Realm of the dance: vintage news - 70th Anniversary Issue

Dance Magazine, June, 1997 by Paul Ben-Itzak

In the June 1927 inaugural issue of The American Dancer -- the publication later absorbed by Dance Magazine -- news was published under the above heading. This department has also been called Via the Grapevine, Tempo!, Callboard, Dance Datelines, News Cues and Hullabaloos, and, since the early 1960s, Presstime News. Following are some highlights of news over the last seventy years, as originally reported. The original spelling of names has been retained, as have other style variations. Items have been edited for space. For current news -- including a report on Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater's first tour to South Africa -- please see page 148.

OCTOBER 1927: Isadora Duncan -- an exotic creature whose spirit was as prismatic as the dances for which she was adored -- who opened to the world un-dreamed-of vistas portrayed by the art of significant gesture -- has passed on, but she leaves behind a rich heritage of beauty and inspiration. Her avowed desire to depart this world, expressed a few hours before her death, alleviates the sadness of her passing.

NOVEMBER 1927: Ernest Belcher reports the activities of his studios are exceeding previous years and his work is becoming more widespread. Many film stars are among [his] pupils: Bessie Love, Joseph Streicher, Lillian Gish, John Gilbert, Margaret Livingston and Rod La Rocque.

OCTOBER 1929: With the death of Serge Diaghillef in Italy, one of the most colorful careers of the dancing world was prematurely ended.

FEBRUARY 1930: Ida Rubinstein is so versatile that she has announced she is not decided whether she will give performances at the Paris Opera of her recent successful ballet or stage several dramas. (In 1930, Rubinstein's most recent productions were Leonide Massine's Les Enchantements d'Alcine and Bronislava Nijinska's La Valse.)

FEBRUARY 1931: January twenty-second found dance-minded Los Angeles at the Philharmonic Auditorium, spellbound under the charm of La Argentina's flashing personality and eloquent castanets. With one more number scheduled on the program, L.E. Behymer, beloved impresario. stepped before the curtain. "We would like to ask that you all remain seated after Madame Argentina's next number for an announcement of vital importance." The words seared themselves on the brain of everyone who had been watching the bulletins from Madame Pavlova's sick room at The Hague -- and fearful eyes were turned one to the other for reassurance. "Not that -- it could not be!"

La Argentina, seemingly suddenly heavy of heart went through her final numbers with a showmanship that will not soon be forgotten. The audience remained seated confidently expecting the encore that La Argentina usually gives. Behymer stepped before the curtain and explained that Madame Argentina was unable to continue due to the news of the sudden death of Anna Pavlova.

JUNE 1933: Pauline Koner, on her return from Europe, opened her new studio in New York City, at 1947 Broadway.

JULY 1933: Witnessing the ballet performance by the San Francisco Operatic and Ballet School at the Opera House on June second, one had to remind one's self that one was present at a performance of a school, which had been at work for four months only. In a varied and colorful program Adolph Bolm offered choreographic sketches and short ballets in which the classical ballet competed with the boldness of line of the modern dance. Bolm and his principal dancer, Elise Reiman, gave a few duets and solos.

Gaetano Merola and the Women's Committee of the S.F. Opera Association have created a great artistic center in the West, the importance of which for the city is to show itself in the nearest future.

OCTOBER 1937: Ginger Rogers will be starred along with Katharine Hepburn in Stage Door.

DECEMBER 1937: A contract, brought about by the controversy between dancers and the Hollywood Bowl management, has been signed between the Southern California Symphony and the American Guild of Musical Artists.

* Rights to the Nijinsky biography are owned by R.K.O. Alexander Korda has long held the option on this book, but has released it. R.K.O.'s action in purchasing it seems to indicate that [it has] Fred Astaire in mind for the part. It is unlikely much of the story will pass the Hays office censorship. Universal Pictures has owned the Isadora Duncan story for years, but it has never been produced for the same reason.

SEPTEMBER 1938: Romola Nijinsky writes that Nijinsky was showing great improvement of his mental condition from insulin treatments but that they have been stopped because of lack of funds.

OCTOBER 1938: 1938-39 dance season will open Oct. 9 with the 1st N.Y. performance of Martha Graham's new work American Document, the 1st production in which Graham appears with a male dancer: Erick Hawkins, soloist and a choreographer of Lincoln Kirstein's Ballet Caravan.

* The premier dancers which will make their bows with the Massine company at the Metropolitan are Leonide Massine, Alexandra Danilova, Serge Lifar, Tamara Toumanova, Alicia Markova, Mia Slavenska, Nini Theilade, Nathalie Krassovska, Frederic Franklin, Igor Youskevitch and Nina Tarakanova.