About This Orbit: Marion Cuyjet
Marion Cuyjet, born July 29, 1920, came from a community called the Delaware Moors, a people of African American, Native American and Welsh heritage, and looked white although her family chose not to pass.
Though Sydney King, her former classmate, was technically a better dancer, because of Cuyjet’s complexion, it was she who had the opportunity to perform professionally. This was a benefit of being lighter skinned—they were granted entry into areas of white society that the browner Negroes were not, including working at department stores where they were not even allowed to shop. Cuyjet, however, had no interest in passing as a long-term solution and was very clear about her limitations as a dancer. Her daughter Judy says:
My mother was not a great dancer. She was a student of dance who could demonstrate some things. She was a mental dancer; she could straighten your ass out.
In the early ‘40s, Cuyjet married and started a family. In 1944, she began to expand her training by taking up folk dance and started a small school in her home a year later.
King and Cuyjet decided to form the Sydney-Marion School of Dance in 1946, using the space offered to them by Dorsey. When the pair fell out, Cuyjet opened the Judimar School of Dance in 1948
Source:
Sydney King and Marion Cuyjet, MoBBallet
Essie Marie Dorsey
Marion Cuyjet started her training with Essie Marie Dorsey in 1933 at age 13. Since Cuyjet was a green-eyed redhead, it was possible for Dorsey to send her off to train at the Philadelphia Ballet Academy. Passing was tricky business, a solitary existence. One had to avoid getting too close to anyone and withhold information like where you resided, which might give one’s true identity away. Dorsey taught Cuyjet the ropes in order to get her access to better training, just as Dorsey had done herself as a teen.
When it came time for Sydney King and Cuyjet to form their school, Dorsey had closed her own and supported the young women in this endeavor. She offered her space and contacts to her young protégées.
Sources:
Sydney King and Marion Cuyjet, MoBBallet
Philadelphia Ballet Academy and The Littlefield Ballet
After receiving her foundational training with Essie Marie Dorsey, due to her light complexion, Cuyjet was able to “pass” as white to study with the Philadelphia Ballet Academy. Cuyjet was selected to perform in the Ladies’ Better Dresses Department of the Wanamaker Department Store with a group of teens with the Littlefield Ballet Company in the ballet Caucasian Sketches.
Source:
Sydney King and Marion Cuyjet, MoBBallet
The Sydney-Marion School of Dance
Equipped with the knowledge given to them by Essie Marie Dorsey and the desire to continue her legacy, Sydney King and Marion Cuyjet established the Sydney-Marion School of Dance in 1946. Their aim was to “offer dance as a means of social and cultural development” and to give young Black people the opportunity to train that was usually reserved for whites (White-Dixon 25). The school offered ballet, tap, acrobats, Dunham technique, folk dance, and ballroom dance.
The Sydney-Marion School lasted just two years due to Cuyjet and King’s “differences in management styles.” Regarding the split, Joan Myers Brown says this:
I don’t know if it was about color or if it was about the two ladies disagreeing. I know that all of us little brown girls stayed with Sydney and all the little light skin [daughters of] doctors and lawyers and all the so-called society girls went with Miss Cuyjet. That’s why I was surprised that she ended up with Delores [Browne]. She found them already trained in South Philadelphia at that Barrett Junior High School. Billy Wilson, Betsy Ann Dickerson, Barbara Harper, all of us stayed with Sydney.
King and Cuyjet went on to form their own schools: the latter established the Judimar School of Dance, which subsequently closed its doors in 1971, and the former started the Sydney School of Dance.
Sources:
Sydney King and Marion Cuyjet, MoBBallet
White-Dixon, Melanye. “The Legacy of Black Philadelphia’s Dance Institutions and the Educators Who Built the Tradition.” Dance Research Journal, vol. 23, no. 1, 1991, pp. 25–30. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1478695. Accessed 27 May 2021.
Judimar School
After the split between Marion Cuyjet and Sydney King, Cuyjet sought space downtown, using her appearance to thwart racial boundaries. Located in Center City, the Judimar School was surrounded by the Philadelphia Dance Academy, the Academy of Music, and the Walnut Street Theatre. While Cuyjet taught ballet, Ernest Parham, Joe Nash, Thomas Cannon, and William Dollar were all hired as teachers. She called her new school Judimar, combining her daughter Judy’s name with her own.
One of her first classes was for older teens, some of whom had never danced before but were interested and dedicated. In order to build her enrollment, she scouted ballet clubs in junior high and high schools; she found Delores Browne, Alice Mayes, and Juanita Jones at the Barrett Junior High School’s recital of Cinderella (with Browne in the title role). She offered these young women scholarships.
It was Cuyjet’s hope that she could mold one of these three (then later Donna Lowe, Melva China White, and Judith Jamison) into “America’s first Black ballerina,” as was once her dream (White-Dixon 26). So she worked vociferously to push and expose her dancers to everything possible. Still, her position as a Black woman teaching Black children brought on limitations.
Judith Jamison (who began her training at the Judimar School when she was six years old) recalls their transient existence:
This was the first Black woman to be able to rent space in downtown Philadelphia, because she had green eyes, white skin and red hair. And she was Black. And we would get kicked out of different schools because all these little Black children would come running after this white woman in these studios that were being rented. Then they would figure out, no, no, that’s not going to happen. So we moved several times.
Jamison also recalls the strictness that was a hallmark of Cuyjet’s teaching methods:
She put the seriousness of dance, the discipline of it, and how you have to be more than 100 percent doing what you’re doing in class… she put that in your heart and in your spirit and in your soul. She also walked around with a stick, which she would never hit you with or anything like that, but it was the threat of the stick. And also, Marion cursed like a sailor. She really would let you know in certain terms that you were doing something not quite right. You knew that you had to be 200 percent for her.
Though she originally set out to create the first Black American ballerina, Cuyjet’s aims became more closely aligned with that of her former teacher and mentor, Essie Marie Dorsey. Though she first and foremost wanted to “make dancers,” Cuyjet also hoped to “provide dance preparation to all youth as a vehicle for social, cultural, intellectual, and physical development” (26). Ultimately, because she knew of the limitations presented to Black dancers at the time, Cuyjet wanted to build “the total person” through her teaching (27).
Cuyjet went on to be a consultant and teacher for pre-professional children’s classes at Joan Myers Brown’s Philadelphia School of Dance Arts (29).
Sources:
1948: Marion Cuyjet founds the Judimar School of Dance
Sydney King and Marion Cuyjet, MoBBallet
And Still They Rose: Joan Myers Brown, MoBBallet
White-Dixon, Melanye. “The Legacy of Black Philadelphia’s Dance Institutions and the Educators Who Built the Tradition.” Dance Research Journal, vol. 23, no. 1, 1991, pp. 25–30. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1478695. Accessed 27 May 2021.
George Chaffee
Marion Cuyjet, who would often bring her students to New York City in order to strengthen their technique and talents, began a friendship with George Chaffee. Since they passed for white, Cuyjet, her daughter, and her student Donna Lowe were permitted to take Chaffee’s class. He additionally taught both Cuyjet and her other students privately. Ironically, this dancing in the shadows forced an intimacy and a focus that, in the end, made Cuyjet a master teacher. Chaffee was an ally and supported her in every way he could.
Sources:
Sydney King and Marion Cuyjet, MoBBallet
Future Ballerinas Win Fokine School Auditions, Ridgewood Herald-News
William Dollar
American choreographer and dancer William Dollar was well acquainted with Essie Marie Dorsey. When Dollar fell into hard times, Dorsey invited him to stay with her and her husband. Out of gratitude, he repaid her by giving her private ballet classes every morning. This illustrates how complex racial relations were at the time. Clearly when Dollar stayed with Dorsey, he was aware of her race. They were friends. He could live with her and train her (privately), yet out in the world, he could not allow her—a Negro woman—in his regular classes.
This connection must have set the groundwork for a relationship between Dollar and Dorsey’s student Marion Cuyjet, who, when she opened the Judimar School, asked Dollar to teach (White-Dixon 26).
Sources:
Sydney King and Marion Cuyjet, MoBBallet
White-Dixon, Melanye. “The Legacy of Black Philadelphia’s Dance Institutions and the Educators Who Built the Tradition.” Dance Research Journal, vol. 23, no. 1, 1991, pp. 25–30. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1478695. Accessed 27 May 2021.
Thomas Cannon
Due to Marion Cuyjet’s ability to “pass” as white, her teacher and mentor Essie Marie Dorsey sent her to the Littlefield School, where Thomas Cannon was an instructor and co-founder of Littlefield Ballet. It is unclear how Cuyjet’s dismissal from the school truly played out (she gave several differing stories about the event) and unclear whether Cannon knew or fought for her to remain at the Littlefield School. Nonetheless, Dorsey paid Cannon to give private lessons to Cuyjet afterward (Gottschild 44). This relationship lasted for years, with Cuyjet still taking private lessons from him as an adult.
Sources:
Ballet, The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia
Sydney King and Marion Cuyjet, MoBBallet
Gottschild, Brenda Dixon. Joan Myers Brown & the Audacious Hope of the Black Ballerina: A Biohistory of American Performance. United Kingdom, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
Dr. Eugene Wayman Jones
During the years when Sydney King and Marion Cuyjet were first operating their schools, there were no companies for Negro ballet performers, and they were not granted entry into white ones. In Philadelphia, advanced Negro ballet dancers existed in a sort of limbo, with little to no place to perform, essentially becoming professional class-takers with allegiances to schools. Within the Black communities, there were small opportunities at churches and local events. The consistency and the level could never compete with professional companies, but the Christmas Cotillions could stand toe-to-toe in scale and prestige. The largest and most prestigious were the Black Society Cotillions produced by Dr. Eugene Wayman Jones, founder of the Philadelphia Cotillion Society and the North City Congress and producer of the gala events held at the Convention Hall. These were lavish events with high profile honorees including Marian Anderson (1949), Ralph Bunche (1950), Eleanor Roosevelt (1952), Pearl Buck (1956), and Martin Luther King Jr. (1957). Jones enlisted prominent dance schools to provide entertainment, accompanied by the Philadelphia Orchestra.
The Sydney King School of Dance and the Judimar Schools collaborated in choreographing full-length story ballets: Frozen Fire (1950), Blue Venus (1954), and The Prince and the Rose (1956). (At age 15, Judith Jamison debuted as Myrtha in Giselle.) The productions were extravaganzas with sets, costumes, props, and even live animals courtesy of the Masonic Hall. These events brought the two schools head-to-head in not-so-subtle competition. Each would create their section separately and then integrate them with just a few hours of rehearsal. Everyone from the most advanced to the beginner students had a role.
Although Cuyjet would study and take class with her students to improve her pedagogy, during these productions she would let them take the spotlight on the stage. King, on the other hand, would perform featured roles alongside her students in their productions. Perhaps these performances ignited her unrequited dream of becoming a professional dancer, moving her to seize these moments to shine.
Source:
Philadelphia Ballet Clubs
Several students of both Sydney King and Marion Cuyjet got their start in ballet clubs hosted by their junior high and high schools.
Joan Myers Brown, a student of Essie Marie Dorsey, Cuyjet, and mainly King, was asked to join her school’s all-white ballet club. Brown’s gym teacher, Mrs. Lingafelter, a member of the Littlefield Ballet and a gym teacher, served as the ballet instructor of this class and noticed potential in the young girl. Brown says of this experience, “I don’t think she was thinking of color; I think she was thinking of ability.” Though Brown was the only Black student in the group, this experience introduced Brown to the world of ballet. Delores Browne started dancing at a ballet club run by Miss Weir, a teacher who had previously taken ballet and wanted to be a dancer. Twice a year, the club would put on a performance. It was in one of their productions—her first spring concert—that Browne was given the opportunity to train at a more serious level.
Sources:
Sydney King and Marion Cuyjet, MoBBallet
Delores Browne on Dance Clubs in Philadelphia Schools (video)
Antony Tudor and the Philadelphia Ballet Guild
When Antony Tudor came to Philadelphia, he was one of the few white teachers willing to teach Black students, making him one of the first (along with Thomas Cannon soon after) to “break this barrier in Philadelphia” (Gottschild 45).
Many of Marion Cuyjet’s students took class with Tudor as well, including Delores Browne, Judith Jamison, Frances Jimenez, Joan Myers Brown, and John Jones, among others. (Sydney King, Cuyjet’s former business partner, also had students in common with Tudor, among them Billy Wilson.)
For years Tudor taught classes and worked with dancers of color, offering them mentorship and career advice without prejudice. Tudor’s weekly classes were hosted by The Philadelphia Ballet Guild for select students. The Sunday classes were all-day events where Tudor acknowledged them, gave corrections, and even asked these students to demonstrate. Joan Myers Brown suspects it was because he was English and not American that race was less of a factor in his mind. When the white male dancers refused to partner Brown, he was her partner:
“Look at me!” I thought, “Sleeping Beauty pas de deux with Antony Tudor. Other girls were mad. I only got to be his partner because no one else would be my partner. By that time, I was in love with ballet. I was in love with Mr. Tudor. I loved ballet, the feeling of accomplishment of learning the skill, of learning the technique.
Because of Tudor’s acceptance of the colored students, others in the class (both male and female) thawed and became accustomed to having them in class. Brown was incredulous when he asked her to perform in Les Sylphides for a performance at the Philadelphia Academy of Music. Delores Browne also performed in Tudor’s company, giving him a part in fulfilling one of Cuyjet’s biggest dreams: to help form the careers of Black ballet dancers.
Sources:
Gottschild, Brenda Dixon. Joan Myers Brown & the Audacious Hope of the Black Ballerina: A Biohistory of American Performance. United Kingdom, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
Frances Jimenez, 87, former ballet dancer, The Philadelphia Tribune
And Still They Rose: Joan Myers Rose, MoBBallet
Sydney King and Marion Cuyjet, MoBBallet
Carnegie Hall’s Ballet Arts
Because Marion Cuyjet was light-skinned, she was afforded privileges that her peers were not. Cuyjet regularly traveled to New York (alone and with her students) to study at studios like Dunham and Ballet Arts at Carnegie Hall.
Eventually, Cuyjet and her students would integrate Ballet Arts. At the tender age of 15, Delores Browne, the most advanced of Cuyjet’s pupils, entered Ballet Arts with specific instructions from Cuyjet not to be turned away or diverted to other classes, and if she were, she should demand a full refund. Since Browne was so young, she was chaperoned by a 19-year-old young man named George Mills. With schedule in hand, Delores checked in at the front desk, and the woman directed her to the “annex.” More afraid of Mrs. Cuyjet than the white receptionist, the small dancer summoned her courage, stood her ground and demanded that she either be admitted to the classes she was registered for or be given her money back. The woman yielded. A few days later, Browne was joined by Cuyjet and her other classmates.
Browne also endured being shunned by the white male dancers in her first partnering class. She continued with the classes and learned all she could to take to their boys back home. Browne says of the experience:
Miss Marion actually took classes with us because she wanted us to feel safe. And it was summer, so there were people from all over the country who did not like the idea…. [In partnering classes] no boys would come behind us, so Miss Marion said we will partner each other; we’ll alternate. We’ll go back and show our boys, and then we’ll do the whole class when we get home. The next week, we [came] back, Dokoudovsky [called] the girls down. He would place you. And the best man in class got behind me. Then the other men got behind the other girls, and so that was the end of that incident.
Delores Browne
Native of Philadelphia Delores Browne studied dance at the Judimar School under Marion Cuyjet. Though Browne initially found her outlet at a ballet club run by a public school teacher, Miss Weir, she was discovered by Cuyjet in a performance of Cinderella. Browne, who played the title role in the production, was offered a scholarship to the Judimar School after the show.
Cuyjet recognized her great potential. Physically, Browne was gifted; mentally, she was focused, determined, and courageous. These were the characteristics required if a Black girl hoped to become a professional ballerina.
Browne quickly excelled as Cuyjet’s strongest student and would eventually emerge as the “ballerina” of the school, being cast as the lead in the large performances that the Judimar School put on as a part of the entertainment for Black cotillions. Browne was a hard worker and had innate talent. She was naturally strong and had good feet and legs for ballet. Blessed with a combination of her parents’ genes (her father’s athleticism and her mother’s high insteps), physically she had a body that was amenable to ballet:
I didn’t really have trouble with anything in ballet. And I was so ambitious, I wanted, I wanted to just challenge everything. I wanted to jump as high as the boys. The emphasis was more on overall dancing and not having a specialty. So, Miss Marion and Mr. [John] Hines gave us jumping, big jumping like the boys do, where we were expected to do that.
During the summers, Cuyjet would bring students to New York City in order to advance their training. As the most advanced dancer, Delores was sent ahead of the group to take extra classes at Ballet Arts in Carnegie Hall. She was sent with specific instructions from Cuyjet not to be turned away or diverted to other classes, and if she were, she should demand a full refund. Since Browne was only 15, she was chaperoned by a 19-year-old young man named George Mills. With schedule in hand, Delores checked in at the front desk, and the woman directed her to the “annex.” More afraid of Mrs. Cuyjet than the white receptionist, the small dancer summoned her courage, stood her ground and demanded that she either be admitted to the classes she was registered for or be given her money back. The woman yielded. A few days later, Browne was joined by Cuyjet and her other classmates, and thus Ballet Arts was integrated. But it was not an easy transition.
Miss Marion actually took classes with us because she wanted us to feel safe. And it was summer, so there were people from all over the country who did not like the idea…. [In partnering classes] no boys would come behind us, so Miss Marion said we will partner each other; we’ll alternate. We’ll go back and show our boys, and then we’ll do the whole class when we get home. The next week, we come back, Dokoudovsky calls the girls down. He would place you. And the best man in class got behind me. Then the other men got behind the other girls, and so that was the end of that incident.
At 17, Browne auditioned and subsequently attended the School of American Ballet as one of a few students of color, equipped with the skills Cuyjet instilled in her. In 1991, Browne said:
I still fall back on my Judimar training. It was the strongest foundation for me. When I first went to the School of American Ballet I was one of the few people trained outside of New York that had a good background in ballet terminology. I studied with several teachers after Judimar, but I don’t remember being as impressed as I was with what I received at Judimar. I remember strengthening my training, I remember being coached, but not necessarily learning something new (White-Dixon 26-27).
Browne later danced with fellow Judimar alumni John Jones and Charles Moore in a 1958 Alvin Ailey/Ernest Parham recital. Ernie Parham was also a student at the Judimar School, concurrently with Browne, Jones, and Moore.
Sources:
Marion Cuyjet: Black Ballet Pioneer
Converging Movements: Modern Dance and Jewish Culture at the 92nd Street Y, by Naomi M. Jackson
And Still They Rose: Delores Browne, MoBBallet
White-Dixon, Melanye. “The Legacy of Black Philadelphia’s Dance Institutions and the Educators Who Built the Tradition.” Dance Research Journal, vol. 23, no. 1, 1991, pp. 25–30. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1478695. Accessed 27 May 2021.
Judith Jamison
Judith Jamison’s dance education began when her mother, Tessie Belle, took the six-year-old downtown to 1310 Walnut Street, where Marion Cuyjet’s Judimar School of Dance was located.
Although she was still young, Jamison looked older and had natural facilities, compelling John Hines (a ballet teacher at Judimar) to put her with the nine-year-olds. Cuyjet objected, instead placing her at the level of her knowledge, and trained her following the standard progression. Jamison made certain that she had copies of the terminology papers so that she was learning the vocabulary as well as the steps. Jamison recalls learning ballet terminology:
We listened to her, I think we had little books. We had to write things down. I don’t know if we had tests, but my ballet vocabulary is still pretty fabulous. So fabulous that when I started touring in France the people thought I spoke French.
For her first two years at Judimar, Jamison solely studied ballet and flourished under the tutelage of the Judimar faculty. Delores Browne, a protege of Cuyjet and one of the most notable Blacks in ballet, was one of her teachers. Cuyjet had a system whereby older students would (under her supervision) teach the younger students. A 17-year-old Browne would later go on to study at the School of American Ballet and dance with the Philadelphia Ballet Guild as well as the New York Negro Ballet:
Dolores Browne, as a teacher, was another disciplinarian. She learned from Marion Cuyjet. Dolores carried herself the way a ballerina carries herself. That was my image that I could see every time I went to class. The straightness of her back, the pride of her carriage, the way she walked, the way her pointe shoes were tied, the way she carried herself when she was teaching us, with pride. And she knew what she was talking about. She knew how to correct us. She knew how to keep us in line, gently.
Jamison too would become a student teacher at age 14. She quickly found that Cuyjet’s high standards and demand for serious study had rubbed off on her. She was so strict and her standards so high that it was almost impossible for her students to learn. She had taken everything that Cujyet was teaching to heart; there was a seriousness in study that was required.
This seriousness was already present in Jamison from a young age, only intensified with the influence of her mother, Cuyjet, and teachers like Hines and Browne. She had an incredible amount of facility—long legs and arms, flexibility, nice feet, and a natural athleticism.
The discipline and structure of ballet prepared her to embrace the structure of the Horton Technique. Cuyjet and the Judimar School instilled within her the work ethic and respect for the studio, which Cuyjet called “holy space.” The fearlessness of her first ballet teacher taught her not to be afraid to grab life and opportunities with both hands and drink it in.
After 11 years at Judimar, Jamison graduated high school and enrolled at Fisk University.
Source:
And Still They Rose: Judith Jamison, MoBBallet
Philadelphia School of Dance Arts
Joan Myers Brown’s Philadelphia School of the Dance Arts was first established in 1960 on 52nd and Walnut Street in West Philadelphia (White-Dixon 28). The school began with just 30 students with attendance rates increasing every year. Though her teachers’ goals were to create accomplished individuals, Myers Brown wanted to train professional dancers, with the school’s philosophy being, “Our school is a place where dancers grow, where young people are given positive directives, where the community shares in its potential.”
Myers Brown served as the principal ballet teacher at the school; hired teachers for modern, tap, jazz, and acrobatics; and brought in guest teachers from New York. Additionally, Myers Brown had her advanced students teach, just as her own teachers had done.
Myers Brown followed the tradition of her foremothers, offering a diverse curriculum and epic recitals. Every year, her students performed at the Philadelphia Academy of Music. Myers Brown believes it is important that children have the experience of performing in a real theater, regardless of whether or not they will become professional dancers. Like her mentors, she is a pioneer, breaking down barriers. In 1970, Myers Brown founded The Philadelphia Dance Company (Philadanco) as a way to give the dancers she trained a performing outlet in concert dance (an opportunity that she was not afforded). Among those who taught or choreographed at Philadanco include: Billy Wilson, Delores Browne, Talley Beatty, Gene Hill Sagan, Louis Johnson, Milton Myers, Denise Jefferson, George Faison, Donald Byrd, Camille A. Brown, and Christopher Huggins. Her organization has always been diverse, including the administration, faculty, company, choreographers, and students. Myers Brown is adamant about opening doors and providing opportunities for all.
The Philadelphia School of the Dance Arts is still active, having celebrated its 60th year in May 2020. Notable alumni of the school include Deborah Manning (former dancer with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater), Leslie Odom Jr. (actor/singer known for Hamilton and Smash), and Lee Daniels (filmmaker and producer of The Butler and Empire). Philadanco is now “recognized as one of the leading modern dance companies in the United States” (28).
Sources:
Sydney King and Marion Cuyjet, MoBBallet
Philadelphia School of Dance Arts celebrates 60th anniversary, Annenberg Center
Our History, Philadanco
White-Dixon, Melanye. “The Legacy of Black Philadelphia’s Dance Institutions and the Educators Who Built the Tradition.” Dance Research Journal, vol. 23, no. 1, 1991, pp. 25–30. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1478695. Accessed 27 May 2021.
Dorothey Jimenez
Dorothey Jimenez studied under Marion Cuyjet at the Judimar School. She later danced professionally with her former Judimar peers like Delores Browne and Frances Jimenez.
Source:
Elmer Ball
Philadelphian Elmer Ball studied under John Hines and Marion Cuyjet at the Judimar School. Later in his life, as a dance instructor, Ball’s mission was to build a “complete person,” carrying on the legacy of his teacher Cuyjet, who similarly intended to create “the total person” through her teaching.
Sources:
Choreographer John Hines, Philadelphia Daily News
Elmer Ball, Noted Choreographer, Philadelphia Daily News
Ronald Platts
Ronald Platts studied at the Judimar School of Dance in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the early 1950s. He attended concurrently with notable alumni Charles Moore, Delores Browne, John Jones, Ernest Parham, and Arthur Hall.
Source:
Marion Cuyjet: Black Ballet Pioneer
Charles Moore
Charles Moore studied at the Judimar School of Dance in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the early 1950s. He attended concurrently with notable alumni Ronald Platts, Delores Browne, John Jones, Ernest Parham, and Arthur Hall.
Sources:
Marion Cuyjet: Black Ballet Pioneer
Ethnic dance expert to visit C.R. schools, The Gazette
Frances Jimenez
After graduating from West Philadelphia High School in 1949, Frances Jimenez, a Philadelphia native, began training with Marion Cuyjet at the Judimar School of Dance in 1950. Jimenez’s classmates included Arthur Hall, Delores Brown, Ronald Platts, John Jones, and Ernest Parham. She also received training from Antony Tudor at the Philadelphia Ballet Guild.
Source:
Frances Jimenez, 87, former ballet dancer, The Philadelphia Tribune
Donna Lowe
Donna Lowe Warren began her dance training at the Judimar School under its founder Marion Cuyjet. Her other instructors were John Hines, friend and peer of Sydney King and Cuyjet, and Delores Browne, herself a student of Cuyjet.
At the encouragement of Cuyjet, Lowe was taken to New York City in order to take George Chaffee’s classes; this was due to her light skin color and Cuyjet’s friendship with Chaffee.
Sources:
Donna Lowe Warren, MoBBallet
1948: Marion Cuyjet founds the Judimar School of Dance, MoBBallet
China White
Philadelphia native China (Melva) Murray White trained under Marion Cuyjet at the Judimar School. As a student, White appeared on local television alongside Donna Lowe and fellow dancers. Due to her rigorous training, White was the first Black student to receive a scholarship to train at the Pennsylvania Ballet School, a feat considered one of the great achievements of Judimar students.
Source:
Marion Cuyjet, 76, black ballet pioneer, The Philadelphia Inquirer
Christina Cottman Pierangeli
Christina Cottman Pierangeli trained at the Judimar School under Marion Cuyjet, setting her up for a successful career in performance ballet.
John Jones
From 1951 to 1955, John Jones studied at the Judimar School. Due to the connections forged during his training, Jones danced for fellow Judimar alumnus Arthur Hall in his company the Arthur Hall Afro-American Dance Ensemble in the early 1970s. Jones also returned to Philadelphia to teach at the Judimar School.
Sources:
Leaping a Generation Gap to Revive a Robbins Ballet, The New York Times
Legacies of Twentieth-Century Dance, Google Books
Written and/or compiled by Mad Crawford
