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Diversion Of Angels
''Diversion of Angels'', initially titled ''Wilderness Stair'', is a Martha Graham ballet performed to an original score by Norman Dello Joio. The premiere on August 13, 1948, at the Palmer Auditorium in New London, Connecticut, included a set designed by Isamu Noguchi. It was eliminated at the second performance. ''Diversion of Angels'' is in the Martha Graham Dance Company repertoire and that of American Ballet Theatre (since 1999). Premieres and reception Following the 1948 premiere, reviewer Frances Herridge described ''Wilderness Stair'' as a far cry from a significant addition to the Graham repertoire, being "without story or discernible comment" and lacking a performance by Graham. However, as an ensemble piece for the troupe, she thought it "superb." On March 20, 1949, the dance was reintroduced with the title ''Diversion of Angels'' at the Eighth Street Theatre in Chicago. The New York premiere took place later on January 22, 1950 at the 46th Street Theater. For thi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Martha Graham
Martha Graham (May 11, 1894 – April 1, 1991) was an American modern dancer and choreographer. Her style, the Graham technique, reshaped American dance and is still taught worldwide. Graham danced and taught for over seventy years. She was the first dancer to perform at the White House, travel abroad as a cultural ambassador, and receive the highest civilian award of the US: the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction. In her lifetime she received honors ranging from the Key to the City of Paris to Japan's Imperial Order of the Precious Crown. She said, in the 1994 documentary ''The Dancer Revealed'': "I have spent all my life with dance and being a dancer. It's permitting life to use you in a very intense way. Sometimes it is not pleasant. Sometimes it is fearful. But nevertheless it is inevitable." Founded in 1926 (the same year as Graham's professional dance company), the Martha Graham School is the oldest school of dance in the United States. First located in a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stuart Hodes
Stuart Hodes (born November 27, 1924) is an American dancer, choreographer, dance teacher, dance administrator and author. He was Martha Graham's partner, danced on Broadway, in TV, film, in recitals, and with his own troupe. His choreography has appeared on the Boston Ballet, Dallas Ballet, Harkness Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, San Francisco Ballet and other troupes. He taught at the Martha Graham School, Neighborhood Playhouse, NYC High School of Performing Arts, headed dance at NYU School of the Arts and Borough of Manhattan Community College. He was Dance Associate for the NY State Council on the Arts, dance panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts, president of the National Association of Schools of Dance, and a member of the First American Dance Study Team to China in 1980, returning in 1992 to teach the Guangzhou modern dance troupe. Early life Stuart Hodes Gescheidt was born in New York City in November 1924 and grew up in Flushing, Miami Beach, and Sheepshead ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1949 Ballet Premieres
Events January * January 1 – A United Nations-sponsored ceasefire brings an end to the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947. The war results in a stalemate and the division of Kashmir, which still continues as of 2022. * January 2 – Luis Muñoz Marín becomes the first democratically elected Governor of Puerto Rico. * January 11 – The first "networked" television broadcasts take place, as KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania goes on the air, connecting east coast and mid-west programming in the United States. * January 16 – Şemsettin Günaltay forms the new government of Turkey. It is the 18th government, last single party government of the Republican People's Party. * January 17 – The first VW Type 1 to arrive in the United States, a 1948 model, is brought to New York by Dutch businessman Ben Pon. Unable to interest dealers or importers in the Volkswagen, Pon sells the sample car to pay his travel expenses. Only two 1949 models are sold in America tha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1948 Ballet Premieres
Events January * January 1 ** The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is inaugurated. ** The Constitution of New Jersey (later subject to amendment) goes into effect. ** The railways of Britain are nationalized, to form British Railways. * January 4 – Burma gains its independence from the United Kingdom, becoming an independent republic, named the ''Union of Burma'', with Sao Shwe Thaik as its first President, and U Nu its first Prime Minister. * January 5 ** Warner Brothers shows the first color newsreel (''Tournament of Roses Parade'' and the ''Rose Bowl Game''). ** The first Kinsey Reports, Kinsey Report, ''Sexual Behavior in the Human Male'', is published in the United States. * January 7 – Mantell UFO incident: Kentucky Air National Guard pilot Thomas Mantell crashes while in pursuit of an unidentified flying object. * January 12 – Mahatma Gandhi begins his fast-unto-death in Delhi, to stop communal violence during the Partition of India. * ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ballets By Martha Graham
Martha Graham (May 11, 1894 – April 1, 1991) was an American modern dancer and choreographer. Her style, the Graham technique, reshaped American dance and is still taught worldwide. Graham danced and taught for over seventy years. She was the first dancer to perform at the White House, travel abroad as a Cultural Ambassador, cultural ambassador, and receive the highest civilian award of the US: the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction. In her lifetime she received honors ranging from the Freedom of the City, Key to the City of Paris to Japan's Imperial Order of the Precious Crown. She said, in the 1994 documentary ''The Dancer Revealed'': "I have spent all my life with dance and being a dancer. It's permitting life to use you in a very intense way. Sometimes it is not pleasant. Sometimes it is fearful. But nevertheless it is inevitable." Founded in 1926 (the same year as Graham's professional dance company), the Martha Graham School ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ben Belitt
Ben Belitt (May 2, 1911 – August 17, 2003) was an American poet and translator. Besides writing poetry, he also translated several books of poetry by Pablo Neruda and Federico García Lorca from Spanish to English.In Memoriam Life Belitt was born in New York City. He was educated at the University of Virginia, receiving a B.A. in 1932 and an M.A. in 1934, and he was a doctoral student at that university from 1934 to 1936. By the early 1940s, he had taken up an appointment at Bennington College in Bennington, Vermont, where he remained, living in a former firehouse in North Bennington, for the rest of his life. A bachelor, he became a good friend of the dancer (and fellow teacher at Bennington) Bill Bales, of his wife[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Erick Hawkins
Frederick "Erick" Hawkins (April 23, 1909November 23, 1994) was an American modern-dance choreographer and dancer. Early life Frederick Hawkins was born in Trinidad, Colorado, on April 23, 1909. He majored in Greek civilization at Harvard University, graduating in 1930. A performance by the German dancers Harald Kreutzberg and Yvonne Georgi so impressed him that he went to Austria to study dance with the former. Later, he studied at the School of American Ballet. Career Soon he was dancing with George Balanchine's American Ballet. In 1937, he choreographed his first dance, ''Show Piece'', which was performed by Ballet Caravan. The next year, Hawkins was the first man to dance with the company of the famous modern dancer and choreographer Martha Graham. In 1939, he officially joined her troupe, dancing male lead in a number of her works, including ''Appalachian Spring'' in 1944. They married in 1948. He left her troupe in 1951 to found his own, and they divorced in 1954. Not lo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Cohan
Sir Robert Paul Cohan (26 March 1925 – 13 January 2021) was a British dancer, choreographer, and the founding artistic director of The Place, London Contemporary Dance School, and London Contemporary Dance Theatre (LCDT), which he directed for 20 years. Cohan also worked with the Yorke Dance Project and the Batsheva Dance Company in Israel. Life and career Robert Cohan was born in New York City to a Jewish family. His family has said that while he was born late on 26 March 1925, his birth certificate inaccurately listed him as being born on 27 March, and he celebrated his birthday across both days. Cohan served in the US Navy in World War II, and while on leave he saw a performance of Robert Helpmann's Miracle in the Gorbals by Sadler's Wells Ballet in London in 1944. Cohan joined Martha Graham's company (the Martha Graham Dance Company The Martha Graham Dance Company, founded in 1926, is known for being the oldest American dance company. Founded by Martha Graham as a co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pearl Lang
Pearl Lang (May 29, 1921 – February 24, 2009) was an American dancer, choreographer and teacher renowned as an interpreter and propagator of the choreography style of Martha Graham, and also for her own longtime dance company, the Pearl Lang Dance Theater. She is known for ''Appalachian Spring'' (1944), ''American Masters'' (1985) and ''Driven'' (2001) Career A native of Chicago, Lang began her dance training as a child and studied acting at the Goodman Theatre. Her dance teacher was Frances Allis who taught movement for actors as well as her own modern dance technique which has many similarities to Graham's. Lang studied Allis technique and performed with her company in Chicago. In 1938, at the age of 17, she enrolled in a program for gifted students at the University of Chicago, where she remained until 1941, the year of her move to New York. Born Pearl Lack, she adopted the stage name, "Pearl Lang", she studied with Martha Graham and Louis Horst and joined the Martha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Corps De Ballet
In ballet, the ''corps de ballet'' (; French for "body of the ballet") is the group of dancers who are not principal dancers or soloists. They are a permanent part of the ballet company and often work as a backdrop for the principal dancers. A ''corps de ballet'' works as one, with synchronized movements and corresponding positioning on the stage. Specific roles are sometimes made for the ''corps de ballet'', such as Swan Lake, the Snow Corps de Ballet and the Flower Corps in ''The Nutcracker''. See also *Ballet dancer A ballet dancer ( it, ballerina fem.; ''ballerino'' masc.) is a person who practices the art of classical ballet. Both females and males can practice ballet; however, dancers have a strict hierarchy and strict gender roles. They rely on yea ... References * Ballet occupations Ballet terminology it:Glossario della danza classica#Corps de ballet {{ballet-dance-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Norman Dello Joio
Norman Dello Joio (January 24, 1913July 24, 2008) was an American composer active for over half a century. He won a 1957 Pulitzer Prize#Letters, Drama, Pulitzer Prize in 1957. Life Dello Joio was born Nicodemo DeGioio in New York City to Italian people, Italian immigrants. He began his musical career as organist and choir director at the Star of the Sea Church on City Island, Bronx, City Island in New York at age 14. His father, Casimiro, was an organist, pianist, part-time composer, and vocal coach and coached many opera stars from the Metropolitan Opera. He taught Norman piano starting at the age of four. In his teens, Norman began studying organ with his godfather, Pietro Yon, who was the organist at Saint Patrick's Cathedral. In 1939, he received a scholarship to the Juilliard School, where he studied composition with Bernard Wagenaar. While he was a student, he worked as organist at St. Anne's Church, but he soon decided that he didn't want to make his living as an orga ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wassily Kandinsky
Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky (; rus, Василий Васильевич Кандинский, Vasiliy Vasilyevich Kandinskiy, vɐˈsʲilʲɪj vɐˈsʲilʲjɪvʲɪtɕ kɐnʲˈdʲinskʲɪj; – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter and art theorist. Kandinsky is generally credited as one of the pioneers of abstraction in western art, possibly after Hilma af Klint. Born in Moscow, he spent his childhood in Odessa, where he graduated at Grekov Odessa Art School. He enrolled at the University of Moscow, studying law and economics. Successful in his profession—he was offered a professorship (chair of Roman Law) at the University of Dorpat (today Tartu, Estonia)—Kandinsky began painting studies (life-drawing, sketching and anatomy) at the age of 30. In 1896, Kandinsky settled in Munich, studying first at Anton Ažbe's private school and then at the Academy of Fine Arts. He returned to Moscow in 1914, after the outbreak of World War I. Following the Russian Revolu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
