Agnes de Mille - Ballet as Part of the Story
by Claire J Rottenberg
Agnes de
Mille was
born into a well-known and respected film industry
family. Her uncle was the successful director,
Cecil B. de Mille and her father was also a film
director. De Mille started to study ballet as a
child but she didn't seem to have a natural
ability for classical ballet. On her own, she
studied the acting of stars in her father's films
and, by the age of 11, was cast in a film.
As an adult, de Mille renewed her interest in ballet.
In 1933, at the age of 28, she went to London to
study modern ballet. Six years later, her first
choreographed ballet was produced by the American
Ballet Theatre. A few years later, in 1942, her most
important ballet, "Rodeo," was produced for the
Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo.
In 1943, de Mille was hired as the choreographer for
Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Oklahoma." It was in that
play that de Mille introduced a new form of dance and
ballet to musical theater. For the first time,
dances, including a long, dream-sequence ballet, were
used as part of the storyline to express the play's
actions and plot and to express the characters'
emotions. This magnificent work earned de Mille a
Tony award and launched her career as a
choreographer. She followed "Oklahoma" with, among
other plays, "Carousel" in 1945, "Brigadoon" in 1947
and "Paint Your Wagon" in 1951. In 1955, de Mille was
hired to choreograph her only movie success,
"Oklahoma."
Although Agnes de Mille had limited success as a film
choreographer, her influence on movie musicals is
apparent, particularly in such Gene Kelly classics as
"An American in Paris" (1951) and later works by
Jerome Robbins.