Lillian Moore (1911–1967) was a dancer, teacher, and dance historian.

Biography

Moore was born on September 20, 1911, in Chase City, Virginia. She studied at the

Peabody Conservatory The Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University is a private music and dance conservatory and preparatory school in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1857, it became affiliated with Johns Hopkins in 1977. History Philanthropist and ...

, the Metropolitan Opera Ballet School, and the

School of American Ballet The School of American Ballet (SAB) is the associate school of the New York City Ballet, a ballet company based at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City. The school trains students from the age of six, with professional voc ...

Her dance career spanned decades and included dancing the Metropolitan Opera as a member of the

corps de ballet In ballet, the ''corps de ballet'' (; French language, French for "body of the little dance") is the group of ballet dancer, dancers who are not principal dancers or Soloist (ballet), soloists. They are a permanent part of the ballet company and ...

and as a soloist from 1928 through 1942. She danced with the

American Ballet The American Ballet was the first professional ballet company George Balanchine created in the United States. The company was founded with the help of Lincoln Kirstein and Edward Warburg, managed by Alexander Merovitch and populated by students ...

from 1935 through 1938. She was a dancer,

choreographer Choreography is the art of designing sequences of movements of physical bodies (or their depictions) in which Motion (physics), motion or Visual appearance, form or both are specified. ''Choreography'' may also refer to the design itself. A chor ...

, and

ballet master A ballet master (also balletmaster, ballet mistress, ''premier maître de ballet'' or ''premier maître de ballet en chef'') is an employee of a ballet company who is responsible for the level of competence of the dancers in their company. In mo ...

for the Cincinnati Summer Opera from 1940 through 1946. She toured Europe and the Pacific, with sources conflicting about the years (either during World War II in Europe, or after World War II in both Europe and the Pacific,). In the 1950s Moore danced for the

Jacob's Pillow Jacob's Pillow is a Dance studio, dance center, school and performance space located in Becket, Massachusetts, in the Berkshires. The facility itself was listed as a National Historic Landmark District in 2003. History The site of Jacob's Pi ...

performance space in the Berkshires. In the 1950s and 1960s she taught dance at the

High School of Performing Arts The High School of Performing Arts (informally known as "PA") was a public alternative high school established in 1947 and located at 120 West 46th Street in the borough of Manhattan, New York City, from 1948 to 1984. In 1961, the school was ...

and the Joffrey. Moore's writing and research took a prominent place in her life. She served for a time as acting curator of the

New York Public Library The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second-largest public library in the United States behind the Library of Congress a ...

's (NYPL) dance collection. Much of her research on 18th and 19th century dance is in the collection of the Jerome Robbins Dance Division of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Moore's writing includes articles for dance journals such as '' Dance Index'' and ''Dance Perspectives''. Her book ''Artists of the Dance'' was published by

Thomas Y. Crowell Co. Thomas Y. Crowell Co. was a publishing company founded by Thomas Y. Crowell. The company began as a bookbindery founded by Benjamin Bradley in 1834. Crowell operated the business after Bradley's death in 1862 and eventually purchased the compan ...

in 1938. An anthology of her essays ''Echoes of American ballet'' was published posthumously in 1976 by Dance Horizons. Moore died on July 28, 1967, in New York City.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Moore, Lillian 1911 births 1967 deaths People from Chase City, Virginia 20th-century historians American female dancers American women choreographers