Scope and arrangement
These scrapbooks include press clippings, reviews, magazine articles, programs, announcements, publicity materials, and tour itineraries.
American Ballet Theatre Scrapbooks, 1939-1966, *ZBD-164, Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.
Arranged in approximate chronological order. These scrapbooks include press clippings, reviews, magazine articles, programs, announcements, publicity materials, and tour itineraries.
Ballet Theatre, an outgrowth of the Mordkin Ballet which started in 1937 as an outlet for the students from Mikhail Mordkin's school, was inaugarated with Richard Pleasant as director in the fall of 1939. Its stated goal was to have a company capable of performing ballets of all periods and styles. Among the dancers were Adolph Bolm, Patricia Bowman, Edward Caton, Leon Danielian, Vladimir Dokoudovsky, Anton Dolin, William Dollar, Viola Essen, Miriam Golden, Nana Gollner, Maria Karnilova, Nora Kaye, Andrée Howard, Hugh Laing, Annabelle Lyon, Donald Saddler, Nina Stroganova, and Yurek Shabalevski. Its first season opened January 11, 1940 at the Center Theatre and lasted four weeks. The repertory included Michel Fokine's Les Sylphidesand Carnaval,Adolph Bolm's Ballet Mécaniqueand Peter and the Wolf,Mordkin's Voices of Spring,Antony Tudor's Dark Elegies, Lilac Garden,and Judgement of Paris,Agnes de Mille's Black Ritual(performed by the company's Negro Wing), Eugene Loring's The Great American Goof,and Bronislava Nijinska's La Fille mal Gardée.Audiences for ballet in the company's first years, even in major cities, were limited, so the goal of continuous performing had to be met with tours of one-night stands, initially under the management of Sol Hurok. In the spring of 1947, Ballet Theatre Foundation was established as a taxexempt, non-profit corporation for the purpose of supporting Ballet Theatre. After its 1957 tour of Europe and the Near East, the company changed its name to American Ballet Theatre. In its first 25 years, in addition to its annual New York City seasons, American Ballet Theatre had appeared in more than 350 cities in 44 countries throughout the world.
These scrapbooks include press clippings, reviews, magazine articles, programs, announcements, publicity materials, and tour itineraries.
Purchase. American Ballet Theatre.
(use microfilm).