Divadelní noviny > Zahraničí Zprávy
Zemřela Betty Jones
Foto archiv
11. 6. 1926 Meadville, Pennsylvania, USA – 17. 11. 2020 Honolulu, Hawaii, USA
Tanečnice a taneční pedagožka. Zakládající členka americké skupiny moderního tance José Limón Dance Company (1946), Desdemona v nejslavnějším tanečním čísle José Limóna The Moor’s Pavane (prem. 1949).
Vyrůstala ve městě Delmar ve státě New York. Ještě jako malá se s rodiči přestěhovala do nedaleké Albany, kde začala chodit na taneční kurzy. V roce 1941 získala studijní stipendium ve slavném tanečním centru Jacob’s Pillow, které tehdy vedli Anton Dolin a Alicia Markova. Už v roce 1942 vystoupila ve školním Ted Shawn Theatre, kde tančila ve dvou baletech Bronislavy Nijinské. Záhy se stala pro školní soubor nepostradatelnou a vystupovala v choreografiích Teda Shawna, Angioly Sartorio a dalších.
Poté, co školu v roce 1944 dokončila, zamířila do New Yorku, kde pracovala pro Dance Magazine a spolupracovala s Shubert Theatre. Zde plných osm měsíců měla možnost sledovat Utu Hagen a Paula Robesona v inscenaci Othello, což jí později pomohlo při vytváření role Desdemony.
Desdemona. Foto archiv
V roce 1945 zpívala a tančila na turné USO (United Service Organizations Oklahoma!, jejíž choreografii připravila Agnes de Mille. Tančila i v další její inscenaci Bloomer Girl, jež podnikla turné po USA. Její kariéra se začala výrazněji vyvíjet až v létě 1946, kdy se vrátila do Jacob´s Pillow. Na konci sezony byl do školy angažován jako hostující učitel a performer José Limón, který zcela změnil její pohled na tanec a nasměroval její kariéru. Tančili spolu a navázali v podstatě celoživotní pracovní vztah.
V roce 1947 vznikla taneční společnost José Limón a Betty Jones se stala jednou z jejích zakládajících členů. Během příštích třiadvaceti let byla její hlavní tanečnicí, vystupovala v ikonických choreografiích José Limóna jako například v There is a Time, Missa Brevis či A Choreographic Offering. Vedle toho tančila i v choreografiích Doris Humphrey Night Spell, Ruins and Visions a dalších.
José Limón & Betty Jones v choreografii José Limóna The Moor’s Pavane (1949). Foto Barrat
Její nejslavnější rolí se stala postava Desdemony v duetu s José Limónem v roli Moora v The Moor’s Pavane na hudbu Henry Purcella (prem. 1949) /záznam nejdete zde/, který se stal klasikou modern dance a tančili jej i v Bílém domě. Pod záštitou amerického ministerstva zahraničí absolvovala s Limónem rozsáhlé turné a reprezentovala USA na mezinárodních turné po Evropě (včetně Jugoslávie a Polska), Jižní Americe, Austrálii a Dálném východě.
Od svých dvaceti let ale také vyučovala. Nejprve v Dance Players Studio a později dělala plných dvacet let asistentku José Limona v Juilliard School. Současně plných čtyřicet let vedla kursy v American Dance Festivalu.
V roce 1964 spolu s Fritzem Ludinem založili na Havaji, kde od té doby žila školu Dances We Dance. Současně tančili duety a v choreografiích Marthy Wittman, Murray Louise, Dana Wagonera a dalších a vystupovali po celých USA v rámci programu NEA Dance Touring Program. V pozdějších letech cestovali a učili po celém světě, vystupovali i v Rusku a východní Asii.
Betty Jones a Fritz Ludin choreografii José Limóna There is a Time ( Jacob’s Pillow, 1967) Foto John Lindquist
Za svůj život získala řadu cen a vyznamenání. Například čestný doktorát od pařížské taneční federace Française de Danse, Chevalierovu medaili od kambodžského prince Sihanuka in Cambodia, vysoké umělecké vyznamenání od Komise kultury a umění města Honolulu a amerického Senátu a Sněmovny reprezentantů ocenění za kulturní přínos a reprezentaci státu Havaj.
Její kariéra je pečlivě dokumentována díky její matce. Tato alba spolu s množstvím fotografií, programů, filmů a videí jsou nyní trvale uložena jako sbírka Betty Jones v newyorské veřejné knihovně Jerome Robbins Dance Division.
Od 16. listopadu 1979 byla vdaná ze svého kolegu z Limón Company a tanečního partnera Fritze Ludina
Její úmrtí oznámil právě on.
/Pro i-DN z více zdrojů připravil hul/
///
Betty Jones, Founding Member of Limón Troupe, Dies at 94
She created the Desdemona role in José Limón’s best-known dance, “The Moor’s Pavane,” and became a respected teacher.
Betty Jones, a dancer known for memorable performances as an original member of José Limón’s famed company and later a respected dance teacher, died on Nov. 17 at her home in Honolulu. She was 94.
Her husband, Fritz Ludin, announced her death.
Ms. Jones was 23 and relatively new to modern dance, in August 1949, when she originated the role of the Desdemona character, known as the Moor’s Wife, in Mr. Limón’s take on “Othello,” which he called “The Moor’s Pavane.” The work, using only four dancers, caused a sensation when it premiered at the American Dance Festival in New London, Conn. John Martin, writing in The New York Times, called it “a completely stunning work.”
Ms. Jones, he wrote, “is an incredibly lovely Desdemona,” dancing opposite Mr. Limón as the Moor, the Othello character. The piece, Mr. Limón’s best-known work, became a staple for the young company, and Ms. Jones performed it all over the world.
As a teacher at the Juilliard School and, for 40 years, at the American Dance Festival (which relocated to North Carolina in 1978), Ms. Jones imparted the techniques developed by Mr. Limón — who thought of the body as an orchestra and emphasized movement of its individual parts to create a harmonious whole — and enhanced them with her own.
“You just don’t imitate movement,” she told The Herald-Sun of Durham, N.C., in 2000, speaking of any dancer who might seek to recreate her “Pavane” performance. “It needs to come from inside. The human element. You understand what the body is saying when you’re doing it.”
Betty May Jones was born on June 11, 1926, in Meadville, Pa. Her father, Dr. Hiram A. Jones, was director of health and physical education for the New York Department of Education, and her mother, Elizabeth (Smith) Jones, managed food service at the Jacob’s Pillow dance center in Massachusetts in the 1940s and was later booking manager for Dances We Dance, a company Ms. Jones and Mr. Ludin founded in 1964.
Ms. Jones grew up in Delmar, N.Y., near Albany, and after graduating from high school studied dance in Albany and then, beginning in 1941, at Jacob’s Pillow, where she appeared in several ballets. Near the end of World War II she danced with a United Service Organizations production of “Oklahoma!,” performing for troops in New Guinea, the Philippines and elsewhere.
In 1946, when Mr. Limón first approached her about joining the dance troupe he was forming, she had been thinking of a career more in keeping with her “Oklahoma!” experience.
“I had planned to get a night job in a show and go to Columbia University,” she told Américas magazine, a publication of the Organization of American States, in 1997. “Anyway, I said that I wasn’t interested, and in the fall, I got into ‘Bloomer Girl,’ with choreography by Agnes de Mille.” That musical had made Broadway in 1944 and was touring, but Ms. Jones soon found that the road-musical life “wasn’t interesting to me at all.”
“So I went back and studied with José,” she said.
Mr. Limón’s fledgling company began drawing notice in 1947. Then, two years later, he created “The Moor’s Pavane.”
Mr. Limón, who died in 1972, was often said to have created the role of the Moor’s Wife for Ms. Jones. She wasn’t so sure.
José Limón Dance Company: The Moor’s Pavane. Choreography José Limón (1949). Music Henry Purcell. Performers José Limón, Betty Jones, Lucas Hoving, Pauline Koner. Jacob’s Pillow, August 1951.Foto archiv Jacob´s Pillow
“He had had several kind of false starts with different people,” she told Américas, “and I think perhaps he got the idea that I inspired the Desdemona role after he saw me do it. Eventually, José said, ‘I did Desdemona for you’ and that it was my dance. But that was news to me, and it certainly wasn’t my dance when he started.”
In any case, the work became an enduring part of American dance history, performed not only by Mr. Limón’s company but also by many others. Ms. Jones also originated roles in other important Limón works, including “There Is a Time” (1956) and “Missa Brevis” (1958).
She danced with Mr. Limón’s company into the late 1960s. In 1964, for a performance at the American Dance Festival, Mr. Limón paid her an unusual compliment, or so a review by Allen Hughes in The Times made it seem.
“Because Mr. Limón was suffering from a knee ailment, his solos were danced by Betty Jones,” Mr. Hughes wrote. “She did them very well, but it was rather strange to see a woman do movements Mr. Limón has previously reserved for himself.”
After forming Dances We Dance, Ms. Jones and Mr. Ludin, a fellow Limón dancer, toured extensively under the dance touring program of the National Endowment for the Arts. The couple, who married in 1979, settled in Hawaii and created the Jones-Ludin Dance Center, a presenting organization.
Mr. Ludin is Ms. Jones’s only immediate survivor.
Of the many times Ms. Jones performed “Pavane,” she told Américas, one in particular stuck in her mind. It was in Paris in 1960.
“Coincidentally, the Comédie-Française was doing ‘Othello,’” she recalled, “and when the actors came to see us, they said, ‘You were able to say in 20 minutes what we say in three hours and a half.’”
Neil Genzlinger, The New York Times, Nov. 26, 2020, 11:33 a.m.
Komentáře k článku: Zemřela Betty Jones
Přidat komentář
(Nezapomeňte vyplnit položky označené hvězdičkou.)
