January 12, 2021 – davidbruceblog #2

Children

• Isadora Duncan’s early life was harsh after her mother separated from her father. Little money was available, and the family was forced to move from dwelling to dwelling. When Ms. Duncan was nearly eight years old, her school class was asked to write a story about their lives. The other children wrote happy stories, but little Isadora wrote about unkind landlords. Her teacher thought she was making up lies, and so the teacher spoke to Isadora’s mother about the story. Isadora’s mother started crying and said that the story was true. (Despite the lack of money, Isadora was introduced to culture very early in her life. Her mother played classical music on the piano and read Shakespeare to her children.)

• In the USSR, ballerinas were major celebrities — and in the countries formed by the breakup of the USSR, they are still major celebrities. A group of children from Moldavia was visiting the Bolshoi when they found out that Galina Ulanova was practicing in a room next door. The children raced around the adults trying to keep them out of the practice room and watched her, entranced. Such scenes are repeated. When Ms. Ulanova returned to Leningrad to dance as a guest, its citizens were excited. As she warmed up, a door to the balcony over her warming-up area opened and some children stood and watched her, spellbound.

• As a child, Agnes de Mille saw Anna Pavlova dance twice. She was mesmerized each time and motivated to study dancing. The second time she saw Ms. Pavlova dance, she was able to visit her backstage with a few adult friends. Ms. Pavlova kissed her on the cheek and gave her some flowers, and Agnes was so overwhelmed at being in the star’s presence that she began to cry. Years later, Agnes learned that Ms. Pavlova acted that way with all the little girls who were brought to see her. But it didn’t matter to Agnes, for Ms. Pavlova was a star of dance.

• After World War II, in which she worked for the Resistance and was awarded the croix de guerre and the Legion of Honor with the Rosette of the Resistance, Josephine Baker adopted 12 orphans of several nationalities (including Finland, Ivory Coast, Korea, and Algeria) and several religions (including Buddhist, Shinto, Catholic, Jewish, and Moslem) and brought them to live with her in France. She called the adopted orphans the Rainbow Tribe and hoped that they would be a model for world brotherhood.

• Everyone — including creative, successful, famous people — has been rejected at one time or another. When she was a teenager, young people’s author Jean Little attended a party where a chaperone encouraged her to participate in a Sadie Hawkins dance where her partner would be whoever was closest to her when a piece of music stopped. Unfortunately, the boy closest to her looked at her, said, “Oh, God, no” — then left her on the dance floor. (She spent the rest of the evening standing behind the record player.)

• When children’s book author/illustrator Tomie dePaola was growing up, he took dance lessons and occasionally participated in a dance concert with the other child dancers. One year, he was supposed to dance as a pirate, and he wanted to have an eye patch so he could look scary. Therefore, he started giving his dance teacher, Miss Leah, some drawings of pirates. Each pirate wore an eye patch. Miss Leah got the hint, and she allowed Tomie to wear an eye patch during the dance.

• At age four, future Olympic gymnast Shannon Miller had a problem. Tessa, her older sister, was taking dance lessons, but money was tight and young Shannon could not take lessons with her sister. She solved the problem the next time her grandmother telephoned. Talking on the phone, young Shannon told her the sad story, and Grandma agreed to pay for her lessons.

• As a very young dance student, Suzanne Farrell often practiced at home, using an armchair to represent a male partner. She had read about and liked the male dancer Jacques d’Amboise, so she named the armchair after him. Later, as a dancer with the New York City Ballet, Ms. Farrell danced with the real Jacques d’Amboise.

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The Funniest People in Dance — Buy

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The Funniest People in Dance — Smashwords: Many formats, Including PDF

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/98588

BRUCE’S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC

Music: “Too Late”

Album: DYNAMITE EP

Artist: The Courettes

Record Label: Groovie Records

Record Label Location: Lisbon, Portugal

Info: “Record label, distributor and music producer, been based in Lisbon since 2005. Since its founding, we have been dedicated to musical research, through compilations and re-releases of rare records, and the production of unpublished records of Portuguese and foreign bands.”

“The Courettes is the new garage rock duo from Brazil and Denmark. It’s savage! It’s dynamic! A blast of Jungle wildness & Scandinavian rock ‘n’ roll! ‘Riot grrrl in the garage’ Flavia Couri will blow off your mind with atomic fuzz guitars and screaming raw vocals, and ‘Beat! Beat! Beat! man’ Martin Couri will make you s-s-shake with his loud-as-hell drumming!”

“‘Too Late’ is girl-group pop music. I love it.” — Bruce

Introducing – The Courettes (2019)

A documentary.