6 streaming audio files (approximately 3 hours and 46 minutes): digital
Summary
Streaming audio file 1 (approximately 41 minutes). Patricia Bowman speaks with Morag Veljkovic about the reasons she was unhappy at Ballet Theatre [now American Ballet Theatre]; her return to the nightclub circuit; other ballet dancers including Vera Zorina and Lubov Roudenko, who also danced on the theater and nightclub circuit; her frequent change of agents during this period; [Bowman reads aloud from a review of her performance at the Copacabana nightclub]; Bowman speaks about her appearance, with Jacques Cartier, in a musical production of Cinderella; ballet shoes and the shape of her feet; performing at the [Belmond] Copacabana Palace Hotel in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil); other performers from the United States performing in Rio de Janeiro at the time including Jack Cole; the outbreak of World War II [ends abruptly but continues on streaming audio file 2].
Streaming audio file 2 (approximately 54 minutes). Patricia Bowman speaks with Morag Veljkovic about dancing in the President's birthday ball benefit performances, in 1938; her impressions of Eleanor Roosevelt; more on Ballet Theatre and Lucia Chase, including Mikhail Mordkin's exclusion in effect from the new company; the engagement of various choreographers including Michel Fokine, Eugene Loring, Bronislava Nijinska, Anton Dolin, Agnes de Mille, and Adolf Bolm; other principal dancers; the company's initial policy of last-minute casting and stirring up rivalry among the dancers; her experience with Nijinska's La fille mal gardée; Andrée Howard's Lady into fox; her impressions of Antony Tudor, Hugh Laing, and Eugene Loring; Anton Dolin as a partner; Nana Gollner; her memories of Nijinska; Agnes de Mille and her talent for comedy; Nora Kaye; Bowman's unhappiness with and resignation from the company; Anton Dolin's ballet Quintet including an opening night anecdote about Lucia Chase; Michel Fokine's The dying swan as danced by Maya Plisetskaya and (very briefly) Galina Ulanova; those aspects of the choreography Bowman found difficult to learn; Fokine's apparent lack of influence at Ballet Theatre.
Streaming audio file 3 (approximately 13 minutes). [Begins abruptly.] Patricia Bowman speaks with Morag Veljkovic about the outbreak of World War II while on tour in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) and their early return, by boat, to the United States [ends abruptly].
Streaming audio file 4 (approximately 39 minutes). Patricia Bowman speaks with Morag Veljkovic about the great divide between ballet and modern dance in the 1940s and 1950s; her experience dancing in the musical Rhapsody including her partner George Zoritch; the elaborate sets and costumes; an anecdote about Barbara Karinska and her costume (for David Lichine's ballet within the musical); David Lichine, as a choreographer and as a director; problems with the show including several anecdotes; its short run in spite of the favorable audience reception; performing on the same program as Gypsy Rose Lee in Miami (Florida) including the censoring of the show; (briefly) Jack Cole; her work in opera-ballet including a poorly-received acrobatic dance in Aida choreographed by Ruth Page; how she came by her nickname, the Harp, at the Chicago Lyric Opera; her regular appearances at the Muni (St. Louis Municipal Opera); why she never had her own company [ends abruptly but continues on streaming audio file 5; the final approximate minute of this streaming file is reiterated in the first approximate first minute of streaming file 5].
Streaming audio file 5 (approximately 14 minutes). Patricia Bowman speaks with Morag Veljkovic about the reasons she never started her own company; her impressions of George Balanchine; her work in television including The Patricia Bowman Show [in 1951, on CBS]; her decision to open her own school; teaching.
Streaming audio file 6 (approximately 45 minutes). Patricia Bowman speaks with Morag Veljkovic about public recognition including several anecdotes; the 1953 show The Hippodrome of 1954; Michel Fokine's The dying swan as danced by Maya Plisetskaya and Galina Ulanova; dancers in the United States today including as compared with Russian dancers; reminiscences of some of her performances; the circumstances of how she came to marry Abbott Kaye and move to Las Vegas (Nevada); her thoughts on dance today including George Balanchine, American Ballet Theatre, and Mikhail Baryshnikov. [Interview ends at approximately 43:28 followed, beginning at approximately 43:30, Bowman's closing remarks and music.].
Sound quality is good overall. Streaming files 1 and 4 are marred by "tape hiss."
Interview with Patricia Bowman conducted by Morag Veljkovic for the oral history project of the Allied Arts Council, in Las Vegas, Nevada, in January, 1979, Part 3. Part 1 (November, 1978) and Part 2 (November 1978 - December 1978) are cataloged separately.
Title supplied by cataloger.
Access (note)
Access only on site at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center
Funding (note)
The conservation and cataloging of this recording was made possible in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. The support of the National Endowment for the Arts is also gratefully acknowledged.
Author
Bowman, Patricia, interviewee.
Title
Interview with Patricia Bowman. Part 3 of 3, 1979
Imprint
1979
Type of content
spoken word
Type of medium
audio
Type of carrier
online resource
Digital file characteristics
audio file
Restricted access
Access only on site at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center
Event
Recorded by Morag Veljkovic January, 1979 Las Vegas (Nev.)
Funding
The conservation and cataloging of this recording was made possible in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. The support of the National Endowment for the Arts is also gratefully acknowledged.
Original version
Original format: 6 sound reels (approximately 3 hours and 55 minutes); polyester; quarter-track; 7.5 ips; 7 in.; transferred to wav file and streaming file format in 2015: myd_mgzto7522_v11 f01_sc, myd_mgzto7522_v12f01_sc, myd_mgzto7522_v13f01_sc, myd_mgzto7522_v14f01_sc, myd_mgzto7522_v15f01_sc, myd_mgzto7522_v16f01_sc, and myd_mgzto7522_v16f02_sc.