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PHOTOGRAPHS BY GEORGE PLATT LYNES

TAMARA TOUMANOVA
LINCOLN KIRSTEIN DONALD WINDHAM
BAIRD HASTINGS
PAUL MAGRIEL

With this collection of ballet Portraits by and a review of musical comedy dancing in
George Platt Lynes, Dance Index completes the same period by George Beiswanger: a
its third year. For the first time the maga- number of historical articles on American
zine strikes a completely contemporary note, dance, including The Black Crook, by George
but, we believe, by its nature not an ephe- Freedley.
meral one. Dance Index is glad in this issue to in-
In these three years we have presented a
troduce a glossier paper which makes possi-
number of comprehensive background arti-
ble better reproduction of our illustrations,
cles,and with them now established we look
and to inaugurate a larger type face in re-
forward to presenting more variety and more
sponse to suggestions that our print is too
contemporary subjects in 1945. For one issue,
small.
Robert Edmund Jones has written the story
of Nijinsky’s ballet Til Eulcnspiegl; and later To our readers with friends who do not
Edward L. Bernays, who directed publicity already subscribe to Dance Index, we sug-
and toured with the Diaghilef ballet in the gest a subscription as a holiday gift. This
United States in 1916 and 1917, will tell of issue, with its portraits of Toumanova, Eglev-
the introduction of that company to this sky, Danilova, Franklyn and others will be
country. Also scheduled are George Balan- sent with an announcement, and the sub-
chine’s Noteson Choreography, together with scription will begin with the January issue.
an on Balanchine: a comprehensive
article Throughout the coming year Dance Index
catalogue of dance films, edited by George will continue a serious attempt to provide a
Amberg: a survey of ballroom dancing in critical and historical basis for judging the
the twentieth century by Rosetta O’Neill, present and future of dancing.

THE COVER: Marie Jeanne and Nicolas Magallanes, pose arranged by George
Balanchine.

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Copyright 1944 Dance Index - Ballet Caravan, Inc., 637 Madison Avenue, New York 22, N. Y
Vol. Ill, No. 12. December 1944
PHOTOGRAPHS graphic fashion the cameraman weaves in
and out among the dancers, not only are the
No art is intended for the mere moment’s latter prevented from giving their best per-
experience. the pains and pa-
If it were, formance but the unity of the dance-design
tience which would scarcely seem
it requires is lost.
worth while. The dance, which is said to be There are several new techniques of still
the most ancient of the arts is, by its very photography which you might expect to do
nature, the least permanent. The design of the trick, notably that of the stroboscopic
the choreographer has to be passed from one camera. images of exceeding in-
It offers us
company to another, handed down from terest and sometimes beauty; but nothing
generation to generation. Each dancer re- that anyone at a performance, with the
creates his role, often with a lesser, in any naked eyes, has ever seen. My own work
case with a different ability. Choreographers with ballet subject-matter has been far sim-
and dancers and audiences forget; and gen- pler than all this, with the ordinary camera
back inaccu-
erally speaking a revival harks and everyday technique. Perhaps photogra-
rately to its its heyday. And yet
first night, phy is an art; perhaps not. In any case I
an our response to danc-
essential factor in personally believe that too great a concern
ing is the wish that it might go on forever. with its mechanics confuses the issue. I love
In Antibes on the French Riviera there is dancing, and my idea has been to make
a wonderfully touching Roman tombstone prints which will perpetuate what I have
carved with these words: “Septentrion, a seen, as an adjunct to my own memory; and
dancer from the North, twelve years of age, for those who have not seen it, a sort of
who danced and pleased.” substitute and consolation.
In the eighteenth century several com- The beauty of the individual dancer is a
plex systems in the way of a sort of short- part of one’s pleasure, an element of the art ;

hand were devised for the use of ballet- for a portrait-photographer this is an ob-
masters to help them re-do each other’s work. vious approach; and by implication or sug-
But these convey nothing to the ballet-lover, gestion, something having to do with the
nor did the professionals themselves find them dance arrived at. Riabouchinska, for ex-
is

satisfactory. It might be supposed that in
this day and age of the motion picture, pro-
per records of our dances might be made.
So far little has come of it. The filming of
entire ballets in Hollywood has not proved
popular and remunerative enough to interest
the great picture corporations. It has been
disappointing from the artistic standpoint as
well. In order to include the entirety of a
stage corps dc ballet in motion the lens seems
obliged to sit farther away than any balleto-
mane ever sat. A ballet
ample, has a brooding, langorous face; where-
as her movements to music are all spritely
and this little contrast, as it were a divided
mind, appears in her performance. Touma-
nova, on the other hand, with her haunted
but imperious eyes and strong dramatic
hands, dances as she looks.
In a full-length figure, with patience and
good luck, one’s camera can be made to tell
something more about the style of a dancer.
The attitudes of Dollar and Shabelevsky as
is not indeed con- I took them are excerpts from the choreogra-

ceived to be seen from any particular seat. phy of particular ballets. In my photograph
It is,borrow a term from the philosophers,
to of Zorina I sought to represent, with no
“the sum
of its aspects,” from all possible particular ballet in mind, her physical sim-
seats combined. But it requires a seat some- plicity, her somewhat solemn coquetry and
where; not just a magic carpet loose and child-like spirit. In my photograph of Mar-
agitated. When in the current cinemato- kova I attempted a kind of epitome or svn-
216
 thesis of her classic style, with its intense should do and evidently cannot. In photo-
dignity and implications of tragedy. She is graphing Errante and the choreographic
so schooled in the grand manner that from opera, Orpheus, it was my good fortune to
head to foot, however she moves, wherever be helped by their creator, Balanchine. I
she sits quietly, it seems a great stage, with think one could not hope to epitomize a
some pathetic story about to be narrated in ballet in a set of pictures like these without
dumbshow. In my photographs of Danilova the choreographer’s supervision; one might
and Franklin I went a step further, showing so easily fall into affection or caricature.
them in motion; but I am inclined to think At the request of Lincoln Kirstein I made
that these attitudes are less suggestive of the a series of large composite pictures, photo-
dance as a whole than a sedentary or relaxed montages, to be used as posters for his Bal-
pose. They are open to some of the objec- let Caravan. In these, a series of action pho-
tion that I make to stroboscopic photogra- tographs were mounted and combined, more
phy. We do sometimes see dancers at rest; or less as the entire company appears on
we never see their leaps and pirouettes im- stage. In the matter of photographic beauty
mobilized. as such much is lost in this way as the final
The next type of work is what interests print has to be worked over by hand. But
me most and which I think most needs do- this scarcely matters in half-tone reproduc-
ing: the photography of groups of dancers tion and it is a useful documentary method.
in the climaxes of choreographic invention.
This is what the motion picture camera GEORGE PLATT LYNES

PASTORALAS
TATIANA RIABOUSHINSKA
YUREK SHABELEVSKY
ALICIA MARKOVA
 WArn

ANDRE EGLEVSKY
IRINA BARONOVA
VERA ZORINA
 m

ALEXANDRA DANILOVA
FREDERICK FRANKLYN
WILLIAM DOLLAR
ORPHEUS
 has published the following articles:

1942
January ISADORA DUNCAN AND BASIC DANCE by John Martin
February AMERICAN LITHOGRAPHS OF THE ROMANTIC BALLET by
George Chaffee
March LOIE FULLER: THE FAIRYOF LIGHT by Clare de Morinni
* April THE DANCE IN SHAKER RITUAL by E. D. Andrews
*May THE PETIPA FAMILY IN EUROPE AND AMERICA by Lillian Moore
June THE DENISHAWN ERA (1914-1931) by Baird Hastings
July —
DANCE IN PROSE An anthology by G. B. Shaw, B. H. Haggin, etc.
*August JOHN DURANG, FIRST AMERICAN DANCER by Lillian Moore
Sept. -Oct. -Nov. DANCE CRITICISM (1909-1930) by Carl Van Vechten
December AMERICAN MUSIC PRINTS OF THE ROMANTIC BALLET by George
Chaffee

1943
Jan.-Feb. AUGUSTA MAYWOOD, FIRST AMERICAN BALLERINA by Marian
H. Winter
* March AN ALBUM OF NIJINSKY PHOTOGRAPHS, With a Note by Edwin
Denby
April THE DODWORTH FAMILY, 19th CENTURY BALLROOM DANCING
by Rosetta O'Neill
May MARY ANN LEE, THE FIRST AMERICAN GISELLE by Lillian Moore
June-July THE SOVIET BALLET, 1917-1943 History and Repertory by Joan Lawson
August GORDON CRAIG AND THE DANCE, Drawings and articles by
Gordon Craig
Sept. -Oct.- Nov. -Dec. THE ROMANTIC BALLET IN LONDON by George Chaffee

1944
Jan. -Feb. THE STAGE AND BALLET DESIGNS OF PAVEL TCHELITCHEW
by Donald W'indham
March AN ALBUM OF PAVLOVA PHOTOGRAPHS With a Note by
Marianne Moore
Apr.-May-June EUROPEAN DANCE TEACHERS IN THE UNITED STATES by Ann
Barzei

July-August TAGLIONI, GRISI, CERRITO AND ELSSLER Memorabilia by Joseph

Cornell

Sept. -Oct. -Nov. THREE OR FOUR GRACES by George Chaffee

December PHOTOGRAPHS OF DANCERS by George Platt Lynes
* Cut of Print

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