Friday, June 04, 2010



Yesterday’s iPhone snaps of Arts Umbrella Senior Dance Company and of the Apprentice Dance Company were only possible because I had a good assistant. My assistant was Nina Davies who is back for the summer from her job in a London circus. I have noticed Nina for years because my eldest granddaughter Rebecca danced at Arts Umbrella for four years. I immediately noticed the tall and lithe girl with a flexibility that could make you lose your breakfast if she showed off in earnest.

In May, 1973 I wrote a cover article for a good city magazine, VLM which is, alas, no more. I wrote about the ballet boys of Arts Umbrella. I came up with the idea of taking pictures of four of them (there were six boys) with one female dancer. I called up Arts Umbrella Arty Gordon and told her I had made up my mind who that girl was going to be. I remember that Arty said, “I know, it is probably Nina Davies.”



Three years later you can see what Nina Davies looks like now. She is almost 19 and we have been told that her possible future involves a horse in Paris. Good luck!

The boys in the pictures are, clockwise from top left, Michel Issa Rubio, Jeremiah Kennedy,Scott Fowler and Jed Difhuis. In this Saturday night's final performance of the Arts Umbrella Dance Company Season Finale you can catch Fowler and Difhuis. If you spot a tall girl with very red lipstick in the audience that will be my assistant!