Roger Pryor Dodge (21 January 1898 — 2 June 1974) was an American ballet, vaudeville, and jazz dancer, as well as a choreographer and pioneering jazz critic. He formed the first extensive collection of photographic portraits of Vaslav Nijinsky. Self-taught, his original thinking contributed to the understanding of the relationship of jazz to classical music and to dance. He endeavored to break down barriers between jazz and other 'serious' art forms and build the respect it deserved. Dodge’s taste in jazz was formed in 1924, initially from listening to recordings of Fletcher Henderson and others, then refined when Miguel Covarrubias, newly arrived from Mexico and already ensconced in the Harlem Renaissance, introduced Dodge to recordings of Bessie Smith. Jazz inspired Dodge to crystalize a unique style of white American dance, whereupon he choreographed dances to Duke Ellington's recordings with James "Bubber" Miley among others. For years, he performed these pieces in multiple locations in New York, brought a dance trio to perform in Paris, and filmed several of these numbers years later, c1937. His performance career ended in 1942 due to a back injury. Early life Dodge was born in Paris during one of the family’s extended sojourns. His father, American muralist William de Leftwich Dodge, a first place laureate of the Ecole des Beaux Arts, would visit to paint and exhibit at the Salon, often residing in Giverny. Upon their return, Dodge spent his childhood in Setauket, near Stony Brook on Long Island. He attended the Phillips Brooks School in Philadelphia, followed by The Pennington School in New Jersey, but quit before graduating. Later the family moved to Greenwich Village. Dance Education In 1916, Dodge’s Ritz-Carlton ballroom social dance partner introduced him to ballet—Les Ballets Russes starring Vaslav Nijinsky. This pivotal experience inspired Dodge to study classical ballet, attend performances of and study with Fokine and Fokina in 1919-1920, experience the Isadora Duncan Dancers (“Isadorables”), and shortly thereafter, to leave for Paris to continue his ballet studies with Nikolai Legat, one of Nijinsky's teachers, Lyubov Yegorova, who had partnered with Nijinsky, and Léo Staats, the maître de ballet at the Paris Opera. Upon his return to New York in 1921, Dodge continued studying with Michel Fokine (1922). His desire to explore dance expression beyond ballet inspired him in 1922 to study eurhythmics at the Dalcroze School, Isadora Duncan technique with Elise Dufour, and modern dance with Michio Itō. Nijinsky