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American Negro Ballet Company
The American Negro Ballet Company was formed in 1934 under the auspices of Eugene Von Grona, a German immigrant. Originally composed of thirty African-American jazz dancers, the company focused on serious modern dance. Lavinia Williams and Al Bledger were lead dancers.Gay Morris, ''Moving Words: Re-writing Dance'', Psychology Press, 1996, p. 111Google Books Retrieved July 4, 2011. Debut The poorly reviewed debut performance on November 21, 1937, was conducted by Dean Dixon. It was held at the Lafayette Theatre in Harlem, New York, US. Von Grona was the main choreographer for pieces by Igor Stravinsky, Duke Ellington and W. C. Handy William Christopher Handy (November 16, 1873 – March 28, 1958) was an American composer and musician who referred to himself as the Father of the Blues. Handy was one of the most influential songwriters in the United States. One of many musici ..., among others. Failure and reformation The company only lasted five months, until 1938. In 1939 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Portrait Of Al Bledger LCCN2004662604 (cropped)
A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this reason, in photography a portrait is generally not a snapshot, but a composed image of a person in a still position. A portrait often shows a person looking directly at the painter or photographer, in order to most successfully engage the subject with the viewer. History Prehistorical portraiture Plastered human skulls were reconstructed human skulls that were made in the ancient Levant between 9000 and 6000 BC in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B period. They represent some of the oldest forms of art in the Middle East and demonstrate that the prehistoric population took great care in burying their ancestors below their homes. The skulls denote some of the earliest sculptural examples of portraiture in the history of art. Historical portraitur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eugene Von Grona
Eugene Von Grona, (January 23, 1908 – March 29, 2000) was a German professional dancer and choreographer. He was born in Berlin as Eugen Pressner. As a child he visited the United States quite frequently, where he became enamored with the cakewalk and minstrel shows. By the 1920s, after completing his studies under Mary Wigman, von Grona finally made his move to the United States with his wife Leni Bouvier (born Leni Cohen, Bonn, November 15, 1905; died Berlin, January 2, 1994). Both dancers, they were fascinated by the new artistic innovations of the Harlem Renaissance. He enjoyed the sounds of Duke Ellington and other ragtime favorites. In 1930, Von Grona arranged the dance, "Mechanical Ballet," for the Broadway musical, Fine and Dandy. Brooks Atkinson of the ''New York Times'' said, "the most stunning dance number is a mechanical ballet, which is quite the most vivid of its kind." It was in 1934 that von Grona and his wife (billed as Leni Bouvier) appeared as themselves i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lavinia Williams
Lavinia Williams (July 2, 1916 – July 19, 1989), who sometimes went by the married name Lavinia Williams Yarborough, was an American dancer and dance educator who founded national schools of dance in several Caribbean countries. Biography Grace Lavinia Poole Williams was born the second of six children in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in a family of west-indian descent. She grew up in Portsmouth, Virginia and Brooklyn, New York, and studied at Washington Irving High School and then the Art Students League of New York, where she joined the American Negro Ballet, beginning her career in a number of dance companies and stage productions. Her work included classical ballet, folk, modern, musicals, and, most importantly, Caribbean dance, which she mastered in the 1940s while working with Katherine Dunham. She spent nearly the entirety of the years from 1953 through to the late 1980s teaching dance and founding and developing national schools of dance in Haiti, Guyana, and the Baha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Al Bledger
AL, Al, Ål or al may stand for: Arts and entertainment Fictional characters * Al (''Aladdin'') or Aladdin, the main character in Disney's ''Aladdin'' media * Al (''EastEnders''), a minor character in the British soap opera * Al (''Fullmetal Alchemist'') or Alphonse Elric, a character in the manga/anime * Al Borland, a character in the ''Home Improvement'' universe * Al Bundy, a character in the television series ''Married... with Children'' * Al Calavicci, a character in the television series ''Quantum Leap'' * Al McWhiggin, a supporting villain of ''Toy Story 2'' * Al, or Aldebaran, a character in ''Re:Zero − Starting Life in Another World'' media Music * '' A L'', an EP by French singer Amanda Lear * ''American Life'', an album by Madonna Calendar * Anno Lucis, a dating system used in Freemasonry Mythology and religion * Al (folklore), a spirit in Persian and Armenian mythology * Al Basty, a tormenting female night demon in Turkish folklore * ''Liber AL'', the c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dean Dixon
Charles Dean Dixon (January 10, 1915November 3, 1976) was an American conductor. Career Dixon was born in the upper-Manhattan neighborhood of Harlem in New York City to parents who had earlier migrated from the Caribbean. He studied conducting with Albert Stoessel at the Juilliard School and Columbia University. When early pursuits of conducting engagements were stifled because of racial bias (he was African American), he formed his own orchestra and choral society in 1931. In 1941, he guest-conducted the NBC Symphony Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic during its summer season. He later guest-conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra and Boston Symphony Orchestra. In 1948 he won the Ditson Conductor's Award. In 1949, he left the United States for the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, which he directed during its 1950 and 1951 seasons. He was principal conductor of the Gothenburg Symphony in Sweden 1953–60, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in Australia 1964–67, and the hr-Sin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lafayette Theatre (Harlem)
The Lafayette Theatre (1912–1951), known locally as "the House Beautiful", was one of the most famous theaters in Harlem. It was an entertainment venue located at 132nd Street and 7th Avenue in Harlem, New York. The structure was demolished in 2013. Early years The Lafayette Theatre was a 1,500-seat two-story theater built by banker Meyer Jarmulowsky that opened on November, 1912. Located at 132nd Street and 7th Avenue, it was designed in the Renaissance style by architect Victor Hugo Koehler, who also designed the two three-story buildings flanking the theater on the corners of 131st and 132nd Streets."Lafayette Theatre. 2227 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard, New York, NY 10027." ''www.cinematreasures.org.'' Retrieved June 19, 2019. In 1913 the Lafayette became the f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harlem, New York
Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street (Manhattan), 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and 110th Street (Manhattan), Central Park North on the south. The greater Harlem area encompasses several other neighborhoods and extends west and north to 155th Street, east to the East River, and south to Martin Luther King, Jr., Boulevard (Manhattan), Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, Central Park, and 96th Street (Manhattan), East 96th Street. Originally a Netherlands, Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands. Harlem's history has been defined by a series of economic boom-and-bust cycles, with significant population shifts accompanying each cycle. Harlem was predominantly occupied by Jewish American, Jewish and Italian American, Italian Americans in the 19th century, but African-American residents began to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century and a pivotal figure in modernist music. Stravinsky's compositional career was notable for its stylistic diversity. He first achieved international fame with three ballets commissioned by the impresario Sergei Diaghilev and first performed in Paris by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes: ''The Firebird'' (1910), ''Petrushka'' (1911), and ''The Rite of Spring'' (1913). The last transformed the way in which subsequent composers thought about rhythmic structure and was largely responsible for Stravinsky's enduring reputation as a revolutionary who pushed the boundaries of musical design. His "Russian phase", which continued with works such as '' Renard'', ''L'Histoire du soldat,'' and ''Les noces'', was followed in the 1920s by a period ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous jazz orchestra from 1923 through the rest of his life. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Ellington was based in New York City from the mid-1920s and gained a national profile through his orchestra's appearances at the Cotton Club in Harlem. A master at writing miniatures for the three-minute 78 rpm recording format, Ellington wrote or collaborated on more than one thousand compositions; his extensive body of work is the largest recorded personal jazz legacy, and many of his pieces have become standards. He also recorded songs written by his bandsmen, such as Juan Tizol's " Caravan", which brought a Spanish tinge to big band jazz. At the end of the 1930s, Ellington began a nearly thirty-year collaboration with composer-arranger-pianist Billy Strayhorn, whom he called his writing and arranging companion. With Strayhorn, he composed multipl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1934 Establishments In New York City
Events January–February * January 1 – The International Telecommunication Union, a specialist agency of the League of Nations, is established. * January 15 – The 8.0 Nepal–Bihar earthquake strikes Nepal and Bihar with a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (''Extreme''), killing an estimated 6,000–10,700 people. * January 26 – A 10-year German–Polish declaration of non-aggression is signed by Nazi Germany and the Second Polish Republic. * January 30 ** In Nazi Germany, the political power of federal states such as Prussia is substantially abolished, by the "Law on the Reconstruction of the Reich" (''Gesetz über den Neuaufbau des Reiches''). ** Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States, signs the Gold Reserve Act: all gold held in the Federal Reserve is to be surrendered to the United States Department of the Treasury; immediately following, the President raises the statutory gold price from US$20.67 per ounce to $35. * February 6 – French pol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1938 Disestablishments In New York (state)
Events January * January 1 ** The new constitution of Estonia enters into force, which many consider to be the ending of the Era of Silence and the authoritarian regime. ** State-owned railway networks are created by merger, in France (SNCF) and the Netherlands (Nederlandse Spoorwegen – NS). * January 20 – King Farouk of Egypt marries Safinaz Zulficar, who becomes Queen Farida, in Cairo. * January 27 – The Honeymoon Bridge at Niagara Falls, New York, collapses as a result of an ice jam. February * February 4 ** Adolf Hitler abolishes the War Ministry and creates the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (High Command of the Armed Forces), giving him direct control of the German military. In addition, he dismisses political and military leaders considered unsympathetic to his philosophy or policies. General Werner von Fritsch is forced to resign as Commander of Chief of the German Army following accusations of homosexuality, and replaced by General Walther von ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
