Collection context
Summary
- Title:
- Inesita papers
- Dates:
- 1913-2018
- Creators:
- Inesita
- Abstract:
- Inesita (1921-) is a Los Angeles-based dancer whose work and oeuvre is devoted to traditional forms of Spanish dance, including flamenco, the Bolero School of Dance of the 18th century, and other regional dances of Spain. Since the age of fourteen, she has performed in cabaret; film; television; musical theater; and as a soloist since the early 1950s in venues throughout Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York City, Mexico City, Madrid, Paris, London, Liverpool, and Valletta. The papers are a reflection of an eight decade career and include business and personal correspondence, contracts, programs, posters, press clippings, photographs, scripts, notes, ephemera, memorabilia, and a manuscript of Inesita's autobiography A Dancer's Life. The collection also contains digital and audiovisual materials, which include various audio and video recordings of performances or fragments of dance shows.
- Extent:
- 7 linear feet (12 boxes, 3 flat boxes, 1 carton) and 18.92 Gigabytes (11 digital files)
- Language:
- Materials are primarily in English, with some materials in Spanish and French.
- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of item], Inesita papers (Collection 2365). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
Background
- Scope and content:
-
This collection is comprised of materials relating to each episode in Inesita's performing life, which includes correspondence, photographs, contracts, programs, posters, press clippings, scripts, notes, and other printed ephemera spanning eight decades of shows and engagements (1939-2018). Inesita's husband, Bob Dworkin acted as her agent, and, thus, a significant amount of the material is connected to his administration of Inesita's bookings, payment, and publicity as a flamenco dancer. Scripts of The Mystery of Flamenco, a lecture demonstration presented by Inesita and written by Bob Dworkin are also included.
The collection contains audio and audiovisual material, which includes eleven VHSes; two vinyl records of Inesita in Flamenco and Classic Spanish Dances; ten 1/4 inch audiotapes; two 1/2 inch videotapes; and one U-matic. Additionally, there is a small amount of digital material (eight DVDs and five CDs), which include various audio and video recordings of piano and dance performances, or fragments of dance shows; as well as photographs and text from Inesita's book A Dancer's Life.
A significant amount of Inesita's personal correspondence and memorabilia are also included, such as fan letters, union cards, her Lester Horton Lifetime Achievement Award (2010), and her first dance dress.
- Biographical / historical:
-
Anice Mignon (née Stahl) Dworkin, best known as Inesita, was born on July 11, 1921 in New York City to parents who were classically trained musicians. She first studied violin and piano at an early age. Inesita's career as a Spanish dance artist began at the age of fourteen, not long after moving to Los Angeles, CA. Her work is devoted to traditional forms of Spanish dance, including flamenco, the Bolero School of Dance of the 18th century, and the regional dances of Spain's autonomous communities. Her studies began in Los Angeles and Mexico with Michael Brigante, Jose Fernandez, Janet Riesenfeld, Oscar Tarriba, and Antonio Triana; and then inevitably in Spain where she trained under the flamenco masters, Valencia y Rendón de Ávila ("El Estampio") and Regla Ortega, as well as the Pericet Family of la escuela bolera in Madrid. Since her first show at La Golondrina Café on Olvera Street on October 7th, 1939, Inesita has performed in cabaret, film, television, and musical theater. Since the early 1950s, she has appeared as a soloist in venues throughout Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York City, Mexico City, Madrid, Paris, London, Liverpool, and Valletta.
Beyond pure flamenco, Inesita's body of work includes The Mystery of Flamenco, a lecture-demonstration written by her husband, Bob Dworkin. Inesita lectured while demonstrating discrete parts of flamenco dance to illustrate structure, which she mostly performed in K-12 schools, colleges, and universities in Southern California between 1963 and 1988. Inesita has also presented a program featuring a suite of dances entitled Themes from Goya, which reflected the various stages of the Spanish painter's life. Its premiere at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in 1955 was followed by performances at the University of California, Los Angeles in 1957 and at the Ivar Theatre in 1958. Another part of her oeuvre includes dances to the harpsichord sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti, which she premiered at the Wilshire Ebell Theater in Los Angeles 1970.
Since 2012, Inesita has performed with her own company featuring other flamenco artists and expanded her scope to integrate the talents of her colleagues with her own vision of Spanish theater. These programs have been presented by the Alhambra Performing Arts Center.
Sources: "About Inesita – Flamenco Inesita." Accessed July 22, 2019. https://flamenco-inesita.com/about/. Inesita (n.d.) LinkedIn page. Accessed September 16, 2019. https://www.linkedin.com/in/inesita-inesita-5b19a246.
- Acquisition information:
- Gift of Inesita, 2018.
- Processing information:
-
Processed by Carolina Meneses, under the supervision of Courtney Dean and Shira Peltzman in 2019.
The original arrangement was retained in most series. Inesita grouped materials by venue, city, state, and/or country. Portions of folder titles provided by her were retained but expanded upon by the archivist for ease of access.
Collections are processed to a variety of levels, depending on the work necessary to make them usable, their perceived user interest and research value, availability of staff and resources, competing priorities. Library Special Collections provides a standard level of preservation and access for all collections and, when time and resources permit, conducts more intensive processing. These materials have been arranged and described according to national and local standards and best practices.
We are committed to providing ethical, inclusive, and anti-racist description of the materials we steward, and to remediating existing description of our materials that contains language that may be offensive or cause harm. We invite you to submit feedback about how our collections are described, and how they could be described more accurately, by filling out the form located on our website: Report Problematic Content and Description in UCLA's Library Collections and Archives.
- Arrangement:
-
This collection has been arranged in the following series:
- Series 1: Materials from California shows and engagements, 1934-2018
- Series 2: Materials from shows and engagements in other U.S. states, 1945-2012
- Series 3: Materials from shows and engagements abroad, 1940-1962
- Series 4: Correspondence, 1913-2012
- Series 5: Additional materials, 1923-2018
- Physical / technical requirements:
-
CONTAINS UNPROCESSED AUDIO AND AUDIOVISUAL MATERIALS: Materials will require assessment and may need further processing for safe access. All requests to access special collections materials must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.
CONTAINS PROCESSED DIGITAL MATERIALS: Special equipment will be required for viewing. All requests to access special collections materials must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.
- Physical location:
- Stored off-site. All requests to access special collections material must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.
- Rules or conventions:
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Indexed terms
About this collection guide
- Date Encoded:
- This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2024-06-06 14:13:24 -0700 .
Access and use
- Restrictions:
-
Open for research. All requests to access special collections materials must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.
- Terms of access:
-
Copyright to portions of this collection has been assigned to the UCLA Library Special Collections. The library can grant permission to publish for materials to which it holds the copyright. All requests for permission to publish must be submitted in writing to Library Special Collections. Credit shall be given as follows: The Regents of the University of California on behalf of the UCLA Library Special Collections.
- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of item], Inesita papers (Collection 2365). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
- Location of this collection:
-
A1713 Charles E. Young Research LibraryBox 951575Los Angeles, CA 90095-1575, US
- Contact:
- (310) 825-4988