You have to be a seriously grande dame to be known simply as ‘La Palucca’. Dance in the 1920s in Europe underwent something of a revolution. With bauhaus emerging, the idea of breaking from the convention was ready to take flight. Gret Palucca felt constricted […]
Ana Laguna is smoking, but in more ways than one. Her Carmen, choreographed by her husband Mats Ek was electrifying, as she stomped and charmed cigar in mouth. Maybe she was a particularly apt choice for the role, her Spanish roots at the heart of […]
More fascinating ladies of dance… Alicia probably wouldn’t have believed she would ever turn into a splendid she-cat for Balanchine as a star of the Ballets Russes. For a start, she was born Lily Marks, a jewish girl from Finsbury Park in North London. She […]
Back to my heroines of contemporary dance – this time we’re not talking meak flower on the wall of dance history, but tackling the uber influential Martha Graham – we are talking THE mother of modern dance. She believed in the deep meaning of movement […]
I have very much enjoyed my latest forays in the early twentieth century looking at amazing women who made a huge impact on contemporary and modern dance – see my previous posts on Helen Tamiris and Aida Overton Walker. It’s made me want to find out more […]
Continuing with the series on obscure leading ladies of dance, I give you Aida Overton Walker. Aida starting in vaudeville and was a huge hit in the US at the start of the 1900s. She went on to successfully transition to more serious dramatic […]
I went on a papercutting workshop recently – something I’ve been meaning to explore for quite some time. We worked on a couple of things on the day, but for me not an original piece of artwork. So this is my first proper karuski […]
Karuski's little shop of colours 