Great Galloping Gottschalk received its world
premiere on January 12, 1982 at the Miami Beach Theater of the
Performing Arts in Miami Beach, Florida with American Ballet
Theatre. The production was made possible in part by a gift from
the Miami Beach Premiere Committee, which was formed to raise
the bulk of the ballet’s $100,000 production cost.
Lynne Taylor-Corbett chose six pieces of Gottschalk’s
music for her ballet: Souvenirs de Porto Rico, The Dying Poet,
Tournament Galop, La Savane/ Oh Ma Charmante, Le Bananier,
and La Manchiega.
Following the Ballet Theatre production, Great Galloping
Gottschalk has been staged for Pennsylvania Ballet, BalletMet,
Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, Ballet van Vlanderen and sections
for Indiana University in Bloomington. This summer Ms. Taylor-Corbett
will travel to Korea to stage the ballet there.
Former Artistic Director of BalletMet, John McFall, asked
Lynne Taylor-Corbett to create a new work for the company in
1988. Prior to the beginning of the rehearsal period she received
the opportunity to choreograph the musical Chess for Broadway.
This would not have allowed Ms. Taylor-Corbett enough time to
dedicate to a BalletMet world premiere as well, so it was agreed
that BalletMet would perform Great Galloping Gottschalk.
Because of an incredibly hectic schedule Ms. Taylor-Corbett shared
the staging of the ballet with Jeffrey Gribler of the Pennsylvania
Ballet and was only able to come to Columbus for a few days at
a time. As with the original staging of the ballet for American
Ballet Theatre and most other occasions on which she has staged
the work, Ms. Taylor-Corbett did not have the luxury of time
in 1988 to fine tune the ballet and to tailor it to the new dancers.
With many years of experience in teaching the work to different
dancers, the opportunity to return to BalletMet in 1998 has been
a wonderful opportunity for both Ms. Taylor-Corbett and the company.
When Gottschalk was created Ms. Taylor-Corbett
was still dancing and so much of the vocabulary reflects her
own dance style. It was also idiosyncratic of the original cast
members who helped inspire the work. Without losing the essentials
of the choreography Ms. Taylor-Corbett seeks to highlight the
strengths of the dancers who perform the work today. She has
had the chance to give details of structure that are easily transferred
from dancer to dancer, has eliminated needless complications
and has given attention to the places that have been overlooked
in the past.
Ms. Taylor-Corbett writes
of her ballet:
"In 1980, Mikhail Baryshnikov saw a ballet of mine
called Sequels performed by A.B.T. II (under the direction
of Richard Englund with Gretchen Warren and Jeremy Blanton).
Mischa [Baryshnikov] called me in for a meeting and invited me
to do a new work for the American Ballet Theatre of which he
was artistic director. When I asked what kind of work he'd like
me to do, he replied, ‘Just do next ballet.’ In other
words , the next ballet that was inside of me.
"How elated I was! The problem was there seemed no ‘next
ballet’ inside of me. As the weeks passed, my muse was out
to lunch, elation turned to despair - not a shred of inspiration
had I!
"The General Manager called from time to time to ask
‘How’s it going?’ (They wanted to know what kind
of ballet I was doing so they could go out and raise money!)
I answered that I was still trying to choose from many brilliant
ideas chasing around in my fertile imagination.
"Finally, in July, desperate (I had to begin rehearsals
in August) I went into a record store and began to flip through
records (ah, those pre-C.D. days). One cover jumped out at me
purely because of its vibrant colors. It was the piano music
of Louis Moreau Gottschalk.
"When I listened to the music later I thought ‘No,
no, it’s too simple - not heroic enough for that profound
masterpiece I'm sure is my ‘next ballet!’ The tunes,
however, would not leave me alone and eventually I had to surrender
to their whimsy and uncanny power.
"I had known the composer Victoria Bond for many years
through other collaborations, so I turned to her to orchestrate
Gottschalk’s piano music. Victoria and I sat at the piano
together to piece together the score. Five of the selections
were pretty straightforward, but neither La Savanne nor
Oh Ma Charmante seemed to have enough content to support
the solo I wanted to create. Victoria came up with the solution
of cleverly weaving the two into one piece of music.
"I set out to create a series of variations, hoping that
I would find little storytelling devices to sustain each section.
The first dance, Souvenir de Porto Rico, is a tapestry
of people in unison with a single person who goes against the
grain. It is possibly the simplest and most abstract section
of the ballet. It begins very elegantly and calmly, and as it
goes along releases into a joyful celebration. The pas de deux
was inspired by Susan Jaffe whom I had worked with at A.B.T.
II. I also was familiar with the up-and-coming Robert La Fosse
and thought they made the absolute dream couple for The Dying
Poet variation. For me, the Trio is like a lot of recitals
that I danced when I was young. Although the dance is humorous
the girls are very serious about their dancing, reflecting how
fabulous I thought I was in those days. To create the solo I
worked with Lise Houlton who came from a modern dance background
and was comfortable with improvisation. Together we created much
of the material through a process of improvisation. The solo
tells of a woman torn between two forces in her life. I had chosen
Johann Renvall and Danilo Radojevik for the male duet because
they were both fabulous dancers. They were also very similar
physically and consequently frequently competitive for the same
roles. When I walked into the studio they were warming up, on
opposite extremities of the studio. I wondered what I had got
myself into and how I was ever going to get them together on
stage. Danny was an intelligent actor and precipitated a lot
of the ideas, and gradually both the dancers began to get into
it. The last movement brings everyone together, gradually building
in both numbers and complexity.
"The rest is history, I suppose. Gottschalk
opened in Miami in January of 1982. I had followed the company
around on tour trying to finish on time!
"After an appearance in Los Angeles, Mischa and Charles
France decided that I had to replace the costumes (which had
been designed by Gretchen Warren) and the orchestrations (originally
done by Victoria Bond) which they felt weren't beefy enough.
"In the matter of the costumes, they brought in Santo
Loquasto. He and I stood in the back of the house in Washington
watching the ballet. He asked me what I would like to see and
I said (looking rather glum) that I would actually like to see
pretty much what I already was seeing. Tactfully he withdrew
from the project and I was able to keep the wonderful, quirky,
Gretchen Warren costumes for the Met opening in New York, May
1982, where it was received enthusiastically.
"I have been so blessed that Gottschalk has
been a playground for so many wonderful dancers throughout the
years. Perhaps someday my ‘next ballet’ will be dark,
heroic and profound, but I am grateful that the talent of Louis
Moreau Gottschalk reached out across the years and said ‘Psst,
lighten up!’"
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Lynne Taylor-Corbett, choreographer
Lynne Taylor-Corbett has created ballets for American Ballet
Theatre, New York City Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Hubbard
Street Dance Company, Ohio Ballet, Miami City Ballet and many
other companies both here and abroad. She originally set Great
Galloping Gottschalk on BalletMet in 1988 and returns
for the 1998 season.
Ms. Taylor-Corbett has directed and choreographed numerous
productions in regional theater. Currently, she is directing
a new production of Tintypes which will open at the Hartford
Stage and then transfer to the Old Globe in San Diego. She is
represented on Broadway by Titanic and Jackie for
which she did the musical staging. Her film work includes Footloose
and My Blue Heaven, both directed by Herbert Ross.
Ms. Taylor-Corbett serves on the board of her union, the Society
of Stage Directors and Choreographers, where she has fought long
and hard to gain representation and recognition for film choreographers.
Her proudest achievement, however, is her son, Shaun Taylor-Corbett,
an idealistic Honors Student at the University of Delaware who
is well on his way to saving the planet.
Lynne Taylor-Corbett was born in Denver, Colorado, one of
six girls. Her father was a school vice-principal and political
activist. Her mother was a concert pianist who also performed
as a church organist and choir director. Ms. Taylor-Corbett’s
extraordinary musicality as a choreographer is no doubt rooted
in this heritage. Her mother also played for dance classes, and
it was this that led to her early instruction in dance. By the
age of 17 she went to New York to study at Balanchine’s
School of American Ballet. Lynne quickly assessed herself in
relationship to the others in the class such as the wünderkind
Colleen Neary and decided it would be wise to move on. She studied
at Ballet Theatre, took jazz and acting, and danced professionally
in a number of companies including those of Anna Sokolov and
Alvin Ailey.
Ms. Taylor-Corbett, along with Rodney Griffin, Lynn Sunenson
and Jaclynn Villamil,was a founding member of Theatre Dance Collection.
The company was dedicated to the creation of new choreography
with the choreographers creating their own pieces and dancing
in those of others. Among its early members were Danny Buraczeski
and Bill Cratty. It was a great opportunity to learn the craft
of choreography. The company toured constantly nationally and
internationally under the sponsorship of the National Endowment
for the Arts. In 1977 the founding members felt that the company
had run its course and went their separate ways into successful
freelance careers.
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Louis Moreau Gottschalk,
composer
Born in New Orleans May 8, 1829, to an affluent New Orleans
family, Gottschalk was the son of a British Jew and a Creole
mother. Gottschalk showed signs of musical precocity as early
as age 4. After teaching himself to play melodies and left-hand
harmonies on the piano, his parents sought the instruction of
François Letellier, a New Orleans organist and choirmaster,
to guide their son’s talent. Quickly learning all he could
in New Orleans, at thirteen he was sent to Paris to pursue his
piano studies. Shut out of the Paris Conservatoire for being
American - "America is only a country of steam engines."
- he took private lessons with Charles Hallé and Camille
Stamaty, studying alongside the seven year old Saint-Saëns.
When Stamaty retired from teaching, the 16 year old Gottschalk
felt no need to find another piano teacher, but did continue
his composition studies.
He soon became known not only as a good pianist but a celebrated
one, the first internationally famous American pianist. His status
was on a par with many rock stars of today. Young women would
flock to his concerts and turn faint at his appearance. His exotic
sounding compositions became the rage of Europe and were played
by many concert pianists.
Gottschalk began to compose in the late 1840s. Inspired by
the inclusion of nationalist themes in Chopin’s music, he
drew upon his own background and included the plantation melodies
that he grew up with and the Cuban and Caribbean rhythms he heard
in New Orleans. Gottschalk was one of the first American composers
to be inspired by the folk music of his native country. His ‘cakewalk’
music, in turn, was a precursor of ragtime. After spending time
in the West Indies (particularly Havana) and South America, different
influences came to bear on his music. Gottschalk also emulated
the sophisticated playing of Chopin and Liszt and added his own
preference for the upper two octaves of the piano. Described
as "style pianola" because it resembled the sound of
a player piano, this high register produced cascades of silvery
sound. From his early period of composition in Paris came La
Savane (based on Negro folk songs and rhythms)and La Bananier.
This piece was encored five times in Geneva: the sixth time Gottschalk
exited the stage door and "left the lunatics to yell to
the desert."
Gottschalk returned to the United States in 1853 making his
American debut in New York City. He had a busy life composing
large quantities of music, traveling and playing concerts and
getting mixed up in love affairs. In his diary Gottschalk speaks
of his touring schedule, reviewing some of the rigors of the
concert circuit: "I have given 85 concerts in four months
and a half," he wrote. "I have traveled 15,000 miles
on the railroad. At St. Louis, I have seven concerts in six days;
at Chicago, five in four days." When touring Europe, North
and South America, Gottschalk traditionally left a pair of white
gloves on the piano after the concert; his adoring fans would
scramble to retrieve them as souvenirs. (Overwork drove Gottschalk
to the nervous habit of biting his nails and he actually wore
gloves even when sleeping to prevent this)
Before and during the American Civil War he played concerts
in the eastern and central states, always traveling with supporting
musicians; (There were no solo recitals in those days.) In 1856
he got into trouble after playing in San Francisco. Although
Gottschalk denied the activity, the local citizens got riled
up at reports of his alleged indiscretions with a respectable
young lady of the city. Rather than face a hostile mob Gottschalk
escaped by boat to South America where he crossed the continent,
eventually ending up in Rio de Janeiro where he arranged his
"monster concert" of 650 performers. For this he hand
copied all the music, and led rehearsals.
In December 1869, at age 40, Gottschalk collapsed at the piano
while playing his Morte (Death) in Rio de Janeiro. Shortly
afterwards he died, some say of yellow fever or being poisoned
by a vengeful husband. In all likelihood the cause was peritonitis.
For his entire professional career Gottschalk was donating
his services for the help of those more needy than himself. In
1851 he gave a benefit concert for Parisian workers unemployed
on account of their factory being burned. During his tour of
Spain he gave at least one concert in each city solely for charity.
Also in Spain he befriended a young street urchin, an orphan
whom he later adopted and took care of his education and welfare
until adulthood. Gottschalk continued his arduous concert tours
so that he could support his entire family after his father died
of yellow fever. At his 1865 concerts in California the gold
miners in the audience showed their appreciation by throwing
gold and silver coins on stage as well as applauding - a custom
Gottschalk found distasteful. True to his humanitarian nature,
he publicized that any money thrown on stage would be given to
charities.
As is the cycle of human taste, Gottschalk’s immensely
popular music was soon scorned after his death and fell into
obscurity. His music is just as fresh and energetic as any today,
and his rhythmic flair does not sound dated. One wonders if he
had not died so young what his mature music could have developed
into, as hinted at in his A Night in the Tropics.
Gottschalk’s music has also been used for Balanchine’s
Tarantella (1964) and Ruthanna Boris’ Cakewalk
(1951). Both ballets have been presented by BalletMet.
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Gretchen Ward Warren, costume designer
Gretchen Ward Warren has been designing for more than twenty
years. Among the many companies for whom she has created costumes
are American Ballet Theatre, Pennsylvania Ballet, Les Ballets
Jazz de Montreal, The Joffrey Ballet and Miami City Ballet. For
the past fourteen years, Ms. Warren has been Professor of Dance
at the University of South Florida in Tampa where she teaches
ballet, choreographs, and designs costumes for department productions.
She is the author of two books, Classical Ballet Technique
and The Art of Teaching Ballet.
Ms. Ward Warren is a native of Princeton, New Jersey. She
studied ballet with Thalia Mara and at the Royal Ballet School
in London. From 1965-76 she danced as a soloist with the Pennsylvania
Ballet. Upon retirement, she joined American Ballet Theatre II
as ballet mistress, working closely with Richard Englund and
Mikhail Baryshnikov in the recruitment and training of young
dancers across the country. Among her former students are current
A.B.T. ballerinas Susan Jaffe and Kathleen Moore. In 1979, Miss
Warren coached the Silver Medal winner in the Jr. Men’s
Division of the International Ballet competition in Jackson,
Mississippi. As a result, she was invited to spend two years
in Moscow studying the Vaganova teaching methods of the Bolshoi
Ballet.
Ms. Ward Warren is listed in Who’s Who in America,
has served as a consultant site visitor for the National Endowment
for the Arts and as President of the Florida Dance Association.
Most recently, she was the recipient of a Fulbright Senior Scholar
award to spend six months in Australia teaching ballet and conducting
research on contemporary Aboriginal dance.
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