Research Catalog

Interview with Katharyn Horne

Title: Interview with Katharyn Horne, 2020 / Conducted remotely by Marina Harss on October 1, 2020; Producer: Dance Oral History Project and the Cecchetti Heritage Project.
Author: Horne, Katharyn
Publication: 2020

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Performing Arts Research Collections Dance to submit a request in person.	Moving image	Supervised use	*MGZMT 3-3551	Performing Arts Research Collections Dance

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Description

1 streaming video file (approximately one hour and 27 minutes) : sound, color. +

Summary

Streaming file, October 1, 2020 (approximately one hour and 27 minutes). Katharyn Horne speaks with Marina Harss about how she first decided to be a dancer as a child in Fort Worth, Texas; while in junior high school dancing with two other girls, one of whom was Sallie Wilson and the other who eventually danced for [Bob] Fosse; moving to New York City to become a professional dancer; taking class with Margaret Craske initially at Ballet Arts and shortly after (around 1951) at the Metropolitan Opera ballet school; Craske's admiration and love for Anna Pavlova; Craske's dancing in Pavlova's toe shoes in order to break them in for her; Craske's stage name of Margareta Craskova [also Kraskova] when she was in the Ballets Russes; her roles as one of the women [nymphs] in [Vaslaw Nijinsky's] Afternoon of a faun and as a corp member in [Michel Fokine's] Les sylphides; an anecdote Craske told about Enrico Cecchetti throwing his cane at her in class; her impressions of Craske including her voice, her "aura" of love, and wry sense of humor; Craske's starting dance around age 16; Craske's participation in various sports as a child; (very briefly) the exercises with which Craske began class; how meeting Baba Meher in London in 1931 eventually led to Craske's teaching ballet in the United States, charged with the mission of bringing Baba's love there; an anecdote about Craske and Antony Tudor; Tudor as a person more interested in human emotions than spiritual love; Lucia Chase's hiring of Craske at Tudor's request; her frequent visits (from her home in Charlotte, North Carolina) to Craske, who was living at the Meher Baba Retreat [Baba Spiritual Center] in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; the occasional lessons Craske gave in retirement to visiting dancers, for example showing a young man how to do changements; Horne describes and quotes from a letter Craske gave her; the studio at the Metropolitan Opera ballet school; joining Ballet Theatre (later American Ballet Theatre) about a year after starting class; more on the warm up exercises at the barre including an anecdote illustrating Craske's mischievous side; center work, starting with a port de bras of which there were seven in total; she notes that Tudor "taught the seventh one wrong"; the adagios; more on the port de bras; an anecdote about Tudor and Craske's 90th birthday party; other Cecchetti-based exercises including Craske's allegros; describes in detail a "Cecchetti step" in [George] Balanchine's Symphony in C; the Cecchetti-based dynamic of "going up, taking a breath, and then going down"; the words Craske used when directing students in a changement; the necessity of practicing on one's own in order to master the steps Craske taught in class; Craske's concern with epaulement; Craske's friendship with her one-time student Paul Taylor; Craske's emphasis on simplicity and musicality including her distinguishing between a movement and a gesture; how Craske taught epaulement; a classroom anecdote illustrating Craske's wit; reminiscences of Taylor from class; Craske's frap̌ps including the emphasis on speed; Craske's teaching her students to feel how they were moving without looking at themselves in the mirror; examples of Craske's use of varying degrees of elevation depending on the step or combination such as a quatre pointe relěv in her adagios; the huge discrepancy between what Balanchine taught and Craske taught; her understanding that Balanchine and Cecchetti did not get along personally; more on Craske's adagios including specific steps; modeling herself as teacher to the extent possible on Craske and her essential ideas; the end product of Craske's methods: classical ballet dancers with the versatility to dance in other styles; Craske's most important lesson: one must love what one does; Horne's view that Balanchine's dancers dance with their egos not with love; Craske's many visitors after she retired, requesting instruction; "Needletoes," the nickname Wilson gave Horne; her gratitude to have had Craske as a teacher.

Alternative Title

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

Subject

Genre/Form

Video recordings.
Oral histories.

Note

Interview with Katharyn Horne (in Charlotte, North Carolina)) conducted remotely by Marina Harss (in Lynchburg, Virginia) on October 1, 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 3-3551
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 3-3551

OCLC

1395562551

Author

Horne, Katharyn, Interviewee.

Title

Interview with Katharyn Horne, 2020 / Conducted remotely by Marina Harss on October 1, 2020; Producer: Dance Oral History Project and the Cecchetti Heritage Project.

Imprint

2020

Playing Time

012700

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 2020, October 1 Charlotte (N.C.) and Lynchburg (Va.)

Connect to:

Added Author

Harss, Marina, Interviewer.

New York Theatre Ballet.

Research Call Number

*MGZMT 3-3551

*MGZDOH 3551

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