Bill Cratty
Encyclopedia
Modern dance
Modern dance is a dance form developed in the early 20th century. Although the term Modern dance has also been applied to a category of 20th Century ballroom dances, Modern dance as a term usually refers to 20th century concert dance.-Intro:...
r and choreographer.
Life and career
Born William Anthony Cratty in Cleveland, OhioCleveland, Ohio
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately west of the Pennsylvania border...
, Bill Cratty began his dance training with tap
Tap dance
Tap dance is a form of dance characterized by using the sound of one's tap shoes hitting the floor as a percussive instrument. As such, it is also commonly considered to be a form of music. Two major variations on tap dance exist: rhythm tap and Broadway tap. Broadway tap focuses more on the...
and gymnastics
Gymnastics
Gymnastics is a sport involving performance of exercises requiring physical strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, and balance. Internationally, all of the gymnastic sports are governed by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique with each country having its own national governing body...
lessons at the age of 5. He stopped his lessons (according to him, because too much practice was required; according to his mother, because Cratty's brothers teased him about dance) and didn’t resume dancing until high school, when he became involved in the school musical productions. Cratty went on to attend Ohio University
Ohio University
Ohio University is a public university located in the Midwestern United States in Athens, Ohio, situated on an campus...
where he received a BFA
Bachelor of Fine Arts
In the United States and Canada, the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, usually abbreviated BFA, is the standard undergraduate degree for students seeking a professional education in the visual or performing arts. In some countries such a degree is called a Bachelor of Creative Arts or BCA...
in dance in 1973.
The six-foot one-inch tall Cratty joined the José Limón Dance Company
José Limón
José Arcadio Limón was a pioneer in the field of modern dance and choreography. In 1928, at age 20, he moved to New York City where he studied under Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman. In 1946, Limón founded the José Limón Dance Company...
in 1974, achieved soloist status, and performed for eight years in works by Limón
José Limón
José Arcadio Limón was a pioneer in the field of modern dance and choreography. In 1928, at age 20, he moved to New York City where he studied under Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman. In 1946, Limón founded the José Limón Dance Company...
, Charles Weidman
Charles Weidman
Charles Weidman is a renowned choreographer, modern dancer and teacher. He is well known as one of the pioneers of Modern Dance in America. He wanted to break free from the traditional movements of dance forms popular at the time to create a uniquely American style of movement...
, Anna Sokolow
Anna Sokolow
Anna Sokolow was a Jewish American dancer and choreographer.-Training:...
, Doris Humphrey
Doris Humphrey
Doris Batcheller Humphrey was a dancer and choreographer of the early twentieth century. Humphrey was born in Oak Park, Illinois but grew up in Chicago, Illinois. She was the daughter of Horace Buckingham Humphrey and Julia Ellen Wells and was a descendant of pilgrim William Brewster...
and others. He also studied with Ruth Currier, Murray Louis
Murray Louis
Murray Louis is an American modern dancer and choreographer. He grew up in Manhattan, not far from Henry Street where his company was to be founded years later. At the same time, his sister took him to many of the early modern dance concerts. After his discharge from the Navy in 1946, Mr...
and Daniel Nagrin
Daniel Nagrin
Daniel Nagrin was an American modern dancer, choreographer, teacher, and author. He was born in New York City.Nagrin studied with Martha Graham, Anna Sokolow, Hanya Holm, and Helen Tamiris whom he later married...
, whose jazzy
Jazz dance
Jazz dance is a classification shared by a broad range of dance styles. Before the 1950s, jazz dance referred to dance styles that originated from African American vernacular dance. In the 1950s, a new genre of jazz dance—modern jazz dance—emerged, with roots in Caribbean traditional dance...
style influenced Cratty's choreography.
Cratty's first major choreographic work, "The Kitchen Table", was given its New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
premier by the José Limón Company in 1981, at City Center Theater
New York City Center
New York City Center is a 2,750-seat Moorish Revival theater located at 131 West 55th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues in Manhattan, New York City. It is one block south of Carnegie Hall...
. "The Kitchen Table" was called "a seminal dance work of the 20th century" and "an antidote to post-modernism" by the dance critic Walter Terry.
In 1982, Cratty left the Limón Company to form his own company, the "Bill Cratty Dance Theatre", which toured internationally and presented eight New York seasons. In 1986, the Company appeared at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.. In New York City, the company performed at the Riverside Church Theater
Riverside Church
The Riverside Church in the City of New York is an interdenominational church in New York City, famous for its elaborate Neo-Gothic architecture—which includes the world's largest tuned carillon bell...
, the 92nd Street Y
92nd Street Y
92nd Street Y is a multifaceted cultural institution and community center located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States, at the corner of E. 92nd Street and Lexington Avenue. Its full name is 92nd Street Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew Association...
, and the Joyce Theater
Joyce Theater
The Joyce Theater is a 472-seat dance performance venue located in the Chelsea area of the borough of Manhattan in New York City. The Joyce Theater Foundation, the organization founded in 1982 that operates the theater, also owns the Joyce SoHo dance center located in a former firehouse on Mercer...
.
Cratty was the recipient of three National Endowment for the Arts
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
Choreographer's Fellowships.
One of the foremost teachers of Limón technique, Cratty held guest positions on the faculties of colleges and universities throughout America including University of California at Santa Barbara, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a large public research-intensive university in the state of Illinois, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system...
and Harvard. He set his works on several companies including Ballet Rambert, Hubbard Street Dance Company, and other regional American groups. He appeared on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
in the musical, Jerome Robbins' Broadway
Jerome Robbins' Broadway
Jerome Robbins' Broadway is an anthology comprising musical numbers from earlier shows that were either directed or choreographed by Jerome Robbins. Robbins won his fifth Tony Award for direction of the show....
. He also performed with Mikhail Baryshnikov
Mikhail Baryshnikov
Mikhail Nikolaevich Baryshnikov is a Soviet and American dancer, choreographer, and actor, often cited alongside Vaslav Nijinsky and Rudolf Nureyev as one of the greatest ballet dancers of the 20th century. After a promising start in the Kirov Ballet in Leningrad, he defected to Canada in 1974...
's White Oak Dance Project.
In 1993 Cratty joined the faculty of the Laban Dance Centre
Laban Dance Centre
Laban in Deptford, south-east London, is a conservatoire and centre for contemporary dance, and includes 13 dance studios, a 300-seat theatre, dance health suite, Pilates studio, library and café...
in London where he also directed the Transitions Dance Company.
Cratty died, at the age of 47, of liver cancer at his home in London on September 9, 1998.
Since his death, each year the Ohio University School of Dance presents the Bill Cratty Award, a scholarship in Cratty's honor, to a male undergraduate dance major.
Choreographic and performance style
Cratty's work was considered traditional, mainstream, modern dance by critics and was unique in the 1980s when postmodernPostmodernism
Postmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...
, minimal, abstract dance was becoming popular. Cratty frequently voiced his desire to make dances that entertained. His choreography was praised for its sense of humor, narrative, and humanity. Cratty noted in interviews that even as a child he loved the movies of Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute...
and Gene Kelly
Gene Kelly
Eugene Curran "Gene" Kelly was an American dancer, actor, singer, film director and producer, and choreographer...
and often his works were seen as a hybrid of concert dance
Concert dance
Concert dance is dance performed for an audience. It is frequently performed in a theatre setting, though this is not a requirement, and it is usually choreographed and performed to set music.By contrast, social dance and participation dance may be performed without an audience and, typically, these...
and musical theatre
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
, combining elements of both with mime
Mime artist
A mime artist is someone who uses mime as a theatrical medium or as a performance art, involving miming, or the acting out a story through body motions, without use of speech. In earlier times, in English, such a performer was referred to as a mummer...
and comedy. Dance Magazine noted "the simultaneous effect of a postmodern contemporary outlook coupled with an old-fashioned modern dance sensibility" in his works. As a performer, Cratty was called "pure and concentrated," and "a sensuous and virile dancer" who possessed "extraordinary stage presence" by Anna Kisselgoff of the New York Times.
Selected choreographic works
- The Kitchen Table (1980) Music: Baby DoddsBaby DoddsWarren "Baby" Dodds was a jazz drummer born in New Orleans, Louisiana."Baby" Dodds was the younger brother of clarinetist Johnny Dodds. He is regarded as one of the very best jazz drummers of the pre-big band era, and one of the most important early jazz drummers...
- Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (1982) Music: French popular tunes from the 1950s
- Promenades (1982) Music: HaydnJoseph HaydnFranz Joseph Haydn , known as Joseph Haydn , was an Austrian composer, one of the most prolific and prominent composers of the Classical period. He is often called the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet" because of his important contributions to these forms...
, Glenn MillerGlenn MillerAlton Glenn Miller was an American jazz musician , arranger, composer, and bandleader in the swing era. He was one of the best-selling recording artists from 1939 to 1943, leading one of the best known "Big Bands"...
, et al. - Match, Music: SchubertFranz SchubertFranz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...
Trout QuintetTrout QuintetThe Trout Quintet is the popular name for the Piano Quintet in A major by Franz Schubert. In Otto Erich Deutsch's catalogue of Schubert's works, it is D. 667... - Opus No. 3, Music: SatieErik SatieÉric Alfred Leslie Satie was a French composer and pianist. Satie was a colourful figure in the early 20th century Parisian avant-garde...
, et al. - Prince of the Air (1984) Music: StravinskyIgor StravinskyIgor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
Octet for Wind Instruments - Englewood (1984) Music: Pee Wee RussellPee Wee RussellCharles Ellsworth Russell, much better known by his nickname Pee Wee Russell, was a jazz musician. Early in his career he played clarinet and saxophones, but eventually focused solely on clarinet....
- The Beethoven Quintet (1986) Music: BeethovenLudwig van BeethovenLudwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
- Salome (1986) Music: Galt MacDermotGalt MacDermotGalt MacDermot is a Canadian composer, pianist and writer of musical theatre. He won a Grammy Award for the song African Waltz in 1960. His most successful musicals have been Hair and Two Gentlemen of Verona...
- Muggsy (1987) Music: Muggsy Spanier
- Going Bananas (1987) Music: Peter Zummo
- Andante Favori (1987) Music: BeethovenLudwig van BeethovenLudwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
- Down In The Hole (1995)
- Don’t Be That Way (1996)
- Rebound (1997)
Critical acclaim
- "Mr. Cratty is an authoritative and intelligent dancer with lots of stage presence, qualities his choreography shares. What a rarity it is to see dance today that looks as if it knew where it were going, even when, as was the case here, it is full of surprises."
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- –Jennifer Dunning, The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, January 19, 1982- "Cratty's distinctive style is forged from a love of the pure, kinetic drive of dance combined with an enthusiasm for gymnastics. The result is movement that's free-spirited and taut, whimsical and entertaining."
- -Deidre Kelly, The Globe and MailThe Globe and MailThe Globe and Mail is a nationally distributed Canadian newspaper, based in Toronto and printed in six cities across the country. With a weekly readership of approximately 1 million, it is Canada's largest-circulation national newspaper and second-largest daily newspaper after the Toronto Star...
, January 17, 1985- "Passionate and responsive dancing with an emotional clarity and a fine edge, he was incredibly alive, even subtle. Completely there."
- –Burt Supree, Village Voice, June 25, 1985
- "He has an old-time regard for pure technique that has, among so many of his more fashionable contemporaries, gone out of style".
- – Clive Barnes, New York PostNew York PostThe New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
, April 21, 1987
- –Jennifer Dunning, The New York Times