It’s been a whole year since I started curating dance history photos and stories to share with an Instagram audience. What began with my first season ushering the Nutcracker and a chance discovery of the NYPL archives, turned into a year-long endeavor (basically part time job) to illuminate dance history in a virtual format that allows for interaction.
I’ve found a comfortable research/posting schedule that aligns with the NYCB performance schedule which is: every performance equals one post. It has given me clear goals and deadlines throughout the year but it has also had my exclusive attention for a year. What I also truly love and miss reading about is musical theater history and the golden age of Hollywood. So in the New Year you can expect to see the topics of my posts expand to include history of some of my favorite theater/jazz dancers from the stage and screen. I hope you will learn something new and discover new artists you may not be familiar with if you’re a bunhead and I hope this new direction will reach a wider jazz-loving audience too!
Today I’m starting with Vera-Ellen the gorgeous star about whom there is unfortunately very little biographical information available. I did learn that she got her start as a teen in the Rockettes!
(left & right) Vera-Ellen, publicity shot for White Christmas 1954. Photos by Loomis Dean. Life Archives
(center) (L-R) Vera Ellen, Sylvia Fine (Danny Kaye’s wife) Rosemary Clooney between takes on White Christmas. 1953.
Comments