Chaffee, George, 1907-1984

Born in 1907 in Oakland, California, George Chaffee studied with ballet teachers in Europe and the United States, and became a professional ballet dancer by the 1930’s. He initially danced in the companies of Michel Fokine (1882-1942) and Mikhail Mordkin (1881-1944) before becoming a principle dancer of the Metropolitan Opera Ballet in New York, New York, and then led his own chamber ballet company. He also performed on Broadway, dancing in Helen Goes to Troy in 1944. He had his own ballet studio off West 56th Street in New York, where he taught for thirty-three years, assisted by Adelaide Vernon, with students such as Alicia Alonso (1921-) and John Gilpin (1930-). Chaffee was a historian and collector of ballet materials, collecting dance prints, including lithographs and engravings, as well as dance-related drawings, paintings, sculpture, and books. These resources date from ballet history beginning in the sixteenth century to the first decades of the twentieth century. He specialized in the French Romantic Ballet, presenting numerous lectures on the topic. He wrote a regular column, “Balletophile,” in Dance Magazine in the late 1940’s, as well as further articles on the history of dance in that same publication as well as Dance News, Lincoln Kirstein’s Dance Index, and the Dance Encyclopedia. In 1948, Chaffee organized “A Retrospective Exhibit of the French Court and Opera Ballet (1851 to 1948),” shown at the French Embassy in New York at the time of the Paris Opera Ballet’s first visit to the United States. He was decorated with the Palmes Academique by the French government in 1949 for his efforts. Chaffee died 1984 October 19 in New York City, following a stroke.