Research Catalog

Title

Interview with Sarah Stackhouse, 2020 / Conducted remotely by Marina Harss on September 25, 2020; Producer: Dance Oral History Project and the Cecchetti Heritage Project.

Author

Stackhouse, Sarah

Publication

2020

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

• Harss, Marina
• New York Theatre Ballet.

Description

1 streaming video file (approximately one hour and 11 minutes) : sound, color. +

Summary

Streaming file, September 25, 2020 (approximately one hour and 11 minutes). Sarah Stackhouse speaks with Marina Harss about her childhood dance lessons with Araby Blinn in Battle Creek, Michigan; moving to Scarsdale, New York where she continued dance lessons, with Steffi Nossen, and performed with Nossen's concert group throughout Westchester County; her matriculating at the University of Wisconsin in order to attend the dance program; the influence of PT [physical therapy] on the teaching of dance at the University of Wisconsin; taking a ballet class on weekends; reminiscences of Louise Kloepper; after graduating in 1958, moving to New York City where she got a job with the Police Athletic League and continued dance classes; joining José Limón's company [Limón Dance Company] circa 1959; after becoming an assistant (demonstrator) to José Limón at the company, taking class at the Juilliard School, initially with Alfredo Corvino and then with Antony Tudor where she met her lifelong friend Diana Byer; reasons she was immediately drawn to Margaret Craske's teaching methods; Craske's koan-like explanation of how to do a tendu; an illustrative anecdote about her fellow student Jennifer Muller and Craske's method of letting her students "figure it out" on their own; Limón's classes as requiring more sheer physical exertion than Craske's; through Craske's classes, achieving an understanding of the body's architecture that enabled her to handle Limón's and [Merce] Cunningham's work as well as Afro-Cuban dance, which she studied with Syvilla Fort; Craske's lifelong influence on Stackhouse notwithstanding the relatively short period (around two years) she studied with her; Craske's eight port de bras exercises; reasons she found Craske's classes difficult including the precision and the defined approach to space required by the Cecchetti method; the transferability of the benefits of this training, as she saw when staging Limón's work on Diana's [Diana Byer's] dancers at NYTB [New York Theatre Ballet]; Craske's conciseness in class and expectation that her students would listen to and understand what she said; Tudor's view that Craske was better with children than adults; Tudor's class including as compared to Craske's; an anecdote about Tudor's likening Stackhouse's movement in a port de bras exercise to stale beer; how Craske's teaching of the fundamentals of movement gave dancers the tools to bring to any choreographer, as was the case with the NYTB dancers and Limón's work; this basic clarity regarding the body's movements as perhaps the reason so many modern dancers took Craske's class; the suitability of this training for Cunningham's work; her feelings of reverence for Craske; her joy in being able to have made a life out of dance; reminiscences of Craske's physical appearance and characteristic gestures and expressions.

Alternative Title

• Dance Oral History Project.
• Dance Audio Archive.
• Cecchetti Heritage Project

Subject

• Stackhouse, Sarah > Interviewee
• Cecchetti, Enrico, 1850-1928
• Craske, Margaret
• Limón, José
• Tudor, Antony, 1908-1987
• Byer, Diana
• Juilliard School. Dance Division
• New York Theatre Ballet
• Ballet > Study and teaching
• Ballet dancing
• Dance teachers

Genre/Form

• Video recordings.
• Oral histories.

Note

• Interview with Sarah Stackhouse (in New Paltz (N.Y.)) conducted remotely by Marina Harss (in New York, N.Y.) on September 25, 2020 for the Dance Oral History Project of the Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, and the Cecchetti Heritage Project.
• This interview is part of the Cecchetti Heritage Project, a collaboration between Diana Byer, Jean Volpe, and Matthew Nash, and the Dance Oral History Project of the Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. For the Cecchetti Heritage Project, selected dancers recounted their memories of studying with ballet teacher Margaret Craske. A student of Enrico Cecchetti, Miss Craske taught Cecchetti's technique to generations of dancers at American Ballet Theater (late 1940s), Metropolitan Opera Ballet School (1950-1966), the Juilliard School, Jacob's Pillow, and the Manhattan School of Dance (1968-1983).
• For transcript see *MGZMT 3-3550
• Sound quality is good overall.
• The video recording of this interview can be made available at the Library for the Performing Arts by advanced request to the Jerome Robbins Dance Division, dance@nypl.org. The video files for this interview are undergoing processing and eventually will be available for streaming.
• Title supplied by cataloger.

Access (note)

• Transcripts may not be photographed or reproduced without permission.

Call Number

*MGZMT 3-3550

OCLC

1395562581

Author

Stackhouse, Sarah, Interviewee.

Title

Interview with Sarah Stackhouse, 2020 / Conducted remotely by Marina Harss on September 25, 2020; Producer: Dance Oral History Project and the Cecchetti Heritage Project.

Imprint

2020

Playing Time

011100

Type of Content

spoken word

two-dimensional moving image

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

video

computer

Type of Carrier

online resource

volume

Digital File Characteristics

video file

Restricted Access

Transcripts may not be photographed or reproduced without permission.

Event

Recorded for for the Dance Oral History Project of the Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, and the Cecchetti Heritage Project 2022, September 23 New Paltz (N.Y.) and New York (N.Y.)

Connect to:

Added Author

Harss, Marina, Interviewer.

New York Theatre Ballet.

Research Call Number

*MGZMT 3-3550

*MGZDOH 3550