NEWS of the Century.

These excerpts from historic news articles from the pages of Dance Magazine and The American Dancer retain their original spelling and punctuation. Unless noted photos are from Dance Magazine's archives.

1932

MARCH--Martha Graham packed more people into the Martin Beck Theatre than had ever been there before. Police reserves were called out to handle the traffic.

1933

JANUARY--As we look back, the year of 1932 seems to have been a milestone in the universal effort of the dance for widespread recognition. ... Outstanding Dance Activities for 1932 ... in Chronological Order ... [included] La Argentina, Mary Wigman, Harald Kreutzberg....

FEBRUARY--The greatest disappointment to the show world ... was the sudden failure of the New Roxy, Radio City "Music Hall" to continue its policy of "two a day" stage presentations. The first readjustment was the release of Martha Graham, whom we have heard audiences would not take in the serious mood in which she was presented ... The next adjustment came with ... moving pictures put into the "Music Hall" with a condensed version of the stage show ...

APRIL--The latest craze in London is "The Threesome." A gentleman may dance with two ladies at the same time, so as to eliminate the "wallflower." Because of the scarcity of men in England, this is becoming quite popular.

JULY--Witnessing the ballet performance given by the San Francisco Operatic and Ballet School at the Opera House on Jane second, one had to remind one's self continuously that one was present at a performance of a school, which had been a work for four months only.

AUGUST--The start of a new season, and, we hope, a New Deal.... If half the promises made materially then it is time the performer stetted doing something about it. The past three years have certainly wracked salaries and working conditions.... To cite one condition that calls for immediate aid, there is the line girl.... Salaries range from eighteen to thirty dollars per week, the average being about twenty-two dollars.

SEPTEMBER--Local yokels are agog over the sexation of the fair, one Sally Rand, who has lifted herself out of the semi-obscurity of the night club fan dancer into the lucrative heights of a newspaper headliner with that one simple gesture.... Disposing of the tantalizing fans at the climax of the number, La Rand stands unadorned and unashamed.... One sober judge, before whom an injunction against Sally's performance was sought, stated from the bench with due judicial dignity that who would want to put pants on horses ... and who would like to see the heroic stone figures on the Federal Building measured for pajamas!

NOVEMBER--The news of Sally Rand's prison sentence struck the coastal dance world with the force of a physical blow.... While her fan dance may not have been an artistic masterpiece, it was anything but offensive.

1934

JANUARY--The middle of December saw the opening in New York of a new dance school, The School of the American Ballet. This is the group which originally planned to locate in Hartford, Connecticut, and operate on a kind of subsidized basis. However, this plan was wisely abandoned, and now the School is to operate in New York City, building up classes, and aiming toward the formation of an American Ballet Company.... Georges Balanchine is Director.

AUGUST--After a survey of 24 states ... our findings show that there are 16,500 dancing teachers in this country; that each one has an average of one hundred and seventeen pupils making a total of 1,930,000. The average teacher's income from class lessons is $84.73 per week.... Therefore the total paid for tuition in any one season is an average of $26,640,900.

OCTOBER--"The tango," says George Bernard Shaw, "is the only modern ballroom dance that deserves to be called a dance." In fact, Mr. Shaw took the tango so seriously that he devoted six weeks to mastering it in all its intricate subtlety.

DECEMBER--New York was briefly visited this month by Madame Bronislawa Nijinsky, sister of the great Nijinsky, who still lives in a French sanitorium, his mind tragically closed by that illness which cut off his career. Mme. Nijinsky has done much to fill her brother's shoes ...

1936

JANUARY--Catherine Littlefield, several seasons ago prominent as ballet mistress of the Philadelphia Opera Company, is again assuming a leading position in Quaker City dance circles with the formation of a ballet company of sixteen dancers.

JUNE--London this and next month is the scene of what looks like a hand-to-hand straggle between two ballet companies: Col. De Basil's Ballets Russe de Monte Carlo, with Leonide Massine as maitre de ballet, and the newly organized Monte Carlo Ballets Russe, sponsored by Rene Blum, with Michel Fokine as maitre de ballet.

JULY--St. Marks-in-the-Bouwerie, first New York church to revive the use of dance in worship, a movement now gradually spreading to other parts of the country, on April 9 revived the Ritual Dance of the Della Robbia Annunciation ...

AUGUST--Out of 20,000 fan letters received by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers each month, more than half of them request a pair of their dancing shoes. Do they get them? Well, what do you think?

DECEMBER--Stravinsky was in the audience at the New York premier of the American Ballet ... and shortly after expressed to Mr. Balanchine a desire to write a ballet especially for this group.

Bill Robinson, the celebrated tap dancer, has signed a five-year contract with Twentieth Century Fox as Shirley Temple's dance instructor.

1938

DECEMBER--Serge Lifar ... sailed for France ... after a heated dispute with the management of the Ballet Russe. The trouble started, it seems, over changes which were made in the ballet Swan Lake by Leonide Massine.... Consequently Lifar challenged Massine to a duel in some secluded section of Central Park. The duel never came off, however ...