Dancer and Choreographer. After performing in numerous productions, she had a long career as a teacher and choreographer, becoming an advocate for modern dance. Born Pearl Lack, she was raised in Chicago, and showed early evidence of talent, creating her first dance at 10, and choreographing a work based on Mozart's "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" at 16. After three years at the University of Chicago, she moved to New York in 1941, joining the Martha Graham Dance Company. She created roles in several Graham productions, including the Woman in Red in the 1948 "Diversion of Angels". Later, she was the first dancer to take over Graham's own roles, to include "El Penitente", "Appalachian Spring", "Letter to the World", and "Clytemnstra". While with Miss Graham, she also earned numerous credits on Broadway, and was an original cast member in "Deaths and Entrances, "Ardent Song", "Dark Meadow, and others, as well as having long runs in "Carousel", and "Finian's Rainbow." Lang left the Martha Graham Company in 1952, but returned frequently as a guest artist until the late 1970s. She founded her own Pearl Lang Dance Company in 1952, creating 63 works over the years, the majority on Jewish themes, with the best known being the 1960 "Shirah". She choreographed for opera, movies, and television; concurrently, she held professorships at Julliard from 1952 to 1969, and at Yale between 1954 and 1968. Her works were staged by the Boston Ballet, the Netherlands Ballet, and the Isralei Bat-Sheva Company. Over her long career, Lang garnered numerous honors, among them two Guggenheim Fellowships, the Martha Graham Award for Performance and Choreography, the Queens College Award for Excellence in Jewish Art, and an honorary doctorate from Julliard. She was presented a "Lifetime Distinguished Teaching" award by the American Dance Festival in 2001. Lang continued teaching until her death; among her students was singer Madonna. Her year of birth is often given as 1922, but her family confirms the earlier date.