Margot Mayo (May 30, 1910 – ) was an American dance instructor, educator, and collector of folk music.
Early life
Margot Mayo was born Margaret Melba Mayo on May 30, 1910 in
Commerce, Texas
Commerce is a city in Hunt County, Texas, United States, situated on the eastern edge of North Texas, in the heart of the Texas Blackland Prairies. The town is south of the Texas/Oklahoma border. Commerce is the second-largest city in Hunt County ...
, the youngest of eight children of William Leonidas Mayo, the founding president of
East Texas Normal College.
["Margot Mayo." ''Gale Literature: Contemporary Authors'', Gale, 2002. ''Gale Literature Resource Center''. Accessed 29 Jan. 2020.]["Mayo Family Collection"](_blank)
Texas A&M University-Commerce Libraries. Accessed March 16, 2021.
Career
She was a key figure in the 1940s New York City revival of
folk dancing and
square dancing
A square dance is a dance for four couples, or eight dancers in total, arranged in a square, with one couple on each side, facing the middle of the square. Square dances contain elements from numerous traditional dances and were first documente ...
and
American folk music
The term American folk music encompasses numerous music genres, variously known as ''traditional music'', ''traditional folk music'', ''contemporary folk music'', ''vernacular music,'' or ''roots music''. Many traditional songs have been sung ...
.
She was founder of the
American Square Dance Group in 1934 and editor of its magazine, ''Promenade,'' and published the manual ''The American Square Dance'' in 1943.''
'' She and her American Square Dance Group perform on the 1947 Pete Seeger documentary ''To Hear Your Banjo Play.''
The folk revival in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
was rooted in the resurgent interest in square dancing and folk dancing there in the 1940s, which gave musicians such as
Pete Seeger
Peter Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an American folk singer and social activist. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, Seeger also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of the Weavers, notably ...
popular exposure.
"To Hear Your Banjo Play"
film short, 1947 with Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Sonny Terry, Margot Mayo's American Square Dance Group and others. Written by Alan Lomax and narrated by Pete Seeger.
Margo Mayo was also a teacher of music and dance in the school system in New York City.
Personal life
Margo Mayo lived with her sister Gladys who was a piano teacher and piano faculty member at Juilliard School of Music
The Juilliard School ( ) is a private performing arts conservatory in New York City. Established in 1905, the school trains about 850 undergraduate and graduate students in dance, drama, and music. It is widely regarded as one of the most elit ...
from 1921 to 1950. They lived near Juilliard on Riverside Drive.
Death
Margot Mayo died in May 1974 in New York City.
Selected bibliography
*
References
*Cantwell, Robert
''When We Were Good: The Folk Revival''
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996.
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Folklorists
1910 births
1974 deaths
Square dance