Jeanne Renaud - Dance Collection Danse

More documents

Recommendations

Info

House program for dance performances at the 1936 Berlin Olympics from Mary Bosley's scrapbook; Bosley was one of the dancers who travelled to Berlin with Volkoff Olympics. Although being organized by the major German dance figure, Rudolph von Laban, who was not Nazi, there were growing suspicions early on about Nazi meddling. Dance groups in the United States, Britain and western Europe boycotted the Volkoff Canadian Ballet listed inside of the house program for 1936 Berlin Olympics 8 Dance Collection Danse event. Martha Graham, anxious about her Jewish dancers, was especially vociferous in turning down an invitation in a statement published in The New York Times on March 13, 1936. While most of Volkoff’s dancers seemed naive, it’s not known how far this naivety extended to Volkoff himself. It is possible that he was simply willing to ignore political repercussions to take advantage of what could capture major publicity for his group. Following a set formula, he choreographed a balanced program for Berlin that included two established company pieces, Ecstasy and Petit- Polka. More perplexing was how to provide an image of Canadian “national” dances. In direct reference to the Berlin competition, a Toronto newspaper editorial considered the dance theme problem. The Highland Fling and and Irish Jig were not ours and the Red River Jig had “gone out of style.” There was the possibility of a native theme too, which Volkoff embraced. Following the deep interest at the time in native culture, shared by artists and choreographers alike, he created an impressionistic “Eskimo” solo, Mala, inspired by a Rockwell Kent print of an old inuk woman. A longer piece, Mon-Ka-Ta, a native Orpheus and Eurydice story, seems to have been interesting if badly flawed with Hollywood-style Indian costumes. When they arrived in Berlin, the group was shocked to find that besides small, mostly folkloric dance groups from Germany and central Europe, there were dance greats like Mary Wigman and Harald Kreutzberg. In Toronto, the German representative of the Olympics had told the Volkoff group that there would be an Volkoff Canadian Ballet in Volkoff’s Mon-Ka-Ta, 1936 Berlin Olympics amateur category in the dance competition. This is what they had prepared for. But when they got to Berlin, they found that the amateur classification had been abolished. They had the choice of competing with the professionals or going home. They of course chose to perform. To beef up their program, Volkoff, the only real professional in the group, hastily put together a solo based on composer Moritsevich Gliere’s The Red Poppy in which he wore soft boots and an embroidered tunic that he fortunately happened to pack. This work displayed his dynamic and polished abilities as a performer. Although the write-up in Der Tanz magazine explicitly mentions an initial plan for adjudication, this plan fell apart and the competition turned itself into a festival. Laban apparently decided that it was unfair and in fact impossible to compare apples and oranges. Certainly no ranking was ever published and the archival files do not include adjudication papers. An enterprising Volkoff was nevertheless believed to have asked Laban
(L-R) George Moran, Clifford Toner, James Pape, Lloyd Thornton, Carl Balmer (kneeling) in “Polovetsian Dances” from Volkoff’s Prince Igor Photo: From Boris Volkoff Collection, Toronto Public Library (TRL) what standing they would have received had there been adjudication. Laban was supposed to have answered “fifth”. Volkoff grabbed onto this and rather mercilessly spread it around in Canadian newspapers. When he got home, he further expressed his confidence about going to the 1940 Olympics in Japan, assuming there would be a dance festival connected with it. As a promotional device this worked extremely well. At the Promenade Concert in the fall, the group repeated their Berlin program before another overcapacity audience of 6,849. Clearly Volkoff sensed he was building momentum and again reminded everyone after Berlin of the idea of a national ballet company. While he couldn’t realize his dream of a real tour, Volkoff’s wife, dancer Janet Baldwin, managed to pull some strings with her prominent uncle, Harry Baldwin, for an appearance at Ottawa’s Little Theatre. The result was a successful concert under the patronage of the Governor-General, Lord Tweedsmuir, in which the company mostly repeated their Olympics program. Volkoff received seven curtain calls for his own Red Poppy solo and was forced to repeat it before the audience was satisfied. He again pressed his idea of a national company in an interview for Curtain Call, and at a performance at Toronto’s Heliconian Club he made a personal appeal to the gathered artists and musicians in the audience. This of course was talking to the converted and must have produced only the usual statements of verbal support. He obviously needed more. On the principle that if he built it they will come, Volkoff presented an evening of dance at Massey Hall on May 19, 1939 to launch a ballet company, the Boris Volkoff Ballet. There was a clear elevation of purpose. The first page of the program announced, “Boris Volkoff presents First Canadian Ballet”. Critic Augustus Bridle viewed Volkoff as a wunderkind who managed to pull together the local geniuses to do his bidding. Volkoff was really employing the people he had used for his earlier concerts. He rounded up his old collaborator, conductor Ettore Mazzoleni. For lighting, he involved Herman Voaden, a pioneering playwright who had been exploring theatre techniques that he called Symphonic Expressionism. For costuming he engaged designers Ron Rae and Edgar Noffke. In one ballet, Caprices d’ Amour, Volkoff managed to use fifty-one dancers. The finale featured the Polovetsian Dances from Prince Igor, which required a lot of expert dancing and the critics noted that the Volkoff dancers could now handle the demands. Pushing forty Volkoff was the warrior chief but he could ably Volkoff Canadian Ballet dancers in Exstase at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, performed to music by Tchaikovsky Photo: From Boris Volkoff Collection, Toronto Public Library (TRL) No. 62, Fall 2006 9
Page 1 and 2: Jeanne Renaud
Page 3 and 4: In the Archives Amy Bowring .......
Page 5 and 6: Anne Hoban Wilde's collection inclu
Page 7: conductor Reginald Stewart. In the
Page 11 and 12: Elizabeth (Johnstone) Leese, from a
Page 13 and 14: Bill Coleman and Anne Plamondon The
Page 15 and 16: What a rehearsal! James was quick,
Page 17 and 18: Françoise Sullivan and Jeanne Rena
Page 19 and 20: This type of spontaneous collaborat
Page 21 and 22: (L-R) First two subjects from extre
Page 23 and 24: BY AMY BOWRING Moving Mountains A H
Page 25 and 26: In 1933 and 1934, Ferguson cotaught
Page 27 and 28: RWB dancer Marina Katronis at the B
Page 29 and 30: Choreographer David Earle wins Walt
Page 31 and 32: CANADIAN DANCE VISIONS AND STORIES

Jeanne Renaud - Dance Collection Danse

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?