American Ballet
• Americans have always loved dance, both as a theatrical
and as a participatory art.
• Despite occasional protests by strict religious groups,
social dances were performed in colonies and after the
Revolution in the new Republic.
• Eventually, Americans took up dance as a theatrical
career and welcomed professional dancers from
overseas
• Many French emigres (dancers and musicians among
them, came) to the United States at the end of
eighteenth century.
American Ballet
• The United States may have been a democracy.
Nevertheless, just as if they were Renaissance
courtiers, young Americans from cultivated families
were expected to be able to dance.
• Dance even became a part of the curriculum of the
military cadets at West Point in 1817; their teacher,
Pierre Thomas, also served as their fencing master.
• Like the other theatrical arts, dance occasionally had
to defend itself against charges of frivolity.
American Ballet
• It is no wonder, then, that when the New Theatre of
Philadelphia opened in 1793, a motto above the
proscenium arch declared that the building was
intended “for useful mirth or salutatory woe” – a
sentiment remarkably similar to the one associated
with the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen .
• The eighteenth century produced at least one
important American dancer: John Durang, a nimble
artist famous for the deftness of his hornpipe.
American Ballet
• Four American ballet stars were acclaimed in the
nineteenth century: Mary Ann Lee, Julia Turnbull,
Augusta Maywood and George Washington Smith.
• Maywood appeared successfully at the Paris Opera
and Smith, the first American Albrecht in Giselle, was
considered proficient enough to dance with Fanny
Elssler, who was only one of several foreign ballerinas
who toured America.
• Ballet became popular form of entertainment in the
middle of 19th Century.
American Ballet
• After the Civil War, there was a vogue for elaborate
theatrical productions involving ballet.
• The Black Crook (1866), the first and best known of
these, was lavishly designed, told a fantastic story
about a pact with the devil, and included ballet
episodes leb by Marie Bonfanti and Rita Sangalli, two
much-admired Italian ballerinas.
• The success of The Black Crook prompted a host of
imitations and sequels across the country.
American Ballet
• In extravaganzas of this sort, plot was usually of
minimal importance and served largely to permit
spectacular scenic and choreographic effects.
• An anonymous journalist of 1866 termed the plot of
one work “only an attenuated thread whereon were
strung, like so many clothespins, on pins with no
clothes to the speak of, the limbs of… ballet girls.”
• By present-day standards, however, some of these
ballet girls might seem to be overdressed.
American Ballet
• Among the leading creators of spectacles were the
Hungaraian-born Kiralfy Brothers – Bolossy and Imre,
who came to America in 1869 and became famous for
their elaborate stageings.
• A typical example of their choice of subject matter was
Bolossy Kiralfy’s King Solomon, or the Destruction of
Jerusalem, a success of 1891.
• Their choreography featured geometrical patterns and
showed off sumptuous costumes.
• In many ways their works were akin to those made
popular by Manzotti in Italy.
American Ballet
• In America, although companies with serious
repertoires may not have existed, ballet dancers
were often popular in the musical theatre.
• One such star was Bessie Clayton, a pupil of George
Washington Smith, who in 1894 married Julian
Mitchell, Broadway’s highest paid choreographer in
the early years of the twentieth century and the
director-choreographer for the first seven years of
the Ziegfeld Follies, the enormously successful series
of revues that began in 1907.
American Ballet
• As the 20th century progressed, ballet dancing in Broadway
shows was often eclipsed by tap dancing and by the
ballroom dance teams that had been formed afer Vernon
and Irene Castle achieved enormous popularity through
their appearances in Irving Berlin’s show, Watch your step,
in 1914.
• Nevertheless, one of the greatest musical comedy stars of
the 1920s was another ballet trained dancer, Marilyn
Miller, who captivated audiences in productions such as
Sally(1920), Sunny (1925), Rosalie (1928). No other female
dancer was popular on Broadway until Gwen Verdon
appeared on the scene in 1950s.
American Ballet
• One of the leading Broadway choreographers of the
1920s and 1930s was Albertina Rasch, an Austrian
dancer trained at the Imperial Ballet School in Vienna
who opened her own ballet school in New York in
1923.
• Rasch organized highly disciplined groups of six to
twenty women who could be hired out as units to
dance musical comedies, revues, or “prologs”, the
fancy stage shows that preceded the motion pictures
in the more grandiose movie palaces.
American Ballet
• In 1929, she choreographed a complete ballet to Gershwin’s
“An American In Paris” for Show girl, a musical starring Ruby
Keeler and Jimmy Durante that also featured Harriet Hoctor, a
ballet dancer who, like Bessie Clayton before her, was famous
for her back bends.
• As for serious ballet attractions, America saw performances of
Anna Pavlova, Mikhail Mordkin and Diaghlev Ballet.
• After World war I, many Russian dancers among them Fokine,
Mordkin and Bolm settled in the United States and from 1927
to 1930 Leonide Massine created dances for the spectacular
stage shows at New York City’s Roxy Theatre.
American Ballet
• Adolph Bolm staged many successful ballets in Chicago,
including Krazy Kat (1920) which was based on popular comic
strip of the time.
• Chicago in 1920s was also the home of the Pavley Oukrain
Serge Oukrainsky.
• The presence of such choreographers in Chicago helped to
make that city an important ballet capital from World war I to
the outbreak of World War II.
• After moving to California, Bolm was appointed ballet master
of the San Fransico Opera and in 1933 he founded the
company that survives today as the San Francisco Ballet.
American Ballet
• In 1937, when William Christensen took over as director, the
company began its long and fruitful association with the
Christensens, three dancing brothers from Utah.
• When William left San Francisco to found a ballet department
at the University of Utah in 1951, Lew Christensen took over
the San Francisco ballet.
• Philadelphia also had its heyday as a ballet centre. It was
there that Catherine and Dorathie Littlefield established a
company, variously known as the Philadephia Ballet and the
Littlefield Ballet that flourished during 1930s. By dancing in
Paris, Brussels and London in 1937, it became the first
American ballet company to tour Europe.
American Ballet
• One of the most important figures in the New York ballet
world has been Lincoln Kirstein, a man who, like Diaghlev,
could call himself neither dancer not a choreographer.
• Although he has been a novelist, a poet and a critic, he has
always been haunted by ballet.
• In 1933 Kirstein and his friend, Edward M. M. Warburg,
decided to make that dream a reality. They persuaded George
Balanchine, the choreographer Kirstein most admired, to
come to America .
• On New Year’s Day, 1934, the School of American Ballet
opened in a Manhattan Studio that had once belonged to
Isadora Duncan.
American Ballet
• His first piece for the school was Serenade, a tenderly lyrical
abstract piece that many companies still perform.
• When Balanchine had completed several works, the dancers
offered a New York season in 1935, called themselves the
American Ballet.
• The repertoire, though small, contained several Balanchine
creations that would be recognized as important – Serenade,
Errante, and Mozartiana.
• Nevertheless it failed to please John Martin, dance critic of
New York Times, who chided the company for what he called
decadent “Riviera esthetics”. He even suggested that
Balanchine should be dismissed.
American Ballet
• Balanchine and Kirstein persevered in the face of criticism, as
did the pioneers in Philadelphia, Chicago and San Francisco.
• All American ballet troupes found themselves confronted by a
formidable rival: Wishing the perpetuate itself on its pride
and glamour.
• Wassili de Basil formed the Ballets Russes do Monte Carlo in
1932, which was a sensation when it made its first American
tour the following year.
• The company’s repertoire included old favourites from the
Diaghlev era and important new works by Leonide Massine.
• “Baby Ballerinas” Tamara Toumanova, Irina Baronova, and
Tatiana riabouchinska were special attraction.
American Ballet
• By touring incessantly and emphasizing a sparkling dancing
style, they introduced ballet to many people in North and
South America.
• They helped America acquire the habit of balletgoing.
• Balanchine’s unconventional choreography shocked
conservative opera-goers. Yet, if outraged socialities found
Balanchine controversial, he managed to wow Broadway and
Hollywood by producing dance sequences for musical
comedies, such as On Your Toes and Babes in Arms, and for
films, such as The Goldwyn Follies and I was an Adventuress.
American Ballet
• To give his dancers additional employment and to encourage
young American choreographers, Kirstein organized a second
company, Ballet Caravan, in 1936.
• As titles as Pocahontas and Yankee Clipper suggest, the
repertoire featured American themes and the company’s
choreographies sought to demonstrate that ballet was capable
of treating American subject matter.
• Two works created by Ballet Caravan are still danced today.
• Lew Christensen’s Filling Station, to a score by Virgil Thomson,
is a ballet in the style of a comic strip;
• Eugene Loring’s Billy the kid , to music by Aaron Copland,
juxtaposes scenes from the life of the notorious outlaw with
panoramic depictions of the settling of the West.
American Ballet
• World War II forced both American Ballet and Ballet Caravan
to disband.
• Balanchine served briefly as a resident choreographer for the
Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo during the War.
• With the coming of peace, he and Kirstein embarked in 1946
on a new project.
• They formed Ballet Society, a noncommercial organization
designed to offer experimental works for a limited subscription
audience.
• Two years later, Ballet Society presented some performances
at the New York City Centre of Music and Drama, an
auditorium the city acquired in 1943 to be a performing arts
center with its own resident opera and theatre companies.
American Ballet
• To company so impressed Morton Baum , chairman of the City
Center finance committee, that he offered to make Ballet Society
an official part of City Center, even though a friend who
remembered the financially beleaguered American Ballet warned
him “you play around with Balanchine and Kirstein and you’ll lose
your shirt”.
• Kirstein in turn was struck speechless by Baum’s offer. Then he
replied, “If you do that for us, I will give you in three years the
finest ballet company in America”.
• Many dance writers would say he kept his promise. The New York
City Ballet, as Ballet Society was renamed, is now considered one
of the world’s great dance companies and since 1964 has had
handsome quarters in the New York State Theatre of Lincoln
Center.
American Ballet
• Although many choreographers have produced works for the
company, the repertoire has always been dominated by
Balanchine, and it was Balanchine who was responsible for
the company’s distinctive style.
• Balanchine’s ballets range from a serene Orpheus to a
sprightly adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
• Yet Balanchine was known for his plot-less, or abstract ballets.
• Balanchine’s movement vocabulary is that of classical ballet
inherited from Petipa, and in homage to his Maryinsky
training Balanchine produced his own versions of scenes from
Raymonda and Swan Lake.
American Ballet
• Balanchine particularly admired Stravinsky and set ballets both
to concert works by Stravinsky and to scores especially written
for the dance.
• The most famous Balanchine- Stravinsky collaboration is
probably Agon (1957). Its title is the Greek word for “contest” ,
and it could be regarded as a set of games or athletic events.
• Other two were Apollo (1928) and Orpheus (1948).
• Although Russian-born, he worked on several American themes.
• He created ballets to Sousa Marches (Stars and Stripes) and
Gershwin songs (who cares?) and his Square Dance ingeniously
combined classical steps, square dance patterns and Baroque
music.
American Ballet
• After Balanchine’s death in 1983, Lincoln Kirstein continued as
general director of the New York City Ballet and Peter Martins
and Jerome Robbins were named ballet-masters-in-chief.
• American’s other large-scale ballet company is American
ballet Theatre, founded in 1939 as Ballet Theatre. The
company was an outgrowth of the Mordkin Ballet, a group
directed by Mikhail Mordkin that offered familiar classics and
new works choreographed by Mordkin in a traditional Russian
Style.
• But Richard Pleasant, Ballet Theatre’s first director, had bolder
ambitions.
American Ballet
• Over years, American Ballet Theatre has tried to remain true
to the spirit of Pleasant.
• It has produced classics like Swan Lake , The Sleeping Beauty,
Giselle, La Sylphide, Les Sylphides, Petrouchka, La Bayadere.
• The year 1942 was a significant one for American Ballet, for
Rodeo’s production by the Ballet Russe was a sign that
company, separated by war from Europe, was willing to
Americanize itself.
• Rodeo, to a score by Aaron Copland, tells of a tomboyish girl
who realized that she had to compete with frilly young ladies
for the attention of the ranch hands, she too has to dress in a
ladylike fashion.
American Ballet
• Grand daughter of economist Henry George, daughter of
writer director William c de Mille, and niece of Movie director
Cecil B DeMille , Agnes de mille has been particularly
interested in the introduction of American matter into ballet.
• One of her best known pieces of ballet theatre – Fall River
Legend.
• The most influential of these shows – Oklahoma in 1943.
• British born Antony Tudor was most important of all foreign
choreographers who was introduced in America.
• He performed with Anna Pavlova and the Diaghlev Ballet
made to decide to study dance.
American Ballet
• Like Balanchine, Tudor extended the range of ballet – but
totally in a different direction.
• Through movement, he made thoughts and feelings visible,
thereby enriching the possiblities of narrative ballet.
• Jardin Aux Lilas (Lilac Garden) concerns a woman about to be
wed in a marriage of convenience to a man she does not love.
• Pillar of Fire depicts the anguish of a shy woman who fears
spinsterhood.
• Other major works by Tudor include Undertow, Dark Elegies
and Romeo and Juliet.
American Ballet
• New York born Jerrom Robbins, whose first work, Fancy Free
was an immediate hit at its premiere by Ballet Theatre in
1944.
• His works
• Afternoon of a Faun
• Moves – is a ballet in silence that appears to be abstract.
• Dances at a Gathering – to Chopin piano music
• The Cage
• Glass Pieces
American Ballet
Eliot Feld
His choreographic debut was Harbinger, presented at American
ballet in 1967. He has his own small troupe.
Another one is Joffrey Ballet which Robert Joffrey founded in 1956
when he and a few dancers rented a station wagon and went
off on a tour of one night stands.
Works
Astarte – mixed media work
At the turn of the century, American ballet was insignificant. Less
than 100 years later, America has now become, along with
England and Russia, one of the “big three” nations of the ballet
world and the one in which ballet is most diversified in its
manifestations.
