Scope and Content Note
The Jane Dudley Papers consist of clippings, correspondence, musical scores, photographs, and programs documenting Dudley's life and career as a dancer and choreographer. Organized into eight series, materials date from 1909 to 2001, with the bulk falling between 1937 and 1946.
The earliest materials in the collection are found in Music. This series contains printed piano scores and manuscript scores of music Dudley was inspired by or used to create dance pieces. Dudley's mother, Hermine Jahns Dudley, inscribed her name on a few of the printed scores. Of the nearly 30 composers represented, there are significant materials from Hanns Eisler, Meyer Kupferman, Alex North, and Earl Robinson.
The Photographs series consists mostly of images of dance works that Dudley choreographed and works by others in which she appeared. Also included are studio portraits of Dudley and less formal snapshots captured later in her life.
Clippings collects articles, magazines, reviews, and clipped images documenting Dudley's professional life. The bulk of the material dates from the 1940s when Dudley was dancing with the Martha Graham Company and creating work and performing as part of the Dudley-Maslow-Bales Trio with Sophie Maslow and William Bales.
Performance ephemera is organized under Programs. Here again, the majority of material comes from her work with Graham and the Dudley-Maslow-Bales Trio. This series features a program from the Bennington College 1935 summer course when Dudley first danced with the Graham Company.
Clippings and programs are collected together in Scrapbooks, a small series of two bound volumes and several loose pages.
Correspondence consists of letters from fellow dancers and choreographers. Most of the material dates between 1967 and 1969 when Dudley was traveling or engaged with Batsheva Dance Company in Israel.
Dudley's financial records and personal effects make up a small body of Biographical materials. This series includes receipts accumulated while traveling, address and appointment books, and files on her father Pendleton Dudley and her son Tom Hurwitz.
Set and costume renderings from the short film Haiku are found in Artwork, along with three sketchbooks and large prints from William Steig's The lonely ones (1942) which inspired Dudley's work of the same title. The sketchbooks feature work in pencil, ink, pastel, and marker. Their creator is unidentified.