Filling Station is a one act American ballet choreographed by Lew Christensen. The libretto was apparently based on a newspaper report and the idea for the production grew from there. Virgil Thomson wrote the music. Mac is our hero, who meets a group of characters during his shift at the station. The highlight of the performance is a series of grand jetés performed with flashlights. Interestingly, for something so originally American, it does contain two themes that seem to preoccupy my neighbours to the south: guns and petroleum.
Paul Cadmus of PaJaMa fame, and good friend of George Platt Lynes, designed the costumes. The third photo below shows a reproduction of Cadmus's design for Mac's outfit in the Whitney Museum, New York. The costume renderings in ink below are by Cadmus. I stumbled across the larger nude image years ago, and have now found out that it is of Jacques D'Amboise, who danced in a TV version of the production in the early 50s. The second smaller image is attributed to Platt Lynes, and is of D'Amboise in 1940 as quite a young man. You can find D'Amboise dancing on YouTube. His outfit in this version is of course proper overalls. It was American television in the 1950s, after all.
Lew Christensen in costume for the original production in 1937
3 comments:
Thank you for the story about the images. I'd always wondered about them. Very happy it involved Cadmus and GPL.
Hello SK,
Exactly right. Have you read a book called Intimate Companions by David Leddick? It's about GPL and Cadmus & Kirstein and that power circle of foundationary queers. Thanks for the note!
I've not read it, but have it on my list of books to get. Thanks for reminding me.
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