Descriptive Summary
Administrative Information
Biography/History
Scope and Content
Organization and Arrangement
Indexing Terms
Descriptive Summary
Title: Dorathi Bock Pierre dance collection
Date (inclusive): 1929-1996
Collection number: 1937
Creator:
Pierre, Dorathi Bock.
Extent:
27 linear ft.
(67 boxes)
Abstract: Collection of photographs, performance programs, publicity information, and clippings related to dance, gathered by Dorathi
Bock Pierre, a dance writer and publicist.
Language: Finding aid is written in
English.
Language of the Material:
Materials are in English.
Repository:
University of California, Los Angeles. Library Special Collections.
Los Angeles, California 90095-1575
Physical location: Stored off-site at SRLF. Advance notice is required for access to the collection. Please contact UCLA Library Special Collections
for paging information.
Administrative Information
Restrictions on Access
Open for research. STORED OFF-SITE AT SRLF. Advance notice is required for access to the collection. Please contact UCLA Library
Special Collections for paging information.
Restrictions on Use and Reproduction
Property rights to the physical object belong to the UC Regents. Literary rights, including copyright, are retained by the
creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue the copyright
owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold the copyright.
Provenance/Source of Acquisition
Transferred from Beverly Hills Public Library, March 2012.
Processing Note
Processed by Megan Hahn Fraser and Jesse Erickson, March 2012, with assistance from Lindsay Chaney, May 2013.
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], Dorathi Bock Pierre dance collection (Collection 1937). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles
E. Young Research Library, UCLA.
UCLA Catalog Record ID
Biography/History
Born after the turn of the century in Chicago, Dorathi Bock, daughter of a well-known Midwest sculptor Richard Walter and
Martha Methven, began her career by posing in dance positions for her father. As a child she also danced in motion pictures
performing movement experiments before the camera. Her first acknowledged dance performance in 1914 was in the backyard of
Mrs. Doris Humphrey, a disciple of Isadora Duncan in Oak Park, Illinois. To help preserve the Indiana Dunes as a state park,
she also performed an expressionistic dance on the dunes. In the 1920s she performed with choreographer and dance director
Michel Fokine's Ballet Company for two years. An injury to her foot ended her dancing career, although she continued to act
in musical comedies and stage dramas through the twenties.
After marrying Jacques J. Pierre, a theatrical producer, she moved from the Midwest to California. While in California, she
wrote the "Hollywood Column" for Viewpoint Magazine, a Chicago women's publication. She began teaching dance education. During
the Depression she joined her father at the University of Oregon to research and lecture on dance theory and education. She
returned to California in the late thirties, becoming the western representative, critic, and contributor to
American Dancer magazine. She became the magazine's education and research editor from 1947-1982. In the late thirties she founded the periodical
Journal of Educational Dancer and remained its editor for four years.
She took off a year in 1946-1947 to become Administrative Director of the Katherine Dunham School of Cultural Arts in New
York City.
Her career in dance publicity and press representation began in the late forties and continued through the sixties. She was
a press representative for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo (1949-1952, 1954), Huntington Hartford Enterprises (1952-1953),
Slavenska-Franklin Ballet (1953), American Ballet Theatre (1957-1958), Old Vic Company's United States tour (1958-1959), Greek
Theatre and the National Repertory Theatre (1959-1961, 1963-1966, 1965-1968).
She also handled press and public relations for the American Festival of Performing Arts, Boston; restoration of the Fords
Theatre, Washington, DC; and George Campbell Associates. She also represented the Royal Dramatic Theatre of Sweden and the
Comedie Francaise in their first American appearances in 1962.
Professional activities included writing and editing articles for
Dance Magazine and
Educational Dance, as well as preparing Hollywood Bowl programs. She also published the book
Only a Few Can Tell in 1944.
Other accomplishments included helping to establish the Los Angeles Ballet Company and a theatre for dance. She also retained
membership in the Publicists Guild, International Platform Association, National Collegiate Players, Association of Theatrical
Press Agents and Managers, National Federation of Business and Profit, Women's Club, Inc., and Pi Epsilon Delta. She was founder
and first Vice-President of the Southern California chapter of the National Repertory Theatre.
Pierre died in February 1997, in her nineties.
Scope and Content
The collection consists mainly of material related to dance companies and choreographers, photographs, newspaper and periodical
clippings, production programs, scrapbooks and ephemera. Covering the 1910s through 1996, the collection includes items from
both local and international dance communities. Photographs and clippings are the largest component of the collection.
The diversity of Pierre's career as an actor, dancer, editor-publisher, dance historian, educator, lecturer and publicist
is emphasized in the materials she collected.
Organization and Arrangement
Arranged alphabetically.
Indexing Terms
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.
Subjects
Pierre, Dorathi Bock --Archives.
Women dancers --United States --Archival resources.
Women public relations personnel --United States --Archival resources.
Dance critics --United States --Archival resources.
Dance companies --Photographs.
Genres and Forms of Material
clippings (information artifacts).
photographs.