Modernism
Bronislava Nijinska, of the Ballets Russes and Other Dance Companies
I became fascinated by Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in my senior year in college thanks to a class run by the music department.* I had already been familiar with some of the music, and a few of the names. That class introduced me to the company as a convergence of modernisms in the hands of…
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Anita Berber: Dance Hard, Die Young
Unlike the “Blond Hans,” who made regular appearances in Sigrid Schultz’s letters and memoirs, Schultz mentioned Expressionist dancer, cabaret artist, and actress Anita Berber (1899-1928) only once. A year after Berber’s death, Schultz described Berber as “the wild woman of inflation days—who burned away her great dancing talent with dope and wild parties, portraying her…
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Before the Rockettes
Thirty-six years before the original Rockettes appeared on a St. Louis stage in 1925,* a failed cotton magnate named John Tiller formed a dance troupe that featured quick, perfectly synchronized dance steps. By the 1920s, several dozen troupes of Tiller Girls, selected for uniform height and weight, performed in major cities across Europe. They were…
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