New Deal Dance Art (10/10): Tamiris

Above: No discussion on the history and art of dance, New Deal or otherwise, would be complete without the inclusion of Helen Tamiris. A pioneer of modern dance, the energy behind the New Deal's Federal Dance Project, and a Broadway success, Tamiris was more than a dancer, she was a force for social justice, as the New York Times pointed out when she passed away: "As the nineteen-thirties unfolded, Miss Tamiris's dancing and choreography showed a strong social and political involvement. The despair of the unemployed, the plight of the Southern negro and the horrors of war all found in expression in her work." Tamiris herself said, "The validity of modern dance is rooted in its ability to express modern problems and, further, to make modern audiences want to do something about them" ("Helen Tamiris, Dancer, Is Dead," New York Times, August 5, 1966). Photo courtesy of the Daniel Nagrin Theatre, Film & Dance Foundation, used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.

Above: A WPA poster, promoting Adelante, a dance play based on the Spanish Civil War. Adelante was authored and choreographed by Helen Tamiris, and ran in New York City from April 20 to May 6, 1939. Image courtesy of George Mason University, used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.

Above: A WPA poster, promoting, Salut Au Monde, another dance production by Helen Tamiris. It ran in New York City from July 23 to August 5, 1936. Based on the wide-ranging poem by Walt Whitman, WPA Theatre Director Hallie Flanagan described it as appropriate "as the first offering of Tamiris and her fiery cohorts" (Hallie Flanagan, Arena, 1940, p. 76). Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Above: A WPA poster, promoting Tamiris's most successful WPA production, How Long Brethren. How Long Brethren ran in New York City for eight months, from May 6, 1937 to January 15, 1938. One newspaper critic wrote, "In How Long Brethren Tamiris has accomplished the finest composition of her career... the most thrilling episode, 'Let's Go to De Buryin',' with its frenzied emotional climax heightened by Tamiris' superb dancing, aroused the audience to a state of high excitement" (Flanagan, Arena, p. 199). During one performance, "the reaction was so whole-hearted and spontaneous that the show was interrupted many times by applause and shouts so loud the dancers could not hear the orchestra or the chorus in the pit" (Christena L. Schlundt, Tamiris: A Chronical of Her Dance Career, 1927-1955, 1972, see pp. 46 and 52). Image courtesy of George Mason University, used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.

Above: Helen Tamiris performing in How Long Brethren, ca. 1937. I've read Tamiris's dancing described as beautiful, powerful, wild, and even frightening. Next to Harry Hopkins, she's the New Dealer I'd like to meet the most. Her style, very action-oriented, and her philosophy, the very embodiment of the New Deal, are fascinating. A biographer once wrote of Tamiris, "She alone of all the major dancers working in the Thirties gave up her career, her [dance] group, almost her very self for the sense of purpose she felt in the [WPA's Dance] Project" (Schlundt, Tamiris, p. 40). Photo courtesy of the National Archives.