GEMZE DE LAPPE

I met the beautiful, powerful and petite Gemze at the National Academy of Dance (NAD) in Champaign Illinois. It was my great fortune and joy, to be her student in the summers at NAD. Gemze taught me the legendary choreography of Agnes De Mille, all the dances from Oklahoma, Carousel and Brigadoon; and The King and I, Jerome Robbins. She taught and coached me to perform the beautiful and powerful dances of Isadora Duncan. Gemze brought me to NYC to Lee Theodore, the creator and director of the...

I had the very great fortune to be able to work with Gemze several times during my career- first in the 1996 staging of Brigadoon for NYCO where I worked with her on the part of Jean MacLaren, then a couple of years later when she staged A Rose for Miss Emily, Allegro and One Touch of Venus for the DeMille project workshop, and finally when I learned the role Topsy in The King and I. Every moment in the studio with her was a lesson in stagecraft. It was not always easy to please her, but...

Gemze also connected us to the legacy of Isadora Duncan via her study with Irma Duncan. She possessed a wonderful combination of freedom and exact technical control. A beautiful dancer and teacher.

Gemze was the rock that kept Agnes DeMille's work alive. Her insistence on every detail being perfect challenged dancers and made them so much better! She was a true artist.

Gemze De Lappe starred in THE BALLET from CAROUSEL at the Brussels Worlds Fair American Theatre in 1958. Robert Pagent was the choreographer who restaged the Agnes De Mille dances.
When Gemze and I went to Havana, Cuba in 2008 and 2010 where she worked with Alicia Alonzo restaging two de Mille early ballets - A ROSE FOR MISS EMILY and THREE VIRGINS AND A DEVIL. Gemze was a delight to be with.