Lola Lee (fl. 1908-1912), English dancer
(photo: Bassano, London, circa 1910)
‘Miss Lola Lee, who has distinguished herself at the Tivoli in her Oriental dances, is probably going to give Paris a taste of her talent. She has been carefully trained under Mr. John D’Auban. Her repertoire is not confined to Eastern dances.’
(Daily Express, London, Wednesday, 16 December 1908, p. 7f)
‘MISS LOLA LEE, a cousin of Mrs. Langtry, who has been specially engaged to appear at the London Hippodrome from Monday next. She will make a very special appeal with a Kate Vaughan measure. The late Miss Vaughan always declared that there was no dance more difficult to execute with grace than a slow waltz that took the dancer off the floor at each turn, and required her to ”reach” it again without shaking the body. Miss Lola Lee is a pupil of Mr. John D’Auban and has caught the Kate Vaughan grace of movement. Miss Lee is only 14 years of age, but looks like a woman and dances like one. All Miss Lee’s dances are preformed in high-heeled shoes, a performance very seldom attempted by balled dancers.’
(P.I.P.: Penny Illustrated Paper and Illustrated Times, London, Saturday, 30 April 1910, p. 562)
‘SPIRITS OF THE DESERT.
‘WEIRD EFFECTS IN A MUSICAL SPECTACLE.
‘The fantastic flittings of Miss Lola Lee and her companions lend a finishing touch of reality to Mr. Holford Bottomley’s musical spectacle, entitled ”The Desert,” of which the first performance takes place to-night on the occasion of Clarke’s College prize distribution at the Albert Hall.
‘The Dance of the Dancing Girls is only one of many vivid effects. In the course of four scenes we are introduced to a sequence of panoramic events. A ghostly, chanting procession of desert spirits is followed by the dread swirl of a storm which overtakes an Aram encampment, and pell-mell, calling on Allah to save them, the travellers hurl themselves this way and that in an abandon of terror.
‘Calm is restored, and with the fall of evening come diversions of song, jugglery, and dance. Night passes, and the Arabs prepare to depart. The droning sound of prayer is heard, and the caravan disappears, and the final tableau – ”Allah! Allah!” – fittingly concludes a pageant peopled with lean, dusky-limbed forms in tossing draperies and haunted with the throb of the kettle-drum.
‘The work is founded on Felicien David’s symphonic ode, and set throughout to suitable music. Mr. Holford Bottomley is to be congratulated on his invention, and Mr. George Clarke on the admirable choice of a programme.’
(Daily Express, London, Monday, 22 April 1912, p. 9b/c)
Footlight Notes 