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In Memoriam
By Cheryl Ossola
 Glen
Tetley, 1926-2007
Choreographer Glen Tetley, a major name in ballet and modern
dance, died in West Palm Beach, FL, on January 26, 2007.
Born February 3, 1926, in Cleveland, OH, Tetley began his
career in 1946, dancing with Hanya Holm’s company after
training at Holm’s school on scholarship. He later studied
ballet with Margaret Craske and Antony Tudor. He danced on
Broadway and with many companies, including the New York City
Opera, American Ballet Theatre, and the Doris Humphrey, Pearl
Lang, José Limón, John Butler, Robert Joffrey, and Martha
Graham troupes. In the 1960s he joined Nederlands Dans Theater
as both choreographer and dancer, then became artistic
director of Stuttgart Ballet after John Cranko’s death.
As a freelance choreographer for 30 years, Tetley made major
contributions to companies around the world, including
National Ballet of Canada, The Royal Ballet, Paris Opéra
Ballet, the Royal Danish Ballet, Australian Ballet, Dance
Theatre of Harlem, Norwegian National Ballet, and Aterballetto.
His final creation, Lux in Tenebris, was made on
Houston Ballet in 1999.
In fall 2006 Tetley returned to Houston to set his famous
Voluntaries on the company as part of a worldwide
celebration of his 80th birthday. During his visit, dance
critic and writer Nancy Wozny interviewed him in a
pre-performance talk.
“He enchanted the crowd with lively stories of living a double
dance life; he was truly one of the early fusion
choreographers,” says Wozny. “Voluntaries is a tribute
to his friend and mentor, John Cranko. He spoke of the tragedy
of Cranko’s death and how Stuttgart Ballet was with him 100
percent in creating Voluntaries. There’s something
magical in the piece; it’s about the transformation of grief
into triumph. Houston Ballet soared that night and Mr. Tetley
was so pleased.”
Ann
Barzel, 1905-2007
Ann Barzel, a longtime presence in the dance community, died
in Chicago on February 12, 2007. But her contributions to
dance history live on in the collections she donated to
Chicago’s Newberry Library, including films, documents, books,
scrapbooks, programs, and photographs, portions of which date
back to the 1890s. Some of her films are in the dance
collection of the New York Public Library for the Performing
Arts.
Born in Minneapolis on December 26, 1905, Barzel began her
lifelong infatuation with dance when her family moved to Des
Moines in 1914 and she began taking ballet classes at the
Jewish Settlement House. By the 1940s she had made a
reputation for herself as a lecturer and teacher. She
subsequently began writing dance criticism for the Chicago
Times, Dance Magazine, Ballet Review, Dance News, and
Ballet Annual, among other publications.
Barzel was a phenomenal resource to all in the dance industry;
I remember calling her at the Newberry Library (where she
worked on her collections a few days a week) to do some fact
checking when I was on staff at Dance Magazine. She was
in her 90s, but her memory was still sharp, as were her
perceptions. But perhaps her greatest gift to the art of dance
were her documentary films of touring ballet performances,
shot in the 1940s and ’50s. In the acclaimed 2006 documentary
film Ballets Russes, Barzel appeared on camera along
with many of the dancers she had watched perform for years.
Her films of the Ballets Russes’ performances, shot during the
1930s with a hand-wound camera, provided valuable footage for
the documentary.
Barzel left no immediate survivors but many mourners.
Photo caption:
Glen Tetley
rehearsing Houston Ballet principal dancer Lauren Anderson in
Lux Tenebris in 1999. Photo by Jann Whaley, courtesy
Houston Ballet.
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