Chapter 10 | Section 3
Five Native Ballerinas as Oklahoma Cultural Treasures
Five Indigenous ballerinas from Oklahoma, often called the Five Moons, achieved international recognition in the world of dance. Sisters Maria and Marjorie Tallchief, members of the Osage Nation, grew up in Fairfax, Oklahoma, and studied dance in Los Angeles. Maria Tallchief joined the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in 1942 and married ballet choreographer George Balanchine in 1946. She then became a principal dancer with the New York City Ballet. Marjorie Tallchief joined the American Ballet Theatre. Together, the two Tallchief sisters helped found the Chicago City Ballet. Maria Tallchief was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame, received a Kennedy Center Honor, and the National Medal of Arts Award. Yvonne Chouteau (Shawnee and Cherokee) from Vinita, danced in Kansas City, and for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. She helped develop Ballet Oklahoma and founded the University of Oklahoma’s School of Dance. Both Rosella Hightower (Choctaw) from Durwood, Oklahoma, and Moscelyne Larkin (Shawnee-Peoria) from Miami, Oklahoma, joined the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. Hightower received France’s top honor, the Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneaur, and became the first American director of the Paris Opera Ballet. Larkin established the Tulsa Ballet Company.
Flight of Spirit, by Mike Larsen. This mural in the Oklahoma State Capitol shows the five Indigenous ballerinas posing in costume on stage. In 1997 the five ballerinas, also known as the Five Moons, were named Oklahoma Cultural Treasures by the state of Oklahoma.
Courtesy of the Capitol Art Collection, Oklahoma Arts Council.
Maria Tallchief, a member of the Osage Nation, joined the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in 1942 and later starred as a principal dancer in the New York City Ballet.
Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society.
Deep Deuce and the Persistence of Black Cultural Contributions
When the Billy King Road Show disbanded in Oklahoma City in 1925, Walter Page renamed the group the Oklahoma City Blue Devils and called Second Street its home. The Blue Devils soared in popularity, playing ballrooms in Oklahoma City, Muskogee, Tulsa, Little Rock, Omaha, Houston, and El Paso. Jimmy Rushing, who grew up in the Deep Deuce neighborhood of Oklahoma City, and attended Douglass High School (a school for Black students founded in 1898), joined the Blue Devils as a blues singer (also called a blues shouter). As a teenager future author Ralph Ellison played his trumpet with the Blue Devils a few times while the band rehearsed.
Ralph Ellison was born in segregated Oklahoma City and grew up in Deep Deuce. He studied music and music appreciation at Douglass High School under the guidance of Zelia Breaux, who supervised the music curriculum for Oklahoma City’s Black schools. Breaux is also known for opening the famous Aldridge Theater on Second Street in 1919. Ellison played the trumpet in the Douglass High School Band. He listened to jazz, including Count Basie’s Orchestra and the Oklahoma City Blue Devils. Another talented artist who attended Douglass High School was the jazz innovator Charlie Christian, who moved from Texas to Oklahoma City with his family. He learned to play the trumpet and then mastered the guitar. The Douglass High School music program and the Deep Deuce community cultivated and celebrated the literary and musical talent of many young people.
Zelia Breaux supervised the music curriculum for Douglass High School and other Black schools in Oklahoma City, inspiring the musical talent of Charlie Christian and Ralph Ellison. She opened the famous Aldridge Theater on Second Street in 1920.
Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society.
Guitarist and jazz innovator Charlie Christian (middle), with fellow musicians Leslie Sheffield (left) and Dick Wilson (right), at Ruby’s Grill in Oklahoma City. Christian learned to play electric guitar in 1937 and went on to make the guitar a featured solo instrument.
Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society.
Ralph Ellison, by Tracey Harris. “I am an invisible man,” Ralph Ellison wrote in the opening lines of his novel Invisible Man, published in 1952. “I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.” Invisible Man won the US National Book Award for Fiction one year after its publication.
Courtesy of the Capitol Art Collection, Oklahoma Arts Council.
Even though it had to function within the limitations of Jim Crow city ordinances, Deep Deuce was a vibrant Black business and cultural district. During the day it was bustling with commerce, with law offices, movie theaters, and clothing stores dotting the streets. Roscoe Dunjee‘s Black Dispatch newspaper had its office on 324 Northeast Second Street and was an important tool for the promotion of civil rights and for calling attention to segregation in housing, education and transportation. Ralph Ellison spent lots of time reading every book at the Dunbar Branch Library, a library in Deep Deuce for Black people. Due to segregation, Black people could not access services at the Carnegie Library in downtown Oklahoma City. At night the dance halls, theaters, and supper clubs of Deep Deuce transformed the neighborhood into a glorious center of culture.
When Ellison returned to Oklahoma City following the success of Invisible Man in the mid-1950s, he was pleased to see that his hometown had continued to expand, due in large part to the oil industry boom. He observed several new developments, financed by African Americans, extending beyond Deep Deuce. These neighborhoods included new homes and businesses for Black residents. By the late 1950s and early 1960s, however, parts of Deep Deuce had disappeared due to redevelopment or urban renewal. The construction of I-40 and later I-235 cut straight through Deep Deuce and the nearby area of Bricktown. When Oklahoma City finally desegregated, many Black families moved to suburbs east of the city.