Research Catalog

Title

Carmelita Maracci: Classes, lectures, and panel discussion between Mary Wigman and Ruth St. Denis [sound recording].

Author

Maracci, Carmelita, 1911-1987.

Publication

[Between 1970 and 1987?]

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

• Wigman, Mary, 1886-1973.
• St. Denis, Ruth, 1880-1968.
• New York State Council on the Arts, 2000-2001.
• Oral history archive.

Description

14 sound discs (ca. 492 min.) ; digital; 4 3/4 in.

Summary

• Disc 2 (ca. 46 min.). [Begins abruptly. Sound quality is very poor.] In the course of what appears to be a dance class or rehearsal, Carmelita Maracci speaks about a series of sonatas [by Domenicio Scarlatti] she calls the Scarlatti sonatas and the dance she has choreographed to this music; the rest of the recording consists of music for the rehearsal accompanied by Maracci's commentary and the occasional response from a dancer.
• Disc 3 (ca. 46 min.). [ Begins abruptly. Sound quality is very poor.] Carmelita Maracci speaks about music and musicians including Mozart followed by a question and answer session with the students [ends abruptly].
• Disc 4 (ca. 10 min.). [Music, extraneous noise and silence until ca. 6 min. into the recording.] Carmelita Maracci reads, in what appears to be a rehearsal for the presentation of a business proposal, her terms and conditions for teaching a Spanish dance class, including with respect to fees, studio specifications, pianists and assistant student pay.
• Disc 5 (ca. 60 min.). [Begins abruptly. This recording was almost certainly transfered from an earlier recording. Sound quality is fair to poor, with the part from ca. 30:55 min. to 40:00 min. into the recording almost unintelligible.] Mary Wigman, as the guest of honor, and Ruth St. Denis speak at a panel discussion, in California, ca. 1958, addressing an audience of dance students, teachers, and others from the dance world. Responding to a question, Wigman speaks about her experiences during World War II in Germany, including the effects of the war on her personally; leaving her home studio in Dresden in 1942; her time in Leipzig, and her struggles to teach dance under the National Socialist government; the life of German dance students and how Wigman structured their classes at that time; her post-war experiences, including moving to the western half of Berlin at the request of the Allied government to create (what Wigman refers to as) the Civic Opera; the post-war conditions in Germany, including teaching at that time; St. Denis comments on Wigman's experiences and their implications for dance historians; speaks about her own ideas about women, creativity, and government, which she calls the Women's Revolution; Wigman speaks about teaching under current circumstances in Germany, and her influence on German dance students and teachers; in response to a question she speaks about higher education in Germany; the status of modern dance in Germany; her opinions regarding ballet and modern dance [at ca. 30:55 min. sound becomes almost unintelligible until ca. 40:00 min.]; Maracci speaks about rhythm and the current youth dance craze inspired by Elvis [Presley]; [from ca. 47:38 sound quality deteriorates]; closing pleasantries including self-introductions of audience members. [Disc 12, track 2 mainly reiterates the panel discussion between Mary Wigman and Ruth St. Denis recorded on this disc 5. For the most part, sound quality on disc 12 is better, but some sections are missing or out of sequence.]
• Disc 6 (ca. 18 min.). [Begins abruptly.] Carmelita Maracci speaks about Goyescas [specific work not identified]; reminisces about her approach to choreography; the work she choreographed to sonatas by [Domenicio] Scarlatti [short interruption]; speaks about her early work, especially Spain cries out, and its relationship to the Spanish Civil War; her personal politics at that time and Leo Tolstoy; her perception of other dancers as politically neutral during the political upheaval in Spain.
• Disc 7 (ca. 11 min.). [This seems to be a copy of a recording Carmelita Maracci made for her students during an illness.] Maracci speaks about her illness; how she perceives herself as a teacher; Bertholt Brecht, including her introduction to him, and his collaboration with Lotte Goslar on his work Galileo; an assignment for the students. [The rest of the recording is silence followed by unrelated ambient noise from television and radio].
• Disc 8 (ca. 17 min.). [Music can be heard throughout the recording; spoken word portion begins abruptly.] Carmelita Maracci speaks about her personal response to the Spanish Civil War; her dance Spain cries out; how the horrors of World War II affected her emotions and her dancing; the influence of Spain, injustice, and poverty on her own dancing [buzzing noise begins]; social themes as important subjects for dance; her feeling that other dancers perform for entertainment purposes; more on dances she created about Spain; the public response to her dancing and dances; briefly, the Spanish dancers and modern dancers she sees as important [buzzing becomes louder, and speaker is less audible]; capital punishment; her philosophy regarding Spanish dance and performance; in the form of a letter read aloud, speaks about her illness and current condition.
• Disc 9 (ca. 36 min.). [Sound of warped recording until ca. 5:00 into the recording; overall sound quality is very poor.] Carmelita Maracci lectures, including reading aloud writings by Jean-Paul Sartre and others on art.
• Disc 10 (ca. 45 min.). [Sound quality is very poor.] In what appears to be a continuation of the lecture on disc 9, Carmelita Maracci speaks about various dance topics.
• Disc 11, f first ca. 7:50 min. [The recording is marred by a continuous buzzing noise, but the speaker's voice is clear.] Carmelita Maracci speaks to her students about her illness, her philosophy on teachers and teaching dance, including reading aloud quotations from Eugene Loring on teaching, and Agnes de Mille on her [Maracci's] style of teaching; her surgery plans; her consistency as a teacher throughout her career; an anecdote about Muriel Stuart's teaching; more on her illness, recovery, and wish for her students to continue taking classes.
• Disc 11, from ca. 7:50 min. into the recording to ca. 26:48 min. Carmelita Maracci speaks about the characteristics of Spanish dance; the city dancing of Spain; bullfighting and its symbolic meanings; southern Spain and anarchists; how she composes dances to reflect these themes; her use of everyday objects as props and in stage imagery; her costume and color theme choices; her performance qualities; her artistic philosophies and Spanish dancing; her admiration of Percy Shelly's poem The skylark, and imagery of the nightingale in her work; lists certain Spanish dancers she saw perform including Helba Huara; an anecdote about (La) Argentina [Antonia Mercé] performing a dance of a peasant woman as a jest; how Spanish dancers performed for upper classes and her opinion on their lack of personal convictions in their dance; Huara's performing style; Argentinita [Encarnación López] dancing while sick with cancer; how individual dancers of the time (1930s) gave concerts; Spanish dancers' arranging themselves sitting on chairs for flamenco dances (as in John Singer Sergent's painting of El Jaleo); the Flamenco performance format; Argentinita's regional dance; the Spanish dance term "eating her hair"; her own process in learning and understanding the ways of the Spanish peoples in order to better inform her Spanish dancing; the beginning of the dance Scarlatti [Scarlatti sonatas?]. [From ca. 26:49 min. to the end of the recording is unrelated ambient noises.]
• Disc 12, track 1 (ca. 11 min.). [Music until ca. 3:40 min. Sound quality is poor]. Carmelita Maracci speaks about her improving health and plans for resuming her classes [gap from ca. 6:10 to ca.6:25 followed by a recording made at a different time]; Maracci addresses specific students and offers suggestions for their training, including the importance of continuing pointe classes.
• Disc 12, track 2 (ca. 31 min.). [This section of the recording mainly reiterates the panel discussion between Mary Wigman and Ruth St. Denis recorded on disc 5. For the most part, sound quality on this disc is better, but some sections are missing sections or out of sequence. In addition, the section from ca. 14:54 to ca. 17:27 of the recording is of an unidentified male speaking about Isadora Duncan.]
• Disk 13 (ca. 46 min.). [Sound quality at beginning is very poor but improves somewhat.] Carmelita Maracci speaks with her students about a dancer [not identified]; a student reads aloud from letter sent by a group of artists to the U.S. government protesting the production of the neutron bomb followed by a discussion of the letter; Maracci and the students discuss the relationship of politics and the arts; Maracci quotes Albert Camus; speaks about her opinion of the current U.S. government and the political system; her experiences performing for governments; [Waslaw] Nijinsky's political views, [Natalia] Makarova's defection from the [former] Soviet Union, and [Gala] Ulanova's choice to remain; discussion of the dance world in New York City; students taking classes with ballet stars; Maracci's view that students should take class daily; discussion among students as to how dancers support themselves in New York and the price of dance classes there; Maracci speaks of how students used to take private lessons, studying privately with [Michel] Fokine; her theories of pedagogy, including how a dance teacher should interact with students; discussion of the current state of dance, inspiration, and other topics [ends abruptly].
• Disc 14, track 1 (ca. 46 min.). [Begins abruptly. Sound quality is poor.] Carmelita Maracci reads aloud to her class from a book about [Waslaw] Nijinsky, relating the passage to a letter she received from Allegra Kent; the dancer's inner life; more on Allegra Kent, as her student; more on the inner life of dancers, and the approach of choreographers; her opinions on dance education in college; refers to an article on film director Kenji Mizoguchi; reads aloud from the article while commenting on it; speaks about the artistic process of Joyce Carol Oates; contemporary dance and how it is reviewed. [Track 2, ca. 9 min. Ambient noise including television, silence, and fragments of conversation.]

Subjects

• Dance > Political aspects
• Modern dance > Germany > History
• National socialism and dance
• St. Denis, Ruth, 1880-1968
• Maracci, Carmelita, 1911-1987
• Dance > Study and teaching
• Wigman, Mary, 1886-1973
• Dance > Spain
• Dance > Economic aspects
• Dance teachers

Note

• Recordings made by Carmelita Maracci primarily of classes and lectures, in California, probably ca. 1970-1987. The recordings also include what appears to be a copy of an earlier recording of a panel discussion between Mary Wigman and Ruth St. Denis most likely held in California, ca. 1958 (disc 5 and disc 12, track 2).
• Sound quality ranges from fair to very poor. Poor and very poor sound quality are indicated with respect to individual discs in their respective summaries below. The recordings begin with disc 2.

Funding (note)

• Preservation was funded in part with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, 2000-2001.

System Details (note)

• Transferred from 14 sound cassettes (original recording date unknown) to compact disc formats in 2001. The panel discussion with Mary Wigman and Ruth St. Denis was almost certainly transferred from an earlier recording.

Call Number

*MGZTL 4-1789

OCLC

586029689

Author

Maracci, Carmelita, 1911-1987.

Title

Carmelita Maracci: Classes, lectures, and panel discussion between Mary Wigman and Ruth St. Denis [sound recording].

Imprint

[Between 1970 and 1987?]

Funding

Preservation was funded in part with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, 2000-2001.

System Details

Transferred from 14 sound cassettes (original recording date unknown) to compact disc formats in 2001. The panel discussion with Mary Wigman and Ruth St. Denis was almost certainly transferred from an earlier recording.

Local Note

Arch. orig.: *MGZTCO 3-1789 no. 1-13

Added Author

Wigman, Mary, 1886-1973. Speaker

St. Denis, Ruth, 1880-1968. Speaker

New York State Council on the Arts, 2000-2001.

Oral history archive.

Research Call Number

*MGZTL 4-1789