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Joel, Lydia.
The Lydia Joel papers span the years 1906-1993 and consistof correspondence, personal papers, teaching notes, grant applications, research material, scripts, student papers, and tests. There are clippings, photographs, programs, andposters. The collection is important in its documentation of the development of the Dance Department of the School of the Performing Arts, but has no information about Joel's tenure with Dance Magazine. There is, however, somelimited information about her resignation from the magazine in December 1969. The Lydia Joel papers contain some material relating to Joel's personal life, including her collection of foreign stamps. Also included is her script, Catherine De Medici, Italian Queen of France, and the Beginnings of Ballet. This script was the first program in a projected television series on the cultural relevance of dance throughout history.
Lydia Joel (1914-1992), dancer, educator, editor, writer, and producer was best known for her work for Dance Magazine and on the faculty of the School of the Performing Arts in New York City. Joel graduated from NewYork University with a degree in English, but also pursuedher interest in dance. She studied ballet at the School ofAmerican Ballet and modern dance with Harald Kreutzberg and Hanya Holm. As a performer, Joel appeared at Bennington in 1937, where she danced in the premiere of Holm's Trend. Joel moved to Texas the following year, where she embarked on a teaching career, first at Texas Christian University, and later at Southern Methodist University, from 1938 to 1944. During this period, she also headed her own dance company.
Joel, whose first husband died in 1946, had returned to New York, where she joined the staff of Dance Magazine in 1947 in the advertising department. By the time she left in 1969, Joel had become the Editor-in-Chief of the magazine. During her tenure, the staff increased from fourto fifteen and the circulation more than doubled. In 1973,she began to teach at the School of the Performing Arts, where Joel served as teacher, Dance Department chairwoman,and, eventually, as vice principal. She produced the school's annual concerts, taught both in the classroom andstudio, and was instrumental in arranging a performance byseveral dance students at the Spoleto Festival in Italy in1982. The character of "Lydia Grant" played by Debbie Allen, in both the movie and television series, Fame, was based upon Lydia Joel. Upon her retirement from the Schoolof the Performing Arts, Joel began an ambitious project ofto develop a television series, Dance Diary. Although she did extensive research, wrote several scripts, and received grants to produce the program, the series never aired.
Among first to enter action. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Photographs and Prints Division.
One of 700,000 pictures in the NYPL Digital Gallery
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