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Creator
Terry, Walter
Call number
*MGZEB 23-0002
Physical description
0.42 linear feet (1 box)
Language
English
Preferred Citation
Walter Terry slides, *MGZEB 23-0002. Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
Repository
Jerome Robbins Dance Division
Access to materials
Request an in-person research appointment.

Walter Terry (1913-1982) was a New York City-based writer, dance advocate, and dance critic. His slides date from the 1940s to 1981, and consist of color and black-and-white copies of photographs and drawings of ballet, modern, traditional dancers and dance companies from the late 19th to early 20th centuries.

Biographical/historical information

Walter Terry (born 1913 in Brooklyn, New York) was a dance critic, prolific writer, and dance advocate. His advocacy efforts encompassed organizing dance festivals, serving on juries, and giving lectures on dance.

Terry began his writing career at the Boston Herald in 1936, reporting on Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival. While he was covering the festival, Terry met and befriended dancer and choreographer Ted Shawn. He worked as a dance critic and editor at the New York Herald Tribune from 1939 to 1942 and 1945 to 1966. When the New York Herald Tribune became the New York World Journal Tribune from 1966 to 1967, Terry continued as the dance critic until the newspaper ceased publication in 1967. He worked as the dance critic for the Saturday Review until it folded in 1982. Terry also had a column in Dance Magazine and The Trib, a short-lived New York daily newspaper that ended in 1978.

In addition to his newspaper and magazine articles on dance, Terry wrote twenty-two books on the subject, including Isadora Duncan: Her Life, Her Art, Her Legacy (1964), Great Male Dancers of the Ballet (1978), and Invitation to Dance (1942).

Terry died in the Bronx, New York in 1982.

-- Bibliography

Ancestry.com. U.S., Newspapers.com™ Obituary Index, 1800s-current [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2019.

Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/173846819/walter-matthew-terry: accessed 30 May 2023), memorial page for Walter Matthew Terry JR. (14 May 1913–4 Oct 1982), Find a Grave Memorial ID 173846819, citing Lakeview Cemetery, New Canaan, Fairfield County, Connecticut, USA; Maintained by Taquoshi (contributor 47282593).

Kisselgoff, Anna. "Walter Terry, a Dance Critic, Author and Lecturer, is Dead." New York Times, October 6, 1982. https://www.nytimes.com/1982/10/06/obituaries/walter-terry-a-dance-critic-author-and-lecturer-is-dead.html.

Scope and arrangement

The Walter Terry slides, dating from the 1940s to 1981, incorporate his professional reference and lecture photographs. The color and black-and-white slides reproduce images of ballet and modern dance companies and dancers, as well as various folk and traditional dances from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Most dancers performed with companies based in Western Europe and the United States. Some slides have handwritten annotations identifying dancers, dance companies, ballet and dance titles, but most do not.

The bulk of the slides appear to be copies of rehearsal, performance, and portrait photographs created by dance companies for production programs or publicity purposes. Dancers are often depicted on stage or in a studio performing in costume. Ballet dancers Alicia Markova, Anton Dolin, Violette Verdy, Alicia Alonzo, Rudolf Nureyev; ballet companies New York City Ballet and American Ballet Theatre; modern dance companies Ted Shawn and His Male Dancers, Denishawn Dancers, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Dance Theater of Harlem, Martha Graham Dance Company; and modern dancers Merce Cunningham, Pearl Lang, and Loie Fuller are well represented in the collection. Slides of Ruth St. Denis, Ted Shawn, and the Denishawn Dancers, recount the choreographers' cultural appropriation of the movements, dress, and music of East Indian, Spanish, American Indian, Arab, Sri Lankan, Japanese, and Egyptian cultures. A few slides detail drawings from textbooks illustrating various folk and traditional dances, including the Juba dance and clogging. The slides also feature headshots of Terry from the 1970s and candid shots of an unidentified woman.

Arrangement

The collection is arranged alphabetically by lecture, dancer, dance company, or type of dance.

Administrative information

Source of acquisition

Donated by Walter Terry at an unknown date.

Processing information

Processed by Amy Lau in 2023.

Using the collection

Location

Jerome Robbins Dance Division
New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center
40 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023-7498
Third Floor