- unitid
-
{"value"=>"19047", "type"=>"local_mss"}
{"value"=>"*MGZMD317", "type"=>"local_call"}
{"value"=>"b19954925", "type"=>"local_b"}
- unitdate
-
{"value"=>"1960-2004", "type"=>"inclusive", "normal"=>"1960/2004"}
- unittitle
-
{"value"=>"Katy Matheson papers"}
- physdesc
-
{"format"=>"structured", "physdesc_components"=>[{"name"=>"extent", "value"=>"60 boxes", "unit"=>"containers"}, {"name"=>"extent", "value"=>"24.63 linear feet", "unit"=>"linear_feet"}]}
{"format"=>"structured", "physdesc_components"=>[{"name"=>"extent", "value"=>"55 audio recordings", "unit"=>"audio_recordings"}]}
{"format"=>"structured", "physdesc_components"=>[{"name"=>"extent", "value"=>"67 moving image recordings", "unit"=>"moving_image_recordings"}]}
- repository
-
{"value"=>"<span class=\"corpname\">Jerome Robbins Dance Division</span>"}
- abstract
-
{"value"=>"Katy Page Matheson (1948-2005) was an American editor, writer, performer, teacher, and dance historian. The Katy Matheson papers (1960-2004) reflect Matheson's grfaduate and professional work in dance history, via correspondence, notes, slides, thesis drafts, journals, programs, and photographs. Matheson's own dance career is also documented to a limited extent."}
- langmaterial
-
{"value"=>"English"}
- origination
-
{"value"=>"Matheson, Katy", "type"=>"persname"}
- bioghist
-
{"value"=>"<p>Katy Page Matheson (1948-2005) was an American editor, writer, performer, teacher, and dance historian. Matheson began her study of ballet and modern dance while attending Duke University, where she performed with the Duke University Dance Group and at the Synergic Theatre. Between her junior and senior years, Matheson spent two years in Washington, D.C., where she danced in improvisations and works choreographed by others, including revivals of Doris Humphrey's <span class=\"title\">Water Study</span> and <span class=\"title\">Shakers</span>.</p> <p>In 1975, Matheson moved to New York City and continued dancing, performing with dancers like Ellen Cornfield, Marjorie Gamso, Kenneth King, Jim Self, Harry Sheppard, and Elaine Shipman, among others. Her first original piece, a group work called <span class=\"title\">Secretarial Suite</span>, was performed in 1980. She held a series of open rehearsal performances called Five Mondays in January, 1983, and later that year participated in the group work Dancers and Characters. From 1992 to 1994, she performed a series of solo improvisations, as part of dance programs at The Field and the Knitting Factory. In addition to modern dance, Matheson studied historical and early dance, and was an active member of the New York Historical Dance Company.</p> <p>Matheson's own career as a dancer was secondary to her interest in dance history and scholarship. In 1978, Matheson was an assistant coordinator, interviewer, and transcriber for the Oral History Project at the Dance Division in the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. She was the initial editor and researcher for <span class=\"title\">American Modern Dance: The Early Years</span> (1981), was the principle researcher for the book <span class=\"title\">Choreography by George Balanchine</span> (1983), and in the early 1980s assisted Dale Harris with his unpublished book <span class=\"title\">The Concise History of Ballet and Modern Dance</span>.</p> <p>In 1985, Matheson began her graduate work in Performance Studies at New York University and graduated in 1991. Her thesis on Niblo's Garden, a 19th-century concert saloon and pleasure garden, was later published in the Theatre Library Association monograph <span class=\"title\">Pleasure Gardens</span> (1998). At the same time, Matheson began contributing articles, reviews, and essays to dance publications. In 1989, she was hired full-time at <span class=\"title\">Dance Magazine</span>, first as assistant to the editor and later as associate editor, a position she held until 1992.</p> <p>Throughout the 1990s, Matheson continued writing and began to teach. She wrote the \"Breaking Boundaries\" section of Selma Jeanne Cohen's <span class=\"title\">Dance as a Theatre Art</span> (1992), in which she profiled Steve Paxton, Twyla Tharp, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Pina Baush, Garth Fagan, and Mark Morris; and wrote the chronology and did photo research for <span class=\"title\">Costumes by Karinska</span> (1996). Matheson also contributed articles on dance forms, dancers, and choreographers to various encyclopedias, including entries on Laura Dean and David Gordon for <span class=\"title\">Fifty Contemporary Choreographers</span>. In the mid-1990s, she taught courses on the history of dance at the College of New Rochelle and at Hofstra University.</p> <p>Katy Page Matheson died in 2005 in New York City.</p>"}
- custodhist
-
{"value"=>"<p>Files were maintained by Katy Matheson prior to donation.</p>"}
- scopecontent
-
{"value"=>"<p>The Katy Matheson papers reflect Matheson's work as researcher, editor, writer, teacher, and dance historian, as well as her graduate work in dance history. Her own career in dance is less well documented.</p> <p>The collection consists of files related to conferences, festivals, and workshops she attended; graduate school work from her studies at New York University; personal material; photographs; annotated programs and news clippings; project files that represent Matheson's work as an editor, researcher, and writer; and her teaching files from the College of New Rochelle and Hofstra University. Matheson often wrote about topics and subjects for multiple projects and repurposed research material. For example, an interview Matheson conducted with dancer Nikita Dolgushin for <span class=\"title\">Dance Theatre Journal</span> was later used for an entry in the <span class=\"title\">International Encyclopedia of Dance</span>. She occasionally filed material from an earlier project with the succeeding project on the same topic.</p> <p>Files for conferences, workshops, and festivals include transcripts from a talk on improvisation Matheson gave at the 1994 Talking Dance Project conference in Berkeley, and correspondence and notebooks from her 1989 trip to the Leningrad State Conservatory Festival of Music and Dance. Graduate work contains extensive research material for Matheson's thesis on Niblo's Garden and consists of notes arranged by chapter, subject, or repository visited; typescripts of her thesis; and slides. Other subjects include Kenneth King and the dance partnership of Ted Shawn and Margaret Wallman. Correspondence with King and Wallman is interspersed throughout her research notes. Files on King also contain detailed notes on Matheson's experience dancing in King's piece <span class=\"title\">Battery</span>.</p> <p>Personal material consists of correspondence, juvenilia, poems, and diary entries, as well as fliers, programs, and choreographic notations that represent Matheson's own work as a dancer. Many diary entries take the form of unsent letters to friends, supervisors, and romantic interests, and represent the concerns, thoughts, and feelings of a young dancer trying to find her personal and professional niche. Photographs are primarily souvenir and publicity photographs of unidentified dancers and include many reproductions of Achille Volpe's images of dancers from the 1920s and 1930s.</p> <p>Project files are arranged alphabetically by publication or subject. Of note is extensive correspondence with national and international theaters regarding stagings of Balanchine's choreography, which Matheson collocated for <span class=\"title\">Choreography by George Balanchine</span>, and a transcript of an interview Matheson did with Richard Bull, Cynthia Novack, and Peentz Dubble for her article on \"Improvisation\" for the <span class=\"title\">International Encyclopedia of Dance</span>. Additional interviews consist of a transcript of her interview with Nikita Dolgushin and audio recordings of Twyla Tharp and Mark Morris recorded for Dance as a Theatre Art. <span class=\"title\">Dance Magazine</span> files are loosely arranged by magazine section.</p>"}
- arrangement
-
{"value"=>"<p>The collection is arranged alphabetically by subject, format, or title.</p>"}
- acqinfo
-
{"value"=>"<p>Donated by the Katy Matheson Estate, 2005.</p>"}
- processinfo
-
{"value"=>"<p>Processed by <span class=\"name\">Susan Malsbury</span> in <span class=\"date\">2013</span>.</p> <p>Material was rehoused in boxes and loose material was put in folders. Original arrangement and folder titles were retained when apparent.</p>"}
- date_start
-
1960
- keydate
-
1960
- date_end
-
2004
- date_inclusive_start
-
1960
- date_inclusive_end
-
2004
- extent_statement
-
24.63 linear feet (60 boxes). 55 audio recordings. 67 moving image recordings
- prefercite
-
{"value"=>"Katy Matheson papers, *MGZMD317. Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts"}