On October 26th, I Zoomed an interesting dance history presentation by Wendy Perron at the Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts, part of the New York City Library System. This was the third part of Perron ‘s series “The Dance Historian Is In,” and it focused on Pina Bausch’s years at Juilliard, 1959-60 and 1960-61, when she worked with Paul Sanasardo and Paul Taylor. Perron included pictures and focused a lot on Pina’s work with Anthony Tudor when she was at Juilliard. Perron pointed out that these two years had a strong influence on Pina’s work, more than most critics mention.
It was during this time that Pina got to know Alfredo Corvino, and when he retired from Juilliard, Pina asked him to be the ballet master for her company. He held that position until his death, and then his daughters continued working with the company.
One of the most interesting things I learned during the hour-and-a-half Zoom program was that Juilliard has photos and scrapbooks online that are available for anyone to look at or use for research. I went to the site, and the opening page clearly states the purpose of the website:
Welcome to the Juilliard Archives
Discover Juilliard’s rich history, from the school’s opening in 1905 to present, by exploring a selection of materials from our digital collections. Please see our Featured Collections at the link above.
I had fun looking at the Dance Scrapbooks which go from 1951/52 to 1990/91. Of course I was most curious about the years that I was there. What a delight and surprise to see all the different pieces that I performed in workshops from Louis Horst’s Modern Form Composition Class. A few I remember but some I had totally forgotten about. It was also a trip down memory lane to see what other classmates had done and performed in the same workshops.
Screenshots from the Juilliard Scrapbook 1961-62, (Klineman is my maiden name.)
Finding the Juilliard archives online made me wonder what other resources there are for dance history enthusiasts! Here are a few that I found:
Wendy Perron’s website is filled with lots of things she has written about dance, with an archive that is worth exploring. She also lists her upcoming events and some that have already happened and are still viewable online.
I was surprised to see what was available at The Library of Congress website. Their digital collections have “dance materials which represent genres including worldwide traditional dances, European and American social dance practices, ballet and modern dance, and more! Digitized items include choreographic notes, photographs, musical scores, moving images, sound recordings, rare books, and artwork.” Among the collections online are:
- Martha Graham’s work between 1918 and 1949. Objects include concert programs, clippings, press announcements reviews, libretti, scripts, and photographs.
- Selections from the Katherine Dunham Collection
- Digitalized items from Ballets Russes de Serge Diaghilev
- 200 collection items from Bronislava Nijinska
And of course, the best place for on-site research is the New York City Library for the Performing Arts, the Jerome Robbins Dance Division. I have spent some time at the library researching and learning about various dance figures. I have also enjoyed watching various videotapes. I highly recommend a trip there for fun or if you are seriously researching something in dance. There is both a phone number and email address online so that one can inquire what the library might have in the area of one’s research before making a trip.
There are also lots of specialized collections at various universities or local libraries where individuals have donated their scrapbooks, photographs etc. For example, when I moved to Costa Rica, I decided to donate all the material of the Avodah Dance Ensemble (up to when I retired as founding director) to the American Jewish Archives, located in Cincinnati and connected to Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion. Avodah regularly performed at HUC-JIR in New York City,
Just for fun I Googled a few names to see if there were collections at different places. One of my favorite writers and teachers of improvisational movement is Barbara Mettler. She donated some of her collection to Hampshire College, and this is easily available online. Here’s a link to the collection: https://www.hampshire.edu/library/archives-and-special-collections/other-archival-resources-and-full-text-documents/barbara-2.
Hanya Holm’s papers are at Stanford University, and there is information about them at the Online Archive of California. It doesn’t look like any actual material is available online, rather a list of the different boxes.
Most other dancers I Googled left their collections to the NY Performing Arts Library.
If you know of a collection that might interest Mostly Dance blog readers, please leave a comment sharing the name of the collection and any contact details to find out more information. I will review and maybe do another blog sharing the information I receive.
Let me close by thanking Wendy Perron for her excellent presentation, letting me know about the Juilliard online Archives and piquing my interest to see what else might be available.