First soviet dancers to hit the States

[rg]

scan of a further record of Vecheslova's and Chabukiani's US tour in '34.

[California]

Interesting tidbit in that caption: they were the first Soviet dancers "allowed permission by their government to visit America." That makes me wonder which other dancers left the Soviet Union without permission between 1922 and 1934 - the earliest defectors?

[sandik]

This latest image looks like the same costumes from the pictures in #18 and #21.

[rg]

indeed these "CORSAIRE" costumes seem to have been worn for most of the publicity photos, presumably the music for the dance indicated here as Kacuca refers to one of the marketplace, pirate numbers: the Danse des corsairs? or the Danse des Forbans?

regarding the caption's wording, something tells me that perhaps one or two solo dancers did appear in the US from the USSR prior to this on some mixed program, but not nec. as 'official' representatives of Soviet ballet, but i can't recall just whom i might be recalling.

almost certainly the caption doesn't mean to imply that previously there had been 'defectors' from the USSR.

[Swanilda8]

Thank you for these photos! I haven't seen such high quality publicity pictures for this tour before.

Interesting tidbit in that caption: they were the first Soviet dancers "allowed permission by their government to visit America." That makes me wonder which other dancers left the Soviet Union without permission between 1922 and 1934 - the earliest defectors?

regarding the caption's wording, something tells me that perhaps one or two solo dancers did appear in the US from the USSR prior to this on some mixed program, but not nec. as 'official' representatives of Soviet ballet, but i can't recall just whom i might be recalling.

almost certainly the caption doesn't mean to imply that previously there had been 'defectors' from the USSR.

I would agree with rg that it's unlikely there had been 'defectors' prior to this. Although many dancers (like Balanchine) left the Soviet Union in the 1920s, often without informing the government what they were doing, it wasn't seen as such a political statement. It was more a result of the economic circumstances of living and dancing in Russia in the 1920s - if you could get out, you did. The Soviet Union tried to get a lot of those who left in the 1920s to come back in the mid 1930s (Prokofiev is the poster child for this policy). Of course, many of those who left either already hated communism or would come to hate it.

I'm not sure, but I would guess the caption is trying to differentiate between this tour, officially sponsored by the Soviet government, and other Russian dancers touring the US like the Ballets Russes performers.