Posted on October 20, 2022

Dancing Instances, the world’s oldest month-to-month journal dedicated to all types of dance, is to promote its intensive assortment of pictures. The journal, based in 1910 by Philip J S Richardson, ceased publication in September 2022 following an unbroken 112-year historical past, and it now seeks to discover a new residence for the very good assortment it amassed through the years.

In keeping with Sarah J Woodcock, former curator of pictures at London’s Theatre Museum, “It affords the widest protection of Twentieth-century dance of any assortment exterior the Jerome Robbins Dance Division in New York or the Victoria and Albert Museum Performing Arts Assortment in London.”

The gathering consists of roughly 35,000 photos, the bulk courting from the early years of the Twentieth century by means of to the early years of the twenty first century, when digital pictures overtook movie and print pictures. A small proportion of the images are autographed, some with dedications to successive editors of Dancing Instances. As well as, there’s a small amount of nineteenth and Twentieth century prints and drawings, together with a pen-and-ink drawing by Mikhail Larionov of the ballet Chout, which the artist designed for Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, and a discrete assortment of pictures that when belonged to the balletomane Peter Revitt, an in depth good friend of former journal editor Mary Clarke.

A lot of the pictures have been sought or submitted for doable use within the journal, however not all have been printed. “They signify all the themes coated by the journal, and subsequently all points of dance: social and ballroom dancing, nationwide dances from all over the world, academics and educating of all kinds of dance, dance on movie and tv, and efficiency dance of all kinds,” says Francesca Franchi, former head of collections on the Royal Opera Home. “The images embody corporations, colleges and people, performers, choreographers, composers, academics and college students, in addition to newsworthy occasions within the dance world.”

The gathering has pictures by nearly all of probably the most distinguished photographers of dance, akin to Serge Lido, Houston Rogers, Zoë Dominic, Martha Swope, Roy Spherical and Anthony Crickmay. Topics embody Carlos Acosta, Alvin Ailey, Antonio, Frederick Ashton, Fred Astaire, George Balanchine, Irina Baronova, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Erik Bruhn, Darcey Bussell, Yvette Chauviré, John Cranko, Merce Cunningham, John Curry, Alexandra Danilova, Anthony Dowell, Suzanne Farrell, Margot Fonteyn, Ram Gopal, Martha Graham, Tamara Karsavina, Gene Kelly, Alicia Markova, Arthur Mitchell, Rudolf Nureyev, Anna Pavlova, Pearl Primus, Lynn Seymour, Antoinette Sibley, Galina Ulanova and Ninette de Valois.

“The range is without doubt one of the assortment’s strengths, charting the rise of first the nationwide dance corporations, and the rise of up to date, Black and Asian dance,” provides Woodcock. “Dancing Instances was famous for its worldwide protection and that is mirrored within the photos of the flourishing dance scene in Europe, the US, the Soviet Union and additional afield.”

“As our assortment needs to be bought, we’re anxious to search out the suitable residence for it,” says Jonathan Grey, editor of Dancing Instances. “We hope, subsequently, to listen to from museums, analysis centres or college collections with sturdy hyperlinks to the historical past of dance, or from potential consumers who would then want to donate the archive to an acceptable assortment.”

The gathering, comprising seven four-drawer submitting cupboards, is in glorious situation and is housed in acid-free conservation-grade envelopes. It additionally contains full sure volumes of Dancing Instances from 1910 to 2022, and the Ballroom Dancing Instances/Dance As we speak from 1956 to 2015. The gathering has been valued within the area of £40K to £47K.

Additional data, together with detailed valuations from each Francesca Franchi and Sarah J Woodcock, could be obtained on request. Additionally out there are a list of the contents of Assortment Drawer COM to DAT, which acts as a pattern for the gathering as a complete; an inventory of contents from one among six unsorted containers of pictures; and an inventory of framed pictures that have been beforehand displayed within the Dancing Instances workplace.

events ought to contact Jonathan Grey by e-mail at jon@dancing-times.co.uk.

Viewings of the gathering will also be organized.

Jonathan Grey

Jonathan Grey is editor of Dancing Instances. He studied at The Royal Ballet Faculty, Leicester Polytechnic, and Wimbledon Faculty of Artwork the place he graduated with a BA Hons in Theatre Design. For 16 years he was a member of the curatorial division of the Theatre Museum, London, helping on numerous dance-related exhibitions, and serving to with the recreation of authentic designs for numerous The Royal Ballet’s productions together with Danses concertantes, Daphnis and Chloë, and The Sleeping Magnificence. He has additionally contributed to the Monetary Instances, written programme articles for The Royal Ballet and Birmingham Royal Ballet, and is co-author of the e book Unleashing Britain: Theatre will get actual 1955-64, printed in 2005.