Photo by Radford Bascome, 1954. From Allegra Kent's autobiography Once A Dancer: "'Did you hear that?' Mr. B. imitated a trumpet and repeated a voice we just heard in the piano score. I nodded my head. 'Allegra, when that starts, open your arms slowly and start to sit.' Now the men received their instructions. 'Make a chair for her with your hands.' Mr. B. continued to surprise us. "I was to be like an elastic icon, ever unattainable, standing on the shoulders of two of the m

“Out of the darkness a beautiful young girl in white appears aloft, carried by a team of four men and a shadowy fifth precedes the...