A trailblazing American ballerina, Ruthanna Boris was known for her magnetic stage presence, a mischievous sense of humor, and an ability to transform herself to suit any role. One of the first dancers to study with George Balanchine in New York, Boris performed in the debut of his American Ballet Company in 1935 and as a principal dancer with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet and Ballet Caravan. Later she became the first American ballerina to star with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. Enamored with dance in all its forms, Boris also appeared in Broadway musicals and teamed with acclaimed modern dancers in a benefit show for the Spanish Civil War. She was one of the few women of her day to choreograph ballets, creating among others the satirical Cirque de Deux for the Ballet Russe, and Cakewalk for New York City Ballet. Degenerative arthritis ended her performance career in the 1950s and hip surgeries left her debilitated, so she trained as a dance therapist. In 1965 Boris was hired by the University of Washington, where she organized the dance program, taught ballet, and was instrumental in the planning of Meany Hall. After retiring in 1983, she moved to the San Francisco Bay area, where she served as president of the California chapter of the American Dance Therapy Association and volunteered as a literacy tutor in prisons. Boris was married twice, to cellist Maurice P. Bialkin and to dancer Frank Hobi. She died of cancer in El Cerrito, California, in 2007.
Crazy About Dance
As a little girl Ruthanna Boris was crazy about dance and begged her mother for ballet lessons. The training available at a nearby studio turned out a bit racy and geared to vaudeville, so after a while Mrs. Boris wrote to New York Times dance critic John Martin (1893-1985) for advice. He offered a few suggestions, and at age 9 Ruthanna was accepted into the ballet school of the Metropolitan Opera Company. Her talent was obvious and soon she was appearing in children’s roles in operas such as Aida, Forza del Destino and Madame Butterfly. When she turned 12, Boris became a member of the adult corps de ballet – a professional dancer, performing on the country’s most prestigious stage, earning a salary of $10 a week.
Born March 17, 1918, in Brooklyn, Ruthanna Magdelenelouise Boris was the oldest child of Jewish immigrants. Her father, Joseph J. Boris (1888?-1993) was born in Russia and her mother Frances Weiss Boris (1891-1990) in Vienna. Ruthanna spent her early years at the family home at Oceanside, Long Island, with her younger brother Paul (1920-2011). Each day, Ruthanna and her mother would ride the train to Penn Station then walk to the opera house for her classes with Madame Rosina Galli (1892-1940), director of the Metropolitan Opera Ballet school. On performance nights, mother and daughter would have dinner at the automat, where Joseph would meet them. Frances then caught the train home and Joseph would accompany Ruthanna to the theater, watch the opera with other stage parents and then take his daughter home. Eventually, the family moved to an apartment in Manhattan.
Every part of a dancer’s life pleased Ruthanna, from the daily classes and rehearsals to the makeup and costumes, and the thrill of performing. But dancing for the opera came in small increments – a 10-minute segment of ballet, or some bits of folk or court dances as needed. She wanted more. In 1933 the renowned Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo arrived for its first New York season and Madame Galli – Italian born and trained – forbade her dancers to attend. She thought exposure to the exuberant Russian style would pervert their pure training. Undeterred, Boris bought a standing room ticket for opening night. Her first look at those world-renowned dancers and the choreography of someone called George Balanchine (1904-1983) sparked her imagination. She took the subway home "drunk with ideas, fantasies ... possibilities" (draft memoir).
"You Have Big Talent"
Then Boris read in The New York Times that Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein (1907-1996) would be starting a new School of American Ballet and American Ballet Company. Boris immediately wrote to Kirstein and soon got a reply, assuring her of an audition with Mr. Balanchine. When the time came, the Russian choreographer and the petite teenage ballerina hit it off, laughing together and singing as he playfully but systematically put her through some challenging combinations. At the end, Balanchine told her: "You have big talent. You have good training. You can learn. You will be in school. You will be in company" (draft memoir).
That’s how on March 1, 1935, Boris, not quite 17, came to be standing on stage with 16 other young women at the Adelphi Theatre in Manhattan, waiting for the curtain to rise on the debut performance of the American Ballet Company. At 5 feet 2 inches, Boris was one of the smallest girls, so was positioned in front. They were about to perform the world premiere of a ballet that would become one of Balanchine’s most beloved and iconic creations, Serenade. That night, Boris later wrote, "I danced without feeling the floor" (draft memoir).
Later that year, with a volume of Emily Dickinson in hand, Boris boarded a bus for the company’s first transcontinental tour. But in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, after only their third show, the troupe was informed – by a weeping Kirstein and stoic Balanchine – that the company manager had disappeared with $60,000, the entire funds for the tour. It was over. They were heading back to New York, broke.
Charisma and Controversy
With no ballet company to support them, Balanchine and some of his dancers eventually found employment at the Metropolitan Opera. Madame Galli had retired, and Balanchine was brought in as director and choreographer. Boris became a principal, and then prima ballerina, at the company where she had once performed in the corps. Balanchine began allowing her to create small bits of choreography and relied on her to teach other dancers their roles. Still, the opera season wasn’t enough to support a dance career and Boris, now living on her own, for the next few years scrambled for work. Lincoln Kirstein created a small touring group called Ballet Caravan, where among others Boris danced with Erick Hawkins (1909-1994) – later the partner and husband of Martha Graham. Choreographer Agnes de Mille (1905-1993) invited Boris to join the cast of the musical Hooray for What, and she also performed in revues at Radio City Music Hall.
In the summer, Boris found employment at Tamiment Playhouse at the Pennsylvania resort where she shared the stage with the likes of Danny Kaye and Imogene Coca in comedy revues with dance and music. Here Boris met another young dancer with high ambitions, Jerome Robbins (1918-1998.) She, Robbins, Kaye, and Coca later performed on Broadway in The Straw Hat Revue. While at Tamiment, Boris also met and later married cellist Maurice Bialkin (1913-2004), who was soon was off to Europe with Glenn Miller’s Army Airforce Band. The long-distance marriage didn’t survive.
Wherever Boris appeared on stage, audiences were smitten with her charisma and sparkling technique. She loved dance in all forms and was eager to support any left-leaning cause she believed in. At a benefit performance for Spanish loyalists during the Spanish Civil War, Boris appeared with modern dance luminaries Anna Sokolow, Charles Weidman, Helen Tamaris, and José Limon. A critic noted that, "the dancing that really got the audience last night was Ruthanna Boris’ two Spanish dances ... performed with superb style and distinction" ("Dances for Spain").
But Boris wasn’t satisfied dancing snippets in operas, revues, and benefits. In 1942 she was accepted into the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, where she was eventually given lead roles, becoming the first American ballerina to star with the famed Russian company. Here she fulfilled her dream of dancing classics such as Swan Lake, Le Sylphide, and The Nutcracker. Balanchine, too, rejoined the Ballet Russe as choreographer during World War II. He and Boris remained close as she performed in his experimental new works, including the 1944 Danses Concertantes, to a Stravinsky score, and Night Shadow in 1946, with sets by surrealist painter Dorothea Tanning (1910-2012). Boris and premier danseur Frederick Franklin (1914-2013) danced the leads in Ruth Page’s spicy character ballet, Frankie and Johnny.
A staunch union supporter and member of the American Guild of Musical Artists, Boris found her European colleagues at the autocratic Ballet Russe too submissive, fearful of questioning management about unfair practices and erratic pay. While on tour in 1945, Boris and other dancers were required to mingle with Hollywood guests during a post-performance party at Ginger Rogers's house. Management flaunted the dancers at these events to help raise funds for the company. Boris, hungry and tired after the show, remembered the party mostly for the lack of food and for an unsavory interlude with the actor Ronald Reagan. Reagan and Adolf Menjou, along with Ginger’s mother Leila Rogers, cornered Boris and questioned her intrusively about her Russian Jewish ancestry and her politics. She later recalled Reagan warning her that her career would be over if she remained in the American Labor Party and "We have a list" (draft memoir). Boris, naïve about politics, quickly made her exit.
With the company on tour 40 weeks a year, life in The Ballet Russe was "hectic, stormy, controversial and very exciting" (draft memoir). It gave Boris the opportunity to fulfill yet another dream: She convinced management – skeptical of a woman choreographer – to let her make a ballet for the company. She created and danced in the satirical Cirque de Deux, with her usual partner, the virtuoso Leon Danielian (1920-1997). It was the hit of the season. In 1948 she created a second comic ballet, the less successful Quelques Fleurs, commissioned by Houbigant to promote its new perfume.
A Missed Opportunity
And while at the Ballet Russe Boris met and married Frank Hobi (1921-1967), a native of Aberdeen who had attended Roosevelt High School and studied dance in Seattle with Mary Ann Wells (1894-1971). Hobi was the second of Wells's students to join the Ballet Russe. In 1935 Wells had arranged for Marcel Leplat (1913-2014) to audition for the company director, Leonid Massine, who immediately signed him. As one of the first Americans in the company, Leplat was given the stage name Marc Platoff, to make him sound Russian. He later danced and acted in Hollywood films under the name Marc Platt.
By the late 1940s Boris had achieved every goal she’d set and was one of America’s brightest ballet stars. Then, at the height of her career, she made a misstep. In 1948, Balanchine was choosing dancers for the budding New York City Ballet. He invited Hobi to join the company before speaking with Boris, who no doubt felt slighted by her longtime mentor and friend. Then, when Balanchine did a while later ask Boris to join, she turned him down. She told him she had already signed her contract with Ballet Russe and had been assured the lead in Giselle, a longtime dream. Balanchine insisted the contract didn’t matter and that he would stage Giselle for her, but Boris held firm. As soon as her contract was over, she told him, she would come join his company. "So I thought it was all nice," she later recalled (Balanchine’s Ballerinas, 67). But she had made the wrong choice. The Ballet Russe was in decline and Balanchine and the New York City Ballet were the future. By the time Boris showed up ready to dance at NYCB, Balanchine, hurt by her initial refusal, said no. He didn’t need another ballerina now. Boris eventually choreographed Cakewalk for NYCB and it became her most popular ballet, later revived by the Joffrey Ballet and others – but she had missed her chance to be a member of the company.
At that point her opportunities as a dancer were limited. She was in her 30s, had been dancing professionally for 20 years, and was beginning to have pain in her hips. She choreographed a short ballet for the Broadway revue Two on the Aisle and continued to choreograph occasionally for NYCB (Bayou and Kaleidoscope in 1952 and Will o’ the Wisp in 1953) to tepid reviews. Boris and Hobi toured independently from 1954 to 1956 and they directed the Royal Winnipeg Ballet in 1956-1957, but left over disagreements with management. Hobi worked as a stage manager for New York City Ballet from 1958 to 1960. With their prospects fading, the couple talked about settling somewhere and starting a school.
It was a depressing period for two dancers who had lived for the stage. Boris had her first hip surgery, an experimental procedure that left her debilitated. In 1962, at the age of 44, she found "life empty since the audiences were gone and the tutus hung in the back closet, and work had become a steady round of guest teaching, tv shows choreographed in four square feet of space, ego-destroying visits to agents, managers, producers who might want to hire a female choreographer ..." (draft memoir). At a suggestion from her doctor, Boris began studying dance therapy with pioneering practitioner Marion Chace (1896-1970). At some point, she and Hobi separated.
Fresh Start in Seattle
Then in 1965, Boris was offered a new start. The University of Washington hired her to teach ballet and develop a dance program. Balanchine had once tasked Boris with teaching his company class and told her she had a gift for it. Now, walking with the aid of forearm crutches, she was challenged to teach students who ranged from college-age beginners to those aiming for professional careers. In 1967, Hobi, reportedly in poor health and depressed, moved back to Seattle. That September he was found dead in a downtown hotel room after taking a massive overdose of tranquilizers. He was buried at Holyrood Cemetery in Shoreline and his impressive dance career ended in near silence, with no obituaries in the mainstream press.
Boris channeled her skill and energy into her new job. In the early years, the UW had no dance studios, so her classes were taught in a drafty upstairs room at the old campus Armory building. With no budget for an accompanist, Boris used a hand drum to pound out the beat. She was a demanding teacher and, to the dismay of some, she required even more advanced dancers to take her 100-level class, to make sure they had a solid technical foundation. "She was what we would now call 'old school' in her manner and style," said William Whitener (b. 1951), a former Joffrey dancer who later revived Cakewalk for Kansas City Ballet. "She was considered really tough, but ... she trained with Russians, and everything was different then in the way people taught" (Whitener interview). Despite her commanding presence, Boris could also delight students with her audacious sense of humor and stories from her days as a ballerina, rehearsing with Balanchine and Igor Stravinsky.
When Boris came to UW, ballet was part of the drama department, and modern dance was considered Physical Education. Boris consolidated and expanded the program, first as part of the Drama department and eventually in the Music Department. As a professor, she helped elevate dance to the status of other studies, a model for other universities. She also was instrumental in the planning of Meany Hall and saw to it that students and teachers finally got three impressive studios, with high ceilings and natural light, as well as changing rooms and showers – a huge and lasting gift to the dance program.
In 1975, during her years at UW, Boris choreographed Ragtime for the Houston Ballet, to music by Scott Joplin. And she continued to practice as a dance therapist. She sometimes assisted at a Harborview Hospital clinic run by psychiatrist and UW professor Dr. Johan Verhulst (1938-2019) and his wife, psychologist Julia Heiman (b. 1948), as they treated patients from all walks of life. Heiman remained friends with Boris until her death and remembered her as "an extremely likeable person ... remarkable on a number of levels. She had a strong personality, very warm, very interested in other people, opinionated, and had fabulous stories about Balanchine" (Heiman interview).
Into Retirement
After Boris retired in 1983, she moved to the San Francisco Bay area, where for a while she served as president of the California chapter of the American Dance Therapy Association. She tried to establish a center for dance training and research, and volunteered as a literacy coach in the prisons. Further hip surgeries and multiple cancer surgeries and treatments, first for breast cancer then metastatic ovarian cancer, left her in pain and eventually confined to a wheelchair and bed. When a Ballet Russe reunion was organized in 2000, Boris turned down the invitation and declined to participate in the subsequent documentary film Ballet Russe, leaving a substantial gap in the history it told. However, on December, 20, 2005, just a year before her death, she taped a long interview for the PBS American Masters documentary "Jerome Robbins: Something to Dance About." She wore a post-chemo wig and, despite her discomfort, maintained her professional stage demeanor. As her illness progressed, Boris voiced only one regret – that she had to quit dancing. "Having to stop the thing she loved most, she never got past that," her friend Gabrielle Bakker (b. 1958) recalled. "She was fierce and complex, and she lived her life. She never complained … She never said I’m hurting" (Bakker interview). Boris died at a care facility in El Cerrito on January 5, 2007.
