Suzanne Farrell is a legendary ballerina figure, and is considered one of the most influential ballet dancers of the 20th century. She was born with the name Roberta Sue Ficker in 1945 in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she started dancing at the age of eight, and spent her childhood studying at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. Her parents divorced when she was 10, and she lived with her mother, grandmother, and two older sisters. In 1959, Farrell won a scholarship and was chosen to study at the School of American Ballet in New York, founded by the world famous choreographer named George Balanchine, and it is the official academy of the New York City Ballet. Suzanne Farrell attended the school in 1960, and by 1961 she was performing with the New York City Ballet, by which time she had adopted her professional name, Suzanne Farrell.
She was very much a tomboy in her younger years. To tone down her liveliness, when she was 11, her mother enrolled her in the Jones-Hayward School of Ballet. When Conchita was 15, a teacher from George Balanchine's School of American Ballet visited their studio and she was picked along with two other students to audition in New York. Education Chita got into the school, but shortly after began her career in Broadway for the audition for the national tour of Call Me Madam. She was only supposed to be supporting her friend but gained the role instead.
At about 24 years of age, Hanya Holm saw a recital of Mary Wigman. After training in Germany, she worked at Mary Wigman’s Central Institute in Dresden as a dancer and teacher and later co director. In 1929 she danced the princess in one of the early productions of Stravinsky's The Soldier's Taleher first major solo part for which she did her own choreography. At that time she was not yet quite sure whether to become a dancer, choreographer, or teacher. In 1931 she opened a Wigman school in New York City, which became the Hanya Holm Studio in 1936.
Marshall was born in Pittsburgh and sang and danced as a child. In an interview from June 2004 on the American Theatre Wing website, Marshall explains how she had no formal training but was cast as a Von Trapp with her brother and sister in The Sound of Music at a summer theatre company. What really inspired her to the world of dance was sneaking to watch the dance ensemble rehearse. After this experience, she began to take a ton of dance classes and began working as a dancer and a dance captain in Pittsburgh and in tours. Marshall got her start on Broadway being her brother Rob Marshall’s assistant on Kiss of the Spider Woman and then assisted on the revivals of She Loves Me and Damn Yankees.
Unfortunately, racism prevented her talents from being wholly accepted in the United States until 1973. Josephine Baker was born June 3, 1906 as Freda Josephine McDonald in St Louis Missouri. She started he career as a street musician in St. Louis and soon graduated to performing on the T.O.B.A. vaudeville circuit. In 1922 she landed a small part as a comedy chorus girl in the touring company of Sissle and Blake's musical revue "Shuffle Along".
Betsey Johnson through hard work and many ups and downs has carved herself a permanent name in fashion. Betsey Johnson was born in Wethersfield Connecticut on August 10, 1942. As a young child Betsey was a dancer who was very inspired by the costumes they wore. She started her college studies at Pratt University but graduated from Syracuse University. After college in 1964 she won a chance to be a guest editor for Mademoiselle Magazine.
This style of dance consists of a whole body approach to dance that includes flexibility, strength, coordination and body awareness; this is also the main type of dance that we do in class. Mr. Horton had quite a few dance companies, beginning with the Lester Horton Dancers, in 1932, which in 1934 was briefly known as the Lester Horton California Ballets and then as the Horton Dance Group 1934. This dance groups lasted till the early 1940, until Mrs. Sonia Shaw (one of the east coast dancers) husband stopped underwriting them and the company collapsed. It took a bit of time for Horton to come back and regroup, but with his longtime dancer Ms.
Hurston had a happy childhood in Eatonville, Florida, yet Hurston’s life was anything but picture perfect. Hurston's mother died when Zora was thirteen. Her father quickly remarried, and Zora was sent to boarding school. After a time he stopped paying her tuition and she was expelled. She worked as a maid in a traveling theatrical company, and then, in 1917, the twenty-six-year-old lied about her age to gain admission to the Morgan Academy, graduating from the high school the following year.
Loretta graduated from University of Houston in 1971 with a bachelor of arts in speech, Drama, and MFA in Theater. She also is a member of the Epsilon lambda chapter of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority. In addition Loretta is a five time NAACP award winner she played in major films such as Dream Girls (a Broadway musical based on the history of The Supremes) Waiting to Exhale, this Christmas, and the Preacher’s wife. Lorettas played a small part in the mini soap opera For Color Girls as a woman by the name of Juanita. Juanita ran a nonprofit woman’s club for the females in her community.
He performed with the company in vaudeville throughout the United States and in concerts in England and the Orient. During an extended tour of the Far East, his interest in oriental dance was aroused, and he began studies with a Japanese teacher. In 1927, he and Doris Humphrey left Denishawn in protest against the romanticism of the repertory, and together they established a company and a school devoted to exploring a new aesthetic. It is the work of the company they founded and that of their contemporaries, Martha Graham and Hanya Holm that has come to be known as modern dance. Miss Humphrey and Mr. Weidman established new principles of technique, and choreographed many works together.