The Nutcracker Ballet

We are off tonight to see The Moscow Nutcracker Ballet. This will be our last post until after the holidays. We wish you happiness and a joy this holiday season. You are all dear to us.

Nutcracker Ballet 1954
Alfred Eisenstaed

Fifties' Dance Legend Carmen de Lavallade

The incredibly talented 86 year old American dancer and choreographer, Carmen de Lavallade, received the Kennedy Center Honors December 3, 2017. The Honors Gala will be broadcast on CBS on December 26, 2017.

Carmen de Lavallade March 3, 1955
Carl Van Vechten Photograph

Watching the CBS Sunday Morning program featuring Ms de Lavallade, I was taken with her beauty and grace. Moving slowly and deliberately, she carries herself with an elegance that belies her 86 years.

Carmen de Lavallade was born in Los Angeles, California on March 6, 1931. After beginning her dance studies at age 16, she joined the celebrated Lester Horton Dance Theater in 1949. Her dance career included ballets with Alvin Ailey, Lester Horton, and her husband Geoffrey Holder.

Native American Ballerinas Known as The Five Moons

Rosella Hightower
©Maurice Seymour
S. Hurok Presents

Considered an aristocrat of ballet dancing, Rosella Hightower died on November 4, 2008. Miss Hightower was a prima ballerina who performed with the world's finest dance companies.

Born of Choctaw descent in Durwood, Oklahoma in 1920, Hightower trained in New York and began her professional career in 1938 at the Ballet de Russe Monte Carlo. Her most sensational performance was in Swan Lake with her friend, Rudolf Nureyev.

Rosella Hightower is one of five Oklahoma ballerinas of Native American heritage who dominated international ballet during the 1950's. They were known as The Five Moons.

A member of the Shawnee and Cherokee tribes, Yvonne Chouteau grew up in Vinita, Oklahoma. At the age of fourteen, Miss Chouteau became the youngest dancer to be accepted by the Ballet de Russe Monte Carlo, dancing with them for fourteen years.

It's Ballet Baby

Ulla Poulsen in the ballet Chopiniana, 1927 by Gerda Wegener
Public Doman

Yikes! We almost missed World Ballet Day! Enjoy this Gerda Wegener painting of Ulla Poulsen in the ballet Chopiniana, 1927.