WEBVTT 1 00:00:08.680 --> 00:00:10.640 Check, check, check, check. 2 00:00:12.920 --> 00:00:16.580 This is tape number 18, it's 3 July 85. 3 00:00:17.260 --> 00:00:21.440 We're in the backstage of the School of Ballet, Ruth Page School of Ballet. 4 00:00:21.840 --> 00:00:26.220 We're attending the archival tapes for Ruth Page and the Ruth Page Foundation. 5 00:00:26.220 --> 00:00:32.320 This will be Theoflom Productions and bars and tones on the first several tapes. 6 00:00:32.560 --> 00:00:36.300 This is tape number 18. Tone will only be on channel 1, channel 2 will be mic, 7 00:00:38.680 --> 00:00:45.040 lavalier mic. Channel 1 will be the boom mic of our guest and Theoflom. 8 00:01:05.960 --> 00:01:07.580 Are you hearing that piano back? 9 00:01:08.280 --> 00:01:10.640 Yes. We can't know it with choice. 10 00:01:11.220 --> 00:01:12.240 Can't close that door. Close that door. 11 00:01:12.320 --> 00:01:14.880 We've got to like close that door. No, no, no, no, no. 12 00:01:15.020 --> 00:01:17.980 We're lighting from there. That's where your backlight comes from Dolores. 13 00:01:18.140 --> 00:01:18.840 That makes it look so pretty. 14 00:01:19.800 --> 00:01:21.680 Can you try and stay out of this area? 15 00:01:22.240 --> 00:01:24.820 Thanks. Well, we're used to having people walk through. 16 00:01:25.660 --> 00:01:28.320 Okay, now you need to look at me, right, Finn? 17 00:01:28.400 --> 00:01:28.960 Exactly. 18 00:01:28.960 --> 00:01:31.440 Exactly at me. Okay, here we go. 19 00:01:33.440 --> 00:01:37.120 You've known Ruth for at least 29 years. 20 00:01:38.420 --> 00:01:39.760 When did you meet Ruth Dolores? 21 00:01:40.380 --> 00:01:48.980 Well, I first came downtown to study in 1948 and I think I danced for her about a year after that. 22 00:01:48.980 --> 00:01:58.460 The first thing I did, it was a pas de deux that she had done Sylvia and she used two children in it to be cupids that kept bringing this couple together. 23 00:01:59.160 --> 00:02:04.040 And I was one of those little girls. That was the first time I danced for her. 24 00:02:04.660 --> 00:02:11.300 And then after that we had lots of things we did at St. Helphonsus. 25 00:02:11.300 --> 00:02:18.120 We went on a tour for six weeks at one point to North Dakota and Iowa and small places. 26 00:02:19.200 --> 00:02:22.580 And we did a little bit of touring here and there. 27 00:02:23.220 --> 00:02:26.040 And it sort of, things grew and grew and grew. 28 00:02:26.160 --> 00:02:30.500 And before you knew it, she had Lyric and we went right into Lyric from high school. 29 00:02:31.000 --> 00:02:33.740 And then the company started out of that. 30 00:02:34.100 --> 00:02:37.000 And so in a funny way, she made our careers happen. 31 00:02:38.060 --> 00:02:51.220 I sometimes think that you and Orin and Pat and Larry are the closest thing that Ruth has to really children, to family. 32 00:02:53.400 --> 00:02:58.700 How do you look at her? I mean, it's not quite like that for you, is it? 33 00:02:58.880 --> 00:03:02.980 Well, yes it is kind of like that. I didn't think so when it was happening. 34 00:03:02.980 --> 00:03:10.820 But now as I look at it, I mean her influence on our lives is tremendous because we started with her so young 35 00:03:10.820 --> 00:03:15.920 that she had to influence your taste in dancing and clothes. 36 00:03:15.920 --> 00:03:19.080 She put us in the most expensive costumes, beautiful things. 37 00:03:19.800 --> 00:03:26.000 So I acquired a taste for very expensive clothes and good looking things and art. 38 00:03:26.000 --> 00:03:32.680 We had famous artists do the costumes and scenery and exposed us to all of that. 39 00:03:33.220 --> 00:03:35.380 Great music, being in the opera. 40 00:03:35.980 --> 00:03:40.120 My husband said I'm exactly, I'm like her very much now. 41 00:03:40.180 --> 00:03:45.720 But it's because of the influence of being around her that long period of time. 42 00:03:46.160 --> 00:03:51.700 When I think about it, I probably spent as much time with her as I did with my mother and father, really. 43 00:03:53.140 --> 00:03:58.820 And outside of my two teachers and my parents, Miss Paige has to be the biggest influence in my whole life. 44 00:03:59.620 --> 00:04:03.340 When I look at dancers today, if their hat is not right, I go, oh, what's wrong with them? 45 00:04:03.360 --> 00:04:04.720 They don't know how to wear a hat. 46 00:04:04.800 --> 00:04:09.920 And that was what she was always saying to us. Oh, you don't know how to wear a hat. Tilt that. 47 00:04:10.080 --> 00:04:11.220 You know, put that on an angle. 48 00:04:12.160 --> 00:04:15.780 And she really had a tremendous influence on our lives. 49 00:04:16.840 --> 00:04:17.980 Gave us discipline. 50 00:04:17.980 --> 00:04:22.360 When we were young, she really, if you weren't in class, she said, where were you this morning? 51 00:04:22.460 --> 00:04:24.140 And you'd better have a good excuse. 52 00:04:25.120 --> 00:04:27.920 And I still do class, even though I don't perform anymore. 53 00:04:27.940 --> 00:04:29.400 I come to class every day. 54 00:04:29.920 --> 00:04:31.620 And I think it was because of her. 55 00:04:31.800 --> 00:04:38.420 She drilled that into you, that that was important for a dancer to take on that kind of responsibility. 56 00:04:39.440 --> 00:04:42.020 And also she gave us tremendous opportunities. 57 00:04:42.260 --> 00:04:47.260 Now, Patricia and myself did the Mary Widow, the lead in the Mary Widow at the same time. 58 00:04:47.260 --> 00:04:54.200 And we must have been somewhere between 17 and 21 carrying a ballet, you know, the responsibility. 59 00:04:54.400 --> 00:05:03.460 And you couldn't do that if somebody hadn't really laid down the law and given you kind of discipline prior to that. 60 00:05:03.580 --> 00:05:06.660 And she didn't. At the time, it was hard to take, you know. 61 00:05:07.440 --> 00:05:14.440 But thank God she did because it allowed us to take on the responsibility of doing leads of ballets much earlier 62 00:05:14.440 --> 00:05:18.720 than most people probably would have, and especially at that time. 63 00:05:20.120 --> 00:05:24.200 Nobody considered you an artist until you were in your 30s in those days. 64 00:05:24.960 --> 00:05:30.340 And here we were, youngsters, and getting opportunities to really do lots of things like that. 65 00:05:30.460 --> 00:05:33.500 Of course, then Balanchine really changed all of that. 66 00:05:33.540 --> 00:05:38.100 And he wanted younger and younger and younger dancers doing things sooner. 67 00:05:38.720 --> 00:05:44.100 But we were very fortunate that she allowed that kind of thing to happen so early in our lives. 68 00:05:45.360 --> 00:05:50.500 What was your relationship like to her, Dolores, when you were starting out after all as a little girl? 69 00:05:51.340 --> 00:05:56.400 How did she seem to you? How do you remember her in those days? And how does she seem different to you now? 70 00:05:56.620 --> 00:06:00.220 She was a tough taskmaster in those days. 71 00:06:01.540 --> 00:06:05.740 I remember, now that I teach, that she didn't like when we laughed. 72 00:06:05.740 --> 00:06:11.760 And we were at that giggly age when girls really are silly and laugh about anything. 73 00:06:12.160 --> 00:06:14.600 And she would get very upset if we laughed. 74 00:06:15.380 --> 00:06:18.560 And now that I'm teaching, I have that age group. 75 00:06:18.600 --> 00:06:24.180 And I always say to them, God has given it back to me because now I have to deal with the gigglers. 76 00:06:24.380 --> 00:06:30.140 You know, if you try and get them to do things with style or something that's unusual or to use their imagination, 77 00:06:30.180 --> 00:06:32.940 they think it's silly. And I did too. 78 00:06:32.940 --> 00:06:39.600 But you get over that. And you need to have all of that experience to really carry off ballets. 79 00:06:40.360 --> 00:06:42.880 You're not always pretending that you're a person. 80 00:06:42.940 --> 00:06:47.420 Sometimes you pretend you're things and birds like Swan Lake and things. 81 00:06:47.480 --> 00:06:51.980 And you have to have imagination. And you need someone to stimulate that. 82 00:06:52.700 --> 00:07:02.060 And I remember I was fortunate when we first did Carmen at Lyric Opera to get the big dance on the table in the second act. 83 00:07:02.060 --> 00:07:06.260 And every time I went to rehearsals, she'd say, Oh, you're just awful in that. 84 00:07:06.400 --> 00:07:08.780 You just you don't understand how a Spanish dancer. 85 00:07:08.840 --> 00:07:13.920 Well, I hadn't really seen that many Spanish dancers in my life, but I didn't understand. 86 00:07:14.500 --> 00:07:19.820 And she kept after me and kept after me until finally one day I got very angry at her. 87 00:07:20.560 --> 00:07:25.660 And I think I gave her a little bit more of what she was looking for, a little more fire and music. 88 00:07:25.900 --> 00:07:27.940 And finally she said, Well, that's better. 89 00:07:27.940 --> 00:07:36.620 But now when we're working with dancers and we try we have to do something Spanish and you look at them, they lack all the flavor that you need. 90 00:07:36.720 --> 00:07:40.060 I mean, a Spanish dancer is temperament and style and all of this. 91 00:07:40.320 --> 00:07:45.520 And it's hard to get a young person to do that. But she got it out of you. 92 00:07:45.640 --> 00:07:48.780 She really did. And I admire her for that. 93 00:07:49.600 --> 00:07:54.600 At the time, it was hard, but everything in life is hard, really. 94 00:07:54.600 --> 00:08:00.380 And if somebody can get it out of you, I don't I don't think it matters which way they go about it. 95 00:08:00.380 --> 00:08:06.500 So long as the end result is there and that she got out of all of us in our own way. 96 00:08:06.500 --> 00:08:08.520 She treated us all very differently. 97 00:08:13.260 --> 00:08:18.420 But I think the result was worth whatever you went through to get it. 98 00:08:18.420 --> 00:08:26.300 And I think I wouldn't have been half the dancer I was if it hadn't been for her demands on us. 99 00:08:26.900 --> 00:08:30.860 She pushed you to as far as she thought you could go and beyond. 100 00:08:31.040 --> 00:08:37.500 And that's what people really need because you are capable of doing so much more than you think at the time. 101 00:08:37.960 --> 00:08:44.660 But if somebody isn't really demanding it from you, of course, you don't give as much as you can. 102 00:08:44.660 --> 00:08:51.020 And so you don't grow as an artist. And we did so many varied ballets where you played. 103 00:08:51.140 --> 00:08:58.800 I mean, I did Carmen and all kinds of wonderful things that I really enjoyed doing. 104 00:08:58.860 --> 00:09:05.280 I like doing story ballets. I think I probably was much more of a dramatic dancer than I was a classical dancer. 105 00:09:05.780 --> 00:09:10.680 And I like doing comic things. And I had lots of opportunities. 106 00:09:10.680 --> 00:09:14.740 I say now if I had my life to live over again, I would like to have been a comedian. 107 00:09:15.700 --> 00:09:18.920 It's nice to leave people laughing, I think, in the world. 108 00:09:19.560 --> 00:09:23.620 And we did lots of ballets where we got to use all of that kind of talent. 109 00:09:24.840 --> 00:09:28.740 So it wasn't just doing Swan Lake and the classical repertoire. 110 00:09:28.900 --> 00:09:35.040 We had lots of fun in all the things we did. And also the tours that we went on were very interesting. 111 00:09:35.100 --> 00:09:39.060 I say to our kids today, do you know what this country looks like? 112 00:09:39.060 --> 00:09:42.420 I mean, we went across. I toured 18 years with her. 113 00:09:42.620 --> 00:09:48.200 And we went across this country many, many times and to see the expanse of our country, 114 00:09:48.720 --> 00:09:55.120 to give you the feeling of moving big because we come from a big country like Russia is a large country. 115 00:09:55.620 --> 00:09:58.440 And the dancers in Russia dance very big. 116 00:09:58.520 --> 00:10:04.560 And then the dancers in America should dance big too because we come from a big country where there's lots of space and things. 117 00:10:04.560 --> 00:10:13.140 But I think if you don't see the country, you don't realize all of this and the effects it has on the way you dance and all the things we saw. 118 00:10:13.380 --> 00:10:19.800 I mean, the theaters, we played probably every theater, large and small, across the country and the experience. 119 00:10:19.840 --> 00:10:22.680 We danced so much more than the dancers dance today. 120 00:10:23.320 --> 00:10:30.200 I was saying the other day when we started, you still did matinees on Wednesday, you did them on Saturday, you did them on Sunday. 121 00:10:30.200 --> 00:10:41.300 So you were just performing a lot, which is what you need to really be a good dancer, to really get out there and dance on a small stage, a big stage, bad lighting, good lighting, 122 00:10:42.780 --> 00:10:46.480 audience that isn't warm to get responses out of them. 123 00:10:48.260 --> 00:10:50.720 Just tremendous experience we got from her. 124 00:10:51.660 --> 00:11:05.620 When you were touring in those community concerts starting in 1956 and then going on in different forms for another 18 years, what were the, it was different. 125 00:11:05.720 --> 00:11:07.540 There weren't regional ballet companies. 126 00:11:08.660 --> 00:11:15.540 What did you sense coming back to you from the audiences that came in in teeny tiny towns to see you dance? 127 00:11:15.720 --> 00:11:17.000 Oh, they just loved us. 128 00:11:17.000 --> 00:11:22.340 We were, I don't know if you know Hubbard Street today as the success they have. 129 00:11:22.420 --> 00:11:30.080 Well, we had that kind of success in community concerts because we did the Mary Widow and Flater Mouse and light operettas. 130 00:11:30.460 --> 00:11:37.460 And so people went out of the theater singing the tunes, humming the tunes because the music is so familiar to most people. 131 00:11:39.400 --> 00:11:43.580 And we, lots of them, Ms. Page would say to us, now these people have never seen dance before. 132 00:11:43.580 --> 00:11:50.700 It's very important that you really give them a good impression of dance so they will come back and see other people dance. 133 00:11:51.480 --> 00:11:55.160 And we brought dance to a lot of, you know, they say Anna Pavlova was the pioneer. 134 00:11:55.340 --> 00:12:08.380 Well, I think we were, Ballet Russe and Ms. Page's company was the next because we did go to a lot of places where other company, bigger companies couldn't go with a large company and lots of scenery and things like that. 135 00:12:09.420 --> 00:12:20.800 And we brought lots of enjoyment to lots of people that wouldn't have known about it. 136 00:12:21.480 --> 00:12:29.940 And after a while when we would go and play these places, people would know us and would actually say, oh, it's nice to see you again. 137 00:12:30.000 --> 00:12:30.840 How have you been doing? 138 00:12:31.000 --> 00:12:32.540 We haven't seen you in two years. 139 00:12:32.980 --> 00:12:36.800 And like the new ballets, like they really knew who we were and everything. 140 00:12:37.000 --> 00:12:38.240 It was really wonderful. 141 00:12:38.240 --> 00:12:41.300 It must also have been very grueling. 142 00:12:41.380 --> 00:12:43.120 One night stands all the way, right? 143 00:12:43.500 --> 00:12:44.820 Oh, it was a hard life. 144 00:12:44.880 --> 00:12:47.520 I don't know if the dancers today would put up with it. 145 00:12:47.940 --> 00:12:50.800 It was hard to sit on a bus. 146 00:12:50.960 --> 00:12:57.780 Sometimes we would, if it was a long trip, 14 hours we had done sometimes and got up and danced and that. 147 00:12:57.820 --> 00:12:59.320 And we always toured in the winter. 148 00:13:00.040 --> 00:13:06.320 So the roads were bad and things took us so much longer than we had planned on them taking. 149 00:13:07.800 --> 00:13:10.200 But all of us really loved to dance. 150 00:13:10.640 --> 00:13:13.880 And so if that's the way you're going to have to do it, we did it. 151 00:13:14.400 --> 00:13:19.920 And when I look back on it, I really think it was worth all of that. 152 00:13:20.360 --> 00:13:28.240 And the experience we got in learning to perform that much in front of people, it wasn't all that hard. 153 00:13:28.400 --> 00:13:31.200 And you must remember we were very young when we started. 154 00:13:31.740 --> 00:13:35.480 And so you got very used to being able to sit that length of time. 155 00:13:35.480 --> 00:13:38.840 When I have to take a bus trip now, I'm sore for two days. 156 00:13:39.480 --> 00:13:46.540 But at the time, when you're young and you do that, you sort of build up the immunity it takes to handle all of that. 157 00:13:47.020 --> 00:13:55.640 And it was always very exciting to see new places and do new ballets and see how people responded to things. 158 00:13:56.020 --> 00:13:59.060 I don't know if you know about the ballet Bolero that Miss Page did. 159 00:13:59.060 --> 00:14:05.460 Well, when we first started doing it, which was in I think the first season we did was 1969, 160 00:14:07.480 --> 00:14:15.620 people wrote letters saying that the ballet was bad and that it shouldn't be shown. 161 00:14:15.640 --> 00:14:17.980 It was too provocative and stuff. 162 00:14:18.400 --> 00:14:23.260 And when you look at it today, it's nothing compared to the things you see going on. 163 00:14:23.260 --> 00:14:25.440 But at the time, it caused quite a stir. 164 00:14:25.440 --> 00:14:28.280 And we had to take it out of the repertoire while we were touring. 165 00:14:28.980 --> 00:14:31.800 And we put it back when we hit Los Angeles. 166 00:14:32.220 --> 00:14:33.700 And they loved it there. 167 00:14:33.760 --> 00:14:36.500 We got wonderful reviews and they thought the ballet was everything. 168 00:14:36.920 --> 00:14:41.060 So then we all felt better about it that we weren't doing something we shouldn't have been doing. 169 00:14:42.780 --> 00:14:45.860 Although it was fun to do. It was a wonderful ballet to do. 170 00:14:46.260 --> 00:14:49.440 Describe, Dolores, the story of Bruce Bolero. 171 00:14:49.820 --> 00:14:53.440 Well, the Bolero takes place in a whorehouse. 172 00:14:53.440 --> 00:14:58.820 And it's a strip tease, which is also fun to be able to do to that wonderful music. 173 00:15:00.100 --> 00:15:02.440 And the ballet starts with the curtain closed. 174 00:15:03.440 --> 00:15:11.120 And the girls are knitting, sitting in these chairs with their legs spread apart in body tights with stockings and jewelry on and all of this. 175 00:15:11.500 --> 00:15:12.920 But they have knitting needles. 176 00:15:13.000 --> 00:15:14.760 And you hear this clinking. 177 00:15:15.140 --> 00:15:18.440 But when the curtain's closed, you can't imagine what that sound is. 178 00:15:18.600 --> 00:15:24.540 And then when the curtain opens and here are all these voluptuous sexy girls knitting. 179 00:15:25.060 --> 00:15:27.560 I mean, the audience would laugh. It was, you know, funny. 180 00:15:27.680 --> 00:15:31.640 And then, of course, I came on and was dressed completely. 181 00:15:31.860 --> 00:15:35.180 And then as the dance progressed, I took off my clothes. 182 00:15:35.240 --> 00:15:39.980 But it was all in very good taste and very humorous, I think, when you see it. 183 00:15:40.520 --> 00:15:44.740 So I don't know, except there were a lot of older people on the community concert things. 184 00:15:44.780 --> 00:15:47.380 And I think they mainly objected to that. 185 00:15:48.020 --> 00:15:50.260 Because there was really nothing that risky. 186 00:15:50.400 --> 00:15:52.620 I mean, you had full body tights on. 187 00:15:53.640 --> 00:15:56.380 And when we did Carmina, you wore full body tights. 188 00:15:57.560 --> 00:16:01.160 And lots of ballets, that's when body tights really came into fashion. 189 00:16:02.160 --> 00:16:05.240 So lots of ballets were being done in that kind of costuming. 190 00:16:05.760 --> 00:16:10.380 But they just probably didn't know about it or didn't see it on television like you do now. 191 00:16:10.380 --> 00:16:16.780 You seem so much more dance that I think you become accustomed to seeing that kind of thing. 192 00:16:16.780 --> 00:16:18.340 But it was a wonderful ballet. 193 00:16:18.960 --> 00:16:23.660 And I think that later on people got so that they really enjoyed seeing it. 194 00:16:23.760 --> 00:16:26.560 It was just a shock of that first group. 195 00:16:28.060 --> 00:16:33.040 Tell me a little bit, if you can, the way a day would go when you were on the road. 196 00:16:33.920 --> 00:16:36.580 Well, when we were on the road, we got up very early. 197 00:16:37.420 --> 00:16:42.880 Usually, while the company, we had our orchestra travel with us. 198 00:16:42.940 --> 00:16:45.700 And there were usually about 26 to 30 dancers. 199 00:16:45.700 --> 00:16:50.240 And then there were 12 or 14 musicians. 200 00:16:51.880 --> 00:16:55.020 And we all had to eat in the same restaurant. 201 00:16:55.260 --> 00:17:01.680 So that meant if you wanted anything to eat, you had to get up really early to get into that restaurant and get some food. 202 00:17:02.280 --> 00:17:07.620 So you got, well, the first couple of tours, I was one who always overslept. 203 00:17:08.060 --> 00:17:14.880 And came down in my pajamas with just, you know, trousers thrown over in my coat many, many mornings. 204 00:17:14.880 --> 00:17:18.340 But I got disciplined and that didn't happen to me after a while. 205 00:17:18.440 --> 00:17:21.820 Because everybody would yell at you if you were late because you kept all of them waiting. 206 00:17:22.340 --> 00:17:25.100 So everybody would scream, you know, what's the matter with you? 207 00:17:25.280 --> 00:17:27.860 Why don't you get two alarm clocks and stuff like that? 208 00:17:27.860 --> 00:17:29.220 So I got better. 209 00:17:29.600 --> 00:17:33.620 Well, say we got up at 6.30, got down there by 8. 210 00:17:34.080 --> 00:17:38.820 If it was a long trip, we usually left at 8 or 9 o'clock in the morning. 211 00:17:38.820 --> 00:17:46.840 We would ride, if we were lucky, till about maybe 2 or 2.30, went into a hotel. 212 00:17:46.900 --> 00:17:52.040 We had a whole system where one person would go check in while one ran into the restaurant and got a place. 213 00:17:52.120 --> 00:17:54.920 Because restaurants closed in hotels. 214 00:17:54.940 --> 00:17:57.120 So you had to do it that way. 215 00:17:57.240 --> 00:17:58.520 Ordered something to eat. 216 00:17:58.860 --> 00:18:01.200 We went up into the rooms and rested. 217 00:18:01.900 --> 00:18:07.240 Or you always had toe shoes to sew, to wash the ribbons, to clean up the shoes, 218 00:18:07.240 --> 00:18:10.900 to pin up your hair for the, you know, for the evening's performance. 219 00:18:10.960 --> 00:18:15.360 Wash out maybe some things you hadn't washed because you had to wash your practice clothes in those days. 220 00:18:15.820 --> 00:18:17.920 You had to wash what you performed in. 221 00:18:18.440 --> 00:18:22.920 The unions did not, were not required to wash clothes like they are now. 222 00:18:22.940 --> 00:18:25.300 So you had to wash your things you danced in. 223 00:18:25.640 --> 00:18:28.140 You had to wear, wash what you wore. 224 00:18:28.740 --> 00:18:32.160 And so there was an awful lot of washing, hand washing, to do all the time. 225 00:18:32.400 --> 00:18:33.560 And so you'd do that. 226 00:18:33.560 --> 00:18:37.620 Then you'd get back on the bus, say at about five or so. 227 00:18:37.800 --> 00:18:44.660 Go to the theater and set everything up, your makeup and get your costumes all together and things like that. 228 00:18:44.880 --> 00:18:46.160 Then would come class. 229 00:18:46.620 --> 00:18:47.920 Then would come performance. 230 00:18:48.300 --> 00:18:51.220 Get back on the bus, go and try and find some place to eat. 231 00:18:51.600 --> 00:18:56.700 Have a little snack maybe before you went and then go to bed and get up the next morning and wash clothes again. 232 00:18:57.540 --> 00:19:00.320 And it was really a busy, busy life. 233 00:19:01.900 --> 00:19:08.620 Now some of the, now the kinds of programs that you did when you were on the road varied really. 234 00:19:08.700 --> 00:19:09.780 A lot of them were...