Always I have been her devoted friend from the beginning of her American successes, and shall continue to be.
It is ballerinas of the type of Alicia Markova who help make ballet the great art it is. There are all too few of them.
Often I have told Anton Dolin that the two of them, Markova and Dolin, individually and collectively, have been of immeasurable service and have done great honor to ballet both in England and throughout the world.
ANTON DOLIN
The erstwhile Sydney Patrick Chippendall Healey-Kay, metamorphosed into Anton Dolin whose star has so often paralleled and traversed that of Markova, was born at Slinfold, Sussex, 20th July, 1904. A principal dancer of the Diaghileff Ballet at an early age, he was unique as the only non-Russian premier danseur ever to achieve that position.
Leaving Diaghileff in 1926, he organized the Nemtchinova-Dolin Ballet, with which they toured England and Europe. Alternating ballet with the dramatic and musical theatre, he turned up in New York in Lew Leslie’s unhappy International Revue, along with Gertrude Lawrence, Harry Richman, and the unforgettable Argentinita. On his return to London, Dolin became the first guest-star of the Vic-Wells Ballet before it exchanged the Vic for Sadler’s.
In 1935, with the valued help of the late Mrs. Laura Henderson, he was indefatigable in the formation of the Markova-Dolin Ballet, one of the results of which was the laying of the foundation stones of ballet’s popularity in Great Britain. A period with the de Basil company in Australia was followed by his extended American sojourn, with Ballet Theatre, the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, as guest artist, The Seven Lively Arts, the Original Ballet Russe, and again under my management with the Markova-Dolin company.
Without making too detailed a research, I should say that the Dolin literature is nearly as extensive as that about Markova, making due allowance for the fact that the glamorous ballerina always lends herself to the printed page more attractively than her male vis-a-vis. However, Dolin, often as busy with his pen as with his feet, has added four volumes of his own authorship to the list. Divertissement, published in 1931, and Ballet-Go-Round, published in 1938, were sprightly volumes of autobiographical reminiscence and highly personal commentary and observation. There has also been a slender volume on the art of partnering and, more recently, a biographical study of Markova entitled Alicia Markova: Her Life and Art.
My acquaintance and friendship with Dolin dates back to the Diaghileff season of 1925. It is an acquaintance and friendship I value. There is an old bromide to the effect that dancers’ brains are in their legs. As in all generalizations of this sort, it contains something more than a grain of truth. Dolin is one of the shining exceptions to this role. Shrewd, cultured, with a fine background, he is the possessor of a poised manner, and something else, which is, I regret to say, rare in the dancer: a concern for ethics.
There is a weird opinion held in many parts of this country and on the continent of Europe, to the effect that the Englishman is a dull and humorless sort of fellow. This stupid charge is quite beyond the understanding of any one who has thought twice about the matter. I have had the pleasure and privilege of knowing England and the English for a great many years and, as a consequence, I venture to assume the pleasing privilege of informing a deluded world that, whatever else there may or may not be in England, there is more fun and laughter to the square acre than there is to the square mile of any other known quarter. My observation has been that even if an Englishman does achieve a gravity alien to the common spirit about him, he is not able to keep it up for long. Dolin is the possessor of a brilliant sense of humour and much wit, both often biting; but he has a quality which invites visitations of the twin spirits of high and low comedy.