Home / Biography / Agnes De Mille

Agnes De Mille

b. 18 Sept 1905, NEW YORK, NY, USA, d. 6 Oct 1993, Greenwich Community, NY, USA. A significant and important choreographer, movie director, and dancer, who ‘helped transform the American musical theater from the 40s and 50s’. After graduating with honours in the School of California, De Mille provided her first single dance recital in 1928 on the Republic Theater in NY. A year afterwards she organized the choreography for the revival from the Dark Crook in Hoboken, NJ, and consequently spent many years in London learning the ballet. In 1933 she organized and staged the dances for Charles B. Cochran’s creation of Nymph Errant in the Adelphi Theater in London, and later on came back to America to focus on shows such as for example Hooray For What! and Swinging The Desire, as well as the film, Romeo And Juliet. In 1939 she became a member of the Ballet Theater in NY and choreographed productions such as for example Dark Ritual, Three Virgins And A Devil, and Aaron Copland’s Rodeo. Her function for the last-named, where she herself danced the best role, was extremely acclaimed and resulted in her being employed for Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II’s 1st musical, Oklahoma! (1943). Her skilful mixing of traditional and contemporary dance which improved and created the display’s tale, was highlighted from the ‘Desire Ballet’ sequence, an attribute that became the standard for many another musical. The set of her following Broadway assignments, primarily like a choreographer, but sometimes as a movie director, included One Touch Of Venus (1943), Bloomer Woman, Carousel, Brigadoon, Allegro, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Out OF THE World (1950), Color Your Wagon, THE LADY In Red Tights, Goldilocks, Juno, Kwamina, 110 In The Color, and Come Summer time (1969). Throughout her lengthy and distinguished profession De Mille received many honours, including two Tony Honours (for Brigadoon and Kwamina), and many various other honours and citations. In her greatest function, her ‘present for narrative dance not merely told tales, but each stage and gesture arrived of the individualized idea of each personality’s inspiration. Her treatment of dancers as specific characters allowed the chorus dancers to be stars in the perform’. Aswell as the Broadway displays, she maintained a complete and satisfying profession in ballet, carrying out directing and choreographing, and continuing to work actually after struggling a heart stroke in 1975, which remaining her partly paralysed. Her two last ballets had been The Informer (1988) as well as the Other (1992).

Check Also

Joanna MacGregor

Like a classical pianist that has crossed to include jazz and Broadway music in her …

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.