Lucia Chase

Lucia Chase
Born Lucia Chase
(1897-03-24)March 24, 1897
Waterbury, Connecticut, United States
Died January 9, 1986(1986-01-09) (aged 88)[1]
Awards Presidential Medal of Freedom

Lucia Chase (24 March 1897[2] in Waterbury, Connecticut – 9 January 1986 in New York City, United States) was an American dancer, actress, ballet director and also the co-founder of the American Ballet Theatre.[1]

Career

She studied drama at New York's Theater Guild School where she also took ballet lessons. Though her first love was the theatre, after she decided that dance was to be her life, she studied seriously with Mikhail Mordkin, Michel Fokine, Antony Tudor, Anatole Vilzak, and Bronislava Nijinska. She performed with the Mordkin Ballet from 1937 to 1939, where she danced the title roles in The Sleeping Beauty and Giselle. In 1940 she and Richard Pleasant founded Ballet Theatre (later American Ballet Theatre), with Lucia Chase as principal dancer (and prime financial backer), although she concentrated on the more dramatic and comedic roles.

She created the Eldest Sister in Tudor's Pillar of Fire (1942) and the Greedy One in Agnes de Mille's Three Virgins and a Devil (1941). In 1945 she and Oliver Smith jointly took over direction of American Ballet Theatre.

She retired from the stage in 1960, and retired as company director in 1980, when she was succeeded by Mikhail Baryshnikov.

During the course of forty years she devoted her energy and a large part of her personal fortune to ensure the company's survival. She brought Tudor and Baryshnikov to American Ballet Theatre and encouraged US choreographers such as Jerome Robbins, Glen Tetley and Twyla Tharp. She was awarded the US Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1980.

Lucia Chase was married to Thomas Ewing, with whom she had two sons.

Chase was inducted into the National Museum of Dance's Mr. & Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney Hall of Fame in 1988.

In 2009, the book, Bravura!: Lucia Chase and the American Ballet Theatre, written by her son Alex C. Ewing, was released.

Filmography

Year Film Role Notes
1976 Live from Lincoln Center (Swan Lake) Queen Mother 1 episode
1957 Omnibus (Lizzie Borden) Stepmother 1 episode
1973 American Ballet Theatre: A Close-Up in Time Herself

References

  1. 1 2 Anderson, Jack (1986-01-10). "Lucia Chase Of Ballet Theater Is Dead". Select.nytimes.com. Retrieved 2016-11-29.
  2. ↑ Dale Grimm. "The Descendants of John Heywood - Irving Hall Chase". Heywoods.info. Retrieved 2016-11-29.
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