Alicia Alonso in Giselle. Photo by Cecil Beaton.
Famed Cuban dancer Alonso joined American Ballet Theatre in 1941. After returning to Cuba for a time, Alonso rejoined ABT in 1943 and was promoted to Principal Dancer with the Company in 1946. Alonso’s career with ABT was acclaimed for her interpretation of Giselle. She also starred in the world premieres of ABT’s most critically hailed works, including George Balanchine’s Theme and Variations (1947).
Wassily Kandinsky, “Dance Curves: On the Dances of Palucca” (1926)
Dancer and choreographer Gret Palucca (1902-1993) was a former student of Mary Wigman, the leading figure in German Expressionist dance. In 1925, Palucca opened her own dance studio in Dresden and developed close contacts with various Bauhaus instructors, many of whom greatly admired her dance style. Wassily Kandinsky’s four “analytical drawings,” which were based on photographs of Palucca by Charlotte Rudolph, illustrate how closely the dancer’s style coincided with the Bauhaus aesthetic. The drawings and photographs were published in the arts journal Das Kunstblatt in 1926. According to Kandinsky, Palucca’s “principal assets” were “1. Simplicity of the whole form, and 2. Construction of the large form.”
Gerda Wegener (Danish, 1886-1949), The Ballerina Ulla Poulsen in the Ballet Chopiniana, Paris, 1927.
André Kertész Vanessa Harwood, Principal Dancer with the National Ballet of Canada, Toronto 1981
‘L’Ame et La Dance par Paul Valéry.’ Frontispiece by Demetrios Galanis (1879–1966) for ‘Le Ballet au 19e Siècle.’ Published 1921 by Éditions de la Nouvelle Revue Française.
