{"id":17406,"date":"2023-02-03T19:07:09","date_gmt":"2023-02-03T19:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/?p=17406"},"modified":"2025-04-21T07:16:20","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T07:16:20","slug":"from-ballet-to-broadway-and-black-lew-leslies-blackbirds-of-1939-edith-ross","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/2023\/02\/03\/from-ballet-to-broadway-and-black-lew-leslies-blackbirds-of-1939-edith-ross\/","title":{"rendered":"From Ballet to Broadway and Black & Lew Leslie’s Blackbirds of 1939: Edith Ross"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Ballet to Broadway and Black and Edith Ross<\/h2>\n
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Visit Edith Ross’s Orbit in From Ballet To Broadway And Black<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Edith Ross (far left), Beryl Murray, Lavinia Williams.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Edith Ross was a member of Eugene Van Grona\u2019s American Negro Ballet which was founded in 1937. One of her first Broadway performances was as a dancer of Von Grona\u2019s Swing Ballet in Lew Leslie\u2019s <\/span>Blackbirds of 1939<\/span><\/i>. In addition to <\/span>Blackbirds of 1939<\/span><\/i><\/a>, Ross performed in several other Broadway productions. <\/span><\/p>\n

Sources:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lew Leslie’s Blackbirds of 1939, Playbill<\/a>
\nEdith Ross Performer’s Page, Playbill<\/a>
\nEdith Ross, MoBBallet\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

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More about Edith Ross<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Edith Ross was a member of Eugene Von Grona\u2019s American Negro Ballet, the Negro Unit of Ballet Theatre, and the Katherine Dunham Company from 1940 to 1943. She was a part of the original casts of Agnes de Mille\u2019s\u00a0Black Ritual<\/i>\u00a0and the Broadway shows\u00a0Lew Leslie\u2019s Blackbirds of 1939<\/i>,\u00a0Carmen Jones<\/i>\u00a0(1943-1945), and\u00a0Cabin in the Sky<\/i>\u00a0(1940), which was staged and choreographed by George Balanchine.<\/p>\n

See more.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

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

Edith Ross, MoBBallet\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

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More about Von Grona\u2019s Swing Ballet<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Eugene Von Grona trained in dance in Germany and arrived in New York City in 1928. He formed the American Negro Ballet in 1934 after seeing the zeal of the artists working in Harlem, noting the new type of dance energy he saw in them that was lacking in European dancers. He thought that the dancers he found for his company \u201cdidn\u2019t have the opportunity\u201d for technique classes and so he gave it to them at the American Negro Ballet. ANB was the first professional company to feature concert dance with Black members on a scale that garnered acceptance from the media as well as criticism.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

They used the term \u201cballet\u201d to describe all the dance they were doing, though not a classical ballet company. In 1939, members of the company performed alongside the New York Negro Symphony Orchestra; these members were Valerie Cavell<\/a>, Marion Brown<\/a>, Beryl Clarke<\/a>, Viola Gibson, Dorothy Jones<\/a>, Harriet Oliver, Evelyn Pilcher<\/a>, Edith Ross<\/a>, Pearl Spears, Hazel Spence<\/a>, Ettie Stephens, Willard Taylor, Elizabeth Thompson<\/a>, Lavinia Williams<\/a>, Wahneta Talley, Teddy Allen, Alfred Bledger<\/a>, Jon Edward, Anthony Fleming<\/a>, Frank Green, Coleman Hill<\/a>, James Smith, and Harry Young<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sources<\/strong>:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“Which was the first?” A historical essay on the first Black Dance Company in the USA<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"\" Morinsola Tinubu<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Ballet to Broadway and Black and Edith Ross Edith Ross was a member of Eugene Van Grona\u2019s American Negro Ballet which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":134,"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":[301,253],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-ballet-to-broadway-and-black","category-universe"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17406","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\/134"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17406"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18753,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17406\/revisions\/18753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}