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Catherine Littlefield : a life in dance / Sharon Skeel.

by Skeel, Sharon, author.

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New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2020]

Littlefield, Catherine.

Ballet dancers -- United States -- Biography.

Ballerinas -- United States -- Biography.

9780190654542 (hardcover) :

0190654546 (hardcover)

xvi, 359 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

"I had never had a dancing lesson in my life, but somehow, I knew I could train those other children, and I did." / Caroline Doebele Littlefield ; "The whole family was so enthusiastic and so colorful and so interesting." / Elizabeth Goldsmith ; "Mommie was the sparkplug and Catherine was the inspiration." / Peggy Becker ; "What a lugubrious tale!" / Fanya Levene ; "If you don't have money, you can't dance." / Angelo Pinto ; "She was 9/10ths a performer and 1/10th a wife." / Thomas Cannon ; "Here came these five beautiful Littlefield girls, good dancers all." / Yvonne Patterson ; "There is going to be a permanent ballet company in Philadelphia." / Catherine Littlefield ; "Now I know that it was really real." / Ruth Sefarbi ; "We took 25 curtain calls and the stage looked like a florist shop." / Leonard Ware ; "Her ballet, Barn Dance, was the first truly American balletic composition that we have ever seen." / Walter Terry ; "An enormous mačdoine of musical comedy, patriotism, and burlesque, spangled with American history-that is 'American Jubilee.'" / Anonymous ; "For Broadway one must be clever and Catherine Littlefield is very clever." / Anonymous ; "It is only 8 o'clock-the sun is streaming in and God is good." / Catherine Littlefield.

"Born in Philadelphia in 1905, Catherine Littlefield first learns dancing from her mother, Caroline (called Mommie), an expert pianist, and from a local dancing master, C. Ellwood Carpenter. As a teenager, Catherine becomes a Ziegfeld dancer and takes lessons from Luigi Albertieri in New York. She returns home in 1925 to help Mommie teach at the Littlefield School (among her students is Zelda Fitzgerald) and stage dances for women's musical clubs and opera companies. William Goldman hires Catherine to produce routines in commercial theaters throughout Philadelphia and becomes her boyfriend. Catherine, Mommie, and Catherine's sister, Dorothie, travel to Paris so the sisters can study ballet with Lubov Egorova. They become friendly with George Balanchine in Paris and help him establish his first American school and company when he comes to the U.S. in 1933. Catherine marries wealthy Philadelphia attorney Philip Leidy and established her Philadelphia Ballet Company in 1935. She choreographs-and her company presents--the first full-length, full-scale Sleeping Beauty in the U.S. as well as popular ballet Americana works such as Barn Dance and Terminal. Her company's European tour in 1937 is the first ever by an American classical ballet troupe. Catherine loses some of her protegeés to the newly formed Ballet Theatre and disbands her company after the U.S. enters World War II; she then choreographs Broadway musicals, Sonja Henie's Hollywood Ice Revues, and Jimmy Durante's NBC television show before dying in 1951 at age forty six"--Provided by publisher.

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