Bessie Clayton: An American Genée

Abstract

WHEN BESSIE CLAYTON DIED in 1948 at age of seventy, she was eulogized in New York Times as the nation's first born prima ballerina.1 Although she was hardly first American ballet dancer, she was most prominent native exponent of this form during peak of her career, from 1895 to 1915. Since that time we have forgotten her. We have lost track of her unique accomplishments, especially her unstinting efforts to educate audiences, to instill young dancers with a more professional attitude toward their art, and to raise standards for dance training in this country. Because of her classical training and glamorous personal style, she was often referred to as American Genee. Like Genee, Clayton chose to pursue major portion of her career on commercial stages of Broadway and vaudeville. As an eccentric or athletic ballerina she perfected an unusual type of character dancing that was wildly popular with audiences on both sides of Atlantic. Her career was shaped by eclectic milieu at turn of century and directed by force of her highly original personality. Clayton's training and professional achievements reveal an interesting perspective on this vigorous, sometimes vulgar period of American dance. During last quarter of nineteenth century both quality of ballet performance and degree of audience support declined sharply. Opera houses, traditional home of ballet, were notorious for their cautious and predictable policies. Adeline Genee described this degeneration in 1908: Today premiere danseuse is not more than-what shall I say? A little piece of dust! She appears for one moment-and does nothing! In Munich, at Royal Opera, I danced thirty-three times in one year, and that was called a good season!2 As Genee pointed out, dance seasons in Western Europe