Behind the Tutu - By Natalia Clare
first edition
2004 · Jackson, Tennessee
by BALLET RUSSE - NATALIA CLARE
Jackson, Tennessee: Main Street Publishing, 2004. First Edition. 57 photographs. 193 pages. Paperbound. Fine. Rare. The autobiography of Natalia Clare (1919-2004) who according to the Los Angeles Times was an American-born principal dancer with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and an important Los Angeles ballet teacher and arts advocate. The director and choreographer of Ballet La Jeunesse, a prominent Southland trainee company that she founded in 1958 and ran until the late 1980s. She had been active as a guest teacher and arts lecturer through the mid-1990s. Born in Los Angeles, she studied ballet with Bronislava Nijinska, one of impresario Sergei Diaghilev’s stable of choreographers, and made her professional debut in 1940 dancing for Nijinska at the Hollywood Bowl. In 1942, Colonel de Basil, director of the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, invited her to join his company, and she danced for him throughout the world. She married Oleg Tupine, a Ballet Russes star, in 1945, and they became a team onstage as well. A 1956, the Los Angeles Times review praised their “virtuosity of more than average caliber and, above all, teamwork which, for its unusual precision, pointed to a long association in many a recital.” In 1948, Clare joined Sergei Denham’s competing Ballet Russe company as a principal dancer, performing leading roles in such classics as “Les Sylphides,” “Gaite Parisienne,” “Raymonda,” “Coppelia,” “Graduation Ball,” “Aurora’s Wedding” and “The Nutcracker.” She and Tupine then danced for the Markova-Dolin Ballet and other troupes, including one of their own. A knee injury ended Clare’s dancing career in the late 1950s, by which time she had founded the Ballet La Jeunesse school and company. Choreographer George Balanchine sometimes gave classes at the school when he visited Los Angeles, and he also authorized the company’s use of several of his major works. Clare and Tupine ended their marriage in 1963, and in 1986 she married Russian pianist and composer Michael Liotweizen, who often accompanied Ballet La Jeunesse performances. (Inventory #: 16371J)