Research Catalog

Details

Additional authors

1. Wentink, Andrew Mark.

Description

1. 2 sound discs (ca. 94 min.) : digital; 4 3/4 in.

Summary

1. Disc 1 (ca. 47 min.). [Begins abruptly.] Alexandra Danilova speaks with Andrew Wentink about her personal background including her family and her schooling; how she first became interested in dancing; life at school [the Imperial ballet school at the Mariinsky Theatre in Petrograd, later Leningrad, now St. Petersburg] including the esprit de corps of the students; life during the Russian Revolution; her impressions of Isadora Duncan; acrobatic partnering including the work of [Kasian] Goleizovsky and his influence on George Balanchine; great dancers she saw including Olga Spessivtzeva and [Mathilda] Kchessinska; Spessivtzeva in The sleeping beauty; her impressions of [Mikhail] Fokine, whom she first met when dancing as a cherub in his ballet Orpheus [and Euridice]; his work Pavillon d'Armide; children in ballet; her workshop for children 14 years and older including an anecdote about one of her students [ends abruptly but resumes directly on disc 2].
2. Disc 2 (ca. 47 min.). Alexandra Danilova continues to speak with Andrew Wentink about her school days including the annual student performances; Balanchine and her workshop program [at the School of American Ballet]; her impressions of Balanchine when they were both at the Imperial ballet school including the admiration she and the other students had for his artistic abilities even then; Tamara Geva; Balanchine's early choreography; leaving the Soviet Union with Balanchine and Geva among others; Diaghilev's inviting them to join the Ballets russes; Geva as a dancer; an anecdote about Rachmaninoff and Balanchine, in Berlin; their social life in England and France, including an anecdote about [Vladimir] Horowitz; [Fedor Vasilʹevich] Lopukhov as a mentor and as a choreographer; her weight gain after joining the Ballets russes including anecdotes about Balanchine calling her fat and Anton Dolin refusing to lift her; her success, finally, in losing weight; briefly, her relationship with Balanchine [after Diaghilev's death].

Alternative title

1. Dance Oral History Project.

Subject

1. Geva, Tamara
2. Spessivtzeva, Olga, 1895-1991
3. Balanchine, George
4. Danilova, Alexandra, 1907-1997
5. Duncan, Isadora, 1877-1927
6. Ballets russes
7. Audiotapes > Danilova, A

Call number

1. *MGZTL 4-383

Note

1. Interview with Alexandra Danilova conducted by Andrew Wentink on April 25, 1975, in her New York City apartment, for the New York Public Library's Oral History Project.
2. Sound quality is good.

Funding (note)

1. The assistance of the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts is gratefully acknowledged.

Author

1. Danilova, Alexandra, 1907-1997. Interviewee

Title

1. Interview with Alexandra Danilova. April 25, 1975 [sound recording].

Imprint

1. 1975.

Original version

1. Original format : 1 sound reel (ca. 94 min.; 5"; 1 channel; 1 7/8 in. per sec.; half-track; polyester). Originally recorded in 1975.

Funding

1. The assistance of the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts is gratefully acknowledged.

Local note

1. For a transcript of the audio recording see: *MGZMT 5-383.
2. Former call no.: *MGZT 5-383
3. Open as of the date of the oral author's death, on July 13, 1997.
4. Archive original: *MGZTO 5-383

Added author

1. Wentink, Andrew Mark. Interviewer

Research call number

1. *MGZTL 4-383