In the Shadow of the Greats

On PBT’s first board were Point Park College President Arthur Blum; Vice-President Stanley Buswell; Thomas Kerr, an attorney and President of the local ABA; theater director S. Joseph Nassif; and me. On paper, we were now a professional company. We imported quality stars and had a number of good soloists, but we were still primarily a talented student troupe. We needed time to build artistry.

Our every action generated free press. Almost weekly, I was involved in a newsworthy story. Unfortunately, this publicity generated tension among my new colleagues at the college, whose academic disciplines were less exciting to newspaper readership.

While organizing a company, I was also developing Point Park College’s dance department and negotiating with the best available teachers to boost enrollment. I persuaded Arthur Blum that Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre’s performances, then sponsored by the college, would attract new students. At the time, we had an enrollment of about thirty-five. Funding remained a problem, as I had no budget. (Although PBT shared dancers with the college and used its facilities, the two entities had separate budgets.)

I needed a vigorous campaign to recruit board members, especially those who would generously donate money for dance. I needed an arts angel--someone of prominence in Pittsburgh society, who had access to high circles. I turned to Loti Falk, a socially active woman, who owed me a favor from the Playhouse days. She was the perfect choice for President of the Board of Trustees and I hoped to tempt her with the offer. It was she, who explained to me how the board system functions and she was instrumental in developing and recruiting members for PBT’s board.

Loti was a charming woman, with whom I could easily converse (even in French) about any subject. We mutually respected each other. She received me very cordially. Our meeting ended with her promise to speak with her husband, Leon Falk, Jr. and give me an answer in the near future.

I later learned that she phoned Arthur Blum. He expounded on the merits of my plans and told her that I was bordering on genius--an exaggeration, I think, just to grab her interest. He was also wooing her for Point Park College’s board. She accepted my invitation to help develop PBT’s audience, find sponsors, and support the dancers.

Initially, she focused on raising awareness among the wealthier Pittsburghers, while I concentrated on acquiring dancers, networking for choreographic opportunities, and building a repertoire. Her efforts enabled me to import ballets like Petrushka, which sported Bakst designs, invite guests including Edward Villella, and produce modest ballets with astonishing costumes and décor. Together, we worked limitlessly and well into the early morning hours, until her husband urged her to retire for the night. As we were both born under the sign of Sagittarius, we had a saying, “Sagittarians never give up,” and we believed it.

Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre was an offshoot of Point Park College and both shared a Board of Trustees. Eventually, we created a smaller executive board comprised of Point Park College board members or their wives. Connie Rockwell was on the executive board, while her husband, Mr. Willard Rockwell Jr. served as the President of Point Park College’s board. With Leon Falk’s approval, Loti accepted the post as Chairperson of Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre’s Board of Trustees.

In general, Board selection is a democratic process, initiated by the willing. Screening eliminates those lacking the wealth, position, and power. Some members come and go, but the serious ones stay and often recruit their friends. Serving is their duty and their compensation is pride, achievement, and respect.

On the Board of Trustees for 1969-70 were Loti Falk (Chairman), Jo Ann Blum (Vice Chairman), Yolanda Marino (Secretary), Arthur Blum, Frank Bock, Paul Draper, Dr. Michael Flack, Joseph Geffner, Stephen George, Mark Gleeson, Dr. William Hunt, Connie Katz, the Honorable H. Sheldon Parker Jr., Mildred Posvar, Walter Prunczik, Connie Rockwell, and James Wetzig.

The performance season and academic year ran simultaneously. The two began to blur. PBT’s identity became submerged in the dance department. Most of the corps de ballet members were full and part-time college students, who had enrolled in the school just to dance with the company. For them, a Baccalaureate degree was a bonus, not a goal. Their stipend was five hundred dollars a month, plus as working members of the company, they “earned” their room, board, and tuition. Generally, the soloists were not students and received better pay. The dancers resided in the college’s dormitories and PBT’s ballet masters served double duty as College faulty members.

We modeled our organization on the Duquesne University Tamburitzans, a world-class ethnic dance ensemble, which selected scholarship recipients via an audition process, then prepared for the season with an intensive six-week summer rehearsal period. The dancers received full academic scholarship instead of salaries. The box office revenue from touring offset the dancers’ tuition fees, while touring provided a public relations vehicle for the school. Unfortunately, our performing schedule was less rigorous. Consequently, the exchange level did not tip the balances in favor of the dancers. Although the company was affiliated with the college, it did not subsidize performances, as that was the responsibility of the newly formed board.

At the outset, enrollment in Point Park College’s dance program skyrocketed from thirty-five to 250 students. I chose those initial thirty-five from a pool of several hundred based on their capability to dance for PBT, not just on suitability for academic admission.

Arthur Blum asked, “Why do you refuse so many students?”

They had no talent or future in dance.

He explained that they were graduated from high school and by American law, we should accept them. I had nothing against enrolling them in the college; they simply were not right for the dance program. He explained that if I wanted a department and a company, we needed the tuition. The college could not subsidize an artistic endeavor if the endeavor did not generate income.

At his suggestion, we kept the core of thirty-five; assigned another 150 to a second group of moderately talented students and created a third group who were talent-less or physically unsuitable. The tuition paid by groups two and three subsidized the primary thirty-five. If 250 auditioned, then I should take them all. I took this as an order from the college president. I divided the groups into advanced, intermediate, and beginners, based on technical level. Instead of refusing 150, as I had done previously, we took everyone.

Space was a problem. We converted several areas into new studio space and expanded the faculty. I invited some summer program guest instructors and sought out others. However, my faculty drew from different artistic backgrounds. Consequently, we could not work from just one teaching methodology. It had been my intention to model our program on the Kirov School’s training program, which is the crib of the Vaganova system. In fact, one of my faculty members, Mieczyslaw Morawski, who was originally from Poland, had studied at the Kirov and had filmed the Leningrad-based school’s eight-year graded training program. (He had arranged for someone to market the films. But someone bootlegged them and he was embroiled in a legal entanglement.) We setup an identical curriculum with the same requirements. However, harboring ideas and realizing them are two different things.

The challenge to all of us was correcting poor placement, which was evident in eighty percent of the students. Unfortunately, these were not young children, but dancers in their late teens, whose bodies were already developed. However, they were talented--it seemed that Americans possessed a tremendous facility for dance. I realized that to keep my job, I must compromise. My dream was to produce top caliber dancers, like those in Paris and London, but I did not know how to achieve this goal. Instead, I worked mostly to patch-up and correct the uncorrectable. My only successes were with the students who were supple, intelligent, and could re-program their techniques.

Mark Lewis and I continued to collaborate. Although I had wanted him to manage PBT, Loti, who disliked him for his alliance to Ted Hazlett and for his unconventional ideas to save the Playhouse, nixed it. Instead, she pressed her friend journalist Marie Torre, a television producer to recommend someone. And that happened to be Joseph Nassif, who in the end turned against her.

I was flattered to be an assistant professor, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre’s founder and director, and the Pittsburgh Opera’s choreographer. I felt needed, respected, and happy. At the time, achieving my goals out weighed financial considerations. My salary had increased by four thousand dollars with my appointment as chairman of the dance department. By the 1971-72 season, my salary shot to eighteen thousand dollars. This raise was higher than the typical five or six percent, but my job was double in hours and service. I taught a full-time load at the college and carried out the chairmanship’s administrative duties. I taught the company and created ballets for PBT, plus helped Loti Falk to administrate the organization (without much enthusiasm). While I was entitled, as chairman of the dance program, to a lighter teaching load, I failed to take that option.

I considered my wages decent. After Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre split from the college during a financial scandal, I realized that I was underpaid. It was a super human effort to cope with the entire schedule.
Chapter Ten: Building Momentum
Mark Lewis taught me the importance of assembling a well-known and exclusive faculty. He forbade me to accept guest teaching gigs within a fifty-mile radius of the school. This was the secret. We now had an overall enrollment of 650, up from the initial forty-five students enrolled in 1967. Over the years, I continued to follow Lewis’ formula as I assembled a permanent and guest faculty of the highest quality.

I could always count on Edward Caton, who was one of America’s favorite teachers, a great guy, and my friend. However, he had spent much time abroad and his pool of committed followers had dwindled. Yet, I figured that his presence would draw his remaining devotees to Pittsburgh. Unfortunately, by 1973 his personal life--complicated by his adopted son’s drug problem--disrupted his work schedule and took a toll on his emotional health. He frequently missed classes. Although he was involved with several ventures in New York, his tenure at the college was his last teaching gig.

Although Morawski had a penchant for character dance and was not purely academic classical, he preferred teaching technique to teaching character. He brought his girlfriend with him and we were obligated to put her in the company, even though she was not very good. (But it was only one person and PBT’s overall technical level was not yet fantastic.) His films of the eight year-Vaganova training program were originally on eight millimeter film and with the help of dancers Anna Marie and David Holmes, Canadians who had studied in the U.S.S.R., they had been converted to sixteen millimeter. I convinced Arthur Blum to purchase a copy--a collection of twenty-five spools--for twenty-five hundred dollars, which was expensive.

Also joining Mary and me on the faculty were Vitale Fokine, Frano Jelincic, Ethel Winter, and Ismet Mouhedin. Among our guests were Tatiana Grantzeva, Valentina Pereyaslavec, and Frederic Franklin, who would eventually become PBT’s co-artistic director. These stellar teachers increased Point Park College’s credibility and viability in the international ballet world. Since Pittsburgh was not a destination for summer dance studies, I continued to collect a world-class teaching staff for the annual “International Summer Masters Classes” program, which was growing in popularity. I drew from people whom I knew from my own career--and from artists who worked with the company regularly. My aim was to provide balanced training in Vaganova methodology, old Czarist style Russian training, and the American adaptation. I felt very comfortable with my faculty and guest master teachers, even if they were better known and more popular than me. I always gave my utmost respect to their knowledge and status.

In the sixties Valentina Pereyaslavec was a popular teacher whose classes at American Ballet Theatre School attracted leading dancers. She was reputed to be temperamental, so I appeared in the corridor by her studio bearing a big bouquet of red roses. When I saw her approaching, I applied my Slavic charm. I presented myself, kissed her hand, and offered her the flowers. I explained in Russian that I was in need of dancers for Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre.

She darted a serious look and slightly smiled. I knew I was in her good favor. She said, “Please come to see the class.” She led me into the studio and offered a chair. Solemnly she introduced me to her students and announced that I was hiring dancers. There was no tension or anticipation on their faces. I figured that Pittsburgh was not the most enticing city.

The class was nicely composed, along the lines of the Vaganova system. It was “dancy” and the students seemed to enjoy the combinations. Pereyaslavec behaved a little bit like a drill sergeant, but pleasantly and light-heartedly. After class she introduced me to Candace Itow, who was seeking employment and willing to appear as a guest artist. Her strong technique had caught my attention during class. I was satisfied with the recommendation and thanked Pereyaslavec for her courtesy.

I must have impressed Madame very much, as when I later invited her to guest teach--something she rarely did--she accepted on the condition that her pianist Valentina Vishnijevska come along. I now realize that the pianist is a collaborator with the teacher and improves the quality of the class. (Certainly Madame would not fit into the CD generation!) When I fetched her at the airport, I treated her as if she was “Queen of the Dance,” which in a way, she was. New York’s stars flocked to her classes and her background in the European dance arena was impressive.

Candace Itow accepted my offer and was involved in almost every major project during PBT’s early years. She was responsible, reliable, and pleasant to work with.

Barnes and Barzel played the biggest roles in PBT’s early history.

Barnes and I first met in Paris’ Theatre Champs-Elysée during intermission at a performance by the Marquis de Cuevas troupe. We crossed paths again during my tenure with Massine’s Balletto Europeo De Nervi and later met in New York at the State Theatre at Lincoln Center, where he projected the impression that he knew me well.

He had an international reputation and was a critic whose opinion could make or break a company. Many artists feared him, especially on Broadway. However, I recall him modestly stating, “My opinion is only one person’s.” Well, I needed that opinion.

I invited him to lecture for the drama school and to talk to the dancers about dance in the U.S. He accepted and regularly reviewed PBT from 1971 through 1977. I felt very comfortable when he came to review. I admired his attitude towards PBT and towards me. His reviews were very encouraging and certainly boosted my ego. They provided me with the incentive to preserver and tackle bigger and better works. We were new and not ready to perform in New York, but he provided priceless exposure through the New York Times and later the London Times.
Barzel, a respected and knowledgeable critic, wrote for the Chicago Tribune, Dance Magazine, and Dance News. A retired dancer who had studied with Bolm, Fokine, Volinine, and Doris Humphrey, she possessed insight and profound knowledge of the art. She had experienced the development of twentieth century dance in America, while maintaining an active interest in the European dance scene.

We initially met in Italy, during Balletto Europeo De Nervi’s performances. I invited Ann to review our performances and to lecture, as she was a living encyclopedia. She became a devoted follower and ally, especially when PBT visited the Chicago Opera. I always felt that something was missing when she missed one of our openings. She provided a dash of encouragement and boosting. She was never deprecating, even when unenthused by a specific work. She wrote about what was really happening onstage regardless of the audience’s reaction.

I first attracted local attention with my performance and choreography for the Pittsburgh Opera, which the critics praised. Most of the local newspaper critics covered other beats--sports or music. Their criticism was based on what they heard from others while talking about dance, and from their personal tastes. I could not expect knowledgeable dance criticism at that time. Critics should not only rate works as good or bad, but also should provide good advice or suggestions. Constructive criticism benefits a company and its dancers. The newspaper critics were indulgent and lavished encouragement and compliments. Obviously, the guest artists and choreographers contributed significantly to the success of our performances.

Locally, public opinion was shaped by Ruth Heimbuecher (Pittsburgh Press), who nurtured the fledgling dance community as did her successor Pamela Reasner--both were encouraging and complimentary; by Marylynn Uricchio (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette), who covered the dance beat for just a short time; and by Michelle Pilecki the unbiased voice of the Market Square. Jane Vranish (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) was the controversial critic whose negative criticism hampered the development of a Pittsburgh dance audience. The Post-Gazette’s slant was to assert its knowledge of dance. Unfortunately that judgment was weak and limited in the dance arts and based on negative opinion. With the demise of both the Pittsburgh Press and Market Square, unfortunately Jane Vranish remained the “Queen of Dance Opinion” in Pittsburgh. She personally did not like me and continued to undermine my efforts, even after my departure from PBT. While I could never understand why, perhaps it was because she had been one of my students. However, she was not material for Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre--can someone hold a life-long grudge because of the lack of attention in ballet class?

I flew to Chicago on a cold winter day. From a window of her Lakeshore Drive apartment, which overlooked the lake, I noticed that the water was frozen. I still vividly remember every detail of her residence and studio (housed within her apartment). The walls were filled with framed artworks. These depicted scenarios from her ballets and were painted by several artists, including Bernard Daydé and Andre Delfau. It struck a chord with me, as did Ruth herself. Although we had initially met in Nervi, this was the beginning of a great friendship and a strong association between the Chicago and Pittsburgh dance communities.

It was an unforgettable three days in which I perused programs, posters, pictures, and films. I was struck by her choices of ballets, painters, and music. Among the films were Carmen, Carmina Burana, The Merry Widow, and Frankie and Johnny. These sixteen-mm films were superior to Massine’s black and white films, which were old and unaccompanied by sound. Page’s films were produced by a television company and synchronized both picture and sound. Some were even in color. I was impressed.

Page’s work was not purely classical. Yet, the similarity between her choreographic style and Massine’s was amazing. While she had been influenced by Harald Kreutzberg, with whom she had danced and by Bentley Stone, with whom she had shared a company, obviously she had been very impressed by Massine’s Ballet Russe tenure. Her unique contemporary style reflected the evolution of the American dance conscience. Her creations leaned towards popular dance, but were clear and full of logic. She had a penchant for story ballets and short ballets based on operas and operettas. In Europe, her ballets, which had been produced by Les Ballet Americains in the fifties, were regarded as representative of the “American style.”

I realized what an American treasure this Indianapolis native was to the dance world. She was unappreciated for her half-century of achievements and for her career that began when she was discovered by dancer Anna Pavlova in 1918. Page carried the stamp of “Pavlova” and “Ballet Russe” with her throughout her career, a merit badge reinforced by her study and work with Adolph Bolm. She was acquainted or associated with almost every notable dancer in America, which carved a unique place for her in American dance history.

Page’s ballets were perfect for PBT’s repertoire. I was ready to rent, borrow, or buy her ballets, costumes, and company. Page’s most recent troupe had just folded. Dancers Patricia Klekovic, Orrin Kayan, Kenneth Johnson, and others were consequently unemployed. Unfortunately, I had no idea how or where I could find enough money.

Page captivated me with her unique and bubbly personality. Her interest in everything was contagious and she was an inspiration. We had breakfast, lunch, and dinner on her enclosed patio, served by her Mexican cook and maid. We exhausted many memories and discussed people whom we both knew. The Massine factor generated mutual interest and a bond between us, which strengthened after she saw my choreography. Our common interests, behavioral similarities, and related choreographic styles were so evident that Kenneth Johnson later remarked, “You remind me of Ruth Page,” a factor that facilitated our subsequent working relationship.

Page had a unique lifestyle--she attended all artistic events and was comfortable when surrounded with young dancers. Later, when she visited Pittsburgh for the first time, we had a gathering at the Point Park College Conference Center in Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania, where there was a beautiful swimming pool. Following dinner, Arthur Blum lit the pool, which looked very inviting. We did not have swimsuits. I guess shyness held us back, but not Ruth. She began to undress and in the blink of an eye, was in the pool. We realized that swimming suits were not an obligation and that we could very easily hop in the pool and have a wonderful time.