Past Trivia

Q Born in Brooklyn, if he were still alive, he'd be 101 this year. His Clarinet Concerto written for Benny Goodman was used in Jerome Robbins' Pied Piper.

A American composer Aaron Copeland. In addition to writing a clarinet concerto for Benny Goodman, he wrote Billy the Kid for Eugene Loring; Rodeo for Agnes de Mille; Appalachian Spring for Martha Graham. In Billy the Kid only Billy's mother and his Mexican girlfriend dance on pointe.

Q This was the first non-musical play directed by Jerome Robbins and his first venture Off Broadway (February 1962). Robbins said of the play, "It's an extremely difficult play to stage. . . . The author [Arthur Kopit] was very extravagant in his stage directions. For instance, they call for a piranha fish and a Venus flytrap that grow to huge proportions right on stage."

A Robbins' initiation into serious drama was the Robert Stevens production of Arthur Kopit's Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad at the Phoenix Theatre not far from the old brownstone where Robbins was living. The production established Robbins as a quality director of serious plays. It ran for over a year, toured for three months, then returned to Broadway in August 1963. Robbins cast Jo Van Fleet and Barbara Harris in the original production, then replaced Van Fleet with Hermione Gingold. Kopit said of Robbins' work, "It was a sacred enterprise."

Question: "The art of the dancer," she wrote, "is to seek the most beautiful forms in nature and to find the movement that expresses the spirit of those forms." Her work to free the dancer from the artificial positions and costumes of "classical ballet" revolutionized movement, costume, and music in dance. Born in San Francisco, she died in Nice almost 75 years ago. The title of her autobiography is simply, My Life.

Answer: Isadora Duncan taught her students to dance "in harmony with everything that is beautiful in nature" so that the body and soul can become so harmonious together "that the natural language of that soul will have become the movement of the body."

Question: For the past 25 years he has devoted himself to the education of thousands of school children each year in the belief that the arts have a unique power to engage and motivate individuals towards excellence and self-confidence. An acclaimed principal dancer of the New York City Ballet, he won an Academy Award and several Emmy Awards, but is most proud of his work as founder of the National Dance Institute. (Have you learned his "Trail Dance" yet?)

Answer: He started dance at the age of seven, and it took him ten years to become principal dancer of the New York City Ballet. It never took him that long to achieve anything else. For more on the remarkable accomplishments of the artist/teacher/humanitarian, Jacques d'Amboise, visit him at the NDI web site.

Question:                                                                       Lizzie Borden took an axe
                                                                                              And gave her mother forty whacks.
                                                                                        When she saw what she had done
                                                                                            She gave her father forty-one.
Name that ballet.

Answer: Agnes de Mille created Fall River Legend based upon the famous 1890's murder case in which Lizzie Borden was accused of the murder of her mother and father. The ballet opened at the Ballet Theatre, Metropolitan Opera House in April, 1948. In the famous trial, Lizzie was acquitted. Miss de Mille was not so compassionate. She has Lizzie hanged.

"The Binch"

Every U down in Uville liked U.S. a lot,
But the Binch, who lived Far East of Uville, did not.
The Binch hated U.S! the whole U.S. way!
Now don't ask me why, for nobody can say,
It could be his turban was screwed on too tight.
Or the sun from the desert had beaten too bright
But I think that the most likely reason of all
May have been that his heart was two sizes too small.

But, Whatever the reason, his heart or his turban,
He stood facing Uville, the part that was urban.
"They're doing their business," he snarled from his perch.
"They're raising their families! They're going to church!
They're leading the world, and their empire is thriving,
I MUST keep the S's and U's from surviving!"

Tomorrow, he knew, all the U's and the S's,
Would put on their pants and their shirts and their dresses.
They'd go to their offices, playgrounds and schools,
And abide by their U and S values and rules.

And then they'd do something he liked least of all,
Every U down in U-ville, the tall and the small,
Would stand all united, each U and each S,
And they'd sing Uville's anthem, "God bless us! God bless!"
All around their Twin Towers of Uville, they'd stand,
and their voices would drown every sound in the land.

"I must stop that singing," Binch said with a smirk,
And he had an idea--an idea that might work!
The Binch stole some U airplanes in U morning hours,
And crashed them right into the Uville Twin Towers.
"They'll wake to disaster!" he snickered, so sour,
"And how can they sing when they can't find a tower?"

The Binch cocked his ear as they woke from their sleeping,
All set to enjoy their U-wailing and weeping,
Instead he heard something that started quite low,
And it built up quite slow, but it started to grow--
And the Binch heard the most unpredictable thing...
And he couldn't believe it--they started to sing!

He stared down at U-ville, not trusting his eyes,
What he saw was a shocking, disgusting surprise!
Every U down in U-ville, the tall and the small,
Was singing! Without any towers at all!
He HADN'T stopped U-Ville from singing! It sung!
For down deep in the hearts of the old and the young,
Those Twin Towers were standing, called Hope and called Pride,
And you can't smash the towers we hold deep inside.

So we circle the sites where our heroes did fall,
With a hand in each hand of the tall and the small,
And we mourn for our losses while knowing we'll cope,
For we still have inside that U-Pride and U-Hope.

For America means a bit more than tall towers,
It means more than wealth or political powers,
It's more than our enemies ever could guess,
So may God bless America! Bless us! God bless!

Question: His sister, Adele Austerlitz, danced with him when he made his Broadway debut in Over the Top in 1916. They later appeared together in Lady Be Good, Funny Face, and The Bandwagon. Adele retired in 1932, but, thankfully, her brother didn't. He found another partner the very next year in Flying Down to Rio. Who was Adele's brother?

Answer: Her brother was the suave, sophisticated, smooth, charming, witty, partner of Ginger Rogers, whom he found in 1933. Later he found other partners: Eleanor Powell, Rita Hayworth, Judy Garland, and more. He said of dance in film, "Each dance ought to spring somehow out of character and situation, otherwise it is simply a vaudeville act." This certainly epitomizes the contribution Fred Astaire made to dance.

Question: Ruth Page and Bentley Stone wrote this ballet based upon a 19th Century ballad. They first performed it in Chicago on June 19, 1938. Like the Greek dramas, it contains a chorus of women (in Salvation Army uniform, however) to comment on the action. Name the double-crossing characters who comprise the title.

Answer: The song starts out, "Frankie and Johnny were lovers." The name of the ballet of course is Frankie and Johnny, and just as in the ballad, Frankie shoots Johnny, the lover who has double-crossed her. We'd like to publish the lyrics if anyone out there can send them to us.

Question: Speaking of Ruth Page (last weeks' question), in 1956 she became the director of what famous Chicago theatre?

Answer: The Chicago Lyric Theatre became the home of Ruth Page in 1956 (now, the Lyric Opera of Chicago). Her contributions to ballet were enormous. Page was the author of two books, Page By Page (1980) and Class (1984). She received the Dance Magazine Award in 1980, Illinois Gubernatorial Award in 1985, and held honorary degrees from Indiana University, De Paul University, and Columbia College of Chicago. She died in 1991 at the age of 85.

Question: American Ballet Theatre's 2002 Met Season will run from May 13 thru July 6 next year. To celebrate one of the great 20th Century composers, on seven evenings during the season, they will present two of his masterworks: The Firebird followed by The Rite of Spring. What composer are they celebrating?

(We print the following answer, word-for-word, supplied by non-CompuDance user Jeri Crooks of Go Dance Centre in Oceanside, CA -- certainly the most extensive answer we have received to date.)

Answer: The answer is, of course, Igor Stravinsky.

The Firebird, choreographed by Michael Fokine, was first performed by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes at the Theatre National de l'Opera in Paris on June 25, 1910. Tamara Karsavina was the Firebird, Michael Fokine was Prince Ivan, and Enrico Cecchetti was Kastchei.

The Rite of Spring (Le Sacre Du Printemps), choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky, was first presented by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees in Paris on May 29, 1913. Marie Piltz was the chosen one.

Question: In October 1870, he began to make sketches for a 4-act ballet on the subject of Cinderella, but the project was soon abandoned for lack of time. In November 1886, he agreed to do another project -- a ballet Undina, about which he had written an opera many years previously. Although his brother, Modest, wrote a scenario for the projected ballet, the composer lost interest in the subject, and only one brief four-bar sketch remains.

Thank goodness, in between those two dates, he completed a project. One hundred and nine years ago this month his ballet, which still has more productions at this time of year than any other work, was first produced. Name that composer.

Answer: Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky didn't complete a ballet on Cinderella nor Undina. He did, thankfully, complete The Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcracker. Numerous ballets were created from his works that were not intended for dancing. (Real trivia: His real name was Kamsko Votinsk.)

Question: She was born in Fairfax, Oklahoma in 1925, the daughter of an American Indian chieftain of the Osage tribe. She created the role of Coquette in Balanchine's (whom she later married) Night Shadow. Her signature role was The Firebird, but many people who saw her in Balanchine's production of The Nutcracker in 1954 say that she had no equal anywhere. She was a Kennedy Center Honoree in 1996. Don't forget to celebrate her birthday this month on the 24th.

Answer: Maria Tallchief was known as one of the most brilliant interpreters of the works of George Balanchine. "A ballerina takes steps given to her and makes them her own. Each individual brings something different to the same role," she one said. Did you know that she was also a skilled pianist; and, that her sister, Marjorie, married to George Skibine, made her mark in as an admirable interpreter of her husband's ballets?

Question: Martha Graham described this 1940 ballet as "a drama about Emily Dickinson as a poet and as a woman of New England. The action takes place in the world of her imagination and of her poetry rather than in the day to day world of Amherst, where she lived." Name that ballet!

Answer: Letter to the World was first performed on August 11, 1940. The principal dancers were Martha Graham, Jane Dudley, Merce Cunningham, and Eric Hawkins. Dickinson said:

                                                                                              This is my letter to the world,
                                                                                                     That never wrote to me, -
                                                                                                 The simple news that Nature told,
                                                                                                     With tender majesty.

Question: If you check the answer to last month's question, you'll find that three of the principal dancers in that ballet also performed in another Martha Graham ballet four years later. (May O'Donnell appeared instead of Jane Dudley.) Aaron Copeland wrote the music to this story of a young couple in early nineteenth century Pennsylvania celebrating the building of a new home. Many people know the music, but have never seen the ballet. Name that ballet!

Answer: On October 30, 1944, Martha Graham, Erick Hawkins, Merce Cunningham, and May O'Donnell performed Aaron Copland and Martha Graham's Appalachia Spring. (Congratulations! This is the first time we had 100% correct answers.)

Question: What do these films from 1933 through 1945 have in common? Flying Down to Rio, The Gay Divorcee, Roberta, Top Hat, Follow the Fleet, Swing Time, Shall We Dance, Carefree, The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle, The Barkleys of Broadway.

Question: "I consider myself singularly fortunate in one lifetime in having worked with Danny Kaye, Cyd Charisse, Fred Astaire, Marlon Brando, Gwen Verdon, Barbra Streisand, Julie Andrews, Gene Kelly, Stanley Donen, Blake Edwards and many others," he says. "It makes for happy remembering."

Answer: Add the following musicals to the list and see some additional accomplishments of American actor/dancer/ choreographer Michael Kidd: On Stage (his debut choreographic work), Finian's Rainbow (1947), Guys and Dolls (1952); Can Can (1953), and Li'l Abner (1956).

Question: We'll start off the new season with an easy one. He was born of theatrical parents in the dressing room of an old theatre in 1850, and died while giving a lesson at La Scala in 1928. He had a reputation as a great teacher and maître de ballet, and exercised a tremendous influence on modern dancing and teaching. You probably use some of his methods and exercises.

Answer: The basic principles of his method, which prescribes certain exercises for each day of the week, were recorded by one of his pupils, Stanislas Idzikowski, and published in London in 1922. The title was A Manual for the Theory and Practice of Classical Theatrical Dancing. Today, there are societies and teachers around the world who promote and practice the ideas of Enrico Cecchetti.

Question: This Russian dancer/choreographer was born in 1890. He was a strange, somewhat enigmatic figure, whose name occupies a legendary place in the history of ballet even though his career lasted a mere 10 years after his debut. He danced for the last time in 1917, but lived another 33 long, painful years, until April 11, 1950.

Answer: As a teenager he created the role of the Slave in Michael Fokine's Pavillon de' Armide in 1907. While studying under the strict discipline of Enrico Cecchetti, he came under the personal influence of Serge Diaghilev. And the rest (as they say) was history. Vaslav Nijinsky became one of the most powerful and revolutionary figures in ballet. Most who saw him and worked with him attested to his remarkable transformation on the stage from a somewhat awkward, many-time confused young man to a spiritual, almost super-human character. His final appearance was as Petrouchka (a role he initiated 6 years earlier) in Buenos Aires as part of a Diaghilev South American tour. He spent the next 3 decades, his mind gone, in an asylum, unable to summon up his artistic genius. He was relieved of his mental and psychological agony on April 11, 1950.

Question: Most people know that Leonard Bernstein and Jerome Robbins were responsible for the 1957 Broadway hit West Side Story. But they probably don't know that these two collaborated earlier on Bernstein's first ballet, Fancy Free, in 1944. That one-act ballet never made it big on Broadway, but the "musical version" did one year later. Name that musical.

Answer: The musical and film On the Town was inspired by Fancy Free.

Question: Here's another Nutcracker question. Casse-Noisette, a ballet in two acts and three scenes, (The Nutcracker) takes its original inspiration from a book by E.T.A. Hoffman, but the ballet was based on a rewrite of that story. Who rewrote Hoffman's tale?

Question: Here's one to honor our Canadian friends. Known to her friends as "Millie, " she was born Mildred Herman in Toronto. She created roles in Jerome Robbins' Age of Anxiety (1950), The Pied Piper (1952), and In the Night (1970); in Frederick Ashton's Illuminations (1950), Todd Bolender's The Miraculous Mandarin (1951); in George Balanchine's Caracole (1952), Valse Fantaisie (1953), Divertimento No. 15 (1956), Agon (1957), Stars and Stripes (1958), Episodes (1959), Liebeslieder Walzer (1960), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1962), Glinkiana (1966), and Cortège Hongrois (1973). And that's not the entire list! Name her.

Answer: This delightful, creative Canadian dancer is Melissa Hayden.

Question: Workers in the wool factories in this city wore clogs, thick-soled wooden shoes, to keep them above the mud of the factory floor. It is said that the rhythmic workings of the machines, coupled with the sound of the hard-soled shoes on the floor inspired the creation of Clog Dancing.

What was the name of this city where clog dancing originated?

Answer: The traditional belief is that the women working in those cotton factories supposedly beat out a rhythm with their thick, wooden clogs that kept time with the shuttles flying back and forth across the loom. This was called the Lancashire Clog. Steel mill workers continued the practice, and eventually took the dance form into theatres in Northern England. Somewhere in the mid-ninteenth century, the Lancashire Clog came to the United States. (If you do an internet search, you will find over 44,000 entries for the History of Clogging. Not all give the same history.)

We received other answers, some of which seemed to have some legitimacy, so we included all answers in the random selection.

Question: It's a yellow, powdered crystal that comes from the hardened sap of pine trees. You have used it in ballet classes. Cellists, bassists, violinists, and baseball pitchers also use it.

Answer: Rosin, of course. If you are interested in finding out how rosin is made, there are some fascinating pictures and descriptions of a shop in California at the following web link. Thank you to Richard Molen who included it in his answer. http://www.stringsmagazine.com/issues/strings98/rosin.html

Question: This Russian composer used much of the local color of his native Armenia in his works. He wrote the four-act ballet Spartacus. But his best-known ballet was probably Gayne or Gayaneh (1942). It contains the "Sabre Dance," some of which I had to memorize in grade school for my piano teacher. You too?

Answer: Born 100 years ago, Aram Illyich Khachaturian is an example of 19th Century nationalistic composers who drew upon the folk music and folk lore of their native land for inspiration. As a conductor he recorded many of his works for EMI, Decca, and Philips. A list of all of his compositions would include symphonies; dramatic works for plays and films; ballets; and many patriotic and popular songs. That list would fill this page! He died in Moscow in 1978. Check out his works at http://www.schirmer.com/composers/khachaturian/works.html

Question: At age eight, he debuted on Broadway in the musical The Girl in Pink Tights (1954). In 1973, he left his brother and father's act to form a jazz-rock group called Severance. In 1973, he launched a distinguished Broadway career that resulted in a Tony (for playing Jelly Roll Morton in George C. Wolfe's musical tribute Jelly's Last Jam in 1992), three additional Tony nominations, and a Theater World Award. He made his feature-film debut in the Mel Brooks' farce The History of the World, Pt. I. He had his own TV program in 1997.

Answer: Our winner, Susan Moore, put it best, and simply. He was "the amazingly talented, sadly missed, Gregory Hines." He was actor-dancer-musician-composer-director-choreographer -- all done with class. His accomplishments would fill this page. For more, try the following:
http://www.wma.com/gregory_hines/bio/GREGORY_HINES.pdf

Question: He was born in Chicago to circus performers who eventually went into vaudeville, taking their infant son with them. He made his film debut at age 11 in a dancing scene with two of his brothers in Melody for Two.

As a contract actor for Paramount, he mostly played adolescent roles, including Huckleberry Finn in Tom Sawyer - Detective (1938), and Bing Crosby's kid brother in Sing You Sinners (1938), which he later ranked among his favorite roles. When he outgrew the child roles, he briefly returned to vaudeville, but was soon back in Hollywood playing juvenile leads opposite such actresses as Gloria Jean and Susanna Foster. This ultimate "triple-threat" performer (sing-dance-act), appeared in dozens of plays, movies, and television productions over the years. Recently, he continued working when he found a role he liked, such as appearing in an episode of Tales From the Crypt.

Answer: "I'm an illusionist - a trickster who quick-changes before your eyes. I capture your attention without giving you time to think about it. I move fast, I keep changing my hats. And the more pleased an audience is, the more energy I get from it and give back to the audience." - Donald O'Connor, 1992

Donald died last month (September 27th) at age 78.

Question: This Swiss teacher, born in Vienna in 1865, invented a system of musical education based upon movement called Eurhythmics. He influenced Diaghilev, Nijinsky, Fokine, Balanchine, and possibly even you. His theories have been bitterly controversial, but, on the whole, more teachers, musicians, and choreographers recognize the value of incorporating movement/rhythm/music into the art of dance.

Answer: Even though Émile Jaques Dalcroze is an important figure in the history of dance, the fact is that he never considered dance to be an end in itself. He didn't teach technique, and theatrical dance was not a component of his method. Eurhythmics is more about music than dance. Dalcroze died in Geneva in 1950. Today choreographers, theatrical directors, dancers and actors pay tribute to Dalcroze's work and theories as they incorporate movement, sound, and rhythm into their dances, plays and films. The art of music and rhythm is an indispensable part of dance, film, and theatre.
For much more: www.msu.edu/user/thomasna/

Question: It's December, so here we go with another Casse-Noisette question. What Disney movie uses part of the musical score from The Nutcracker?

Answer: The answer is, of course, Walt Disney's most celebrated movie, Fantasia. Who can forget Mickey in Paul Dukas' The Sorcerer's Apprentice, or the Arabian Dance, or the Russian dance. Disney produced over 650 films from 1922 until his death in 1966. He appeared as the voice of Mickey Mouse in over 100 of them, including Fantasia. The non-Tchaikovsky music in Fantasia was taken from Bach, Dukas, Mussorgsky, Shubert, Stravinsky, and Beethoven.

Question: Shakespeare is the most-produced playwright every year. A number of his plays became the inspiration for ballets. Hamlet, for example, had several incarnations as ballets. Can you name any of the Hamlet ballets?

Answer: There have been a number of them, many people got at least one. The Tchaikovsky one act (one scene) which was first performed by Sadler's Wells Ballet in London on May 19 1942 was most often mentioned. Margot Fonteyn and Robert Helpman (who did the choreography) were two of the principal dancers.

Bronislava Nijinska did one at the Paris Opera in 1934. She used music of Franz Liszt, and danced the title role with Ruth Chanova doing Ophelia.

In 1953 Tatiana Gsovsky produced a version to music of Boris Blacher. That was done for the West Berlin Municipal Opera.

Question: In December I drove over to Houston to see an exhibit of some paintings from the NY Museum of Modern Art that were on tour. One was Salvador Dali's The Persistence of Memory, for years one of my favorite works. That reminded me that in addition to being the grand-master of Surrealism, Dali also designed sets and costumes for the theatre and the ballet. Can you name any of his famous (or infamous) ballet designs?

Answer: We received many responses - all of them had ballets for which the costumes and/or sets were designed by Dali. Many of you added ballets which we were not able to confirm were in fact his designs. Labyrinth, done for Ballet Russe de Monte-Carlo in 1941, and Bacchanale for the same company at The MET in New York in 1939, are probably the most famous. Others were Mad Tristam , El Café de Chinitas, and Sentimental Colloquy in 1944, and Los Sacos Del Molinero in 1949,

In 1961 he wrote the story and designs sets and costumes for Ballet de Gala, which premiered at the Teatro Fenice in Venice, with choreography by Maurice Béjart.

"Every morning when I wake up I experience an exquisite joy—the joy of being Salvador Dalí—and I ask myself in rapture, ‘What wonderful things this Salvador Dalí is going to accomplish today?’" —Salvador Dalí.

Answer: In 1917 the Cubist artist entered the theatre with a controversial design for Parade, a one-act ballet by the Surrealist writer Jean Cocteau with music by Erik Satie. Diaghilev's Ballets Russes performed it in Paris. Satie's music, Picasso's costumes and set, and Cocteau's script resulted in a shocked, angry, hissing audience, and ended up as one of the most controversial ballets in modern history. After the initial shock, Picasso's attempt to define space and re-define the relationship between performer and scenery had a marked effect on the future of scene design.

In addition to Parade, Picasso also designed Le Tricorne (1919), Pulcinella a year later, and finally Mercure (1924). Later, in 1946 he designed a drop-curtain for Le Rendez-vous for the Ballet des Champs-Élysées.

Question: Here's an easy one, as we return from a summer break. Born in 1879, he was an art festival director, a dancer, a choreographer, and a theorist. This Hungarian's contribution to the world of dance and choreography was the development of his notation system based upon all of the possible movements of the human body. He died in London in 1958.

Answer: We might never have had Labanotation if Rudolf Laban had pursued his original goal of becoming a painter and architect. But, the theatre called, and by 1915 he was in Switzerland establishing his Choreographic Insitute. And the rest, as they say, is history.

After the fact, we can say, "How simple." Just use a three-line staff representing the body, and create symbols indicating the direction of the movement, the duration, and what part of the body makes the movement. If it is so simple, why didn't anyone before him come up with the idea? That's the way with great innovators. After the fact of the invention, we can all say, "How simple." The key is to see the simplicity before the fact.

Question: Now let's get back to our familiar December topic - Tchaikovsky and The Nutcracker. Ballet San Antonio performed it's annual The Nutcracker in November. It was somewhat unique, as it was done for the first time with the San Antonio Symphony Orchestra. The conductor was Mayra Worthen. That got us to wondering . . . who conducted the orchestra for the original The Nutcracker?

Answer: Italian composer and conductor Riccardo Drigo conducted the first performances of The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker. In 1879 Drigo was engaged to conduct the Italian opera in St. Petersburg, and in 1886 he became the permanent ballet conductor of the Imperial Theater there. After Tchaikovsky's death, Drigo edited the score of Swan Lake and orchestrated a number of Tchaikovsky's piano pieces. His own ballets, melodious and easy to listen to, enjoyed success in Russia. Particularly popular was his ballet Les Millions d'Arlequin, which includes the famous Serenade for a soulful cello solo and the ingratiating Valse bluette. Drigo died at the age of 84 in 1930.

February 2005

Question: The subtitle, The Courting at Burnt Ranch, is probably a better title for this ballet than the actual title. Both the Oliver Smith set and the plot seem more comfortable with that title. But, that's not how we know this ballet. What's the popular title?

Answer: The Oliver Smith set for the Agnes de Mille/Aaron Copeland Rodeo sure looks much more like a "burnt ranch" than it does a traditional Rodeo. But, the popular title is Rodeo.

Question: This month's question reflects the major holiday this month. Gene Kelly and Cyd Charrise were originally cast in this film, but we all saw Fred Astaire and Ann Miller do the roles. Why, and what's the name of the movie?

Answer: Gene Kelly was originally cast in the role of Don, with Cyd Charrise as Nadine, but Kelly broke his ankle and Charrise tore knee ligaments while filming another movie. Fred Astaire was lured out of retirement by MGM boss Louis B. Mayer to replace Kelly. Ann Miller tested for the role of Nadine and won it and a contract with MGM that elevated her to stardom.

Miller danced with pinched nerves in her back. Also, she was too tall, so she had to wear flats so she wouldn't be taller than Fred Astaire. That's why we saw Astaire and Miller in Easter Parade, not Kelly and Charrise.

Question: Here's another "in season" question.

"One day in 1912, after I had become the regular conductor for the Ballet Russe, Diaghileff summoned me to a tiny rehearsal room in a theatre of Monte Carlo. . . . We were to hear Stravinsky run through the score of his new work . . . . With only Diaghileff and myself as audience, Stravinsky sat down to play a piano reduction of the entire score. Before he got very far I was convinced he was raving mad."

Who said that, and what was the score that Stravinsky played?

Question: Even though that might have been the opinion of Pierre Monteux when he first heard Stravinsky play his Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring), he did end up conducting that notorious first performance in 1913. Stravinsky was there in the wings that night, as was Nijinsky, who was trying to beat out the tempo for the dancers who could hardly hear the music because of the shouts and uproar in the audience. Diaghileff, from his box, pleaded with the unruly audience to allow the performance to go on. "Everything available was tossed in our direction," Monteux said, "but we continued to play on."

Did Monteux ever change his opinion of the "mad" Stravinsky? "Time has caught up with Stravinsky, "Monteux would later write. "Now he is recognized as one of the great of the world. He has advanced musical expression tremendously and almost every contemporary composer owes him an acknowledged debt." (from the cover notes on my 12", 33rpm record of The Rite of Spring conducted by Monteux)

Question: In addition to being the author of The Complete Guide to Teaching Dancing, he was once Mr. Dance America. This former President of DMA is the Director of Project Motivate, a successful teacher, lecturer, and publisher. It's been a long journey since those early years taking dance along with his twin brother in his mother's studio in Massachusetts.

Answer: There were more correct answers for this remarkable man than for any other trivia answer ever! That should tell you how highly regarded is Rhee Gold! Yes, he was Mr. Dance America in 1982; the founding chairman of UNITY; the CEO of American Dance Awards; Director of Project Motivate; publisher of GOLDRUSH; former president of Dance Masters of New England and DMA. Yes, the list of accomplishments is impressive, but not as impressive as what one studio owner said in her answer: " . . . most of all, he cares about us."

For more, check out the article in the June issue of Dance Teacher:
http://www.dance-teacher.com/backissues/jun00/danceinstudio.shtml

Or, see his web site at: http://www.rheegold.com/