Felix Cherniavsky - Correspondence with Dance Collection Danse 2

Added 19th Mar 2022 by Beth Dobson (Archives and Programming Assistant, DCD) / Last update 19th Mar 2022

Maud Allan 1224b 51 2008-2-71.jpg
Maud Allan 1224b 51 2008-2-71.jpg
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Felix Cherniavsky - Correspondence with Dance Collection Danse 2

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Maud Allan Research Collection
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6 dance . " In dancing personal characteristics must be obliterated . They must give place to only one rhythm -- the rhythm of the music . The greatest dancers are those who give you the sense that the music actually flows from them . They do not move on or with the beat : they move in it . " The opera was shown to Vancouver audiences 197 years after its premiere . The three singers were required to rethink the traditional concepts of stage movements in terms of Holm's plan . Orpheus and Eurydice sang their last arias from the top platform . The American soprano Mary Costas was Eurydice to Kerstin Meyer's Orpheus , and Amor was sung by the Canadian soprano , Marguerite Gignac . All were praised by New York Times critic Howard Taubman , who covered the Festival for an international readership . " Gluck's operas , " he stated , " enduring though their music is , cannot be produced without extensive use of the dance . Orpheus particularly needs an investiture of movement that complements the music . Miss Holm's secret was that she avoided literalism . Everywhere the movement grew out of the theme of the work . The transitions from dance to song were so smooth that they were almost unnoticeable . " Vancouver enjoyed six performances before Holm's Orpheus became part of legend . She re - staged the production at the O'Keefe Centre in Toronto on May 28 , 1962 with Maureen Forrester as Orpheus and Arlene Saunders as Eurydice with principal dancers of the National Ballet of Canada , Lois Smith and Earl Kraul . Those who witnessed the Vancouver performances recall the experience with awe , and local dancers given the good fortune to work with Holm in this unique undertaking , look back on it as one of the most memorable events in their lifetimes . Hanya Holm spent her later years as a teacher and was appointed as head of the dance department of the New York Musical Theatre Academy in 1961 ; she retired in 1967 but continued to teach occasionally at the Alwin Nikolais studios . Holm died in 1992 at the age of 99 . A longer version of this article appeared in the June , 1979 issue of Vandance , now published as Dance International . Lois Smith and Earl Kraul in the Dance of the Blessed Spirits on the Elysian Fields from Orpheus . Other dancers from the National Ballet of Canada also performed in Orpheus . Photos : courtesy of the O'Keefe Centre 100 Hundred Years Ago on Canada's West Coast a The following item was dropped off to DCD by writer John Ayre . He found it while doing research for an extensive article on the Volkoff Canadian Ballet's appearance at the 1936 Berlin Olympics Dance Festival . Volkoff consulted with Dr. Marius Barbeau , a famous music ethnologist , who probably provided him with the folk tale of Mala as well as the basis of a musical score which was arranged for the Festival performance by Sir Ernest MacMillan . Canadian art and archaeology , a very early depiction of ballet as performed on the West Coast . " How old ? " we asked , and were startled when he replied , " Oh , it's an Indian carving showing Russian dancers and it was done in the 1830's . " With his permission we now reproduce a photograph of " Ballet Russe , Sitka , Alaska " , as seen and interpreted in argillite by a Haida carver who lived at Skidegate , on the Queen Charlotte Islands , over one hundred years ago . The Haida Indians , it appears , were often employed as whalers on European and American ships and they sometimes visited Sitka , which was the old Muscovite capital of Alaska before that territory passed into American hands . There on festive occasions the Indians would have had a chance to watch Russian dancers performing . While they , of course , never saw real ballerinas , trained in the Moscow tradition , they most probably did see provincial troupes presenting variations of folk dances similar to those preserved for us today in such famous ballets as " Petrouchka " . Let us , however , quote Dr. Barbeau's own description of this carving : " The ballerinas with fluffy skirts , and their partners in smart boots disport themselves merrily on the deck of a Boston sailing - ship plying Alaskan waters in search of sea - otter pelts for the Canton market . An Indian on one side is trying in his own way to rope a horse , the like of which he knew only by hearsay , as there was at that time no such animal in the country . And , opposite , a wild dog is scratching itself , at the right end -- and place . " Done with the aid of tools supplied by the white traders , the first carvings of the Haida were , as in this instance , more closely related to European imagery than to their own tribal symbols . Only later did they turn to illustrating their own legends or reproducing totem poles in miniature in their argillite carvings When Ballet First Came to Canada Canadian Art magazine Summer , 1951 Dr. Marius Barbeau of Ottawa recently told us that he had , in his own private collection of Haida carving in argillite of Russian dancers and other figures . Collection : Dr. Marius Barbeau