Glen Tetley; choreographer bridged ballet, modern dance
LOS ANGELES -- Glen Tetley, an acclaimed dancer and internationally celebrated choreographer who bridged the worlds of ballet and modern dance, has died. He was 80.
An American who achieved his greatest success as a freelance choreographer in Europe and Canada, Mr. Tetley succumbed to melanoma in West Palm Beach, Fla., Jan. 26.
Although Mr. Tetley began his professional career as a Broadway dancer, he soon became adept at both modern dance and ballet, performing leading roles in the Martha Graham Dance Company as well as American Ballet Theatre, arguably at the stylistic extremes of the art. As a choreographer, he experimented with amalgamating those idioms, combining the weight and floor action of modern dance with the elongated line and aerial bravura of ballet.
It was a style that many of the greatest dancers of the age found irresistible. "Glen loves purity and form, but it comes from deep inside of you," according to Karen Kain, once Canada's most famous ballerina and now artistic director of National Ballet of Canada. "When I finish one of his ballets, I always feel more like a real dancer," she told the Los Angeles Times in 1988. "I don't know how else to describe it."
In his book "Baryshnikov at Work," former Kirov Ballet star Mikhail Baryshnikov wrote: " He exudes tremendous energy and high spirits and has a very contagious manner, an excitement, which is critical in the studio when you're learning a new work."
Mr. Tetley always explained his fusion of ballet and modern dance as an act of love: "I am very moved by the brilliance, the lift, the drive, the lyricism of classical ballet," he said in an interview for John Percival's book "Experimental Dance." I am equally moved by the whole dark spectrum of Graham's theater, world, and technique. Perhaps it's too wide an embrace, but I wanted actively to embrace both of these worlds."
He was born Glenford Andrew Tetley Jr. on Feb. 3, 1926, in Cleveland and grew up in Wilkinsburg, Pa., near Pittsburgh. A former choirboy and the great-grandson of a minister, he initially pursued pre-med studies at Franklin and Marshall College and New York University. "I had not seen dance. I didn't know dance existed," he told The Toronto Sun in 1994.
But he fell in love with the first ballet he saw, Antony Tudor's "Romeo and Juliet," and after a stint in the Navy, he began studying ballet with Tudor in New York. He also studied with Graham and fellow modern dance pioneer Hanya Holm, dancing in the Broadway shows that Holm choreographed, including "Kiss Me Kate."
He also danced for Jerome Robbins, in Broadway musicals and ballet projects.
He became one of the original members of the Joffrey Ballet in 1956, danced in Graham's company in 1958 while also performing with Ballet Theater (until 1961), and from 1962 to 1969, directed his own contemporary ensemble.
In 1964, Mr. Tetley began dancing and choreographing for Nederlands Dans Theater, becoming codirector of that company in 1969. He also served as artistic director of the Stuttgart Ballet from 1974 to '76 and developed important relationships with London's Ballet Rambert and National Ballet of Canada.
However, his most enduring contribution has been as guest choreographer for major companies, notably (besides those previously mentioned) Ballet Theatre, England's Royal Ballet, the Royal Danish Ballet, the Royal Swedish Ballet, the Australian Ballet, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Norwegian National Ballet, and Italy's Aterballetto. He made his last choreography, "Lux in Tenebris," for Houston Ballet in 1999.
