Blondell Cummings

Blondell Cummings (October 27, 1944, Florence, South Carolina – August 30, 2015, New York City, New York) was an American modern dancer and choreographer.

At a very young age Cummings' family, Roscoe and Oralee (nee Williams), moved and in Harlem. They later moved to Queens when Cummings was a teenager. As an adult, she received a bachelor's degree from New York University, and a master's degree from Lehman College. She also studied at the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance. She was a founding member of Meredith Monk's company The House. Cummings appeared in Monk's 1973 opera Education of the Girlchild and Yvonne Rainer's 1976 film Kristina Talking Pictures. By 1978 Cummings created her own art collective, Cycle Arts Foundation, which promoted interdisciplinary collaboration. Her most notable individual work was "Chicken Soup" (1981), part of a collection of dances in a piece entitled Food for Thought, which was honored as an American masterpiece by the National Endowment for the Arts (2006).

Cummings died from pancreatic cancer on August 30, 2015 in New York.