The Story

 

1964 – A time of major shifts in civil rights, women’s and gay rights. New York City was alive – you could feel it on the streets. The young Joffrey Ballet splits in two over a power struggle for artistic control and the HARKNESS BALLET bursts onto the New York City arts scene. Bold, brash and controversial, the Harkness revolutionizes the way dance is performed forever. And then it disappeared...

 

What happened to the Harkness Ballet? It produced 2 international touring companies, a youth ballet and its very own theater. Its training program sent more dancers into the world of professional dance than any other company school of its time.

 

The company was invited to perform at the White House and was seen on national TV. It became an international sensation wherever it toured. The dancers, choreographers, composers and designers were pioneers. All of the pieces and much of the music was original.

 

Founder REBEKAH HARKNESS put her money where her heart was. She gave opportunities to emerging American artists no matter their race, heritage or background. Her goal was to create a truly American dance company.

 

Yet she was hated by powerful New York critics particularly CLIVE BARNES. Barnes had a personal agenda and never let up. Was it because Rebekah was rich and powerful as well as a woman? Was he attacking her personal taste and life style or the fact that she withdrew funding from the Joffrey Ballet which he loved? Was his influence so great that audiences were led to take sides?

 

Finally the bottom dropped out of Rebekah’s fortune. Cutbacks, economizing and even the attempt to solicit public funding failed. The company was done. But like Camelot, its legend was just about to begin.

 

Director's Statement

 

I grew up in New York City but didn’t dance or see dance performed until my late teens.  At some point I became obsessed with Ballet and ballet dancers and studied not only the art form but everything I could learn about it.  In 2010 ODC SF hired our video company Cinematiks to film a 13 week workshop taught by Maria Vegh, the former co-director of the Harkness School.  It turned into a large project which included the creation of an interactive study guide for Ballet on DVD.  Maria talked incessantly about the Harkness Ballet and what it had accomplished in the world of dance.  I looked it up – and there was almost no mention of it in any of my dance history books and yet they had danced at the White House and performed for Princess Grace.  Who was this Harkness Ballet and why has it been left out and forgotten? Research led us back to the days of the Ballet Russe and key characters began to emerge in the worlds of dance, politics, journalism, Broadway, music, visual art and design – characters both living and dead.  Could something so influential just disappear off the face of the earth?  For me the mystery deepened and a story of conflict, jealousy, misogyny and feud started to form.  What happened and what does it mean to artists working today?

Leslie Streit - writer, director, co-producer

 

Streit’s 2005 feature film, God Wears My Underwear, a documentary-narrative hybrid, ties the 1940s Jewish Holocaust to the 1950s genocide in Tibet. It was screened at several international festivals, including XXVII Festival Internazionale Cinema e Donne, DNA Film Festival in Toronto (won Best Film), WCFF, M-SPIFF, NYIIFVF and IFFS. Her short films have been screened at international festivals and broadcast on KTEH (PBS). Honors include Selected Artist at the Hong Kong Arts Biennial 2002, a 2009 Webby award and several screenplay awards. Streit co-produced the historic VD2001 widely recognized as the first dramatic series on the web with support from Intel Corporation and several other Silicon Valley tech companies. As co-producer with Robin McCain, she was awarded the right to use the prestigious ".p.g.a." title for her 2014 film Elly and Henry, which is distributed by Espresso Media International and currently appears on Amazon and Amazon Prime. In addition to An American Ballet Story, Leslie is producing and directing an experimental documentary The Ghost Stories Project, an anthology of personal encounters with the supernatural.

Robin Elaine McCain – co-producer

 

McCain is a pioneer in applied multimedia, computer graphics and theatrical productions. She is a member of the Producers Guild of America (PGA) where she has served as a board member of PGA NorthWest and on the PGA Documentary and Nonfiction Committee.

 

McCain has also been a member of USITT, Bay Area Video Coalition and Film Arts Foundation/SFFILM. She also co-produced and starred in the online comedy cooking series, The Evil Auntie Show, winner of a 2009 Webby award and co-produced VD 2001 recognized by many to be the first dramatic series on the web.

 

McCain co-produced the 2014 documentary Elly and Henry, currently appearing on Amazon and Amazon Prime, about the architect of the first solar house in America and received the Producers Mark, p.g.a., for her work.  In addition to An American Ballet Story she is co-producing The Ghost Stories Project about ghost sightings in California.

 

Adam Streit – editor

 

Adam Streit's credits include films - Margaret Cho: Assassin and God Wears My Underwear.

 

For television he worked on Fox Movie Channel’s Hour of Stars, USA Cable Network's Arrest & Trial, Lifetime TVs Unsolved Mysteries, My Network TV/Fox telenovellas, and several projects for Spike TV.

 

He was also an editor on the Daytime Emmy nominated The Doctors (CBS Television). As a freelancer he has worked for NuContext where assignments included promos for Beverly Hills Chihuahua and Lifetime TV’s Project Runway.  Adam edited the hit Hallmark series Who Let The Dogs Out and Elly and Henry, a feature documentary which currently appears on Amazon and  Amazon Prime.

 

At present he works for Pilgrim Studios, a television production company based in North Hollywood, on the TV miniseries Days that Shaped America and the popular Street Outlaws now appearing on the Discovery Channel.

 

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Photos courtesy of Harkness Foundation for Dance, New York Public Library, mickey (Michele) morgan, Milton Oleaga, Elisabeth Carroll

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An American Ballet Story