Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T07:44:02.415Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Valentine de Saint-Point

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2014

Leslie Satin
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

On April 3,1917, dancer Valentine de Saint-Point performed at New York City's Metropolitan Opera House. It is accepted as common knowledge (a term which may be stretching the point somewhat, given the relatively small body of writings which refer to her) that she was a) a Futurist, b) one of the very few, if not the only, female Futurists, and c) the only, if not one of the very few, Futurists to perform in New York.

Actually, none of these “facts” is entirely documented. In this essay, I will leave the third point untouched, assuming this aspect of Saint-Point's singularity to be at least relatively accurate. The second point I will deal with obliquely; that is, rather than debating whether her position as a woman among the Futurists was unique, I will consider how she saw being female as meaningful in her work. The first point interests me as well—again, obliquely. I will not argue here for or against Saint-Point's definitive categorization as a Futurist. Instead, by verbally reconstructing a performance and analyzing a body of written work related to it, I will examine Saint-Point's associations with Futurism and other experimental movements in performance taking place within the same general timeframe.

Type
Articles
Information
Dance Research Journal , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , Spring 1990 , pp. 1 - 12
Copyright
Copyright © Congress on Research in Dance 1990

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES CITED

“Enter Mme. de Saint-Point.” Rochester Post Express. 24 November 1916. Robinson Locke Collection, ser. 3:201.Google Scholar
Flint, R. W.Marinetti: Selected Writings. Translated by Coppotelli, Arthur A. and Flint, R. W.. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1972.Google Scholar
“Geometric Dancing is Brought to America by French Woman.” Cleveland Plain Dealer 18 November 1916. Robinson Locke Collection, ser. 3:201.Google Scholar
Goldberg, Roselee. Performance: Live Art 1909 to the Present. New York: Henry N. Abrams, 1979.Google Scholar
Greeley-Smith, Nixola. “Geometric Dancer Doesn't Believe in Love But Interprets Love Poems on the Square.” New York Evening World 15 November 1916. Robinson Locke Collection, ser. 3:200, 202.Google Scholar
Greeley-Smith, Nixola. “Geometric Dance Doesn't Believe in Love; Interprets Love Poems on Square.” Toledo Blade 18 November 1916. Robinson Locke Collection, ser. 3:199.Google Scholar
“Is the Sun Proud of His Daughter? Futurist Dancing.” Sketch Supplement 7 January 1914:5–7. Clipping file: Glans de Cessiat-Vercell, Valentine de. Dance Collection, New York Public Library at Lincoln Center.Google Scholar
Kaplan, E. Ann. “Is the Gaze Male?” in Powers of Desire: The Politics of Sexuality. Edited by Snitow, Ann, Stansell, Christine, and Thompson, Sharon. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1983, 309–327.Google Scholar
Kirby, Michael. 12 October 1988. Lecture, New York University, Department of Performance Studies.Google Scholar
Kirby, Michael. Futurist Performance. New York: Dutton, 1971.Google Scholar
Lista, Giovanni. Futurism: Manifestes, Documents, Proclamations. Lausanne, Switzerland: Editions L'Age d'Homme S.A., 1973.Google Scholar
Locke, Robinson. Collection of clippings. Theatre Collection, New York Public Library at Lincoln Center.Google Scholar
Lockspeiser, Edward. Debussy: His Life and Mind. Volume II: 1902–1918. New York: Macmillan Company, 1965.Google Scholar
Marinetti, Filippo. “The Futurist Dance. A Manifesto,” [1917]. Translated by Delza, Elizabeth. Dance Observer, October 1935:75–76.Google Scholar
Martin, Marianne W.Futurist Art and Theory 1909–1915. Oxford: Clerendon Press, 1968.Google Scholar
“Mtne. de Saint-Point, French Poet and Dancer, Who Finds Fifth Avenue Ridiculous, Decribes ‘La Metachorie,’ New Art.” New York Times 4 February 1917. Robinson Locke Collection, ser. 2:7–8.Google Scholar
“Mme. de Saint-Point Takes Opera House to Show Her Geometric Poem-Dances.” New York Herald 18 March 1917. Robinson Locke Collection, ser. 3:203.Google Scholar
“Mme. Valentine de Saint-Point Talks of Her Church of Music.” Morning Telegraph 15 April 1917. Robinson Locke Collection, ser. 2:9–11.Google Scholar
Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure in Narrative Cinema.” Screen 16, no. 3 (Autumn 1975):6–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saint-Point, Valentine de. “Festival de la Métachorie.” New York, 3 April 1917. Program file: Glans de Cessiat-Vercell, Valentine de. Dance Collection, New York Public Library at Lincoln Center.Google Scholar
Saint-Point, Valentine de. Preview. New York American. 6 December 1916. Robinson Locke Collection, ser. 3:201.Google Scholar
Saint-Point, Valentine de. “The Superdance—or Metachorie—in Theory and Practice.” Montjoie January 1914. Clippings file: Glans de Cessiat-Vercell, Valentine de. Dance Collection, New York Public Library at Lincoln Center.Google Scholar
Sanborn, Pitts. “Valentine de Saint-Point in Her Metachorie.” New York Commercial Advertiser 4 April 1917. Clipping file: Glans de Cessiat-Vercell, Valentine de. Dance Collection, New York Public Library at Lincoln Center.Google Scholar
Tisdall, Caroline and Bozzolla, Angelo. Futurism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978.Google Scholar
“Valentine de Saint-Point.” Review. New York Post 4 April 1917. Robinson Locke Collection, ser. 3:204.Google Scholar