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| {{Short description|Japanese American dancer (1912–1993)}} | |||
| {{Cleanup|August 2006}} | |||
| {{Infobox artist | |||
| '''Ailes Gilmour''' was among the young pioneers of the American ] movement in the 1930's. Her half-brother is ] the American sculptor. | |||
| | name = Ailes Gilmour | |||
| | image = | |||
| | caption = Helen Tamiris (center), Augusta Gassner, Dvo Seron, Ailes Gilmour, Marion Appell, and Lulu Morris in Tamiris's How Long Brethren, 1930-40's. | |||
| | birth_date = {{birth date|1912|01|27|mf=y}} | |||
| | birth_place = ], Japan | |||
| | death_date = {{death date and age|1993|04|16|1912|01|27|mf=y}} | |||
| | death_place = ], US | |||
| | nationality = American | |||
| | field = ] | |||
| | movement = ] | |||
| }} | |||
| '''Ailes Gilmour''' (January 27, 1912 – April 16, 1993) was a ] dancer who was one of the young pioneers of the American ] movement of the 1930s. She was one of the first members of ]'s dance company.<ref name="NYT DANCE">{{cite news|title=DANCE VIEW; Reflections on Martha Graham's Revolution| first=Anna| last =Kisselgoff| url=https://www.nytimes.com/1988/05/29/arts/dance-view-reflections-on-martha-graham-s-revolution.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm| newspaper =The New York Times| date=May 29, 1988| access-date =August 27, 2012| quote=Among those in the first and all-female troupe in the 1930s was Ailes Gilmour, who introduced her brother, the sculptor Isamu Noguchi, to Miss Graham}}</ref> Gilmour's older half-brother was sculptor ]. | |||
| Ailes was born in ], ] in ]. Her mother, ] was also the mother of ]. Leonie was an American woman living in Japan working as an English teacher and writer. | |||
| ==Early life== | |||
| ] met ] in New York. He was a self-styled poet. When he returned to Japan, he made his living as a professor of English at ] in Tokyo. Yone invited Leonie to come to Japan with their baby. When Leonie got to ], she discovered that Yone already had children and another family there. | |||
| Gilmour was born in 1912 in ], ]. Her father was unknown. Her mother, ], attended ] and studied at the ] in Paris, then moved to New York City in the early 1900s to try to establish herself as a writer. In 1907, Léonie traveled to Japan at the behest of ], the father of Ailes' older half-brother, Isamu, who had been born in 1904. However, by the time Léonie arrived in ], Yone was involved with a Japanese woman who had already borne the first of their nine children. Léonie's circumstances in Japan were always precarious. Nevertheless, she chose to stay there, teaching to support herself and Isamu, while continuing to edit Yone's writing. When Ailes was born, Léonie chose the name Ailes for her daughter from a poem ''Beauty's a Flower'' by ], the pseudonym of Agnes Shakespeare Higginson. It is a striking coincidence that the words in that poem seemed to predict Ailes' career as a dancer. O'Neill wrote, "Ailes was a girl that stepped on two bare feet..."<ref>{{Cite book|title=Léonie Gilmour|last=Marx|first=Edward|publisher=Botchan Books|year=2013|isbn=978-1939913012|pages=237}}</ref> Léonie, Isamu and Ailes lived together in Japan until 1918, when Léonie sent Isamu back to the United States to attend a progressive school in Indiana. | |||
| Young Ailes grew up in a Japanese style house that Léonie had constructed in ], a seaside town near ]. Ailes had close Japanese childhood friends, spoke Japanese as well as English and identified with Japan before she returned to the United States in 1920, at age 8. When Ailes and her mother returned to America, they lived first in ] and then moved to ]. Léonie was a great believer in progressive education and sent Ailes to the ] elementary school, founded in 1876 by ]. Léonie herself had attended the predecessor to the Ethical Culture Society elementary school when it was called the Workingman's School. For high school, Léonie chose the ] in ] for her daughter. It was a boarding school that was known for its progressive, coeducational program. The director and founder of the school was Dr. Fred Goldfrank, who was related to one of the founders of the Ethical Culture Society. Ailes greatly enjoyed her time there and formed several friendships that she maintained for the rest of her life. | |||
| Ailes' father was not ]. Ailes said in a biographical statement she gave for ]'s book about ] that her father was a Japanese poet. <ref>Horosko, Marian. ''Martha Graham: The Evolution of Her Dance Theory and Training.'' University Press of Florida, 2002</ref> | |||
| Neither Ailes nor Isamu knew the name of Ailes' father. According to ] in her biography of Isamu, a page in an old notebook which might have referred to Ailes' father was found by Ailes' son, ]. However, the corner of the paper where a signature would be written had been torn off. <ref> Duus, Masayo. ''The Life of Isamu Noguchi: A Journey without Borders. Princeton University Press, 2004</ref> | |||
| In 1928, Gilmour was the literary editor of ''The Cherry Pit'', the Cherry Lawn's student magazine.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.cherrylawnschool.org/yearbooks/1928CherryPit.pdf |title=The Cherry Pit 1928 Yearbook - Editorial Staff|publisher=Cherry Lawn School|access-date=October 15, 2008}}</ref> After she graduated from high school in 1929, she went on to the ] to study dance and performing arts as a scholarship student. There she met the young ] and joined her new professional dance troupe.<ref name="NYT DANCE" /> Gilmour told Marion Horosko that she introduced Graham to her half-brother, Noguchi, in 1929. Graham had a bust made of herself in bronze. | |||
| Leonie chose her daughter's name from the poem ''Beauty's a Flower" by ] a pseudonym of ] | |||
| ==Career== | |||
| It is a striking coincidence that the words in that poem seemed to predict Ailes destiny as a dancer. Moira wrote, "Ailes was girl that stepped on two bare feet..." Indeed dancing barefoot like ] became important in modern dance. | |||
| ⚫ | During the ], dancers like Gilmour and artists like Noguchi struggled to find work. In 1932, when ] opened, Gilmour performed at the debut with Graham's company. Their work, ''Choric Patterns'', lasted on stage for just one week. Gilmour ruefully observed to Marion Horosko that Radio City Music Hall could succeed only when it became a movie theater with Rockettes. | ||
| In the 1930s, Gilmour appeared on dance programs with dancer-choreographer ]. Matons was the director of the "experimental unit" of the New Dance League, which evolved from the ] between 1931 and 1935. ] was to later become General Hershy Bar, an anti-war street theater character and publisher. Among the group's later-to-become-famous members were male dancer-choreographers like ] and ]. In 1937, Ailes and Matons performed in a ] recital at the ]. In 1939, they were in ''Adelante'', a WPA-sponsored Broadway musical. Also in 1937, Matons did the choreography for the Lenin Peace pageant at ]. | |||
| Ailes grew up in a little Japanese style house that Leonie had built in ], a seaside town near ]. Isamu as a boy actually worked with the carpenter on its construction. Ailes was remembered by neighbors in ] as a happy child. She spend summer days playing in the garden, chasing butterflies and cicadas as children in Japan do. | |||
| In 1948, Gilmour married anthropologist ]. They had a son, Joseph.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://fultonhistory.com/newspaper%2010/Carmel%20NY%20Putnam%20Country%20Courier/Carmel%20NY%20Putnam%20Country%20Courier%201967%20Grayscale/Carmel%20NY%20Putnam%20Country%20Courier%201967%20Grayscale%20-%200482.pdf|title=Memorial Service for Dr. Spinden|date=October 26, 1967|work=Putnam County Courier, Carmel, N.Y.|access-date=May 30, 2018}}</ref> | |||
| In 1920 Leonie managed to return to ] with Ailes. Isamu is still in high school in ]. He is accepted into Columbia University's pre-med program in 1922. Leonie and Ailes then go to live in ] as well. | |||
| On April 16, 1993, Gilmour died in ], ] at the age of eighty-one. | |||
| Leonie sends Ailes to the ] where she herself had been a student. It was founded in 1876 by ], a champion of many educational and social reforms of the ] movement and professor of Philosophy at ]. She went on to study at the ] and graduate from ]. For her daughter, she finds the Cherry Lawn School in ], one of the first progressive, co-educational boarding schools and enrolls Ailes there for high school. The director of the school was Dr. Christina Stael von Holstein, a descendant of the famous ] of the ]. Her husband, Dr. Boris Bogoslovsy had been an official in the ] and later served an observer at the ]. He taught science at Cherry Lawn. | |||
| ==References== | |||
| Ailes was the literary editor of ''The Cherry Pit'' the school's student magazine in 1928. She graduated from the Cherry Lawn School in 1929. She gets a scholarship to the Neighborhood Playhouse to study dance and performing arts. There she met the young ] and joins her professional dance troupe. | |||
| {{reflist}} | |||
| == Further reading == | |||
| Ailes told ] that she introduced ] to her brother, Isamu, in 1929. At the time he was trying to make a living in ] taking commissions for portrait busts. Martha had a bust made of herself in bronze. | |||
| ⚫ | * Noguchi, Isamu. ''A Sculptor's World''. New York: Harper and Row, 1968. | ||
| {{DEFAULTSORT:Gilmour, Ailes}} | |||
| ⚫ | In 1932 ] opened |
||
| ⚫ | ] | ||
| ] | |||
| On ], 1933 Ailes mother, ] died in the charity ward of New Yorks ]. The cause of death was listed as pneunomia but years of poverty and hardship must have taken their toll. Isamu and Ailes put a small gravestone for their mother in her family burial plot in ] cemetery in ]. Isamu made a Japanese style unglazed ] statue to guard her gravesite. | |||
| ⚫ | ] | ||
| ⚫ | ] | ||
| During the ], artists struggled to find work. Ailes name appears in dance programs with a dancer-choreographer named ] who was also involved in politics. He did the choreography for the Lenin Peace pageant at ] in 1937. Matons was the director of the New Dance League's Experimental Unit. This organization evolved from the Workers Dance League between 1931 and 1935, Among the group's members were male dance-choreographers like Jose Limon and Charles Weidman. Ailies and Matons performed in a WPA dance recital at the ] in 1937. They were in Adelante, a WPA sponsored Broadway musical in 1939. | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
| Ailes was married to ]. He was the curator of American Indian art and culture at the Brooklyn Museum. They had one son, ]. | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
| == Additional Reading == | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
| Duus, Masayo. The Life of Isamu Noguchi: Journey without Borders. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004. | |||
| ] | |||
| Horosko, Marian. Martha Grahm: The Evolution of Her Dance Theory and Training. University Press of Florida, 2002. | |||
| ⚫ | Noguchi, Isamu. |
||
| ⚫ | ] | ||
| ⚫ | ] | ||
| ⚫ | ] | ||
| ] | |||
Latest revision as of 11:48, 8 November 2024
Japanese American dancer (1912–1993)| Ailes Gilmour | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1912-01-27)January 27, 1912 Yokohama, Japan |
| Died | April 16, 1993(1993-04-16) (aged 81) Santa Fe, New Mexico, US |
| Nationality | American |
| Known for | Dance |
| Movement | Modern Dance |
Ailes Gilmour (January 27, 1912 – April 16, 1993) was a Japanese American dancer who was one of the young pioneers of the American Modern Dance movement of the 1930s. She was one of the first members of Martha Graham's dance company. Gilmour's older half-brother was sculptor Isamu Noguchi.
Early life
Gilmour was born in 1912 in Yokohama, Japan. Her father was unknown. Her mother, Léonie Gilmour, attended Bryn Mawr College and studied at the Sorbonne in Paris, then moved to New York City in the early 1900s to try to establish herself as a writer. In 1907, Léonie traveled to Japan at the behest of Yone Noguchi, the father of Ailes' older half-brother, Isamu, who had been born in 1904. However, by the time Léonie arrived in Tokyo, Yone was involved with a Japanese woman who had already borne the first of their nine children. Léonie's circumstances in Japan were always precarious. Nevertheless, she chose to stay there, teaching to support herself and Isamu, while continuing to edit Yone's writing. When Ailes was born, Léonie chose the name Ailes for her daughter from a poem Beauty's a Flower by Moira O'Neill, the pseudonym of Agnes Shakespeare Higginson. It is a striking coincidence that the words in that poem seemed to predict Ailes' career as a dancer. O'Neill wrote, "Ailes was a girl that stepped on two bare feet..." Léonie, Isamu and Ailes lived together in Japan until 1918, when Léonie sent Isamu back to the United States to attend a progressive school in Indiana.
Young Ailes grew up in a Japanese style house that Léonie had constructed in Chigasaki, a seaside town near Yokohama. Ailes had close Japanese childhood friends, spoke Japanese as well as English and identified with Japan before she returned to the United States in 1920, at age 8. When Ailes and her mother returned to America, they lived first in San Francisco and then moved to New York City. Léonie was a great believer in progressive education and sent Ailes to the Ethical Culture Society elementary school, founded in 1876 by Felix Adler. Léonie herself had attended the predecessor to the Ethical Culture Society elementary school when it was called the Workingman's School. For high school, Léonie chose the Cherry Lawn School in Connecticut for her daughter. It was a boarding school that was known for its progressive, coeducational program. The director and founder of the school was Dr. Fred Goldfrank, who was related to one of the founders of the Ethical Culture Society. Ailes greatly enjoyed her time there and formed several friendships that she maintained for the rest of her life.
In 1928, Gilmour was the literary editor of The Cherry Pit, the Cherry Lawn's student magazine. After she graduated from high school in 1929, she went on to the Neighborhood Playhouse to study dance and performing arts as a scholarship student. There she met the young Martha Graham and joined her new professional dance troupe. Gilmour told Marion Horosko that she introduced Graham to her half-brother, Noguchi, in 1929. Graham had a bust made of herself in bronze.
Career
During the Depression Era, dancers like Gilmour and artists like Noguchi struggled to find work. In 1932, when Radio City Music Hall opened, Gilmour performed at the debut with Graham's company. Their work, Choric Patterns, lasted on stage for just one week. Gilmour ruefully observed to Marion Horosko that Radio City Music Hall could succeed only when it became a movie theater with Rockettes.
In the 1930s, Gilmour appeared on dance programs with dancer-choreographer Bill Matons. Matons was the director of the "experimental unit" of the New Dance League, which evolved from the Workers Dance League between 1931 and 1935. Bill Matons was to later become General Hershy Bar, an anti-war street theater character and publisher. Among the group's later-to-become-famous members were male dancer-choreographers like José Limón and Charles Weidman. In 1937, Ailes and Matons performed in a Works Progress Administration (WPA) recital at the Brooklyn Museum. In 1939, they were in Adelante, a WPA-sponsored Broadway musical. Also in 1937, Matons did the choreography for the Lenin Peace pageant at Madison Square Garden.
In 1948, Gilmour married anthropologist Herbert J. Spinden. They had a son, Joseph.
On April 16, 1993, Gilmour died in Santa Fe, New Mexico at the age of eighty-one.
References
- ^ Kisselgoff, Anna (May 29, 1988). "DANCE VIEW; Reflections on Martha Graham's Revolution". The New York Times. Retrieved August 27, 2012.
Among those in the first and all-female troupe in the 1930s was Ailes Gilmour, who introduced her brother, the sculptor Isamu Noguchi, to Miss Graham
- Marx, Edward (2013). Léonie Gilmour. Botchan Books. p. 237. ISBN 978-1939913012.
- "The Cherry Pit 1928 Yearbook - Editorial Staff" (PDF). Cherry Lawn School. Retrieved October 15, 2008.
- "Memorial Service for Dr. Spinden" (PDF). Putnam County Courier, Carmel, N.Y. October 26, 1967. Retrieved May 30, 2018.
Further reading
- Noguchi, Isamu. A Sculptor's World. New York: Harper and Row, 1968.