Saving a Legacy: Agnes De Mille's Gold Rush

Abstract

The dance critic Clive Barnes observed that Agnes George de Mille was one of the ‘architects of American ballet’, and one of the nation’s ‘greatest native-born choreographers’. De Mille, dancer, choreographer, lecturer and writer, was in every way a trail-blazer. Her choreography for the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Oklahoma! was a landmark in American musical theatre, and she was the first woman, and the first choreographer (or dance director, as they were then called) to direct a Broadway musical. She choreographed many notable and popular musical theatre classics, such as One Touch of Venus, Carousel, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Bloomer Girl. De Mille’s ballets, which frequently dealt with American themes, include the macabre and powerful Fall River Legend, a dramatic re-telling of the story of Lizzie Borden, and her signature ballet, Rodeo. Certainly, the breadth of de Mille’s choreographic repertory, the innovation of her musical theatre dances and the scope of her artistic collaborations make her a seminal figure in American dance. We are, however, in danger of losing a substantial portion of de Mille’s choreographic legacy. While three of her most significant ballets are well-documented, scored in Labanotation and often performed, the musicals she helped to create are often revived without her original choreography. These de Mille dances, now in danger of being lost, exist primarily in the memories of their first generation of performers. Several of these interpreters, now in their sixties and seventies, can still fully transmit the kinesthetic, emotional and dramatic elements of these dances. It is here, in preserving these works, that the Dance Division at Southern Methodist University resolved that it had an important part to play. Last year, as part of the Division’s continuing initiative to implement the presentation and documentation of twentiethcentury choreographic work, we submitted a proposal to the National Endowment for the Arts. Under its newly designated Heritage and Preservation programme, we designed a project to