Ailes Gilmour
| Ailes Gilmour | |
|---|---|
| Born |
January 27, 1912 Yokohama, Japan |
| Died | April 16, 1993 (aged 81) Santa Fe, New Mexico |
| Nationality | American |
| Known for | Dance |
| Movement | Modern Dance |
Ailes Gilmour (January 27, 1912 - April 16, 1993) was a Japanese American dancer who was one of the young pioneers of the American Modern Dance movement of the 1930s. She was one of the first members of Martha Graham's dance company. Ailes' older brother was sculptor Isamu Noguchi.
Ailes was born 1912 in Yokohama, Japan. Her father was unknown. Her mother, Leonie Gilmour, attended Bryn Mawr College and studied at the Sorbonne in Paris, then moved to New York City in the early 1900s to try to establish herself as a writer. In 1907 Leonie traveled to Japan at the behest of Yone Noguchi, the father of Ailes' older brother, Isamu, who had been born in 1904. However, by the time Leonie arrived in Tokyo, Yone was involved with a Japanese woman who had already born the first of their nine children. Leonie's circumstances in Japan were always precarious. Nevertheless, she chose to stay there, teaching to support herself and Isamu, while continuing to edit Yone's writing. When Ailes was born, Leonie chose the name Ailes for her daughter from a poem Beauty's a Flower by Moira O'Neill, the pseudonym of Agnes Shakespeare Higginson. It is a striking coincidence that the words in that poem seemed to predict Ailes' career as a dancer. Moira wrote, "Ailes was a girl that stepped on two bare feet..." Leonie, Isamu, and Ailes lived together in Japan until 1918, when Leonie sent Isamu back to the United States to attend a progressive school in Indiana.
Ailes grew up in a Japanese style house that Leonie had constructed in Chigasaki, a seaside town near Yokohama. Ailes had close Japanese childhood friends, spoke Japanese as well as English, and identified with Japan before she returned to the USA in 1920, at age 8. When Ailes and her mother returned to America, they lived first in San Francisco and then moved to New York City. Leonie was a great believer in progressive education, and sent Ailes to the Ethical Culture Society elementary school, founded in 1876 by Felix Adler. Leonie herself had attended the predecessor to the Ethical Culture Society elementary school when it was called the Workingman's School. For high school, Leonie chose the Cherry Lawn School in Connecticut for her daughter. It was a boarding school that was known for its progressive, coeducational program. The director and founder of the school was Dr. Fred Goldfrank, who was related to one of the founders of the Ethical Culture Society. Ailes greatly enjoyed her time there and formed several friendships that she maintained for the rest of her life.
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