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Dancing in the Shadow of the First World War

Abstracts and Biographies
10:30am 5pm, Saturday 29 November 2014
London College of Fashion
Session 1 (12:00-13:15) : Dancing during the war (Session Chair: Geraldine Morris)
Charlotte Ewart: What is so special about 'The Fox?
In the first decade of the 20th Century, the Ragtime Animal Dance craze hit the social dance floor The Turkey Trot, Kangaroo Hop, Grizzly Bear and The Squirrel to name a few. However by 1918 these
dances had fallen out of fashion. Only one among them survived - The Fox-Trot, and not just through
the First World War but a version is still danced today. This paper will explore the Ragtime Animal
dances and the extent of their popularity. What was their style and form and how did it differ from
the choreographies danced before? Were they at odds with a more refined style and did they suffer
for it? Where did their inspiration come from and did their style inform and inspire subsequent
social dances? And why did all but one disappear so completely? What was so special about the Fox
Trot?
Larraine Nicholas: Metropolitan Nostalgia in war time programming at the Coliseum Music Hall
The Coliseum, a high class London music hall venue during World War One, became increasingly
attractive for its dance performances. How did spectators at the Coliseum interpret these
entertainments against the canvas of events? I argue that (prior to the appearances of Diaghilevs
Ballets Russes just before the Wars end), the fantastic, historical or pastoral balletic themes
appealed to that need for escapism into a mythologised pre-war. The jingoistic side of the
programmes was confined to other acts like patriotic songs, anti-German playlets and the nightly
bioscope which projected silent moving pictures of news events. Performers in all genres were
ethnically diverse, in dance dominated by the Russian migrs such as Lydia Kyasht, but including
Adeline Gene (Danish), Michio Ito (Japanese), Loie Fuller (American) and Yvette Guilbert (French).
This mix exemplifies both the geographic pluralism of the Allies and the nostalgic construction of
London as still an international artistic centre.
Jane Pritchard: The First World War and the foundations of 20thC British ballet
The general impression is that the period of the Great War was a barren one for theatre-dance in
Britain beyond the contribution made to revues which brightened the lives of soldiers on leave.
I will argue that this is an incomplete perspective and that it was a period of opportunities,
contributing strongly to the foundations of C20th British Ballet. The paper will refer to propagandist
ballets notably Europe which opened at the Empire in September 1914 and toured nationally.
However by 1914 the London Coliseum had become the leading provider of theatre-dance in London
although its significance for British dance history has been overlooked. Additionally fund-raising
matinees for War causes gave dancers and choreographers considerable opportunities and launched
careers. As many dance schools contributed to these matinees, the transitions in teaching dance will
be considered. It was early in the War that Seraphine Astavievas school opened and in 1918 the
rival studio of Enrico Cecchetti; both operated alongside the establish Lila Field and Steadmans
Academy. Finally consideration needs to be given to the migr dancers who settled in London
during the War most notably Marie Rambert.

Session 2 (14:15- 15:30): Dance Artists and the war (Session Chair: Lise Uytterhoeven)
Marianne Schultz: Ballet and bandages: the career of Thomas OCarroll/Jan Caryll, 1913-1923.
In 1917 the New Zealand World War I hospital ship the SS Marama transported military men home.
To ease their journey, a hospital orderly, Private Thomas OCarroll, entertained the wounded with
his rendition of The Dying Swan. Costumed in full white costume and pink tights OCarroll
performed on a makeshift stage on the ships deck, thereafter returning to his duties tending to the
sick and dying. This paper explores the career of Thomas OCarroll/ Jan Caryll, the very first male
ballet student of New Zealand, who settled in London following World War I making a career for
himself in the early twentieth century British ballet scene. Following his study with Seraphine
Astafieva, who christened him with a new name, the New Zealander appeared in Ninette de Valoiss
December 1921 music hall production, The British Corps de Ballet, leading to his career as a
choreographer of speciality dances throughout Europe during the following decade.
Carole Kew: Nijinsky and the First World War: Re-framing the Historical Record.
The second half of Vaslav Nijinsky's short career was spent dancing in the shadow of the First World
War. Most significantly, the war placed limitations on Nijinsky's desire to collaborate with other
artists and create new works. In this paper I re-frame existing historical accounts to suggest that the
impact of the war was a defining feature of Nijinsky's life and later choreographic output. In
particular I focus on how the vicissitudes of war inspired Nijinsky's choreography for Till Eulenspiegel
(1916) but subsequently conspired to frustrate his desire to create further choreography.
Dana Mills: I am a revolutionary. All great artists are revolutionaries: Isadora Duncan and the First
World War
In this paper I explore the effect of the First World War on the aesthetics and politics of dance
pioneer Isadora Duncans choreography. I argue that the Great War proved a crossroads between
her politics as articulated in words and politics as articulated in dance. Using Duncans own work,
and specifically her essay the Dancer of the Future (1903), I argue that Duncan herself proposes that
dance can carry politics distinct- and possibly contradictory- to politics carried out in words. In this
paper I focus on her work Revolutionary (1924) to seek the unique politics of her dance. I read this
work as a manifestation of her democratization of dance, and utilizing dance as a means of social
protest, as well as presenting a unique- and distinctly Modernist- aesthetic, dramatically different to
her earlier work (in this paper I read Revolutionary opposite her Moment Musical from 1907).

Session 3 (15:45-17:00): Modernism and the impact of war (Session Chair: Stacey Prickett )
Michael Huxley: On the threshold of the art of the future
World War I closed the door on the experimental dance work of the painter Wassily Kandinsky.
Kandinskys stage composition Der gelbe Klang [The Yellow Sound] was published in the first edition
of the Blaue Reiter Almanac (1912). It was to be performed in 1914 at the Munich Artists Theatre
with music by Thomas De Hartmann: the outbreak of war put a stop to the performance.
Kandinskys interest in dance is evident in an essay that he wrote to accompany Der gelbe Klang and
in his book Concerning the Spiritual in Art. In the latter (1912) he said In dancing as in painting we
are on the threshold of the art of the future. These primary sources are reconsidered, along with
the artistic milieu in Munich. It is argued that the shadow of war limited developments in modern
dance.
Nicole Haitzinger: Sur-realistic Parade (1917): Strictly esthetic and/or prophetic?
The genesis of Parade (1917) certainly one of the modernistic signature pieces of the Ballets
Russes during WWI is only a footnote in contemporary dance historiography. Its structural and

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phenomenological sur-realism not accidentally Apollinaire created the term referring to the
staging of Parade is deeply rooted in the dispositive of the war and can be analyzed as an artistic
counter-model, or better: as a strictly esthetic event. At the same time I would argue that Parade is
avant-garde in its old meaning because of three aspects: Firstly it the choreography has underlying
similarities with military operations, secondly it is prophetic because it announces the society of
spectacle and the virtualization of society and thirdly the so-called Hommes-decors are radical and
intimate couplings of bodies and machines: Picassos managers by their size and weight have
obliged the choreographer *Massine+ to leave behind the old formulae. (Jean Cocteau). In my
lecture I would like to point out some ambivalent and highly paradoxical aspects of art-making
during WWI and its effects on body and movement concepts and more specifically on dancing. One
further striking question for me is: Why and how do sur-realistic figures (re-)appear on stage in
contemporary dance/theatre (for example in Big Bang (2010) by Philippe Quesne/Vivarium Studio)?
Ramsay Burt: Modernity, war, and biopolitics: Isadora Duncans Marseillaise.
This paper considers Isadora Duncans mythologisation of the potential for national liberation that
Isadora Duncan enacted in her Marseillaise performed in New York in March 1917, on the eve of the
United States entry to World War I. Duncans New York performance sought to valorise acts of
dedication and sacrifice at a time when a new biopolitics was making such heroic ideas about death
redundant and meaningless. Duncan's solos permitted her as a woman to try to place herself as a
celebrity centrally within the social and political concerns of the day at the price of reiterating
problematic nineteenth century gender ideologies. This paper argues that Duncan's solos appealed
to a desire to go on believing in the kind of progress that modernity promised rather than
acknowledge the kind of rupture that modern war brought about.

Contributors:
Ramsay Burt is Professor of Dance History at De Montfort University, UK. His publications include
The Male Dancer (1995, revised 2007), Alien Bodies (1997), Judson Dance Theater (2006), and, with
Valerie Briginshaw, Writing Dancing Together (2009). In 1999 he was Visiting Professor at the
Department of Performance Studies, New York University. In 2010 he was Professeur Invit at the
Univesity of Nice, and he is a visiting teacher at PARTS in Brussels.
Charlotte Ewart completed her undergraduate degree in Dance and History at Roehampton
Institute, University of Surrey. She went on and regularly works as a performer, teacher and
choreographer specialising in Historical reconstruction and choreography. She has reconstructed
dances from the 12th - 19th Century and her choreographies have been performed at many
historical sites across the country including the Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace, The
Banqueting House and Dover Castle. She has just completed a joint project with Brunel University
and English Heritage on re-staging the 1634 Court entertainment 'Loves Welcome' at Bolsover
Castle. She is currently studying for her MA in Dance Studies at Roehampton.
Nicole Haitzinger obtained her Ph.D. after following a curriculum in theatre, film and media studies
at Vienna University. She has participated in several international projects exploring theory and
practice as a scientific advisor, dramaturge, and curator. Since 2014 she has been Associated
Professor for dance studies (Habilitation thesis: Resonances of the Tragic (2014). She is a member of
the editorial board of the Vienna-based Internet magazine CORPUS (www.corpusweb.net). Her
books include Les Choses Espagnoles, Research into the Hispanomania of 19th Century Dance
(coauthored with Claudia Jeschke and Gabi Vettermann) (Mnchen: Epodium 2009), Schwne und
Feuervgel. Russische Bildwelten in Bewegung. Die Ballets Russes 1909-1929. (Berlin: Hentschel
2009) (coauthored with Claudia Jeschke). Denkfiguren. Performatives zwischen Bewegen, Schreiben
und Erfinden. (Mnchen: epodium 2010). Versehen. Tanz in allen Medien (Mnchen: epodium 2011)
(coedited with Helmut Ploebst).

Michael Huxley is Reader in Dance at De Montfort University. His published research is in early
modern dance and dance history and includes recent articles in Dance, Movement and Spiritualities,
Discourses in Dance, Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices and Research in Dance Education He has
been Chair of the Editorial Board for Dance Research Journal and continues to be a board member.
He was Senior Academic Adviser Dance and Board Chair for PALATINE and Project Leader for the
Centre for Excellence in Performance Arts at DMU. His first eBook is to be published by Palgrave
Macmillan in 2015.
Carole Kew is a writer with an interest in dance history. She has published in Dance Research, Dance
Theatre Journal, and londondance.com. Her most recent article is Mary Wigmans London
Performances (Dance Research, Summer 2012). Currently, she is editing her revised and expanded
AHRB-supported PhD on Friedrich Nietzsche and the dance of Mary Wigman and Valeska Gert with
a view to eventual publication. For an initial discussion of these two dancers, see her 2010 SDHS
conference paper Looking for the Outsider: The Olympic Youth Festspiel (1936) (available in the
proceedings).
Dana Mills is a Lecturer in Political theory at Hertford College, Oxford and teaches for the Women's
Studies MSt at Oxford. Her DPhil looked at the relationship between dance and politics and focused
on the work of Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham.
Larraine Nicholas is an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Dance of the University of
Roehampton, London. She is author of the monographs Dancing in Utopia: Dartington Hall and its
Dancers (2007) and Walking and Dancing: Three Years of Dance in London, 1951 53 (2013). Other
writing includes chapters in Rethinking Dance History (Carter, ed. 2004) and Thinking Through
Dance: The Philosophy of Dance Performance and Practices (Bunker, Pakes and Rowell, eds. 2013).
Jane Pritchard is the Curator of Dance for the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. She co-curated
Diaghilev and the Golden Age of the Ballets Russes 1909-1929 for the V&A (versions of which were
also seen in Quebec, Barcelona, Madrid and Washington), and contributed to and edited the
accompanying book. Previously she was Archivist for Rambert Dance Company and English National
Ballet, and created the Contemporary Dance Trust Archive. She has curated seasons of dance films
for the bfi and British Council, lectured widely on dance and has contributed to numerous
publications including the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, The Annual Register, Dance
Chronicle, Dance Research and The Dancing Times. Her most recent book is Anna Pavlova TwentiethCentury Ballerina. She served on the executive of the Society for Dance Research for 25 years and
was appointed MBE in the 2014 New Years Honours.
Dr Marianne Schultz was awarded her PhD in History from the University of Auckland in 2014. She
holds a MLitt in History from the same institution and a MA Performing Arts from Middlesex
University, London. Marianne danced professionally in the United States and New Zealand and has
taught for numerous companies and schools including Laura Dean Dancers and Musicians, Douglas
Wright Dance Company, the New Zealand Dance Company, Black Grace Dance Company, University
of Auckland, London Contemporary Dance School, and the New Zealand School of Dance. Her
articles on dance and the performing arts have appeared in Dance Research, Melbourne Historical
Journal, New Zealand Journal of History, Brolga and Te Ara/the Encyclopedia of New Zealand.