Catherine Littlefield

Catherine Littlefield (September 16, 1905 – November 19, 1951) was an American ballet dancer, choreographer, ballet teacher, and director.

She founded the Philadelphia Ballet (originally the Littlefield Ballet) in Philadelphia in 1935. It was the first American ballet company to tour Europe and the first to present a full-length (or three-act plus prologue) version of The Sleeping Beauty in the United States. In addition to producing American-themed ballets such as Barn Dance, Terminal, Cafe Society and Ladies' Better Dresses, Littlefield choreographed Broadway musicals and Sonja Henie's professional ice skating shows. She was among the first class of inductees (1987) into the National Museum of Dance and Hall of Fame.

Early life

Littlefield was born in a Philadelphia rowhome in 1905 to James H. Littlefield and Caroline Doebele Littlefield (also known as "Mommie"). Her father was a native of Maine who worked for the YMCA and later founded a newsreel business. Her mother was raised by her German immigrant grandmother and studied piano at a local conservatory.

Littlefield had three younger siblings: Jimmie (b. 1910), Dorothie (b. 1912), and Carl (b. 1915). In 1908, Mommie began giving three-year-old Littlefield and neighborhood children dancing lessons at a West Philadelphia YMCA. In addition, she managed a "kiddie" opera troupe along with her husband. Actress and singer Jeanette MacDonald and Ziegfeld Follies star Ann Pennington were members of this troupe as young girls. As a preteen, Littlefield studied with C. Ellwood Carpenter, a third-generation member of a famous family of Philadelphia dancing masters. Under Carpenter's tutelage, Littlefield performed in stand-alone ballets and semi-professional opera performances. Carpenter also had a studio on the Ocean City, New Jersey, boardwalk, and Littlefield took classes with him there during summers when her father worked as a lifeguard. After the Littlefield family moved from Philadelphia to suburban Llanerch, Mommie opened a dance studio on the second floor of the Llanerch Firehouse. While Mommie nurtured her children's interest in music and dance, Littlefield's father encouraged their natural athleticism. He taught them horsemanship and acrobatic stunts, and coached Carl in long-distance swimming. Both of Littlefield's parents were gregarious and fun-loving, and the family was known to be sociable and close-knit.

Mid-career/Philadelphia Ballet

After a brief stint as ballet mistress at New York's Roxy Theatre, Littlefield returned home and married Philadelphia lawyer/socialite Philip Ludwell Leidy. With Leidy's financial support, she started organizing a professional ballet troupe, which had long been a dream of hers. In the meantime, her friend Balanchine had arrived in New York from Europe to establish a school and company under the sponsorship of Lincoln Kirstein. Balanchine needed dancers and visited the Littlefield School to hold auditions, eventually offering scholarships to a half dozen of Littlefield's best students. These girls left for New York, accompanied by Littlefield's sister, Dorothie, whom Balanchine hired to teach, dance, and serve as ballet mistress for his incipient School of American Ballet and first company, called the American Ballet. Despite the loss of these dancers, Littlefield followed through with her own plans to form a troupe. The Littlefield Ballet gave its inaugural performance at Haverford High School on October 25, 1935. Two months later, Littlefield changed the company's name to the Philadelphia Ballet. She served as its director, choreographer, and premiere danseuse, while Dorothie (who had left Balanchine's employ to help her sister) and Littlefield's brother Carl, who had been convinced by Mommie to learn dancing, joined as soloists. Mommie was the company's rehearsal pianist and musical director. Most of the company's dancers were Philadelphia teenagers who had studied at the Littlefield School.

During the Philadelphia Ballet's six-year existence, it presented a wide range of works: a three-act Sleeping Beauty and a three-act Daphnis and Chloe; ballets with American subjects and music such as Barn Dance, Terminal, Cafe Society, and Ladies' Better Dresses; one-act narrative pieces such as The Minstrel, The Snow Maiden, and Viennese Waltz; a plotless one act called Classical Suite to music by Johann Sebastian Bach; an annual Christmas Die Puppenfee; and historical pageants such as The Rising Sun and Let the Righteous Be Glad. Although Littlefield choreographed most of the company's repertoire, she also presented works by other choreographers including her Russian ballet master Alexis Dolinoff and modern dancer Lasar Galpern. Littlefield was an excellent ballerina herself, known for her clean unmannered style. "Ethereal" was the word most often used to describe her dancing. Dorothie, on the other hand, was a lyrical, athletic ballerina with great technical capabilities. Dorothie's former student, Barbara Weisberger. who later founded the Pennsylvania Ballet, remarked: "There was nothing Dorothie could not do." Carl was naturally gifted and shone in both classical and comic roles. Besides Littlefield and her siblings, the Philadelphia Ballet's leading dancers included Dolinoff, Thomas Cannon, Karen Conrad, Joan McCracken, Miriam Golden, Dania Krupska, and Norma Gentner. Conrad and Golden eventually left the company to become original members of Ballet Theatre (later American Ballet Theatre).

The Philadelphia Ballet was the first classical ballet company to tour Europe. In the spring and summer of 1937, the company performed to critical and audience acclaim in Paris, Brussels, London, and Deauville, France. Littlefield's American-themed works Barn Dance and Terminal proved especially popular with European audiences. Esteemed British critic Arnold Haskell declared that Littlefield's "Barn Dance [was] the first chapter in the history of American Ballet." Indeed, Barn Dance was the first highly successful and widely seen work of "ballet Americana," in which the theme, designs, music, and dancers were entirely American or American made.

Following the European tour, the company reverted to its original name—the Littlefield Ballet—to dance for three seasons in Chicago as the resident troupe of the Chicago Civic Opera company. It also undertook an eight-week domestic tour in early 1941, performing in college towns and at the Ohio State Fair. The company disbanded soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor, when many of Littlefield's male dancers enlisted in the American military. Kirstein praised the routine as a "clear if complex blending of human anatomy, solid geometry, and acrobatics offered as a symbolic demonstration of manners."

Resources

Aloff, Mindy. "In Philadelphia: The Littlefield Ballet Lives for an Afternoon- Ferde Grofé's Café Society." Explore Dance, Last modified May 2, 2010. ExploreDance "Catherine Littlefield (1905-1951)". National Museum of Dance. Accessed March 20, 2015. National Museum Of Dance: Hall Of Fame Friedler, Sharon E., and Glazer, Susan B.. Dancing Female: Lives and Issues of Women in Contemporary Dance. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis, 2014. Liebman, Elizabeth A. "Catherine Littlefield's Bicycle Ballet and the 1940 World's Fair." Dance Chronicle 36 no. 3 (2013): 326–351. Accessed March 26, 2015. Catherine Littlefield's Bicycle Ballet and the 1940 World's Fair Skeel, Sharon. Catherine Littlefield: A Life in Dance. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020; www.catherinelittlefield.com