Mikhail Mordkin in NYC

[rg]

this publicity photo of Mordkin and unidentified dancer dates from 1938.

i know no more than the caption attached to the photo says.

[Mme. Hermine]

from my memory she rather resembles berenice holmes, but i'm not aware whether she danced for mordkin.

[rg]

thanks, P.

Berenice Holmes is a name unfamiliar to me.

[Mme. Hermine]

thanks, P.

Berenice Holmes is a name unfamiliar to me.

berenice holmes worked with adolph bolm and was in the cast of his staging of apollon musagete. i looked for photos of her but didn't find anything right away.

[Mme. Hermine]

any chance that it's patricia bowman?

[rg]

one of my correspondents suggested, as Bowman came to mind, that if it had been PB the caption would have said so.

good point but not necessarily an iron clad one.

[bart]

What is he doing with the stick?

[rg]

it seems that the stick/wand/whatever that one sees in some classroom situations w/ old world pedagogues comes from a time when teachers taught with violin accompaniment and sometimes used the violin's bow to indicate and/or prod this or that desired effect for the dancer(s) in class.

Cecchetti certainly is shown w/ a similar 'stick' in photos of him in the act of teaching - there's a well-known one of him w/ Pavlova with his stick hovering above Pavlova's port de bras.

Perrot is depicted by Degas leaning on a cane which may or may not have been used otherwise as the bow or stick got used elsewhere.

historians with a better background in the history of ballet teaching could likely explain further.

[Mme. Hermine]

my teacher used a stick to beat time on the floor along with the pianist