AGNES DE MILLEentered the world of ballet the hard way. Her parents were opposed to her dancing, so she came to her training later than most people. In London she studied under Marie Rambert, and after fifteen years of frustration she danced into fame at the first performance of her own ballet RODEO.Following that success, she did the ballets for OKLAHOMA!and was soon recognized as a most exciting and original American choreographer. This essay is drawn from her new book, TO A YOUNG DANCER,which will he published by Atlantic-Little, Brown next month.
Dancer, choreographer, and writer, AGNES DE MILLE originated the famous ballets for the Rodgers-Hammerstein musicals, danced the lead in her own colorful RODEO,and is the author of two books describing the resurgence of the dance in America, DANCE TO THE PIPERand ANDPROMENADE HOME. In this paper she addresses herself to a young aspirant who is on the point of entering a professional career of dancing.
Can a women be both wife and artist, and if so at what cost? The question reused to be a theoretical one for AGNES DE MILLE in 1943, when at the height of her success as a choreographer she married Walter Prude, a lieutenant in the air force. Then the demands from Broadway began to rie with her responsibilities as an army wife, a conflict she has pointed up in her new book, AND PROMENADE HOME.
Choreographer and ballet dancer who was invited to Covent Garden to dance in two of her own works, ”Rodeo" and “The Three Virgins,” this summer, AGNES DE MTLLE has long been a leading and spirited figure in the American theatre. Last year in one of the most memorable performances of Omnibus she told of the origins of ballet and of the remarkable collaboration between the musician and the dancer. Now she reminds the spectator of how vulnerable the American theatre is in these days of rising costs and shrinking patronage.
Dancer, choreographer, and writer AGNES DE MILLE has brought to the ballet an Americun idiom and impetus which were responsible for her first great successes, Rodeo and the dances she designed for Oklahoma! She is today recognized as one of our most original choreographers, and in this article she shows us the drives and aspirations which set a dance in motion. In its recent tour of South America, Ballet Theatre presented two of her most popular compositions, Rodeo and Fall River Legend, and both were received with enormous enthusiasm.
Dancer, choreographer, and author, AGNES DE MILLEis the granddaughter of Henry George and comes naturally by her respect for ideas and those who proclaim them, especially the teachers. Among the honors which she takes seriously is that of being a Trustee of Sarah Lawrence College; in this capacity, at gatherings in Washington, Buffalo, and elsewhere, she has had occasion to pay tribute to the teaching profession in words which other eager students will take to heart.
Alicia Markova is an English-born ballerina and perfectionist who seems to defy time. Ten years ago John Martin called her the greatest living ballet dancer, and the praise she has received from the press this year as the guest star of the Ballet Theatre rises to same superlatives. She and AGNEES DE MILLE met in England in 1933; since then they have danced on the same bill and each has respect for the ether’s talent. With the warmth and professional appraisal which made her book, Dance to the Piper, so illuminating, Miss de Mille here analyzes the secret of Markova’s perfection.
This is the fourth installment of the Atlantic’s abridgment of AGNES DE MILLE’S autobiography, Dance to the Piper. Our serial comprises only about a third of the rich and spirited book which is to be the February selection of the Literary Guild. The granddaughter of Henry George and the daughter of William de Mille, the playwright, Miss de Mille had a long but not inglorious fight as she struggled to establish herself first as a dancer and then as a choreographer of American ballet. Pavlova started her on her course; she studied at the Kosloff School, composed her own dances before she was twenty, made her New York debut (but could get no steady backing), worked for six years in England under Marie Rambert with Hugh Laing as her partner. Then, with her European reputation made, she came home to renew her efforts on the American stage. With her ballet Rodeo, she scored the first of what were to be a series of successes in Oklahoma!, Bloomer Girl, Brigadoon, and Allegro.
A choreographer and dancer whose ballets in Oklahoma!, Bloomer Girl, Brigadoon, and allegro have brought a new quality to the American stage, AGNES DE MILLE had a long row to hoe before she could establish herself as a dancer and break through the callous resistance of Broadway. The granddaughter of Henry George, and the daughter of If illiani de Mille, the playwright, she would not accept her initial defeats in New York, and it was in the London theater of Marie Rambert that she first enjoyed sustained recognition before a critical British public. The art and the discipline of a choreographer came later, and again it was in a foreign company, the Ballet Russe, that she projected her first great ballet, Rodeo, dancing the lead in it at the Metropolitan on the opening night. This is the second of four installments from her warm, spirited book. Dance to the Piper.
A choreographer and dancer whose ballets in Oklahoma!, Bloomer Girl, Brigadoon, and Allegro have brought a new quality to the American stage, AGNES DE MILLEhad a long row to hoe before she could establish herself as a dancer, and a still harder struggle before she could break through the callous resistance of Broadway. Like Martha Graham, her mentor and friend, she believed that the ballet could draw fresh vitality from American themes. She had some initial success in New York, but it was in the London theater of Marie Rambert that she began enjoying sustained recognition before a critical British public. The art and the discipline of a choreographer came later, and again it was in a foreign company, the Ballet Rasse, that she projected her first great ballet, Rodeo, dancing the lead in it at the Metropolitan on the opening night. This is the first of four installments which the Atlantic is privileged to print from her warm, spirited book, Dance to the Piper.
A choreographer and dancer whose ballets in Oklahoma!, Bloomer Girl, Brigadoon, and Allegro have brought a new quality to the American stage. AGNES DE MILLE here pays artistic tribute to Martha Graham, the greatest in her profession. A New Yorker like her grandfather. Henry George, Miss de Mille decided to make the dance her life work after her graduation from the University of California. Louis Horst, her first accompanist, was also the accompanist and mentor of Martha Graham, and the three came to know each other in a “plain, folksy way,” meeting for dinner and movies occasionally, and always talking about the one thing that mattered.