Meet Ernest Belcher’s prize pupil, Pola Negri 2

Dance · Film
News of the digital restoration of The Spanish Dancer (1923) by Milestone Film & Video and the Eye Film Museum caught our fancy for several reasons. The silent movie is promoted as a “great romance epic,” and gosh, you can never get enough of that, right? In its making, director Herbert Brenon employed a “cast ...

Enter early Los Angeles ballet instructors Kosloff & Rasch

Dance
ed. note: artsmeme is pleased to publish a two-part excerpt, from a new book, Ballet Class:  An American History by Melissa R. Klapper (Oxford University Press, March 2020). Our Los Angeles-based blog requested writing from Ms. Klapper that focuses on the early history of ballet training in our city. Part two below!   Jean Westheimer, ...

European exiles & emigres instruct kids of early Los Angeles in ballet 2

Dance
ed. note: artsmeme is pleased to publish a two-part excerpt from a new book, Ballet Class:  An American History by Melissa R. Klapper (Oxford University Press, March 2020). Our Los Angeles-based blog requested writing from Ms. Klapper that focuses on the early history of ballet training in our city. Part one below!   With no ...

Maria Tallchief, who trained in Los Angeles, dies

Dance
Excerpted from “Maria Tallchief, America’s Ballerina, Larry Kaplan [University of Florida: 2005]: When I was twelve years old and Marjorie was ten and a half, we went to a new ballet teacher. A ballet mother at Mr. Belcher’s told Mother that the great Bronislava Nijinska had opened a studio near Beverly Hills, and even though ...

Matt (Harold Henry) Mattox, memorialized 1

Dance · Film · Theater
by 
MATT (Harold Henry) MATTOX b. Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA, August 18, 1921 d. Perpignan, France, February 18, 2013 “I’ve never classified myself as a jazz teacher, I prefer to talk about ‘free-style dancing,’ which means I have a choice of movement for any piece of music,” said Mattox in a 1993 interview. To prepare for his ...

Strong women of early L.A. dance highlighted in Dorothy Chandler Pavilion exhibition 9

Dance · Visual arts
It is so thrilling to have a visual arts exhibition accompanying our Joffrey Ballet performances this weekend. Installed at one end of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion’s glittering mezzanine level, the display feels like an historical moment for L.A dance.   Modest in appearance but profound in impact, the exhibit gathers photographs of innovative dance that poured ...