Charlene Gehm, a dancer who delighted audiences and critics alike with her excellence in an unusually wide range of roles with the Joffrey Ballet and other troupes, died on January 10 at her Manhattan home. She was 69 years old.
Her husband, Gary MacDougal, said the cause was cancer.
The audience, who saw Mrs. Gehm perform at the Joffrey from 1976-1991 when it was based in New York (it’s now in Chicago) knew that she could give as best as she could while she pulled in combat, dragged and thrown around knockdown duets from William Forsythe’s “Love Songs”.
In contrast, when she worked with Rudolf Nureyev as a guest artist on Joffrey’s 1979 revival of Nijinsky’s “L’Apres-Midi d’un Faune”, she was an expert on silence, minimalism and poses with an archaic profile. He was the mythical fawn, and she was the wonderfully dead nymph that aroused him.
In “Les Patineurs” by the English choreographer Frederick Ashton, Frau Gehm was able to demonstrate her strong classical technique; In his “wedding bouquet” her presents could be seen as a funny comedian. As Jennifer Dunning wrote in the New York Times, Ms. Gehm’s appearance as a tipsy wedding guest could make you laugh, even though she appreciates its “subtlety, grace and a touch of bittersweet.”
In the 1970s she danced in a variety of other works as a member of the Washington National Ballet, including George Balanchine’s ballets, a production of “The Sleeping Beauty,” and a version of “Cinderella” choreographed by Ben Stevenson. her early mentor. On the way, Jerome Robbins, who had seen her in his works for ballet companies, hired her for the Broadway revival of his 1980 musical “West Side Story”.
For all of her success in different styles, Ms. Gehm (pronounced with a hard G) had her own distinctive stage presence. As a willowy blonde, she was “beautiful” in Mr. Stevenson’s words and was “not like Marilyn Monroe, but Grace Kelly”. For Mr. Stevenson, Mrs. Gehm’s versatility was a perfect match for the new, small American forces of the 1960s and 1970s.
As co-director of the National Ballet with Frederic Franklin, Mr Stevenson needed dancers “who can do anything,” he said in a telephone interview, adding, “I only had 28 dancers.”
Ms. Gehm was “very valuable and choreographers always wanted to use her in new ballets,” he said. “She was a good classical dancer with a confident technique and beautiful line, more of a soloist than a prima ballerina. She had a very positive personality. “
Denise Charlene Gehm was born on December 14, 1951 in Miami to Verna Mae (Wiley) Gehm and Charles William Gehm. Her mother was a waitress who became a caterer, and her father was a high school chemistry teacher. Her older daughter Jeannie died in a car accident in 1962 at the age of 18.
At the age of 6, Charlene was enrolled in the Marion Lorraine Dance School by her local mother, which taught various genres. When she was 8 years old, a booking agency arranged for Charlene to appear on evening shows at Miami’s tourist hotels. Her mother made costumes for her acrobatic routines, and her father created the props. In one act she was a sea urchin emerging from a clam; in another she was a jockey on a horse jumping over small hurdles. The music came from her mother’s record player.
Charlene also studied ballet with the nationally known teachers Georges Milenoff and Thomas Armor. She received a scholarship to the Harkness Ballet School in New York and began her professional career in 1969 with the Harkness Youth Dancers, directed by Mr. Stevenson. The troupe was funded by Rebekah Harkness and converted into the Harkness Ballet.
In 1971, Ms. Gehm followed Mr. Stevenson to the National Ballet, which closed in 1974. Ms. Gehm spent that year with the Chicago Ballet, where Mr. Stevenson was brief co-director with Ruth Page. After performing with the Ballet de Caracas in 1975, she joined Joffrey.
She married Mr. MacDougal in 1992; As managing director, he was director general of the New York Ballet, which was active in the Republican Party in Illinois and was appointed by President George Bush to various posts, including as a US delegate to the United Nations. They also had a home in Chicago.
In addition to her husband, Mrs. Gehm’s survivors also include her step-sons Gary MacDougal Jr. and Michael MacDougal.
After retiring from the Joffrey Ballet in 1991, Ms. Gehm received a bachelor’s degree in arts administration from New York University. She became interested in medieval studies and received a Masters degree in Columbia in 1998 with the title “History of Stained Glass in Canterbury Cathedral”. She also participated in the MacDougal Family Foundation’s scholarship programs, where she served as president.
After Mr. MacDougal became the founder and chairman of the Bulgarian-American Enterprise Fund, an American government program to promote free markets in Bulgaria – now called America Foundation for Bulgaria – in 1991, Ms. Gehm accompanied Mr. MacDougal on 25 trips to Bulgaria focused on the visit families in the Roma population who receive help from the Foundation Sometimes she took ballet classes at the Bulgarian National Ballet to keep in shape.
