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Creator
Dodge, Pryor
Call number
(S) *MGZMD 558
Physical description
5.25 linear feet (11 boxes)
Language
English
Preferred Citation
Pryor Dodge collection, (S) *MGZMD 558. 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.Restrictions apply

Pryor Dodge (1949-) is an author and collector and the son of Lyena Barjansky and Roger Pryor Dodge. Roger Pryor Dodge (1898-1974) was an American dancer. Roger Pryor Dodge's work was focused on the intersection of ballet, vaudeville, jazz, and film. The collection illustrates Roger Pryor Dodge's collaborations with other dancers and jazz musicians through photographs, film footage, scrapbooks, manuscripts, and correspondence. The majority of the collection consists of an eclectic range of film footage of Roger Pryor Dodge's dance routines, many of which were created in collaboration with his partner Mura Dehn.

Biographical/historical information

Pryor Dodge was born in New York in 1949. He grew up in New York City with his parents, Lyena Barjansky and Roger Pryor Dodge. Early in life, he photographed and documented downtown New York, including musicians on the Bowery.

Roger Pryor Dodge (1898-1974) was an American dancer and choreographer whose work blended ballet, vaudeville, jazz, and film. Dodge was also a writer and critic, publishing essays and manuscripts on architecture, art, jazz, and classical music.

The son of muralist William de Leftwich, Dodge was born in Paris during one of his father's artist residencies. In the 1910s, Dodge became inspired to study dance after a dance partner introduced him to ballet, particularly Vaslav Nijinsky's performances in Les Ballets Russes. Back in America, Dodge studied with dance partners Fokine and Fokina and attended performances of the Isadora Duncan Dancers. Dodge returned to Paris to continue his studies with one of Nijinsky's former teachers, Nicol Legat, and other prominent French ballet dancers and choreographers.

After Vaslav Nijinsky's last performance in 1917, Dodge began collecting photographs of the dancer to preserve documentation of his legacy. Dodge became one of the earliest donors to the Dance Division of the New York Public Library, gifting this collection in 1937. The collection included previously unpublished images of Nijinsky and was the first extensive collection of portraits of the dancer.

Dodge returned to the United States in 1921, where he began creating choreography and collaborating with other dancers. His practice during this time was highly collaborative, and interdisciplinary, involving dance, film, and costume design. In 1930, Dodge started dancing with Mura Dehn, often performing their choreography to jazz music and recording film footage of these performances. During this time, Dodge purchased a studio on 8th Street in New York City, where he continued to film himself and other dancers, including Mura Dehn, Isadora Duncan, Léonide Massine, Arthur Mahoney, Lisa Parnova, and others.

Dodge's career is marked by his interest in jazz, and he often performed dances accompanied by the music of Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and other prominent jazz musicians of the 1920s and 1930s. While his appreciation for jazz music was evident throughout his career, Dodge also performed and filmed many of these dance pieces in blackface.

Shortly before his death in 1974, Dodge planned to choreograph, design, and film himself performing five traditional Baroque court dances. He intended to create costumes based on traditional characters, including the Faune in Le Triomphe de Bacchus, and designed and built white papier mâché masks to accompany the costume. However, Dodge passed away in 1974 before filming the project.

Scope and arrangement

The materials in this collection were gathered and organized by Pryor Dodge, Roger Pryor Dodge's son.

The collection includes glass plate negatives, photographs (including prints from glass plate negatives), several types of audio and video material, illustrations, scrapbooks, clippings, papier mâché face masks, and Dodge's Ensign Auto Kinecam camera which was used to record several performances present in the collection.

Film recordings include documentation of Roger Pryor Dodge's solo performances as well as footage of Dodge with other dancers. Footage of other dancers' solo performances created in Dodge's dance studio is also included. This footage includes performances by Isadora Duncan, Arthur Mahoney, Léonide Massine, Lisa Parnova, and others. The collection also contains footage of Dodge's 1941 trip to Cuba, including Dodge's documentation of local Cuban dancers. Dodge's more candid footage includes a film of jazz musician Bunk Johnson playing the trumpet in Washington Square Park and footage of Dodge's wife, Lyena Barjansky. The collection also includes audio and video recordings of Ris et Danceries, filmed in 1993, February 26-27. This film was produced by Dodge's son, Pryor Dodge.

Notes on the audio recordings indicate that they were recorded in synch with some of the 16mm film footage present in the collection.

Photographs present in the collection are primarily of Roger Pryor Dodge in traditional vaudeville costume, often in blackface. Other photographs include documentation of duets with Dodge and other dancers. The original collection also contains photographs of solo performances and commercial headshots of various performers, including Adolph Bolm, Mura Dehn, Joze Duval (Dodge's second wife), Vera Fokina, Michel Fokine, Maria Gambarelli, musician James "Bubber" Miley, Vaslav Nijinsky, and others. The collection also includes photographs from a 1941 trip to Cuba, where Dodge researched Cuban dance.

Two handmade papier mâché masks are included in the collection. These masks were intended for use in an unfinished film project in which Dodge performed traditional solo baroque court dances. The collection also includes illustrations of the Faune in Le Triomphe de Bacchus, which inspired the costumes intended for the unfinished film project. Other illustrations include the following characters: Furie from Iphigénie en Tauride and a Demon from Danse Arminde.

Dodge purchased a 16mm camera in Paris in 1929 that was subsequently used to record film clips of himself and others in his studio. Many of these recordings are contained in the collection.

Two scrapbooks, likely created during the 1920s and 1930s, contain newspaper clippings and programs from performances starring and attended by Roger Pryor Dodge. There is also a group of loose clippings of costume design, and clippings about other ballet dancers within Roger Pryor Dodge's circle.

Several articles and manuscript drafts by Roger Pryor Dodge are present in the collection, many of which were unpublished. Topics include jazz, dance, Martha Graham, Nijinsky, art, perception, and architecture. Dodge was writing critically about jazz as early as 1929.

Other papers contain writing and correspondence with other dancers and Dodge's professional associates, featured in this correspondence include dance curators and academics. Individuals include Anne Bacon, Maurice Willson Disher, Joze Duval (Roger Pryor Dodge's second wife,) John Gruen, Brian Harker, Frances McClernan, Genevieve Oswald, and Mario Praz.

Administrative information

Source of acquisition

Donated to the New York Public Library by Pryor Dodge in 2021.

Processing information

Processed by Emily P. Dunne in 2022.

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

Access restrictions

Inquiries regarding audio and moving image materials in the collection may be directed to the Jerome Robbins Dance Division (dance@nypl.org). Audio and moving image materials will be subject to preservation assessment and migration prior to access.