Felix Cherniavsky - Correspondence with Dance Collection Danse 2

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Maud Allan 1244a 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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cal notes on the twenty - five authors of the articles in the volume are condensed into two pages , sometimes giving only the author's profession in one or two words . Notes on the photographs fol low , and a very short bibliography with both German and English titles pre cedes an index of names that is , in fact , a useful tool when referring to specific areas of the volume . Considered together , these two vol umes offer valuable information for further research , with some insights and judicious choices made by the au thors . The dance community looks forward to further publications with extended historicity and greater depth of analysis . Emma Lewis Thomas Santa Monica , California NOTES 1. Personal communication , Mary Wigman , Berlin . 1957 . 2. Laban's group was the German Dance Union ( Deutsch Tanzerbund ) and it promoted the formation of move ment choirs to participate in large mu nicipal demonstrations of solidarity through dance ; Wigman's group was the German Dance Association ( Deutsche Tanzgemeinschaft ) which strove to unite dance artists with stage careers . Although they did not see eye to eye as Wigman developed as a per forming artist and Laban turned his attention to teaching Laien and develop ing his notation . Wigman always ac knowledged Laban as her mentor and held him in great esteem . 3. Los Angeles Times , January 1 , 1993 , Opinion Section , p . 1 , col . 6 . resourceful dancers -- Isadora Duncan . Loie Fuller , and Ruth St. Denis - each of whom operated with an original vi sion and passed on an enduring legacy . Largely as a result of Felix Cherni avsky's persistence , Maud Allan has recently acquired a prominent niche in Canada's dancing hall of fame . In a statement on this book's back cover she is proclaimed as “ Canada's Isadora Duncan . " Allan left Canada when she was six , and it was not until 1915 that the forty - two - year - old dancer returned to her country for one night stands in Toronto , Montreal , and Ottawa . Yet despite these weak links with the coun try of her origins , Cherniavsky was able to solicit both working and publi cation grants from major Canadian fund ing sources to support the writing and publication of this biography ( 1 ) . Cherniavsky felt destined to write her story because of Allan's long - term association with his family . His father and two uncles met the dancer in South Africa while on a concert tour as the Cherniavsky Trio and joined forces with her for a junket through Asia and Aus tralia . In later years and through her dotage Allan maintained contact with the now extended Cherniavsky family . which had settled in California and British Columbia . Young Felix was taken on a visit during her penultimate year when she was installed in a Los Angeles nursing home , and the meet ing was etched in his memory . After her death in 1956 much of her memo rabilia became available to him : Allan's " Jottings " ( notebooks in which she re corded impressions in her last years ) : photographs : her 1908 autobiography ( My Life and Dancing ) ; and a novel ette she wrote in her old age ( A Rain bow Out of India ) . There were packets of letters : exchanges with her family while Allan studied music in Germany : and correspondence with Verna Aldrich , her secretary - companion during Allan's mature years . Despite the family connection , Cher niavsky maintains a distance when it comes to presenting Allan in the con text of her chosen profession . Perhaps this was by necessity , for in a telephone conversation with me during his period of research he admitted to knowing little about the art of dance itself and its literature . He has done a considerable amount of reading since that time , but not enough to avoid some embarrass ing blunders , such as implying that the poet Sergei Essenin witnessed Isadora Duncan's debut in St. Petersburg and that choreographer Massine's first name was Leonard . His reference to Allan as a “ dancer by default " in the book's concluding sentence helps to justify the viewpoint he has taken in telling her story . Cherniavsky , who never saw Allan dance , regards his subject as a quintes sential Edwardian figure , both heroine and victim of a time dominated by a stifling morality . Notoriety and high drama were company to her existence from birth : her mother was very possi bly the illegitimate offspring of San Francisco's erstwhile mayor and social tycoon Adolph Sutro and one of his servants . En route by train at age six with her mother and brother to join her shoemaker father in California , Maud was abducted at a whistle stop by Indi ans , who surrendered the child after a short pursuit . In February of 1895. at age twenty - two . Allan took off for Ger many to continue her education as a concert pianist ; three months later her brother Theo was arrested for the sex murders of two young women in San Francisco , fellow parishioners at the Emmanuel Baptist Church . The atro cious crime and her brother's execu tion haunted Allan all of her life , and she made every effort to conceal her relationship to the killer . Cherniavsky believes that Theo's tragedy subcon sciously prompted Allan to give up a promising career in music in favor of the risky existence of a dancer . Her celebrated dance creation , l'i sion of Salome , brought her fame , ac claim , and enormous wealth during her year - and - a - half run beginning in Feb ruary 1908 at London's Palace The atre . It also inspired an underground pornographic novel and spawned doz ens of Allan satires and parodies in the less respectable music halls . In 1917 she agreed to portray Salome in a pri vate performance in London of Oscar Wilde's play . A scurrilous comment in the press enraged her , and she initiated a criminal libel suit which she ultimately lost . Cherniavsky believes that her credibility was challenged by the popular conviction that she was the unfortunate THE SALOME DANCER : THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MAUD ALLAN . by Felix Cherniarsky . Toronto : McClelland & Stewart . 1991 . 304 pp . , photographs , bibliography , index . $ 19.95 paperbound . Little to date has been written about the enigmatic Toronto - born dancer Maud Allan -- and probably for good reason . Her success and fame peaked in an eighteen - month engagement in Lon don , after which she made no progress as an artist . The era in which she worked was dominated by three more 44 Dance Research Journal 25/1 ( Spring 1993 )