Allegra Kent Allegra Kent Allegra Kent (born August 11, 1937) is an American ballet dancer, actress, children's book author and columnist. Iris Margo Cohen was born to Jewish parents, Harry Herschel and Shirley (née Weissman) Cohen, and later changed her name to Allegra Kent. Kent grew up in what she later described as a dysfunctional environment. In "Once a Dancer: An Autobiography", she describes her Texan father – "who liked to substitute 'Cowboy' for Herschel" – as having "a gambler's soul and a restless nature". She describes her Wisznice-born immigrant mother as feeling "neither European nor American; she was ashamed of her
Allegra Fuller Snyder Allegra Fuller Snyder Allegra Fuller Snyder is a dance ethnologist (ethnochoreologist), choreographer, professor and author specializing on dance and culture. Her research focuses on dances among Native American tribes particularly the Yaqui, and on dance among several ethnic groups in Africa and Asia. She is Professor Emerita of dance ethnology from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). Snyder is the daughter of noted architect and inventor Buckminster Fuller and his wife Anne Hewlett. Snyder pioneered the field of Dance Ethnography, and defines a dance ethnologist as "...one who is concerned with studying the process of dance in culture."