WEBVTT

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This is 20 March, 1985.

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This is Slate on Channel 1.

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Bars and Turtles on Channel 1.

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The mixer is on Channel 1 as well.

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And the pencil will be the boom microphone.

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Here's a minute of Bars and Turtles.

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A new page for TNT Productions, the Uplom Interview.

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And then I get Sheila to type it out for me.

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By the way, I got a letter from Jerry the other day

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with a copy of a letter from Sheila.

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Jerry Salovey?

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Jerry Salovey, yeah, that you're being made a Laureate

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of the Lincoln Academy this year.

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That is a big deal, did you know that?

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In Illinois?

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Oh yes, but listen, I get those awards every week.

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That is the biggest deal that they have to give in Illinois.

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It is?

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Yeah, it is, I thought you would want to know that.

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And those are the only interesting things to see

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between here and Springfield, Illinois.

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Other than that, it's just totally prairie-slapping.

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Flat.

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Barring.

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It's a flat, like Indiana, right?

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It is the Midwest.

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The Midwest, I always wanted to get out of the Midwest,

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but I never succeeded.

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I'm right back where I started.

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Well, I know, but not exactly.

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I mean, you did get out, you started getting out very young.

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But I know what you mean.

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I got out of Indianapolis, but then Chicago.

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What's Chicago?

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It's an interesting city, I think.

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It's a beautiful city, very beautiful, I think.

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And there are interesting people here, but I'd rather be in New York.

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I know, you've said that before.

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A million times, yes.

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I didn't have sense enough to move.

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You know, when I had to give up my place at 1100 Lakeshore Drive,

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I should have gone to New York then.

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But somebody offered me this place to trade it.

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I didn't pass cent for this place,

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and somebody offered me a million dollars the other day.

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I mean, I thought, why don't I sell it

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and go out and have some fun with a million dollars.

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You could have quite a lot of fun.

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I suppose.

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But I like it now.

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I don't want to go.

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Well, but you certainly did see the world a lot when you were very young.

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Oh, yes, I did.

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I certainly did, yeah.

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I was...

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I know that we want to talk about Ravina today in the ballet operas,

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but I thought we might start by talking a little bit about your ballet teachers,

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your dancing teachers, because they've been interesting.

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Do you remember your first teacher, Anna Stanton?

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I certainly do.

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She taught what they called then fancy dancing.

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Fancy dancing.

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Fancy dancing.

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And it was in Indianapolis,

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and she was the only teacher there.

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I don't remember, I didn't learn anything, of course.

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She was my first teacher.

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And then when Pavlova came to Indianapolis,

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I asked for her,

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and she asked me to come up here to study with her.

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So I did that, came to the Midway Gardens,

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and then she sent a teacher to Indianapolis to teach me.

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His name was Zalewski.

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Jan Zalewski.

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Yes, and he was going to have to take...

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it was ready for him to take a vacation,

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so Pavlova said,

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well, you just teach her for an hour or two a day,

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and that'll be a nice vacation for you,

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and it'll be very good for little Ruthie.

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So he came to Indianapolis,

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and he didn't speak a word of French or English

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or any language, as far as I can see,

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so we didn't communicate very well,

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but I think those were my first teachers.

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Now, there's a wonderful story

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about your auditioning for Pavlova,

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about what she did with your hair.

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You danced for her,

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and then she...

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so the story goes,

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she took and un-pinned your hair.

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Oh, yes, she parted in the middle

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and said, these years fall down.

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I'm a dancer,

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so I always wore my hair part in the middle

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until I stopped dancing.

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It is a nice way for a dancer

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to wear their hair.

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They should wear it.

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It was a wonderful, beautiful gesture

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for her to do that.

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Well, she was a genius, you know.

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Nobody liked Pavlova.

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Yeah, you've said

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that she is one of the major influences.

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Oh, yes.

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I think that everybody who saw her

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was affected in some way by her.

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I know all my generation

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were inspired to dance because of her,

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like Frederick Ashton, Sir Frederick Ashton,

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and Agnes DeMille,

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and all of us who were around the same age.

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And she came to every little town.

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Imagine a great star going to Indianapolis.

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But she came and she danced.

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Oh, she was so great.

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And so,

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I don't think there's been anybody

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since her who was as good as she is.

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Was it, Ruth, that she was

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so expressive?

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Was that?

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Yes, she had a charisma.

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And when she danced, you know, her whole body,

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she didn't do anything hard.

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The dancers of today,

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what they have to do is so hard.

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And they have to be able to do everything,

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a million technical things, you know.

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And they do them marvelously.

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The dancers of today are terrific.

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They can do everything,

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even all the quarter ballet dancers.

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I watched the class at the Paris Opera

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ballet just recently.

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And those girls,

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they're all the same size,

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the same height, they're all tall,

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and they all dance like a million dollars.

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But they don't have anything to dance.

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That Paris Opera is a mess.

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They don't give them anything to dance.

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What about a sense of personal style, too?

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Did you learn the importance of that from Pavlova?

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Oh, no, I didn't.

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I don't think so, no.

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You had it already?

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Yeah, I think so.

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I didn't want to be like anybody else.

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Now they're all just alike.

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And that Ailey Company that I saw last night,

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they're terrific dancers.

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They can do everything.

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Yeah, they can. They're good.

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What did you think of the program last night?

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What? What did you think of the program?

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Oh, I liked it very much.

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Tali Bidi is an old friend of mine. He's danced with me a lot.

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He did a new ballet, which was very good.

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And they did the thing

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that they do all the time, you know,

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those hymns.

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They do that on every program.

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I talked to him about it, Ailey,

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about it last night.

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He said, you must be sick of doing that.

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And he said, everybody, that's all they want.

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And I know what he means.

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I don't know whether it's worse to be a big success or a big failure.

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What do you mean?

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Well, what I mean is not like my Mary Widow is so successful,

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I just can't get rid of it.

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People won't take anything out.

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Oh, no, no, no, no, we want the Mary Widow.

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We like your Mary Widow.

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And he's that way with that.

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He's been doing it for 35 years or something.

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And it is a wonderful ballet.

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It's marvelous.

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And they do it marvelously.

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But of course, if you're a complete failure,

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then I suppose you don't do anything.

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And something in between is sort of uninteresting, too.

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So there you...

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I don't know.

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It's boring to be stuck with your successes

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and be doing them over and over again.

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Yes, very boring.

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Is there anything that you remember

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going back to the dancing teachers

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about Celebski?

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I mean, that must have been your first

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serious dance performance

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or dance training.

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Well, he taught me the fundamentals

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of the technique, ballet technique.

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I don't know if he's a good teacher or not.

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I was so young and we couldn't talk.

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And Pavlov had set him so I suppose

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he must have been all right.

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I don't remember very much about him.

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And then after you moved to New York,

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after you graduated

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and you went to New York

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to the French school,

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to finishing school...

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Pavlov sent you to someone else.

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That's when she sent you to Adolf Böhm,

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who was really, you said,

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your great first...

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great teacher, I suppose, in a way.

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Well, he was not a good teacher at all.

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He really wasn't.

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He didn't like to teach.

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He would stand, you know,

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and you'd be doing your barre

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and he'd do his pointe tenders like that.

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They should be done like that, you know.

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You mean his tennis balls?

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His technique was not very good?

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Well, he was a character dancer.

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He was marvelous as Prince Igor.

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Zinijinsky was the great classical one.

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I never saw him.

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But Böhm was a great character dancer

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and he was a wonderful man.

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But he wasn't a good teacher at all.

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I don't think.

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Why do you think Pavlov sent him to you?

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Well, he's a great personality

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and he was doing things.

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And you could learn, if you were smart,

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you could learn so much from him.

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But if you were just an ordinary pupil,

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I don't think you could ever say he could teach you much.

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But if you were an artist yourself,

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or sort of a potential artist,

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I thought he was marvelous.

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He was terrific.

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What influences,

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what do you think you really gained from him, Ruth,

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that was especially valuable to you later on?

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I know you spent a number of years working with him.

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But when you came to him for the first time,

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which was, I think, in 19...

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The first time I was in school.

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What year was that?

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1917.

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You were 17 years old

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when you began studying with Adolf Böhm.

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And you were then, after all, just new.

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As you say, his bar technique,

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I think you say someplace,

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left a little bit to be desired.

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Well, he didn't like to teach at all.

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He liked to create, and he liked to...

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He was interested in other things besides dancing, too.

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Oh.

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Yeah.

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He was very interested in music.

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And the theater.

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He was interested in everything.

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And technique for him was...

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I mean, he was really a disciple of folking.

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So technique was not important or not the main object.

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No.

272
00:10:50.460 --> 00:10:52.280
He and folking were sort of...

273
00:10:52.280 --> 00:10:54.560
I don't think he was especially interested in folking.

274
00:10:55.720 --> 00:10:55.720


275
00:10:56.620 --> 00:10:57.860
I was interested in folking

276
00:10:57.860 --> 00:10:59.820
because folking was a great choreographer.

277
00:11:00.920 --> 00:11:02.960
And Böhm, I don't think, was a great choreographer.

278
00:11:03.160 --> 00:11:04.140
He was adequate.

279
00:11:04.960 --> 00:11:06.600
No, I guess he was not really a great...

280
00:11:06.600 --> 00:11:08.220
He had been Pavlov's partner.

281
00:11:08.220 --> 00:11:08.720
Yeah.

282
00:11:09.540 --> 00:11:11.820
And he is really...

283
00:11:11.820 --> 00:11:14.560
I think it was when he started his ballet school in New York.

284
00:11:14.680 --> 00:11:16.180
He had just...

285
00:11:16.180 --> 00:11:16.780
I don't know.

286
00:11:17.060 --> 00:11:18.940
I think as the story goes,

287
00:11:19.640 --> 00:11:22.460
he decided to stay with his family in New York

288
00:11:22.460 --> 00:11:23.780
because of the Russian Revolution.

289
00:11:24.620 --> 00:11:25.140
And Pavlov said,

290
00:11:25.400 --> 00:11:27.180
Well, you should open a school, Adolf.

291
00:11:27.400 --> 00:11:28.820
And you should teach Ruth.

292
00:11:30.540 --> 00:11:31.920
His daughter was...

293
00:11:31.920 --> 00:11:34.900
His stepdaughter was the same age as I am.

294
00:11:35.220 --> 00:11:35.700
Oh.

295
00:11:36.080 --> 00:11:37.980
She was my best friend, Balachkabal.

296
00:11:39.920 --> 00:11:43.240
And she wasn't a dancer.

297
00:11:44.460 --> 00:11:47.340
His wife wasn't a dancer either.

298
00:11:47.760 --> 00:11:48.580
Mrs. Baum.

299
00:11:49.280 --> 00:11:53.440
It must have been nice to have a friend who was at least understanding of the world of

300
00:11:53.440 --> 00:11:58.380
dance because I don't imagine there were too many people at the French school for girls

301
00:11:58.380 --> 00:12:00.420
who understood much about dance.

302
00:12:00.520 --> 00:12:01.080
Or am I wrong?

303
00:12:01.240 --> 00:12:03.540
Were there a lot of young girls interested in dance in those days?

304
00:12:03.540 --> 00:12:05.340
No, I don't think anybody was.

305
00:12:05.340 --> 00:12:10.480
I think I was only one in that great school that was interested in dance.

306
00:12:10.780 --> 00:12:13.360
They weren't interested in anything as far as I could see.

307
00:12:15.420 --> 00:12:19.460
They were also willing to let you, they were pretty flexible in their curriculum.

308
00:12:19.620 --> 00:12:25.500
I mean when you picked up a year later and went on tour with Pavlova the school said,

309
00:12:26.060 --> 00:12:28.040
fine, you know, right, no problem.

310
00:12:29.400 --> 00:12:29.500
Yeah, yeah.

311
00:12:29.620 --> 00:12:30.300
It was true.

312
00:12:31.120 --> 00:12:32.740
But I did not get any education.

313
00:12:32.820 --> 00:12:34.180
I'm not educated at all.

314
00:12:34.180 --> 00:12:35.140
I really am not.

315
00:12:36.080 --> 00:12:37.120
I didn't go to college.

316
00:12:37.380 --> 00:12:40.800
I graduated from Tudor Hall, which was a very, very good school.

317
00:12:41.280 --> 00:12:43.420
I remember I was president of my class.

318
00:12:43.680 --> 00:12:44.040
I know.

319
00:12:44.160 --> 00:12:45.440
That was fun.

320
00:12:46.960 --> 00:12:49.140
And I think it was an excellent school.

321
00:12:49.340 --> 00:12:51.500
But we learned such useless things.

322
00:12:51.920 --> 00:12:52.320
Like what?

323
00:12:52.700 --> 00:12:57.600
Well, I mean, I studied Latin for five years and I think that's completely useless.

324
00:12:58.120 --> 00:12:59.700
Why not study a living language?

325
00:12:59.760 --> 00:13:01.660
And we studied Caesar's Bridge.

326
00:13:01.660 --> 00:13:03.740
I can see that bridge right now.

327
00:13:04.040 --> 00:13:08.600
Every detail of it was up there and we had to learn what each bolt was.

328
00:13:09.020 --> 00:13:10.920
Well, what do you teach that for?

329
00:13:11.040 --> 00:13:12.080
To girls?

330
00:13:13.040 --> 00:13:14.860
Maybe boys would be interested in it.

331
00:13:14.860 --> 00:13:18.700
But I thought that was a silly thing to learn.

332
00:13:19.420 --> 00:13:20.920
Trying to think what else we learned.

333
00:13:22.420 --> 00:13:23.880
Well, of course, we studied.

334
00:13:24.580 --> 00:13:29.140
They had lecturers who came once a week, which is interesting, who sort of stimulated us.

335
00:13:29.140 --> 00:13:35.780
I remember one poet was his name, B-O-W-Y-S, John Copper Poets.

336
00:13:35.840 --> 00:13:42.600
He used to talk about good and make those girls read good and all kinds of things that

337
00:13:42.600 --> 00:13:44.280
we'd never heard of before, you know.

338
00:13:44.920 --> 00:13:48.700
That was interesting for school, Middle West, I think.

339
00:13:50.020 --> 00:13:54.700
It was also later on you wrote, 1924, you wrote an article where you said,

340
00:13:54.700 --> 00:14:04.800
Dancers should have a thorough understanding of music, sculpture, literature, and painting

341
00:14:04.800 --> 00:14:07.740
if you're ever going to do anything of real artistic value.

342
00:14:08.080 --> 00:14:11.000
My God, the horse of wisdom from the young.

343
00:14:12.900 --> 00:14:14.760
That's a pretty big order, don't you think?

344
00:14:14.900 --> 00:14:15.900
Yeah, I do think.

345
00:14:16.380 --> 00:14:18.280
That's a very big order.

346
00:14:20.560 --> 00:14:20.560


347
00:14:21.800 --> 00:14:26.320
What you were really, I mean, that wasn't merely what you said, that's how you began.

348
00:14:26.420 --> 00:14:30.080
And then you said that the reason why that you thought that was important was because

349
00:14:30.080 --> 00:14:32.620
you really needed in order to do.

350
00:14:32.660 --> 00:14:37.820
And it's very interesting that you wrote this in 1924 when you had really not even begun

351
00:14:37.820 --> 00:14:43.520
to choreograph in any kind of serious way because you pointed out, you said, it's very

352
00:14:43.520 --> 00:14:47.460
difficult, you need to do a great deal of research if you're going to do anything original

353
00:14:47.460 --> 00:14:49.080
and important in dance.

354
00:14:49.080 --> 00:14:52.080
You need to understand about things.

355
00:14:53.780 --> 00:14:55.900
Has research been an important part?

356
00:14:56.140 --> 00:14:56.740
Research?

357
00:14:59.100 --> 00:15:00.740
Well, I don't remember doing any.

358
00:15:03.660 --> 00:15:06.840
Oh, you did a lot of dance everywhere you went when you traveled.

359
00:15:07.040 --> 00:15:09.360
Oh, well, yes, I was interested in everything.

360
00:15:10.580 --> 00:15:16.480
When I traveled around the world, I studied the local dances wherever I went.

361
00:15:19.020 --> 00:15:25.580
My father, I remember coming home from Japan, what they call via ports, it means via all

362
00:15:25.580 --> 00:15:33.800
the, and my father said that he would go to see all the folk dancing with me if I would

363
00:15:33.800 --> 00:15:35.820
go to see all the hospitals with him.

364
00:15:36.840 --> 00:15:40.680
So I've seen every hospital in the Orient and I was extremely interested in it.

365
00:15:40.940 --> 00:15:41.780
I really was.

366
00:15:41.800 --> 00:15:45.560
It was awfully interesting to see how the different hospitals were run and how they

367
00:15:45.560 --> 00:15:46.520
were different from ours.

368
00:15:46.720 --> 00:15:55.920
I don't know how much he enjoyed the folk dancing, but I remember one night, the folk

369
00:15:55.920 --> 00:16:00.380
dancing, I think it was in Rangoon or something, didn't start till midnight and it went on

370
00:16:00.380 --> 00:16:04.040
until about 6 o'clock in the morning and about 4 o'clock, he said, Ruth, haven't you had

371
00:16:04.040 --> 00:16:04.380
enough?

372
00:16:04.640 --> 00:16:07.480
I said, oh, no, father, you've got to stay till the end.

373
00:16:07.940 --> 00:16:09.160
That was our bargain.

374
00:16:09.680 --> 00:16:12.600
So poor father had to tell the lie.

375
00:16:14.520 --> 00:16:15.800
But you love those dances.

376
00:16:15.800 --> 00:16:17.140
That was a long trip.

377
00:16:17.240 --> 00:16:20.540
I mean, that was an eight month trip when you came back.

378
00:16:20.880 --> 00:16:23.500
Well, yes, according to you, it was eight months long.

379
00:16:23.980 --> 00:16:28.520
You've written some very interesting things about the dances that you saw in ballet, for

380
00:16:28.520 --> 00:16:28.820
example.

381
00:16:28.840 --> 00:16:32.380
Well, that's the most interesting place in the world as far as artists are concerned,

382
00:16:32.380 --> 00:16:32.880
I think.

383
00:16:33.840 --> 00:16:34.320
Why?

384
00:16:34.780 --> 00:16:35.760
Why especially?

385
00:16:35.760 --> 00:16:40.220
Well, because they have such marvelous music and they have wonderful dancers and the place

386
00:16:40.220 --> 00:16:45.880
is beautiful and they don't seem to have anything that isn't beautiful there.

387
00:16:46.740 --> 00:16:53.480
They have rice fields that are beautiful and everybody seems to be able to dance for some

388
00:16:53.480 --> 00:16:53.780
reason.

389
00:16:54.020 --> 00:16:59.440
They're all dancers and wonderful music and beautiful costumes.

390
00:17:00.000 --> 00:17:00.800
Don't you want a cookie?

391
00:17:02.520 --> 00:17:04.380
These are homemade cookies.

392
00:17:04.640 --> 00:17:05.540
They're very good.

393
00:17:05.940 --> 00:17:06.860
Don't give me any.

394
00:17:06.860 --> 00:17:07.340
Do you want any?

395
00:17:07.440 --> 00:17:09.360
No, I'll choke on them.

396
00:17:10.820 --> 00:17:12.560
I'll have them in a minute.

397
00:17:13.680 --> 00:17:21.040
You talked about the dancing in ballet where the children's dance is apparently really

398
00:17:21.040 --> 00:17:21.320
impressive.

399
00:17:21.340 --> 00:17:22.200
Oh, that lagong.

400
00:17:22.560 --> 00:17:24.740
Yes, the two little girls do that together.

401
00:17:25.320 --> 00:17:27.960
It's a gorgeous dance, a marvelous dance.

402
00:17:28.100 --> 00:17:28.940
I learned it.

403
00:17:29.740 --> 00:17:30.760
You learned it?

404
00:17:30.760 --> 00:17:33.740
Well, you don't say that in the things that I've read so far.

405
00:17:34.400 --> 00:17:35.520
You learned it.

406
00:17:35.520 --> 00:17:38.660
It's a very long, complicated dance.

407
00:17:38.660 --> 00:17:40.760
I stayed there a month with my mother.

408
00:17:40.780 --> 00:17:44.840
I don't know what happened to him, but mother stayed in ballet with me.

409
00:17:45.100 --> 00:17:49.700
We stayed for at least a month and I worked every day on the dances.

410
00:17:52.320 --> 00:17:56.620
You talked about how the teaching is done there.

411
00:17:57.500 --> 00:18:00.160
Somebody dances and then you follow them.

412
00:18:00.160 --> 00:18:01.400
How does that work?

413
00:18:02.080 --> 00:18:02.380
It's different.

414
00:18:02.380 --> 00:18:03.300
Well, it seems to be fun.

415
00:18:03.500 --> 00:18:07.740
One little girl gets back, the other little girl pushes her arms in the right positions

416
00:18:07.740 --> 00:18:10.440
and her head and shows her everything.

417
00:18:11.160 --> 00:18:13.140
It doesn't talk, they just show.

418
00:18:13.980 --> 00:18:15.500
Push your arms in the right way.

419
00:18:15.520 --> 00:18:17.140
It's a very strange way to teach.

420
00:18:17.400 --> 00:18:19.100
We don't teach that way at all.

421
00:18:20.400 --> 00:18:23.500
Also I guess they go through it from beginning to end.

422
00:18:23.560 --> 00:18:26.600
They don't do one part over and over and over again.

423
00:18:26.680 --> 00:18:30.920
They do the whole thing from beginning to end and then start over and do it over again.

424
00:18:30.940 --> 00:18:33.140
Well, they do some repeats.

425
00:18:33.320 --> 00:18:35.960
By the time I got there, they knew all the dances.

426
00:18:36.740 --> 00:18:39.300
I don't think they learned them that way.

427
00:18:39.580 --> 00:18:41.660
I don't know, but I don't think they did.

428
00:18:42.480 --> 00:18:44.360
What did they think when you wanted to learn?

429
00:18:44.460 --> 00:18:45.940
That's a religious dance.

430
00:18:46.600 --> 00:18:50.240
Well, they're religious dances and dances for pleasure, both.

431
00:18:51.420 --> 00:18:53.720
It's hard to tell the difference, which is which.

432
00:18:54.020 --> 00:19:00.160
They're also done with the fans and the finger fluttering and all, fingers going and the

433
00:19:00.160 --> 00:19:00.760
eyes going.

434
00:19:01.520 --> 00:19:04.520
But I don't know what they thought of my...

435
00:19:07.160 --> 00:19:11.900
We couldn't talk because they didn't speak any language that I knew.

436
00:19:12.240 --> 00:19:13.860
I didn't speak any language that they didn't know.

437
00:19:14.100 --> 00:19:17.960
When I told them I was going back to America, they said, where's America?

438
00:19:18.020 --> 00:19:18.980
Is it in Java?

439
00:19:20.280 --> 00:19:21.140
Isn't that sweet?

440
00:19:21.140 --> 00:19:21.520
Yes.

441
00:19:22.400 --> 00:19:24.260
That shows how innocent they are.

442
00:19:24.420 --> 00:19:27.040
They're probably sophisticated now.

443
00:19:27.880 --> 00:19:30.400
Yeah, I guess the whole world's grown more sophisticated.