Mme. Hermine

i don't know if this is permitted, please fix if it isn't, but it has the information. i looked for a way to email it to you but couldn't find one. it was dated 1998 ************** NEW YORK (AP) -- Arthur Bell, a 71-year-old man, was found homeless and disoriented on a Brooklyn street last month, barely standing, his feet frozen. He told paramedics that he was once a ballet dancer in Paris. ``And they went, `Yeah, yeah, yeah,''' recalled social worker Maria Mackin. Bell's medical chart, after all, noted possible signs of dementia. But during the days that followed, Bell would tell Ms. Mackin tales of Paris and London, Frederick Ashton, Margot Fonteyn, Olga Preobrajenskaya, Katherine Dunham and James Baldwin. ``He started telling me things that only someone who was really in the dance world would know. And I thought, `This is not dementia,''' said Ms. Mackin, who happened to have been a ballet photographer at one time. She also saw that Bell was ``incredibly graceful ... slender, sleek.'' The accuracy, the richness of detail and the clarity with which he spoke led her to the New York Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center. Bell's story checked out. He had been a pioneering black ballet dancer. Though he was no star, he left his artistic mark on the 1940s and '50s, ``when there was no place for African-Americans in classical ballet,'' said Madeleine Nichols, curator of the dance collection at the library. Bell worked odd jobs after his dance career ended, but can't remember how he wound up on the street, where he had been living for months in the dead of winter. His last address was a men's shelter. He would have been sent back there had Ms. Mackin not intervened. Now he's in a nursing home, recuperating from frostbite on his feet and legs. Slowly, he's learning to walk again with a cane. He uses a wheelchair most of the time. ``I convinced them that he needed a higher level of care,'' Ms. Mackin said. ``I said, `This is a guy who was a pioneer in the dance world. He's special, he's an important part of African-American culture. We should go out of our way to help him.''' Before she became a social worker, Ms. Mackin was a photographer for Capezio, the dance shoe company. She took photos of dance greats such as Rudolf Nureyev and Bob Fosse. When Bell was rescued off the street, ``the very first thing I asked was, `Do you have Medicare?''' Ms. Mackin recalled. ``And he said, `Oh, I'm not really sure. We didn't have to worry about these things when I lived in Paris and London, it's a different medical system.' And I thought, oh, this is a very sophisticated man. That was an awakening from my usual clients. ``I asked, `What were you doing in Paris?''' And his story began to unfold. ``I was absolutely thrilled,'' Ms. Mackin said. ``I thought, oh my God,this is incredible, if this is true. And I really believed it was true and that the world had let this man slip through the cracks.'' Bell speaks of dance with a lucid passion that awakens his frail, 5-foot-11 body. Sitting in a wrinkled bathrobe, he arches his long neck and uses his long fingers to punctuate his remarks with lively elegance. The muscles in his legs are still sculptured. The eldest of a Florida preacher's nine children, Bell finished high school and got on a bus to New York. He quickly found a job in the garment district and started taking dance classes with Dunham. He moved to Paris in the early '50s, where he said he lived in the same rooming house as Baldwin, the writer. He danced with the Ballets de la Tour Eiffel while studying with Preobrajenskaya, the retired Russian ballerina. In 1950, Ashton, the great British choreographer, chose him as a guest soloist in the New York City Ballet's world premiere of ``Illuminations.'' Bell returned to New York in the '60s, forced to give up his career as he approached 40. His life slid away. Bell, who receives $400 a month in Social Security, is waiting for his Medicaid application to be processed and wants to move to ``somewhere where I could be near the theater most of the time.'' He also wants to establish a scholarship fund for struggling young minority dancers. Not being able to dance anymore doesn't trouble him, he said, ``because when you love something, the love for it just goes beyond anything. Dancing is in my soul.'' Ms. Mackin and her husband visit Bell twice a week. ``It makes you think about the judgments you make -- like reading the chart,'' she said. ``We have to listen to what people say instead of reading charts.'' [ 07-07-2001: Message edited by: Mme. Hermine ]

off the top of my head i seem to remember that his last name is bell. will post more if i can find it.

well the numbers aren't so big a deal, if you're just talking about numbers. there are dancers in boston ballet that i've seen pull off quintuple and septuple pirouettes after fouettes. (and yes i've seen artistry too , just talking about numbers.)

there was raven wilkinson of the ballets russes in the 1950s, who i think is still performing at the new york city opera in character mime roles. all accounts say that she was a lovely dancer.

miss page might have been talking about the period when she danced for diaghilev in the 1920s. [ 07-04-2001: Message edited by: Mme. Hermine ]

incredibly fond of the boy, myself! [ 07-01-2001: Message edited by: Mme. Hermine ]

hi terry! how can we communicate privately? am i not supposed to post my address? we're very close to each other here in the city, evidently. let me know! patricia

one that kind of lurks in my brain is a new york times commercial, now you figure they're going for a higher-style clientele, those with the discernment (read their words but from my mouth) to subscribe to their paper. they have a commercial running ad nauseum in which a young white couple is shown and the man says (paraphrased) 'our favorite is the sunday times and when it comes, she goes straight for arts and leisure, i head for the magazine." now i have to admit i at first thought i would hear him say he went for sports but was also figuring they were doing what they thought was bending over backward to be p.c. by giving him the magazine. don't know if this applies but it springs to mind.

for a company that size, with that many performances, four female principals seems a bit stingy.

ruth page once recalled a rehearsal (for which ballet i don't remember right now) for which mr. balanchine acted as rehearsal pianist.

this is from the city ballet's website: ********** A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM Music by Felix Mendelssohn Overture and Incidental Music to A Midsummer Night's Dream Op. 21 and 61; Overture to Athalie, Op. 74; Overture to Die Schone Mellusine, Op. 32; Die erste Walpurgisnacht, Op. 60; Symphony No. 9 for Strings (first three movements); Overture to Die Heimkehr aus der Fremde, Op. 89 Opp. 21 and 61

i wish i could remember more, but it was so long ago when i saw rebecca wright and burton taylor in 'the dream' with joffrey. my memory says it was magical.

do you mean in the sense that odette is rosalind russell and siegfried is cary grant?

well i think it makes sense when she goes to him at some point as if to collaborate. and since this is supposed to be a court and at least until the last moment, she and rothbart being received royally, then it would seem that as her father? whatever?, he is presenting her. i don't know to what extent that means he has to be involved partnering wise, however.

one person has spoken to me about the idea of putting video on cd-rom (as an extra step, but fixing, i presume, a certain quality of image/sound to be transferred to dvd in the future). are there any issues anyone knows of in terms of compatibility/better or worse quality of transfer, aside from considerations of time?

. [ 06-23-2001: Message edited by: Mme. Hermine ]

as a note, boston ballet did bourree fantasque in 1989.

the siren's entrance in the prodigal son, and the prodigal's return.

sleeping beauty at covent garden with gelsey kirkland. the overture to sleeping beauty no matter who is dancing. the overture to swan lake, no matter who is dancing. the intro to the snow scene in the nutcracker, no matter which production. makarova as giselle. there are more but these jump to mind.

more news about two more of those dancers: tatiana jouravel will be a soloist at les grands ballets canadiens, and laura o'malley is going to the national ballet of holland.

manhattnik you naughty fellow!

thanks, nora! but then i realized i should have given the rest as well. the corsaire is obvious and 'la valse' is not otherwise identified, but here are the credits for the 'act iii sleeping beauty: Aurora's wedding (Act III of The sleeping beauty) / film directed by Anthony Asquith ; choreography, Nikolai Sergeev after Marius Petipa ; music, Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky ; sets and costumes, Oliver Messel ; cast: Fonteyn (Princess Aurora) and David Blair (Florimund); Graham Usher, Merle Park, Georgina Parkinson (Prince Florestan & his sisters); Antoinette Sibley, Brian Shaw (Bluebirds); Douglas Steuart (Puss-in-Boots) & Virginia Wakelyn (White cat); Ann Howard (Red Riding Hood) & Ronald Plaisted (Wolf); Alexander Grant, Keith Milland, Lawrence Ruffell (Three Ivans); Leslie Edwards (Cattalabutte); Ray Powell (Carabosse); Deanne Bergsma (Lilac fairy); Derek Rencher & Gerd Larsen (King Florestan & his queen).

from the new york public library on-line catalog: Les sylphides / film directed by Asquith ; choreography, Serge Grigoriev and Lubov Tchernicheva after Mikhail Fokin ; music, Chopin, arr. by Ray Douglas ; danced by Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev, with Merle Park (valse), Annette Page (mazurka), and members of the Royal Ballet.

i have only seen him on video, both long ago and recent, and was very impressed with him. the library in new york has a fair amount of video of him. i was under the impression that at least recently, he had toured with a group of young dancers here to the u.s. maybe another reader will have more information?

doug, sorry to do it this way, but can you e-mail me privately? didn't know how else to reach you. mejapatricia@hotmail.com