Essay On The Osage Firebird

“The Osage Firebird”, written by Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen, is a short story that depicts the life of the ballerina, Maria Tallchief. It covers her childhood, her performance in The Firebird, and the awards she received during her life. Although it is not the most detailed of passages, it gives the basics of her life. The passage starts with how she listened to stories her grandmother told her by the fire. She remembered every story. She was shy when she was a child. She started taking dance lessons. Her dance lessons made her less shy. After a few years, she grew in popularity. She was extremely well known locally. She performed at everything from rodeos to county fairs. An instructor brought her back to earth, however. The passage indicates how the instructor had her return to the basics of ballet. The next section of the passage skips some time. It resumes with her moving to California, but it does not indicate why. In the dancing world she was famous, but in the rest of the world she was the one weird Indian girl who just moved here. Her classmates teased her and made fun of her heritage. She …show more content…
It shows her accomplishments such as being the first American to dance for the Paris Opera Ballet and being named “Woman of the Year” by President Eisenhower. She received a state holiday in Oklahoma known as “Maria Tallchief Day”. She also received a title from the Osage tribe. It was Betty Marie Tallchief Wa-Xth-Thonba which the passage says it means “woman of two worlds”. It next tells of perhaps her greatest performance in The Firebird. The passage skims over the plot and goes directly to remarks about her performance. The passage tells of reviews stating that she had really become an Osage Firebird. It speculates on how she probably was reliving the tales her grandmother told her while dancing. The passage does not continue to talk about the rest of her life. It instead drops off