Albertina Vitak

**mrcheese** · August 26th, 2009, 01:07 PM

"Albertina Vitak was born in Chicago in 1907 to Czech parents. As a girl she became a prize swimmer and diver, winning competitions throughout the Midwest. At age 12 she secretly enrolled in dance with instructors at the Chicago Opera ballet to avoid her mother’s displeasure. She drilled in classical ballet and the new pantomimic style of dance introduced by the Ballet Russe. She debuted in the Follies of 1922 at age 15. She starred in “Peg O’my Dreams at seventeen, starred in Fokine’s company at the Hippodrome that same year, and regularly found employment on Broadway and in ballet throughout the decade. Her stint in Noel Coward’s “The Year of Grace” 1928 marked the apogee of her musical comedy career. A creature of rather decided temperament, Vitak kept getting herself into situations that caused psychic meltdowns—a misguided attempt to partner the equally temperamental Tony DeMarco in 1928—a two month spasm of work in Hollywood under dictatorial choreographer Albertina Rasch in 1930. This led to a major breakdown, but she returned to Rasch’s company when it reclaimed New York as its base. In 1934 she played Scheherazade to a standing room crowd (perhaps as many as 15 thousand) at Lewisohn stadium when Mikhail Fokine revived his classic in an outdoor setting, thus starring in the most widely attended dance event of the decade in New York City. She possessed skills other than kinetic elegance—in the 1930s she became a regular critic in American Dancer and Dance Magazine with a willingness to review any sort of performance, no matter how experimental, ethnic, vernacular, or commercial."
(c) David S. Shields

http://www.ibdb.com/person.php?id=63315

"...Prize performer at the Stadium was a onetime Fokine pupil named Albertina Vitak. She danced "Zobeide," the part in Scheherazade originally written for Ida Rubinstein. Rubinstein, never a great dancer, was never able to dance the whole ballet. Olive-skinned Albertina Vitak with smooth ease cringed, skipped, loved, pleaded from the first to the final bar.
Born of Czech parents in Chicago 27 years ago, she took her first dancing lesson when she was 12. She danced in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1922, in This Year of Grace (1928). Two months of Hollywood under harddriving, gum-chewing Albertina Rasch were followed by a two-year break down. She is married to William R. Kaelin who is in the treasurer's office of Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. She hates noise and night clubs, practices her dances an hour a day even when she has no job..."
(c) Time, Monday, Aug. 20, 1934
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...747726,00.html

August 26th, 2009, 01:07 PM	#1
mrcheese Vintage Member Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Kyiv Posts: 578 Thanks: 44 Thanked 17,705 Times in 579 Posts	Albertina Vitak "Albertina Vitak was born in Chicago in 1907 to Czech parents. As a girl she became a prize swimmer and diver, winning competitions throughout the Midwest. At age 12 she secretly enrolled in dance with instructors at the Chicago Opera ballet to avoid her mother’s displeasure. She drilled in classical ballet and the new pantomimic style of dance introduced by the Ballet Russe. She debuted in the Follies of 1922 at age 15. She starred in “Peg O’my Dreams at seventeen, starred in Fokine’s company at the Hippodrome that same year, and regularly found employment on Broadway and in ballet throughout the decade. Her stint in Noel Coward’s “The Year of Grace” 1928 marked the apogee of her musical comedy career. A creature of rather decided temperament, Vitak kept getting herself into situations that caused psychic meltdowns—a misguided attempt to partner the equally temperamental Tony DeMarco in 1928—a two month spasm of work in Hollywood under dictatorial choreographer Albertina Rasch in 1930. This led to a major breakdown, but she returned to Rasch’s company when it reclaimed New York as its base. In 1934 she played Scheherazade to a standing room crowd (perhaps as many as 15 thousand) at Lewisohn stadium when Mikhail Fokine revived his classic in an outdoor setting, thus starring in the most widely attended dance event of the decade in New York City. She possessed skills other than kinetic elegance—in the 1930s she became a regular critic in American Dancer and Dance Magazine with a willingness to review any sort of performance, no matter how experimental, ethnic, vernacular, or commercial." (c) David S. Shields http://www.ibdb.com/person.php?id=63315 "...Prize performer at the Stadium was a onetime Fokine pupil named Albertina Vitak. She danced "Zobeide," the part in Scheherazade originally written for Ida Rubinstein. Rubinstein, never a great dancer, was never able to dance the whole ballet. Olive-skinned Albertina Vitak with smooth ease cringed, skipped, loved, pleaded from the first to the final bar. Born of Czech parents in Chicago 27 years ago, she took her first dancing lesson when she was 12. She danced in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1922, in This Year of Grace (1928). Two months of Hollywood under harddriving, gum-chewing Albertina Rasch were followed by a two-year break down. She is married to William R. Kaelin who is in the treasurer's office of Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. She hates noise and night clubs, practices her dances an hour a day even when she has no job..." (c) Time, Monday, Aug. 20, 1934 http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...747726,00.html