Essie Marie Dorsey and 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.

Marion Cuyjet and William Dollar

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.

More about William Dollar

William Henry Dollar, born April 20, 1907, trained with greats like Michel Fokine, George Balanchine, Mikhail Mordkin, and Pierre Vladimiroff. During the mid-1930s and early 1940s, Dollar was a member of American Ballet, Ballet Caravan, and American Ballet Caravan. He originated roles in Balanchine ballets like Transcendence (1935) and Le Baiser de la fée (1937). Balanchine even collaborated with him on Dollar’s first ballet. He later created pieces for companies in Japan, Monte Carlo, and Brazil, among others. His work is still in the repertoire of major companies like American Ballet Theatre.

Dollar passed away in 1986.

Sources:

William Dollar, Britannica
William Dollar, American Ballet Theatre

 

Written and/or compiled by Mad Crawford