Betty Nichols - Black History Month in Dance, 14

75; 76. When Betty Nichols began studying at the School of American Ballet, in or around 1943, she was its first black student. When you remember that at one point in 1933, while planning the American Ballet, Lincoln Kirstein envisaged a troupe half black and half white, you realise how very slow progress was with racial diversity in American ballet - and how slow it remains.

Decades later, Nichols said she never had much ballet technique; she had been, she said, more of an actress than a dancer, with good stage presence. Nonetheless her career was primarily as a dancer; it brought her in touch with many celebrated dancers and choreographers in two countries.

Before the School, where she was given a scholarship, Nichols had danced on Broadway in “Carmen Jones”. Later, the School released her to dance for Antony Tudor in “St Louis Woman” (1946 - the cast included Fayard Nicholas and Harold Nicholas), then for Michael Kidd in “Finian’s Rainbow” (1947), and for Valerie Bettis in “Inside U.S.A.” (1948) - all on Broadway. (Tudor and she remained friends.) In the same period at the School - where her favourite teacher was Anatole Oboukhoff, whose class also included Merce Cunningham - she danced in Ballet Society (1946-1948), for which she created roles for Todd Bolender (“Zodiac”, 1947 - see 76) with designs by Esteban Francés; and Lew Christensen (“Blackface”, 1947).

When New York City Ballet was founded in 1948, however, she was not taken into its ranks. In 1949, she arranged a three-month trip to Europe with her savings from Broadway; but, when first one companion and then another companion had to fall by the wayside for career reasons, she was happily surprised when Tanaquil Le Clercq asked if she could take their place.

The two women spent three months in Europe, largely in Paris. They had only been in Paris a week when, on a pavement around Sainte-Chapelle, they heard voices crying “Tanny! Betty!” It was Cunningham and John Cage, who were in Europe for six months. When Cunningham had choreographed “The Seasons” in 1947 for Ballet Society, he had given lead roles to Le Clercq and himself, as he did when City Ballet took “The Seasons” into repertory. Now he invited the two women to work with him on a programme of new choreography he was preparing there in Paris. (Le Clercq laughed to Nichols: “We’re only one week into our cultural vacation and we’re back in our tights dancing again.”) She created a role that summer for Cunningham’s “Effusions avant l’heure”, dancing beside Le Clercq and Cunningham, in a much-publicised concert whose audience included Alice B. Toklas and Alberto Giacometti. All three dancers were so slim and leggy that audience members compared them to Giacometti sculptures.

Later in that Paris summer, Nichols also danced for Roland Petit as a member of Les Ballets de Paris, and played in a small role in a Brecht play. At the end of the three months in Europe, both she and Le Clercq wanted to stay there longer. Le Clercq, the young glory of both School of American Ballet and New York City Ballet, was nonetheless persuaded to return to New York. Nichols, however, remained - at first indefinitely, later permanently (in 1951, she married Jacques Schibler): an African American who found European society more congenial than that of the States.

She died in 2010; in 2015, her son Tal Schibler made a generous gift to the School to support minority student scholarships, honoring a wish in his father’s will.

Monday 15 February

Betty Nichols, School of American Ballet. (Photo: New York City Ballet Archives, Ballet Society Collection.)

Betty Nichols in Todd Bolender’s “Zodiac” (Ballet Society, 1947), costume by Esteban Francés. (Photo: New York City Ballet Archives, Ballet Society Collection.)