CHAPTER 22Butler University It was somewhat bizarre to think that I, who had never been to College, or even graduated from High School for that matter, was to become a College professor. It seemed improbable. Being basically a scholar, could this be the ideal direction I should go? They flew me out to Indianapolis for a day, fully scheduled and squeezed with introductions, lunch with the Dean, dinner with the dance faculty, meetings, interviews, plus teaching a one-shot ballet class. I suppose it was to look me over before considering engaging me. On the plane returning to New York I started to question myself if I should take the job, even if they invited me to. Indianapolis seemed very isolated. When a contract actually arrived it was a Hobson’s choice. Should I leave ABT, New York City and all my friends to teach in a mid-Western University? On the other hand, I was approaching fifty. Being a University Professor was certainly a more stable occupation than the haphazard life of a roaming choreologist. How long would ABT last, considering the turmoil it was then going through? I reluctantly signed the contract. Meanwhile, I was to stage a “Firebird” in New Jersey and a “Coppelia” in San Antonio. Then came a month of teaching in Toronto, Canada at a wonderful summer school run by Diana Jablokovo-Vorps, another Russian lady. The students there were rather good too, and having an unknown father from that country, I considered myself half Canadian anyway. My classes were successful and I seemed to be well liked. It was also good teaching experience that could be put to use later at the University. It was there also where I taught my first real character classes. There was already a character dance teacher coming in to teach a couple of classes each week. Elena Zhuralyeva was formerly of the Moiseyev company in Moscow. I couldn’t wait to meet her and to watch her classes. Tape recorder and note pad in hand, I thought I must get it all down and watched her class intently. When she left I had a big surprise. They asked me to teach the character class. I didn’t feel I could in any way compete with a former dancer from Moiseyev and spent a whole morning preparing my first class, trying to be sure everything was just right. What about music? From the Toronto Public Library - I don’t know how I managed to get a card - I took out a book of Bulgarian folk dances and handed it to my pianist. Fortunately I had a pair of Russian character boots with me. The class was unexpectedly a success, in fact the students had told around that they enjoyed my classes far better than those of Zhuralyeva, who was very strict and a bit unfriendly to them. That was the beginning of my second career as a character dance teacher. On a day off I visited the National Ballet Of Canada studios in
their magnificent building in downtown Toronto. Alexander Grant, a
long-time principal with Britain’s Royal Ballet was the Director. In
his office we had a pleasant chat, ending with him inviting me to
join his company as choreologist. All the signs were there to do so,
but having already signed the Butler contract I had to refuse. Mme
Vorps, had also wanted me to stay on to teach permanently at her
school and had emphatically told me that I would never be happy
teaching in a University. Now I began to wonder if I had made the
right decision? At any rate, in September I left for Indianapolis to
begin my new life as an Associate Professor Betty Gour’s claim to fame was that she had, as a girl, danced in the original “Oklahoma” on Broadway, in 1942, but her figure had somehow morphed into a tub. Always in a green polka dot dress and silver pumps, she taught her classes like a frontier schoolmarm. It was impossible to reach her at home after seven in the evening as she would already by then be in her cups. Peggy Dorsey, had actually started the dance department and was the most approachable. She was Swedish by birth but grew up in England, therefore had English manners and friendliness. With her I felt right at home. Bud Kerwin, taught jazz as well as ballet. He went to Paris every
summer to teach jazz dance and was very popular with the students.
He was the last to remain at Butler after the rest had either left
or had died. Apart from graduating from the London Institute with what was
basically the equivalent of a Bachelor of Arts Degree, I had never
been to College myself, let alone being a Professor at one. But none
of the others had either. A background in dance was apparently
enough at that time. For starters, I had no idea how to grade the
students. William Glenn was friendly and promised to guide me
through these ins and outs of college procedures. Mr. V, as he was called, was also a scholar, spoke Russian and had a collection of ballet music scores that was so large he had to construct a special building behind his house to contain it. Somehow, and I never did learn all the reasons behind it, he had managed to end up with all the scenery and costumes from the defunct Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo company which he stored at the University. It had accumulated over the span of several years during the mid-sixties through his diligence. This vast collection was housed in various storage locations –
basements of other buildings where humidity conditions were not
controlled, Quonset huts, unused storage rooms. It was really a
mess. Confusion reigned too, ending in battles as to who owned all
of this massive collection, Verdak or Butler Univsersity. Trying to remedy this, I gave one pianist some proper music for a
ballet class, to take home and practice. The next day she played it
perfectly, but rather than understanding that it was only to be
indication of how a variety of music should be available, she
continued playing the very same music for every single class
throughout the entire semester until we were all sick of it! Photo: Clowes Hall interior, Butler University The well attended performances were given next door at Clowes
Hall, where the Indianapolis Symphony performed as well as visiting
companies. The Symphony Orchestra played for our ballets as well.
I had danced in Memphis before as it was one of the stops on the Metropolitan Opera tour. This time, however, being there just a week, I only saw the dance studio and the hotel, where I was more or less quarantined with rock groups on every floor, keeping me awake all night with their racket and utter destruction of everything in sight. Grad Ball, with music by Johann Strauss and choreography by David
Lichine, was first performed by the Original Ballet Russe. I had
learned it while at ABT. The Memphis Ballet was run by the Tevlins, a nice young married
couple and former students of Butler. I never got to see the
performance but heard it was a tremendous success. Kenneth Melville,
a former dancer with Britain’s Royal Ballet danced the comic, drag
role of the Head Mistress. Not too long afterwards he died. It begins with twenty-four girls progressing one by one down a ramp, symbolizing the Himalayan mountains. Their step, [a slow arabesque penchée followed by a temps lié back], takes about ten minutes before they all reach their positions on stage to continue this very effective scene. The Nikia I chose was one of the best in the student body and
matched the muscular boy who could manage the one arm lifts as Solor.
Also three solo girls. The other professors thought I must be out of
my mind to stage something as challenging as this ballet during only
my second term, but it worked out splendidly and even the dour Betty
Gour commented afterwards that, contrary to her first concern, it
had worked out beautifully. Photo: La Sylphide hovers over a sleeping James An old witch, Madge comes in to tell fortunes. She predicts that Effie will not marry James but his rival Gurn instead. Furiously, James sends her from the house and she vows vengeance. During a Highland fling the Sylphide appears again, but is visible only to James. She snatches the wedding ring from him and disappears into the forest. He follows her, abandoning the heart-broken Effie. The second act is in the forest, home of the Sylphs. Madge and her witches are dancing around a giant cauldron into which a magic scarf is stirred. James enters, exhausted and forlorn, unable to find the Sylphide. She soon comes with other Sylphs. He accepts the magic scarf from the witch because she tells him it will bind his love. When the Sylphide returns, he drapes it around her shoulders. Her wings drop off and she falls lifeless. She is carried away into the tree-tops by her mourning companions while the distraught James sees in the distance the wedding procession of Effie and Gurn.
Photo: The first La Sylphide, Marie Taglioni The original music score by Herman Lovenskjold had been wonderfully re-orchestrated for ABT by John Lanchbury, a conductor/composer and a wonderful arranger of music especially for dance. Among other things he arranged and composed parts of the music for Ashton’s ever popular ‘La Fille Mal Gardée”. He wrote the score for “Tales Of Beatrix Potter" and many other ballets, plus music for films. He instinctively understood dance and danced many times backstage at the Met during performances. His orchestration for “La Sylphide” had not been published or available, only to ABT, but when I called him to ask for the orchestral parts he was delighted to let me have them on loan. So it was not only the authentic choreography of this famous romantic ballet I was able to offer, but also the means for the Indianapolis Symphony to be able to play it. Being completely unaware of the value of this boon, these
remarkable assets all went by entirely un-recognized by those at
Butler, as if it was just another, every-day passing event. There were fabric stores, but it just wasn’t in fashion that year. Then there was the fireplace in Act One that had to have a
specially built chimney that the Sylphide could fly up. This is done
by two stage-hands standing on a scaffold behind the fireplace,
reaching down and taking her hands and simply pulling her up. To the
audience it looks exactly as if she were flying upwards. The chair into which the Sylphide has to disappear through a false back had to be constructed. This was done by some senior boys but I had to first design it. The cauldron at the beginning of Act Two had to be huge so that Madge could stand above it while the eight witches could dance around it. What I got was a series of larger and larger pots that eventually resulted in me having to construct a giant one out of papier mâché. Scenery, including a tree that the Syplphide had to ascend, was not a problem as there were plenty of Ballet Russe back-drops available to choose from, if one was willing to do the search. For Act Two I found what was really the second act from the Ballet Russe “Swan Lake”. My Big Slip-Up I made a point to ask my colleague, William Glenn, if it would be permissible to use this girl. After all, he had claimed he would guide me in any College type procedure that I was not familiar with. I trusted him, but should have known better. Who I should have cast in this leading role was a particular Senior girl about to graduate, the one I had already cast in the role of Effie. She happened to be perfect as Effie, but really had her heart set on the Sylphide role and that it should have rightly been hers. Of course it should have. Glenn had steered me wrong, either thoughtlessly or underhandedly, I never knew which. This young lady took the entire incident as a personal insult and even though she danced the Effie role faultlessly, went about recriminating me for the rest of the semester. All the work put in on this ballet, along with its many problems
and scruples, had only one single performance. It passed by
uneventfully with un-enthusiastic applause. The audience was not at
all familiar with the Age of Romanticism. My “Alice in Wonderland And Through The Looking Glass” seemed
like a good choice. I could use all of the hundred or so children at
the Jordan School as well as some of my Senior students at Butler,
as guests. For one thing, I thought that Lewis Carroll, the author of “Alice”, should be the leading character, and not Alice. Angelo Woodman, one of my best Senior students at Butler took the role. He opened the ballet, unlike in the book that opens with Alice and her Sister by the riverbank. The two-acter closed with him and Alice in a grand pas de deux, just before her coronation. He also danced the Mad Hatter, a role I had danced in the TV version. In fact, Lewis Carroll popped up in various guises throughout. It was a spectacular production on the huge stage of Clowes Hall. Being basically a recital, however, only parents and friends saw it.
Photos: Left, Alice encounters the Mock Turtle This assignment came about through the Dance Notation Bureau. Bruce Marks, a former star of ABT was running Ballet West, a first-rate company. He wanted the old Maryinsky version of Paquita and asked the Bureau if they had it available. They had. I was the one who notated it. When I arrived in Salt Lake, Frederic Franklin, the long-time star of Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, was just finished staging “Raymonda”. Also, Danny Levens, who had just finished a starring role in “The Turning Point” was also staging one of his own ballets. We all were staying at the same hotel, near the Mormon Tabernacle Square and usually had breakfasts together. Ballet West had its own theater, a gorgeous former movie palace
that had been re-modeled, with rehearsal studios on the top floors. The sets were designed and executed by Karl Kaufman, using my suggestion of a lavender motif. It made a lot of money for the University, yet I never received one thank-you, not one picture nor video.
He was then somewhere in his eighties and, oddly enough, teaching at the Indiana University in Bloomington, just a few miles South of Indianapolis. I had driven down there often to see his work, shown at a charming theater on the Bloomington campus. His productions there of “Petrushka” and “L’Épreuve D’Amour” were masterpieces. Even Robert Joffrey flew there to see them. Papa also come to my performances. We spoke together often, in Russian. When I told him I would not be coming back to Butler, he said that
he was also not returning to Bloomington and suggested, rather
emphatically, that I should “go to Europe, where you will be more
appreciated.” It was a suggestion I certainly should have followed.
Instead, I rented a U-Haul and, a bit disheartened, drove back to
New York. |
September to December was the longest haul, ending with a shabby
Nutcracker, using the outworn, tattered Ballet Russe sets and
costumes. There was no one there who could really identify most of
the scenery in store; which ballets they were from or who designed
them. The massive collection of costumes were also unidentified and
nearly falling apart, stored next to an overly heated boiler room.
The
curtain rises on a large room in a gloomy Scottish homestead. James,
a young Highlander is to wed Effie. He is dozing in an armchair by
the fire when a Sylphide [a nymph] appears, dances around him and
wakes him with a kiss. Enamored, he tries to pursue her but she
eludes his grasp and disappears into the fireplace and up the
chimney.
This Bournonville version, first mounted in Copenhagen in 1836
still retains the French style of the nineteenth century and is the
most perfect survival of a ballet from the Romantic period to be
seen today. 
The only picture I managed to find was many years later, among a
collection of the Ballet Russe scenery on Butler’s internet site.
Butler had finally managed to identify and put in order its
collection. It’s the third act backdrop of my own “Cinderella”, but
with no credit.
I had bought a car for $200: a Ford Fairlane, circa 1950
(photo left). It stalled
at every stop light and constantly needed repairs on something or
other. While driving along, I could even see the street passing
beneath through a hole in the floor! One time, after parking all day
on campus, I could only drive it home in reverse! It may have been a
classic car but a definite impediment. I could have bought a new one
but somehow in the back of my mind I kept wondering if I was quite
honestly going to stay in Indianapolis. I didn’t. My contract was
not renewed
Most of the students wrote letters to the Dean insisting my classes
were a quantum leap ahead of the others. That the productions I had
mounted were of truly professional quality. That I had introduced
the windfall of Benesh Notation. Even as a side-line, I had written
numerous articles and reviews for The Indiana Arts Insight magazine
- writing being a scholarly and advantageous thing for a professor
to do. It was all to no avail. Despite the jealousies and disparagements
I endured while there, I had thought I at last had found my niche
and would spend the rest of my days in Indianapolis. It was not to
be.