- unitid
-
{"value"=>"*MGZMD 468", "type"=>"local_call"}
{"value"=>"23897", "type"=>"local_mss"}
{"value"=>"b21310926", "type"=>"local_b"}
- unitdate
-
{"value"=>"1959-2015", "type"=>"inclusive", "normal"=>"1959/2015"}
- unittitle
-
{"value"=>"Sally Gross papers"}
- physdesc
-
{"format"=>"structured", "physdesc_components"=>[{"name"=>"extent", "value"=>"12.58 linear feet", "unit"=>"linear feet"}, {"name"=>"extent", "value"=>"29 boxes, 3 tubes, 2 other items", "unit"=>"containers"}, {"name"=>"extent", "value"=>"12.93 gb (4,128 computer files)"}], "supress_display"=>true}
- repository
-
{"id"=>"DAN", "value"=>"Jerome Robbins Dance Division"}
- abstract
-
{"value"=>"Sally Gross (1933-2015) was an American dancer, choreographer and teacher based in New York City. The Sally Gross papers document her career through films, videos, sound recordings, photographs, date books, notes, correspondence, clippings, grant applications, promotional material, and travel records."}
- origination
-
{"value"=>"Gross, Sally", "type"=>"persname", "role"=>"creator"}
- bioghist
-
{"value"=>"<p>Sally Gross was an American dancer, choreographer, and teacher based in New York City. Born Sarah Freiberg in 1933, the youngest child of Jewish Polish immigrant parents, Gross grew up speaking Yiddish at home on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. In 1948, she began her study of dance at the Henry Street Settlement. She graduated from Washington Irving High School in 1950 and Brooklyn College in 1954. She married Teddy Gross in 1954, with whom she had two daughters, Rachel and Sidonia Gross. By 1962, the couple had separated.</p> <p>In the mid-1950s, Gross continued her dance studies under Alwin Nikolais, James Waring, and Anna Halprin. In 1959, she acted in the Beat Generation film, <span class=\"title\">Pull My Daisy</span>. In 1960, she studied choreography influenced by John Cage under Robert Dunn at the Merce Cunningham Studio. A short time later, she followed Dunn to the Judson Dance Theater, which became highly influential in the postmodern dance movement. There she met and collaborated with Yvonne Rainer, Meredith Monk, Robert Wilson and others. For many decades she resided in the Westbeth Artists' Community, frequently staging intimate public performances there. She also performed regularly at other downtown theatrical venues including the Joyce Soho, DIA Center for the Arts, and The Construction Company.</p> <p>Her performances and choreography were experimental, minimalist, and autobiographical. In her teaching, Gross was egalitarian and democratic, opening her classes to all types of people, especially those not trained as dancers. She taught dance, movement, and meditation in workshops, college courses, and private classes. Both her performances and her classes combined improvisation, collaboration, multi-media, and a variety of non-dance movement forms, such as yoga and Tai Chi. She frequently collaborated with lighting designer Blu; dancer Jamie Di Mare; composers Philip Corner, Peter Griggs, Eleanor Hovda, and Yoshi Wada; and visual artists Joan Vennum Kurahara, Richard Nonas, Patsy Norvell, and Mary Frank. Her daughter, Sidonia Gross, danced in many of her performances in the late 1970s and 1980s.</p> <p>In 1991 and 1992, Meredith Monk cast Sally Gross in her Paris, Berlin, Houston, and Brooklyn Academy of Music productions of <span class=\"title\">Atlas</span>. In 2007, filmmaker Albert Maysles made a documentary about Gross's work called <span class=\"title\">The Pleasure of Stillness</span>. She continued to perform and teach until her death in 2015.</p>"}
- scopecontent
-
{"value"=>"<p>The Sally Gross papers date from 1959 to 2015 and document Gross's professional life as a dancer, choreographer, and teacher. The collection contains files on performance events, journals, notes, clippings, files on associates, photographs, promotional material, grant applications, correspondence, teaching files, reference material, and travel records.</p> <p>The largest portion of the collection relates directly to Gross's performances. The Performances files span Gross's career and are arranged chronologically, with titles or venue names occasionally noted. Photographs document performances almost exclusively, with some rehearsals also included. Clippings primarily consist of reviews of dance performances. Evidence of Gross's creative process, including choreographic drawings and diagrams, can be seen throughout the Journals. Promotional material, including posters and press releases, focuses primarily upon performances. A few artifacts created during performances are also present.</p> <p>Gross was a keen observer of her peers. The Associates files represent the professional output of performers, visual artists, writers, musicians, and academics she knew personally. Many of Gross's influences and collaborators can be found here, including Blu, John Cage, Carla Blank, Robert Frank, Robert Dunn, Phyllis Lamhut, Meredith Monk, Spencer Holst, Patsy Norvell, and Yvonne Rainer. Other notable associates include Christian Jankowski, Steve Paxton, and Pat Cremins. These files typically include exhibition catalogs, invitations, and flyers. A few of these files contain correspondence.</p> <p>Substantial documentation of Gross's pursuit of grants, fellowships and artists' residencies is also present. These files hold background materials, such as artists' statements; copies of completed application forms; and related correspondence for grants from the National Endowment for the Arts; the New York Foundation for the Arts; the Tanne Foundation; Guggenheim Fellowships; and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.</p> <p>Files on Gross's teaching career are plentiful as demonstrated through notebooks, and loose pages containing student lists, class agendas, research material, and choreographical diagrams. This material relates to classes and workshops Gross taught in her Westbeth studio, at Fordham University, CUNY Kingsborough, and at residencies around the country and the world. Files on Gross's teaching fellowship in Japan are found here.</p> <p>Gross kept Reference files on various areas of interest and study. Spiritual practices, the human body, and literature are frequent themes, with files on Buddhism, yoga, Tai Chi, anatomy, Samuel Beckett, and poetry.</p> <p>Gross's trips to Bali, Vietnam, Israel, Europe, and various cities around the United States are documented in the Travel section. Files on her artist residencies at Yaddo and Djerassi are included.</p> <p>A significant portion of the collection consists of sound and motion picture recordings documenting performances, rehearsals, and workshops, which are unavailable pending digitization.</p> <p>Almost no records relating to Gross's childhood or family are included in the collection.</p>"}
- arrangement
-
{"value"=>"<p>The collection is arranged alphabetically by file title, subject, or format.</p>"}
- acqinfo
-
{"value"=>"<p>Donated by Sally Gross in 2013 and by Rachel and Sidonia Gross in 2016.</p>"}
- processinfo
-
{"type"=>"processing", "value"=>"<p>Compiled by <span class=\"name\">Heather Halliday</span>, <span class=\"date\">2017</span>.</p>"}
- dsc_type
-
combined
- date_start
-
1959
- keydate
-
1959
- date_end
-
2015
- date_inclusive_start
-
1959
- date_inclusive_end
-
2015
- extent_statement
-
12.58 linear feet (29 boxes, 3 tubes, 2 other items); 12.93 gb (4,128 computer files)
- prefercite
-
{"value"=>"Sally Gross papers, *MGZMD 468. Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts"}