Research Catalog

Title

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

Author

Danilova, Alexandra, 1907-1997.

Publication

1975.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

Wentink, Andrew Mark.

Description

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

Summary

• 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].
• 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

Dance Oral History Project.

Subjects

• Danilova, Alexandra, 1907-1997
• Spessivtzeva, Olga, 1895-1991
• Audiotapes > Danilova, A
• Geva, Tamara
• Ballets russes
• Duncan, Isadora, 1877-1927
• Balanchine, George

Note

• 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.
• Sound quality is good.

Funding (note)

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

Call Number

*MGZTL 4-383

OCLC

79207949

Author

Danilova, Alexandra, 1907-1997. Interviewee

Title

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

Imprint

1975.

Original Version

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

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

Local Note

For a transcript of the audio recording see: *MGZMT 5-383.

Former call no.: *MGZT 5-383

Open as of the date of the oral author's death, on July 13, 1997.

Archive original: *MGZTO 5-383

Added Author

Wentink, Andrew Mark. Interviewer

Research Call Number

*MGZTL 4-383