WEBVTT 1 00:00:27.160 --> 00:00:27.640 Okay. 2 00:00:27.720 --> 00:00:29.840 So after hearing the amnesia, what were we talking about? 3 00:00:31.840 --> 00:00:34.840 I forgot you were still on the question about the... 4 00:00:38.400 --> 00:00:38.640 Oh. 5 00:00:38.920 --> 00:00:39.440 Wait a minute. 6 00:00:40.380 --> 00:00:40.980 This is terrible. 7 00:00:40.980 --> 00:00:41.700 It's too early in the morning. 8 00:00:41.840 --> 00:00:42.780 Usually I make a note. 9 00:00:43.040 --> 00:00:43.680 Do you want me to cut? 10 00:00:44.080 --> 00:00:44.420 No. 11 00:00:44.680 --> 00:00:45.440 It probably gets all right. 12 00:00:48.080 --> 00:00:48.880 It was... 13 00:00:48.880 --> 00:00:52.960 You were talking about, we were talking about rich people and the effect of their companies. 14 00:00:53.060 --> 00:00:53.460 Oh, yeah. 15 00:00:53.460 --> 00:00:54.520 She wanted... 16 00:00:54.520 --> 00:00:54.680 Yeah. 17 00:00:55.280 --> 00:00:56.000 And what... 18 00:00:56.680 --> 00:00:57.120 Right. 19 00:00:57.160 --> 00:00:58.140 She was a creative figure. 20 00:00:58.140 --> 00:00:58.880 Yes, right. 21 00:00:59.780 --> 00:00:59.800 Okay. 22 00:00:59.800 --> 00:01:02.520 I think that's where we actually went into the middle. 23 00:01:03.960 --> 00:01:04.260 Okay. 24 00:01:05.900 --> 00:01:13.600 The thing to remember is that at that time you really did have a philistine attitude 25 00:01:13.600 --> 00:01:19.320 toward dancing in this country and the point was who was going to found a ballet company 26 00:01:19.320 --> 00:01:23.220 and you couldn't always wait for Balanchine to come from Europe. 27 00:01:25.680 --> 00:01:27.980 And the people who did find... 28 00:01:27.980 --> 00:01:29.140 Let's start again. 29 00:01:29.480 --> 00:01:34.800 The people who did found ballet companies were either creative figures or wealthy patrons 30 00:01:34.800 --> 00:01:37.580 and Ruth Page really tried to be both. 31 00:01:37.620 --> 00:01:41.420 She wanted to be creative and she did realize she would have to do it herself. 32 00:01:42.100 --> 00:01:50.120 Having said that, it's all right to have the money to get a head start but what you really 33 00:01:50.120 --> 00:01:55.820 need is the money to keep it going and there has been basically a prejudice against people 34 00:01:56.440 --> 00:02:01.240 who act as patrons because the assumption is well then they don't need any more money 35 00:02:01.240 --> 00:02:02.680 which isn't really true. 36 00:02:04.460 --> 00:02:12.200 The problem with the patron run companies is how much of their own work or themselves 37 00:02:12.200 --> 00:02:19.400 do they want to show in the company and that's where you get into some questionable issues. 38 00:02:20.360 --> 00:02:24.560 What I was getting at with that question is that actually Ruth's company was financed, 39 00:02:24.580 --> 00:02:30.680 no kidding, out of Columbia Artist Management when they were doing those tours and they 40 00:02:30.680 --> 00:02:35.180 danced at the Lyric Opera with the little ballets that are inside the operas, inside 41 00:02:35.180 --> 00:02:38.880 many operas and that was really how they kept it together. 42 00:02:39.440 --> 00:02:43.720 Tom Fisher saved enough money each year so there could be at least one fairly big new 43 00:02:43.720 --> 00:02:45.460 ballet every season. 44 00:02:45.460 --> 00:02:51.580 And when the tour ended after 17 years, that was the end of the company. 45 00:02:53.660 --> 00:02:58.000 And yet there is this feeling that she was just sort of a rich patron. 46 00:03:00.440 --> 00:03:06.080 What Ruth Page really did wasn't very different from what modern dancers did and every modern 47 00:03:06.080 --> 00:03:12.520 dancer until recently formed a company to show off her own choreography. 48 00:03:12.520 --> 00:03:18.860 Every modern dancer wanted to dance. Every modern dancer felt therefore that he had to 49 00:03:18.860 --> 00:03:24.360 break away from a previous mentor and then do his or her own thing and that is in fact 50 00:03:24.360 --> 00:03:26.180 the basis of American modern dance. 51 00:03:26.860 --> 00:03:34.580 John Martin, who was the Times critic during the time that Ruth Page was most active, said 52 00:03:34.580 --> 00:03:39.060 modern dance is not a system, it is a point of view and Ruth Page didn't do anything 53 00:03:39.620 --> 00:03:42.780 that was any different from what modern dance choreographers did. 54 00:03:43.160 --> 00:03:49.200 However, in ballet we tend to think of companies as eclectic and that they should really have 55 00:03:49.200 --> 00:03:54.920 a repertory of many works. This was of course modified by George Balanchine when he founded 56 00:03:54.920 --> 00:03:58.900 the New York City Ballet with Lincoln Christine but even in those early days they had works 57 00:03:58.900 --> 00:04:00.060 by many choreographers. 58 00:04:02.460 --> 00:04:07.800 Of course there is no question that she was interested in showing her own work. You can't 59 00:04:07.800 --> 00:04:14.880 get away from that but then as I said if you think of her as a modern dance mind working 60 00:04:14.880 --> 00:04:19.980 within a ballet context I think she comes into perspective a little more clearly. 61 00:04:21.220 --> 00:04:25.400 Someone has called her to me the American Massine. What do you think of that idea? 62 00:04:26.620 --> 00:04:33.280 Well to call her the American Massine really depends on what you think of Massine and he's 63 00:04:33.280 --> 00:04:39.100 got a favor at the moment. Leonid Massine was definitely the top international choreographer 64 00:04:39.100 --> 00:04:47.800 in the 30s and 40s and maybe his reputation will rise again. At the moment I would say 65 00:04:47.800 --> 00:04:53.400 that it's a midpoint, it's not an entire low. His ballets are not being given today, 66 00:04:53.440 --> 00:04:58.340 maybe for the same reason that we don't see as many of Ruth Page's ballets, which is that 67 00:04:58.340 --> 00:05:06.980 he specialized in character ballet and that involved steps as well as images that didn't 68 00:05:06.980 --> 00:05:14.320 have a purely classical image. Maybe she isn't a purely classical choreographer though it 69 00:05:14.320 --> 00:05:21.140 seems to me from what I've seen of her footwork that's what her vocabulary was, classical 70 00:05:21.140 --> 00:05:28.100 ballet. However she didn't do pure dance, plotless ballets and that's what's been in 71 00:05:28.100 --> 00:05:38.120 favor. Massine who worked in a wider range than people think is what you would call 72 00:05:38.120 --> 00:05:40.060 somebody interested in character ballet. 73 00:05:41.280 --> 00:05:53.700 Last question. In what ways would you say that American dance is richer for the fact 74 00:05:53.700 --> 00:05:55.460 that Ruth Page has been a part of it? 75 00:05:56.280 --> 00:06:03.140 American dance certainly has been enriched by the idea that anybody even thought that 76 00:06:03.140 --> 00:06:11.080 America could have a ballet company in the 20s and 1930s and also by the fact that she 77 00:06:11.080 --> 00:06:16.940 showed that ballet didn't have to be one thing. I really think that every time you see Frankie 78 00:06:16.940 --> 00:06:24.760 and Johnny you see a specifically American flavor. There's no way that Frankie and Johnny 79 00:06:24.760 --> 00:06:26.500 could have been choreographed in Europe. 80 00:06:29.300 --> 00:06:32.980 My usual, that really was the last question. The last question I ask always in an interview 81 00:06:32.980 --> 00:06:38.000 is is there anything which I haven't asked you that you'd like to say? 82 00:06:41.000 --> 00:06:45.140 The only thing I really want to stress is I do think that Ruth Page isn't American original. 83 00:06:45.400 --> 00:06:52.460 That's a very hard term to define but she's typical of a certain kind of American artist, 84 00:06:52.460 --> 00:07:02.300 especially a woman who would be found in the 20s and 30s, even the 40s. Today that kind 85 00:07:02.300 --> 00:07:07.920 of figure does not stand out. Perhaps there are more of them and therefore they don't 86 00:07:07.920 --> 00:07:12.540 look original but certainly in her time she was an original. 87 00:07:14.160 --> 00:07:16.200 Thank you. Wonderful. Did I miss anything in the letter? 88 00:07:16.200 --> 00:07:22.880 I just was curious if you have any personal memories of Ms. Page, an incident that you, 89 00:07:22.880 --> 00:07:27.520 they kind of give us an insight on her character that you know is something that happened to 90 00:07:27.520 --> 00:07:27.620 you. 91 00:07:30.420 --> 00:07:36.940 Well I've seen Ruth Page in a variety of settings, at Jacob's Pillow, at the Royal Theater in 92 00:07:36.940 --> 00:07:45.080 Copenhagen in her magnificent apartment in Chicago, at lectures, at performances. She 93 00:07:45.080 --> 00:07:53.880 always struck me as being one of the boys and the thing is I think she's very interested. 94 00:07:54.760 --> 00:08:06.900 As I said, you always expect her to put her leg up on the table and you know you do always 95 00:08:06.900 --> 00:08:14.360 expect her also to be wearing, I don't know, purple gloves with black tape and some strange 96 00:08:14.360 --> 00:08:19.920 scarf and a green turban and I don't think she does it for effect. I think she does it 97 00:08:19.920 --> 00:08:25.300 because she likes it and that's the main thing about her. I think she's enjoyed what she's 98 00:08:25.300 --> 00:08:25.300 99 00:08:25.840 --> 00:08:28.460 Great. Thank you. This is wonderful.