They make their decisions standing in the aisle with lowered heads, hatted, and then walk out quickly, leaving one or perhaps two to come soberly to the footlights and tell you. You stand, breathing hard, the sweat cold on your forehead, the makeup caking dry, leaning forward to see their faces, recognizing from the rhythm of their walk and their little irrelevant jokes that they are moving sideways toward an awkwardness.
As it is, that note merely enlivens the wit of the portrait. For de Mille, in general, language was able to hold aloft, in a beautiful tension, like that of a suspension bridge—or, indeed, a ballet step—what on the stage would have tumbled down into something less nuanced, more flat.
Dance to the Piper , though a memoir, is written as a series of portraits. A thrilling one, the nastiest and the funniest, is that of the Anglo-Polish pedagogue Marie Rambert, one of the founders of British ballet. And both of them, together with de Mille, left her as soon as they could. And as a wedding present, she gave me my career. I did not realize exactly what the trouble was, nor did she. By the time we got to England, the blue mark had gone from around her mouth and characteristically she did not trouble to see a doctor.
All we are given is that little blue mark, which obligingly vanished within hours, enabling Anna to carry on. By the time de Mille wrote Dance to the Piper , her mother was dead, and that, in part, is why de Mille could write of her so artistically—so movingly and also so comically. With her father, who was still alive when the book was published, she did nowhere near as well. But the pinnacle, I believe, of the artistic justice that de Mille achieved as a memoirist in Dance to the Piper is her portrait of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo.
Before the establishment of the two great New York companies, Ballet Theatre now called American Ballet Theatre and New York City Ballet, the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, a medium-size troupe of Russians and people with made-up Russian names—some of them excellent their star was Alexandra Danilova , some of them less so—was basically what America knew of classical dance.
For a time, because they premiered Rodeo , de Mille was one of them. She describes the train compartment:. The girls talk shop, intrigue and knitting patterns. Never anything else. Never, although war, flood, strikes, elections and plagues pass over them. Denham [the director] last night. The older men play poker in three or four languages. The younger men look out of the window and hold hands. Some few read.
Not many. They eat five or six meals a day. They are always hungry They never stop anywhere en route long enough to make outside contacts. Intrigue assumes Renaissance proportions. Romance is a kind of round-robin tournament, and psychosis the hallmark of every experience. Most of the men are homosexual. Most of the women are sex-starved. Occasionally there is a nervous breakdown and a girl is unloaded at some station and left behind in a Midwestern hospital.
Occasionally someone has a temper tantrum and beats up his girlfriend or his wife, forcing her to seek succor in adjacent bedrooms. That is de Mille in excelsis, a comedy compact of sweetness and bitterness. These people are crazy, she says. The women all laugh when she falls to the ground. The Cowgirl has embarrassed herself.
Even the Head Wrangler jerks his thumb at her, gesturing for her to go into the house. The Cowgirl leaves in tears. The rodeo ends and couples pass by slowly. The Cowgirl re-enters, trying once again to gain the attention of the Head Wrangler. The Cowgirl dances alone, eventually falling to the floor, sad and rejected.
In Scene Two, the Cowgirl and the others are attending a dance. The Cowgirl is approached by the Lead Roper. She quickly leaves only to return in a red dress. Suddenly, the Head Wrangler notices her and he and the Lead Roper vie for her attention. It will take only one kiss from the Lead Roper for her to realize that she has found her true love at last.
Agnes de Mille loved acting, which comes as no surprise since her immediate and extended family were involved in movies and theater. Her father was a Hollywood director, as was her uncle Cecil de Mille who directed such movie blockbusters as The Ten Commandments and Cleopatra , and young Agnes visited his sets and watched famous film stars at work.
Her love of acting translated to her choreography, which became one of her greatest contributions to musical theater. Before de Mille, dances were a break in the action of the story and were included as an interlude for entertainment purposes only. In Rodeo , de Mille takes us through the yearning, hurt, shame, and joy felt by the main character, the Cowgirl, without a single word being spoken!
Watch the "dream ballet" sequence from the movie version of Oklahoma! After viewing it, take note of the following:. In the dream sequence choreographed by de Mille in Oklahoma!
Her fears about Jud come to life through the dance sequence where he is portrayed as amoral, aggressive, and violent. The setting shifts and changes, like in a real dream, and at one point bar girls enter in revealing dresses and high heels. Jud dances with them, whirling them around, caught up in their allure.
When he returns to Laurey, she is repulsed by him, but he forces her to come close, even picking her up and placing her over his shoulder when she collapses.
Her true feelings for Curly are portrayed as well: She runs to him when he appears, throwing herself in his arms. She is desperate to escape Jud, but Jud is stronger than Curly, and pushes him down, eventually choking him. She went on to choreograph other Broadway musicals including Carousel and Brigadoon. Anderson, Jack. Balanchine, George and Francis Mason.
Greskovic, Robert. Hyperion, New York, Homans, Jennifer. Apollo's Angels: A History of Ballet. Random House, New York, How can dance tell stories and preserve histories? William had moved to Hollywood in order to try and "make it" like his younger brother, Cecille B.
DeMille the famous director and producer. While her parents still did not allow de Mille to take dance lessons, she and her sister did get to see dance performances by some of the great female dancers of the era, including Russian prima ballerina Anna Pavlova and Ruth St.
Denis, one of the founders of American modern dance. De Mille credited these performances with inspiring her to want to become a dancer.
Majoring in English Literature, de Mille continued to dance. De Mille was undeterred. She graduated cum laude at age 19 in Back in New York, de Mille began looking for work as a dancer. Unable to find work in a theater, she began choreographing solo dances for herself. These were well reviewed but not financially successful.
In order to jump start her career, de Mille and her mother moved to London. As a member, de Mille danced with many future dance luminaries. While she did not earn great fame herself, the experience left a lasting artistic impression on her. Her first success was choreographing the dance sequences for the film, Romeo and Juliet. In November , de Mille returned to the U. She created her first ballet for the group in , Black Ritual.
The ballet was the first production to use African American ballet dancers. Her career skyrocketed beginning in when she was asked to choreograph a ballet for the preeminent Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. Given considerable creative control, she created and danced in Rodeo. Set to a score by American composer Aaron Copland, Rodeo is considered the first American ballet, incorporating cowboy motifs and tap dance for the first time. De Mille received 22 curtain calls and standing ovations, the ballet toured the country, and it is still performed today.
The success of Rodeo also led de Mille to her next choreography job. Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, the successful musical theater duo, saw the production and approached de Mille about choreographing the dances for their next musical, Oklahoma!
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