BIOGRAPHY

Born: August 2, 1922, Vancouver
Died: 2002, Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Birth name: Duncan Noble MacGillivray
Stage name: Duncan Noble
Dancer, teacher, choreographer, artistic director. Duncan MacGillivray studied with June Roper and Dorothy Wilson before joining Ballet Theatre (now American Ballet Theatre) in 1941, when he assumed the name Duncan Noble. During his two years with the company he worked with prominent choreographers such as Mikhail Fokine, Mikhail Mordkin, Leonide Massine, Anton Dolin and others. After his resignation, he went on to work as a dancer in Broadway musicals with choreographers such as Agnes de Mille, Jerome Robbins, Michael Kidd and Helen Tamiris. He joined the Valerie Bettis ensemble and formed a long-term professional relationship with Bettis, achieving acclaim in her dance dramas Yerma and As I Lay Dying. During his time in musical theatre he kept up with his ballet classes, and in 1949 joined Serge Denham’s Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, where he danced with Alexandra Danilova. In 1965 he accepted the position of assistant dean of the School of Dance at the North Carolina School of the Arts where he became a renowned teacher with authority on partnering and the male technique, before retiring in 1993. Noble’s talents as a choreographer and teacher were valued internationally; he was head of the Pittsburgh Playhouse for four years and frequently travelled to teach at Nederlands Dans Theater and Hungarian National Ballet School.

CONTENTS

• Correspondence, newspaper clippings, magazine articles, newsletters, audio cassettes, photographs, resume, flyers, house programs, transcript of Dance in Canada oral history project (1984)

NOTABLE

• Extensive correspondence with author Leland Windreich

CROSS REFERENCES

PORTFOLIOS

• Leland Windreich

BOOKS / PUBLICATIONS

• Macpherson, Susan, ed. 2000. Encyclopedia of Theatre Dance in Canada/Encyclopédie de la Danse Théâtrale au Canada. Toronto: Dance Collection Danse Press/Presse. ISBN: softcover 0-929003-42-X; hardcover 0-929003-44-6
• Windreich, Leland. 1998. Dance Encounters. Toronto: Dance Collection Danse Press/Presse. ISBN:0-929003-30-6 (Out of Print – Available via DCD’s Book and Oral History Collection)

WORKS

• Medusa (1952)
• By Satie (1953)
• Theatre Piece (1957)
• Golden Sonata (1963)
• Pre-Classical Dance Suite (1966)
• The Gospel According to St. Luke (1966)
• Bagatelles (1966)
• Mother Goose (1966)
• Symphony Thirteen (1967)
• The Courtship of Miles Standish (1968)
• Rituals (1968)
• Flic Flac (1969)
• Mystere (1969)
• Variations of Seriexes (1970)
• Song of Love (1971)
• Nocturnes (1971)
• Waltz-Reverie (1972)
• Diamond World (1973)
• The Tempest (1973)
• Mendelssohn Quartet (1973)
• Waltzes (1973)
• Chamber Music II (1975)
• Little Symphony (1977)
• Polish Fantasy (1978)
• Dances (1978)
• Episode (1979)
• Coppelia (1980)
• Yerma (1980)
• Summersend (1981)
• Legende (1982)
• Yerma (revised) (1983)
• Don Quixote Pas de Deux (1985)