Migel, Parmenia

Parmenia Migel Ekstrom (1908-1989) was a ballet historian and author, and founder and president of the Stravinsky-Diaghilev Foundation. Although she started her career as a writer under her maiden name, Parmenia Migel, in her subsequent career as a dance scholar and collector, she used her married name, Mrs. Parmenia Ekstrom, sometimes abbreviated PME in this finding aid. In the late 1930s she founded and headed the executive committee of the Ballet Guild (New York, N.Y.). From 1946 to 1955, she lived in France where she directed a gallery and organized exhibitions and concerts. On her return to New York, she founded and directed the Dance Department of the New School for Social Research (New York, N.Y.), where she also lectured. She became Honorary Curator of Ballet at the Harvard Theatre Collection and was a long standing member of the Committee for the Dance Collection for the New York Public Library. As a writer, Ekstrom contributed to many scholarly dance journals and published a number of books on ballet history. She also published a biography of the Danish author Isak Dinesen . In the late 1950s, she established and directed the Stravinsky-Diaghilev Foundation which collected material related to Igor Stravinsky's and Serge Diaghilev's careers, organized exhibitions on dance, promoted dance research and supported a great number of writers, researchers and students of dance by giving them access to the Foundation's collection of dance material. She was also involved in the operation of her husband Arne Horlin Ekstrom 's gallery, Cordier & Ekstrom, in New York.

Parmenia Migel (1908-1989), known in the dance world as Mrs. Parmenia Ekstrom, was a ballet historian and author, and founder and president of the Stravinsky-Diaghilev Foundation.

Parmenia Migel Ekstrom was interested in dance as a young woman and during the period 1939-1942 she became a founder of the Ballet Guild and an active supporter of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. She later became interested in the history of dance and began a career as a scholar and collector. In 1972, she published a book, The Ballerinas: from the Court of Louis XIV to Pavlova.

Stravinsky-Diaghilev Foundation was established in New York in the 1950s by dance scholar and writer Parmenia Migel Ekstrom. The foundation collected material related to careers of Igor Stravinsky and Serge Diaghilev, and Ballets Russes, organized exhibitions on dance, and promoted dance research.

Boris Kochno, born 1904 in Moscow, was a well-educated person with a knowledge of constructivist painting. He came to Paris in 1920 and was soon introduced to Serge Diaghilev. Although not a dancer, choreographer, or designer, he became a man behind the scenes who help deal with the various artists who worked with Diaghilev's company. After Diaghilev's death in 1929, Kochno moved to London where he assisted in the staging of Cochran's Revue of 1930. In the following few years, he worked with George Balanchine in several adventures. In 1945, he became the artistic director of Ballets des Champs-Élysées, working with the choreographer Roland Petit. He wrote Le ballet en France (1954) and, published simultaneously in English and French editions, Diaghilev et les Ballets Russes (1970). He died in 1990 in Paris.

Parmenia Migel was born in New York City June 14, 1908. She was educated in the United States and France and became interested in ballet in the 1930's, when she founded and directed the Ballet Guild, an organization to find and commission new works for the Massine/Denham Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. In 1933, she married the New York art dealer Arne H. Ekstrom. She lived in France from 1946-1955 and founded and co-directed the Galerie Michael Warren in Paris. Returning to New York City, she founded the Dance Department of the New School for Social Research. She wrote both poetry and books on dance, including The ballerinas: from the court of Louis XIV to Pavlova (1972), Pablo Picasso, designs for The three-cornered hat (1978), Great ballet prints of the romantic era (1981), and Great ballet stars in historic photographs (1985). In 1986, she curated an exhibition entitled Four hundred years of dance notation which was shown both at New York City's Grolier Club and the Harvard Theatre Collection in Cambridge, Mass. She died on November 14, 1989 in New York City.