Catherine Littlefield : a life in dance /
Born in Philadelphia in 1905, Catherine Littlefield first learns dancing from her mother, Caroline (called Mommie), an expert pianist, and from a local dancing master, C. Ellwood Carpenter. As a teenager, Catherine becomes a Ziegfeld dancer and takes lessons from Luigi Albertieri in New York. She re...
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
New York :
Oxford University Press,
[2020].
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| Subjects: |
| Summary: | Born in Philadelphia in 1905, Catherine Littlefield first learns dancing from her mother, Caroline (called Mommie), an expert pianist, and from a local dancing master, C. Ellwood Carpenter. As a teenager, Catherine becomes a Ziegfeld dancer and takes lessons from Luigi Albertieri in New York. She returns home in 1925 to help Mommie teach at the Littlefield School (among her students is Zelda Fitzgerald) and stage dances for women's musical clubs and opera companies. William Goldman hires Catherine to produce routines in commercial theaters throughout Philadelphia and becomes her boyfriend. Catherine, Mommie and Catherine's sister, Dorothie, travel to Paris so the sisters can study ballet with Lubov Egorova. They become friendly with George Balanchine in Paris and help him establish his first American school and company when he comes to the United States in 1933. Catherine marries wealthy Philadelphia attorney Philip Leidy and established her Philadelphia Ballet Company in 1935. She choreographs, and her company presents, the first full-length, full-scale Sleeping Beauty in the United States as well as popular ballet Americana works such as Barn Dance and Terminal. Her company's European tour in 1937 is the first ever by an American classical ballet troupe. Catherine loses some of her protegés to the newly formed Ballet Theatre and disbands her company after the United States enters World War II. She then choreographs Broadway musicals, Sonja Henie's Hollywood Ice Revues and Jimmy Durante's NBC television show before dying in 1951 at age forty six. |
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| Physical Description: | xvi, 359 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 9780190654542 0190654546 |