A Bold Step Forward: Genevieve Oswald and the Dance Collection of the New York Public Library

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Notes

Oswald called the creation of archives of cultural records “a bold step forward—… a gesture which expresses how deeply communities care about their traditions, giving them an historical dimension as they preserve them in a meaningful way as an enrichment for future generations.” See Genevieve Oswald, “One Approach to the Development of a Dance Archive,” in Libraries, History, Diplomacy, and the Performing Arts: Essays in Honor of Carleton Sprague Smith (Stuyvesant, N.Y.: Pendragon Press, 1991), 79. Interviews for this research were conducted by Lynn Brooks and Ishani Aggarwal on May 16, 29, and 30, 2007 at Oswald's home in Ardsley, New York, with follow-up conversations over the course of the next several years. Unless otherwise credited, all quotes are from transcriptions of these initial interviews and are cited in the text as parenthetical numbers corresponding to the page in the transcript from which the quote, sometimes slightly revised, is taken.

Sachs wrote a seminal, if now controversial, dance history and ethnography text, World History of the Dance (New York: Norton & Co., 1937).

Goldschmidt's involvement with the Dance Committee has continued. He was, at the time of this writing, the committee's chairman.

M. R. Kukrit Pramoj, thirteenth Prime Minister of Thailand (1975–1976), was of an aristocratic family. The British-educated Kukrit was a scholar of Thai culture, including dance, visual art, and literature, as well as an award-winning author and leading intellectual in Thailand. Judy Stowe, “Obituary: Kukrit Pramoj,” The Independent (London), October 11, 1995.

Initially, Robbins donated some money to the fund in honor of his mother, Lena Robbins, but his major support came through the royalties from Fiddler. Florence Tarlow explains the connection with the Lena Robbins Foundation in “Miss Oswald of the Dance Collection,” Playbill, New York City Ballet Program, January 15, 1967, 66–67.

Oswald fought against naming the Dance Collection for any individual person because she felt such a move would cause any dancer who wanted to donate material to feel that it was someone else's collection (p. 29). The renaming occurred after Oswald's retirement.

Oswald estimated, in “One Approach to the Development of a Dance Archive” (p. 83), that the Dance Collection had produced about 770 films, covering wide-ranging themes.

NYPL uses its own classmarks and subject headings, distinct from the Library of Congress or Dewey Decimal systems. Since the Dance Collection is specialized, the precision of its subject listings is considerably greater than that afforded by systems created for general libraries.

As part of its mission to bring dance and dance research out of the Dance Collection itself, NYPL published books or monographs in the 1960s and thereafter on dance themes ranging from Isadora Duncan to early American ballet; authors included Selma Jeanne Cohen, Irma Duncan, Marian Eames, Lillian Moore, and Christena Schlundt (Treem, “Descriptive Study,” 76–77).

NYPL's online finding aid has a snapshot biography of Lillian Moore (1911–67), a professional dancer who, upon retirement from the stage, became a major dance researcher. Among her many publications are Artists of the Dance (1938); “Ballet,” in the Encyclopaedia Britannica; Bournonville and Ballet Technique with Erik Bruhn (1961); Bournonville's London Spring (1965); The Duport Mystery (Dance Perspectives, no. 1, 1960); and Images of the Dance: Historical Treasures of the Dance Collection, 1581–1861 (1965). See http://www.nypl.org/ead/742 (accessed June 10, 2011).

Guest's extensive list of publications on ballet history include The Ballet of the Second Empire (1953), Fanny Cerrito: The Life of a Romantic Ballerina (1956), The Dancer's Heritage: A Short History of Ballet (1960), The Romantic Ballet in Paris (1966), Fanny Elssler (1970), The Divine Virginia: A Biography of Virginia Zucchi (1977), Jules Perrot, Master of the Romantic Ballet (1984), The Ballet of the Enlightenment (1996), and Ballet under Napoleon (2002).

Marian Hannah Winter published Le Théâtre du Merveilleux (1962), The Pre-Romantic Ballet (1975), and articles on ballerina Augusta Maywood, Juba and American minstrelsy, and other themes in early American dancing and mime.

According to Harvard's Houghton Library, Lasky came to the United States from London in 1954, after extensive ballet training throughout Europe. She taught in Macon, Georgia, and founded the Macon Ballet Guild. She was elected a member of the Royal Academy of Ballet and served on the Georgia Arts Commission,” http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~hou01572 (accessed December 22, 2010). Several of Lasky's articles were published in Ballet Today and The Dancing Times (London).

Carl Wolz, a Juilliard-trained dancer, founded the Dance Department at the University of Hawaii, was dean of the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts, and taught at Japan's Women's College of Physical Education and at Washington University in St. Louis. He led the World Dance Alliance Asia-Pacific Center for several years. See http://www.wda-ap.org/wda-ap/wda/Carl%20Wolz.htm (accessed December 21, 2010).

1. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Jerome Robbins Dance Division, http://www.nypl.org/locations/lpa/jerome-robbins-dance-division (accessed June 10, 2011).

2. Several sources provide overviews of the Dance Collection: Francis L. McCarthy, “A Study of the Founding and Operation of the Research Library of the Dance, Located at the Museum and Library of the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, New York City,” presentation for the master's degree in library science at Villanova University, spring 1978; H.W. Pierce, “History of The New York Public Library Dance Collection, 1944–1974,” paper prepared for a course, Research in Dance, at New York University, August 6, 1974; Frances R. Treem, “Descriptive Study of the Dance Collection of the Research Library of the Performing Arts of the Library & Museum of the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center,” master's thesis, Graduate Library School of Long Island University, Brookville, N.Y., 1968; and Sam P. Williams, Guide to the Research Collections of The New York Public Library (Chicago: American Library Association, 1975). Genevieve Oswald has written extensively about the Dance Collection; see, for example, her essay, “One Approach to the Development of a Dance Archive: The Dance Collection in the Library and Museum of the Performing Arts (The New York Public Library at Lincoln Center),” in Libraries, History, Diplomacy, and the Performing Arts: Essays in Honor of Carleton Sprague Smith (Stuyvesant, N. Y.: Pendragon Press, 1991), 77–84.

3. See “Capezio Dance Award Recipients,” http://www.capeziodance.com/foundation/dance_award/recipients.php (accessed December 20, 2010). A list of Oswald's honors and recognitions, in “Genevieve Oswald: Biography (Selected),” an undated document given to the author by Oswald, includes, among others: the American Dance Guild Award (1970), the William G. Anderson Award of AAHPERD/National Dance Association (1987), the Distinguished Achievement Award of the Congress on Research in Dance (1997), an Honorary Fellowship in the Society of Dance History Scholars (1998), and the World Dance Alliance Genevieve Oswald Award, named for and awarded to Oswald in 2003.

4. Williams, Guide, 150–51.

5. Treem, “Descriptive Study,” 4, 20; Williams, Guide, 151.

6. See also Oswald, “Recent Developments in the Dance Collection, The New York Public Library,” Research in Dance, Proceedings of the First Conference on Research in Dance, Riverdale, N.Y., 1967, 19–23.

7. Martin Duberman, The Worlds of Lincoln Kirstein (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007), 370, 427; and Treem, “Descriptive Study,” 2–3.

8. Oswald, note to author, Dec. 22, 2008.

9. Patrizia Veroli, “Walter Toscanini, Bibliophile and Collector, and the Cia Fornaroli Collection of The New York Public Library,” Dance Chronicle, vol. 28, no. 3 (September 2005): 323–62.

10. See NYPL Digital Gallery Collection Guides, http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/explore/?col_id=522 (accessed June 10, 2011).

11. See also Treem, “Descriptive Study,” 19–20 and Williams, Guide,156. Oswald, note to author, December 22, 2008, information on Vitale Fokine donation.

12. Oswald, note to author, Dec. 22, 2008, information on Brantizka.

13. Théodore Lajarte, Bibliothèque musicale du Théatre de l’opéra: catalogue historique, chronologique, anecdotique / publié sous les auspices du Ministère de l’instruction publique et des beaux-arts et rédigé par Théodore de Lajarte … avec portraits gravés à l’eau-forte par Le Rat (Paris: Librairie des Bibliophiles, 1876).

14. Clement Crisp, “Archives of the Dance: The Library and Archives of the Royal Academy of Dancing,” Dance Research: The Journal of the Society for Dance Research, vol. 9, no. 1 (Spring, 1991): 58–60.

15. NYPL, Finding Aid for Lillian Moore Dance Research Finding Aid, http://www.nypl.org/ead/742 (accessed June 10, 2011).

16. Oswald, note to author, December 22, 2008.

17. Oswald, “The Development of an Asian Archive in the Dance Collection of the Performing Arts Research Center, New York Public Library, Lincoln Center,” Dance Research Journal, vol. 9, no. 2 (Spring/Summer 1977): 33–35.

18. Oswald, “Development of an Asian Archive,” 33.

19. Oswald, note to author, December 22, 2008.

20. Oswald, “One Approach,” 80. In this essay, Oswald estimated that 97 per cent of the Dance Collection's holdings are nonprint materials.

21. See Duberman, The Worlds of Lincoln Kirstein, for ample evidence of this point.

22. Lincoln Kirstein, Dance, a Short History of Classic Theatrical Dancing (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons 1935).

23. Dictionary Catalog of the Dance Collection: A List of Authors, Titles, and Subjects of Multi-Media Materials in the Dance Collection of the Performing Arts Research Center of The New York Public Library (New York: New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations, distributed by G.K. Hall, Boston, 1974). On Ford and Rockefeller Foundation funding, see Treem, “Descriptive Study,” 5, 32, 34; Williams, Guide, 151.

24. Some information on exhibitions is from “Genevieve Oswald: Biography (Selected).”

25. Treem, “Descriptive Study,” 82–84.

26. Pierce, “History,” 7–10.

27. See Genevieve Oswald, “Some Random Observations on the Teaching of American Dance History,” CORD News, vol. 2, no. 2 (December 1970): 17–21.

28. Quoted in “Her Legacy Speaks Volumes,” by Jennifer Dunning, New York Times, September 8, 1987, C 15.

29. See http://www.dancelibrary.org.il/ (accessed December 21, 2010) and Talia Perelshtein, “The Dance Library of Israel: Thirty-Five Years Serving the Field,” Dance Chronicle, vol. 33, no. 3 (2010): 442–52. On other dance collections and libraries, see Genevieve Oswald, “A Chest of Dance Treasures in American Libraries,” Dance Chronicle, vol. 18, no. 2 (1995): 239–47.

30. Oswald, “One Approach to the Development of a Dance Archive,” 79.

31. Oswald, conversation with the author, December 14, 2009. On WDA history, see http://www.wda-ap.org/wda-ap/wda/aboutWDA.htm (accessed December 22, 2010).

32. “Genevieve Oswald: Biography (Selected).” See also Muriel Topaz, “First General Assembly of the Americas Center of the World Dance Alliance,” Dance Research Journal, vol. 25, no. 2 (Fall 1993): 62–63.

33. For the Americas Center, see http://www.wda-americas.net/; for the Asia-Pacific Center, see http://www.wda-ap.org/wda-ap/wda-ap.htm; and for Europe, see http://www.wda-europe.net/engchisiamo (all sites accessed December 21, 2010).

34. Sandra Hammond, Ballet Basics, 5th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004), 137.

35. Oswald, “One Approach,” 84.

36. “Library Gets Grant for Dance Division,” New York Times, March 7, 1956, 12.