You've Got To Have Friends... Walter Kennedy Turns Somewhere Between 40 & Death Today- June 15th

The University that I attended in L.A. had a junior year at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London, the only school in the USA to have such a program. The faculty could choose as little or as many students to send to England, as they saw fit.. Another day & another blog post will tell the tale of my NOT going to RADA.

On the 1st day of the autumn term, the Theatre Department held auditions for the fall plays. I was sitting in a large class room with 50+ other theatre majors, waiting for my chance to do my prepared pieces & my song in hopes of being cast in Godspell & not Racine’s Phaedra. Sitting close to me were 2 adorable freshmen, just barely 18 years old (I was a few months shy of my 21st birthday). I watched them watching the “theatre people”. The students from the previous year’s sojourn to RADA were newly returned to campus complete with British accents & a whole new attitude. I had never witnessed so much air kissing & scarf tossing & shrieks of- “I have not seen you since we were in Our Town together", followed by more hugging.

I turned to the newest members of the department- WCK3 & his high school buddy- Little Stevie B & with a dry drop of disgust at the histrionics & mentioned to them- “my, have you ever seen so much drama from a Drama Department?”

I had already started on my life’s journey of loving to perform, but disliking the artifice of "Theatre People". WCK3 & Little Stevie B & I were all cast in Godspell, with WCK3 landing the role of Jesus (on his 1st day of University!). I was given the song- All Good Gifts, which was perfect for me, because I like to show off. WCK3 & I became fast friends & eventually boyfriends. WCK3 was not interested in going steady. He was quite young & wanted to play the field & I was unwilling to give up my adventures as a slut. But we stuck together. I introduced him to cocktails & nasty sex. I was a bit of a mentor in the hedonistic arts. He already had years of dance training by the time we met & I was very impressed with his flexibility. WCK3 is much more conservative then I… & I can still shock him all these decades later.



WCK3 & I transitioned from lovers to friends. We have been very close for more than 35 years. We lived together several times, including a run in the mid- 1970s in NYC when WCK3 studied at Julliard & I was at HB Studios. I was always made to feel at home with his parents & siblings. WCK3 is a handsome & remarkably talented man. He can be just a tiny bit opinionated, his recollections can be a bit long-winded, but I would always want him to be in my life.

WCK3 would go on to a life as a professional dancer. At one point he had to choose between an offer from Michael Bennett to tour in A Chorus Line or to join a famed Modern Dance Company- The Lewitzky Dance Company where he was a principal dancer for 20+ years. WCK3 has traveled all over the world with Bella Lewitzky’s dancers. He was trained by Bella Lewitzky to be a master teacher of technique, improvisation, & composition, & was appointed the company's rehearsal director from 1990 until the company's farewell performance in 1997. He has also worked as a dancer for choreographers: Lar Lubovitch, Laura Dean, Joe Goode & Anna Sokolow. His choreography has been honored at several American College Dance Festivals, & at such venues as Highways Performance Space & the Dance Kaleidoscope Festival in Los Angeles. In the summer of 1998 he was invited as guest choreographer to The Yard, an artist's colony on Martha's Vineyard, & at the University of Arizona. WCK3 has an MFA from University of Illinois where he was also Visiting Assistant Professor, & a BFA, from California State University, Long Beach, where he was also on the faculty.


WCK3 is now on the faculty of the University of Oregon & we have the chance to see each other often. When we do, we toss our scarves over our shoulders, air kiss, squeal & then we list our credits, because we are THEATRE PEOPLE.

Born On This Day- May 4th... Lincoln Kirstein

I know more about dance & it’s history than most civilians because my boy friend in college was/ is a dancer- the fabled WCK3. Because of him, I have an interest in dance & the Husband & I enjoy dance concerts. If I could have any talent, it would have been to be able to dance like Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly , Bob Fosse, or Baryshnikov. I am also a student of life in NYC in the 1940s- 1970s, & today’s birthday gay is an absorbing figure of that epoch.

He was a writer, impresario, art connoisseur & major 20th century cultural figure in NYC. Lincoln Kirstein's assorted attractions, ambition & attention to high culture, along with a small fortune, gave him a circle of accomplished friends: George Platt Lynes Jared French, Katherine Anne Porter, Barbara Harrison, Gertrude Stein, Cecil Beaton, Jean Cocteau, Walker Evans, & Sergei Eisenstein among many others.

Like my infamous sex diaries, Kirstein kept records, beginning in summer camp in 1919 until the late 1930's, making note of enjoying sex with men: Harvard undergraduates, sailors, street boys, in the showers at the 63rd St YMCA. He enjoyed long affairs with dancer Pete Martinez, artist Dan Maloney, & conservator Jensen Yow. Casual sex frequently grew into longterm friendships.

Portrait of Lincoln Kirstein by Pavel Tchelitchew, Portrait (1937)

In 1941, he married Fidelma Cadmus, the sister of one of my favorite artists- Paul Cadmus. Kiestein & his wife had an amicable but stressful relationship until her death in 1991. Some of his boyfriends lived with them in their East 19th townhouse; His wife was enormously fond of most of them. The NYC art world considered his gayness an "open secret," although he did not publicly acknowledge his homosexuality until 1982.

Kirstein was the primary patron of his wife’s brother, buying many of his paintings & subsidizing his living expenses. Cadmus had difficulty selling his work through galleries because of the erotically charged depictions of working class men, which provoked great controversy.

Kirstein's tastes were clear & confident. He was an advocate for American arts. A man of culture, commitment & courage, he is best known for making possible the career of the choreographer George Balanchine in the United States. He dedicated himself to classical ballet in the USA for 60+ years. He was also a prolific writer on the subjects of dance & art, a poet, a passionate art collector, an organiser of cultural events, & an adviser to government.

Kirstein by Walker Evans (1930)

In Venice in 1929, while researching El Greco, he happened upon on Diaghilev's funeral. The event had a profound effect on young Kirstein. He studied the history of dance & took ballet classes. He came upon the notion of bringing a distinguished choreographer to found a ballet tradition in the USA. He was able through her to secure an introduction to George Balanchine, the choreographer whose work he most admired.

Kirstein founded & financed the School of American Ballet, as the center for Balanchine's work. Kirstein would remain the board chairman until 1989. He was also the backbone behind Balanchine's companies: the American Ballet Company, The Ballet Society, & the NYC Ballet, where he served as general director until 1989. Kirstein founded a touring group- Ballet Caravan, in order to stage ballets by American choreographers on American themes, including Eugene Loring's, Billy the Kid, one of several works with librettos by Kirstein.

Kirstein was instrumental in the development of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in Manhattan, where the NYC Ballet was in residence. Not limiting himself to dance, he was a founder of the American Shakespeare Festival Theatre at Stratford, Connecticut.

During WW2, Kirstein served with the US Army in England, France & Germany. In 1945, he discovered & supervised the recovery of the huge collection of art looted by Nazis.

In his later years, Kirstein struggled from depression, & paranoia. He destroyed the studio of his friend Dan Maloney, & sometimes was in a straitjacket for weeks at a psychiatric hospital. His illness did not affect his professional creativity until the end of his life.

Kirstein involved himself in the civil rights marches in Alabama in 1965. He was also a firm supporter of Arthur Mitchell's Dance Theatre of Harlem from its earliest stages.

Lincoln Kirstwein by Jamie Wyeth (1965)

Kirstein requested that there be no religious service when he died, & that no religious words be spoken as his ashes were scattered across the pond near his country house. There were a only dozen mourners, & the wind blew some of the ashes back in their faces. He had lived that kind of a life.

 

The Wonderful Life Of Mercier Philip Cunningham, Born On This Day- April 16th

WCK3 is a University Professor of Dance, & he was a principal dancer with the internationally acclaimed Lewitzky Dance Company for 20 years. Because of him, I know more about dance than most civilians, yet I always feel a bit awkward when I do posts on dancers & choreographers. He may wish to weigh in.

With his partner in life & art- John Cage, Merce Cunningham created some of the most memorable dance pieces of the 20th century & beyond. He is considered to be one of the world’s greatest choreographers. Cunningham ranks with Isadora Duncan, Serge Diaghilev, Martha Graham & George Balanchine in giving the public the chance to rethink the essence of dance & choreography.

Cunningham met Cage soon after he moved to New York from Washington State, where he was discovered by Martha Graham. His first solo concert, in 1944, was in collaboration with Cage, & the couple remained together until Cage’s death in 1992.

Cage on the left with Cunningham in the late 1950s

Cunningham formed his own dance company in 1953. The company quickly became known for innovation & established itself as an important contributor to the post-war New York dance scene.

Robert Rauschenberg worked as the company’s stage manager, & collaboration with artists-Richard Serra, Jasper Johns & Sol LeWitt continued into the new century. As late as 2007, Cunningham & Rauschenberg continued topremiere new pieces.

Cage was as influential in the world of serious music as Cunningham was in dance. The couple were an artistic punch that slammed through the conventions of post-war America. They experimented with chance encounters of dance, music, & structures.

Cunningham never stopped challenging himself. That he also challenged the rest of us is our enduring good fortune. Cunningham continued to dance into old age. At 80, he danced with Mikhail Baryshnikov. Cunningham gradually relinquished day to day management of his dance company. On July 26, 2009, he died peacefully in his sleep in his Manhattan home.

Born On This Day- March 17th... Dancer Рудо́льф Хаме́тович Нуре́ев

Again, I wish I had WCK3 available to question about this post. WCK3 is a dance historian, a professional dancer, & a professor of dance, & I seem to recall that he once had an encounter with Nureyev.

From After Dark Magazine circa 1973

I remember my mother explaining who he was when he defected from the USSR in 1961. If Rudolph Nureyev's story had been already filmed, it should have been a preposterously pedantic piece directed by Ken Russell. He grew up in extreme poverty during WW2 in the USSR & yet somehow had this sterling single-mindedness, spirit, & strength to get himself out of his small town & to the West. Nureyev played a role in so many major historical & cultural events of the 20th century; his life was absolutely Forrest Gumpian.


I knew & understood who he was at early age & his image was sered into my young teenage consciousness by a photo from After Dark Magazine. Nureyev was admired by Jackie Onassis, Mick Jagger, Marianne Faithful, Andy Warhol, Freddie Mercury, Bobby Kennedy, & Madonna. Soviet Prime Minister Leonid Brezhnev personally tried to thwart his career. He was the very pretty face of the Cold War, an icon of the 1960’s sexual revolution, a representative of the new popularization of the celebrity personality as high culture. He was lordly, lusty, obsessive & opinionated. Nureyev was a 20th century true genius & his life is a record of that era.


Nureyev consorted with royalty & with gay hustlers. He was a dancing contradiction: defiant of authority, but an unmatched disciplinarian in the studio, needy & nonchalant, pious & promiscuous, cruelty & charitable.


Nureyev had an intimate, intriguing, tumultuous affair with Erik Bruhn, the very beautiful blond Danish ballet star 10 years older than Nureyev. He remained the great love of Nureyev's life even after their relationship ended.


I supervise fifteen 20-30 year olds, several who are gay, & today I tried to explain what he meant to our culture, but not one of them had heard of Rudolph Nureyev. It was just a few decades ago that he was everywhere, I now he seems forgotten, probably because dance is that most ephemeral of art forms.


Thousands of screaming fans used to wait for him at the stage door after his performances. Nureyev was on the cover of Time & Newsweek in the same week. Like Nijinsky, he was a dance star & a pop star.

The film of his life will have to feature a classic suspense sequence. While dancing with Kirov Ballet, the Communist Party & the KGB didn't trust Nureyev's political loyalty, & he angered them by associating too freely with Westerners while on tour. He was at the Paris airport with the Kirov, ready to fly with them to London, when he learned that he was being sent back to Flanked by KGB agents, Nureyev made an urgent appeal for help to a Paris friend, Pierre Lacotte. Lacotte brought in another friend, Clara Saint, who rushed to the airport. Posing as an adoring girlfriend, she convinced the KGB agents to let her say goodbye to Nureyev.

While kissing his cheeks, she whispered plans into his ear. Then she rushed away & got the French airport police, telling them that a famous Russian dancer wanted to stay in France. The police agreed to protect Nureyev if he could get away from the KGB & into their custody. They accompanied Saint into the airport bar where the KGB was guarding Nureyev. She approached him one last time, whispering that he needed to get to the police across the room. Nureyev bolted from his chair to the bar, a distance a few yards. He yelled: “I want to stay in France!!!” The KGB agents lunged for him & the Paris police, as promised, protected him.

The leap to freedom made Nureyev famous, but his stardom came from his impassioned, impetuous, impulsive, inspiring, intense dancing. Male Ballet dancers at that time were virile & vigorous, but they were deferential to their female partners. Nureyev gave the audiences animal attraction, allure, & astonishing sexuality onstage. I was cold cocked & riveted by his hip, flamboyant charms.

Nureyev died in 1993 from complications from AIDS. He was just 54 years old. Newsweek ran its second Nureyev cover with the headline "AIDS & the Arts: A Lost Generation."

Born On This On This Day- God Of The Dance... Ва́цлав Фоми́ч Нижи́нский

I should have handed this post off to my dear friend WCK3, who is a professional dancer, a dance historian & a Professor of Dance at The University of Oregon. WCK3 was briefly my boyfriend in college, but we have stayed excellent friends for 37+ years. Because of this supremely talented man, I know more about dance than most civilians.

Vaslav Fomich Nijinsky was born on this day in 1890, in Kiev to Polish parents, but for his lifetime he considered himself a Pole. He grew up poor, but by the time he was in his late teens, he had already had heady affairs with several much older men: Prince Pavel Dimitrievitch, Lvov & Count Tishkievitch, who each lavished with him luxurious libations. Soon after, Nijinsky started his rapturous romantic & professional partnership with Sergei Diaghilev. Diaghilev, a renowned & highly innovative producer of art exhibits, ballet & opera, who concentrated on promoting Russian visual & musical art abroad, groomed the young Nijinsky to be known as the God of Dance.


Nijinsky was the rare male ballet stars to perform en pointe, & his fame in Russia & Paris grew with each new dancing role: Cleopatra, The Sleeping Beauty, & Giselle. Diaghilev advanced Nijinsky’s work as a choreographer of his own works & the radical results were remarkable. The dancer was just 22 years old when he created a piece set to Debussy's Afternoon of a Faun which ended with him masturbating. The next year his ballet collaboration with Igor Stravinsky- The Rite of Spring ended in riotous reaction at the Théâtre de Champs-Élysées when they premiered it in Paris. His work was judged as obscene, but was defended by such artists as Auguste Rodin & Marcel Proust.




While on tour in South America, Nijinsky, in an act rash, reckless & ruinous, he married a Romanian countess- Romola Pulsky, who had taken up ballet in order to pursue the young dancer across Europe & the Atlantic Ocean. The incensed & injurious Diaghilev fired him.

Nijinsky tried to start his own dance company. But, bad choices & ill-conceived projects, brought the celebrated star from luster, laurels, & lavish gifts, to needing to support a wife & child with no funds & no dance company.


Nijinsky went to Hungary to recover from nervous exhaustion. When WW I broke out, he was considered an enemy because he was a Russian citizen & he was jailed. In 1916, Diaghilev rescued him & took the family to NYC, so that Nijinsky could re-join his Ballets Russes. Diaghilev & Nijinsky rekindled their love affair, but the wife did all she could to come between the pair.


Nijinsky's mental state declined. The dancer became paranoid & obsessive, & worse; he was frightened of performing on stage. With Diaghilev back in Europe; Nijinsky was left in charge of the company. However, it was around this time in his life that signs of his schizophrenia were becoming apparent to members of the company. He suffered a nervous breakdown in 1919, & his career effectively ended. The depressed Nijinsky was diagnosed with schizophrenia & taken to Switzerland by his wife. Later Diaghilev attempted to reconcile, & again his wife kept her husband from him, preventing any more reunions. Nijinsky he was just 29 years old. For the next 3 decades he was in & out of institutions until his death in London in 1950.


Nijinsky left a diary with appeals for compassion toward the less fortunate, & for vegetarianism & animal rights. He also wrote of his love for Diaghilev.


In 1970, a long planned film of his life was to start filming. With a screenplay by Edward Albee (with whom he shares a birthday today), The film was to be directed by Tony Richardson, starring Rudolf Nureyev as Nijinsky, & Paul Scofield as Diaghilev, but producers scrapped the project.


A decade later a film was finally made. Nijinski was directed by Herbert Ross, starring dancers- George de la Peña as Nijinsky &  Leslie Browne as Romola, & with Alan Bates as Diaghilev. Romola Nijinsky had a writing credit for the film. The film makers got the attitude right, but the history wrong. The film is available on something called VHS, I have no idea what this is. I think the story is ripe for the right filmmaker to take another shot at it. My suggestion: John Cameron Mitchell writing & directing, with Daniel Radcliffe as Nijinsky, Natalie Portman as Romola & me as Diaghilev.

Born To Dance

I saw her on Broadway several times, at least 3 time in the musical- Chicago alone, & she is a long time favorite of mine. Gwenyth Evelyn Verdon was one of Broadway's biggest stars of the Golden Era & beyond. She was an actress & dancer who won 4 Tony awards. With flaming red hair & an endearing quaver in her voice, Gwen Verdon was a critically acclaimed dancer & occasionally an actor in films in the 1950s,1960s & 1970s... & into the 1980s with terrific work in the films Cocoon & Marvin's Room.




Verdon is strongly associated with the work of her husband, director/choreographer Bob Fosse. She was his primary dancer/collaborator & muse for whom he choreographed much of his work. She was the guardian of his legacy after his death. Because of his extramarital affairs, in 1971 Verdon filed a legal separation from Fosse, but never divorced him. She held him in her arms as he suffered a fatal heart attack on the sidewalk outside the theatre where  his musical- Sweet Charity was being revived.

Verdon & her daughter with Fosse- Nicole collaborated to create the Broadway show- Fosse. She continued to teach dance & musical theatre until 1999. Best known for her verve, vim & vivacity. On the day she died in 2000, the lights on Broadway were dimmed in honor of the passing of one of its brightest stars. Gwen Verdon would have been 84 years old today.

________________________________________________________________________

I caught Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake on PBS a few years ago & I was blown away. His production turned tradition upside down & took both the theater & dance worlds by storm when it arrived on Broadway in 1998. Swan Lake to the unlikely step of playing Broadway, instead of a concert hall or opera house. It went on to win 3 Tony Awards. Acclaimed as a landmark achievement on the international stage, it has become the longest running ballet in London’s West End & on Broadway. I was revived this season on Broadway, & has had hugely successful tours in Britain.



Bourne was the Artistic Director of his first company- Adventures in Motion Pictures (1987-2002). His new company is named- New Adventures.

His best know productions include Nutcracker!, Swan Lake, The Car Man ( A modern dance version of the opera- Carmen) & Play Without Words. Bourne is a Resident Artist at Sadlers Wells Theatre & has created the choreography & direction for several major revivals of classic musicals: Oliver!, My Fair Lady, South Pacific & the hit West End & Broadway musical Mary Poppins for which he won an Olivier Award & A Tony. His production of Swan Lake is featured in Stephen Daldry’s film- Billy Elliot.

Bourne started training to be a dancer at the rather late age of 22 .He's grateful he came to it late: "If I hadn't had my experience of all those things, I don't think my work now would connect with a much wider audience than the dance world. If I'd started young as a choreographer, as a dancer, the subject of my work would be movement, much more choreography as such, because I wouldn't have all those other influences".

He danced professionally for 14 years creating many roles in his own work. In 1999 he gave his final performance playing The Private Secretary in the Broadway production of Swan Lake. His other ballets include Edward Scissorhands & Dorian Gray. I am a bit smitten. I had a lover who was a professional dancer. He was very flexable. Bourne turns 51 today.