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 1255b 51 2008-2-71.jpg
Maud Allan 1255b 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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a 190 ) VODU , UU SIIC IACU VOTUT world tours . Maud Cherniavsky is in a unique posi UD Allan's personal life re tion to tell Allan's story . His father , mains an enigma . Cherniavsky con Mischel , one of the musical Cherni tends that the execution of her only brother " traumatized avsky trio , performed with her and Maud's his uncle , Leo , a former lover of psyche , conscience , and boundless Allan's , was the executor of her will . imagination . " He suggests she never Cherniavsky holds a cache of origi- forgave society for making her a nal material belonging to Maud murderer's sister and in later years Allan , including letters , diaries , pho- manifested " an underlying instabil , tographs and other ephemera ; he re- ity . " He claims that her brother's mains unwilling to allow scholars plight was the driving force motivat access to this collection . Therefore ing her dance career , and that her he has assumed an onerous responsi choice of themes - both joyous and bility in presenting the life of one of macabre -- was directly linked to the precursors of early modern her brother's execution . He provides dance . no evidence to substantiate these As Cherniavsky has admitted , he theories . is not a dance historian and his The first chapter begins with a intention was to write an interesting dramatic story in which Allan , and well - informed biography “ relat- attending a garden party in 1908 , ing ( Allan's ] contribution to dance slaps Lord Alfred Douglas , onetime history in a somewhat indirect way . companion to Oscar Wilde and edi In fact , he has not attempted to ex tor of The Academy , across the face plore her significance as a dancer at with a fan . I had not discovered this all . Even though he has clearly spent episode in my search of the London years doing original research , in the newspapers and magazines of 1908 end his biography dwells on Allan's and quickly turned to the footnotes life as filtered through the eyes of va for the reference . This first footnote rious members of the Cherniavsky to the book states , “ [ I ] t is very likely family . And since Maud Allan made that this incident , told as a legend in continuous financial as well as emo San Francisco seventy - five years tional demands on the family , this later , is true . ” Referring to this has coloured his interpretation . episode again , the author describes it as apocryphal . What editor would ALLAN'S significance or impor- ity to stand as the opening scene of a tance in the history of modern dance biography ? The credibility of the en is problematic . There were as many tire book is undermined . laudatory as negative reviews of her While I applaud Cherniavsky for performances , and it is unsound his attempt to reconstruct the life of scholarly practice to select reviews , this complex and elusive woman , as Cherniavsky has done , to support The Salome Dancer is an incomplete a viewpoint . For example , he de- and , at times , inaccurate account . scribes Allan's brief tour of Russia in December 1909 as a " catastro phe " in which " she walked into a li- Carol Bishop , a freelance journal on's cage of critics and was badly ists based in London , is currently mauled . ” He says the motive of her working on a PhD on Maud Allan .