Rudolf Nureyev and Noëlla Pontois in La Bayadère, Palais Garnier, 1974. Photograph by André Chino. Courtesy CNCS.

Reflecting Nureyev’s lifelong obsession with the details of fabric, decoration, and stylistic line, the costumes in this exhibition represent every period of his long career. As a meticulous performer, the Russian ballet master demanded costumes that were not only beautiful, but precisely engineered to suit the physical demands of his dance. He also loved sumptuous decoration, and these costumes reflect his highly-refined aesthetic; fantasias of embroidery, jewels, and braid.

Costume for the Lilac Fairy Queen in Sleeping Beauty, Teatro alla Scalla, Milan, 1966. Collection CNSC/Rudolf Nureyev Foundation. Photograph by Pascal François/CNCS.

Costume for the Lilac Fairy Queen in Sleeping Beauty, Teatro alla Scalla, Milan, 1966. Collection CNSC/Rudolf Nureyev Foundation. Photograph by Pascal François/CNCS.

Costume by Nicholas Giorgiadis for Rudolf Nureyev in the role of Prince Siegfried, Act I, in Swan Lake, Vienna State Opera Ballet, 1964. Silver lace and blue silk doublet, trimmed with blue rhinestones, faux pearls, pleated linen collar and cuffs, and blue soutache. Collection CNCS/Rudolf Nureyev Foundation. Photograph by Pascal François/CNCS

Costume by Nicholas Giorgiadis for Rudolf Nureyev in the role of Prince Siegfried, Act I, in Swan Lake, Vienna State Opera Ballet, 1964. Silver lace and blue silk doublet, trimmed with blue rhinestones, faux pearls, pleated linen collar and cuffs, and blue soutache. Collection CNCS/Rudolf Nureyev Foundation. Photograph by Pascal François/CNCS

Rudolf Nureyev in La Bayadère, Palais Garnier, 1974. Photograph by André Chino. Courtesy CNCS.

Costume by Nicholas Giorgiadis, doublet for Rudolf Nureyev in the role of Prince Florimond, Act III, in Sleeping Beauty, Teatro alla Scala, Milan, 1966. Sleeveless gray and silver waistcoat trimmed with gold lace, yellow braid, and gold filigree buttons; white false shirt with pleated sleeves and lace cuffs. Collection CNCS/Rudolf Nureyev Foundation. Photograph by Pascal François/CNCS

Costume by Nicholas Georgiadis for Rudolf Nureyev in the role of Jean de Brienne in Raymonda, Opéra national de Paris, 1983. Beige silk and gold lamé doublet with velvet braid; cream silk shirt with elastic belt. Collection CNCS/Opéra national de Paris. Photograph by Pascal François/CNCS

Costume for Rudolf Nureyev in the role of Romeo, Act II, Romeo and Juliet, Opéra national de Paris. 1984. Velvet, silk, silver lamé, metallic lace, and sequins. Collection of CNCS/Opéra national de Paris. Photograph by Pascal François/CNCS

 de Young Museum, San Francisco

Rudolf Nureyev: A Life in Dance

From October 6, 2012- February 17, 2013

by Ann Barzel

Doris Humphrey was born in Oak Park on October 17, 1895. Her father, Horace Buckingham Humphrey, was a journalist and one-time hotel manager. Her mother, Julia Ellen Wells, was a trained concert pianist. Through both her parents, Doris was a tenth generation American. Her mother’s ancestors had come from England to Boston in 1636. Her father was a descendent of the famous William Brewster who had arrived on the Mayflower in 1620. Humphrey Avenue in Oak Park is named for her paternal grandfather, the Reverend Simon James Humphrey, who settled in the village in 1867. Another village street, Elizabeth Court is named for his second wife Elizabeth Emerson Humphrey.

A slim, graceful child, Doris Humphrey showed inclination for dance at an early age. Her mother encouraged her and arranged for lessons with eminent ballet masters. However, her real inspiration came from Mary Wood Hinman, who taught dance at the school she attended from kindergarten through high school, the Francis Parker School in Chicago.

In addition to teaching, Miss Hinman staged pageants and programs of folk and “interpretive” dances in the school. Doris shone in these and they whetted her ambition to be a dancer. An early opportunity was as a dancer for a concert group sponsored by the Santa Fe Railroad for its Workman’s Clubs. With her mother as mentor and accompanist, Doris took a leave of absence from high school to tour the West.

After graduation, since her father was not doing well financially, there was a need for livelihood not only for herself, but also to support her parents. At the age of eighteen, Doris Humphrey opened a dance school in Oak Park. Her mother was the business manager and accompanist. The school was an immediate success, offering classic, gymnastic and ballroom dancing for children and a Saturday evening ballroom class for young adults.

Mary Wood Hinman had retained interest in her talented pupil. She encouraged her to go to Los Angeles for a summer course offered by the renowned Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn in 1917. At their Denishawn School, Doris’ talents were recognized. She was given solo roles in presentations and, to assist her to financial independence, she was assigned classes to teach. For the next decade, Doris’ ife and career were tied to Denishawn.

At Denishawn, Miss Ruth encouraged Doris to choreograph. Her first composition was “Valse Caprice” (also known as “Scarf Dance”), followed by “Soaring”, and “Scherzo Waltz” (“Hoop Dance”), all of which continue to be performed by various companies today.

After a two-year tour of the Orient and several seasons of dancing throughout the United States in top vaudeville theaters, Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman (with like rebellious ideas) broke away from Denishawn in 1928. They settled in New York where they became leaders of the radical new dance form known as “modern dance”.

Doris Humphrey realized the inadequacy of the colorful but superficial Denishawn dances. Seeking a deeper understanding of the movement possibilities of the human body and its universal expressiveness, she created a new vocabulary based on the principle of fall and recovery fro gravity. With it, she built a repertory of works among them “Water Study,” “Life of the Bee,” “Two Ecstatic Themes,” and “The Shakers.”

The Humphrey-Weidman Company toured the country in the 1930s, establishing the esthetic and audience base for their innovative dance. They created works addressed to contemporary concerns. In this period, Doris Humphrey choreographed the dramatic trilogy “Theatre Piece,” an exposition of innate human competitiveness and rivalry, “With My Red Fires,” a portrayal of emotional life, the consuming passion of love, and “New Dance,” a depiction of the possibility of reaching a state of human harmony which recognizes individualism.

As a choreographer, Doris Humphrey excelled in her designs for groups, mass movements and sculptural shapes. This was seen throughout her career from early works such as “Soaring,” to one of her last, “Dawn in New York.”

In 1945, suffering from arthritis, Doris Humphrey gave up performing and devoted herself to serving as Artistic Director for the Jose Limon Company and creating works for it. Among these were “Day on Earth,” “Night Spell,” “Ruins and Visions.” In 1958, she made her last and very lasting contribution, a book, The Art of Making Dances, in which she set forth her choreographic principles. Doris Humphrey died December 29, 1958.

Le jeune homme et la mort was created in 1946 & this film is from 1966

Anna Sokolow

The Sokolow Theatre Dance Ensemble, under the guidance of Artistic Director Jim May continues its Sound of Sokolow series with the reconstruction of Lyric Suite, choreographed by Anna Sokolow in 1953 with music by Alban Berg.

Lyric Suite will be shown Dec. 6^th – 9^th at the newly renovated 14^th Street Y. The program will also consist of Ms. Sokolow’s Evolution of Ragtime, choreographed in 1952 to the music of Ferdinand (Jelly Roll) Morton along with Jim May’s 1995 duet Empty Nest, music by David Lang.

Louis Horst, after seeing Lyric Suite expressed….“It is one of the finest examples of lyric theater dance seen in many a season….it speaks in abstract and stark simplicity, translating the qualitative moods of the music into penetrating and evocative movement designs. Superbly choreographed and thoroughly integrated, its beauty has a direct appeal to kinesthetic response.” Louis Horst, Dance Observer 1954

Anna Sokolow

In addition to the performance, the week will include Master class

and a special Lecture/Screening about Anna Sokolow’s career.

Master Classes

Monday-Friday, Dec. 3-7, 1-3 PM

Lecture/Screening

Wednesday Dec. 5, Time TBA

Anna Sokolow

Performance Schedule

Dec.6 at 7:30PM

Followed by post-performance Gala

Dec. 7 & 8 at 8 PM

Dec. 8 & 9 at 3 PM

The Theater at the 14th Street Y

344 East 14th Street (between 1st & 2nd Aves.)

Tickets: $25 General Admission

$100 for Opening Night Performance with Fundraising Reception & $25 Without

For reservations: 1.800.838.3006

http://sokolowensemble.brownpapertickets.com

www.sokolowtheatredance.org

Sophie Maslow in her 1942 work Folksay. Photograph from the archives of the American Dance Festival.

Sophie Maslow was the choreographer for the working class, setting dances to folk music and reflecting scenes from the Depression and the Dust Bowl. Born in New York City in 1911, Maslow joined the Martha Graham Company in 1931. She was a leader in the New Dance Group and a founder of the Sophie Maslow Dance Company and the Dudley-Maslow-Bales Trio with Jane Dudley and William

She was a member of the Martha Graham Company from 1931 to 1940, a leader of the New Dance Group, a choreographer and performer in the Dudley-Maslow-Bales Trio, and director of the the Sophie Maslow Dance Company. Maslow was a founding member of the American Dance Festival and the New York City Center Dance Theater. She was married to Ben (Max) Blatt; the couple had one daughter.

Sophie Maslow in her work Two Songs about Lenin, ca.1934. Photograph from the Sophie Maslow Collection, Music Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C

Maslow boasted that her father, a Moscow socialist printer, gave her the revolutionary spirit and ability to work with a group. Like many other modern dance pioneers, Maslow attended the Neighborhood Playhouse, that unique cradle of dance that produced the early Graham Company. She also went to Camp Kinderland, a Workman’s Circle camp. One of several Jewish modern dancers who went to and later worked at Camp Kinderland, Maslow joked that without Camp Kinderland there would have been no modern dance. As a member of the Martha Graham Company from 1931 to 1940, she appeared in such Graham productions as Primitive Mysteries (1931), American Document (1938), and Letter to the World (1940).

The start of Maslow’s dance career coincided with the Great Depression and the labor movement of the 1930s. Workers’ groups along a wide political spectrum were formed, and dancers joined, in turn forming the Workers’ Dance League and the New Dance Group. The dancers, often divided by ideology and allegiances, struggled to reconcile revolutionary and bourgeois dance—dance that proclaimed the workers’ movement of the future and also dance inherited from traditional forms, even incorporating the new, personalized forms developed by Martha Graham. “Their muscles (and joints) and sinews were trained to express power—artistic and social. Clenched fists, aggressive lunges, and themes of hard physical work were common in revolutionary dance” (Graff).

Maslow saw her work as inspired by a personal heritage rather than by politics or ideology. Her classes at the International Ladies Garment Workers Union were devoid of political content. “Movement was not a privileged activity.” Although dance could and did communicate left-wing ideology, “dance was perceived as a form of expression that could enrich the lives of workers in and of itself,” according to Maslow.

Another controversy that emerged in the 1930s among dancers and critics was the source of dance itself. Most staunch left-wingers believed that folk dance was the ultimate source. Maslow, with her lyric ability and strong Graham training, was able to master an idiom that brought the adaptation of folk dancing to the concert stage. This was folk dancing as only a trained dancer could perform it. Her earliest solo, Themes from a Slavic People (Bartok, 1934), was praised in the left-wing press for its lyricism and evocation of folk culture. Also applauded were Two Songs About Lenin (1935), inspired by Soviet music, and the film Three Songs About Lenin. Stacey Pricket remarks that, “Even if Maslow herself was not drawn to political themes, the evocation of the Soviet Union in her dances touched a responsive chord in the immigrants and new Americans who were heavily represented among the era’s radicals.” Maslow’s work also received praise from Edna Ocko in the Daily Worker. She was described as having “quiet strength and power [that] grows more effective with each successive appearance.”

CityDanceEnsemble performing “Sweet Betsy from Pike,” an excerpt from Sophie Maslow’s Folksay, in 2008. Photograph by Paul Gordon Emerson. From the collection of the Dance Notation Bureau.

With Anna Sokolow, Maslow participated in Workers’ Dance League concerts in 1934, choreographing eath of a Tradition and Challenge to the music of Lopatnikoff. In 1936, she choreographed May Day March. With Jane Dudley, another member of the Martha Graham Company, she danced Satiric Suite in 1937 and Women of Spain in 1938. Ever a good Louis Horst student, she too produced a program of preclassic dances in 1941.

The first example of her signature work, produced in 1941, featured dances to American folk music that depicted the American experience. To the music of Woody Guthrie, Maslow danced the songs of the migratory workers in Dust Bowl Ballads. In 1942, one year later, she developed her first masterpiece, Folksay, a folk medley based on verses from Carl Sandburg’s The People, Yes, interspersed with ballads sung by Woody Guthrie.

Folksay was performed in 1993 at the New Dance Group Gala Concert, held at La Guardia High School of Performing Arts in New York by the Alvin Ailey Repertory Ensemble. Dance critic Edwin Denby praised the work: “The audience… is invariably delighted with Folksay. They take it perhaps as the reflection of a lovely summer day, and that is what it really is.” Margaret Lloyd, one of the earliest dance writers, called it “radiantly outflung, joyous and free … the whole is simple and heart-warming and endearing.”

If “popular” means “of the common people,” Maslow wanted her dances to be popular. She wished dance to have as direct an impact upon as wide an audience as the theater and film do. She believed that the artists are part of, not apart from everyone. Because folk dancing grows out of the common experience of large groups of people the world over, she danced in folk terms. Her dances followed instinct with folk feeling. They are modern in form, and lean toward theatrical presentation.

Martha Graham (Center), Anna Sokolow (right) and Sophie Maslow (left) \ Primitive Mysteries, (1935, Barbara Morgan)

After World War II, the destruction of folk traditions, so revered by Russian-Jewish immigrants, finally had an impact. The people were gone, and with them the traditions were vanishing as well. In 1950, Maslow sought out the writings on Russian-Jewish village life by Sholem Aleichem and choreographed The Village I Knew. It was first performed at the American Dance Festival in New London, Connecticut, by the New Dance Group. Long before Jerome Robbins amplified those stories into Fiddler on the Roof, Maslow built seven episodes, each depicting village life, the celebration of Shabbat, and the exodus following a pogrom. The program notes state: “In Czarist times Jewish communities were frequently uprooted by the authorities and the people driven from their homes. The Village I Knew depicts a series of scenes culminating in the despairing, hopeless flight of people once again made homeless.”

Jane Dudley, Sophie Maslow, and Bill Bales formed a unique trio that emerged from the Bennington Summer School and the New Dance Group. The New Dance Group survived the politicized 1930s, the period in which “dance was a weapon in the class struggle,” and went on to fulfill its promises to bring dance to the masses. Only a very few members of the group were professional dancers; most were blue-collar workers who came for recreation. When other classes were unaffordable, the New Dance Group charged only fifty cents a month for membership—and threw in a lesson in Marxism. In the 1940s, one could study many styles of modern dance, ballet, “ethnic dance,” choreography and, later, notation. There were children’s classes as well. Hundreds of people taught, studied, and even slept in the New Dance Group studios. Maslow was an important part of the New Dance Group, teaching children and adults, choreographing and dancing.

Sophie Maslow in Three Songs About Lenin

The Dudley-Maslow-Bales Trio brought warmth and humor to modern dance in a way that other choreographers could not. Most notable is The Lonely Ones, based on William Steig’s cartoons and choreographed by Dudley in collaboration with Maslow and Bales. Other Trio works include Bach Suite (1942), As Poor Richard Says (1943), Caprichos (1942), Furlough, and Passional (choreographed by Dudley). Each member of the Trio contributed dances “for and about the people.”

In later years, Maslow formed the Sophie Maslow Dance Company and continued to develop dances on Jewish themes. After The Village I Knew, people assumed she was primarily a Jewish choreographer, often forgetting her years in the Graham Company. In 1956, she commemorated the Warsaw Ghetto in Anniversary at the 92nd Street YMHA.

Sophie Maslow died in Manhattan on June 25, 2006, at the age of 95.

Edward Villella on the cover of Dance Magazine, 1966

Probably the most-celebrated American-born male ballet dancer, Edward Villella was a prime reason that a public, wedded to the idea that dancing, particularly ballet, was for women, came to not only accept but idolize male ballet dancers. Villella, virile and uncompromising in his persona onstage and off, spent his career dancing for George Balanchine and his celebrated New York City Ballet, where he was a company member from 1957 through 1981. Although a long-term hip injury side-lined him for good as a performer, he never left the dance field. In 1986, with $1 million in seed money, 19 dancers, and rehearsal space in an empty storefront, Villella founded one of the foremost Balanchine-based ballet companies in the U.S.: Miami City Ballet. The company shot to fame, helping to launch the south Florida region as a go-to arts destination, not merely a retirement haven. Today the company has 45 dancers, a $14.5 million budget, a state-of-the-art studio theater and a thriving dance school. Villella’s first-hand, intimate experience with the Balanchine repertory and his drive for excellence made MCB one of the country’s most important ballet institutions.

Edward Villela, 1953 Credit: Photofest

Born into a first-generation working-class Italian-American family in Bayside, Queens, Villella followed his older sister into ballet class: it was the only way his mother could get him to behave. With his quick, athletic body and high energy, he excelled. By age 10 he was on scholarship at the School of American Ballet, although his truck driver father objected to the idea of his son becoming a dancer. “Ballet had structure for me, technique, an alphabet and vocabulary,” Villella said in a 2001 interview about what intrigued him to pursue the form seriously. “It was fascinating to learn a new physical language that related to so many other things – music, stage presence – wow, it was so far beyond physical” (Traiger, 5/10/01).

Picked on by the neighborhood kids who thought ballet was for sissies, Villella fought back to prove it wasn’t. Later his father insisted that he attend college, so he matriculated at Maritime College of SUNY, where he studied mechanics, math, naval science, and navigation, a subject that had the students join European cruises during the summers. At the regimented, military-based campus, Villella found ways to sneak out, evade curfew, and earn money in order to take ballet classes at night. He was also a welterweight boxing champ and played varsity baseball during his college years. But he was still a street kid at heart and continued getting into brawls: the worst left him with a concussion, a broken nose, some memory loss and a months-long recovery, sidelining him from both sports and ballet.

While still a college student he was invited to join the corps of New York City Ballet, which Villella did, against his parents’ wishes. They wanted to see him complete college, which he was able to do two years later. “I gave my degree to my father and said I’m going to be a dancer,” Villella said in 2001. After just two short years, Balanchine named Villella a principal dancer. Among his iconic roles he was acclaimed for his portrayal of the title role in Balanchine’s 1929 masterpiece The Prodigal Son, probably his most beloved role for audiences and critics alike. While the company’s women were most often the choreographer’s muses, Villella’s explosive technique and dark-haired, mysterious good looks inspired Balanchine to create notable male leads for him in ballets including Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux, Tarantella, Oberon in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and “Rubies” from Jewels. In 1969, Jerome Robbins began his critically acclaimed Dances at a Gathering with “the brown boy,” a role he crafted for Villella. Three years later Robbins created Watermill on the dancer. With its roots in Japanese, Tibetan, African and other rituals, its stylized sex scenes and Japanese-influenced score, the ballet was lambasted for ignoring Villella’s technical gifts and presenting him in minimalist fashion: New York Times critic Anna Kisselgoff wrote in 1990 that the dancer spent most of his time “reclining magnificently in Michelangelesque poses and observing the pictures of life lived.”

Edward Villella, Photo by Jack Mitchell, courtesy DM Archives

Over the course of his NYCB career, Villella’s many accolades included being the first American male dancer to perform with the Royal Danish Ballet, and being the only American ever invited to dance an encore at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow. He danced at President Kennedy’s inaugural as well as for Presidents Johnson, Nixon, and Ford. He served as producer/director for the PBS series “Dance in America” and received an Emmy Award for his CBS production of Harlequinade. He appeared on the “Ed Sullivan Show” often, becoming a household name and bringing a masculine sensibility that changed ballet’s then often feminized reputation in the U.S. In 1973, Villella played himself in an episode of “The Odd Couple,” and a decade later made an appearance on the soap opera “Guiding Light.”

Prior to founding MCB, Villella was artistic coordinator of Eglevsky Ballet from 1979-84, and director of Ballet Oklahoma from 1983-85. In 1992, his autobiography, Prodigal Son: Dancing for Balanchine in a World of Pain and Magic, written with Larry Kaplan, was published.

Edward Villella with George Balanchine in rehearsal. Photo by Martha Swope

As iconic as his dancing was during his career, Wall Street Journal theater critic Terry Teachout told the Miami Herald that Villella’s greatest contribution may well be founding Miami City Ballet. “That is a priceless achievement I and of itself, one which in the long run I suspect that Villella will be remembered for even longer than for his dancing career.”

The company has been lauded as the most authentic exemplar of Balanchine’s works, and credit goes to the way Villella inculcates not only the technique and style, but also individuality in the dancers he coaches. “It’s an art form of body to body, mind to mind,” he said in 2001. “When I coach the roles I danced, I don’t expect people to imitate me. You can’t just dance it, you have to dance in a manner and style that doesn’t imitate or diminish [the dance] but exudes confidence and style.”

Villella noted a few reasons for the company’s early and continued success. Even in the MCB’s first year, touring was considered a must, and the repertory Villella settled on was what he knew best – Balanchine. “Balanchine wasn’t known in the hinterlands back then,” he said. “I focused on authenticity and gave them to the best of my ability the specificity of being an expert.” The tours then focused on Florida and other Southern states. By 1995, the company was invited to perform at the Kennedy Center, while its New York debut waited until 2009, and a three-week sold-out tour to the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris was completed in the summer of 2011.

At the start of the fall 2011-12 season, Villella announced his retirement at the end of the 2012-13 season, following reported internal friction with some members of the company board.

NOTE: Some material for this article was drawn from a telephone interview with Edward Villella, conducted by Lisa Traiger, 5/10/01.

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An independent arts journalist, Lisa Traiger writes on dance for The Washington Post Weekend section and Dance, Dance Teacher, Washington Jewish Week and The Forward. She edits From the Green Room, Dance/USA’s online eJournal. In 2003, Traiger was a New York Times Fellow in the Institute for Dance Criticism at the American Dance Festival in Durham, N.C. She holds an M.F.A. in choreography from University of Maryland, College Park, and taught dance appreciation at UMCP and Montgomery College, Rockville, Md. Traiger served on the Dance Critics Association Board of Directors from 1991-93, returned to the board in 2005, and served as co-president in 2006-07. She was on the advisory board of the Dance Notation Bureau from 2008-09.

Copyright © 2012 Dance Heritage Coalition

Premiere of L’après-midi d’un faune

By Richard Cavendish |

Published in History Today Volume: 62 Issue: 5 2012

Few ballets have enjoyed as sensational a first night as The Afternoon of a Faunby the Ballets Russes at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, to music by Debussy with scenery and costumes by the Russian painter Léon Bakst. The ballet was choreographed and dominated by the 22-year-old Vaslav Nijinsky, who took the leading role of the amorous faun pursuin g a group of shy, but delicious, nymphs who are on their way to a nearby lake. It broke electrifyingly with tradition and most of the other dancers did not enjoy it. Nijinsky would not let them act and told them: ‘It is all in the choreography.’ The production has been described as an attempt to fashion ‘a new language of movement’ and it heralded the modern era in ballet.

Leon Bakst’s illustration of Nijinsky as the faun on the cover of the programme for the 1912 season of the Ballet Russes

Nijinsky’s dancing was both supremely graceful and staggeringly spectacular (Dame Marie Rambert once said she did not know how high his leaps were, but they were all ‘near the stars’) and the short performance, with only about 11 minutes of dancing, was designed to resemble scenes from Ancient Greek vase paintings. At the same time it was intensely erotic and culminated in an orgasmic scene, with the faun making love to a scarf that the most desirable nymph had dropped as she ran away. One of the female dancers described Nijinsky’s movements as ‘virile and powerful’ and his way with the nymph’s scarf as ‘so animal’.

Not surprisingly the performance caused an uproar. Le Figaro condemned ‘vile movements of erotic bestiality and gestures of heavy shamelessness’ and the police were brought in for the second performance, which sold out. The ballet stayed in the repertoire for only a few years and was not resurrected until the 1980s. By that time Nijinsky was dead. Diagnosed with schizophrenia, he spent long periods in mental hospitals and died in London in 1950 at the age of 60. Rudolf Nureyev remarked years afterwards that the faun in L’après-midi was his favourite role in all ballet.

by Judith Mackrell

Would this modern dance pioneer be better known had she not fallen in step with the Nazis?

As the debate gathers around the current imbalance between male and female choreographers, the names of pioneering women such as Isadora Duncan, Martha Graham and Bronislava Nijinska are regularly invoked to recall a golden age of female creativity and power. These women, all working in the early years of the 20th century, had a transforming influence on the language and practice of dance. And there is one more name that should also be added to the list: the German choreographer Mary Wigman.

Born into a comfortably bourgeois family in 1986, Wigman didn’t begin formal training until she was 24, but after just three years studying the rhythmic gymnastic system of Emile Jacques-Dalcroze, and working with Rudolf Laban, Wigman created her first solo Witch Dance. In that short work, she began exploring the elements that would define her style – including the conviction that dance could be performed without music and that it could have the courage to be ugly. From the surviving clip of Witch Dance above (a slightly revised version that was filmed in 1926), it’s clear that Wigman also proved a compelling powerhouse of a performer.

This short solo is a masterpiece of strangeness. Wigman aimed for state of ritualised trance as she danced, summoning up the dangerous spirit of her character, yet the detail and control of her movement is remarkable. The savage crackle of those first hexing gestures; the keening, ducking circle of her upper body and head at 0.20 (made all the more strange by the mask she wears); the slow, spooky opening of her knees at 0.29. Wigman’s witch is cousin to the troubled terrifying spirit of Max Schreck’s Nosferatu; hunching over herself as if drawing dark spells from her own body, then launching into a rocking and lurching trajectory towards her prey (1.25).

Wigman was part of the wider expressionist movement in Germany (among those who admired her was the painter Emil Nolde). But these other clips of her group piece Exodus and her 1929 solo Sommerdans also suggest a kinship with different elements of the zeitgeist: the more fluent, natural movement language popularized by Isadora Duncan, which keyed into an older pastoral spirit of German Romanticism.

Wigman’s own influence was, however, very broad. There are clear affinities between her style and the early work of Martha Graham (the eloquent use of the torso in the latter’s 1930 solo Lamentation is very close to the opening of Sommerdans).

Even more vivid is the debt that would be owed to Wigman by the legendary butoh dancer Kazuo Ohno: the mask-like face, the movement language and sense of inwardness in this extract from The Dead Sea all seem influenced by Witch Dance, below.

But even though Wigman’s style was disseminated through Europe and America by students such as Hanya Holm, and even though elements of it can still be traced in the Tanztheater of Pina Bausch, Wigman herself has slipped slightly below the radar. And one reason may be her relationship with the Nazi regime.

Wigman was far more complicit with the Third Reich than her fellow choreographer Kurt Jooss, who left Germany in 1933 (her mentor Rudolf Laban also cut links, but not until 1938). While her early choreography was not to official taste, she was sufficiently in step with the early Volk-inspired philosophy of the Reich to receive a commission to choreograph a mass Olympic Youth dance for the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games. And while she was privately sympathetic to Jewish students in her Dresden school, she didn’t rebel against orders to remove Jewish dancers from her company.

However the 1937 edict by Goebbels that dance “must be cheerful and show beautiful female bodies and have nothing to do with philosophy” put a halt on her career. While she seems to have been personally protected by her relationship with a prominent arms manufacturer, Wigman’s company was closed, and when her protector died in 1942, so was her school. After the war, she became key to the modern dance revival in Germany, and for years effectively papered over her complicity with the Nazi regime. But today much of her influence has been forgotten, along with the full force of her extraordinary – if troubling – brilliance.

Former ballet mistress Ursula Hageli at an Insights event as she explores the evolution of ballet steps from the Baroque period to the present day, with a little help from Royal Ballet dancers Melissa Hamilton, Yasmine Naghdi, Romany Pajdak and Claire Calvert.

Marie Taglioni 1804-1884

An introduction to ballerina Marie Taglioni, the most famous dancer of the Romantic era. Former ballet mistress Ursula Hageli explores her role in the creation of La Sylphide with Royal Ballet dancer Yasmine Naghdi and pianist Paul Stobart.

Ballet Evolved – Fanny Elssler 1810-1884

An introduction to ballerina Fanny Elssler, famed during her lifetime for dancing The Cachucca. With Royal Ballet dancer Romany Pajdak, former ballet mistress Ursula Hageli and pianist Paul Stobart.

Ballet Evolved – Pierina Legnani 1863-1923

Pierina Legnani was reputed to have been the first ballerina to dance 32 fouettes. But as we find out, this wasn’t strictly the case.

Ballet Evolved – Anna Pavlova 1881-1931

Discover more about Anna Pavlova, the most famous dancer of her day with former ballet mistress Ursula Hageli and Royal Ballet dancer Romany Pajdak as Anna Pavlova. Piano – Paul Stobart.

Ballet Evolved – Alicia Markova 1910-2004

Royal Ballet dancer Romany Pajdak perform an extract of Ashton’s Foyer de Danse – a work created on Alicia Markova in 1934. Presented by Ursula Hageli with Paul Stobart at the piano.

Monotones I

Emma Magiure, Akane Takada & Dawid Trzensmiech
Choreography: Sir Frederick Ashton
Music: Erik Satie (Trois Gnossiennes)
Recorded Live at the Royal Opera House (London) on February 21, 2013

Monotones II

Marianela Núñez, Nehemiah Kish & Edward Watson
Choreography: Sir Frederick Ashton
Music: Erik Satie (Trois Gymnopédies)
Recorded Live at the Royal Opera House (London) on February 21, 2013

Sir Frederick Ashton (1904-88) was the founding choreographer of The Royal Ballet.  Monotones II was first created as a gala piece for the gala performance in aid of the Royal Ballet Benevolent Fund in 1965.

Monotones I and II  display some of Sir Frederick Ashton’s most modernist choreography. Monotones II was created first and given its premiere at the Royal Opera House in 1965, accompanied by Satie’s Trois Gymnopédies (1888).

A year later (1966) Sir Ashton created a second piece (Monotones I) to Satie’s Trois Gnossiennes (1888). The two were presented together the following year (1967). Satie’s Préludes d’Eginhard  (1893) was played as an overture.

Monotones I opens with a slow, serene pas de trois in a wonderful example of adagio classicism. The dancers remain on stage throughout the entire work, with their smooth lines of movement unbroken.  Monotones II features another pas de trois that mirrors the controlled movements of the first. Satie’s delicate music, coupled with Ashton’s beautiful choreography, is wonderfully haunting.

WORLD PREMIERE

Monotones II (1965)

Premiere 1965 performance of Monotones II danced by Vyvyan Lorrayne, Anthony Dowell & Robert Mead

Monotones I (1966)

Premiere1966 performance of Monotones I danced by Antoinette Sibley, Georgina Parkinson & Brian Shaw.

Monotones I & II were first performed together in 1967

The Royal Ballet, The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, England

La La La Human Steps’ Louise Lecavalier and Édouard Lock, the dance company’s founder, choreographer and artistic director. ‘Human Sex’ premiered in 1985 and rose the troupe to international prominence.

Création au Forest National de Bruxelles – 1971 – Francette Levieux

After the death of Paolo Bortoluzzi, Jorge Donn and Nureyev – all three died of the same illness – Maurice Béjart didn’t want “Songs of the Wayfarer” to be danced any more. He only permitted it on the occasion of the gala organised at the Palais Garnier to commemorate the tenth anniversary of Nureyev’s death on January 20th 2003. Laurent Hilaire and Manuel Legris – both promoted “principal dancers” by Nureyev – were splendid performers, moving and inspired.

After having danced the major works of a classical repertoire in London, along with creations by Ashton and MacMillan, in 1967 Rudolf Nureyev moved on to the French contemporary repertoire, firstly with Roland Petit and then with Maurice Béjart.

He wanted to start working with foreign contemporary companies to ensure he was better able to absorb a choreographer’s style. So after creating « Big Bertha » in New York with Paul Taylor’s dancers in 1970, Nureyev went to Brussels to dance Béjart’s « Le Sacre du Printemps » alternately with Jorge Donn and then in March 1971, he created – on the same programme – « Songs of a Wayfarer » in the vast National Forest Hall. This ballet was inspired by a series of melodies for baritone and orchestra by Gustav Mahler (« Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen ») and Béjart imagined a duo in four sequences, bringing together his best classical dancer, Paolo Bortoluzzi and Rudolf Nureyev. One was dressed in a maroon costume and the other in white (or black on some evenings !). The choreographer commented, « He is a wayfarer like the young apprentices of the Middle Ages, who went from town to town in search of their destiny and their master : here we have a romantic student (Nureyev) pursued by his destiny (Bortoluzzi), who suffers as he learns to use Mahler’s words (Mahler also wrote the words), ‘as if he had a knife plunged into his chest’, which is what the constant battle against oneself and against loneliness is like ». The four songs (“When my love”, “This morning I crossed the field”, “I have a burning blade in my breast”, “My beloved’s blue eyes”, in English) opposed Bortoluzzi, virtuoso, light and brilliant as the relentless Destiny to Nureyev, feline, supple and tormented, as the romantic hero looking for freedom but condemned to unhappiness, in an expressive, lyrical and highly intense duo.

The “Nureyev and Friends” group performed this beautiful, deeply human ballet all over the world. It travelled easily thanks to its extreme starkness. As well as the incomparable Paolo Bortoluzzi, Rudolf Nureyev had several other partners such as the Frenchmen Jean Guizerix and Charles Jude (on the many foreign tours until 1991) and Patrick Armand with the Ballet de Nancy at the Champs Elysées Theatre in 1983.

After sadly leaving the management of the Paris Opera Ballet, Nureyev was invited to take part in “Carte Blanche to Jean Guizerix” on October 23rd 1990 at the Palais Garnier. He danced the first and fourth songs with his young rival, Patrick Dupond, who had just succeeded him at the head of the Ballet de l’Opéra. The confrontation between the two dancers – one was shining at the height of his glory and the other star was already on the decline – was particularly poignant. The final image of Nureyev, dragged away by his Destiny, as he turns back for a final adieu to life and to the audience, took on a pathetic dimension since he – as well as his friends – knew he was appearing for the last time in this Theatre that was his home and that he had loved so well. The expression of despair on his face, with his hand painfully reaching out – in vain – towards the audience, to the very last words, “All is clear once more, yes, all is clear! Love and grief, the world and dreams”, remains engraved on the hearts of those who saw this unique performance. R.S.

: Jules Chéret’s 1893 poster advertising Loïe Fuller’s performances at the Folies Bergère is one of the most iconic images of Art Nouveau. Utilizing the new technology of chromolithography, it reproduced the brilliant colors Fuller achieved on stage with the new technology of electric lighting. It appeared in four different color combinations and was later re-printed in Chéret’s Maître d’Affiche, a small-format collection of poster art. Although compelling, the image is hardly a likeness of Fuller and the flagrant exposure of the dancer’s physique is pure fantasy. (Collection William G. & Sally R. Sommer.)

Loïe Fuller (1862 – 1928) was a visionary artist who crafted a novel genre of performance, one that combined billowing costumes with dazzling lights and projections to conjure transformative imagery of hypnotic beauty.

Born Marie Louise Fuller 1862 in Fullersburg, Illinois, she embarked on an early theatrical career as an actress and singer in vaudeville, stock companies, and burlesque before developing the dance style that made her famous in the early 1890s. Through experiments with silk drapery and colored lights, she evolved her first Serpentine Dance. Thereafter, the genre became known as “serpentine dancing” and was widely imitated.

Fuller was heralded as a technological wizardress for her many stagecraft innovations, which included: doing away with scenic elements and plunging the theater into total darkness; harnessing a revolving disc of colored gels to shine ever-shifting multi-hued patterns on her swirling skirts; projecting images (such as photographs of the moon’s surface) onto her garments; lighting the stage from below, as in her famous Fire Dance to create the illusion of being ringed by flames; and choreographing shadows and silhouettes.

This 1892 photograph shows Fuller costumed for her Serpentine Dance and holding a typical “skirt dance” pose. While the connection with skirt dancing is evident, the image also reveals Fuller’s innovations. She has done away with the skirt dancer’s usual corseted bodice, moved the waistline higher, added more fabric to the skirt, and used sheer lightweight white silk (in lieu of a skirt dancer’s pleated fabric) to serve as a mobile screen for her colored lights and projections. (Photograph by B.J. Falk. Jerome Robbins Dance Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.)

Fuller’s 1892 debut at the Folies Bergère in Paris catapulted her into international celebrity. Her performances enraptured the fin de siècle artists, poets and intellectuals. She was depicted by artists in many media and became influential in such movements as Art Nouveau, Symbolism, Cubism, and Futurism.

This 1892 photograph shows Fuller costumed for her Serpentine Dance and holding a typical “skirt dance” pose. While the connection with skirt dancing is evident, the image also reveals Fuller’s innovations. She has done away with the skirt dancer’s usual corseted bodice, moved the waistline higher, added more fabric to the skirt, and used sheer lightweight white silk (in lieu of a skirt dancer’s pleated fabric) to serve as a mobile screen for her colored lights and projections. (Photograph by B.J. Falk. Jerome Robbins Dance Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.)

Fuller’s serpentine dancing lies at the origin of modern dance. Although they later became rivals, Fuller helped the career of a young Isadora Duncan. Ruth St. Denis was an admirer of Fuller and choreographed works in homage. At the turn of the 20th century, Fuller brought dance to the cutting edge of modernity, and her energy and ambition made her one of the most influential American women of her era. Fuller died in Paris, France, on January 2, 1928.

Rudolf Nureyev – Rebellious Genius is the title of a new film about the great Russian dancer and choreographer. The premiere was held in St. Petersburg. The two-part documentary was made to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Rudolf Nureyev’s birth which will be marked on the 17th of March. In the near future the film will be shown in Moscow, Kazan, Ufa, the European capitals and at the Cannes International Film Festival.

These cities were not chosen at random. In St. Petersburg Rudolf Nureyev was trained as a ballet dancer and became a soloist of the Mariinsky Theatre. In Moscow, as a young beginner, Nureyev brilliantly performed his part at a ballet contest and made the whole country talk about him. In Kazan, the capital of Tatarstan, ethnic Tatar Nureyev is respected as the most famous representative of his nation in the world. Ufa, the capital of Bashkortostan, is the city where Nureyev spent his childhood years. He left Ufa to conquer the world, via St. Petersburg to Europe where he settled down in the early 1960s. First Nureyev cast his lot with the London Royal Ballet and then with the Paris Grand Opera. This ‘ballet leap’ from little- known Ufa of the 1950s to the capital of France, the birthplace of ballet, is thoroughly described in the film about Nureyev. Talking about the filming, producer Alfia Chebotareva says:

“We walked along all the streets of Old Ufa where Rudolf Nureyev used to walk. They have survived but probably soon will be demolished because they date back to the 1940s. Then we walked along the Grand Opera corridors and were astonished by the height to which he soared, by what he achieved due to his talent and perseverance that overcame all obstacles.”

Rudolf Nureyev

Famous Russian dancer and choreographer Andris Liepa took part in the film as the narrator. In the 1980s, soloist Liepa worked with choreographer Nureyev. Today he remembers about this:

“I did not only see but also danced his choreography which was one of the most difficult that I ever performed in my life. It was in his version of Swan Lake in the Paris Opera. It was extremely interesting, it was unique. When his versions of ballets were staged he was the scenic artist, the wardrobe director and the choreographer. He was totally dedicated to ballet and everything mattered to him in it.”

Introducing the film Rebellious Genius, Andris Liepa emphasized:

“I tried to persuade the film-makers to pay more attention to his biography and professional career. It was significant to me. I said that I wanted to take part in a film that would show him as a unique dancer and choreographer, as well as a talented actor and a very complicated but warm-hearted outgoing person.”

Director of the film Tatiana Malova interviewed dozens of ballet stars and Rudolf Nureyev’s friends and relations. Only a small part of the 50 hours of those interviews were used in the two parts of the documentary. Now the filming crew is planning to use this material in TV series. French and British producers have already joined this project. There are also plans to make a feature film about Rudolf Nureyev but who will star as the great ballet dancer remains to be seen.

Léon Bakst, Russian, 1866–1924, Costume design for Vaslav Nijinsky as the Faun from The Afternoon of a Faun, 1912, graphite, tempera, and gold paint on paper, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT, The Ella Gallup Sumner and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection Fund

The Ballets Russes—the most innovative dance company of the 20th century—propelled the performing arts to new heights through groundbreaking collaborations between artists, composers, choreographers, dancers, and fashion designers, with such familiar names as Picasso, Stravinsky, Balanchine, Nijinsky, and Chanel, among many others. On view from May 12 through September 2, 2013, at the National Gallery of Art, Washington—the sole US venue—Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes, 1909–1929: When Art Danced with Music showcases some 135 original costumes, set designs, paintings, sculptures, prints and drawings, photographs, posters, and film clips in a theatrical multimedia installation in the East Building.

Mikhail Larionov, Russian, 1881–1964, Costume for the Buffoon’s Wife from The Tale of the Buffoon, 1921, cane stiffened felt and cotton, V&A, London © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

On view for the first time in a museum in the United States are the largest objects ever exhibited inside the Gallery: Natalia Goncharova’s backdrop for The Firebird (1926), measuring 51.5 feet wide by 33.5 feet tall, and the front curtain for The Blue Train (1924), 38.5 feet wide by 34 feet tall, designed by Pablo Picasso and painted by Prince Alexander Schervashidze, Diaghilev’s principal set designer. Russian impresario Serge Diaghilev (1872–1929) founded the Ballets Russes in Paris in 1909.

Pablo Picasso, Spanish, 1881–1973, Costume for the Chinese Conjuror from Parade, c. 1917, silk satin fabric with silver tissue and black thread, cotton hat with woolen pigtail, V&A, London © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

“This landmark exhibition celebrates one of the most dazzling cultural enterprises of the 20th century,” said Earl A. Powell III, director, National Gallery of Art. “These historic collaborations initiated by Diaghilev revolutionized the art of ballet. We are very grateful to lenders from around the world, particularly the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and to the sponsors and supporters who have made it possible for the Gallery to present this exhibition.”

Sonia Delaunay, French, 1885–1979, Costume for title role from Cleopatra, 1918, silk, sequins, mirror, and beads, wool yarn, metallic thread braid, lamé, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Costume Council Fund © Pracusa 2012003; Digital Image © 2013 Museum Associates / LACMA / Licensed by Art Resource, NY

The exhibition has been adapted from Diaghilev and the Golden Age of the Ballets Russes, 1909–1929, conceived by and first shown at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in 2010. In Washington, the exhibition includes some 80 works from the V&A’s renowned collection of dance artifacts, as well as some 50 objects not seen in London, on loan from 20 museums and private collections, among them the Dansmuseet in Sweden and the National Gallery of Australia.

Léon Bakst, Russian, 1866–1924, Costume for a Brigand from Daphnis and Chloe, 1912, wool, cotton, and paint, V&A, London © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

The National Gallery of Art and its Sculpture Garden are at all times free to the public. They are located on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW, and are open Monday through Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Sunday from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. The Gallery is closed on December 25 and January 1. With the exception of the atrium and library, the galleries in the East Building will be closing gradually beginning in July 2013 and will remain closed for approximately three years for Master Facilities Plan and renovations. For specific updates on gallery closings, visit www.nga.gov/renovation.

Eugène Druet, French, 1868–1917, Vaslav Nijinsky in Siamese Dance from The Orientals, 1910, gelatin silver print, Lent by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gilman Collection, Gift of The Howard Gilman Foundation, 2005

For information call (202) 737-4215 or the Telecommunications Device for the Deaf (TDD) at (202) 842-6176, or visit the Gallery’s Web site at www.nga.gov. Follow the Gallery on Facebook at www.facebook.com/NationalGalleryofArt and on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ngadc.

This is newly discovered film of Tamara Karsavina dancing Mikhail Fokine’s ‘La Danse du Flambeau’ (‘The Torch Dance’). This performance was filmed in 1909. Tamara Karsavina’s shoes are not reinforced at the tip like today’s pointe shoes.  She may have had cotton or wool stuffed into the toes of her shoes….

La Danse du Flambeau. Grand piano: John Sweeney.

“Tamara Platonovna Karsavina (1885-1978) was trained at the Imperial Ballet School in St. Petersburg and was a ballerina at the Mariinsky Theatre from 1902 to 1918. Joining Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in 1909, she provided Nijinsky’s ideal partner, until his departure from Diaghilev, and remained the company’s leading ballerina until 1922. In later years she taught in Britain, and was to coach Margot Fonteyn and Rudolph Nureyev in Le Spectre de la Rose, which she had created with Nijinsky.

The original Bakst design for the costume that she wears in this film still survives, revealing that the working title for the ballet was Karsavina’s Assyro-Egyptian Dance. The dance seems to come from Fokine’s ballet based on Anton Arensky’s “Egyptian Nights”, op. 50 (1900). Most dances in the ballet are around 5 minutes long, but one, specifically called “Egyptian Dance”, is 1’40″, so almost certainly the one in the film (information from Andrew Foster). This is the music to be played by John Sweeney at the Giornate performance.

Roberta Lazzarini writes, “The Torch Dance was first performed 22 December 1907 at a charity gala in the Mariinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg. Years later Karsavina recalled the occasion but not what she danced. Confusion has arisen as to the title as the Imperial Theatres yearbook, 1907-08, incorrectly referred to it as ‘Assyrian Dance’.

“In Paris on 19 June 1909, at an important gala in the Théâtre de l’Opéra, Feodor Koslov replaced the indisposed Nijinsky in Les Sylphides, which was given with Le Festin … originally Pavlova and Nijinsky were to have performed Giselle. Le Festin was a series of divertissements and was a moveable feast – depending on which dancers were available, injured, etc. The highlight in Paris was the pas de deux “L’Oiseau d’or” performed by Karsavina and Nijinsky (also called “L’Oiseau de feu”, it was simply the “Bluebird” pas de deux from Sleeping Beauty). I suspect that as Nijinsky was ill and as Karsavina wished to dance, she substituted La Danse du flambeau.

“On the following day M. and Mme Ephrussi hosted a lavish garden party at their home in the Avenue du Bois, when the Russian dancers, again without Nijinsky, repeated the programme of the previous evening. Karsavina received 1000 francs – a vast sum in 1909. I suspect the film was made at this time.”

The dance is filmed against an apparently improvised background of luxurious curtains suspended from a pole, which could indicate that the film was shot in a private house, though the companion film with Kosloff and Baldina appears to have been made on a theatre stage, with backdrops. – David Robinson”. –

Michael Fokine’s 1911 ballet Le Spectre de la Rose tells the story of a young woman who returns from a ball and brings home a rose. She falls asleep in a chair and dreams of dancing with the spirit of the rose until the spirit disappears with a spectacular leap through the window and she awakes.

Vaslav Nijinsky in Micheal Fokine’s Spectre de la Rose, 1911. Ballet Russe

Mr. Fokine created the work to feature only two dancers. He described the intimate stage setting as “a tiny room, the two walls of which meet together in an upstage corner, leaving but little room for dancing. The difficulty lay in confining the dance to such a small space.”

Vaslav Nijinsky & Tamara Karsavina in Micheal Fokine’s Spectre de la Rose, 1911. Ballet Russe

The dancers in the original cast were two of the most admired dancers of the early twentieth century, Vaslav Nijinsky and Tamara Karsavina.

Le Spectre de la Rose

Choreography by Michel Fokine

 Music by Carl Maria von Weber

Orchestrated by Hector Berlioz

Sets & Costumes by Léon Bakst

Premiere: April 19, 1911,

Théâtre de Monte-Carlo, Monte Carlo

Library of Congress

Maria Tallchief in George Balanchine’s Le Baiser de la Fée, one of many ballets in which the choreographer explored woman as muse and as unattainable object, a theme that is interwoven with his marriages to dancers for whom he created works, including Tallchief, who was married to Balanchine from 1946 to 1951. (Photograph by Maurice Seymour. Ann Barzel Dance Research Collection, The Newberry Library, Chicago.)

Maria Tallchief is an American Indian prima ballerina who became one of the seminal stars at New York City Ballet and went on to nurture ballet in Chicago. Born on January 24, 1925, in Fairfax, Oklahoma, Tallchief began studying dance with Bronislava Nijinska in Los Angeles. She joined the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, where she caught the eye of choreographer George Balanchine, who would become her husband in 1946 and who would choreograph many significant works for her. She was a vital presence in the early years of New York City Ballet in the 1950s, originating the role of the Sugar Plum Fairy in Balanchine’s Nutcrackeras well as her signature role, the Firebird, in Balanchine’s version of the ballet. She was hailed by critics and beloved by audiences for her seemingly effortless grace, her dedication, musicality, and a stage presence described by both Lincoln Kirstein and critic Walter Terry as “electrifying.” After leaving NYCB (and divorcing Balanchine), she danced with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and American Ballet Theatre, retiring in 1965. She went on to become artistic director of the Chicago Lyric Opera Ballet in 1975, and the founder and artistic director of Chicago City Ballet in 1981. Since 1990 she has been associated with the Chicago Festival Ballet.

Maria Tallchief in George Balanchine’s The Four Temperaments. Tallchief danced the role of Sanguinic in early performances of the ballet, which featured elaborate costumes later replaced by plain leotards. Tallchief recounted how Balanchine worked intensively to develop and transform her technique, making her one of the first ballerinas to embody the choreographer’s trademark style. (Ann Barzel Dance Research Collection, The Newberry Library, Chicago.)