{"id":11774,"date":"2021-08-25T00:30:20","date_gmt":"2021-08-25T00:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/?p=11774"},"modified":"2025-04-21T07:16:23","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T07:16:23","slug":"essie-marie-dorsey-and-marion-cuyjets-orbit-william-dollar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/2021\/08\/25\/essie-marie-dorsey-and-marion-cuyjets-orbit-william-dollar\/","title":{"rendered":"Essie Marie Dorsey and Marion Cuyjet’s Orbit: William Dollar"},"content":{"rendered":"

Essie Marie Dorsey and William Dollar<\/h2>\n
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Return to the Essie Marie Dorsey and Marion Cuyjet Orbit: William Dollar<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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William Dollar, photo by Severo Antonelli.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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\u2014a Negro woman\u2014in his regular classes.<\/p>\n

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Marion Cuyjet and William Dollar<\/h2>\n

This connection must have set the groundwork for a relationship between Dollar and Dorsey\u2019s student Marion Cuyjet, who, when she opened the Judimar School, asked Dollar to teach (White-Dixon 26).<\/p>\n

Sources:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sydney King and Marion Cuyjet, MoBBallet<\/a>
\nWhite-Dixon, Melanye. \u201cThe Legacy of Black Philadelphia’s Dance Institutions and the Educators Who Built the Tradition.\u201d Dance Research Journal<\/em>, vol. 23, no. 1, 1991, pp. 25\u201330. JSTOR<\/em>, www.jstor.org\/stable\/1478695. Accessed 27 May 2021.<\/p>\n

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More about William Dollar<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\"William
Photo via Britannica<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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<\/em> (1935) and Le Baiser de la f\u00e9e <\/em>(1937). Balanchine even collaborated with him on Dollar\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Dollar passed away in 1986.<\/p>\n

Sources:<\/strong><\/p>\n

William Dollar, Britannica<\/a>
\nWilliam Dollar, American Ballet Theatre<\/a><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

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Written and\/or compiled by Mad Crawford<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Essie Marie Dorsey and William Dollar American choreographer and dancer William Dollar was well acquainted with Essie Marie Dorsey. When Dollar fell […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"universe-template.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[273,253],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-astr","category-universe"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11774"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12858,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11774\/revisions\/12858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}