Parmenia Migel papers

Parmenia Migel Ekstrom (1908-1989) was a ballet historian and author, and founder and president of the Stravinsky-Diaghilev Foundation. Although she started her career as a writer under her maiden name, Parmenia Migel, in her subsequent career as a dance scholar and collector, she used her married name, Mrs. Parmenia Ekstrom, sometimes abbreviated PME in this finding aid. In the late 1930s she founded and headed the executive committee of the Ballet Guild (New York, N.Y.). From 1946 to 1955, she lived in France where she directed a gallery and organized exhibitions and concerts. On her return to New York, she founded and directed the Dance Department of the New School for Social Research (New York, N.Y.), where she also lectured. She became Honorary Curator of Ballet at the Harvard Theatre Collection and was a long standing member of the Committee for the Dance Collection for the New York Public Library. As a writer, Ekstrom contributed to many scholarly dance journals and published a number of books on ballet history. She also published a biography of the Danish author Isak Dinesen . In the late 1950s, she established and directed the Stravinsky-Diaghilev Foundation which collected material related to Igor Stravinsky's and Serge Diaghilev's careers, organized exhibitions on dance, promoted dance research and supported a great number of writers, researchers and students of dance by giving them access to the Foundation's collection of dance material. She was also involved in the operation of her husband Arne Horlin Ekstrom 's gallery, Cordier & Ekstrom, in New York.