American dancer and choreographer of modern dance as well as an avant-garde theater director. In 1972 she won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Choreography and was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Choreography, both for The Two Gentlemen of Verona.
Erdman first distinguished herself as a principal dancer in Martha Graham’s company in solo roles such as the Ideal Spectator in Every Soul is a Circus, the Speaking Fate in Punch and the Judy and the One Who Speaks in Letter to the World, Graham’s ode to the American poet, Emily Dickinson.
Erdman was an active teacher throughout her career. In 1948 she opened her own studio where she taught a style-neutral, concept-based technique she developed by combining her study of world dance with anatomical principles.
From 1950-1954, she toured the US annually with her company. From 1954-1955 she toured India and Japan as a solo artist, the first dancer to do so since World War II. From 1955-1960, she toured extensively as a solo artist throughout the USA.
Erdman and her husband Joseph Campbell had no children. For most of their forty-nine years of marriage they shared a two-room apartment in Greenwich Village in New York City. In the 1980s they also purchased an apartment in Honolulu and divided their time between the two cities. Campbell died in 1987. In 1990, Erdman became the founding president of the Joseph Campbell Foundation and continued as its president emerita until her death. Since 1995 Erdman had lived exclusively in Hawaii. She died on 4 May 2020 in Honolulu at age 104.

Link to Wikipedia biography