Partner
Karen Irvin
Queer Places:
Cornish College of the Arts - Kerry Hall, 710 E Roy St, Seattle, WA 98102
Hartman's, University Way NE, Seattle, WA 98105
Pamelea "Mea" Hartman (1930-1983) was a performing arts administrator of Seattle, Washington.
Karen Irvin had joined the Cornish
school in 1945 after being a student there since the 1920s, with additional
studies in New York. By the late 1930s, Irvin was a noted local performer and
dance instructor, along with her lesbian accompanist Catherine Rogers, who
remained a fixture at Cornish for several decades. Around 1952, when Irvin
became head of the dance department, she met Pamelia "Mea" Hartman, and they
soon became lovers. In 1956 the two women, along with close friend and artist
Malcom Roberts, founded the
Cornish Ballet. Irvin, Hartman, and Roberts guided the ballet into becoming
the leading regional company of the time. Besides Irvin's choreography, the
trio designed and built the stage sets, made the costumes, and even sold
tickets. Irvin remained head of the department for 27 years, during which time
the ballet company continued to prosper.
Mea’s legal name was Pamelea W. Hartman, which she hated, so she went by Mea. Her father, a blind man ran Hartman’s bookstore in downtown Seattle, many years ago now. Hartman worked with Karen Irwin presenting dance productions for Cornish School. She was also a board member of Pacific Northwest Ballet Association, serving on its Council of Dance Educators ca. 1972 and participated in Pacific Regional Ballet Association's regional convention in Seattle in 1972. She served as secretary of New Dimensions in Music, a Seattle contemporary music group in the late 1960s and early 1970s. She was treasurer of Evergreen Opera Theatre, a 1982 attempt to present chamber operas in English in Seattle. She also served as a board member of the Early Music Guild, a Seattle organization from 1982-1983, and as communications director of the Northwest Folklife Festival in 1983.
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