May O'Donnell printed material and photographs
Dates
- Creation: 1932-1984
Creator
- O'Donnell, May, 1906-2004 (Person)
Language of Materials
English
Restrictions on Access
Collection is open for research.
This collection is shelved offsite at the Harvard Depository. Retrieval requires advance notice. Readers should check with Houghton Public Services staff to determine what material is offsite and retrieval policies and times.
Extent
1.5 linear feet (1 box)Biographical / Historical
May O'Donnell (May 1, 1906 – February 1, 2004) was an American modern dancer and choreographer. Born in Sacramento, California, May O'Donnell studied dance in San Francisco with Estelle Reed and performed in Reed's company before moving to New York City to study with Martha Graham. O'Donnell was a member of the Martha Graham Dance Company from 1932 until 1938.
In 1939, she returned to California and, with her husband, the composer Ray Green, and another former Graham dancer, Gertrude Shurr, founded the San Francisco Dance Theater. In 1941, O'Donnell joined creative forces with Jose Limon in a dance duo until 1942. She worked with the Graham Company again from 1944 to 1952 as a guest artist, at which time she created several roles notably the Pioneering Woman in "Appalachian Spring", Attendant in "Herodiade" (1944), She of the Earth in "Dark Meadow" (1946), and Chorus in "Cave of the Heart" (1946). In the mid-1940s she established the O'Donnell-Shurr Modern Dance Studio with Gertrude Shurr and continued the development of her own dance repertory. Throughout her career O'Donnell created 50 documented dances, from 1937 to 1988. Notably, in 1943 O'Donnell choreographed a modern-dance classic, "Suspension", a thirteen-minute composition. The dance was inspired by her memory of seeing a plane below the hilltop on which she was standing in wartime California.
O'Donnell retired from performing in 1961, but continued to choreograph through 1988.
O'Donnell was also an important teacher, who counted Robert Joffrey, Ben Vereen, Cora Cahan, and Gerald Arpino among her students. She is known for an original dance technique that has influenced generations of modern dancers. In 1974 the May O'Donnell Concert Dance Company was formed and located at the May O'Donnell Modern Dance Center at 429 Lafayette Street in New York City. There, O'Donnell and her staff taught the May O'Donnell Dance Technique until the studio was sold in the 1980s.
O'Donnell died in Manhattan at the age 97 in 2004.
Arrangement
Unprocessed.
Physical Location
Harvard Depository
Immediate Source of Acquisition
2004MT-147. Gift, O'Donnell-Green Music and Dance Foundation, Inc., 2005 May 20.
Processing Information
Minimal description derived from existing records and converted to online finding aid, Betts Coup, 2020.
Creator
- O'Donnell, May, 1906-2004 (Person)
- Title
- O'Donnell, May, 1904-2001. May O'Donnell printed material and photographs, 1932-1984 (2004MT-147): Guide
- Status
- completed
- Author
- Houghton Library, Harvard University.
- Date
- November 16, 2018
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- und
- EAD ID
- hou04146
Repository Details
Part of the Houghton Library Repository
Houghton Library is Harvard College's principal repository for rare books and manuscripts, archives, and more. Houghton Library's collections represent the scope of human experience from ancient Egypt to twenty-first century Cambridge. With strengths primarily in North American and European history, literature, and culture, collections range in media from printed books and handwritten manuscripts to maps, drawings and paintings, prints, posters, photographs, film and audio recordings, and digital media, as well as costumes, theater props, and a wide range of other objects. Houghton Library has historically focused on collecting the written record of European and Eurocentric North American culture, yet it holds a large and diverse number of primary sources valuable for research on the languages, culture and history of indigenous peoples of the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania.
Houghton Library’s Reading Room is free and open to all who wish to use the library’s collections.
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