Elizabeth Or Betty Marie Tall Chief: Maria Tallchief
"If anything at all, perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add but when there is no longer anything to take away"
These words were spoken many years ago by a woman who worked endlessly to achieve her goals. She had to give up many things but she never lost her passion. Her name was Maria Tallchief. The first Native American Prima Ballerina.
Elizabeth or Betty Marie Tall Chief was born on January 24, 1925 in Fairfax, Oklahoma, to Alexander and Ruth Porter Tall Chief. She lived on an Osage Indian Reservation with her parents and her older brother, Gerald and little sister Marjorie Tall Chief. Her great-grandfather Peter Bigheart had negotiated with the United States government in 1906 with the oil reserves that …show more content…
Ruth asked a substantial question to the pharmacist: Did he know of a respectable local dancing school? The pharmacist said that he did indeed, Beverly Vista ran by: Ernest Belcher. This was the first step in Maria’s outstanding career. With the family nearby the girls attended Vista and learned many dancing techniques such as: tap, acrobatics, and Spanish dancing. Maria also became master with the castanets.
While Maria and her sister were enrolled at Beverly Vista they felt their first taste of discrimination from of their heritage. As quoted by Maria Tallchief, "Some of the students made fun of my last name, pretending they didn't understand if it was Tall or Chief. A few made war whoops whenever they saw me, and asked why I didn't wear feathers or if my father took scalps. After a while, they became accustomed to me, but the experience was painful. Eventually, I turned the spelling of my last name into one word. Everything in school was in strict alphabetical order and I wanted to avoid …show more content…
From then on Maria studied and preformed with the best allowing her to receive the most miraculous opportunities. Through this she met the choreographer George Balanchine. The two got married in 1946 but got divorced only two years later in 1948. Although their marriage was short-lived, the two worked very well together as friends. When Maria joined the New York City Ballet in 1948, she danced to Balanchine's choreography in his version of The Nutcracker. She was the first person to dance as the Sugar Plum Fairy.
It was also around this time that Maria officially began to be known as Maria Tallchief by combining the two parts of her birth surname. In 1947 Maria Tallchief, the shy young Native American from a tiny town in Oklahoma, became the first prima ballerina, of the New York City Ballet. She continued to hold this tittle for the next thirteen years. Within that same year she went to become the first American to dance with the Paris Opera Ballet, and was also a guest performer with the American Ballet Theatre.
Maria had won many awards: In 1996, Maria became one out of five artists to receive the Kennedy Center Honors for their artistic contributions in the United States. That same year, she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of
These words were spoken many years ago by a woman who worked endlessly to achieve her goals. She had to give up many things but she never lost her passion. Her name was Maria Tallchief. The first Native American Prima Ballerina.
Elizabeth or Betty Marie Tall Chief was born on January 24, 1925 in Fairfax, Oklahoma, to Alexander and Ruth Porter Tall Chief. She lived on an Osage Indian Reservation with her parents and her older brother, Gerald and little sister Marjorie Tall Chief. Her great-grandfather Peter Bigheart had negotiated with the United States government in 1906 with the oil reserves that …show more content…
Ruth asked a substantial question to the pharmacist: Did he know of a respectable local dancing school? The pharmacist said that he did indeed, Beverly Vista ran by: Ernest Belcher. This was the first step in Maria’s outstanding career. With the family nearby the girls attended Vista and learned many dancing techniques such as: tap, acrobatics, and Spanish dancing. Maria also became master with the castanets.
While Maria and her sister were enrolled at Beverly Vista they felt their first taste of discrimination from of their heritage. As quoted by Maria Tallchief, "Some of the students made fun of my last name, pretending they didn't understand if it was Tall or Chief. A few made war whoops whenever they saw me, and asked why I didn't wear feathers or if my father took scalps. After a while, they became accustomed to me, but the experience was painful. Eventually, I turned the spelling of my last name into one word. Everything in school was in strict alphabetical order and I wanted to avoid …show more content…
From then on Maria studied and preformed with the best allowing her to receive the most miraculous opportunities. Through this she met the choreographer George Balanchine. The two got married in 1946 but got divorced only two years later in 1948. Although their marriage was short-lived, the two worked very well together as friends. When Maria joined the New York City Ballet in 1948, she danced to Balanchine's choreography in his version of The Nutcracker. She was the first person to dance as the Sugar Plum Fairy.
It was also around this time that Maria officially began to be known as Maria Tallchief by combining the two parts of her birth surname. In 1947 Maria Tallchief, the shy young Native American from a tiny town in Oklahoma, became the first prima ballerina, of the New York City Ballet. She continued to hold this tittle for the next thirteen years. Within that same year she went to become the first American to dance with the Paris Opera Ballet, and was also a guest performer with the American Ballet Theatre.
Maria had won many awards: In 1996, Maria became one out of five artists to receive the Kennedy Center Honors for their artistic contributions in the United States. That same year, she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of