable graduate of her university.
• In 1994, she received the distinguished service award from the Maryland Council for Dance.

Selected Works

• Bond, Chrystelle Trump (1976). A Chronicle of Dance in Baltimore, 1780–1814. Marcel Dekker.
• Rogers, Ellis; Rodgers, Chris; Bond, Chrystelle Trump (2004). New Worlds, New Steps: Social Dancing 1780–1900. Stuart Marsden. The Historical Dance Society. OCLC 57969574.

See also

• List of dancers