{"id":11218,"date":"2021-04-13T15:41:19","date_gmt":"2021-04-13T15:41:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/?p=11218"},"modified":"2025-04-21T07:16:24","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T07:16:24","slug":"ronald-frazer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/2021\/04\/13\/ronald-frazer\/","title":{"rendered":"Ronald Frazer"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Ronald Frazer<\/strong><\/h2>\n

New York Negro Ballet<\/strong>
\nNorwegian Operaballetten<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\"\"
Photo by Svenska Dagbladet, 1964.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Ronald Frazer* was a member of the New York Negro Ballet and Norwegian Operaballetten. He performed throughout the US, Norway, Sweden, and Germany.<\/p>\n

Frazer performed as a \u201csolo dancer\u201d in a 1955 production of Aida<\/em> with the Lyric Opera of Chicago. The same year, he played Pluto, a dancing role, in Il ballo delle ingrate (Masque)<\/em> with the company.<\/p>\n

\n

In 1963, Frazer was hired by the Norwegian Operaballetten (now called Nasjonalballetten); his debut performance with the company was on September 19 of that year.<\/p>\n

Frazer appeared in a piece by Walter Nicks for Stockholm\u2019s Jazzbalett 64 at the Od\u00e9onteatern, which premiered on July 7, 1964. At the time, Nicks was involved with the University of Stockholm and the Swedish Ballet and was director at Statens Dansskola.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

In his Elements of Classical Ballet Technique as Practiced in the School of the Dance Theatre of Harlem<\/em>, Karel Shook listed Frazer as a dancer who \u201cdid not perform as [a] ballet [dancer] per se, but who has classical technique and the elegance and carriage that go with it,\u201d though Frazer did in fact perform ballet.<\/p>\n

Frazer\u2019s friend Kenneth Scott (star of The Wiz<\/em>) called Elma Lewis (of the Elma Lewis School of Fine Arts in Boston) to ask for financial help so that Frazer could travel to Germany, as he had an offer to join Cologne Ballet but did not have the means to get there.** Lewis then asked Donald Sneed for a loan, which he gave immediately. This act of generosity on the part of Frazer\u2019s friend and connections meant Frazer became the first Black man with the Cologne Ballet (Russell 178).<\/p>\n

Kenneth Scott claimed that Frazer was the only \u201cblack American buried in the cemetery [in Germany], with Beethoven, Brahms, and Bach,\u201d though this has not been verified and Beethoven and Brahms were both buried in Vienna, Austria (Russell 178).<\/p>\n

*Sources have written Frazer\u2019s first and last name in various ways. We have used \u201cRonald Frazer\u201d based on records from the National Library of Norway.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

**Note that there is no evidence of a company by the name of “Cologne Ballet.”<\/p>\n

Sources:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dancing Many Drums: Excavations In African American Dance, Thomas F. Defrantz<\/a>
\nBlack Genius: Inspirational Portraits of African-American Leaders, by Dick Russell<\/a>
\n1955 Season, Lyric Opera of Chicago<\/a>
\nGun Larsson and Ronnie Frazier [sic] in a ballet by Walter Nicks for Jazz Ballet 64 (photo)<\/a>
\nWalter Nicks Papers, The New York Public Library Archives & Manuscripts<\/a>
\nShook, Karel. Elements of Classical Ballet Technique: As Practiced in the School of the Dance Theatre of Harlem<\/em>. Dance Books, 1978.
\nBergmo, Wenche Auli. \u201cVS: [Spesiallesesalen] VS: Possible former dancer: Ronald Frazier.\u201d Received by Madeline Crawford, 13 Apr. 2021.<\/p>\n

See also:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ward Fleming founds Ballet Americana\/New York Negro Ballet, MoBBallet<\/a>
\nThe Modern Dance: Seven Statements of Belief<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ronald Frazer New York Negro Ballet Norwegian Operaballetten Ronald Frazer* was a member of the New York Negro Ballet and Norwegian Operaballetten. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dancers"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11218"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11218\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11242,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11218\/revisions\/11242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}