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Collection Data
- Description
- The Mikhail Mordkin Photographs document the life and career of ballet dancer, choreographer and teacher Mikhail Mordkin (1881-1944) and span from approximately the 1860s to 1978.
- Names
- Mordkin, Mikhail, 1881-1944 (Creator)
- Chase, Lucia, 1897-1986 (Creator)
- Pavlova, Anna, 1881-1931 (Creator)
- Pozhit︠s︡kai︠a︡, Bronislava Avgustovna (Creator)
- Mordkin Ballet Company (Creator)
- Dates / Origin
- Date Created: 1860 - 1978 (Approximate)
- Library locations
- Jerome Robbins Dance Division
- Shelf locator: *MGZEB 16-248
- Topics
- Ballet companies -- New York (State) -- New York
- Genres
- Photographs
- Notes
- Biographical/historical: Ballet dancer, choreographer and teacher Mikhail Mordkin (1881-1944) was born in Russia and graduated from the Bolshoi Ballet School. After one season in 1909 with Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, he toured with Anna Pavlova, later forming his own company in 1911. In 1912, Mordkin married Bolshoi ballerina Bronislava Pozhitskaia and they had one son, Michael Mordkin, Jr. Mordkin settled in the United States in 1924. He formed the short-lived Mordkin Ballet company in 1926, dissolving it that same year. He opened a school of ballet in New York City in 1925. In 1937, he began a new Mordkin Ballet company in New York. The company was a forerunner of American Ballet Theatre. Mordkin died at his home at age 64.
- Content: The Mikhail Mordkin Photographs document the life and career of ballet dancer, choreographer and teacher, Mikhail Mordkin (1881-1944), and span from approximately the 1860s to 1978.
The collection consists of mostly black and white photographs, some sepia photographs and a few color snapshots covering the professional and personal life of Mordkin. Included are a number of early ballets in which he appeared, such as L'Automne Bacchanale (circa 1910-1928), Aziade (The Legend of Azyiade) (circa 1910-1927), as well as photographs of Mordkin in costume and with various partners, including Anna Pavlova.
Also contained are numerous photographs of the 1937-1939 Mordkin Ballet productions, including Dionysus, La Fille Mal Gardée, Giselle, (The) Goldfish, (The) Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, Trepak, and Voices of Spring; stars included Patricia Bowman, Lucia Chase, Nina Stroganova, and Leon Varkas. Photographers include Delar, Lucas-Pritichard, Ira L. Hill's Studio, Harold Swahn, and Benjamin Woolf.
There are numerous family photographs, especially of Mordkin's wife, ballerina and teacher, Bronislava Pozhitskaia, through her later years, and their son, Michael, Jr.
- Physical Description
- Extent: 2.77 linear feet (6 boxes, 1 volume)
- Type of Resource
- Text
- Identifiers
- Other local Identifier: *MGZEB 16-248
- NYPL catalog ID (B-number): b21099159
- MSS Unit ID: 23956
- Universal Unique Identifier (UUID): 58933f20-3cf0-013b-d627-0242ac110002
