- Ailes Gilmour
Ailes Gilmour (born 1912 in
Yokohama ,Japan ) was among the young pioneers of the AmericanModern Dance movement of the 1930s. She was one of the first members of Martha Graham's dance company.Early life
Ailes' older brother is
Isamu Noguchi the American sculptor. Isamu and Ailes had different fathers. Their mother,Leonie Gilmour was an American ex-patriate living in Japan, working as an English teacher and writer.Leonie Gilmour , met Isamu's father,Yone Noguchi while Yone was living in New York where he trying to get his poetry published. At first she worked for him as his editor. Isamu was born in New York after Yone had gone back to Japan to teach English atKeio University . At the time Leonie believed they were married. However, when she got toTokyo , Leonie found out that Yone already a child and another family.According to
Masayo Duus in her biography of Isamu, [ Duus, Masayo. "The Life of Isamu Noguchi: A Journey without Borders. Princeton." University Press, 2004] , Ailes' son found a page in an old notebook which might have referred to Ailes' father. However, the corner of the paper where a signature would be written had been torn off apparently to conceal his identity. Ailes said in a biographical statement forMarion Horosko's book aboutMartha Graham , that her father was a Japanese poet. [Horosko, Marian. "Martha Graham: The Evolution of Her Dance Theory and Training." University Press of Florida, 2002]Leonie chose the name Ailes for her daughter from a poem "Beauty's a Flower" by
Moira O'Neill , the pseudonym ofAgnes Shakespeare Higginson . It is a striking coincidence that the words in that poem seemed to predict Ailes' career as a dancer. Moira wrote, "Ailes was girl that stepped on two bare feet..."Ailes grew up in a little Japanese style house that Leonie had constructed in
Chigasaki , a seaside town nearYokohama . Isamu as a boy actually worked with the carpenters who built it. The Japanese woodworking tools they taught him to use were among his most treasured possessions all his life.In 1920, Leonie and her daughter managed to return to America. Isamu was still in high school in
LaPorte, Indiana . He got his high school diploma there and was accepted into Columbia University's pre-med program in 1922. At that time, Leonie and Ailes also went to live inNew York City . Leonie sent Ailes to theEthical Culture elementary school which was founded in 1876 byFelix Adler , She herself had been a student there. It was known as a progressive school. Leonie had completed her education atBryn Mawr College and theSorbonne in Paris. For her daughter, she chooses the Cherry Lawn School [http://www.cherrylawnschool.org] inConnecticut . It was a boarding school which was known for its progressive, co-educational program. The director and founder of the school was Fred GoldfrankIn 1928, Ailes was the literary editor of "The Cherry Pit," [http://www.cherrylawnschool.org/yearbooks/1928CherryPit.pdf] the Cherry Lawn's student magazine. After she graduated from high school there in 1929, she went on to the
Neighborhood Playhouse to study dance and performing arts as a scholarship student. There she met the youngMartha Graham and joined her new professional dance troupe. Ailes toldMarion Horosko that she introducedMartha Graham to her brother, Isamu, in 1929. At the time he was trying to make a living inNew York City taking commissions for portrait busts, an activity he disparagingly termed "doing heads". Martha had a bust made of herself in bronze.On
December 31 ,1933 Ailes mother,Leonie Gilmour died in the charity ward of New York'sBellevue Hospital . The cause of death was listed as pneumonia perhaps brought on by the toll taken on her by many years of poverty and hardship. Isamu and Ailes put a small gravestone for Leonie in her family burial plot inCypress Hills cemetery inBrooklyn . Isamu made a Japanese style unglazedhaniwa statue to guard their mother's grave. It was only many decades later that Isamu achieved renown and success as an artist.Career
During the
Depression Era , dancers like Ailes and artists like Isamu struggled to find work. In 1932 whenRadio City Music Hall opened Ailes performed at the debut with Grahham's company. Their work, "Choric patterns" lasted on stage for just one week. Ailes ruefully observed to Marion Horosko that Radio City Music Hall could only succeed when it became a movie movie theater with Rockettes.Ailes name appears in the 1930s on dance programs with a dancer-choreographer named
Bill Matons [http://www.ibdb.com] . Matons was the director of the "experimental unit" of the New Dance League. This organization evolved from the Workers Dance League between 1931 and 1935. Among the group's later to- become-famous-members were male dancer-choreographers like Jose Limon and Charles Weidman. Ailes and Matons performed in a WPA dance recital at theBrooklyn Museum in 1937. They were in "Adelante", a WPA sponsored Broadway musical in 1939. Matons did the choreography for the 1937 Lenin Peace pageant atMadison Square Garden . Ailes was married toHerbert J. Spinden . Ailes son isJody Spinden .Additional Reading
* Duus, Masayo. "The Life of Isamu Noguchi: Journey without Borders". Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004.
* Horosko, Marian. "Martha Graham: The Evolution of Her Dance Theory and Training". University Press of Florida, 2002.
* Noguchi, Isamu. "A Sculptor's World". New York: Harper and Row, 1968.References
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