Co-Founded American Ballet Theatre : Ex-Ballerina, Dance Pioneer Lucia Chase Dies at 88

NEW YORK —  Former ballerina Lucia Chase, a dance pioneer who co-founded the American Ballet Theatre and served as co-director for 35 years, has died after a lengthy illness. She was 88.

Miss Chase, who was the role model for the ballet director in the 1977 film, “The Turning Point,” died Thursday in her Manhattan apartment, her family said.

During her tenure, the ABT attracted such dancers as Mikhail Baryshnikov and choreographers like Jerome Robbins and Twyla Tharp as it became one of the country’s top ballet companies. Under Miss Chase’s direction, the ballet group became noted for its “rich, eclectic repertory, (and) unbroken record of presenting some of the world’s best dancers,” Time magazine said.

She was the model for the ballet director Adelaide in “The Turning Point,” a film about ballet that starred Anne Bancroft and Shirley MacLaine.

10 Million TV Viewers

Her financial support of the company reportedly totaled $2 million through its first seven years, and under her guidance it performed in all 50 states and was seen by an estimated 10 million TV viewers. Her departure from the ballet theater came after the first strike by its dancers, in 1979.

Miss Chase was born to a wealthy family in Waterbury, Conn., in 1907, and attended the Theater Guild School as an aspiring actress. But with the death of her husband, Thomas Ewing, in 1933, the heiress instead dedicated her efforts and finances toward ballet.

She became a dancer with the Mikhail Mordkin Ballet in 1938 before co-founding the American Ballet Theatre in 1940. In 1945, she became theater co-director with Oliver Smith and with the ballet company she created such roles as the Stepmother in “Fall River Legend,” Minerva in “Judgment of Paris” and Athena in “Helen of Troy.”

Besides her stage appearances, she selected the company’s personnel and repertory, as well as helping it financially.

Medal of Freedom Winner

She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in June, 1980, for her work in expanding ballet in the United States.

ABT served as a haven for Soviet dancers who defected to the West, including Alexander Godonuv, Natalia Makarova and Baryshnikov, who succeeded her as company director in 1980.

“Without her, the development of dance in America would be unimaginably poorer,” said Robbins, who choreographed “Fancy Free” for the theater in 1944.

“She was a realist but she lived like an idealist, and in the darkest times she could force the sun to shine,” Baryshnikov said. “She stood by us all with love and a will of iron and a heart like a lion.”

After her retirement, she remained active in the ballet world and served as an adviser to the New York International Ballet Competition.

She is survived by a son, Alexander Ewing, of Millbrook, N.Y.; three grandchildren, and two sisters. Her elder son, Thomas, was killed in a sailing accident in 1963.