Sir Anton Dolin Essays - Ballets Russes Dancers,

Sir Anton Dolin Sir Anton Dolin Dancer and choreographer Anton Dolin has been called one of the most colorful and vital figures in modern ballet. As a member of internationally known ballet companies or as director of his own troupes, this British-born artist has toured Europe and America for the past twenty years. Anton Dolin, originally Patrick Healey-Kay, was born on July 27, 1904, in Slinfold, Sussex, England. He is one of the three sons of George Henry and Helen Maude (Healey) Kay. When he was ten years of age his parents moved from Slinfold to Brighton. It was at about this time that the boy made up his mind to become a dancer. Although his parents tried to discourage him from dancing, they sent him to Miss Claire James Academy of Dancing and later to the Misses Grace and Lily Cone, who came to London each week to give lessons in Brighton. After the boy danced and acted at the Brighton Hippodrome Theatre, the manager of the theater suggested that he be sent to London for training in dramatics. In the metropolis Pat studied under Italia Conti, and at the same time he attended the Pitman School for instruction in stenography and French. In 1917, a month after attending a performance of Princess Seraphina Astafievas Swinburne Ballet, the thirteen-year-old boy registered for lessons with the Russian ballerina. A former pupil of the Imperial School and at one time principal dancer in the Diaghilev Ballet Russe, Astafieva was then conducting the only school of Russian ballet in London, which stressed the importance of the individual dancer in ballet. After Pat had been her student for about four years, the famous Diaghilev visited the school one day in search of promising young dancers for extras in The Sleeping Princess. It was then that the seventeen-year-old youth was given his first dancing bit, a part in Diaghilevs chorus. The Sleeping Princess had a three-month run, after which the young dancer returned to school for two more years of instruction. On August 26, 1923, under the name of the Anglo-Russian Ballet, Astafieva put on a large scale production with her pupils as the principal dancers. For this first solo appearance Patrick Healey-Kay decided to choose a Russian name as he thought it would be an excellent joke. He found Anton in a Chekhov volume, but had difficulty in selecting an easily pronounced surname until someone at the school suggested Dolin. The program for the performance thus announced that Anton Dolin would appear in two solo dances of his own composition: Hymn to the Sun and Danse russe. And Astafieva, feeling that her pupil was now ready to be accepted for Diaghilevs Ballet Russe, sent Anton Dolin to Paris, where she had arranged an interview with the producer. In November of that year (1923) Dolin was made a member of the Diaghilev company, which was then dancing in Monte Carlo. Before his next appearance before an audience, however, he devoted two months to intensive practice with Bronislava Nijinska, maitresse de ballet. His debut was made on January 1, 1924, in the role of Daphnis in the classical ballet Daphnis and Chloe. His next appearance was as Beau Gosse in the production in Paris in June 1924 of Jean Cocteaus Le Train bleu. In the next two years Dolin developed rapidly as a Diaghilev artist, but at the end of the 1925 season he and the impresario quarreled, causing Dolin, then the premier dancer, to leave the company. The following July Dolin appeared in the Punch Bowl Revue at His Majestys Theatre, and after the show closed, at the beginning of 1926, he accepted an offer to dance in the musical revue Palladium Pleasures. Afterward, with Phyllis Bedells as his dancing partner at the Coliseum, he produced several nursery rhyme choreographies. Further ballet and revue engagements were followed in 1927 by an appearance in the revue White Birds (1927). With Vera Nemchinova, one of his former colleagues in the Diaghilev company, Dolin next formed the Nemchinova-Dolin Ballet, dancing in Swan Lake and his own The Nightingale and the Rose. During the following two years Dolin and Nemchinova toured Holland, Germany, France, and Spain, offering among other compositions, Dolins Revolution, Espagnol, and Rhapsody in Blue. The Nemchinova-Dolin company was disbanded early in 1929, Dolin rejoining the Ballet Russe. The second engagement lasted only a short while-Diaghilevs death in August 1929 causing the termination of the group. But Dolin had, with the Diaghilev company, created important roles-in Balanchines Le Bal