Research Catalog

Title

Bessie Schönberg papers, 1932-1997 and undated.

Author

Schönberg, Bessie.

Supplementary Content

Finding Aid

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

Varley, Dimitry.

Description

33.5 linear ft. (30 boxes)

Summary

The collection includes Bessie Schönberg's personal documents, professional and personal correspondence, information on her teaching, directing, performing, lecturing, and writing, appointment books, financial and medical papers, interviews, writing by others, and print materials collected by Schönberg. There is extensive personal correspondence with her husband Dimitry Varley and Schönberg's family. Includes papers and correspondence with dance institutions with which she had long or formative experience including the Bennington College School of the Dance, Connecticut College School of Dance/American Dance Festival, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Dance Theater Workshop, Dancing in the Streets, Jacob's Pillow, and The Yard.

Subjects

• Modern dance > New York (State)
• Modern dance > United States > History > 20th century
• Connecticut College > School of Dance
• Dance teachers
• Yard (Chilmark, Mass.)
• Dance Theater Workshop
• American Dance Festival
• Schönberg, Bessie > Friends and associates
• Bennington College > School of the Dance, 1934-1942
• Interviews
• Correspondence
• Dancing in the Streets/USA
• New York Dance and Performance Awards
• Jacob's Pillow School of the Dance
• Modern dance > New York (State) > New York
• Dance Theatre of Harlem
• Schönberg, Bessie > Family

Genre/Form

• Correspondence.
• Interviews.

Note

• Personal and professional papers of dance educator Bessie Schönberg, 1932-1997.

Indexes/Finding Aids (note)

• Finding aid available in repository and on internet.

Call Number

(S) *MGZMD 124

OCLC

163571421

Author

Schönberg, Bessie.

Title

Bessie Schönberg papers, 1932-1997 and undated.

Location of Other Archival Materials

The bulk of the papers relating to Ms. Schönberg's years as Director of the Dance Program at Sarah Lawrence College were separated from this collection after Ms. Schönberg's death. They are available to researchers at the Sarah Lawrence College Archives and are comprised of some ten linear feet of material including correspondence, institutional records and photographs.

Biography

Born in Hanover, Germany, Dec. 27, 1906, Bessie Schönberg was the daughter of American born Rose MacGrew and the German engineering student Alexander Schönberg. The family moved often as MacGrew pursued a career in opera but the effort was abandoned apparently due to illness and MacGrew left the family to return to the United States. When Bessie's father was called into active service in World War I, she and her sisters were left in the care of Gertrude Bierschenk, a young woman who had been originally hired as her mother's companion. At age nineteen, encouraged by her father and at the invitation of her mother, Bessie moved to Eugene, Oregon to pursue university studies. It was there she was able to pursue the study of dance, an activity of which her father had disapproved. Initially dissatisfied with the teachers, her attitude changed when Martha Hill joined the University of Oregon faculty in 1927. In 1929, Schönberg followed Hill to New York City to pursue her studies. Hill arranged for her to meet Martha Graham and soon Schönberg joined the Graham company, performing in the original casts of Primitive mysteries and Heretic. Schönberg's performing career was cut short by a knee injury. During this same period she met her future husband, Dimitry Varley and they married in Jan. 1934. Martha Hill invited Schönberg to be her assistant at Bennington College's School of the Dance, teaching there from 1933-1941. In 1941, she was appointed chairperson of the Sarah Lawrence College Dance Department, a position she held until 1975. She developed long-term relationships with many key institutions in the field of modern dance including the American Dance Festival, Jacob's Pillow, and Dance Theater Workshop. In honor of her contributions to the field, the New York Dance and Performance awards given annually by Dance Theater Workshop were dubbed the "Bessies". She remained an advisor, friend, and teacher until her death in 1997.

Indexes

Finding aid available in repository and on internet.

Source

Gift: Estate of Bessie Schönberg

Connect to:

Request Access to Special Collections (Dance Division) material

Finding Aid

Occupation

Dance teachers.

Local Subject

New York Dance and Performance Awards.

Added Author

Varley, Dimitry.

Research Call Number

(S) *MGZMD 124