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Kitty O'Neil (1855 – April 16, 1893) was one of the most celebrated American variety theatre dancers of the late 19th century. From around 1863 until 1892, she performed in New York City, Boston and elsewhere in the United States, and at her death was acclaimed by the ''New York Times'' as "the best female jig dancer in the world."〔"Kittie O'Neill Dead," New York ''Times'', April 17, 1893.〕 Kitty's name is remembered today chiefly because of "Kitty O'Neil's Champion," a "sand jig" named in her honor that was first published in 1882 and revived starting in the 1970s by fiddler Tommy Peoples and other Irish traditional musicians.〔Don Meade, "Kitty O'Neil and Her 'Champion Jig': A Forgotten Irish-American Variety Theater Star," http://blarneystar.com/.〕 == Dancing Career == Kitty was born in 1855 in Buffalo, New York to William and Elizabeth O'Neil, both immigrants from Ireland. She first performed in public at about the age of eight, proving to be so talented and precocious that her parents took her to a Prof. Newville of Rochester, New York to learn "fancy dancing." In her earliest years on the stage, she danced at theaters in Buffalo, Chicago, Pittsburgh and Syracuse.〔“Kittie O’Neil Dead,” Buffalo ''Morning Express'', April 17, 1893; “Kitty O’Neil Dead,” Buffalo ''Evening News'', April 17, 1893; State of New York Certificate of Death, Buffalo public records.〕 Variety impresario Tony Pastor heard of her talent and summoned her to New York City, where she made her debut at Pastor's Bowery "Opera House" on January 23, 1871.〔“First appearance, also, of the Champion Jig Danseuse, MISS KITTIE O’NEIL,” Pastor advertisement, New York ''Clipper'', January 21, 1871.〕 Kitty the dancer was, to the confusion of later chroniclers, the second "Kitty O'Neil" who performed in this era for Tony Pastor. The first, also known as "Kathleen O'Neil," was a Dublin-born singer who arrived in the U.S. in 1861 and began performing with Pastor the following year.〔Profile of Kathleen/Kitty O'Neil the singer in “Our Dramatic Portrait Gallery,” New York ''Clipper'', July 7, 1866, reprinted in T. Allston Brown, History of the American Stage (New York: Dick & Fitzgerald, 1870).〕 The dancing Kitty O'Neil's reputation soon eclipsed that of her singing predecessor. She was regularly featured in Pastor's company in New York and on tour for months after her debut, and also danced in this period for producer John Stetson at the Howard Athenaeum, the leading variety hall in Boston. From the fall of 1872 through 1876, Kitty's theatrical home base was New York's Theatre Comique, managed by Josh Hart and, from 1876 on, by Edward Harrigan. A typical billing for Kitty from a Comique playbill in the Harrigan era read: "Acknowledged by the Press and Public to be the only Female Jig Dancer extant, all others are mere imitators and their futile efforts when compared with Miss O'Neil's artistic abilities fall below mediocrity.”〔Townsend Walsh scrapbook of Harrigan ephemera, Billy Rose Theatre Collection, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.〕 Kitty's specialties were the "rale old Irish reel," the Lancashire clog (danced in wooden shoes) and the "straight jig," a peculiarly American form developed by minstrel show performers who danced to syncopated tunes in 2/4 or 2/2 time rather than the typical 6/8, 9/8 or 12/8 meters of Irish jigs. She was most renowned, however, for her "sand jig," a straight jig performed as a series of shuffles and slides on a sand-strewn stage to music in schottische tempo.〔Douglas Gilbert, ''American Vaudeville: Its Life and Times'' (New York: Whittlesy House, 1940), p. 52.〕 As Harrigan moved away from variety to produce his own full-length plays, Kitty left his company and resumed working with Tony Pastor and other variety producers in New York and Boston, as well as on tours of smaller cities. In the later years of her career, she was most frequently booked at Hyde and Behman's theater in downtown Brooklyn, and at the Bowery and Eighth Avenue theaters operated in Manhattan by Henry C. Miner. Her last New York City performance was at the London Theatre, another Bowery variety house, in 1888. Kitty then returned to her native Buffalo and, following an 1890 trip to California with Hyde's Specialty Company, retired from touring. Her final public performance was in the summer of 1892 at Shea's Music Hall in Buffalo.〔George C.D. Odell, ''Annals of the New York Stage'' (New York: Columbia University Press, 1927-1948), "Kitty O'Neil Dead," Buffalo ''Evening News'', April 17, 1893.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Kitty O'Neil (dancer)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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