Elise Reiman

Olga Elise Reiman, born October 17, 1911, in Terre Haute, Indiana, was an American ballet dancer, Broadway performer, and dance educator who died on August 26, 1993, in Boston, at age 81. The daughter of bank president Ewald E. Reiman and Olga Paulini Reiman, she began studying dance in childhood with Ernestine Myers before pursuing more advanced training under choreographer Adolph Bolm in San Francisco. In 1934, she enrolled at the School of American Ballet in New York, co-founded by George Balanchine, joining during the school's second term.

Reiman's professional career began with Bolm, for whom she created the role of Calliope in his ballet Apollon Musagète in 1928 and a role in his Mechanical Ballet in 1931. In 1930, she spent six months performing in Europe, including as a guest artist at a garden party at Windsor Castle before the King and Queen. Between 1935 and 1936, she danced with the American Ballet, the company co-founded by Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein. During this period she created a role in Serenade, the first ballet Balanchine choreographed in the United States, and also originated roles in Reminiscence, Transcendance, and Alma Mater, the last of which was performed on Broadway. Also in 1935, she took part in the American premiere of Balanchine's Mozartiana. Through the American Ballet's association with the Metropolitan Opera, Reiman additionally performed in opera ballets with Balanchine's choreography, among them Delibes's Lakmé, Hageman's Caponsacchi, and Ponchielli's La Gioconda. In 1937, she danced the role of Terpsichore in the first revival of Balanchine's Apollo.

When Balanchine relocated to the West Coast in 1938, Reiman remained in New York and transitioned into Broadway performance during the early 1940s. Her Broadway credits from 1935 to 1942 include Alma Mater, Liberty Jones in 1941, and both The Lady Comes Across and Rosalinda in 1942. After Balanchine returned to New York, Reiman joined the Ballet Society, again co-founded by Balanchine and Kirstein, in 1946. On November 20 of that year, the company's opening night, she originated roles in two Balanchine works: The Four Temperaments, in which she danced the second theme opposite Lew Christensen, and The Spellbound Child. In 1947, she created roles in Balanchine's Divertimento, now known as Haieff Divertimento, John Taras's The Minotaur, and William Dollar's Highland Fling. The following year she appeared in the American premiere of Balanchine's Symphony in C, dancing in the fourth movement alongside Christensen. She retired from performing later in 1948, after Balanchine and Kirstein established the New York City Ballet.

In 1945, Reiman had been recruited to teach junior students at the School of American Ballet, becoming the first alumna to hold a teaching position there. She remained on the faculty until 1953. Following the sudden death of her husband, Charles Varner Hotchkiss, whom she had married in 1951 and who died in 1963, Reiman returned to the School of American Ballet in 1964 at Balanchine's invitation, teaching children's and beginning pointe classes. She continued in that role until her death. In 1992, the school honored her with the Mae L. Wien Faculty Award for distinguished service. Fellow Balanchine ballerina Maria Tallchief described Reiman as a bridge between generations and an important connection to the classical principles Balanchine had brought from the Imperial Ballet School in St. Petersburg. Reiman died from an aneurysm on August 26, 1993, at age 81.