Bob Curtis African Dance

Bob Curtis was born in Mississippi in 1925 the son of a farming family. At the age of 17 he was recruited for military service in World War II. When he returned from the war he started studying Fine Arts at the San Francisco State University. At the same time he began to take ballet classes at the San Francisco Ballet School. Later he moved to New York where he received a scholarship to study at Balanchine’s American Ballet School and with Katherine Dunham, also taking classes with Martha Graham. He danced professionally with the Katherine Dunham and José Limon companies, before an accident forced him to change direction in his professional career. He began working in commercial shows which eventually took him to Europe where he was to become one of the pioneers for African and contemporary dance. He settled in Rome and together with Elsa Piperna he founded one of the first contemporary dance theatres in Italy. In 1977 he founded the Compagnia Afro Danza. Under his artistic direction and with his choreographies the company toured widely through Italy and Europe until 1990. In 1991 he moved to Vienna where he has focused mainly on teaching and modelling. For the last couple of years he dedicates much of his time to his paintings which he presented in various exhibitions (link to exhibitions).

Below Bob Curtis talks of his life and of his vast experience of 20th century dance. (Excerpts from an interview with Edith M. Wolf Perez in 2003).

From Mississippi to San Francisco

While I was studying at the arts department at the San Francisco City College, I met dance. And I started with San Francisco Ballet School and with the Christenson brothers, Willem, Harold and Lew. At the time I started, Lew was still dancing with the Balanchine company. I was not thinking of becoming a dancer. I went because people kept asking me whether I was a dancer, I think because of the way I moved. I had no idea, believe me, what they were talking about. Because in Mississippi they knew nothing about dance. I was curious.

One day while in the streets I saw the sign “San Francisco Ballet School“. The school was closed but there was a boy painting the school and I told him I was curious about dance classes. We began talking and he said I should come on Monday. “You’ll need tights and a dance belt?” Of course, I didn’t know what these were, but he was very nice and went out to buy these things with me – “you need: dance belt, black tights, white t-shirt, white socks and black shoes”, he ordered. Later I learned that this person was Scott Douglas.

And so I enrolled for evening class. There were some little girls and, luckily, there were a lot of men, who were doing ballet for therapy after the war. And this is what encouraged me. There were lots of boys my size and age. I went to this school for months, one night a week. After a while the director called me and said: “Look, you are a bit old to start dancing. If you want to be a dancer it is impossible to come just once a week. You can forget it.“ I said: “I cannot afford any more and I do not know if I want to be a professional dancer”, and he said: that”s a pity because you look like you could be a dancer.” And about a week later he said: “Look, if we gave you a lesson every day and you pay for one just as you do now, would you come?” YES. So that’s how it all started. This was purely classical training. There was no modern dance in San Francisco at the time. There was a little school of Ann Halprin, but it was not even considered, but I took a couple of lessons from her at times.

To New York

I stayed in San Francisco for two or three years. During that time Lew Christenson left the Balanchine company in New York and came to teach at the San Francisco ballet school. One day he said: “In San Francisco there are no black dancers and I think you should know about black dance. In New York I can arrange that you have a scholarship with Balanchine at the American School.“ I was doing an operetta with Willem that summer and when we finished I went to audition in New York and got the scholarship to the American Ballet School.

Katherine Dunham was offering scholarships to all black dancers who were serious about learning Black Dance and I took it. Because I knew nothing at all I went to Dunham every evening for class. All the scholarship students were to clean the studios or run the elevators or do something. I refused. I really could not do it, I had two scholarships, I had a job, when should I work? And they said: “Then you have to give up your scholarship.” This was overheard by a ballet teacher, Carl Shook, and he came forward and said: “I need an assistant, he can help me on Saturdays.“ So I was his assistants with kids. I was really enthusiastic.

So I had a scholarship with the Balanchine School and with the Dunham school and when I had money I took classes with Martha Graham. For a living I was doing modelling for photographers.

At the time William Dollar was teaching at the American School and they were doing a musical, the Gertrud Stein opera “Four Saints in Three Acts“, and I auditioned for that. I got it together with Arthur Mitchell and Louis Johnson – the three black men in the Balanchine School. There were no black girls, just us three guys and Arthur Mitchell was the star.

Anyway this operetta played on Broadway, and then we went to Paris to the Champs Elysée Theatre – this was in 1952 I think. This was my first professional job.

Well, actually the first time I was paid for dancing, was with Sadlers” Wells in San Francisco, I think in 1946. They needed tall guys who looked good. And I was paid two dollars a day, and I met everybody: Margot Fonteyn and Moira Sheerer, who did the film “The Red Shoes“. She was not really known in the company, they did not really like her. But the American tour depended on her. And I was in Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake. Frederic Ashton and Robert Helpmann were doing the ugly sisters in Cinderella. It was a wonderful time. They had all these beautiful dancers like Michael Somes. And I got to see all the rehearsals and all the performances and sometimes I was on stage. And this was before I went to New York.

Becoming professional

At the time black dancers were unusual. If you auditioned for a musical on Broadway black dancers were not taken. Anyway there were not so many trained black dancers. Martha Graham had two fantastic black dancers Mary Hinkson and Matt Turney.Graham was really the first to use black dancers and eventually she had many. Balanchine had the three boys at school and there were black dancers in private schools. But Katherine Dunham was the first woman to put black dancers on Broadway.

Eventually Katherine Dunham organized an experimental group and I was part of that. They sent this experimental group to do performances and study folk dancing in Mexico, Haiti, Cuba. In Haiti we were really living with the people and it was a religion, this voodoo dancing. I did not want to get involved in that. I would take the technical part but I did not want to get into the religious part. But it really stuck with me and from then on I gradually went into Afro Dance and I started teaching. I developed my own style, I do not teach traditional Afro Dance.

After this tour I went into the Limón company. By then black people were gradually noticed and José took me. Modern Dance was really off off at the time. On Broadway we were Martha Graham, Sophie Maslow and José Limon sharing one evening. Now they run for five weeks each of them. With Limon we toured America, universities mostly.

The accident

In my second year with Limon I had a bad car accident and I cut all my tendons im my left foot. They said: “You”ll be lucky if you walk right again.” But José Limon said: “Don”t touch his foot until we get a specialist.” I thought my career was over, but they operated and put the tendons exactly back together, not overlapping as they sometimes do, and the tendons grew back normal. With therapy my foot worked again and it works still. Anyway it was a shock. I had a very bad year, I had very superficial cuts all over my face. Martha Graham helped me a lot. She came to see me in the hospital every day, because we were on tour together in New London, Connecticut. “I know it’s tragic, Bob“, she said, “but so many people are quite happy who do not dance. Because you don’t dance, it does not mean life is finished.“ I was really down, but with Graham and her philosophy and her way of talking she convinced me that it was quite all right not to dance.

However, what happened is, that they kept me on morphine to long because it was really painful. And I was a nervous wreck. I tried to work with José again, but I just couldn”t stand the tension in rehearsal.

La Dolce Vita

When I had been in Cuba I had met a choreographer who did the “Tropicana“. He said: “I need some help with the choreography, you do not have to dance too seriously.“ So I went to Cuba for a year to help him put these Afro shows together. A friend of mine then said: “I am going to Europe. Why don”t you come to Europe with me. You need a vacation after your vacation in Cuba.“ So we took a boat and came to Europe and by then I was studying dance again. I went to Paris and I studied with Roland Petit and I auditioned for him and he actually took me in the company – and I did not go. I don”t know why. I was lazy. I wanted to go to Italy.

I was really lazy by then and I studied the dolce vita. I did a musical with Toto and then I did the Manhattan Trio, television, musicals... this went on until the late 1960s. Nevertheless I was studying all the time and doing ballet class whenever I could. Then I started a serious modern company.

You danced in many places in hotels, night clubs etc. Many dancers would feel that they cannot do commercial job. Do you know this attitude?

Yes, I have know this. Dancers always thought you could not dance in certain places. But I never thought like this. I just wanted to dance. I never thought I was so important, so superior so ambitious. I love dancing, if I do it in the Hilton or at Times Square. I am the same, I do not change, I do not do bad dancing in the Hilton. I never thought to be a star dancer, I want to be a good dancer, because I like dancing. I was not really a great classical dancer because I started too late. I knew, I could not compete in a classical company. I worked in classical companies but doing special things. But I never thought of being special, I am still trying. I always accepted work.

Italians Modern Dance Pioneer

In 1968 I founded with Elsa Piperno the Teatro Danza Contemporaneo di Roma, the first contemporary dance company in Italy, and I did this until 1975. We did some good choreography but we were fighting a lot. Emotionally it was heavy. We opened a school. In the meantime I was doing fashion. Then I went to New York for two years I was with Arthur Michell”s Dance Theatre of Harlem teaching and helping him with the company. I could not stand the life in New York. The company was wonderful and Arthur Michell and I were always good friends since the Balanchine school.

In 1977 I went back to Rome and started everything all over again. I opened a school, started training dancers, did a big performance by selling all my jewellery and gold and whatever. Next year I got a government grant and this lasted for 18 years as Compagnia Afro Danza.

Coming to Austria

I met an Austrian women – Christiane Dertnig - who was working with the Austrian Tourist Agency as a tour guide through Europe, but whenever she could she was taking class with me. We became friends and she organised a tour for us in Austria. She got us to Szene Wien for six days and it was always sold out. Then we came every year also to Linz, Klagenfurt and Salzburg.

I gave up the company because I had not enough money and I did not have enough trained dancers because some had left and I did not have my school anymore. And I was 70 by then, so I really thought I should retire and just paint.

But before I had a workshop in Graz. Christiane phoned and said: “You know, Esther Linley wants you to teach at the conservatory in Linz.“ I did not want to live in Linz but I could imagine living in Vienna. Christiane found me an appartment very fast. Then I taught in Linz for seven years and later at the ballet school of the Vienna Staatsoper. Now I am just teaching a few classes a week but I am into painting and I like living in Vienna because it is really quite comfortable.

In Vienna you are also famous for modelling.

Lots of people said, don”t you think this is kind of commercial to do modelling and I say: Why not? You should hope somebody asks you to model at the age of 78. There is nothing wrong with this. I am fascinated that someone wants to shoot a photograph of me for selling whatever I don”t know what. I would not do it for cigarettes and whisky because I am against smoking and drinking. I would not do it just for money. But for energy, an insurance or mineral water or for Kulturhauptstadt Graz – I cannot find anything wrong with this. I do not have these limitations or prejudice. Life is to short to limit so many things. Anyway I am flattered that I can be presented like this on a big poster.

How has the dance world changed?

Dancers are much better these days because they are much more equipped. They can do modern and classical. In my days of studying you were either a modern or a classical or an Afro dancer. Everything was more separate. Now if you go to a concert you cannot say you go to a classical concert or a modern concert. You go to a dance concert. It has changed completely. The techniques and styles have merged. Dancers are much better but I think choreographers were better in times past.

It has changed a lot although there is not as much enthusiasm for dance now. It is narrowing down. Not so many young people are interested in becoming a dancer any more.

Basically it is a mental change, because before classical dancers were superior. Now I think you do not have this attitude any more.