{"id":8809,"date":"2021-01-14T16:28:14","date_gmt":"2021-01-14T16:28:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/?p=8809"},"modified":"2025-04-21T07:16:25","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T07:16:25","slug":"helen-taitt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/2021\/01\/14\/helen-taitt\/","title":{"rendered":"Helen Taitt"},"content":{"rendered":"

Helen Taitt<\/strong><\/h2>\n

New York Negro Ballet<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\"Helen<\/div>\n
Helen Taitt, a native of British Guyana, trained at the School of American Ballet for five years as well as the Ballet Russes School. Her teachers included Maria Nevelska and George Chaffee. As a member of the New York Negro Ballet, Taitt performed with the company at the International Exposition of Arts in Paris, France and was awarded first place at the International Dansconcours in Holland.<\/p>\n
\"\"<\/a>
<\/strong> See Helen Taitt in The Constellation Project: From Ballet To Broadway And Black<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
She choreographed a ballet for the company, which was performed in 1959.<\/div>\n
She additionally performed on Broadway in Four Saints in Three Acts<\/em> in 1952 and was featured on the CBS show The Best of Broadway<\/em> as a part of its Stage Door<\/em> production.<\/div>\n
Taitt was described as looking \u201cold-fashioned\u201d and \u201cPavlova-like.\u201d<\/div>\n
She was \u201cGuyana\u2019s best known, most accomplished and acclaimed professional dancer\u201d and established the School of Guyana Ballet and the National School of Dance in Dominica. She also helped in setting up the Taitt Dance Theatre, Berlin Art Circle, and Barbados Art Circle.<\/div>\n
In addition to being a dancer, choreographer, instructor, pianist, manager, and director, she was a writer, and her career is well documented in her autobiography My Life My Country<\/em>.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n
\"\"
Taitt with brother Clairmont Taitt, photo compliments of Marina Taitt.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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

Dancing Many Drums: Excavations In African American Dance, Thomas F. Defrantz<\/a>
\nHelen Taitt, Playbill<\/a>
\nWomen in History: Helen Taitt – An Accomplished Choreographer and Professional Dancer, Guyanese Girls Rock<\/a>
\nAl Creighton\u2019s Arts on Sunday, Stabroek News<\/a>
\nGuyanese Red Ladies in the Spotlight, Guyanese Online<\/a>
\nPaine College Plans Ballet Excerpt Recital, The Augusta Chronicle<\/em>, October 26, 1958<\/p>\n

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

1957: Ward Fleming founds Ballet Americana\/New York Negro Ballet, MoBBallet<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Helen Taitt New York Negro Ballet Helen Taitt, a native of British Guyana, trained at the School of American Ballet for five […]<\/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-8809","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\/8809","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=8809"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8809\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18701,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8809\/revisions\/18701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}