Z 2374.000 Cooper (Albia Kavan and Rex) Collection

Z 2374.000 S
COOPER (ALBIA KAVAN AND REX) COLLECTION

Biography/History:

Albia Kavan Cooper and William Rex Cooper

Albia Kavan Cooper and William Rex Cooper were the first two artistic directors of the Jackson Ballet Guild established in 1964. They served in this role until Rex Cooper’s death in 1970 and Albia Kavan’s resignation in 1975. The Coopers were professional artistic directors, ballet and modern dancers, dance teachers, and choreographers of national renown. Before moving to Jackson, they had worked and performed throughout the United States. Their careers with the New York City Ballet, the Ballet Caravan, the American Ballet Theater, and with Jacob’s Pillow in western Massachusetts are often recounted in newspaper articles.

Though he grew up in Jackson, Rex Cooper was born to William Carr Cooper and Alberta Crook Cooper on November 20, 1920 in Forest, Scott County, Mississippi. He was an alumni of Bailey Middle School and Central High School, both in Jackson, where he was a member of the high school band. He died in Jackson on October 26, 1970 from cancer at the age of 49. Albia Kavan was born in Oak Park, Illinois on Oct. 31, 1913.

The Coopers made Jackson their home in 1955 when their only child, William John Cooper, III was 6 years of age. They opened the Dance Academy of Jackson in downtown Fondren in September of that year. By the late 1950s, they were also staging and choreographing musical productions for several educational institutions in the Jackson area including Belhaven, Millsaps and Mississippi colleges, and in Hattiesburg at the University of Southern Mississippi. They also worked on various musicals produced by Jackson’s first community theater, the Little Theater, and supervised dance training at several of Jackson’s public high schools.

Rex and Albia Kavan Cooper were also the artistic directors of the world premiere of the ballet adaptation of Eudora Welty’s 1964 children’s book, The Shoe Bird. The Jackson Ballet Guild presented the production on Saturday, April 20, 1968 at the newly built Jackson Municipal Auditorium, often known as the Jackson City Auditorium. While the Coopers were the artistic directors of this ballet production, Welty’s longtime friend, native Jacksonian, and nationally known Broadway music composer, conductor, musician, author and teacher, Lehman Engel, wrote the original libretto, musical score, and orchestration for this world premiere. However, he did not attend it. The production celebrated not only these acclaimed Jacksonians but it was the first ballet performed in the new city-administered performance space. The auditorium was later renamed Thalia Mara Hall in 1994. Albia Kavan Cooper died on Feb. 19, 1999 in Jackson at the age of 85. She and her husband are both are interred at Lakewood Memorial Park in Jackson.

Related collections at MDAH:

Engel (Lehman) Manuscript (Z/0929.000/S).
Welty (Eudora) Collection (Z/0301.000/S). Series 9: The Shoe Bird.
Welty (Eudora) Collection (Z/0301.000/S). Series 29b: Select Correspondence.
Eudora Welty’s Letters to Lehman Engel 1941-1981 (Microform).

Related collections at other institutions:

Lehman Engel Collection, Special Collections and Exhibits, Millsaps-Wilson Library, Millsaps College, Jackson, Mississippi.

Scope and Content Note:

This collection consists of two photocopied librettos written by composer Lehman Engel and edited by Eudora Welty for the 1968 ballet world premiere of Welty’s The Shoe Bird.

Series Description:

1. Series 1. Libretto for The Shoe Bird, 1968.

   This series includes two photocopies of manuscripts. The first is a 15-page photocopy of a manuscript titled “THE SHOE BIRD, A Ballet.” Inscribed on the first page in pencil is “Albia Cooper - Original Manu. (Written by Lehman Engel).” The document contains extensive notes and editing, some of which appears to be in Welty’s handwriting. On page 4 of the manuscript there are numeric notations including time signatures and possible choreographic cyphers.

   The second 8-page photocopied document is entitled “Narrator’s Lines for The Show Bird” and begins with the prologue. Inscribed in pencil on the first page is “Albia Cooper, Revised Manu. - Written by Eudora Welty.” This document has few additional editorial changes other than those contained on the original photocopy of this item. The document is primarily concerned with changes to the libretto.

   Box 1, folders 1-2.