Agnes de Mille

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de Mille, Agnes [George] (1905–93), choreographer. The New York–born daughter of William C. de Mille, she was graduated with honors from the University of California and then studied dancing in London with Theodore Koslov, Marie Rambert, Anthony Tudor, and others. In 1928 she appeared as a dancer in the Grand Street Follies and a year later created the choreography for a much discussed revival of The Black Crook in Hoboken. The next several seasons were spent dancing and choreographing in London before she returned to New York to develop the dances for Hooray for What! (1937) and Swingin' the Dream (1939). Major success and popular renown came to her with her ballets for Oklahoma! (1943), her dances changing the nature of Broadway choreography. Heretofore there had been little ballet except for a few notable examples by George Balanchine and in some progressive revues. More than any other choreographer, de Mille popularized modern ballet styles in the theatre and made ballets dramatic, often allowing them to develop the story. Her subsequent choreography was seen in One Touch of Venus (1943), Bloomer Girl (1944), Carousel (1945), Brigadoon (1947), Allegro (1947), Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1949), Paint Your Wagon (1951), The Girl in Pink Tights (1954), Goldilocks (1958), Juno (1959), Kwamina (1961), and 110 in the Shade (1963). De Mille also created traditional ballets for various dance companies and served as director‐choreographer for Allegro (1947), Out of This World (1950), and Come Summer (1969). She has written several books about both her life and her art, including Dance to the Piper (1952), And Promenade Home (1957), and Speak to Me; Dance with Me (1973).

An American dancer and author, Agnes de Mille's (1905-1993) creative contribution to 20th-century ballet was as remarkable as her choreography for Broadway musical theater. She inspired awe for herpersonal courage and determination in the face of declining health in later years.

Agnes de Mille was born on September 18, 1905, in New York City into a theatrical family. Her father, William Churchill de Mille, wrote plays for David Belasco on Broadway and later became a Hollywood film producer. His brother, Cecil Blount de Mille, was a famous Hollywood film director. De Mille's maternal grandfather was Henry George, a social reformer and political economist who was famous for proposing the single tax.

When she was a child the family moved to Hollywood. The family's values were shaped by prevailing emphases on success and glamour as well as respect for intellectual life. During her teens her parents divorced and de Mille was torn between becoming a dancer and actress or pleasing her father, who was unsympathetic to a stage career. Having seen performances of Anna Pavlova and the Ballets Russes with Vaslav Nijinsky, as well as American dance pioneers Isadora Duncan and Ruth St. Denis, de Mille enrolled in ballet classes in Hollywood with Theodore Kosloff. While continuing ballet lessons, she agreed to attend college at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and graduated as an English major, cum laude. Later her mother gave support to her dance career, taking her to live in New York while her younger sister, Margaret, attended Barnard College and later helping to finance her trips abroad.

In New York she performed with the Grand Street Follies, choreographed a solo program (1928), and studied modern dance with Martha Graham, who opened her New York studio in 1927. In 1931 she appeared with Graham, Doris Humphrey, Charles Weidman, and Helen Tamiris in Dance Repertory Theater, a short-lived attempt at collaboration among the early pioneers of American modern dance.

De Mille left for Europe in 1932, performing recitals of her work in London, Paris, and Copenhagen. In London she staged dances for Cole Porter's Nymph Errant starring Gertrude Lawrence. Marie Rambert, with whom she studied ballet, invited her to join the Ballet Club where she worked with Frederic Ashton and Anthony Tudor, then young and emerging choreographers associated with Rambert. She created a role in the premiere of Tudor's Dark Elegies (1937).

On occasional return visits to the United States she appeared in Leslie Howard's Broadway production of Hamlet (1936) and the MGM film of Romeo and Juliet (1937). With the outbreak of World War II in Europe in 1939 she returned to New York permanently.

For the first season of Ballet Theatre (now American Ballet Theatre) in 1940 de Mille choreographed Black Ritual to Darius Milhaud's Creation du Monde with an African American cast. She earned the credit for convincing the company's managing director, Richard Pleasant, to invite Tudor to leave England and join Ballet Theatre, an important turn for American ballet history.

De Mille's big breakthrough as a choreographer came in 1942 with her ballet Rodeo for Ballets Russe de Monte Carlo. The original score was by Aaron Copland; the set design by Oliver Smith. She originally danced the Cowgirl, the female lead. This ballet remains in the repertories of many companies and is among her best known ballets, along with Fall River Legend (1948), a psychological study of Lizzie Borden based on her murder trial. Rodeo, a down-home story about cowboys and ranch life out West, provided de Mille with the invitation to choreograph Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical Oklahoma in 1943. This collaboration led to a life-long career with the Broadway musical, perhaps most significant of her choreographic achievements. Oklahoma was a landmark in that de Mille introduced the dream ballet to further the story through dance. This changed the course of the Broadway musical, making dance an integral part of the theatrical experience.

De Mille always saw dance as theatrical, expressive. She used body movement and motivated gesture as a kind of speech and drew from the technical vocabularies of classical ballet, modern dance, and folk and social dance. Although inspired by many subjects, her ballets were essentially American and favored themes dealing with its social history.

Known also as the author of many books, which she claimed she wrote in her "spare time," de Mille was a tireless and outspoken advocate for dance and for federal support for the arts. Drawing from her own experience as a choreographer, she was concerned that dances be copyrighted and that choreographers receive royalties. She served as first chairman of the dance panel of the National Endowment for the Arts in 1965. She was also first president of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers in 1965.

De Mille founded two dance companies during her career: the Agnes de Mille Dance Theater (1953-1954) and the Heritage Dance Theater, a folk-oriented company formed in 1973, which used a lecture-demonstration format to present audiences with American dance history. The company toured widely until 1975, when de Mille suffered a cerebral hemorrhage just prior to a benefit performance at the Hunter College Playhouse in New York.

With extraordinary determination and courage, de Mille underwent extensive rehabilitation and learned to write with her left hand. She recovered sufficiently to resume her activities as a writer and choreographer, as well as spokesperson for dance.

De Mille was married to Walter Prude, a manager of concert artists, from 1943 until his death in 1988. (Her courtship and marriage are described in her autobiographical work, And Promenade Home, and in Martha. ) She died of a stroke on October 7, 1993, in New York City at the age of 88. She was survived by a son, Jonathan Prude, and grandsons David Robert Prude and Michael James Prude.

De Mille received more than a dozen honorary degrees. She was elected to the Theater Hall of Fame in 1973. She received the Handel Medallion, New York City's highest achievement in the arts, in 1976; the Kennedy Center Award in 1980; and the National Medal of the Arts in 1986. Other awards include: Donaldson Award, Antoinette Perry (Tony) Award, Dance Magazine Award, Capezio Award, and De la Torre Bueno Award for writings on dance.

Further Reading

The following are de Mille's ballets (listed chronologically): Black Ritual (1940); Three Virgins and a Devil (1941); Rodeo (1942); Tally-Ho (1944); Fall River Legend (1948), based on the Lizzie Borden murder trial; The Harvest According (1952), inspired by a Walt Whitman poem with material from the Civil War ballet in Bloomer Girl; Rib of Eve (1956); The Bitter Weird (1961); The Four Marys (1965), about Civil War slaves; The Wind in the Mountains (1965); A Rose for Miss Emily (1971), based on the William Faulkner story; Texas Fourth (1976); The Informer (1988), about the struggles between the English and Irish in 1917 and 1921; and The Other (1992), a symbolic depiction of the encounter between a young woman and death.

She choreographed the following Broadway musicals: Oklahoma (1943); Bloomer Girl (1944), a Civil War ballet; Carousel (1945); Brigadoon (1947); Allegro (1947), which she also directed; Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1949); Paint Your Wagon (1951); Goldilocks (1958); Kwamina (1961); and 110 in the Shade (1963).

De Mille's major article on Martha Graham, first published in Atlantic Monthly (1950), was later a chapter in Dance to the Piper (1952). Her last book, Martha: The Life and Work of Martha Graham (1991), a lively biography of the famous American dance pioneer, also contains much about the author and her long friendship with Graham. Other personal memoirs include: And Promenade Home (1958); Speak to Me, Dance with Me (1973) about the years spent in London with Marie Rambert and the Ballet Club; Where the Wings Grow (1978), a recollection of her girlhood at the family's summer colony in Sullivan County, New York; and Reprieve (1981), written in collaboration with her doctor, dealing with her first stroke in 1975 and her courageous recovery. Other works by de Mille include To a Young Dancer (1962), an advice book; The Book of the Dance (1963), an illustrated history of dance; Lizzie Borden: A Dance of Death (1968), about her choreography for Fall River Legend; Portrait Gallery (1990); "Russian Journals" in Dance Perspectives (1970); The Dance in America (1971); and America Dances (1980).

Mille, Agnes de (b New York, 18 Sept. 1905 (some sources 1906 or 1909), d New York, 7 Oct. 1993). US dancer, choreographer, director, and writer. A pioneer of dance in America who helped to develop the genre of American-themed ballets and who changed the face of the Broadway musical. Born the niece of Hollywood film director Cecil B. De Mille, she was educated at the University of Southern California and studied dance with Kosloff in Los Angeles and Rambert in London (from 1932). She also studied with Tudor and Sokolova. She toured America and Europe as a solo dancer from 1928. She made her debut as a professional choreographer staging dances for Morley's revival of The Black Crook in 1929. In 1932 she moved to Europe where she toured as a solo artist before joining the Rambert company where she created roles in several Tudor ballets, including Dark Elegies (1937) and Gallant Assembly (1937). She was associated with Tudor's first company, Dance Theatre (later becoming London Ballet), where she created the role of Venus in his The Judgment of Paris (1938). In 1938 she returned to America where she became resident choreographer of Ballet Theatre (later American Ballet Theatre). Her first important ballet was Black Ritual (using the Milhaud score for La Création du monde) for ABT in 1940. She also worked with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo (1942) and the Jooss Ballet (1942), and briefly toured with her own short-lived company, the Agnes de Mille Dance Theatre (1953-4). Subsequent ballets included Drums Sound in Hackensack (mus. Cohen, Jooss Ballet, 1941); Three Virgins and a Devil (mus. Respighi, ABT, 1941); Rodeo (mus. Copland, Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, 1942), in which she created the role of the Cowgirl, Fall River Legend (mus. Gould, ABT, 1948), about the axe-murderer Lizzie Borden, The Harvest According (mus. V. Thomson, ABT, 1952), The Rib of Eve (mus. Gould, ABT, 1956), The Wind in the Mountains (mus. Rosenthal, ABT, 1965), The Four Marys (mus. T. Rittman, ABT, 1965), The Rehearsal (mus. Gould, Royal Winnipeg Ballet, 1965), A Rose for Miss Emily (mus. Hovhaness, ABT, 1970), Summer (mus. Schubert, Boston Ballet, 1975), Texas Fourth (mus. Traditional, ABT, 1976), The Informer (mus. Celtic, ABT 1988). She choreographed many Broadway productions, among them Oklahoma! (1943), which was the first musical to use dance as a means of advancing the plot and developing character, as well as being the first to require its dancers to be trained in ballet and modern dance. Subsequent Broadway productions she worked on included One Touch of Venus (1943), Bloomer Girl (1944), Carousel (1945), Brigadoon (1947), Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1949), Paint Your Wagon (1951), and 110 in the Shade (1963). She also worked as a Broadway director (Cole Porter's Out of This World, 1950), and in film and television. She founded the Heritage Dance Theatre, based at the N. Carolina School of the Arts (1973-5). She was also a noted writer whose books included Dance to the Piper (London, 1951, Boston, 1952), And Promenade Home (Boston, 1956), To a Young Dancer (Boston, 1962), The Book of the Dance (New York, 1963), Lizzie Borden: A Dance of Death (Boston, 1968), Speak To Me, Dance With Me (Boston, 1973), Where the Wings Grow (New York, 1978), America Dances (New York, 1981), Reprieve (1981), and Martha, the Life and Work of Martha Graham (New York, 1991).

Quotes:

"Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how. The moment you know how, you begin to die a little. The artist never entirely knows. We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark."

"Theater people are always pining and agonizing because they're afraid that they'll be forgotten. And in America they're quite right. They will be."

"The creative urge is the demon that will not accept anything second rate."

Agnes de Mille
Born	Agnes George de Mille September 18, 1905(1905-09-18) New York City, New York, USA
Died	October 7, 1993 (aged 88) New York City, New York, USA
Occupation	Choreographer, dancer
Years active	1910s-1990s
Spouse(s)	Walter Foy Prude (1943-1988)

Agnes George de Mille (18 September 1905 – 7 October 1993) was an American dancer and choreographer.

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Early years 1.2 Career 1.3 Personal life 2 Legacy 3 References 4 Further reading 5 External links

Biography

Early years

Agnes de Mille was born in New York City into a well-connected family of theater professionals. Her father William C. deMille and her uncle Cecil B. DeMille were both Hollywood directors. She was also the granddaughter of economist Henry George.

She had a love for acting and originally wanted to be an actress, but was told that she was 'not pretty enough', so she turned her attention to dance. As a child, she had longed to dance, but dance at this time was considered more of an activity, rather than a viable career option, so her parents refused to allow her to dance. When de Mille ’s younger sister was prescribed ballet classes to cure her flat feet, De Mille joined her. De Mille lacked flexibility and technique, though, and did not have a dancer's body. Classical ballet was the most widely known dance form at this time, and De Mille's apparent lack of ability limited her opportunities. She taught herself from watching movie stars on the set with her father in Hollywood; these were more interesting for her to watch than perfectly turned out legs, and she developed strong character work and compelling performances. One of De Mille’s earliest jobs, thanks to her father’s connections, was choreographing the movie Cleopatra in 1934, though the dances were later cut from the movie. She appeared in The Ragamuffin in 1916, which was her first job.

De Mille graduated from UCLA where she was a member of Kappa Alpha Theta sorority, and in 1933 moved to London to study at Marie Rambert's Ballet Club.

Career

De Mille began her association with the fledgling American Ballet Theatre (then called the Ballet Theatre) in 1939, but her first significant work, Rodeo (1942) with the score by Aaron Copland, was staged for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. Although de Mille continued to choreograph nearly up to the time of her death—her final ballet, The Informer, was completed in 1992—most of her later works have dropped out of the ballet repertoire. Besides Rodeo, two other de Mille ballets are performed on a regular basis. These are Three Virgins and a Devil (1934) adapted from a tale by Giovanni Boccaccio, and Fall River Legend (1948) based on the life of Lizzie Borden.

On the strength of Rodeo, de Mille was hired to choreograph the musical show Oklahoma! (1943). The dream ballet, in which dancers, Marc Platt, Katherine Sergava, and George Church doubled for the leading actors, successfully integrated dance into the musical's plot. Instead of functioning as an interlude or divertissement, the ballet provided key insights into the heroine's emotional troubles. De Mille went on to choreograph over a dozen other musicals, most notably Bloomer Girl (1944), Carousel (1945), Brigadoon (1947), Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1949), Paint Your Wagon (1951), Goldilocks (1957), and 110 in the Shade (1963).

De Mille's success on Broadway did not translate into success in Hollywood. Her only significant film credit is Oklahoma! (1955). She was not invited to recreate her choreography for either Brigadoon or Carousel. Nevertheless, her two specials for the TV series Omnibus, "The Art of Ballet" and "The Art of Choreography" (both televised in 1956), were immediately recognized as landmark attempts to bring serious dance to the attention of a broad public.

Her love for acting played a very important role in her choreography. De Mille revolutionized musical theatre by creating choreography which not only conveyed the emotional dimensions of the characters but also enhanced the plot. Her choreography, as a reflection of her awareness of acting, reflected the angst and turmoil of the characters instead of simply focusing on a dancer's physical technique.

De Mille regularly worked with a recognizable core group of dancers, including Virginia Bosler, Gemze de Lappe, Lidija Franklin, Jean Houloose, Dania Krupska, Bambi Linn, Joan McCracken, James Mitchell, Mavis Ray, and, at American Ballet Theatre, Sallie Wilson. Krupska, Mitchell, and Ray also served as de Mille's assistant choreographers, while de Lappe has taken an active role in preserving de Mille's work.

In 1953, de Mille founded the Agnes de Mille Dance Theatre, which she later revived as Heritage Dance Theatre.

Personal life

De Mille was married on 14 december 1943 to Walter Prude. With him she had one child, Jonathan, who was born in 1946.

She suffered a stroke on stage in 1975, but recovered. She died in 1993 of second stroke in her Greenwich Village apartment.^[1]

Legacy

De Mille's many awards include a Tony Award, the Handel Medallion for achievement in the arts (1976), an honor from the Kennedy Center (1980), and a Drama Desk Special Award (1986).

De Mille was a lifelong friend of modern dance legend Martha Graham. The publisher of many books about dance, de Mille, in 1992, published Martha: The Life and Work of Martha Graham , a biography of Graham. De Mille worked on for more than thirty years.^[2]

At present, the only commercially available examples of de Mille's choreography are Fall River Legend (filmed in 1989 by the Dance Theatre of Harlem) and Oklahoma!

References

1. ^ Jack Anderson (8 October 1993). "Agnes de Mille, 88, Dance Visionary, Is Dead". The New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE3D6173FF93BA35753C1A965958260. Retrieved 2007-08-21. 
2. ^ De Mille, Agnes (1992). Martha: The Life and Work of Martha Graham. New York: Vintage Books. ISBN 0679741763. 

Further reading

• Easton, Carol (2000). No Intermissions: The Life of Agnes de Mille. Da Capo Press. ISBN 0306809753. 
• De Mille, Agnes (1973). Speak to Me, Dance with Me. Little, Brown. ISBN 0316180386. http://books.google.com/books?id=Rv5vHgAACAAJ&dq. 
• De Mille, Agnes (1990). Portrait Gallery: Artists, Impresarios, Intimates. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co.. ISBN 0-395-52809-7.  Memoirs, anecdotes about famous performing artists.

External links

• Agnes de Mille at the Internet Broadway Database
• Agnes de Mille at the Internet Movie Database
• Agnes de Mille Dances
• Biographical sketch and list of works for American Ballet Theatre
• Biographical sketch at Kennedy Center

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