Dwight Grell, 6/7/1937- 2/3/2015

The Los Angeles Times printed Dwight Grell’s obituary March 2, 2015. David Colker did a good job summarizing the outline of Dwight’s passion for Russian Ballet, accurate and anecdotal.

But the skein of association and the times when Dwight stumbled upon his
passion, thanks to the 1959 West Coast tour of the Bolshoi Ballet under Sol Hurok’s auspices lingers for those of us who knew him in varying shades of
intimacy.

I first met Dwight during the 1986 USA IBC Competition in Jackson when Sophia Golovina was one of the master teachers in the International Ballet School, Yuri Grigorovitch the Russian Juror and Robert Joffrey the Jury Chair.Two Russian competitors were Nina Ananiashvili and Andris Liepa. These two young dancers shared the Jackson Grand Prix, the first of only three awarded in the Competition. The second was Jose Manuel Carreno in 1990 and Johann Kobborg in 1994.

Dwight Grell, slender to gaunt because of Chrone’s disease, was there with Todd Lechtik, a short, energetic young photographer whose working hours were spent with a UCLA medical clinic. Todd had taken pictures of the exhibits that Dwight assembled when either the Bolshoi or the Kirov hove into view and he soon became the Archives’ official photographer. Todd said Dwight would go to the flower mart at 4 a.m. to select the flowers to throw on the stage, red and gold streamers for the Bolshoi, blue and white ribbons for the Kirov.

Todd said Dwight would instruct him when to send a bouquet sailing across the orchestra pit. In the beginning, the venue was the Shrine Auditorium which had basketball marks on the floor. The physical anomaly must have made those floral tributes that much more welcome.

Dwight’s genius were the gestures, the smallnesses making a dancer smile, to feel cherished. The flowers, his ability to be around to turn pages for the pianist, to run errands, and in return toe shoes ready for the discard became part of a rapidly growing cache of memorabilia

Todd’s skill as a photographer and as a ballet student with Yvonne Mounsey proved invaluable to Dwight’s Archives.

Mounsey danced in Colonel de Basil’s Original Ballets Russes on its final 1946-47 U.S. tour. When George Balanchine revived The Prodigal Son for New York City Ballet, Mounsey danced The Siren..

“We roomed together in Jackson, in London, in Moscow. Word got around about Dwight’s interest and once he was offered 100 postcards on ballet outside the Bolshoi.”

When I was assisting Olga Guardia de Smoak in organizing for the Ballets Russes Celebraton in New Orleans in 2000, Dwight arrived bearing a large, oblong package which revealed an ornate gilded frame. Inside was the ballet program performed at the Bolshoi celebrating the coronation of Nicholas II in Moscow.

If my memory is accurate, one of the principals was Mathilde
Kessinskaya, one time lover of that last Romanov emperor. It gave me a flutter, along with one or two volumes Olga identified. “Those are the year books which Sergei Diaghilev compiled.”

In 2003 Dwight’s balletic treasure were donated to USC, where not only is it a record of a devoted balletomane, but it also reflects Russian ballet history in the mid-late twentieth century.

A year or two later, Dwight joined Pomona College friends, Irene Nevil, Ina Nuell Bliss, and me for lunch. When it was over, Harry Major said,, “ His work should be featured on California Gold.” I am not sure that ever happened, still, there was no doubt that Dwight Grell was himself a treasure.

IBC Competitors Having Other Awards

Every four years the competence level of dancers has risen at the USA IBC Competitions. While the prize winners each four years I remember being as up to snuff, the also rans have undergone increasing preliminary scrutiny.The first was probably something of a free for all, limited mainly by financial means of the competitors. The second had some regional appearances, the Pacific Coast one being in Sacramento, presided over by Richard Englund, where Ricardo Bustamonte refused to continue because his girl friend was eliminated. The year Jennifer Gelfand earned the junior gold, she was required to audition in Jackson to qualify for further consideration. I remember that year a young candidate from San Francisco was eliminated, but went on to have a substantial number of seasons with a modern dance company. Her bio once read “she was invited to participate in the USA IBC Competition,” until it was pointed out how few actually are “invited,” unlike Andris Liepa and Nina Ananiasvili in 1986.

The guidelines for 2014 required submission of a video, either a pas de deux or two variations if dancing solo. These are the selections they will repeat during the actual Competition. These were surveyed by The Competitor Selection Committee, three individuals with long-standing distinction in the dance world: Adam Sklute, artistic director of Ballet West; Virginia Johnson, former ballerina and now artistic director of Dance Theatre of Harlem, and Magaly Suarez, one-time teacher at the Cuban National Ballet and now Artistic Director of Florida Classical Ballet.

Listed below are some of the honors garnered by the successful competition applicants:

All Japan Ballet Competition , Tokyo
Asian Grand Prix Hong Kong
Asian Grand Prix International Ballet Competition
Ballet Competition Nagoya
Ballet Competition, Osaka
Beijing International Ballet and Choreography Competition; Silver
Bejing International Competition; Bronze
Capetown International Ballet Competition; Silver
Concorso International di Danza, Italy
Concours International de Toulon; First Prize
Contemporary American Dance Competition
Cuban International Ballet Competition; Third Place
Cuban National Competition; Silver; Bronze
Festival de Danca du Joinville; Gold –4
Helsinki International Ballet Competition; Gold; Silver; Finalist
International Dance Festival TANZOLYMP
Kobe Dance Competition
Korea International Ballet Competition; Silver; Bronze
Moscow International Competition; Silver –2; Bronze
NBA National Ballet Competition
Passeo de Arte; Best Female Dancer; First Place, Pas de Deux
Passion du Ballet: Kyoto
Prix de Lausanne; Finalist; Apprentice Award
Rudollf Nureyev International Ballet Competition, Hungary
Number of IBC Competitors Having Other Awards-II
Seoul National Dance Competition; Gold – 2; Silver
Sicilia Barocca International Concours
Stars of the 21st Century International Ballet Competition
Valentina Koslova International Ballet Competition; Silver Medal
Varna International Ballet Competition; Bronze; Finalist
World Ballet Competition; Gold; Silver; Bronze; finalist
Youth America Grand Prix Finals, New York; Grand Prix; Silver
Youth America Grand Prix Regionals; Dallas; Houston; Los Angeles; New York; San Francisco; Tampa

Changes ; Jackson, Mississippi, 2014

Yes, there were changes, particularly losses in the individuals who made the Competition first happen. Gone is Thalia Mara, the visionary for whom the Civic Auditorium was renamed; gone also was Robert Joffrey the jury chair for the first three Competitions, 1979, 1982, 1986; Warren Ludlum, the attorney sharing Harvard Law School with Max Thelen, Jr., the connection providing my decision to attend the first Competition through print-maker Phyllis Thelen, Max’s wife, and Warren’s wife, Helen. Missing also is Karlen Bain, who assessed herself as the first “local” Executive Director for the 1986 Competition; her assistant, Sue Lobrano, stepped up to the plate when Travis Bain’s job took him away from Mississippi.

I think that was the last time Frankie Keating climbed around backstage to record the dancers. I remember Estelle Sommers telling me that Frankie broke her foot in Moscow when the IBC Committee went to the Moscow Competition, hoping to enlist Yuri Grigorovitch on the 1986 Jury. The aid of Olga Smoak made that presence possible, Nina Ananiasvili and Andris Liepa representing the USSR and being awarded the first of just three Prix de Jackson’s being awarded competitors, all of them foreign-trained by the bye. Despite the fact Keating was a native of Mississippi, the Competition never asked her to display her record of those first years.

More recent changes include the loss of veteran supporters like Martha Underwood; she organized the hospitality part of the Competition, providing host families not only for the V.I.P.’s but also for the contestants. They ran errands, entertained them at dinners when schedules permitted, some remaining life-long friends with their charges. I well remember a Fourth of July picnic out near a small pond or lake which Martha assembled for those remaining over the national holiday. Marilyn Beach organized the car pools for some five competitions; now she and Ann Cook marshal the volunteer ushers who fill the programs for each session.

The press room also has changed, though the location in the Mississippi Arts Building is along the same corridor, looking out at the stark patio separating the building from Pascagoula Street. The Museum moved to a building behind the auditorium and in the last fours years a garden and extensive patio with stage has covered the bare space between the two cultural buildings, eliminating some of the parking spaces where Competition professionals like Claudia Shaw used to park. Walking along Lamar Street past the Arts Building, the approach to the Museum is gracious with plantings grouped with donors identified. Where border and walk ends, the patio space opens up and you just know it was planned for parties, at least in the summer and early fall. It was utilized for the Grand Ball following the Gala Performance.

From four computers in the press room, it now provides two for writers; access to a printer is through the press personnel. Telephones, still available in 2010, are absent. Cell phones are the instrument of choice and expectation, a little difficult on a hold out like me. I missed some events because of my tardy acceptance of technology. The press office equipment is lent to the Competition like the vans and cars chauffeured by volunteers; their number has dwindled along with the scheduled runs of school buses ferrying dancers to rehearsal halls and the students to classes. 2014 was the first year that the Fourth Estate, writers, photographers, videographers did not spend a Friday lunch with USA IBC Officials.

Budget constraints were manifested in other ways. The Flame was lit at the opening ceremony, by Joseph Phillips, Junior Gold medalist 2002, with appropriate gravitas and flourish. In 2014 it did not burn during the day outside the auditorium.