Alfred Brooks (dancer)

Alfred Brooks Pew was born on October 19, 1916, in Kansas City, Missouri, the youngest of five children born to Maysie Virginia (née Pittman) and John Brooks Pew. followed by study at the performing arts conservatory Juilliard School in New York City, where he graduated with B.A and M.A. degrees in musical composition. At Juilliard he studied under Carl Friedberg, as well as additional private study under Roy Harris, and Nadia Boulanger of Paris. Brooks was first exposed to modern dance in college, and he studied dance under Hanya Holm. He met his future wife Maxine Phyllis Munt at the Hanya Holm Studio, where she was teaching dancing. Munt was a graduate of the University of Nebraska Omaha, and she also taught dance at the University of North Dakota, and later served as the founding dance department head and instructor at Adelphi College (now Adelphi University) in Garden City on Long Island, New York. == Career ==

During World War II, Brooks was a major in the United States Air Force and performed musicals with Armed Forces Entertainment both nationally and internationally for the United States Armed Forces. In 1968, Brooks and Munt opened the non-profit, theatre/dance school called the "Changing Scene" (or "Changing Scene Theatre") in Denver, Colorado, after closing the Munt-Brooks Dance Studio a few years prior. Everything was volunteer based and was devoted to presenting not just dance and theatre but new work in all media. Brooks was a co-founder of the Colorado Theatre Guild. After Maxine Munt's death in January 2000, the Changing Scene closed. The Changing Scene influenced a new generation of bohemian theatre including the "Changing Scene Northwest", created by a former board member after they moved to Washington. ==References==