DANCE FESTIVAL

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 280, 26 November 1941, Page 13

DANCE FESTIVAL

Fcurious Ballet Stars Perform In America

Balletomanes in this country, who wonder from time to time where members of the Covent Garden Rusfi!L Ball ?u a £ e „ now ' should be interested in the following news of them. ~'yr i , n S the past summer, Baronova u ? Dolin, together with Alicia Markova, famous English ballerina, took part in an international dance festival in the United States. l hey were performing as members «j • Ballet Theatre in a little studio theatre called The Old Barn, m Berkshire, New York. It was owned by Ted Shawn, noted American dancer. A description of the festival is given in the following article m the Christian Science Monitor. Enthusiasts travelled from far and wide to see these performances, and latecomers sat on the roof or hung from the rafters rather than miss the show. One of the performances included "Les Sylphides," danced by. Alicia Markova and Anton Dolin without scenery and to the music of Chopin, played on a piano. Other performances were by Baronova and Dolin, dancing together for the first time in the United States, and Ruth St. Denis, "America's First Lady of the Dance," who repeated her first concert programme at the Hudson Theatre, New York (1906). The festival also included tap dancing and national dancing. During the week, in the same Old Barn, with stage removed, classes were held for beginners and intermediate pupils numbering about 30; and the nucleus of Ballet Theatre dancers there by grace of scholarships supplied by Mr. Dolin and Lucia Chase, held professional classes and rehearsed for the coming season. Dolin Restores Number Dolin was restoring, among other items in the classical repertoire, the Rose Adagio from "The Sleeping Princess," calling for four partners to the ballerina rather than the usual one, which he will use in place of the Aurora Pas de Deux in his forthcoming revival of "Aurora's Wedding." Both adagios were presented during the festival performances. In another studio on a far hilltop, Bronislava Nijinska, smooth in a dark slack suit, rehearsed her revivals of "La Fille Mai Gardee," the oldest living ballet, and her own "La Bien Aimee," which is to receive its first American performance this winter.

There on the polished floor, before two large mirrors, she executed the techniques, giving them all she felt about them in their relation to her choregraphy, while Baronova, Lucia Chase, Dolin and Dimitri Romanoff followed hesitantly, unassured, for in the case of "La Bien Aimee," at least, they were learning new or half-forgotten parts. Whether the dancers had any time to play, they had all outdoors to move in. Daily swims were indicated by suits pinned to the lines behind the shed. Students and company members lived in the log cabins, built by Shawn's stalwart men, that are scattered through the wooded parts of the grounds. In the main house, where Markova and other principals lived, they took their meals at a long refectory table in the big dining room with its great stone fireplace. And Markova planned the meals. When Markova completed her tour with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo last spring she joined Ballet Theatre, thereby rejoining Anton Dolin, who was her partner of the London years. Together they leased Shawn's farm, partly to provide a summer headquarters for the company and partly to make a festival of dance.