Wendy Hilton: A Life in Baroque Dance (review)

Abstract

Wendy Hilton: A Life in Baroque Dance. By Wendy Hilton and Susan Bindig. (Wendy Hilton Dance & Music Series, no. 14.) Hillsdale, NY: Pen - dragon Press, 2010. [xvii, 295 p. ISBN 9781576471333. $65.] Illustrations, bibliography, index. Wendy Hilton (1931-2002), a British historical dancer, teacher, choreographer, and scholar, was a pivotal figure in the development of baroque dance performance and scholarship. This book, described the back cover as a memoir, is the first account of her life and work, and as such is a very welcome addition to the slim historiography of the historical dance revival. Any - one who has been involved in the field would inevitably be drawn to a book that offers insight into Hilton's role in its genesis: i.e., her dance education, the sources of her skills and knowledge, the extent of her work, the development of her teaching style, her creative process in dance reconstruction and choreography, and her intellectual growth during the course of her career. (Disclosure: I took classes with Hilton at the International Early Dance Institute, Montclair State University, and Universite Laval). Started on the recommendation of (p. 270), only the three first chapters of Hilton's book were near completion at the time of her death. Susan Bindig, her former student, colleague, and friend, edited and completed Hilton's work, linking what had been written for later chapters with memoirs and correspondence of colleagues and friends, as well as information from Hilton's personal papers and other sources. The book is divided into three parts. The first part (chaps. 1-6) contains Hilton's reminiscences of formative events that marked her early years in England from 1931 until 1959. She writes about her family, experience growing up during World War II, initial interests in dance and music, dance training, early career as a dancer working for dance companies and movies and television productions (and supplementing her income by modeling for artists), and her first meeting with the dance specialist Belinda Quirey. This section presents fascinating anecdotes not only of well-known twentieth-century dance figures such as Marie Rambert and Audrey de Vos, but also of famous movie personalities such as Audrey Hepburn, Clark Gable, and Peter Sellers. In the second part (chaps. 7-11), Hilton discusses her work in historical dance in England from 1956 until 1971. She talks (at times quite waspishly) about learning from and collaborating with Quirey, meeting other dance historians such as Melusine Wood, Cyril Beaumont, and Karl Heinz Taubert, and forming the Domenico Dance Ensemble, an early-dance company. A research grant from the Arts Council of Great Britain allowed her to travel to France, Germany, and Sweden. Meeting with pianist and Bach specialist Rosalyn Tureck led her to visit the United States in 1968 and emigrate there in 1971. The third part (chaps. 12-18) focuses Hilton's career in America from 1971 until her death in 2002. This part begins chronologically but deliberately backtracks at two points: chapters 13 to 15 cover the years 1971 to 1994 and mostly explore Hilton's work the East Coast, at the Juilliard School, Rutgers University, and SUNY Purchase, along with her problems with torticollis that eventually ended her performing career; chapters 16-17 concentrate her work the West Coast from 1968 to 2001, in particular the summer workshop she directed at Stanford University from 1974 to 2001; and chapter 18 returns to 1994 to give an account of Hilton's last years: her work as editor of the Pendragon Dance and Music series (later renamed after her), her memoirs, her cancer, death in 2002, and commemoration. In the third part, the narrative changes from first person to third, incorporating fragments written by Hilton as quotations. The problem of doing so is that the emotional connection established between the reader and the original writer (Hilton) is unfortunately lost. …