Agnes de Mille was one of the preeminent American choreographers of the twentieth century. Entering a field dominated by men, de Mille created a distinct American style of dance and choreographed some of the most beloved American ballets. She remains an inspiration to dancers and choreographers.
At the age of 17, Maria Tallchief moved to New York City to pursue her dreams of becoming a dancer. She went from dance company to dance company looking for work. Many of the companies discriminated against her because of her Native American ancestry. Rejection did not stop Tallchief; she continued working towards her goal and eventually became one of America’s most popular ballerinas.
Badia Masabni was an entertainer and businesswoman best known for establishing a series of influential clubs in Cairo in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. She is considered to be the mother of modern belly dance and is credited with launching the careers of many Egyptian artists, particularly belly dancers Samia Gamal and Taheyya Kariokka.
Kitty Phetla is a South African ballet dancer and choreographer who began dancing in primary school. Her future mentor Martin Schönberg saw her talent at age 9 and coached her until she was 25, training her in ballet, Spanish dancing, contemporary dance, and Afro-fusion. She joined Schönberg’s Ballet Theatre Afrikan, dancing with the company until 2002 when she left to join the Joburg Ballet, where she became a senior soloist and choreographer. She toured Russia in 2012 with Anna Pavlova’s famous solo The Dying Swan, becoming the first ballerina of African descent to perform the role in Russia. Traditionally performed in a pink tutu and tights, Phetla made the piece her own performing in a black tutu and stockings. She presented her iconic performance of this solo to Nelson Mandela and the Dutch Royal Family in Amsterdam. Phetla choreographed a full-length ballet to the music of Carmina Burana, which she presented in 2016 in China, with dancers from Joburg Ballet and the Liaoning Ballet of China, for an audience of dignitaries tht included China’s president. She also choreographed The After Effect, exploring schizophrenia, for South Africa’s Dance Umbrella festival.
She has also been a radio presenter, for five years on Alex FM, followed by six years of hosting her own show on Radio 2000.
Dancer Ailes Gilmour was one of the young pioneers of the American Modern Dance movement of the 1930s and one of the first members of Martha Graham’s dance company.
After graduating from high school in 1929, Gilmour studied dance and performing arts on scholarship at the Neighborhood Playhouse, where she met the young Martha Graham and joined Graham’s new professional dance troupe. In 1932, Gilmour performed at the opening of Radio City Music Hall with Graham’s company. Their work, Choric Patterns, lasted on stage for only a week, leading Gilmour to comment to a friend that Radio City Music Hall could succeed only when it became a movie theater with Rockettes.
In the 1930s, Gilmour performed with dancer-choreographer Bill Matons, the director of the “experimental unit” of the New Dance League, which had evolved from the Workers Dance League between 1931 and 1935. In 1937, Ailes and Matons performed at the Brooklyn Museum in a Works Progress Administration (WPA) recital. In 1939, they perormed in a WPA-sponsored Broadway musical, Adelante.
Lucia Chase was an American dancer, actress, ballet director and co-founder of the American Ballet Theatre in New York City. Although her first love was theatre, she decided to commit to dance and studied with great dancers and choreographers of the time. She performed with the Mordkin Ballet (1937-1939), dancing the title roles in The Sleeping Beauty and Giselle. In 1940 she and Richard Pleasant founded Ballet Theatre (later American Ballet Theatre), with Chase as principal dancer and main financial backer, although she focused on the more dramatic and comedic roles.
She created the roles of Eldest Sister in Tudor’s Pillar of Fire (1942) and the Greedy One in Agnes de Mille’s Three Virgins and a Devil (1941). In 1945, she and Oliver Smith jointly took over direction of ABT.
Over the course of four decades, Chase poured her energy and significant funds into the company. She brought Antony Tudor and Mikhail Baryshnikov to ABT and supported US choreographers such as Jerome Robbins, Glen Tetley and Twyla Tharp.
She retired from the stage in 1960, and retired as company director in 1980, the same year hhe was awarded the US Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2009, the biography, Bravura!: Lucia Chase and the American Ballet Theatre, written by her son Alex C. Ewing, was released.
Marjorie Tallchief was a ballerina from the Native American Osage Nation, and was the first Native American to be “première danseuse étoile” of the Paris Opera Ballet and performed with the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas.
Joanna Nobilis Sombre began her career as a Nautch (dancing) girl in 1700s India, and eventually became the ruler of Sardhana, a small principality near Meerut.
Googie Withers was an English entertainer who was a dancer and actor whose career spanned nine decades in theatre, film, and television. She was particularly well-known as a star of British films during the World War II and postwar years.
She emigrated to Australia in the late 1950s, where she became best known in theatre, although she played prison governor Faye Boswell in the TV series Within These Walls in the 1970s and continued to feature in films.
Edna Moscelyne Larkin Jasinski was one of the “Five Moons”, Native American ballerinas from Oklahoma who gained international fame in the 20th century, along with Yvonne Chouteau, Rosella Hightower and sisters Maria Tallchief and Marjorie Tallchief. After dancing with the Original Ballet Russe and the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, she and her husband moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma. In 1956 they founded the Tulsa Ballet and its school. The Tulsa Ballet became a major regional company in the American Southwest and made its New York City debut in 1983.