Ringling Barnum ELEPHANT BALLET (1942) Half Sheet

Ringling Barnum ELEPHANT BALLET (1942) Half Sheet, originally uploaded by bucklesw1. From Chris Berry This lithograph features artwork by the famed avant garde artist E. McKnight Kauffer and is the final in a series produced by the studios of Norman Bel Geddes and printed by the McCandlish Litho Corp of Philadelphia. "The Ballet of the Elephants" was written for the 1942 season by classical composer Igor Stravinsky at the request of George Balanchine - America's premiere ballet choreographer. The act featured "Fifty Elephants and Fifty Beautiful Girls in an Original Choreographic Tour de Force. Featuring MODOC, premiere ballerina, the Corps de Ballet and Corps des Elephants". While the "elephant ballet" may have been a bit too high-brow for the circus-going public, this particular poster is sought-after because of the Kauffer design and the billing which mentions the collaboration of Stravinsky, Balanchine, Bel Geddes and John Murray Anderson. Ironically, the Stravinsky score was only played by Merle Evans and the band during the first two months of the season. While the show was in Philadelphia in early June the musicians union called a strike after John Ringling North refused to give band members a $2.50 a week raise. For the rest of the season the show - including the elephant ballet - relied on recordings of circus music instead of a live band. It is also worth noting that during a performance in Cleveland in August of that year a deliberately set fire swept through the menagerie top killing four elephants along with a number of other animals.