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The Year in Dancing Times
The Dancing Times was still being edited by JS Richardson and cost 1/- (net!). The content is Very much about dance rather than ballet and many of the covers feature pictures from musical reviews or exotic dancers from overseas.
‘Round the classes’ is there of course...
The March Dancing Times has a piece about The Greek Theatres of Sicily which features lots of pictures of Roman ruins. In the February edition there was a piece about “Dancing on the Equator” with pictures of tribal dancers in the 'Kenya Colony'. There seemed to be a great searching for ethnic dance in all its forms.
Rambert
and de Valois
Ninette de Valois was with the Diaghilev Ballet Russes, joining in 1923 and leaving in 1925.She was in the corps and also did small solo roles while working with Nijinska, Massine and Balanchine.
Marie Rambert appears to have been teaching for the most part. One pupil was Ashton who rather unkindly noted that “... everybody knew she couldn't dance, so nobody really respected her.... It was frightfully boring. She didn't have a piano. She used to whistle all the way through things and I absolutely hated it, hated her class.”
Besides teaching Rambert was bringing up 2 small girls aged 1 and 4. It was to be another 2 years before Ballet Rambert was ‘officially’ formed.
Ballet of the Year
de Valois as Rondeau in Les Biches
Royal Ballet School photo
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Ballet of the year was Les Biches (The House Party) choreographed by Bronislava Nijinska for Ballet Russes. "Her work was deeply considered, formidable in its musical understanding, adventurous in its personal language and at no point trivial in content" (Sorley Walker).
The music was by Poulenc who said of it “This is a ballet in which you may see nothing at all or into which you may read the worst”. At a more prosaic level the Critic Gilson MacCormack noted that Les Biches “seems the most appropriate ballet to be given with the Olympic Games”.
Calendar
| January |
Ninette de Valois was in Monte Carlo with Diaghilev Ballet.
In a 5½ month engagement (going through to mid-April) they appeared in 25 ballets as well as plays and operas.
Nijinska was choreographer and ballet mistress - “a choreographer-teacher opening up my mind and strengthening my body” said de Valois.
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| June |
15th Jun: Georgi Balanchivadze and his Young Ballet perform in Russia for the last time. They go on tour to Berlin and never return. In the process Balanchivadze changes his name to Balanchine. He is just 20.
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| August |
16 Aug: Madame Pavlova gave an informal reception at her Hampstead Home which included a chat with Dancing Times and “.. she has some very encouraging things to say about English dancers. Nearly all the girls in her company are English, and although she finds them a little lacking in temperament, she pronounces them intelligent, capable, sensible and very conscientious, always ready to do their best under bad conditions as well as good. When they have the opportunity they make fine dancers, but, to quote the famous dancer's words, "You have no real school of ballet run on the lines of the Imperial School we had in Russia, and the school we still have. For a girl to train in England her parents must spend a great deal of money and even then no results can be guaranteed!”
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| September |
8 Sept: Pavlova's company opens at Covent Garden for a month. Don Quixote and the The Mummy, a new Egyptian ballet, feature.
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November |
24 Nov: Diaghilev Ballet return to the Coliseum - although because of huge losses the last time they appeared (in
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“Miss Mona Buckley, whose studio is in Cricklewood. A charming picture taken at Clacton-on-Sea.”
(from Dancing Times - this picture is planted in the middle of the magazine and seems to relate to nothing else at all!)
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1921) they are initially billed as the Russian Ballet. The season, which goes through to the following January was actually a triumph. Dolin was the star (in Le Train Bleu - Choreographed by Nijinska again), and Danilova had also just joined the company.
“A significant event took place while they were in London. One Sunday Morning, Balanchine's paces as a choreographer were tried out at Astafieva's studio in the Kings Road, Chelsea. Diaghilev, Boris Kochno and Grigoriev watched a group of dancers, which included de Valois, in a trial composition. Recognising the importance of the moment, convinced of his outstanding talent, she was delighted when they returned to Monte Carlo to find him in charge of the opera ballets.” (Katherine Sorley Walker - ‘Ninette De Valois - Idealist without Illusions’)
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December |
Alicia Markova, aged 14, auditions for Diaghilev. “Nijinska put her through her paces and Alicia astonished the Russians with her high jumps, light landings and multiple pirouettes” (Richard Buckle). She was offered a position in Ballet Russes immediately. The only problem was that children under the age of 16 were not allowed to work abroad. And Alicia actually looked younger then her years. Diaghilev, ever the pragmatist, decided to risk it.
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Next Month
The year we'll be looking at will be 1970. Do write to us if you have any particular memories of that year
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