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June Roper: Ballet Starmaker (Dance Collection $24.95)
Since he moved to Victoria in 1961, then resettled in Vancouver, the San Francisco-born historian and critic Leland Windreich has written hundreds of serious reviews and dancer profiles, many of which are available in Dance Encounters, published in 1998.
Windreich's summation of the 'Patricia Neary Affair' at Ballet B.C., his recollections of Agnes de Mille, his review of Karen Jamieson's Sisyphus and his tribute to Vancouver-trained Duncan Noble-to mention only four examples-are sufficiently clear to appeal to non-danceoholics.
"Most writers who have produced histories of Vancouver of the past few decades have tended to ignore the cultural institutions in the city,"; Windreich claims.
While he notes that critics Michael Crabb, Max Wyman and James Neufeld have made June Roper's presence known, he is also compensating for a dearth of serious arts coverage in the mainstream press with his June Roper: Ballet Starmaker (Dance Collection $24.95).
Having recorded extensive interviews with June Roper in 1979, Windreich has chronicled her Los Angeles beginnings, her glamourous dancing career in Europe and the United States and her eventual gravitation to Vancouver in 1934.
During the Depression the remarkable June Roper cajoled boys from breadlines and, in return for a meal, offered them an opportunity to lift pretty girls. One of her male dancers who didn't require any such inducement was Ian Gibson, later dubbed the Canadian Nijinsky.
Gibson danced with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo from 1938 to 1940, then debuted in Ballet Theatre before he joined the Royal Canadian Navy. Gibson's brief, four-year career is retrieved and dignified by Windreich, along with dozens of others who were indebted to June Roper as a teacher in the 1930s and 1940s. 0-929003-34-9
[BCBW AUTUMN 2000]
Windreich's summation of the 'Patricia Neary Affair' at Ballet B.C., his recollections of Agnes de Mille, his review of Karen Jamieson's Sisyphus and his tribute to Vancouver-trained Duncan Noble-to mention only four examples-are sufficiently clear to appeal to non-danceoholics.
"Most writers who have produced histories of Vancouver of the past few decades have tended to ignore the cultural institutions in the city,"; Windreich claims.
While he notes that critics Michael Crabb, Max Wyman and James Neufeld have made June Roper's presence known, he is also compensating for a dearth of serious arts coverage in the mainstream press with his June Roper: Ballet Starmaker (Dance Collection $24.95).
Having recorded extensive interviews with June Roper in 1979, Windreich has chronicled her Los Angeles beginnings, her glamourous dancing career in Europe and the United States and her eventual gravitation to Vancouver in 1934.
During the Depression the remarkable June Roper cajoled boys from breadlines and, in return for a meal, offered them an opportunity to lift pretty girls. One of her male dancers who didn't require any such inducement was Ian Gibson, later dubbed the Canadian Nijinsky.
Gibson danced with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo from 1938 to 1940, then debuted in Ballet Theatre before he joined the Royal Canadian Navy. Gibson's brief, four-year career is retrieved and dignified by Windreich, along with dozens of others who were indebted to June Roper as a teacher in the 1930s and 1940s. 0-929003-34-9
[BCBW AUTUMN 2000]
Submitted on July 3, 2003 in By David.
