DE MILLENNIUM
Years after Clive Barnes had panned her work, choreographer Agnes De Mille ran into the theater critic at a party. Barnes greeted her warmly. She replied, “Am I supposed to kiss your axe?” Humor and boldness were defining features of Agnes George De Mille, an unlikely dancer/choreographer turned arts maven with a matchless pedigree. Daughter of film mogul Cecil B. De Mille’s brother, playwright William De Mille, she was also granddaughter on her mother’s side of Henry George, who made a name for himself as a journalist and economist opposing oppressive land policies and pushing populist concerns.
Her compositions would blend theatricality and populism in the nascent field of American ballet, a field being transformed by émigré talents such as George Balanchine and Anthony Tudor. Sporting a nimbus of curly red hair and
