Together with the dance community, Dance Ontario mourns the recent passing of broadcaster, author, critic and long-time member Penelope Reed Doob. She was a brilliant York University professor with degrees from Harvard and Stanford and a writer of books on medieval and classical literature. Born in the USA, Doob moved to Canada with her husband in 1968 and joined York in 1969, where she assumed key roles at the university such as those as Associate Vice President (1986-1989) and Dance Department Chair (2001-2006). Professor Doob has also conducted research in immunology. A dance reviewer for the CBC and The Globe and Mail as well as for U.S. and European dance magazines, she had been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship (1974-1975) and a National Science Foundation Medical Research Fellowship (1964-1965).
Professor Doob published three books and completed the autobiography on Karen Kain after the untimely death of writer Stephen Godfrey.
She died at the age of 73 from complications due to Parkinson’s disease.