ENThe Oxford Dictionary of DanceOxford University PressOxford University Press

The Oxford Dictionary of Dance

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Abbreviations

arr.

arranged by

attrib.

attributed to

chor.

choreographed by

des.

design(s) by

dir.

directed by

mus.

music by

orch.

orchestrated by

orig.

originally

perf.

performance by

prod.

produced by

Dan.

Danish

Eng.

English

Fr.

French

Ger.

German

Gk.

Greek

Heb.

Hebrew

Hung.

Hungarian

It.

Italian

Russ.

Russian

Sp.

Spanish

Sw.

Swedish

A

Abraxas.

Ballet in five scenes with choreography by Luipart , libretto and music by Werner Egk , and design by Wolfgang Znamenacek . Premiered 6 June 1948 by the Bavarian State Opera, Prinzregenten Theatre, Munich, with Luipart, Irina Kladivova , and Schwarz . The plot is based on Heine's libretto Der Doctor Faust (1847, written for Benjamin Lumley but never staged) in which Faust makes a pact with a female devil, gaining youth and sexual gratification in exchange for his soul. He then meets Marguerite and his discovery of true love with her prompts him to tear up the pact, thereby causing both their deaths. The ballet was banned after four performances due to its ‘satanic’ material, but a second version re-choreographed by Charrat (1949) became one of the most popular ballets in the German repertoire. T. Schilling's staging (Dresden, 1957, revived Komische Oper) also enjoyed great success. (The title, Abraxas, refers to the central mystery of the Gnostics.)

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abstract dance.

A term loosely used to describe dance works without plot or character, though it has been argued that dance can never be entirely abstract since movement is performed by men and women and thus evokes some human content. Many dance works with no ostensible storyline may suggest powerful images to their viewers, for example, Cunningham's Winterbranch or Ashton's Symphonic Variations.

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abstrakter Tanz.

Term used by Schlemmer to describe the dance aesthetic he developed at the Bauhaus, Weimar, during the mid-1920s. Dancers dressed in elaborate, disguising costumes were choreographed to create the effect of colours and geometric forms moving in space, rather than to portray individuals or relationships.

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academic dance.

A term loosely synonymous with classical ballet, i.e. the theatre dance which evolved from the court ballets of the 16th and 17th centuries and which was refined through the national schools of France, Italy, and Russia. Its steps, positions, and movements are codified in the danse d'école which is still taught in the daily class taken by all classical dancers.

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Académie de Musique et de Poésie, L'.

Institution founded in Paris in 1570 by Charles IX to foster the love and study of arts.

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Académie Royale de Danse, L'.

The first dance institution established in the Western world, founded in Paris in 1661 by Louis XIV. He gave thirteen dancing masters the task of establishing standards of perfection for the art of dance. This group met regularly (often at the tavern L'Epée de Bois) with the brief to codify existing court and character dances, as well as to subject private and public dance teachers to examination. Those who passed were given the diplomas necessary to practise their profession and appointed Académicien de l'Art de la Danse. Noverre attacked the Academy for having published no treatise on dance theory or technique, though he joined its ranks in 1775. After the fall of the monarchy in 1789 it was closed down, though was briefly revived (1856–66) under the title Société Académie de Professeurs-Artistes du Théâtre de l'Opéra, with the prime concern of teaching ballroom dances.

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Académie Royale de Musique, L'.

The official name given to the Paris Opera in 1671. Its original name was L'Académie d'Opéra, given by its founders Abbé Perrin and the Marquis de Sourdéac in 1669. It was changed two years later with the first production of Pomone (19 Mar. 1671), a mixture of opera, ballet, pastoral (mus. Robert Cambert , chor. Beauchamp ). Lully was director between 1672 and 1687 and the associated dance school, which still exists, was opened in 1713. The name of the institution has changed several times over the years and since 1871 has been called Théâtre National de l'Opéra. It is from this institution that French ballet has evolved rather than the Académie Royale de Danse.

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academies of dance.

Several countries followed the model of the French academies of the 16th and 17th centuries by setting up institutions designed to maintain and perfect standards in the arts. One of the most famous dance academies is the Imperiale Regia Accademia di Ballo which was established in 1812 by Benedetto Ricci in Milan, attached to the Teatro alla Scala. London's Royal Academy of Dancing was opened in 1920.

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Accademia Nazionale di Danza (National Academy of Dancing).

School founded in Rome by Jia Ruskaia in 1948 for the training of teachers of dance.

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Achcar , Dalal

(b Rio de Janeiro c.1935).
Brazilian dancer, choreographer, and ballet director. She studied with Maria Makarova and with teachers in America and Europe and in 1956 founded Ballet Rio de Janeiro. She organized international seasons in Brazil, featuring the Royal Ballet and Paris Opera. Her own choreography has focused on Brazilian themes using music and sets by Brazilian artists, such as Floresta Amazonica (Forest of the Amazon, 1975). She has also staged two productions of The Nutcracker (1970–4), and some of her works have entered the international repertory, including Something Special (mus. Ernesto Nazareth ).

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Acis and Galatea.

Ovid's story of the shepherd Acis and his love for the nymph Galatea (from Metamorphoses) has formed the basis of several ballet librettos, including Hilverding (Vienna, 1753), Noverre (mus. Aspelmayr , Vienna, 1722), O. Viganò (Venice, 1782), and Fokine (mus. G. Kadletz , St Petersburg, 1905).

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Acocella , Joan

(b San Francisco, 13 Apr. 1945).
US dance writer. She studied at Smith College and at the Universities of Padua, California (Berkeley), and Rutgers, becoming critic for Dance Magazine in 1982 and for the New Yorker in 1998. She has also written for other publications including Wall Street Journal; is author of Mark Morris (New York, 1993) and editor of André Levinson on Dance (with Garafola , 1991) and The Diary of Vaslav Nijinsky (1999). She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1993.

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Acosta , Carlos

(b Havana, 2 June 1973).
Cuban dancer. He studied at the National Ballet School of Cuba from 1983, then at Pinar del Rio. He worked with several companies in S. America and Italy then in 1991 he joined English National Ballet as principal. In 1992 he joined National Ballet of Cuba where he performed principal classical roles, then in 1993 moved to Houston Ballet as principal, dancing both classical and 20th-century repertories and creating the role of Misgir in Stevenson's The Snow Maiden (1998). He continued to guest with many international companies and between 1998 and 2000 was principal with the Royal Ballet, while maintaining his connection with Houston.

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Acrobats of God.

Modern dance work in one act with choreography and costumes by Graham , music by Carlos Surinach , and set by Noguchi . Premiered 27 Apr. 1960 by Martha Graham Dance Company at 54th St. Theater, New York, with Graham , Ross McGehee , and Taylor . A plotless but humorous work, celebrating the art of dance and honouring the discipline of the dancers' world.

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adagio

(It., slow; interchangeable with Fr. adage). Describes any slow dance movement (as opposed to fast, allegro). It is also used to designate the section of the classical ballet class in which exercises are focused on balance and line, plus the first section of the traditional four-part pas de deux where the ballerina and her partner dance together.

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Adagio Hammerklavier.

Ballet in one act with choreography by van Manen , music by Beethoven , and designs by Jean-Paul Vroom . Premiered 4 Oct. 1973 by the Dutch National Ballet at Stadsschouwburg, Amsterdam, with Radius , Ebbelaar , Sand , Juriens , Marchiolli , and Sinceretti . It is set to the Adagio from Beethoven's Piano Sonata in B flat (Op. 106, the Hammerklavier) as interpreted in the recording by Christoph Eschenbach . The music is played at an exceptionally slow tempo which is reflected in the slow pace of the movement for its six dancers. It has been revived for Pennsylvania Ballet (1974), Berlin Opera Ballet (1975), and the Royal Ballet (1976), among others.

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Adam , Adolphe Charles

(b Paris, 24 July 1803, d Paris, 3 May 1856).
French composer who wrote the scores for fourteen ballets, among them the most famous titles of the mid-19th century. They include La Fille du Danube (chor. F. Taglioni , Paris, 1836), La Jolie Fille du Gand (chor. Albert , Paris, 1842), Le Diable à quatre (chor. Mazilier , Paris, 1845), and Le Corsaire (chor. Mazilier , Paris, 1856). His masterpiece, though, was Giselle (chor. Coralli and Perrot , Paris, 1841) in which he developed the use of leitmotifs and atmosphere to great dramatic effect.

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Adams , Carolyn

(b New York, 6 Aug. 1943).
US dancer. She studied at Sarah Lawrence College, and performed with Waehner's Ballets Contemporains in Paris before joining the Paul Taylor Company in 1965. A dancer of great personality and charm, combining brilliant technique with dramatic presence, she became one of Taylor's most highly regarded soloists, creating roles in several of his works including Public Domain (1968), Big Bertha (1971), and Esplanade (1975). She retired from the company in 1982 and became active in dance education, and chair of Dance USA, a national service organization for professional dancers.

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Adams , David

(b Winnipeg, 16 Nov. 1928).
Canadian dancer. He studied at the Winnipeg Ballet School, Sadler's Wells School, and with Volkova and Gontcharov , making his adult debut with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet in 1946. In the same year he joined Sadler's Wells Ballet then danced with various companies before becoming first soloist with National Ballet of Canada in 1951. In 1961 he joined London Festival Ballet and in 1970 the Royal Ballet where he danced until 1976. He created roles in several works, including Taras's Designs with Strings (1948) and MacMillan's Anastasia (1971 version). He was director of Ballet for All from 1976 to 1977. With the Toronto-based Encore! Encore! dance reconstruction project he and his brother Lawrence Adams and sister-in-law Miriam Adams have begun reviving the heritage of Canadian ballet, including in 1999 reconstructing Boris Volkoff's The Red Ear of Corn (1949).

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Adams , Diana

(b Stanton, Va., 29 Mar. 1926, d San Andreas, Calif., 10 Jan. 1993).
US dancer and teacher. She studied with de Mille , Tudor , and others and made her debut in 1943 in Oklahoma! The same year she joined Ballet Theatre where she was promoted soloist in 1945, then danced with New York City Ballet as ballerina (1950–63). A dancer of unusually long and graceful proportions she was originally considered a dramatic performer and created roles in de Mille's Fall River Legend (1948) and Tudor's Undertow, among others. Later she evolved into one of Balanchine's leading interpreters, creating roles in many of his works, such as La Valse (1951), Opus 34 (1954), Agon (1957), and Liebeslieder Walzer (1960). She also created roles in Ashton's Picnic at Tintagel (1952) and Robbins's Facsimile (1946). Her film roles included Kelly's Invitation to the Dance (1956). After retiring from the stage she taught at the School of American Ballet where she was also active in selecting Ford Scholarship students. It was she who recommended Farrell to Balanchine.

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Adams , John

(b Worcester, Mass., 15 Feb. 1947).
US composer. Dance plays an important role in two of his operas, Nixon in China (1987) and The Death of Klinghoffer (1991), where dancers (chor. Mark Morris ) double up with singers for the main characters. The repeating, energetic rhythms and bright orchestral colours of his concert music have made him popular among other choreographers and several of his scores have been used for dance, including Child's Available Light (New York, 1983) and A. Page's Fearful Symmetries (London, 1994). The latter score has also been used by P. Martins (New York, 1990), Doug Varone (Rise, New York, 1993), and Christopher d'Amboise (Synchronicities, Antwerp, 1999).

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Adventures in Motion Pictures.

British dance company. It was founded in 1987 by a group of students from London's Laban Centre and was originally a repertory ensemble performing a variety of small-scale works. M. Bourne rapidly emerged as its main choreographer although the dancers, including Scott Ambler , remain significant collaborators. AMP's shows have always been noted for their witty pastiche and drama, such as Spitfire (1988) which parodied the manners of romantic ballet dancers via the macho posing of male models, and Town and Country (1991) which was an affectionately satirical view of English life. In 1993 the company was commissioned by Opera North to stage a new version of The Nutcracker which was to be the first of several re-writes of classical ballets—Highland Fling (1994, based on La Sylphide), Swan Lake (1995), and Cinderella (1997). The award-winning Swan Lake had a highly successful season in London's West End as well as touring to Los Angeles and Broadway. This show also marked a more classical phase in Bourne's work, with several performances from dancers associated with the Royal Ballet, such as Seymour , Adam Cooper , and Fiona Chadwick .

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Adzido.

British-African dance company. It was founded in 1984 by George Dzikunu and Emmanuel Tagoe with the purpose of training students in African dance and drumming. It has since expanded into Europe's largest African dance company. Dzikunu researches a range of traditional African dance and music and although the company gives authentic versions of the material they are performed in the context of theatrical narrative, such as In the Village of Africa (1985), Under African Skies (1990), and Siye Goli (1991). The small-scale Adzido 12 performs largely community- and education-based work.

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After Eden.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Butler , music by Lee Hoiby , and design by Ter-Arutunian . Premiered 15 Mar. 1966 by Harkness Ballet, Monte Carlo, with Isaksen and Rhodes . It explores the emotions of two people expelled from paradise and has been revived for several companies including Netherlands Dance Theatre (1971).

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Afternoon of a Faun.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Robbins , music by Debussy , set and lighting by Rosenthal , and costumes by Sharaff . Premiered 14 May 1953 by New York City Ballet at City Center, New York, with LeClercq and Moncion . It is set to the Debussy score Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune to which Nijinsky created his famous 1912 work. Robbins's version portrays two dancers practising in a ballet studio in front of an imaginary mirror (the audience). The couple appear to be narcissistically absorbed in their own reflections rather than aware of each other, although in the kiss which concludes the ballet, there is a suggestion of the girl's sexual awakening. It has been revived by many companies including the Royal Ballet (1971), Australian Ballet (1978), and Norwegian National Ballet (1991).

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Agamemnon ballets.

There have been several dance works choreographed around the story of the mythological king of Mycenae, who was father of Iphigenia, Orestes, and Electra and who was murdered by his wife Clytemnestra when he returned from Troy. These include Noverre's Der gerächte Agamemnon (mus. Aspelmayr , Vienna, 1772), Clerico's Il ritorno d'Agamennone (Florence, 1821), Laban's Agamemnon's Tod (1924), and Graham's Clytemnestra (mus. El-Dabh , 1958).

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Age of Anxiety, The.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Robbins , music by Bernstein , sets by O. Smith , costumes by Sharaff , and lighting by Rosenthal . Premiered 26 Feb. 1950 by New York City Ballet, at City Center, New York, with LeClerq , Moncion , Bolender , and Robbins . It is set to Bernstein's 2nd Symphony, itself based on W. H. Auden's The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue (1946) and portrays four dancers losing their illusions as they attempt to discover life's meaning. Neumeier created a version for Hamburg Ballet in 1979.

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agitando.

Spanish term referring in general to the gypsy quality of a Spanish dance or dancer and, specifically, to the heel technique employed in non-flamenco Spanish dances.

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Aglaë, ou I'Élève d'amour.

Ballet divertissement in one act with choreography by F. Taglioni and music by Johann Friedrich Keller . Premiered 22 Jan. 1841 in St Petersburg with M. Taglioni in the title role. It tells the story of the nymph Agläe, her master Cupid, a faun, and a young man.

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Aglië , Filippo d'

(b Turin, 27 Mar. 1604, d Turin 19 July 1667).
Italian diplomat, poet, musician, and choreographer. He was one of the first choreographers of the Italian-French court ballet and staged many spectacular productions e.g. Il tabacco (Turin, 1650).

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Agon.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Balanchine , music by Stravinsky , and lighting by Nananne Porcher . First performed at a benefit preview 27 Nov. 1957, and officially premiered 1 Dec. 1957, by New York City Ballet at City Center, New York, with Adams , Hayden , Mitchell , and Bolender . It is set to Stravinsky's specially commissioned score, the title of which is Greek for contest, and its twelve dancers, dressed in plain practice clothes, frequently appear to compete for technical precedence in feats of balance, strength and co-ordination. In the pas de deux which concludes the second of the work's three major sections the traditional language of classical partnerwork is wittily and erotically inverted as the man and woman try to assert dominance over each other. Stravinsky's score, while astringently modernist in its serial compositional technique, refers back to the structure of court dances like saraband, galliarde, and branle, while Balanchine's athletic, stripped-down choreography has similar echoes of those dances' characteristic steps and manners. The ballet is widely considered to be one of Balanchine's masterpieces and also one of the century's greatest dance works. It has been revived for many other companies including Stuttgart Ballet (1970), Royal Ballet (1973), Paris Opera (1974), Berlin Opera Ballet (1977), Zurich Opera Ballet (1978), and Birmingham Royal Ballet (1996). Other choreographers who have used the same score include MacMillan (London, 1958) and T. Gsovsky (Berlin, 1958).

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Ahn Ae-soon

(b Seoul, 30 Apr. 1960).
Korean dancer and choreographer. She studied at Ewha Women's University and with Yook Wan-soon . In 1983 she formed her own modern dance group Nesaram as well as performing in Yook Wan-soon's company and in the same year choreographed Guys and Dolls, the first musical to be staged in Korea. In 1984 she joined the Korean Modern Dance Company, for which she has created many works, such as Sun, Moon, Breath (mus. Nyman , 1994). Her works fuse Korean styles and attitudes with the language of Western modern dance.

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Ahonen , Leo

(b Viipuri, 19 June 1939).
Finnish dancer, teacher, and ballet master. He studied at the ballet school of the Helsinki National Opera and at the Leningrad Ballet School and made his debut in 1954 with the Finnish National Opera Ballet. He subsequently guested with many other companies including the Kirov, the Bolshoi, Dutch National Ballet, Royal Winnipeg Ballet, and Houston Ballet. He founded and directed his own Texas Ballet Company and has also developed his own system of dance notation. He has become a celebrated teacher, holding the Golden Achievement Award for International Pedagogues. Since 1978 he has been ballet master at Clear Lake Metropolitan Ballet, Texas.

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ailes de pigeon

(Fr., pigeon wings), also called pistolet. A particularly demanding ballet step which most famously occurs in the Blue Bird variation in Sleeping Beauty. The dancer throws the left leg up, springing off the right which rises to beat beneath the left calf. He changes legs and beats, then changes again in order to land on the right foot, with the left leg stretched out into the air. It is performed en avant and en arrière.

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Ailey , Alvin

(b Rogers, Tex., 5 Jan. 1931, d New York, 1 Dec. 1989).
US dancer, choreographer, and director. He studied in Los Angeles with Horton and later with Graham , Holm , and Weidman in New York, making his debut in Horton's company in 1950. In 1953, after Horton's death, he took over as director, then in 1954 went to New York to dance in the Broadway musical House of Flowers. In the same year he also appeared in the film Carmen Jones. A big, graceful dancer he gave his first New York concert in 1957 and in 1958 formed the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. In the company's first year he created Blues Suite, a dance distilling the pain and anger traditionally associated with blues songs and his own African-American heritage. It became one of Ailey's most popular works, defining his stylistic mix of modern, jazz, classical, and black dance and his unique ability to entertain audiences with a fusion of powerful emotion and flamboyant theatricality. In 1960 he created the company's signature work Revelations, which was followed by numerous other works, including Masekela Language (mus. H. Masekela , 1969), Cry (a solo for Judith Jamison , mus. Alice Coltrane , 1971), and Night Creature (mus. Ellington , 1975) which has been taken into the repertoire of several other companies e.g. London Festival Ballet. He also choreographed works for the Robert Joffrey Ballet, including Feast of Ashes (mus. Carlos Surinach , 1962), and for American Ballet Theatre, including River (mus. Ellington , 1970), as well as for musical comedies and for Samuel Barber's opera Antony and Cleopatra (1966). From 1964 his company has toured extensively overseas and in 1972 it changed its name to Alvin Ailey City Center Dance Theater when it became resident in that venue. It reverted back to its original name in 1976 and in 1979 both school and company moved to the Minskoff building. After Ailey's death Judith Jamison took over as director, continuing his vision and his policies with marked success. The dancers in the company have always featured a broad racial mix, with highly individual personalities and dance styles, and the repertoire has included an eclectic range of works by choreographers other than Ailey including Horton , McKayle , Talley Beatty , Lubovitch , Ulysses Dove , van Manen , Bill T. Jones , Jamison , and Redha .

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air, en l'

(Fr., in the air). Refers to steps performed while jumping, also to those where the working leg (as opposed to the supporting leg) is positioned in the air rather than on the ground (par terre).

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Airs.

Modern dance work in one act with choreography by P. Taylor , music by Handel , design by Gene Moore , and lighting by Tipton . Premiered 30 May 1978 at City Center, New York, by the Paul Taylor Dance Company. Its exuberant mix of classical and modern dance, combined with a courtly elegance of manner, has brought it international popularity and it has entered the repertory of many companies, including Ballet Rambert (1982).

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Åkesson , Birgit

(b Malmö, 1908).
Swedish dancer and choreographer. She studied with Wigman and joined her company in 1931. In 1934 she made her solo debut in Paris after which she toured in Europe and America, developing her own style of modern dance. She created several ballets for the Royal Swedish Ballet in collaboration with Swedish composers, poets, and painters, including Sisyphus (mus. Blomdahl , 1957), Rites (mus. Lidholm , 1960), and Icaros (mus. Sven Erik Bäck , 1963). In 1964 she co-founded the Stockholm choreographic institute with Bengt Hager (now the State Dance School) where she was head of the choreography department until 1968. After her retirement she conducted research into traditional African dance.

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Akimov , Boris

(b Vienna, 25 June 1946).
Soviet dancer and director. He studied at the Moscow Ballet School and danced with the Bolshoi Ballet from 1965 to 1989, creating Rothbart in Grigorovich's Swan Lake (1969) and Prince Kurbsky in his Ivan the Terrible (1979). Since 1980 he has been a teacher in Russia and abroad, including with the Royal Ballet and La Scala. In 2000 he was appointed director of the Bolshoi Ballet.

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A la recherche de …

Ballet in three parts with choreography by Béjart , music by Webern in the first section and texts by Juan de la Cruz in the second. Premiered 26 July 1968 by Ballet of the 20th Century in Avignon with Sifnios , Pinet , and Lanner in first section, M. Césares reciting in the second, and Bortoluzzi , Asakawa , Donn , Bari , Lommel , and Gielgud in the third. It moves from a display of pure neo-classical ballet to a symbolic tale of three men embarking on a quest and encountering the gods Rama, Krishna, and Shiva.

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Albert , François Decombe (orig. François Decombe ;

b Bordeaux, 10 Apr. 1787 (some sources say 1789), d Fontainebleau, 19 July 1865).
French dancer and choreographer. He studied from the age of 10, with one short lapse, making his debut in Bordeaux in 1799. He became premier danseur at the Théâtre de la Gaité in Paris and in 1808 (some sources say 1803) moved to the Paris Opera where he was also ballet master (1829–42). He also worked in London at various times between 1821 and 1845, in Naples (1825), in Vienna (1830), and in Brussels (1838–40). At a time when male dance style was moving towards athletic technique Albert continued to exemplify the refined nobility of 18th-century ballet. He was considered the most handsome dancer in Europe. He created roles in Gardel's Paul et Virginie (1806), F. Taglioni's Aglaë (London version 1841), and his own The Marble Maiden (1845). He choreographed several other ballets, including Cendrillon (mus. A. Sor , Paris, 1823), La Jolie Fille de Gand (mus. Adam , Paris, 1842), and the ballet divertissements in Donizetti's opera La Favorite (Paris, 1841). As a teacher he developed systematic methods for improving the strength and stamina of his pupils, publishing a manual L'Art de la danse à la ville et à la cour (Paris, 1834).

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Albertieri , Luigi

(b Milan, 1860, d New York, 25 Aug. 1930).
Italian dancer and ballet master. At the age of 10 he became the favourite pupil of Cecchetti who adopted him and they performed together in the London premiere of Manzotti's Excelsior. Between 1866 and 1902 he was premier danseur of the Empire Ballet in London, also working as choreographer at Covent Garden (1895–1902), and appearing in America in 1895. He was ballet master of Chicago Lyric Opera (1910–13) and between 1913 and 1927 was ballet master of the New York Metropolitan Opera House where he staged many ballets and operas. In 1915 he opened a school where Astaire was one of his most promising pupils. He wrote The Art of Terpsichore (New York, 1923).

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Aldous , Lucette

(b Auckland, NZ, 26 Sept. 1938).
Australian dancer and teacher (she moved to Australia when she was four months old). She studied in Sydney then won a scholarship to Sadler's Wells Ballet School (1955–7). In 1957 she became soloist with Ballet Rambert, becoming ballerina, and remaining there till 1963. She danced with London Festival Ballet (1963–6), with the Royal Ballet (1966–70), then became principal ballerina with Australian Ballet (1971–7). A lively, brilliant technician, her gift for comedy was displayed in roles like Swanilda and Kitri (which she danced in Nureyev's film of Don Quixote, 1973), though she also displayed a gentle lyricism in La Sylphide. In 1977 she danced in the film The Turning Point, partnered by Bujones . She married the dancer Alan Alder . After retiring from the stage she became a teacher at the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts.

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Aldridge , Robert

(b c.1738, d Edinburgh, 1793).
Irish dancer and teacher. During the middle of the 18th century he ran a dance school in Dublin. He also choreographed some Irish ballets in London and went on to open a famous dance school in Edinburgh. He was the teacher of dancer Simon Slingsby .

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alegrias.

Flamenco dance in 3/4 or 6/8 time which is characterized by its elegant style and opulent arm movements.

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Aleksidze , Georgy

(b Tbilisi, 7 Jan. 1941).
Soviet-Georgian dancer and choreographer. He studied at Moscow Ballet School with A. Messerer and made his debut at the Tbilisi Opera in 1961. He then went to study at the Choreographers' Faculty of Leningrad Conservatory with F. Lopukhov and created his first ballet in 1966 for the newly created Chamber Ballet. Inspired by New York City Ballet's first visit to the Soviet Union in 1962 he was one of the first Soviet choreographers to create plotless ballets, though his output has included some dramatic works. In 1968 he created Oresteia (mus. Falik ) for the Kirov followed by The Scythian Suite (mus. Prokofiev , 1969). From 1967 he also taught at the Leningrad Conservatory and from 1972 to 1980 he was artistic director and chief choreographer of the Tbilisi Opera Ballet. His many works for the company have included Variations on a Theme by Mozart (mus. Chopin ), Classical Symphony (mus. Prokofiev ), and Berikoaba (mus. Kvernadse , all 1973), Coppélia (1975), Nutcracker (1977), and Medea (mus. Gabichvadze , 1978). From 1980 to 1983 he was chief choreographer at Perm Theatre of Opera and Ballet, after which he worked at the opera studio of the Leningrad Conservatory (1983–5). In 1985 he returned to Tbilisi where he has created several works including Swan of Tuonela (mus. Sibelius , 1988) and Concerto Grosso (mus. Schnitke , 1989). In 1992 he founded a small company attached to the St Petersburg Cappella for which he has choreographed many works that also feature in the repertory of Yekaterinburg City Ballet.

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Alexander Roy London Ballet Theatre.

See Roy , Alexander.

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Alexander Technique.

Body alignment technique developed by Frederic Matthias Alexander (1869–1955). With its emphasis on releasing unnecessary tension from the body and on re-discovering efficient ways of moving and positioning it has become widely respected among dancers both as a therapy and as a movement philosophy.

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Alhambra ballets.

The Alhambra Theatre in Leicester Square was one of London's top music halls between 1864 and 1936 with ballet as one of its main attractions for many years. International star dancers appeared in the theatre, such as Legnani and Geltser , and though most of the ballets presented were little more than entertaining spectacle, some were choreographed by distinguished artists, including J. Hansen , Gorsky , and Berger . In 1919 Diaghilev's Ballets Russes premiered Massine's La Boutique fantasque and Le Tricorne here and in 1921 staged their opulent revival of The Sleeping Princess.

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Alice in Wonderland.

Several choreographers have used Lewis Carroll's book as a basis for ballet, including Charnley for London Festival Ballet (mus. Joseph Horovitz , 1953), E. Virginia Williams (Boston, 1972), Tetley for National Ballet of Canada (mus. D. Del Tredici , 1986), and D. Deane for English National Ballet (mus. Tchaikovsky , arr. C. Davis , 1995).

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Allan , Maud(e)

(b Canada, 27 Aug. 1873, d Los Angeles, 7 Oct. 1956).
Canadian dancer. She studied music and fine art and became interested in dance through her enthusiasm for reviving the dance forms of ancient Greece. In 1903 she made her debut in Vienna in The Vision of Salome (mus. Marcel Rémy ) in a daringly revealing costume, shocking many in the climax where she kissed John the Baptist's severed head. She danced mostly barefoot and toured all around the world, finally settling in England where she taught in her own school (1928–40). She wrote My Life and Dancing (London and New York, 1908).

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Allard , Marie

(b Marseilles, 14 Aug. 1742 (some sources say 1738), d Paris, 14 Jan. 1802).
French dancer. She is now famous for being the mother of Auguste Vestris (the result of a brief liaison with G. Vestris ), but she was also a very popular dancer. Petite and piquante, she excelled in comic and character roles. She made her debut in Marseilles around 1752 and was prima ballerina at the Lyons Opera House (1754–6). She later danced at the Paris Opera (1761–81) where she appeared in many ballets, including the premiere of Mozart and Noverre's Les Petits Riens (1778). She is thought to have choreographed several of her own divertissements and entrées. She retired after several pregnancies had caused her to become too plump for public taste.

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Allegri Diversi.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Bintley , music by Rossini , and design by Terry Bartlett . Premiered 15 Jan. 1987 by Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet, at Sadler's Wells, London, with Karen Donovon and Petter Jacobsson . A series of scintillating classical dance variations, set to Rossini's Variations for Clarinet and Small Orchestra and his Introduction, Theme, and Variations for Clarinet and Orchestra.

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allegro

(It., merry). General term to describe a quick and lively tempo, it also refers specifically to any combination of fast steps (as opposed to adagio) as well as to the section in a ballet class which follows adagio. Here dancers perform steps that are designed to improve their speed and attack, plus their ability to jump and turn.

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Allegro, il penseroso ed il moderato, L'.

Modern dance work in two acts with choreography by Mark Morris , music by Handel , set by Adrianne Lobel , costumes by Christine Van Loon , and lighting by James F. Ingalls . Premiered 23 Nov. 1988 by the Mark Morris Dance Group at the Théâtre de la Monnaie, Brussels. Morris's setting of Handel's dramatic oratorio is considered to be one of his finest and most ambitious works. Structurally it closely follows both Charles Jennens's text (based on Milton ) and Handel's score in its alternation of sanguine and melancholic viewpoints. Visually it also draws on Blake's series of watercolour illustrations of Milton's poems. The movement contrasts pale, exquisite images of melancholy with extrovert, earthy humour and frequently makes comically literal references to hunting or farming scenes in the text. It conjures a classical, pastoral world of goddesses, shepherds, artists, men, and beasts and concludes with a rousingly utopian vision of harmony.

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Allegro Brillante.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Balanchine , music by Tchaikovsky , costumes by Karinska , and lighting by Rosenthal . Premiered 1 Mar. 1956 by New York City Ballet at City Center, New York, with Maria Tallchief and Magallanes . This virtuoso setting of Tchaikovsky's 3rd Piano Concerto, Op. 75, is for one lead and four supporting couples, and has been taken into the repertory of many companies, included Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet (1973).

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allemande

(Fr. for German). Term applied to several dances or styles of movement popular between the 15th and 19th centuries, and denoting either a German origin or German characteristics. Arbeau records an allemande in duple time that was a simple processional dance. In the mid-18th century the term denoted lively turning dances in 3/4 time that came from Germany in which couples held each other in an unusually close embrace.

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Alleyne , John

(b Barbados, 25 Jan. 1960).
Bajan-Canadian dancer, choreographer, and director. He trained at the National Ballet School, Toronto, and in 1978 joined Stuttgart Ballet as a dancer, creating several ballets for the company workshops. In 1984 he joined National Ballet of Canada as first soloist, dancing classical and modern principal roles, and becoming resident choreographer. His works for the company include Blue-Eyed Trek (1988) and Interrogating Slam (1991), created in a style which fuses an essentially classical idiom with modern power and stretch. During this period he also created several works for Ballet British Columbia, such as Go Slow Walter (1990). In 1992 he became artistic director of the company and he has since created many works for them, including The Don Juan Variations (1995) and The Goldberg (1998) as well as choreographing for other companies, including New York City Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Dance Theatre of Harlem, and Stuttgart Ballet.

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allongé

(Fr., lengthened). Designates an unusually elongated line in ballet. In an arabesque allongé the body is held almost parallel to the floor with the front arm and back leg extended.

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All That Jazz.

Bob Fosse's 1979 film about a workaholic film director which was based heavily on his own life. It features Airotica, one of his most aggressively erotic dance numbers.

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Allumez les étoiles.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Petit , libretto by Petit and Jean Ristat , and music by Prokofiev , Shostakovich , Mussorgsky , and Georgian folk songs. Premiered 5 May 1972 by Ballet de Marseilles, Marseilles , with Petit , B. Malinowski , and Lowski . It is based on the life of the revolutionary poet Vladimir Mayakovsky , and was inspired by lines he wrote in 1913: ‘Listen!—they are lighting | Up the stars.’

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Alma ou La Fille de feu.

Ballet in four acts with choreography by Cerrito and Perrot , music by G. Costa , libretto by André Jean-Jacques Deshayes , and design by W. Grieve . Premiered 23 June 1842 at Her Majesty's Theatre, London. It tells the story of a beautiful statue brought to life by the evil demon Belfegor in order to seduce mortal men. When she herself falls in love with the Moorish prince Emazor she is turned back to stone. Cerrito as Alma had one of her greatest successes in this ballet, particularly in the pas de fascination where, accompanied by a tambourine, she was required to display her most bewitching qualities. Perrot also choreographed a substantial role for himself as Belfegor.

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Alonso , Alberto

(b Havana, 22 May 1917).
Cuban dancer and choreographer. Brother of Fernando Alonso , and brother-in-law of Alicia Alonso . He studied with several teachers including Preobrajenska and Idzikowski and danced with Ballets Russes de Colonel de Basil from 1935 to 1940. He subsequently danced with Ballet Theatre (1943–5), Ballet Alicia Alonso (1948–9), and after 1966 with National Ballet of Cuba. From 1941 he also worked as ballet master and choreographer, creating several works including Espacio y movimiento (National Ballet of Cuba, mus. Stravinsky , 1966), which won the prize for best choreography at Varna in 1968, and Carmen (Bolshoi Ballet, mus. Bizet-Shchedrin , 1967, revived for many companies, including Ballet Argentino and Moscow Festival Ballet). He continued choreographing for several companies including New York's Ballet Hispanico in 1994.

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Alonso , Alicia (née Alicia Ernestina de la Caridad dei Cobre Martinez Hoyo ;

b Havana, 21 Dec. 1920).
Cuban dancer and director. She studied in Havana, then in New York with Vilzak and at the School of American Ballet, and later with Volkova in London. She started her dancing career in Broadway musicals then in 1939 joined Ballet Caravan. In 1940 she moved to Ballet Theatre where she danced until 1960, though with some interruptions. Between 1941 and 1943 she performed with Havana's Pro-Arte company and in 1948 she returned to Havana to found Ballet Alicia Alonso and its associate school in 1950. Between 1955 and 1960 she also guested with various companies including Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. For much of her career she performed with Youskevitch , their partnership often regarded as one of the greatest of the 20th century. An intensely dramatic dancer as well as a pure classical technician, her most famous role was Giselle, but she also created roles in many new ballets including Tudor's Undertow (1945), Balanchine's Theme and Variations (1947), and de Mille's Fall River Legend (1948). The title role in Alberto Alonso's Carmen (1967) was considered one of her most fascinating portraits. Her own company became Ballet de Cuba in 1955, then when Fidel Castro came to power in 1959 it changed its name to National Ballet of Cuba. As the company's director and prima ballerina she became the dominant dance personality of Central America. She and the company have toured widely in the USSR, China, and Europe. She has staged most of the standard classics, including Giselle (1945 for Pro-Arte and many times subsequently for different companies), Swan Lake (1954 for Ballet Alicia Alonso and 1976 for Teatro de Bellas Artes, Mexico), and Sleeping Beauty (1974 for Paris Opera and 1983 for La Scala), and has also choreographed several works. In 1975 she returned to dance the pas de deux from Act II of Swan Lake for a gala at American Ballet Theatre, and she continued to dance into old age, despite severely impaired sight. She was first married to the ballet director Fernando Alonso , then to Pedro Simon . She received the Decoration of Carlos Manuel de Cespedes in 1947 and was awarded the Médaille de la Ville de Paris and the Prix Pavlova in 1966.

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Alonso , Fernando

(b Havana, 27 Dec. 1914).
Cuban dancer, teacher, and director. Brother of Alberto Alonso and first husband of Alicia Alonso . He studied in Havana and later New York with Mordkin and Vilzak and at the School of American Ballet. He made his debut with the Mordkin Ballet and also danced in musicals, with Ballet Caravan and with Ballet Theatre. Returning to Havana he became soloist with the Pro-Arte company and from 1948 to 1975 he was director of Alicia Alonso's company (subsequently National Ballet of Cuba). He later directed his own company, Ballet de Camagüey, for which he choreographed a version of La Fille mal gardée.

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Alston , Richard

(b Stoughton, 30 Oct. 1948).
British dancer, choreographer, and director. He gave up art college to study dance, entering the London School of Contemporary Dance in 1967. In 1970 he joined London Contemporary Dance Theatre and in the same year began to create works for the company. In 1972 he formed Strider, a small independent group performing works by him and other company members, and in 1975 he left for New York to study with Cunningham , returning to London in 1977 to form his own company. In 1980 he was made associate choreographer of Ballet Rambert and in 1982 he was co-founder of Second Stride, though he withdrew after two seasons. In 1986 he became Rambert's artistic director, and was responsible for changing the company's name to Rambert Dance Company and for shifting the repertoire from dramatic to more abstract dance, bringing in works from Cunningham , T. Brown , and Childs. He left in 1993 and a year later formed the Richard Alston Dance Company. Though his work is strongly influenced by Cunningham it has a lyricism (that partly derives from Ashton ) and also a very individual responsiveness to music. He is renowned for using contemporary composers and/or painters in his work, such as Wildlife (mus. Nigel Osborne , des. Richard Smith , 1984), Soda Lake (des. Nigel Hall , 1981), Pulcinella (mus. Stravinsky , des. Howard Hodgkin , 1987), Hymnos (mus. Peter Maxwell Davies , 1988), and Bach Measures (mus. Harrison Birtwistle , 1996), though he has also set works to Mozart in Dealing with Shadows (1990) and Rameau in Brisk Singing (1997).

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Alt , Marlis

(b Uffenheim, 19 Mar. 1950).
German dancer. She studied at Essen Folkwang Hochschule and then in New York with Graham . Between 1973 and 1978 she was a leading soloist with the Wuppertal Dance Theatre creating roles in many of Bausch's works including Sacre du printemps (1975) and Blaubart (1977).

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alta

(Sp. and It., high). Term in use from the 14th century which often designates dances performed by those of a high rank. Also refers to lively dance types featuring leaps, hops, and jumps.

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Alton , Robert

(b Bennington, Vt., 1902, d Hollywood, Calif., 12 June 1957).
US dancer and choreographer. He studied with Mordkin , becoming a dancer with his company, and during the 1930s and early 1940s he became a leading choreographer of Broadway musicals, including Anything Goes, Ziegfeld Follies (1938, 1940, and 1942), Hellzapoppin', and Pal Joey. He was equally prominent in Hollywood, choreographing film musicals like Ziegfeld Follies, Annie Get Your Gun, Show Boat, White Christmas, No Business like Show Business, and Daddy Long Legs.

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Amagatsu , Ushio

(b Yokosuka City, 31 Dec. 1949).
Japanese dancer, choreographer, and director. He studied classical and modern dance before going on to work with pupils of the butoh master Hijikata. In 1975 he formed his own company Sankai Juku, evolving a more surreal, theatrical form of butoh. His many works include Unetsu (The Egg Stands Out of Curiosity) (1987). Between 1989 and 1990 he was also artistic director of Spiral Hall, Tokyo, where he created several works including Apocalypse (1989) in collaboration with Takashi Kako and Ismael Ivo.

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Amants magnifiques, Les.

Royal divertissement in which Louis XIV appeared as a dancer, probably for the last time in public. With a libretto by Molière , music by Lully , choreography by Beauchamps , and stage machinery by Gasparo Virgarini , it was staged on 4 Feb. 1670 at St-Germain-en-Laye. It fulfilled the king's aim to include ‘all that theatre might offer’. Dance and mime scenes linked by songs tell the story of two rival princes who, in a pastoral setting, compete to charm a young princess and her mother.

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Amaya , Carmen

(b Granada, 1913, d Bagur, 19 Nov. 1963).
Spanish dancer. Born into a dancing family she first performed in public aged 4 in the waterfront bars of Barcelona. She began her international career in 1923 with Raquel Meller's company then went on to tour the world with her own company, many of whom were members of her family, gaining international fame for the unusually fierce passion of her dancing and its unusual incorporation of male footwork into female dances. She was married to the guitarist Juan Antonio Aguero .

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Amboise , Jacques d'

(b Dedham, Mass., 28 July 1934).
US dancer, choreographer, and teacher. He studied at the School of American Ballet and joined New York City Ballet in 1950, becoming principal (1953–84). He was initially a very American dancer, with an easy, natural charm, but developed into a fine classicist. Apollo was one of his greatest roles though he also created leading roles in many other Balanchine ballets, including Western Symphony (1954), Ivesiana (1954), Episodes (1959), Raymonda Variations (1961), Movements for Piano and Orchestra (1963), Who Cares? (1970), and Davidsbündlertänze (1980). He has also appeared in several films, including Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) and Carousel (1956), also the 1962 television production of Stravinsky and Balanchine's Noah and the Flood. He has choreographed several ballets for NYCB including The Chase (mus. Mozart , 1963), Tchaikovsky Suite (mus. Tchaikovsky , 1969), and Celebrations (mus. Mendelssohn , 1982). From 1970 he taught at the School of American Ballet, and in 1976 he became founder-director of the National Dance Institute, a community dance project based in New York.

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Ambrose , Kay

(b Working, 1914, d London, 1 Dec. 1971).
British artist and writer. She illustrated Haskell's Ballet (Pelican, 1938) and then published her own Ballet Lover's Pocket Book (1943), Ballet Lover's Companion (1948), and Beginners, Please (1953). She and Haskell collaborated again on Balletomane's Sketchbook (1943). She was artistic director of Ram Gopal's company and in 1950 published Classic Dances and Costumes of India. Between 1952 and 1961 she was artistic advisor of the National Ballet of Canada and designed around 30 productions for the company.

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America.

See United States, The.

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American Ballet, The.

Ballet company which emerged from the School of American Ballet. The SAB was founded by Kirstein , Balanchine , E. M. M. Warburg , and V. Dimitriev at the end of 1933 and opened in Jan. 1934. Its first student performance was given in June 1934 in White Plains, New York, with a programme including Balanchine's Serenade. In Mar. 1935 the company gave a two-week season at the Adelphi Theater, New York, presenting seven ballets by Balanchine and with Dollar and Loring among the dancers. Though a public success it was not well received by the critics. After a brief tour of NE America the company took up residence at the Metropolitan Opera House in autumn 1935 with Vilzak as premier danseur; the Christensen brothers and Erick Hawkins were also members. Balanchine created The Bat for the first season and in 1936 produced his controversial staging of Gluck's opera Orpheus and Euridice in which he placed the singers in the orchestra pit. In Apr. 1937 he mounted a Stravinsky Festival which featured Baiser de la fée, The Card Game (1st perf.), and Apollon musagète (all conducted by Stravinsky ). In 1938 the company broke with the Met. over differences of artistic vision and it remained inactive for three years, although during the period 1936–9 Kirstein organized the smaller group Ballet Caravan as a showcase for American choreography, which involved some of AB's dancers. In 1941 the company was reassembled at the invitation of Nelson A. Rockefeller and amalgamated with Ballet Caravan under the title American Ballet Caravan for a five-month tour of S. America. Balanchine was artistic director and the dancers included Caccialanza , L. Christensen , Dollar , Bolender , Magallanes , and Taras . Its repertory featured Ballet Imperial, Concerto Barocco, Billy the Kid, The Filling Station, and Apollon musagète. The company was closed down after the tour but Kirstein and Balanchine went on to found Ballet Society in 1946, which in 1948 evolved into New York City Ballet.

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American Ballet Center.

School founded by Robert Joffrey in Greenwich Village in 1953, which he co-directed with Arpino. It subsequently became known as the Joffrey Ballet School.

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American Ballet Company.

Eliot Feld's New York-based company, originally known as the American Ballet Players. It gave its first performance on 27 June 1969 at the 12th Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto with a programme of three Feld ballets and a work by Herbert Ross . Its first New York season opened 21 Oct. 1969 but financial difficulties led to the company's closure in 1971. Feld and some of his dancers subsequently joined American Ballet Theatre, and in 1974 Feld founded a second company, the Eliot Feld Ballet.

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American Ballet Theatre.

American ballet company. Originally known as Ballet Theatre, it was founded in 1940 by several ex-members of the Mordkin Ballet. With the financial backing of Chase , who became co-director with Smith in 1945 and under the initial direction of Pleasant it had its debut on 11 Jan. 1940 at New York Radio City Center Theater, in a season which featured an impressive range of works from Fokine's Les Sylphides and Dolin's Giselle to Tudor's Jardin aux lilas and Dark Elegies, and six premieres including Loring's The Great American Goof. The company's aim was to preserve important works from the past as well as develop a strong new repertory and during the 1940s it was associated most strongly with Fokine , Tudor , and de Mille . That decade saw the commissioning of many major ballets including Dolin's Pas de quatre (1941), Fokine's Bluebeard (1941), Tudor's Pillar of Fire (1942), Romeo and Juliet and Dim Lustre (1943), and Undertow (1945), Massine's Aleko and Mam'zelle Angot (1943), Robbin's Fancy Free (1944), Balanchine's Theme and Variations (1947), and de Mille's Fall River Legend (1948). It also nurtured a generation of American dancers including Kaye , D. Adams , and Kidd as well as producing its own classic ballerina in Alonso, though from the beginning it also relied on foreign artists as star principals, including Markova , Dolin , Baronova , Eglevsky , and Youskevitch . Lacking a permanent base in New York, touring played a major part in the company's existence both in the US and abroad (it first appeared in Europe in 1946) and in 1957 it changed its name to American Ballet Theatre.
After the creative push of the 1940s the company had less critical success during the 1950s. Fokine was dead and Tudor had left, though de Mille continued to choreograph new works for the repertory. In the 1960s it acquired Cullberg's Lady from the Sea (1960) and Robbins's critically acclaimed Les Noces (1965), and in 1967 staged its first full-length Swan Lake. In the same year Feld made an important debut as choreographer and dancer, with C. Gregory emerging as a star and ballerina. In 1970 Makarova joined the company and in 1974 staged a seminal production of Act II of La Bayadère which elicited a new classical authority from the dancers. The same year Baryshnikov joined and Tudor returned as associate director, creating The Leaves are Fading in 1975. Other important acquisitions of the 1970s were Tharp's Push Comes to Shove and Robbins's Other Dances (both 1976), and the company's new generation of dancers included Bujones , Kirkland , and van Hamel . In 1977 the company was granted an official home at New York's Metropolitan Opera House and in 1980 Baryshnikov became artistic director. He strengthened the company's classical base, staging Giselle (1980) and Swan Lake (1988) among others and acquiring MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet in 1985. At the same time he developed a new repertory of works by major modern dance choreographers, including Taylor , Cunningham , Tharp , and Mark Morris . During the 1980s Jaffe and L. Browne were among the new dancers to emerge as principals. In 1989 Jane Herman and Oliver Smith took over as co-directors, followed by ex-principal Kevin McKenzie in 1992. Financial uncertainties—always a problem for the company, despite Chase's injections of money—became acute during the 1990s, forcing the company to perform for only limited seasons each year. However, it maintained a strong roster of principals including Bocca , Carreno , A. Ferri , Herrera , R. and J. Kent , and E. Steifel , and in addition to expanding its repertoire of classics and full-length ballets, such as MacMillan's Anastasia in 1999, it also continued to premiere significant new works such as Tharp's, Known by Heart (mus. various, 1998). Its official school, the American Ballet Theatre School, was founded in 1972 with its own performing group, but both were disbanded under Baryshnikov . A new ensemble, ABT Studio Company, was started in 1995.

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American Dance Festival.

Annual programme of modern dance classes and performances, founded by Martha Hill , which from 1948 was given annually at the end of the summer term of the Connecticut College School of Dance. Many major works were premiered there, including Graham's Diversion of Angels (as Wilderness Star, 1948), Limón's The Moor's Pavane (1949) and A Choreographic Offering (1964), Humphrey's Night Spell (1951) and Ruins and Visions (1953), Nikolais's Kaleidoscope (1956), Cunningham's Antic Meet (1958) and Scramble (1967), Lang's Shirah (1960), P. Taylor's Insects and Heroes (1961), and Tharp's Medley (1969). In 1978 the ADF was relocated to Durham, N. Carolina , and in 1984 it set up the International Choreographers Workshop. The increasingly international trend of the festival's programmes (which have introduced much new European and Japanese dance to the US) has also been reflected in the International Linkages Program, set up in the late 1980s to facilitate exchanges with foreign teachers. Since the 1980s it has also sponsored several historical projects, such as the Black Tradition in American Modern Dance Project, founded in 1987 under the direction of Gerald Myers to preserve classic works by African American choreographers.

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American Dance Machine.

New York-based school, research centre, and company dedicated to preserving dances from American musicals. It was founded in 1976, under the direction of the late Lee Theodore (d 1987) and the company made its official debut in Feb. 1978 at Ford's Theater, Washington, DC.

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American Dance Theater.

Modern dance repertory company founded in 1964. Based in New York and under the direction of Limón , it made its debut 18 Nov. 1964 at New York State Theater, performing works by Limón , Humphrey , McKayle , and Sokolow . A second series of performances was given in Mar. 1965 at the same theatre, including works by Bettis , Cunningham , Draper , Hoving , Humphrey , Lang , Limón , Nikolais , and Sokolow . The company was then disbanded.

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American Document.

Modern dance work in one act with choreography by Graham , music by Ray Green , set by Arch Lauterer , and costumes by Edythe Gilfond . Premiered 6 Aug. 1938 by the Martha Graham company, at Vermont State Armory, Bennington, with Graham, Hawkins , and Housely Stevens jun. as the Speaker. It is divided into six sections, which portray the course of American social history. Texts are spoken, including the Declaration of Independence, Jonathan Edwards's sermons, and lines from Walt Whitman . It was Graham's first work to feature a male soloist.

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American Genesis.

Full-length dance pageant with choreography by Taylor , music by Bach , Haydn , Martin , Gottschalk , and J. Faley . Its New York premiere (after preview performances on tour) was 14 Mar. 1974 by Paul Taylor Dance Company at Brooklyn Academy of Music with C. Adams , de Jong , and Taylor. It portrays the biblical Fall of Man within the context of the American dream.

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American in Paris, An.

Gershwin's 1928 orchestral score has been choreographed several times by e.g. R. Page (Cincinnati, 1936) but the best-known dance version is in G. Kelly's 1951 film of the same title.

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Amiel , Josette

(b Vanves, 19 Nov. 1930).
French dancer. She studied at the Conservatoire Français and at Paris Opera Ballet School, making her debut at the Opéra Comique before joining the Paris Opera where she was promoted première danseuse in 1955 and étoile (1958–71). As well as dancing the classical ballerina roles she also created new roles in Lifar's Chemin de lumière (1957) and Flindt's La Leçon (1963) and Le Jeune Homme à marier (1965), among others. After retiring from the stage she was active as a teacher and coach, for example staging Bourmeister's Swan Lake for Finnish National Ballet (1993) and Lander's Études for San Francisco Ballet in 1998. She was made Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur in 1975.

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Amodio , Amedeo

(b Milan, 14 Mar. 1940).
Italian dancer and choreographer. He studied ballet at La Scala Ballet School and also Spanish dance with Antonio Marin in Madrid, making his debut at La Scala in 1958. He moved to Rome Opera House in 1966, becoming principal in 1968 and with his powerful technique and stage charisma soon became one of Italy's star dancers. He freelanced with several companies and also began choreographing in 1967 with Escursioni (mus. Berio ) in Spoleto. Other works include Oggetto amato (mus. Bussotti , La Scala, 1976). In 1979 he became director of Aterballetto raising its status from a small experimental group to an ambitious independent ballet company with a broad repertory of largely 20th-century works and well-known guests, including Terabust. He choreographed several ballets for it and also staged Romeo and Juliet (1987) and The Nutcracker (1989). He left in 1997.

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Amor.

Ballet spectacle in two parts with choreography and libretto by Manzotti , music by Romualdo Marenco , and design by A. Edel . Premiered 17 Feb. 1886 at La Scala, Milan, with Antonietta Bella, Ernestina Operti, and Cecchetti. Its action displays the progress of mankind from Chaos, through various historical scenes like the Triumph of Caesar and the Battle of Legnano, to its conclusion in the Temple of Love. Its original cast featured hundreds of dancers, actors, children, and extras, also live animals including an elephant.

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Amor brujo, El (Eng. title Love, the Magician).

One-act ballet score by de Falla with a libretto by G. Martinez Sierra . Its first production was choreographed by Imperio and premiered 15 Apr. 1915 at Teatro Lara, Madrid, with Imperio. The story is set in an Andalusian village where a gypsy girl Candelas is haunted by her dead lover. When the latter tries to jinx her romance with another man, Carmelo , the two live lovers plan a ritual of exorcism. The ballet became famous in La Argentinita's 1928 Paris version which toured internationally, and many versions have followed, including Lifar's for Paris Opera (1943), Antonio's (London, 1955), and P. Wright's for the Royal Ballet Touring Co. (Edinburgh, 1975).

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Amour et son amour, L'.

Ballet in one act with choreography and libretto by Babilée , music by Franck , and design by Cocteau . Premiered 13 Dec. 1948 at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées with Babilée and Philippart . It is set to Franck's 1888 tone poem Psyché, which portrays the mythological encounter between Eros and Psyche. A highly successful ballet using the same story (Psyche et l'Amour) with music by J. J. Rudolphe (Stuttgart) was choreographed by Noverre in 1762.

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Ananiashvili , Nina

(b Tbilisi, 19 Mar. 1964).
Soviet-Georgian dancer. She was a champion ice skater aged 10 before entering the State Ballet School of Georgia (1973–7). She continued her training at the Moscow Ballet School from 1977 and made her debut in 1980 as Swanilda in a school production of Coppélia. In 1981 she graduated into the Bolshoi Ballet as a soloist. Her teachers in the company were Struchkova and Semenova , the former developing her dramatic powers, the latter the distinctive elegance of her classical technique. She has performed most of the standard ballerina roles as well as roles in several Grigorovich ballets. In 1988 she and Andris Liepa were guest artists with New York City Ballet, the first Soviet dancers to appear with the company. She was much applauded for her boldness in tackling the unfamiliar Balanchine style. One of the new generation of international Russian dancers, she has subsequently guested with Boston Ballet, Royal Danish Ballet, Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, and others. In 1993 she became principal with American Ballet Theatre (while still performing with the Bolshoi) and in 1998 created the title role of Stevenson's The Snow Maiden for both Houston Ballet and ABT. In 1999 she joined Houston Ballet as principal. She has also performed with her own touring ensemble, Nina Ananiashvili and the Stars of the Bolshoi. She was made People's Artist of the Russian Federation in 1986.

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Anastasia.

Ballet in three acts with choreography and libretto by MacMillan , music by Tchaikovsky , Fritz Winckel , Rudiger Rufer , and Martin , and design by B. Kay . Premiered 22 July 1971 by Royal Ballet at Covent Garden, London, with Seymour , Beriosova , Rencher , Sibley , and Dowell . It was inspired by Anna Andersen's book I Anastasia in which she narrates her life-story as the youngest and only surviving daughter of Tsar Nicholas II. (At the time of the ballet's creation, it was uncertain whether Andersen's claims to be Anastasia were correct. Subsequent evidence has proved them to be fantasy.) In Act I, set to Tchaikovsky's 1st Symphony, A. and her family are seen at an idyllic picnic which is interrupted by news of the outbreak of the First World War. In Act II, set to Tchaikovsky's 3rd Symphony, a ball given for A. by the Tsar at the Winter Palace is disrupted by the outbreak of the October Revolution. Act III is presented in a radically different style. Set to electronic music and Martin's Fantaisies symphoniques, it takes place in a Berlin hospital where Andersen is a patient. Events from Anastasia's past appear in dance and mime flashback, also in the form of old newsreel footage and Andersen's traumatized response to these memories/fantasies is conveyed in a rawly ex-pressionist style of movement that is very different from the classical choreography of the first two acts. The ballet originally consisted of Act III alone and in this form was premiered 25 June 1967 by the Berlin Opera Ballet with design by Kay , and Seymour as Andersen-Anastasia. This single-act version has since been revived for Stuttgart Ballet (with Haydée , 1976), American Ballet Theatre, 1985), and English National Ballet (with Seymour, 1989). A revised version of the three-act ballet, overseen by Deborah MacMillan with new designs by Bob Crowley , was premiered by the Royal Ballet 2 May 1996 with Durante and revived by ABT in 1999.

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Anastos , Peter

(b Schenectady, NY, 1948).
US dancer and choreographer. He studied in New York and Leningrad and began choreo-graphing for various companies including Eglevsky's , and also Dallas and Pennsylvania Ballets. From 1974 he was director and star performer of the comic transvestite company Les Ballets Trockaderos for which he choreo-graphed many works. Between 1979 and 1981 he was resident choreographer of Garden State Ballet, in 1983 of Santa Fe Opera, then between 1994 and 1996 he was artistic director of Cincinnati Ballet. He has also worked extensively as a freelance choreographer, his works including Cinderella (with Baryshnikov for American Ballet Theatre, 1983), The Lost World (mus. Peter Golub , for Miami City Ballet, 1992), Peter Pan (for Ballet West and Cincinnati Ballet, 1994), and several works for the Santa Fe Festival Ballet, including By Gershwin (mus. Gershwin , 1999). He has also choreographed for musicals and directed opera.

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Anatomical & Mechanical Lectures upon Dancing.

John Weaver's 1721 treatise made a revolutionary attempt to describe human anatomy in relation to the demands of dance technique.

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Anatomy Lesson, The (orig. Dutch title De anatomische les).

Ballet in one act with choreography by Tetley , music by Marcel Landowsky , and design by Nicolaas Wijnberg . Premiered 28 Jan. 1964 by Netherlands Dance Theatre at the Hague, with Flier. It is based on Rembrandt's painting The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Tulp and contrasts the inner life and passions of the man laid out on the table with the coldly scientific context in which he has been placed after death.

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Anaya , Dulce (orig. Dulce Esperanza Wohner de Vega ;

b Rancho Boyeros, nr. Havana, 26 Dec. 1933).
Cuban dancer. She studied at the Havana Sociedad Pro-Arte Musical School with the Alonsos and at the School of American Ballet, making her debut (as Dulce Wöhner) with Ballet Theatre in 1947. She subsequently joined Ballet de Cuba as ballerina, returned to Ballet Theatre (1951), was ballerina with Stuttgart (1957), with Munich State Opera (1958–63 and 1964–5), and with Ballet Concerto, Florida, from 1967. She founded Jacksonville Ballet Theatre in 1970, remaining there as director, and creating many works.

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Ancient Voices of Children.

Modern dance work in one act with choreography by Bruce , music by G. Crumb , and design by Baylis . Premiered 7 July 1975 by Ballet Rambert at Sadler's Wells Theatre, London. This setting of Crumb's song-cycle of poems by Lorca portrays a group of ragged children playing games of love and death. Other settings of Crumb's score include J. Stripling (Stuttgart, 1971), Tetley (Utah Repertory Theater, 1973), and Reiter-Soffer (in Yerma, Irish Ballet, 1976).

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Andersen , Frank

(b Copenhagen, 15 Apr. 1953).
Danish dancer, teacher, and ballet director. From 1960 he studied at the Royal Danish Ballet School, also subsequently in New York and Leningrad, and made his stage debut in 1961 in child roles with the Royal Danish Ballet. In 1971 he graduated into the company, becoming solo (principal) dancer from 1977. He was a demi-caractère dancer of unusual vivacity and charm but also danced in the modern repertoire. In 1976 he cofounded Soloists of the Royal Danish Ballet, a touring group which performed internationally. During this time he was also an international guest artist performing in America, Europe, and Japan. He also taught and directed the Bournonville Summer Academy and from 1985 to 1994 was artistic director of the RDB where he concentrated on preserving the Bournonville inheritance as well as introducing works by Cranko , Balanchine , and Robbins , among others. He was director of the Royal Swedish Ballet (1995–9) after which he worked freelance, staging the works of Bournonville for companies around the world.

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Andersen , Ib

(b Copenhagen, 14 Dec. 1954).
Danish dancer and choreographer. He studied at the Royal Danish Ballet School and graduated into the company in 1973, becoing solo (principal) dancer in 1975. He was an exemplary Bournonville stylist, with a brilliant allegro and flying elevation but he also danced in many modern ballets, creating the role of the Boy in the RDB premiere of van Dantzig's Monument for a Dead Boy (1976). From 1980 to 1990 he was principal dancer with New York City Ballet where he created roles in Balanchine's Davidsbündlertänze (1980), Robbins's Piano Pieces (1981), Robbins and Tharp's Brahms/Handel (1984), and Martins's Concerto for Two Solo Pianos (1982), among others. He choreographed his first ballet in 1987: 1-2-3—1-2 (mus. Schoenberg , Royal Danish Ballet) and his first work for New York City Ballet in 1988, Baroque Variations (mus. Foss ). In 1999 he staged a new production of Giselle for Les Grands Ballets Canadiens.

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Andersen ballets.

Hans Christian Andersen (b Odense, 1805, d Copenhagen, 1875). The Danish poet and writer had a brief dancing career, making his debut in 1812 in C. Dahlén's Armida. He also became a close friend of August Bournonville and many of his fairy-tales have inspired dance librettos, including The Red Shoes (chor. Hassreiter , mus. Raoul Mader , Vienna, 1898, also filmed by Powell and Pressburger , 1948, chor. Massine and Helpmann ), The Little Mermaid (chor. Beck , mus. Fini Henriques , Copenhagen, 1909), Le Baiser de la fée (after The Ice Maiden, chor. Nijinska , mus. Stravinsky , Paris, 1928, also many subsequent versions), Les Cent Baisers (after The Swineherd, chor. Nijinska , mus. Frédéric d'Erlanger , London, 1935, also as The Swineherd, chor. Lander , mus. Johann Hye-Knudsen , Copenhagen, 1936), Le Roi nu (after The Emperor's New Clothes, chor. Lifar , mus. Françaix , Paris, 1936), and The Steadfast Tin Soldier (chor. Balanchine , mus. Bizet , 1975). Petit choreographed the ballet sequences for the American film Hans Christian Andersen. Danish TV made a film of The Swineherd (chor. Flindt , 1969).

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Anderson , Jack

(b Milwaukee, 15 June 1935).
US poet and dance critic. He was educated at Northwestern University, Indiana University, and University of California (Berkeley) and has written for several publications: Dance Magazine, Ballet Review (contributing editor), Dancing Times (New York Correspondent), and New York Times. In 1977 he co-founded Dance Chronicle (with G. Dorris ). He has taught dance history and criticism at Connecticut College, New School for Social Research, and Long Beach State University, and is author of several books including Dance (New York, 1974), The Nutcracker Ballet (New York, 1979), The One and Only: The Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo (London, 1981), Ballet and Modern Dance: A Concise History (Princeton, 1986, rev. 1992), The American Dance Festival (Duke Univ. Press, 1987), and Art Without Boundaries: The World of Modern Dance (Univ. of Iowa Press, 1997).

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Anderson , Lea

(b London, 13 June 1959).
British dancer and choreographer. She studied at St Martins School of Art and Design then trained at the Laban Centre, graduating in 1984. She formed the all-female group the Cholmondeleys, choreographing all its repertory. Her distinctive style married tiny, obsessive gestures with rhythmic group moves in works like Baby Baby Baby (mus. Nina Simone , 1985), Flesh and Blood (mus. Steve Blake , 1989), and Cold Sweat (mus. Steve Blake and Drosten Madden , 1990). In 1988 she founded the all-male group the Featherstonehaughs for which she has created Go Las Vegas (mus. Blake , 1995) among other shows, and the two groups have joined to perform Flag (mus. Blake and Madden , 1988), Beach Huts (mus. Blake , 1998), and The Cs and Fs and the Victims of Death in Smithereens (1999), and other shows. She has made several works for television and choreographed Sam Mendes's production of Cabaret in 1995.

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Anderson , Reid

(b New Westminster, BC, 1 Apr. 1949).
Canadian dancer. He studied at the Dolores Kirkwood Academy of Performing Arts and Royal Ballet School, joining Stuttgart Ballet in 1965. He was appointed soloist in 1972 and then principal (1974–85) creating roles in MacMillan's Requiem (1976) and My Brother, My Sisters (1978), Forsythe's Urlicht (1977) and Orpheus (1979), and Neumeier's Lady of the Camellias (1978), among others. In 1986 he was appointed artistic director of Ballet British Columbia, and from 1989 to 1996 he was artistic director of National Ballet of Canada after which he was appointed artistic director of Stuttgart Ballet.

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Anderson-Ivantzova , Elizabeth

(b Moscow 21 Apr. 1890, d New York, 11 Nov. 1973).
Russian-US dancer and teacher. She studied at the Imperial Theatre School, Moscow, graduating into the Bolshoi in 1906 where she was appointed ballerina in 1917. A year later she left Russia, and worked as choreographer for Nikita Baliev's Théâtre de Chauve-Souris in Paris (1920–1) where she became acquainted with innovative stage techniques. She later worked in Berlin and Lisbon and then moved to the US in 1923, where she staged Stravinsky's Les Noces at the New York Metropolitan Opera House (1929). She opened her own New York ballet studio where she taught from 1937 until her death, expounding her distinctive theories of placement in balance. Her pupils included Alicia Alonso .

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Andersson , Gerd

(b Stockholm, 1932).
Swedish dancer. She studied at the Royal Swedish Ballet School and joined the company in 1948, becoming ballerina in 1958. She created roles in several ballets, such as Tudor's Echoing of Trumpets, and guested with several companies, including National Ballet of Canada and London Festival Ballet. She retired in 1976.

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Anderton , Elizabeth

(b London, 28 May 1938).
British dancer and director. She studied at Sadler's Wells School and in 1955 joined the Sadler's Wells Opera Ballet, moving to the Royal Ballet in 1957 where she danced until 1974, becoming soloist in 1958 and principal in 1961. She danced the standard ballerina roles as well as creating roles in several ballets, including Cranko's Sweeney Todd (1959), Ashton's The Two Pigeons (1961), Tudor's Knight Errant (1968), and Nureyev's Romeo and Juliet (1977). In 1976 she became teacher and guest dancer at London Festival Ballet, where she was assistant artistic director (1979–83 and 1984–90), and she has since taught at the Royal Ballet.

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Andreyanova , Elena

(b St Petersburg, 13 July 1819, d Paris, 26 Oct. 1857).
Russian dancer. She studied at the St Imperial Theatre School, St Petersburg, graduating into the Bolshoi Theatre, St Petersburg, in 1837 where she danced until 1855. An expressive mime, equally gifted in classical and character dances, she was the first Russian to dance Giselle (18 Dec. 1842). She attracted some criticism over the favouritism shown her by Aleksandr Gedeonov , director of the Imperial Theatres. But Petipa chose her as his partner in Paquita which he staged for his own debut in 1847 and she created roles in several ballets including Perrot's La Filleule des fées (1850), The Naiad and the Fisherman (1851), and Gazelda (1853). She was also one of the first Russian dancers to perform abroad, for example in Hamburg, London, Paris, and Milan in 1845, and in London again in 1852. She studied for a while with Blasis. Between 1852 and 1855 she toured Russia with a group of Imperial dancers. In 1855 she retired to Paris.

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Angiolini , Gaspero

(b Florence, 9 Feb. 1731, d Milan, 6 Feb. 1803).
Italian dancer, choreographer, ballet master, and composer. He came from a theatrical family and had his first dance lessons from his father. Between 1747 and 1750 he danced in Venice with occasional guest performances around Italy and he created his first choreography in 1752 in Rome. In or around the same year he moved to Vienna to work under Hilverding . He danced in several of the latter's ballets and in 1758 became Hilverding's successor as ballet master in Vienna, remaining there until 1766 except for a period in St Petersburg. His ballets were strongly influenced by Hilverding's theories of the ballet d'action though he developed his own choreographic idiom which attempted an unusually (for the time) close synthesis between music and dance. In 1761 he staged his pantomime ballet Don Juan to Gluck's music, in which he danced the title role. Audiences accustomed to the light-hearted dance divertissements of the age were moved and shocked by its tragic ending. He continued his fertile association with Gluck by choreographing the first performance of Orpheus and Eurydice (1762) and in 1765 set Semiramide (based on Voltaire's drama) to music by that composer. This work also shocked audiences with its brutal story-line but with it he established himself as a leading choreographer of ballet d'action. A brilliant dancer and mime himself, he demanded total expressiveness of face and gesture from his dancers as well as an impeccable technique. He composed his works almost in the form of classical Greek tragedies with a limited number of soloists and a chorus. Unlike Noverre whose own narrative ballets were accompanied by lengthy explanatory programme notes, he supplied only a bare outline of the plot, insisting that the dancers' ‘silent speech’ was sufficiently eloquent to convey the material.
In 1762 he left Vienna for a year to join Hilverding as assistant ballet master in St Petersburg and in 1766 succeeded him there as ballet master. He choreographed many works in Russia including Les Chinoises en Europe (to his own music) in 1767. Back in Italy between 1772 and 1773 he began making public attacks on Noverre whom he accused of plagiarizing Hilverding's ideas about the ballet d'action (Lettere di Gaspero Angiolini a Mons. Noverre sopra i balli pantomimi). He returned to Vienna (1774–6) where he created L'Orphelin de la Chine (1774), then moved back to St Petersburg for a second contract (1776–8). Between 1778 and 1782 he was again in Italy as ballet master at La Scala and elsewhere then returned to St Petersburg (1783–6) for the last time. Back in Italy he choreographed ballets for several theatres but was imprisoned for his republican activities in 1799. In 1801 he was released and returned to Milan. During his life he composed the music for many of his own ballets and also tried to develop a system of dance notation based on musical notation. He was married to his partner Maria Teresa Fogliazzi .

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anglaise.

Term used in 18th-century France to distinguish the English style of contredanse (in which couples faced each other in rows) from the French (which was performed in a circle or square). Also used later to indicate dances of English origin.

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Anglo-Polish Ballet.

Ballet company formed in London in 1940 by two dancers, Czeslow Konarski and Alicja Halama . In 1941 Jan Cobel became director and it gave a very successful tour of England, performing subsequent seasons in London until 1947. It also performed for the troops in Italy and India during the war. Gilmour , Kersley , and Rassine were among its dancers.

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Animaux modèles, Les.

Ballet in one act with choreography and libretto by Lifar , music by Poulenc , and design by M. Brianchon . Premiered 8 Aug. 1942 at Paris Opera with Lifar , Schwarz , and Chauviré . It is based on six fables by La Fontaine .

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Anisimova , Nina

(b St Petersburg, 27 Jan. 1909, d Leningrad, 23 Sept. 1979).
Russian dancer and choreographer. She studied at the Petrograd (later Leningrad) Ballet School with Romanova , Shiriaev , and Vagonova . In 1926 she graduated into the Maly Theatre of Opera and Ballet, then from 1927 to 1958 she danced with GATOB (later Kirov Ballet). In 1932 she created the role of Thérèse in Vainonen's Flames of Paris and in 1936 choreographed her first major ballet, Andalusian Wedding (mus. Chabrier ) for Leningrad Ballet School. Her subsequent works include Gayané (mus. Khachaturian , 1942) for the Kirov, Perm, Songs of the Crane (mus. Stepanov and Ismagilov , 1944) for Bashkir Opera, The Magic Veil (mus. Zaranek , 1947), and her own version of Scheherazade (mus. Rimsky-Korsakov , 1950), both for the Maly Theatre, Leningrad. In 1964 she staged Swan Lake for the Royal Danish Ballet. Between 1963 and 1974 she taught at the Choreographic Dept. of the Leningrad Conservatory.

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Anna Karenina ballets.

Tolstoi's 1878 novel and its tragic heroine have been the basis for several ballets. Plisetskaya created a three-act version in 1972, in conjunction with Natalia Ryzhenko and Victor Smirnov-Golovanov . The libretto was by Boris Lvov-Anokhin , music by Shchedrin , and design by V. Leventhal (Plisetskaya's costumes by Pierre Cardin ). Premiered 10 June by the Bolshoi Ballet, Moscow, with Plisetskaya, M. Liepa , Fadeyechev , and Y. Vladimirov . In 1979 A. Prokovsky also created a full-length version for Australian Ballet to music by Tchaikovsky .

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Anouilh , Jean

(b Bordeaux, 23 June 1910, d Lausanne, 3 Oct. 1987).
French playwright. His 1932 ballet for actors Le Bal des voleurs was re-choreographed by Massine (Nervi , 1960) and revived for Royal Ballet (London, 1963). He wrote several librettos for Petit including Les Demoiselles de la nuit (1948).

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Ansermet , Ernest

(b Vevey, 11 Nov. 1883, d Geneva, 20 Feb. 1969).
Swiss conductor. He was hired by Diaghilev in 1915 and conducted premieres of Stravinsky's L'Histoire du soldat (1918), Chant du rossignol (1920), Pulcinella (1920), Renard (1922), and Les Noces (1923), also Satie's Parade (1917), de Falla's Le Tricorne, and Prokofiev's Chout (both 1923).

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Anspannung-Abspannung.

Laban terminology for the contrasting actions of modern dance-the equivalent of Graham's contraction and release.

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Antheil , George

(b Trenton, NJ, 8 July 1900, d New York, 12 Feb. 1959).
US composer. In 1923–4 he wrote the music for Ballet mécanique, a film planned with Fernand Léger . The score, including doorbells and the sound of aeroplanes, was premiered in 1926. He also composed scores for Balanchine's Dreams (1935) and Loring's Capital of the World (1953).

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Antigone.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Cranko , music by Theodorakis , and design by Rufino Tamayo . Premiered 19 Oct. 1959 by the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden, London, with Beriosova , Burne , and MacLeary . This adaptation of Sophocles' tragedy was revived for Stuttgart Ballet in 1961. Other Antigone ballets include those by Gioia (Venice, 1790), G. Galzerani (Milan, 1825), and Sokolow (mus. Chávez , c.1940).

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Antonio (orig. Antonio Ruiz Soler ;

b Seville, 4 Nov. 1922, d Madrid, 6 Feb. 1996).
Spanish dancer, choreographer, and director. He studied, with his cousin Rosario , under Manuel Real (Realito) in Seville and made his debut with her in Liège in 1928. Their partnership was known as Los Chavalillos Sevillanos while they were children but they continued to dance with each other for the next twenty years appearing all over the world (US debut, 1940, London debut, 1951). Antonio in particular became the most famous Spanish dancer of his generation, with a charismatic personality and virtuoso footwork. The partnership split up in 1953 and he formed his own company, Antonio and the Ballets de Madrid. He choreographed many works for this, in a combination of Spanish and classical styles, and several were subsequently taken into the repertories of other companies.

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Antonio , Juan

(b Mexico City, 4 May 1945, d Toronto, 24 May 1990).
Mexican dancer. He studied with Xavier Francis and Zaraspe , at American Ballet Theatre School, and American Ballet Center, making his debut aged 18 at the Nuevo Teatro de la Danza Mexico. In 1964 he joined the Ballet Clásico de Mexico then subsequently danced with the companies of Lang , Sokolow , de Lavallade , Limón , and Tetley , and from 1967 with Louis Falco Dance Company, of which he became associate director.

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Antony and Cleopatra ballets.

Antony and Cleopatra's historic love affair has inspired several ballets including Noverre's (Ludwigsburg, 1765), Aumer's (mus. Kreutzer , Paris, 1808), Igor Tchernichov's (mus. E. Lazarev , Leningrad, 1968), dell'Ara's (mus. Prokofiev , Milan, 1971) and B. Stevenson's (mus. Rimsky-Korsakov arr. Lanchberg, 2000.

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Apache Dance.

A fast and racy dance routine that was popular in revues and music halls during the early years of the 20th century. It features a violent male (originally a Parisian gangster, the dance being named after the Apache gang) displaying his machismo in brutal, erotic partnership with a scantily clad girlfriend. It was first performed by Max Dearly and Mistinguette at Moulin Rouge on 27 July 1908 under the title Valse chaloupée using music by Offenbach . It became very popular in London and New York and was later adapted as a ballroom dance. Cole Porter included an ‘Apache Dance’ in his 1953 musical Can-Can.

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Apollo.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Balanchine , music by Stravinsky , and design by André Bauchant . Premiered 12 June 1928 by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes at Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt, Paris, with Lifar , Nikitina , Tchernicheva , and Doubrovska . It was performed under the title Apollon musagète until 1957 and follows the score in portraying Apollo's birth from his mother Leto, his education through (and flirtation with) the three Muses Terpsichore, Calliope, and Polyhymnia, and finally his ascent of Mt. Parnassus. The plot is subordinate to the choreography, however, which is widely regarded as the first example of neo-classical ballet. Balanchine not only stripped academic dance to a lean clarity but re-worked its vocabulary with a sharp and witty modernist twist. He subsequently revised and refined the ballet many times, cutting both music and dance and eventually omitting scenery. It is one of New York City Ballet's signature works and is also danced by companies all round the world. Other settings of the same score include Milloss's (Rome, 1951), T. Gsovsky's (Berlin, 1951), Lifar's (Milan, 1956) and M. Clark's (London, 1995).

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Apollo ballets.

Several works have been inspired by the Greek god of music including Hilverding's Apollon et Daphné (1763), Noverre's Apollon et les muses (1782), Didelot's Apollon et Daphné (1802) and Apollon et Persée (1803), Nijinska's Apollon et la belle (1937), Bolm's Apollon musagète (1928), and Balanchine's Apollo (1928).

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Apollon musagète.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Bolm , music by Stravinsky , and design by N. Remisoff . Premiered 27 Apr. 1928 at Library of Congress, Washington, DC, with Bolm, Page , Berenice Holms , and Elise Reiman . It was the first setting of Stravinsky's score of the same title (commissioned by Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge ) but has been superseded by Balanchine's version.

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Appalachian Spring.

Modern dance work in one act with choreography by Graham , music by Copland , sets by Noguchi , and costumes by Edythe Gilfond . Premiered 30 Oct. 1944 at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC, with Graham , O'Donnell , Cunningham , and E. Hawkins . It portrays a young American bride and her husband taking possession of their land and their future life under the presiding gaze of a revivalist preacher and a pioneer woman. In its celebratory depiction of the pioneer ethos it represents the culmination of Graham's handling of American themes during the 1930s and 1940s.

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Apparitions.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Ashton , libretto by Lambert , music by Liszt (orch. Gordon Jacob ), and designs by Beaton . Premiered 11 Feb. 1936 by Vic-Wells Ballet at Sadler's Wells Theatre, London, with Helpmann , Fonteyn , and Turner . It was inspired by Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique and its five scenes portray the quest of a romantic poet who, drugged with opium, searches for the perfect poetic expression of his love. Ashton's collaboration with Lambert and Beaton was seminal in the early development of English ballet, and this was also the first work in which he and Fonteyn established their special creative rapport. It was revived by London Festival Ballet in 1987 with Natalia Makarova .

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Après-midi d'un faune, L' (Eng. title The Afternoon of a Faun).

Ballet in one act with choreography by Nijinsky , music by Debussy , and design by Bakst . Premiered 19 May 1912 by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, at the Théâtre du Chatelet, Paris, with Nijinsky as the Faun. It is set to Debussy's 1894 tone poem Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (itself inspired by Mallarmé's poem) and depicts a Faun who is spying on a group of nymphs going to bathe. He tries to embrace one of them but she flees, leaving her scarf behind. He seizes it and lies down on it, releasing his desire with an orgasmic pelvic thrust. It was Nijinsky's first work and its choreography (which required the dancers to move in flattened, profile positions with angled limbs and turned in feet) took over 100 rehearsals to perfect. Some critics were scandalized by the ‘bestial’ eroticism of the work, but its admirers, led by Rodin , were profoundly impressed by its novelty of expression. It was the only Nijinsky ballet to have been notated (Nijinsky wrote it down in his own idiosyncratic modification of the Stepanov system), and in 1989 Les Grands Ballets Canadiens premiered the first revival based on Nijinsky's score rather than on memories handed down by dancers. Debussy did not approve Nijinsky's interpretation but his music has been used several times since by, among others, Lifar (as a solo, 1935) and Robbins (Afternoon of a Faun, 1953).

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Ara , Ugo dell'

(b Rome, 13 Apr. 1921).
Italian dancer, choreographer, and ballet master. He studied at Rome Opera Ballet School and graduated into the company, where he became premier danseur, performing lead roles in works by Milloss . He then danced with La Scala (1946–50) though between 1949 and 1950 he toured in the musical Carosello napoletano, choreographed by himself. After 1950 he worked as a freelance choreographer, for example reviving the Ballet of the Nuns from Meyerbeer's Robert le diable (Palermo, 1966) and Manzotti's Excelsior (Florence, 1967).

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arabesque

(Fr., ornament). One of the basic positions of ballet. The dancer stands on one leg (either bent or straight), with the other extended behind with a straight knee and pointed foot. The arms are held in various positions that harmoniously extend the line of the arabesque. The body may be held vertically erect, or stretched forward parallel to the floor (in arabesque allongée) or inclined down towards the front foot, while still maintaining an extended line (in arabesque penchée). The position was known in the 18th century and was codified by Blasis .

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Araiz , Oscar

(b Bahía Blanca, 2 Dec. 1940).
Argentinian dancer, choreographer, and director. He studied with Schottelius , Hoyer , and others and made his debut in 1958 at the Teatro Argentino in La Plata. From 1964 to 1967 he toured with the Hoy Ballet company which he co-directed with Susana Zimmermann and Ana Labat , and from 1968 to 1973 he was artistic director of the Ballet del Teatro San Martín in Buenos Aires, becoming one of S. America's most regarded choreographers. His first work was created in 1959, a duet based on a Gershwin prelude, and his many subsequent works include El canto de Orfeo (mus. Henry , 1964), Orpheus (mus. Stravinsky , 1964), The Miraculous Mandarin (mus. Bartók , 1967), and Romeo and Juliet (mus. Prokofiev , 1970). In 1970 he also choreographed the ‘Dance Around the Golden Calf’ for the Buenos Aires production of Schoenberg's Moses and Aaron. After 1977 he created some ballets for Joffrey Ballet and in 1980 became ballet director of Geneva Ballet, choreographing the full-length ballet Tango (mus. A. Stampone , 1981). In 1990 he returned to San Martín , re-staging several of his ballets as well as commissioning new work from other Argentinian choreographers. In 1995 he began working as a theatre director, resigning from San Martín in 1998.

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Araujo , Loipa

(b Havana, c.1943).
Cuban dancer. She studied at Escuela de la Sociedad Pro-Arte Musical and also with the Alonsos, L. Fokine , and Parés , joining National Ballet of Cuba in 1959 where she became prima ballerina in 1967. She frequently guested abroad and in 1973 joined Ballet de Marseille, where she created the lead role in Petit's Les Intermittences du cœur (1974).

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Arbeau , Thoinot (orig. Jehan Tabourot ;

b Dijon, 17 Mar. 1520 (some sources say 1519), d Langres, 21 July 1595 (some sources say 1596)).
French dance writer, author of the famous L'Orchésographie. Published in 1588, this treatise on 16th-century dancing, fencing, piping, and drumming was written in the form of a dialogue between Arbeau and his student Capriol . It supplies descriptions of numerous dances, plus musical notation, with the steps and positions clearly defined, e.g. basse danse, pavane d'Espagne, galliarde, volte, courante, allemande, morisque, and 24 versions of the branle. Although Arbeau (a provincial writer) may not have accurately known how these dances were performed at court, his work provides insights into contemporary musical performance practice and also social convention (Capriol is instructed to ‘spit and blow [his] nose sparingly’ and to converse affably). It was translated into English by C. W. Beaumont in 1925 and inspired Ashton's ballet Capriol Suite (mus. Warlock , 1930).

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Arc Dance Company.

British modern dance company. It was founded in 1985 by Kim Brandstrup and made its first appearance at London's Camden Festival. Brandstrup has choreographed all the works in its repertory (for around ten dancers) including The Soldier's Tale (mus. Stravinsky , 1986), Antic (mus. Ian Dearden , 1993), Crime Fictions (mus. Dearden , 1996), and The Return of Don Juan (mus. Kim Helweg , 1999).

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Archer , Kenneth

(b London, 7 Feb. 1943).
British designer and reconstructor of dance design. He trained in art history at the universities of Antioch and Essex and with his partner M. Hodson he has been responsible for researching and reconstructing many early 20th-century ballets including Nijinsky's Rite of Spring (staged 1987) and Jeux (staged 1996), Börlin's Skating Rink (staged 1996), and Balanchine's Cotillon (staged 1988). His books include Roerich East and West (Bournemouth, 2000).

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archives and museums.

Given the ephemeral nature of dance, archives and libraries are extremely important to students, historians, and lovers of the artform. Some of these are in private collections and difficult to access, but in the larger institutions, digitalization of material (i.e. the transfer of images and text to machine-readable format) is making some collections accessible via the Internet.
The first major specialist archive, Les Archives Internationales de la Danse, was set up by Rolf de Maré in 1931 in Paris. This not only housed a comprehensive library of books, magazines, programmes, models, designs, and scores but also presented lectures, demonstrations, and exhibitions. Between 1932 and 1936 it published a magazine and in 1932 it held its first choreographic competition which was won by Jooss with The Green Table. In 1950 the AID was dissolved. Its books and engravings went to the Musée de l'Opéra in Paris and the rest to Stockholm's newly opened Dance Museum. This was the world's first dance museum with individual collections dealing in SE Asian dance, Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, Les Ballets Suédois, Jooss, and European modern dance.
The world's most inclusive archive is the Dance Collection in the Performing Arts Library at New York's Lincoln Center, which was formed in 1944. This contains millions of books, prints, photographs, programmes, manuscripts, and films and has special collections devoted to Isadora Duncan , Diaghilev, Denishawn , and Robbins . On receipt of Robbins's personal archive in 1998 the collection was re-named in his honour. More Diaghilev material is contained in the Lifar collection at the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut, and in the Stravinsky-Diaghilev Foundation which includes designs, posters, scores, and memorabilia. America also has important dance libraries in the Harvard University Theatre Collection and in the Universities of Florida and California.
In Paris the Musée de l'Opéra has extensive material relating to its dance history which dates back to the 17th century, including designs, paintings, and musical scores. It possesses Pavlova memorabilia and also Kochno's collection which includes many Diaghilev photographs. The Theatre Collections at the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal contain ballet material from the 17th and 18th centuries.
Milan's Museo Teatrale alla Scala and the Livia Sioni library contain extensive material on Italian ballet and in particular manuscripts by Blasis and Manzotti . The Dance Documentation Centre in Genzano, founded 1985, has a large collection of videos and books.
Germany's biggest research resource is the Dance Archive, based in Cologne, which is renowned for its 20th-century material, while the Dance Archive of the Academy of Arts in Leipzig, founded 1957, covers folk as well as stage dance.
In London, the Archives of the Dance are now part of the Theatre Museum in Covent Garden, and contain many press cuttings, scores, prints, and photographs as well as important Diaghilev material. The Video Place at London's Place Theatre is developing an extensive video collection of new modern works, and the National Resource Centre for Dance at the University of Surrey is one of the leading centres for dance information. The Royal Opera House Library and Museum has a large collection of photographs and books relating to the history of the Royal Ballet companies. The Royal Academy of Dancing and the Laban Centre also both have extensive collections.
Copenhagen's Theatre Museum houses much Bournonville material and extensive photographs and costumes.
In St Petersburg, major holdings of dance material include the State Institute of Theatre, Music, and Cinematography, the Maryinsky Theatre Museum, and the Vaganova School museum. In Moscow, the State Central Archive of Literature and Arts, founded 1941, holds considerable ballet material while the A. A. Bakhrushin State Central Theatrical Museum is the oldest Russian theatrical museum.
In India, most of the richest collections are in private libraries, one of the most noted palace collections being the Maharajah Serfoji Sarasvathi in Madras. Many schools are also home to collections including the Darpena Academy of Performing Arts in Ahmadabad.
In Japan, important collections include the Eiryo Ashihara collection at the National Diet Library in Tokyo, the Shochiku-Otani Library in Tokyo, and the Tsubouchi Memorial Theatre Museum at Waseda University.
Around the world, most opera houses and large dance companies have archives relating to their own work.

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Argentina.

During the 19th century there was only sporadic dance activity in the country's theatres, centred in Buenos Aires. In the 1830s a small company of dancers performed at the Teatro Coliseo and there were visits from Spanish dancers but it was not until the Teatro Colón opened in 1857 that classical European ballet was first performed, with Jean Rousset's company dancing Giselle and presenting other productions based on the works of Montplaisir and Perrot . Thierry's company appeared in 1860 and 1861, dancing versions of Romantic ballets such as La Sylphide and Esmeralda. Between 1861 and 1873 dances performed in programmes given by the Bouffes Parisiens were popular and in 1868 Josephine Lecerf had a personal success in Robert le diable. Buenos Aires' first ballet school was opened in 1879 by Giovanni Pratesi and in the same year a popular production of Manzotti's Excelsior was staged (a cigarette was named after the ballet and sold with pictures of the ballerinas). The first Argentinian production of Coppélia was danced in 1903.
In 1908 the new Teatro Colón was built, housing a small company of dancers and many more foreign artists began to appear including Preobrajenska in 1912 (in Dukas's opera Ariane et Barbe-bleue), Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in 1913 and 1917, and Pavlova and Duncan in 1916. In 1925 the company at Teatro Colón was completely reorganized under the direction of Bolm. His soloists included R. Page and A. Ludmila and for the first time many Argentinian dancers were included in the company. During the following decades many guest choreographers were invited to mount their works in the company which became known as the Ballet Estable del Teatro Colón, including Nijinska (during the 1920s and 1930s), Fokine (1931), Lifar (1934), and Balanchine (1942). In 1943 the Colón was the wartime base of de Basil's Original Ballet Russe. After the war the stream of guest choreographers continued with Lichine (1947), Massine (at various times between 1948 and 1953, also 1955), and Gsovsky , Tudor , Rosen , and Charrat during the 1950s. J. Carter staged many ballets including his own versions of Coppélia, Swan Lake, and Sleeping Beauty, and in 1971 Nureyev staged and danced in his own Nutcracker, partnering the Colón's principal ballerina Olga Ferri . In 1968 the company made its European debut at the International Dance Festival in Paris, but in 1971 it suffered the loss of nine principal dancers in an aircrash. Since then its directors have included Antonio Truyol , Ferri , Enrique Lommi , Bruno d'Astoli , Raquel Rosito , and Ricardo Bustamente (appointed 1998). It continues to perform a varied repertory of classics and 20th-century works. The Colón's associated school, the Instituto Superior de Arte del Teatro Colón has produced many international star dancers, most recently Bocca, Guerra , and Herrera , who frequently return to guest with the company.
Ballet continues to dominate the country's dance activity, though in 1968 a more contemporary company, Balletto Contemporaneo de Ciudad de Buenos Aires, was founded at the Teatro San Martín under the direction of Araiz. In 1998 he was succeeded by Maurice Wainrot and Kive Staiff . During the 1970s some independent modern dance groups (e.g. Nucleodanza) were established (though political conditions were not favourable to artistic experiment), and since the restoration of democracy in 1983 the rate of new activity has increased. However, Argentinian companies which have gained the highest international profile are those specializing in tango.

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Argentina, La (orig. Antonia Mercé ;

b Buenos Aires, 4 Sept. 1890 (some sources say 1888), d Bayonne, 18 July 1936).
Spanish dancer. Both her parents were professional dancers and she was trained in classical technique by her father, Manuel Mercé , who became ballet master at Madrid's Teatro Real. She made her debut aged 6 and was promoted to premiere danseuse of Madrid Opera at 11. At 14 she abandoned ballet to study Spanish dance with her mother and four years later began her first foreign tour. In 1929 she formed her own company, Ballets Espagnols d'Argentina, for which she choreographed several works, including El amor brujo (mus. de Falla ). She recruited her corps de ballet from Paris Opera and her soloists, including Vicente Escudero , from Spain. But the company did not continue for long as solo performances were La Argentina's special forte. Among her worldwide public she was renowned for her dramatic presence, her extraordinary castanet playing, and her revolutionary fusion of traditional forms with contemporary Spanish music. She was considered by many to be the greatest Spanish dancer of all time, the critic André Levinson claiming that she was responsible for the 20th-century renaissance of Spanish dance.

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Argentinita, La (orig. Encarnacion López Julvez ;

b Buenos Aires, 1895, d New York, 24 Sept. 1945).
Spanish dancer. Her Spanish parents brought her to Spain when she was a child and from a very young age she studied traditional Spanish dances, making her debut in Madrid when she was 6. She took her stage name as a tribute to La Argentina and her own foreign tours won her fame as a dancer of almost equal stature. In 1927 she founded the Ballet de Madrid with Federico García Lorca and in 1933 attempted the first largescale theatrical presentation of flamenco in her ballet Las Calles de Cadiz. In 1939 she collaborated with Massine on Capriccio espagnole, and danced with American Ballet Theatre in 1945 in her own works Bolero (mus. Ravel ) and Goyescas (mus. Granados ). She was the sister of dancer Pilar López .

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Argyle , Pearl (orig. Pearl Wellman ;

b Johannesburg, 7 Nov. 1910, d Hollywood, Calif., 29 Jan. 1947).
South African-British dancer. She studied with Rambert and Legat and made her debut in 1926 with Rambert's company, becoming ballerina with the Carmargo Society and also performing with Les Ballets 1933. She was then principal dancer with the Vic-Wells Ballet (1935–8). She also danced in musicals and revues, including Cochran's 1932 production, Magic Nights (mus. various, chor. Bradley and Ashton ). In 1938 she moved to the US where she performed in several Broadway musicals including One Touch of Venus (mus. Weill , chor. de Mille , 1943). Though never a strong technician she was noted for her outstanding beauty, especially her exquisite hands and arms. As an early muse to Ashton she created roles in his Façade and Lady of Shalott (both 1931); he wrote of her: ‘she was an inspiration, one became drunk with her beauty.’ She also created roles in de Valois's Bar aux Folies-Bergère and Howard's Mermaid (both 1934).

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Ari , Carina (orig. Carina Janssen ;

b Stockholm, 14 Apr. 1897, d Buenos Aires, 24 Dec. 1970).
Swedish dancer. She studied at the Royal Swedish Ballet School and with Fokine in Copenhagen and between 1920 and 1923 was ballerina with Les Ballets Suédois. She then embarked on a solo career but also choreographed several works for the Paris Opéra Comique and created the leading role in Lifar's Le Cantique des cantiques (Paris Opera, 1938). She also choreographed works for the Royal Swedish Ballet. She retired from the stage in 1939 and took up sculpting. In her will she endowed the Carina Ari Foundation to provide grants for young dancers as well as the Carina Ari Gold Medal for choreographers (recipients have included Ashton , Tudor , and Béjart ).

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Ariadne ballets.

The story of Ariadne, Theseus, and the Minotaur has inspired many choreographers including Deshayes (Paris, 1747), Hilverding (Vienna, 1754), Angiolini (Milan, 1773), Gallet (London, 1797), Reisinger (Moscow, 1875), Lifar (Bacchus et Ariane, mus. Roussel , Paris, 1931), Graham (Errand into the Maze, mus. Menotti , New York, 1947), John Taras (New York, 1947), and Ailey (mus. Jolivet , Harkness Ballet, 1965).

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Armitage , Karole

(b Madison, Wis., 3 Mar. 1954).
US dancer and choreographer. She studied at the N. Carolina School of the Arts, the University of Utah, the School of American Ballet, and Harkness Ballet School. She made her debut with Geneva Opera Ballet (1972–5), then joined Cunningham's company in 1976 where she danced until 1980, creating roles in, among others, Squaregame (1976—a duet with Cunningham). She created her first work, a punk ballet called Ne, in 1978 (New York) then between 1980 and c.1990 she directed her own company, creating, for example, The Watteau Duet (1985). Her style is a fusion of modern and classical dance, frequently incorporating multi-media performance and she has created works for many companies, including Paris Opera, American Ballet Theatre (The Mollino Room, 1986), New York City Ballet, White Oak, and Berlin and Lyons Opera Ballets. During the early 1990s she focused on film-making, and choreographing for film and rock video, though she also made some work for ballet companies in Europe, such as The Dog is Us (Berlin Opera Ballet, 1994). Between 1996 and 1998 she was director of MaggioDanza, Florence, for which she choreographed several works, including Apollo e Dafnè (mus. Handel , 1997). In 1998 she returned to New York as a freelance choreographer.

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Armitage , Merle

(b Mason City, 1893, d 1975).
US writer, designer, and impresario. He was in charge of the American publicity for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and Anna Pavlova's company and promoted the early tours of Graham's group. He wrote the first book about her, Martha Graham, Dancer (1937).

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Armour , Thomas

(b Tarpon Springs, Fla., 7 Mar. 1909).
US dancer, teacher, and director. He studied with Preobrajenska , Eglevsky , and others and danced with the companies of Rubinstein (1933–4), Nijinska (1934), Woizikowski (1935–8), Rio de Janeiro Opera House (1939), and Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo (1931–41). He founded his own school in Miami in 1949, became director of Miami Conservatory of Music and Dance, and in 1951 was founder-artistic director of Miami Ballet, named artistic director emeritus in 1995.

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Arnold , (Sir) Malcolm

(b Northampton, 21 Oct. 1921).
British composer who has written the scores for several ballets including Ashton's Homage to the Queen (1953) and Helpmann's Elektra (1963). MacMillan based his Solitaire (1956) on Arnold's English Dances and Bintley used his Four Scottish Dances for his Flowers of the Forest (1985). He was knighted in 1993.

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Aroldingen , Karin von

(b Berlin, 9 Sept. 1941).
German-US dancer. She studied gymnastics in early childhood then ballet with T. Gsovsky in Berlin. In 1958 she made her debut with American Festival Ballet in Bremen, then was soloist with Frankfurt Ballet (1959–60). Here she danced the lead in Balanchine's Seven Deadly Sins which led to her joining New York City Ballet in 1962. Though she rose slowly through the company ranks (appointed soloist in 1967 and principal in 1972), her brilliant allegro technique made her a natural Balanchine dancer. She created roles in many of his ballets including Who Cares? (1970), Violin Concerto (1972), Vienna Waltzes (1977), Kammermusik No. 2 (1978), and Davidsbündlertänze (1980) as well as in Robbins's Goldberg Variations (1972). In 1979 she joined the faculty of the School of American Ballet and retired from the stage in 1984. At his death Balanchine left her the rights to several of his ballets and she has staged his work for other companies.

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Arova , Sonia

(b Sofia, 20 June 1927, d California, 4 Feb. 2001).
Bulgarian-British dancer and director. She studied with Preobrajenska , Lifar , and others and in 1942 joined the English International Ballet, moving to Ballet Rambert in 1946. In 1947 she moved to the Metropolitan Ballet and later guested with various companies around the world, frequently partnered by Nureyev and Bruhn . She was ballet director in Oslo (1966–70) where she helped to form the Norwegian National Ballet, then ballet director of the State Hamburg Opera (1970–1), after which she directed the San Diego Ballet. In 1976 she was appointed Director of Dance at the Alabama School of Fine Arts.

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Arpino , Gerald (orig. Gennaro Peter Arpino ;

b Staten Island, NY, 14 Jan. 1928).
US dancer, choreographer, and director. He began studying ballet at the age of 19 in Seattle with Mary Ann Wells and a year later moved to New York where he studied at the School of American Ballet, also with May O'Donnell and Gertrude Shurr . Between 1949 and 1953 he danced in O'Donnell's company, and in 1952 with the Nana Gollner/Peter Petroff company as well as occasionally performing on Broadway. In 1953 he co-founded a school with Robert Joffrey (the American Ballet Center in New York) and in 1956 they founded the Robert Joffrey Theatre Dancers (becoming the Robert Joffrey Ballet). He was principal dancer with the company and created his first work for them in 1961. In 1965 he became the company's assistant director, and sole director in 1988 after Joffrey's death. Nearly all his ballets have been made for the company. His choreography fuses classical and modern idioms, often taking dance to extremes of athleticism. It also deals with overt sexuality and themes of spiritual aspiration. His best-known works include the all-male Olympics (mus. T. Mayuzumi , 1966), The Clowns (mus. Kay , 1968), one of the first ballets to address the issue of nuclear holocaust, the rock ballet Trinity (mus. Ralph Holdridge , 1970), which became the company's signature work, and the pure dance work Suite Saint-Saëns (1978). As director of Joffrey Ballet (since 1995 renamed Joffrey Ballet of Chicago) Arpino is committed to maintaining the company as a popular showcase for new American choreography. He was responsible for mounting the huge box office hit Billboards in 1993, with music by Prince and choreography by L. Dean , Sappington , Moulton , and Pucci , and his later works include Footnotes for R. J. (mus. Teo Macero , Chicago, 1998).

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Arriaga , Guillermo

(b Mexico City, 4 July 1926).
Mexican dancer, choreographer, and director. He studied at the National Ballet of Mexico and at the Mexican Dance Academy, later with Limón , Humphrey , Cunningham , Craske , Bolm , La Meri , and others. He danced with various companies including those of Lettie Carroll and Enrique Vela Quintero and in 1953 founded his own group, Contemporary Ballet. In 1956 he founded the Mexican Ballet and in 1958 the Popular Ballet of Mexico which he directed and performed with until 1964. The company increasingly moved away from modern to folkloric dance and in 1964 he founded the Folkloric Ballet of Mexico which toured widely around the world. His most enduring work, Zapata (mus. Moncayo , 1953), was a celebration of Mexico's national hero, Emiliano Zapata . In 1983 he was appointed director of the Dance Department of the National Institute of Fine Arts where he founded the Dance Research, Documentation and Archives Centre and from 1985 to 1987 directed the National Dance Company.

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arrière, en.

Fr. backwards.

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Artifact.

Ballet in four parts with choreography, scenery, and lighting by Forsythe , music by Eva Crossman-Hecht (pts. 1 and 4), Bach (pt. 2), and Forsythe (pt. 3). Premiered 5 Dec. 1984 at Frankfurt Opera House, by Frankfurt Ballet. Forsythe's third full-length work is essentially a pure dance work for a chorus of 36, two principal couples, and one lead woman, but two actors also move through the work declaiming interrogatory texts on the meaning of action, perception, and memory. At times the choreography deliberately courts chaos, at certain points Forsythe subverts theatrical convention, e.g. by having the curtain rise and fall at seemingly arbitrary points in the performance. The overall effect, however, is of a large jigsaw puzzle of different theatrical elements falling into place. It entered the repertory of Dutch National Ballet in 1993.

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Art of Movement Studio.

Teaching and research centre grounded in Laban's theories of movement. It was founded in Manchester in 1946 and in 1953 it moved to Addlestone, Surrey, under the direction of Lisa Ullmann , offering courses in training professional dancers as well as effective ways of using dance in general education and therapy. It is now incorporated into the Laban Centre for Movement and Dance in S. London.

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Arts Educational School.

British school combining academic studies with specialist dance, music, and drama training. It was founded in 1945 in Tring Park.

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Asafiev , Boris (pen-name: Igor Glyebov ;

b St Petersburg, 29 July 1884, d Moscow, 27 Jan. 1949).
Russian musicologist and composer. He was rehearsal pianist at the Maryinsky Ballet and in 1906 invited the student Nijinsky to choreograph his children's opera Cendrillon. He subsequently wrote the music for 28 ballets including Vainonen's Flames of Paris (1932), Zakharov's Fountain of Bakhchisarai (1934), and Lavrovsky's Prisoner of the Caucasus (1938). He wrote widely on ballet and music and was made People's Artist of the USSR.

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Aschenbrödel.

Cinderella ballet in three acts with music by J. Strauss II. It was first choreographed by E. Graeb (Berlin Staatsoper, 2 May 1901) and later versions include J. Hassreiter's (Vienna, 4 Oct. 1908) and R. de Warren's (as Cinderella, Northern Ballet Theatre, Manchester, 17 Dec. 1979). See also under Cinderella.

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Aschengreen , Erik

(b Copenhagen, 31 Aug. 1935).
Danish dance critic. He was dance critic of Berlingske Tidende from 1964 and Danish correspondent of Dance Magazine and Les Saisons de la danse. His published works include Études (Copenhagen, 1970), and he has lectured at the Royal Danish Ballet School and in the US and Canada.

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Ashley , Merrill (orig. Linda Michelle Merrill ;

b St Paul, Minn., 2 Dec. 1950).
US dancer. She studied with Sybil de Neergaard and Phyllis Marmein and at the School of American Ballet, and in 1967 made her debut with New York City Ballet where she was appointed soloist in 1974 and principal in 1977. One of the last ballerinas to be trained directly by Balanchine she became outstanding for her brilliant, dynamic allegro, precision, and musicality. She excelled in ballets like Theme and Variations, and Balanchine created two showcase roles for her in Ballo della Regina (1977) and Ballade (1980) as well as reviving Four Temperaments and Square Dance especially for her in 1976. Her other created roles include the leads in Robbins's Requiem Canticles (1972), in Tharp and Robbins's Brahms/Handel (1984), and Martins's Fearful Symmetries (1990). She danced Petipa's Paquita and Sleeping Beauty as a guest artist with Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet in 1987. Between 1969 and 1973 she toured the US with a small company headed by d'Amboise and between 1980 and 1981 she was director and dancer with her own group, Merrill Ashley and Dancers, touring Hawaii. She retired from the stage in 1997, incidentally setting a record as the dancer with the longest career at NYCB. She went on to teach, also to direct the Dance Aspen Summer School. She has appeared several times on television, and is the author of Dancing for Balanchine (New York, 1984).

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Ashmole , David

(b Cottingham, 31 Oct. 1949).
British dancer. He studied at the Royal Ballet School and made his debut with the company in 1969. In 1972 he was promoted to soloist and in 1975 principal. In 1976 he joined Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet where he danced leading roles in the classics as well as creating roles in several ballets, such as Wright's Summertide (1976) and Bintley's Night Moves (1981). Between 1984 and 1994 he was principal dancer with Australian Ballet.

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Ashton , (Sir) Frederick

b Guayaquil, Ecuador, 17 Sept. 1904, d Eye, 19 Aug. 1988).
British dancer, choreographer, and director, regarded as one of the chief architects of 20th-century British classicism. He was inspired to dance after seeing Pavlova perform in Peru in 1917 and went to study with Massine in London in about 1923. Later he studied with Rambert , who sensed that his potential as a choreographer was greater than his dance talent and encouraged him to make his first ballet, A Tragedy of Fashion (mus. Goossens ), in 1926. In 1928 he joined the Rubinstein Company in Paris, where he danced for both Massine and Nijinska, and in 1929 he returned to Rambert and created works both for her Ballet Club and for the Camargo Society. The most enduring of these, Façade (1931), is still in the repertory and displays much of the wit, fantasy, and elegance that informed his later style. He was invited to stage the Virgil Thomson/Gertrude Stein opera Four Saints in Three Acts in 1934 and during the 1930s he sharpened his craft in the commercial theatre, choreographing several numbers for revues and musical comedies.
In 1935 de Valois invited him to join the Vic-Wells Ballet as a dancer and choreographer and he remained with the company for the next 35 years (under its changing titles Sadler's Wells Ballet and Royal Ballet). Here he cemented a fertile musical relationship with conductor and composer Constant Lambert as well as an intense collaborative relationship with Margot Fonteyn which shaped both their careers. As both muse and star exponent of his style, Fonteyn created the leading roles in most of his ballets over the next 25 years. In works like Les Patineurs (1937) the distinguishing features of Ashton's style began to crystallize. Though profoundly influenced by the academic purity of Petipa, his own movement possessed a distinctive sensual plastique so that his fast, brilliant footwork was counterpointed by supple twists and curves in the body, and decorated with rippling arm movements and idiosyncratic angles of the head. Ashton always said that his dancers had to be unafraid ‘of letting themselves go’, though some of his greatest choreographic moments were characterized by profound simplicity and calm. Symphonic Variations (1946) was the first ballet he made when the company moved to the Royal Opera House and the luminous clarity of its dance images dominated the stage, demonstrating to British audiences that a ballet could stand alone without story or characters. In Scènes de ballet (1948) Ashton made another plotless masterpiece to Stravinsky's acerbic score. This emphasis on pure movement was also present in the many narrative works he went on to create—not only in their lyric dance interludes but in the musically inventive ways in which dance steps were shaped to create character. In Cinderella (1948), the first three-act British ballet, lyric dance was mixed with pantomime to create a distinctively British romantic comedy ballet (Ashton's own performance as the younger Ugly Sister in tow with Helpmann has become legendary). In Ondine (1958), described as a ‘concerto for Fonteyn’, he created a silvery dance language for the water-sprite heroine. He also created additional choreography for the Royal's staging of 19th-century classics such as Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake. During the 1960s he began to make work for a younger generation of dancers. For Nadia Nerina and David Blair he created the fresh and funny lovers in La Fille mal gardée (1960) while The Dream (1964) launched the partnership of Antoinette Sibley and Anthony Dowell as Titania and Oberon. This also featured one of Ashton's greatest comic creations-Bottom-a figure of pathos as well as fun. Between 1963 and 1970 he was artistic director of the Royal Ballet (having been associate director from 1952) and this period is often viewed as the company's golden age, when its ‘English’ style was at its purest and the corps de ballet one of the finest in the world. His late ballets display a marked confidence and simplicity: in Monotones (1965 and 1966) the dancing is stripped to limpid essentials; in Enigma Variations (1968) character is distilled through a few gestures and steps; and in Month in the Country (1976) the whole of Turgenev's story is compressed into 45 minutes of poignant dance. He still liked to dazzle, though, and in 1980 created the virtuoso showstopper Rhapsody for Mikhail Baryshnikov and Lesley Collier .
Ashton choreographed most of his works for the Royal Ballet (he is now cited as its founder choreographer), though many are danced all over the world and he created several ballets for other companies, notably Illuminations (1950) for New York City Ballet (now in the Royal Ballet's repertory) and Romeo and Juliet (1955) for the Royal Danish Ballet (subsequently performed by English National Ballet). He was knighted in 1962 and received many other awards including Commander of the Order of Dannebrog, 1964; Companion of Honour, 1974; Hon. Doctor of Music, London University, 1970, and Oxford University, 1976; and Order of Merit, 1977. Works include: Capriol Suite (mus. Warlock , 1930), Façade (mus. Walton , 1931), Les Rendezvous (mus. Auber-Lambert , 1933), Mephisto Valse (mus. Liszt , 1934), Le Baiser de la fée (mus. Stravinsky , 1935), Apparitions (mus. Liszt-Lambert , 1936), Les Patineurs (mus. Meyerbeer-Lambert , 1937), A Wedding Bouquet (mus. Lord Berners , 1937), Dante Sonata (mus. Liszt-Lambert , 1940), The Wanderer (mus. Schubert , 1941), Symphonic Variations (mus. Franck , 1946), Valses nobles et sentimentales (mus. Ravel , 1947), Scènes de ballet (mus. Stravinsky , 1948), Cinderella (mus. Prokofiev , 1948); Illuminations (mus. Britten , 1950), Daphnis and Chloe (mus. Ravel , 1951), Picnic at Tintagel (mus. Bax , 1952), Sylvia (mus. Delibes , 1952), Homage to the Queen (mus. Arnold , 1953), Romeo and Juliet (mus. Prokofiev , 1955), Birthday Offering (mus. Glazunov-Irving , 1956), La Valse (mus. Ravel , 1958), Ondine (mus. Henze , 1958), La Fille mal gardée (mus. Hérold-Lanchbery , 1960), Les Deux Pigeons (mus. Messager-Lanchbery , 1961), Perséphone (mus. Stravinsky , 1961), Marguerite and Armand (mus. Liszt-Searle , 1963), The Dream (mus. Mendelssohn-Lanchbery , 1964), Monotones (mus. Satie , 1965 and 1966), Sinfonietta (mus. M. Williamson , 1967), Jazz Calendar (mus. R. R. Bennett , 1968), Enigma Variations (mus. Elgar , 1968), Lament of the Waves (mus. Masson , 1970), Creatures of Prometheus (mus. Beethoven , 1970), Tales of Beatrix Potter (film-ballet, dir. Reginald Mills , mus. Lanchbery , 1971), Meditation from Thaïs (mus. Massenet , 1971), A Month in the Country (mus. Chopin-Lanchbery , 1976), Five Brahms Waltzes in the Manner of Isadora Duncan (mus. Brahms , 1976), Rhapsody (mus. Rachmaninov , 1980), and La Chatte métamorphosée en femme (mus. Offenbach , 1985). He also choreographed for several opera productions, including The Fairy Queen (mus. Purcell , 1946), Orpheus and Euridice (mus. Gluck , 1953), and Death in Venice (mus. Britten , 1973).

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assemblé

(Fr., assembled). A jump in which the dancer throws one leg up in the air and springs off the other foot, landing with both feet closed together. Variant assemblés (grands or petits) may travel in the direction of the raised leg or may be executed while turning or with a beat.

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Assembly

Ball. Ballet in one act with choreography and design by A. Howard , and music by Bizet . Premiered 8 Apr. 1946 by Sadler's Wells Opera Ballet at Sadler's Wells Theatre, London, with Brae , Kersley , and Newman . It is set to Bizet's Symphony in C and portrays the flirtatious encounters of several people at a ball.

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Astafieva , Serafina

(b St Petersburg, 1876, d London, 13 Sept. 1934).
Russian dancer and teacher. She studied at St Petersburg Theatre School and graduated into the Maryinsky Ballet in 1895, a year later marrying the famous character dancer Jozef Kshessinsky (brother to the ballerina Kshessinska ). She subsequently danced with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes (1909–11) then opened a school in London where her pupils included Markova , Dolin , and Fonteyn .

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Astaire , Fred (orig. Frederick Austerlitz ;

b Omaha, Nebr., 10 May 1899, d Los Angeles, 22 June 1987).
US dancer and choreographer, considered to be one of the greatest tap dancers of the century. With very little formal training, he and his sister Adele began performing a vaudeville child act in 1906 which toured widely around the US. In 1917 they appeared in their first musical comedy (Over the Top) and subsequently starred in many musicals and revues in both London and New York—including the Gershwins' Lady be Good (1924) and Funny Face (1927). After Adele retired in 1932 he went to Hollywood where his appearance with Ginger Rogers in Flying Down to Rio (1933) created a sensation. They made 8 more films together in quick succession, including The Gay Divorcee (1934), Top Hat (1935), Shall We Dance? (1937), and The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939). They made an ideally complementary couple, he slender, elegant, and dapper, she more earthy, pliant, and extrovert. Astaire subsequently made many films with other partners, including Eleanor Powell (Broadway Melody of 1940), Rita Hayworth (You'll Never Get Rich, 1941), Judy Garland and Ann Miller (Easter Parade, 1948), Leslie Caron (Daddy Long Legs, 1955), Audrey Hepburn (Funny Face, 1957), and Cyd Charisse (Silk Stockings, 1957). None of these partnerships displayed the unique chemistry of his work with Rogers , though their re-union in The Barkleys of Broadway (1947) proved to be disappointing. In the same year, however, Astaire received a special Academy Award for ‘his unique artistry’ which was presented to him by Rogers. Though he liked to pretend his dancing was effortless- ‘I just put my feet in the air and move them around’-he was in fact a notorious perfectionist both as choreographer and performer. From the late 1950s he concentrated on acting roles and television specials, though he did not give up dancing completely until his seventies. He received nine Emmy Awards and a Dance Magazine award in 1959. He wrote Steps in Time (New York, 1959).

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Astarte.

Mixed-media ballet with choreography by Joffrey , music by Crome Syrcus , design and lighting by Thomas Skelton , and film by Gardner Compton . Premiered 20 Sept. 1967 by City Center Joffrey Ballet at City Center, New York, with Trinette Singleton and Maximiliano Zomosa . It is loosely based on the story of the Phoenician goddess Astarte and its fusion of rock music, strobe lighting, and film was regarded at the time as startlingly theatrical.

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As Time Goes By.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Tharp , music by Haydn , costumes by Chester Weinberg , and lighting by J. Tipton . Premiered 10 Oct. 1973 at City Center, New York, with Beatriz Rodriguez and Larry Grenier . It is set to the last two movements of Haydn's 45th Symphony and though grounded in pure classical dance it reverses traditional male-female roles by presenting the ballerina as the assertive dancer and the man as the more vulnerable partner. This was Tharp's second work for the Joffrey Ballet.

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Astrakan.

French modern dance company. It was founded in 1982 as a flexible ensemble for developing different approaches to dance by different artists, under the direction of Daniel Larrieu . One of its best-known productions was Larrieu's swimming pool ballet Waterproof (1986). In 1993 it was renamed Compagnie Daniel Larrieu when it relocated to Tours.

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Asylmuratova , Altynai

(b Alma-Ata, 1 Jan. 1961).
Russian dancer. She studied at the Leningrad (Vaganova) Ballet School under Inna Zubkovskaya and made her debut in the Kirov Ballet in 1978. She was appointed principal in 1982 and has since toured widely with the company, guesting with American Ballet Theatre in 1988, the Royal Ballet (various seasons from 1989), and Petit's Marseilles Ballet (1996–9). She became acknowledged as one of her generation's greatest ballerinas due to the profound musicality and intelligence of her dancing. She is capable of delicately drawn romanticism, fierce sensuality, and witty charm. Though she excels in the 19th-century ballerina roles she has shown considerable versatility in 20th-century ballets by MacMillan , Ashton , Balanchine , Petit , and Béjart . In 1999 she was appointed director of the Vaganova School, St Petersburg. In 1983 she was made Honoured Artist of the Russian Federation. She is married to the dancer Konstantin Zaklinsky .

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Atanassoff , Cyril

(b Puteaux, 30 June 1941).
French dancer. He studied at Paris Opera Ballet School and made his debut with the company in 1957. He was appointed premier danseur in 1962 and étoile in 1964. A dancer of impeccably precise technique he was greatly admired by Balanchine whenever he danced in the latter's ballets. He also had a powerful dramatic talent which was revealed when Béjart created the role of the Young Man for him in La Damnation de Faust (1964). He also created roles in Petit's Notre-Dame de Paris (1965) and Nana (1976); in Butler's Intégrales and Amériques (both 1973); and in Spoerli's La Fille mal gardée (1981). He guested with companies throughout the world and after retiring from the stage in 1986 he continued to work as a teacher.

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Aterballetto.

Italian modern ballet company. It was founded in 1977 as an experimental ensemble based at Teatro Valli at Reggio Emilia, but its repertory was expanded when Amodio took over direction in 1979 to include works by himself, Forsythe , Childs , Kylián , Petit , Balanchine , and others. It began to tour extensively in Italy, also to perform in the US, Russia, and much of Europe. By 1997 Amodio's own work had come to dominate the repertory and the company was perceived as stagnating. He was succeeded by Mauro Bigonzetti , who has since introduced many of his own works into the repertory as well as acquisitions from Preljocaj and Kylián among others.

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Atlanta Ballet.

US ballet company. It was founded in 1929 by Dorothy Alexander as the performing ensemble of her school. Initially called the Dorothy Alexander Concert Group, it was given its present name in 1967. A paradigm regional ballet company it has a repertory of standard 19th- and 20th-century classics. John McFall was appointed director in 1995.

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Atlas , Charles

(b St Louis, Mo., 25 Mar. 1949).
US film-maker, designer, and lighting specialist. He made many films with Cunningham , such as Walkaround Time (1973), Torse (1977), Channels/Inserts (1981), Coast Zone (1984), and in 2000 the video dance Melange which formed part of a large television documentary about the choreographer. He has also collaborated on video and film projects with, among others, D. Dunn (Secret of the Waterfall, 1983), Michael Clark (Hail the New Puritan, 1986), and Richard Move (various Martha performances in the late 1990s). He has also designed set and lighting for stage works by Clark and K. Armitage among others.

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At Midnight.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Feld , music by Mahler , sets by Leonard Baskin , and costumes by Stanley Simmons . Premiered 1 Dec. 1967 by American Ballet Theatre at City Center, New York, with Marks , Sarry , Orr , and Gregory . It is set to Mahler's Rückert Lieder and portrays the romantic anguish of love. It is also in the repertories of Royal Swedish Ballet and Eliot Feld Ballet.

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attack.

A particularly incisive accentuation of dance steps.

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attitude.

Position in which the dancer stands on one leg with the other lifted in front or behind with the knee bent. Russian dancers generally hold the raised foot higher than the knee, so allowing the leg to be lifted higher. Other styles raise the knee higher than the foot. The position was originally inspired by Giovanni da Bologna's statue of Mercury and was codified by Blasis . It may be held as a balance or performed jumping or turning.

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Auber , Daniel-François-Esprit

(b Caen, 29 Jan. 1782, d Paris, 12 or 13 May 1871).
French composer. He wrote no ballet scores but the interludes and divertissements included in his grand operas were important in the development of Romantic ballet, such as those in Le Dieu et la bayadère (chor. F. Taglioni , 1830), Gustave (chor. Taglioni , 1833), L'Enfant prodigue (chor. Saint-Léon , 1850), and Le Cheval de bronze (chor. L. Petipa , 1857). He spliced together the score for Mazilier's ballet Marco Spada (1857) from various of his own operas, and several choreographers have subsequently used his music for their ballets, among others Ashton (Les Rendezvous, 1937), V. Gsovsky (Grand Pas Classique, 1949), and L. Christensen (Divertissement d'Auber, 1959).

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Augusta, Mlle (orig. Caroline Augusta Josephine Thérèse Fuchs , Comtesse de Saint-James ;

b Munich, 17 Sept. 1806, d New York, 17 Feb. 1901).
French dancer. She studied with F. Taglioni and Albert , making her debut in London's Drury Lane in 1833. She danced for a season at the Paris Opera in 1835, then travelled to the US where she enjoyed great personal success, dancing La Bayadère in 1836 and La Sylphide in 1938. She was New York's first Giselle (1846).

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Augustyn , Frank

(b Hamilton, Ont., 27 Jun. 1953).
Canadian dancer. He studied at the National Ballet School and joined National Ballet of Canada in 1970 where he was appointed soloist in 1971 and principal in 1972. A dancer of compelling dramatic appeal and a skilled partner he became the company's leading danseur noble. He was also a frequent guest abroad, often partnering K. Kain . Between 1980 and 1981 he danced with Berlin Opera Ballet as principal and from 1984 to 1986 he was guest artist with Boston Ballet. In 1989 he resigned from National Ballet of Canada and became artistic director of Ottawa Ballet. After that company disbanded in 1994 he became a teacher at the National Ballet School and guest ballet master with NBC. During the mid-1990s he hosted the twenty-part television series on ballet, Footnotes.

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Auld , John

(b Melbourne, 6 Jan. 1930).
Australian dancer and director. He studied with several teachers including Borovansky , Preobrajenska , and Idzikowski and made his debut with the Borovansky Ballet in 1951. Between 1952 and 1953 he performed in musicals and revues in London, after which he was soloist with Borovansky Ballet (1954–8). Between 1960 and 1964 he danced with Ballet of Two Worlds and Festival Ballet, and was also artistic director of the latter company (1962–4). He was then appointed ballet master of the Gulbenkian Ballet (1965–7), after which he worked with the Royal Ballet touring company (1971–81) as assistant to the directors and as co-manager. In 1981 he moved to Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet as assistant director and has since continued to perform there as occasional guest character artist.

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Aumer , Jean-Louis

(b Strasbourg, 21 Apr. 1774 (some sources say 1776), d St-Martin-en-Bosc, July 1833).
French dancer and choreographer. He studied with Dauberval in Bordeaux and danced with his company in London (1791–2). In London he also danced with Noverre's company (1794) and at the King's Theatre (1795), going on to make his debut with the Paris Opera in 1798. He was then ballet master at the Paris Théâtre de la Porte St-Martin (1804–6) where he mounted several Dauberval works, including La Fille mal gardée, and also choreographed his own ballets, including the highly successful Les Deux Créoles (mus. Darondeau , 1806), based on the novel Paul et Virginie. His work closely followed Dauberval's principles of ballet d'action, telling dramatic stories through expressive mime. In 1807 he became ballet master at Lyons then in 1808 was invited to create a work for the Paris Opera. Les Amours d'Antoine et de Cléopâtre (mus. R. Kreutzer ) was highly successful and so impressed Jérome Napoleon , King of Westphalia, that he was engaged in 1809 as ballet master of the Cassel court theatre. In 1814 he moved to Lyons and then to Vienna where he choreographed numerous ballets and divertissements. In 1820 he returned to Paris as ballet master, amidst high expectations. But although he staged revivals of two Dauberval ballets and created many new works, including La Belle au bois dormant (mus. Hérold , 1829) and Manon Lescaut (mus. Halévy , 1830), he was not popular. His works were widely criticized for their excessive use of mime and their inability to create dance that furthered either character or plot. He retired in 1831.

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Aureole.

Modern dance work in one act with choreography by Taylor , music by Handel , and lighting by T. Skelton . Premiered 4 Aug. 1962 at Connecticut College, New London, by the Paul Taylor Dance Company with Taylor , Elizabeth Walton , Wagoner , Sharon Kinney , and Renee Kimball . A lyrical buoyant dance which at the time marked Taylor's stylistic break from the American avant-garde. Its choreography fuses the blunt power of modern dance with the elevation of ballet, and at the time was seen as a rejection of the twin poles of modern dance then prevalent-the darkly dramatic and the abstractly cerebral. It has entered the repertories of many companies including Royal Danish Ballet (1968), Paris Opera Ballet (1974), and London Festival Ballet (1985).

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Auric , Georges

(b Lodève, 15 Feb. 1899, d Lodève, 23 July 1983).
French composer, who as a member of Les Six contributed to the ballet score Les Mariés de la Tour Eiffel (chor. Börlin , Paris 1921, Les Ballets Suédois). He also wrote the music for Nijinska's Les Fâcheux (1924), for Massine's Les Matelots (1925), Le Peintre et son modèle (1949), and Bal de voleurs (1960), for Balanchine's La Pastorale (1926) and La Concurrence (1932), for Lifar's Phèdre (1950), and for V. Gsovsky's Chemin de lumière (1952).

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Aurora's Wedding (Fr. title Le Mariage de la belle au bois dormant).

One-act divertissement of dance from Petipa's Sleeping Beauty with music by Tchaikovsky and additional choreography by Nijinska . Premiered by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes at the Paris Opera on 18 May 1922, with Trefilova and Vladimirov . Diaghilev had presented the full ballet in London in 1921 but had incurred huge debts in doing so. This shortened version was salvaged, and with scenery by Bakst and costumes by Goncharova (as well as costumes from Pavilion d'Armide) it proved very successful. It later entered the repertoire of de Basil's company and Dolin staged another production for American Ballet Theatre in 1941. After Vic-Wells Ballet staged the full-length Sleeping Princess this version virtually disappeared.

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Ausdruckstanz

(Ger., expressive dance). The term dates from 1920s' Germany when it was used to describe new modern dance forms, distinguishing them from classical dance. It was, however, disdained by some of its most famous practioners e.g. Wigman who preferred the term Neue künstlerische Tanz or ‘new artistic dance’.

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Australia.

Drama was much more popular than dance during the first half of the 19th century, though some incidental stage choreography is recorded from 1833 onwards and in 1840 Mme Velbein was appointed to oversee dance at Sydney's Royal Victoria Theatre, with Mme Rosine becoming ballet mistress at Melbourne's Royal Theatre in the same year. Dance performances became voguish around this time and the first European ballet companies began to visit. La Sylphide was danced in Melbourne during the 1840s and La Fille mal gardée in Sydney and Melbourne in 1855. In the same year, the visiting Lola Montez caused a sensation. In 1889 a corps de ballet appeared in a Melbourne production of Sinbad the Sailor and was retained as the corps of the Royal Comic Opera Company with ballerina Mary Weir . New ballets arranged for the Royal Comic Opera and the Melba Opera Company at the beginning of the century were critically well received, but ballet still remained a minority enthusiasm. In 1913, however, A. Genée danced in Melbourne with the Imperial Russian Ballet in performances of Coppélia and Les Sylphides and sparked widespread public interest in the art. This was rekindled in 1926 and 1927 when Pavlova toured the country. During the 1920s some distinguished dancers and teachers also settled in Australia including Mischa Burlakov , who with Louise Lightfoot founded the First Australian Ballet, which staged several Fokine ballets. In 1934 Victor Dandré presented the Levitoff Russian Ballet with Spessivtseva and Vilzak and in the same year Molly Lake established an Australian branch of the Cecchetti Society. In 1938 the first Royal Academy of Dancing examiner was appointed and de Basil's Ballets Russes had a highly successful tour which they repeated in 1938 (under the name Covent Garden Russian Ballet) and in 1940 (as the Original Ballet Russe). It was on this tour that Lichine premiered his Graduation Ball in Sydney. Two important members of this company stayed on in Australia-Helene Kirsova , who opened a studio in Sydney, followed by her own company, the Kirsova Ballet (1941–6), and Borovansky , who opened a school in Melbourne in 1939. A company emerged from the school in 1940, becoming fully professional in 1944. Its repertoire was predominantly Russian but it also featured work by Australian choreographers Laurel Martyn and Dorothy Stevenson whose Sea Legend was the first all-Australian ballet. Premiered in 1943 in Melbourne it had music by Esther Rofe , and designs by Alan McCulloch and Jean Oberhansli . Though struggling with constant financial difficulties (it had to disband after every season) the company produced several fine dancers including Kathleen Gorham and Garth Welch , and built up a solid audience for dance. Following Borovansky's death in 1959 the company's final season was directed by van Praagh . It was then absorbed into Australian Ballet which she founded in 1962 with Government subsidy.
After the 1940s interest in ballet gathered momentum with the founding of many clubs, guilds, and new companies. West Australian Ballet, for example, was established in 1953/4 and Queensland Ballet (orig. Lisner Ballet) in 1960. Australia also became firmly established on the international touring circuit.
Modern dance activity dates back to 1938 with the opening of the Bodenwieser Studio in Sydney and the subsequent founding of the Bodenwieser Ballet, but it did not become prominent until the 1960s. In 1965 the educational modern dance group Ballet in a Nutshell was founded, becoming in 1971 the professionally run Dance Company (NSW). This was renamed the Sydney Dance Company and its distinctive identity formed by choreographer-director Graeme Murphy . The Australian Dance Theatre was also founded in 1965 by Elizabeth Dalman (with subsequent directors including Meryl Tankard ). Many other smaller companies have since emerged including Dance North based in Townsville since 1973, Dance Exchange founded by Russell Dumas and Nanette Hassall in 1976, the Australian Choreographic Ensemble founded by Paul Mercurio in 1992 in Sydney to showcase a range of new choreography, the Chrissie Parrott Dance Collective based in Perth, and a physical theatre group called Desoxy Theatre, founded by Teresa Blake and Daniel Witton in Melbourne in 1990. In recent years there has been a growing interest in aboriginal dance with the formation of Bangarra Dance Theatre and the Aboriginal Islander Dance Theatre, while Asian influences are increasingly evident in the popularity of bharata natyam and butoh dance. In 1993 the first Green Mills Dance Project was held in Melbourne, a mixed festival of dance performances and classes that is fast gaining in international status. The country's main schools include the Australian Ballet School (Melbourne), the Scully Borovansky School (Sydney), and the Bodenwieser Dance Centre (Sydney).

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Australian Ballet.

Australia's leading ballet company, based in Melbourne and, though not officially designated as such, the country's national company. It was founded by van Praagh in 1962, with a government subsidy, using many dancers from the defunct company of Borovansky (the latter is often called ‘The Father of Ballet in Australia’). The company's first performance was Swan Lake with guest artists Sonia Arova and Eric Bruhn , and from the beginning it was closely connected to British ballet, via not only van Praagh but also Ray Powell , its first ballet master who was initially on leave from the Royal Ballet. The company's early repertoire included works by Ashton , Cranko , Balanchine , and Ray Powell. But van Praagh was keen to promote its Australian identity. In 1964 Helpmann choreographed his all-Australian ballet for the company, The Display, drawing an analogy between youthful sexuality and the mating dance of the lyre bird, and in 1965 he became co-artistic director. In the same year the company toured abroad, including performances at the 3rd International Festival of Dance in Paris. During this tour Nureyev staged his full-length Raymonda for the company, and subsequently retained close links as a guest artist and producer. Though very distant from the main centres of ballet activity the company rapidly attained high technical standards and a varied repertoire and continued to progress through new productions of the classics and works by 20th-century choreographers, from Fokine and Massine through to MacMillan , Cranko , Tetley , Moreland , and Kylián . More recently it has featured younger Australian choreographers like Tankard , Stephen Page , and S. Welch . In 1974 Helpmann took over as artistic director, succeeded by A. Woolliams in 1976. In 1978 van Praagh returned for two years, followed by Marilyn Jones , then by Maina Gielgud in 1983. Ross Stretton was appointed artistic director (1997–2001). In 1984 the company made its permanent theatrical base in the State Theatre, Victorian Arts Centre. It also tours extensively both in Australia and overseas and has a high international reputation for the unselfconscious vigour of its classical style. It has produced some renowned dancers including Kelvin Coe , Lisa Pavane , and Stephen Heathcote . The company's school was opened in 1964 under the direction of Margaret Scott .

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Australian Choreographic Ensemble.

Dance company founded by Paul Mercurio , former member of Sydney Dance Company and star of the film Strictly Ballroom (1992). It gave its first performance in Sydney in 1992 with Mercurio's own work Contact but it also presents work by other choreographers.

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Australian Dance Theatre.

Adelaide-based modern dance company founded in 1965 by Elizabeth Dalman . Under the direction of Jonathan Taylor it was reorganized in 1977 to serve both Victoria and S. Australia. Its repertoire included works by Taylor and Norman Morrice . Leigh Warren took over as artistic director in 1985 and was succeeded by Meryl Tankard (1993–9), during which period the company was renamed Meryl Tankard Australian Dance Theatre.

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Austria.

Ballets companies are attached to the opera houses of several Austrian cities: Baden bei Wien, Graz, Innsbruck, Klagenfurt, Linz, Salzburg, and St Pölten, though until recently their prime function has been performing in operas. Historically, the main centre of dance activity has been Vienna. During the 18th century some of the greatest ballet masters came to the Habsburg court including Hilverding , Angiolini , Noverre , and Viganò , instituting a lively tradition of dramatic ballets at the Kärntnertor Theater (the opera house). Dance was also popular at the city's Theater auf der Wieden with Friedrich Horschelt's fairy-tale ballets and Vienna Children's Ballet drawing enthusiastic crowds, and at the Theater in der Leopoldstadt with Rainoldi's pantomimes. During the first half of the 19th century most of the great Romantic ballerinas performed in the city. In the 1820s Vienna's most renowned dancer, Elssler , came to fame while her rival Taglioni made her Viennese debut in 1822. Productions of many popular ballets were danced including La Sylphide (1836), La Fille du Danube (1839), La Gitana (1840), Giselle (1842), and La Péri (1844). After 1853 P. Taglioni made regular vists as guest choreographer and between 1855 and 1856 August Bournonville was ballet master, staging Napoli in 1856. In 1869 P. Taglioni's Sardanapal was the opening production of the Hofopertheater, the newly built Opera House. Karl Telle was in charge of the ballet company here until 1890, staging productions of Coppélia in 1876 and Sylvia in 1877, although ballet was by this time subservient to opera. He was succeeded by Josef Hassreiter whose first ballet The Fairy Doll (1888) achieved considerable success and is still in the repertory. He reigned until 1920 having choreographed 48 ballets, many to music by Josef Bayer . Between 1922 and 1928 Heinrich Kröller was ballet master staging several ballets to music by Richard Strauss including Couperin Suite (1923), the latter being director of the State Opera. Margarete Wallmann , who had studied with Wigman , directed the Opera Ballet and its school from 1934 to 1939. Erika Hanka was appointed in 1942 and choreographed many ballets based in European modern dance techniques, including Homeric Symphony (mus. T. Berger , 1950) and Medusa (mus. von Einem , 1957). She was, however, instrumental in re-introducing the classical repertoire with Gordon Hamilton's staging of Giselle opening the theatre on 29 Nov. 1955, after the re-opening of the Opera House (it had been destroyed in 1945). Standards rose but after Hanka's death in 1958 there was a disruptively rapid turnover of ballet masters and directors—Parlic (1958–61), Milloss (1961–6 and 1971–4), and Orlikowsky (1966–71). There were, however, two outstanding triumphs: Nureyev's 1964 production of Swan Lake and Grigorovich's 1973 production of Nutcracker. In 1976 Gerhard Brunner became director of the State Opera Ballet and its school and the repertoire expanded to include works by van Manen , Cranko , and Massine . A. Woolliams took over the company's direction in 1994 (from Elena Tchernichova ) and continued to expand the modern repertoire with new works by Renato Zernatto and Uwe Scholz . Renato Zanella was appointed director in 1995 and has created several works for the company. Recent principals include K. Healey and T. Solymosi . Other ballet performances take place at the Theater an der Wien and the Volksoper. In Salzburg the ballet company has also expanded its modern repertory under the direction of Peter Breuer (who choreographs some of its works) while the company at Graz has works by Spoerli , Smok , and van Manen in its repertory. There are a small but growing number of independent dance companies, such as Eva-Maria Lerchenberg-Thony's Tanztheater Company in Innsbruck, as well as new moves to encourage the profile of dance, such as the biannual dance festival in Vienna and the Austria Dances festival in Graz. Austria's most important school is the State Opera Ballet School.

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Autumn Leaves.

Ballet in one act with libretto and choreography by Pavlova , music by Chopin (various piano pieces), and design by Konstantin Korovin . Premiered in 1918 by the Anna Pavlova Ballet in Rio de Janeiro with Pavlova and Volinine . It portrays a chrysanthemum which has been carefully grown by a poet, but is destroyed by the harsh north wind.

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Available Light.

Modern dance work in one act with choreography by Lucinda Childs , music by John Adams , stage design by architect Frank Gehry , and costumes by R. Shamask . Commissioned by Los Angeles Museum of Modern Art and premiered by Lucinda Childs Company in Los Angeles, Sept. 1983. In this setting of Adams's score Light Above Water the choreography's mathematically repeating moves are performed by dancers on a two-tiered stage. An open-air version was premiered at the Centre de Rencontres of Chateauvallon, July 1983, and the New York premiere was at the Opera House of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Oct. 1983.

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avant, en

(Fr., forwards). All movements that either travel or are directed forwards.

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Aveline , Albert

(b Paris, 23 Dec. 1883, d Asnières, 3 Feb. 1968).
French dancer, choreographer, teacher, and ballet master. He studied at the Paris Opera Ballet School from 1894 and joined the company after graduation, becoming étoile in 1908 and ballet master in 1917. He was a favourite partner of both Spessivtseva and Zambelli. He staged revivals of ballets by Mérante , Staats , and Clustine as well as choreographing several works including La Grisi (mus. O. Métra , 1935), Jeux d'enfants (mus. Bizet , 1941), La Grande Jatte (mus. Fred Barlow , 1950), and the prologue for Les Indes galantes (mus. Rameau , 1952).

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awards.

In most countries distinguished dance artists are honoured by national awards and decorations. For example, in Britain Ashton was appointed to the Order of Merit in 1977 and in the USSR Ulanova was made Hero of Socialist Labour (both among the highest possible awards to be conferred on civilians). There are many specialist awards given to dance professionals by magazines, trusts, and institutions around the world, including the Pavlova and Nijinsky Prizes, the Bessie Awards, Carpezio Awards, the Dance Magazine award and the Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Award (given by the Royal Academy of Dancing), as well as dance categories in arts and theatre awards such as the Olivier and Evening Standard Awards.

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Ayupova , Janna

(b Petrozavodsk, 12 Oct. 1966).
Russian dancer. She studied at the Leningrad Ballet (Vaganova) School under N. Kurgapkina , and graduated into the Kirov in 1984, becoming principal in 1985. She has danced most of the classical and Soviet ballerina roles, also creating the lead in Alexei Ratmansky's The Duet (1998).

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B

Babilée , Jean (orig. J. Gutmann ;

b Paris, 2 Feb. 1923).
French dancer, choreographer, and actor. After studying at the Paris Opera Ballet School from 1936 (with Alexandre Volinine and Victor Gsovsky ), he made his debut as a dancer in Cannes in 1940 with Marika Besobrasova's troupe. He joined the Paris Opera Ballet corps in 1943, although he soon left the Opera to join the French Resistance. After the war he became principal dancer of Roland Petit's Ballets des Champs-Elysées (1945–50); when that company closed he guested in Europe and America. He returned briefly to the Paris Opera in 1953 but then moved on, spending a short time with Petit and his Ballets de Paris (1954) before starting his own short-lived company, Les Ballets Jean Babilée (1955–9). As a muscular and virtuosic dancer (possessed of exceptional elevation in his jumps) he won particular praise for his Blue Bird and his Spectre de la rose, although he is most closely identified with Le Jeune Homme et la mort, which Petit choreographed for him in 1946. Other created roles included Charrat's Jeu de cartes (1945), Lichine's Œdipe et le Sphinx (1948), Massine's Mario e il mago (1956), and Lazzini's Prodigal Son (1967). He made his first choreography in 1944, Sérénité (to Beethoven), for the Paris Soirées de la Danse. His best-known ballets include L'Amour et son amour (mus. Franck , Ballets des Champs-Elysées, 1948), Till Eulenspiegel (Strauss , Ballets des Champs-Elysées, 1949), Balance à trois (mus. Damase , Monte Carlo Opera, 1955), and Le Caméléopard (mus. Sauguet , Les Ballets Jean Babilée, 1956). As a dancer he made a comeback in 1967 taking the title role in Joseph Lazzini's version of Prokofiev's The Prodigal Son, a performance which earned Babilée the Gold Star for best dancer at the International Festival of Dance in Paris. He briefly directed the Ballet du Rhin in Strasbourg (1972–3). Béjart created Life for him in New York in 1979, when Babilée was still a powerful and charismatic performer at the age of 56. In Paris in 1984, at the age of 61, he danced the role created for him in Petit's Le Jeune Homme et la mort with the National Ballet of Marseilles. His films include La Ligne d'ombre (1971) and Duelle (1975). He acted in a stage production of Tennessee Williams's Orpheus Descending and Jean Genet's The Balcony, as well as taking the lead in the dance drama The Green Queen, which Béjart mounted in 1963.

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baby ballerinas.

The collective nickname given to Baronova (aged 13), Toumanova (14), and Riabouchinska (15) when they were young dancers with the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo in 1933.

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Bacchanale.

A dance (or, in its wider context, a festival) in honour of Bacchus, the Roman god of wine. Used frequently in ballet as a divertissement of festive character dances staged to celebrate the autumn wine harvest.

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Bacchanale.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Massine , music by Wagner , and designs by Dalí . Premiered 9 Nov. 1939 by the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, with Krassovska , Theilade , Eglevsky , and Platoff . The work, set to the Tannhäuser ballet music, depicts the surreal Wagner-inspired nightmares of Ludwig II of Bavaria.

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Bach , Johann Sebastian

(b Eisenach, 21 Mar. 1685, d. Leipzig, 28 July 1750).
German composer. Although he wrote no ballet music, his work has frequently been used by choreographers from Nijinska to Neumeier . Major Bach ballets include Nijinska's Étude (Paris, 1931), Balanchine's Concerto Barocco (Concerto for 2 Violins in D minor, New York, 1941), Petit's Le Jeune Homme et la mort (Passacaglia in C minor, Paris, 1946), Macdonald's Aimezvous Bach? (various, Alberta, 1962), Cranko's Brandenburgs 2 & 4 (London, 1966), Robbins's The Goldberg Variations (New York, 1971), Paul Taylor's Esplanade (various, New York, 1975), Béjart's Notre Faust (B minor Mass, Brussels, 1975), and Neumeier's St Matthew Passion (Hamburg, 1981).

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Bagnolet.

One of the most important choreographic competitions in the world, held in the Paris suburb of Bagnolet. The Concours International de Chorégraphie: Le Ballet pour Demain was established in 1969, promoted by local and national governments. In the 1980s it became a key platform for young independent choreographers throughout Europe.

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Bagouet , Dominique

(b Angoulème, 9 July 1951, d Montpellier, 9 Dec. 1992).
French dancer and choreographer. He studied ballet at the Rosella Hightower School in Cannes (1965–9) and modern dance with Carolyn Carlson and Peter Goss in Paris (1974). From 1975 he studied with Jennifer Muller , Lar Lubovitch , Maggie Black , and May O'Donnell in New York. He danced with Alfonso Catá Ballet (1969), Félix Blaska Company (1970), Béjart's Ballet of the 20th Century (1971–3), Maguy Marin's Chandra Group (1973–4), and the Joseph Russillo Company (1974). In 1976 he founded his own troupe in Paris, Bagouet Company. From 1980 he was artist in residence in Montpellier, director of the Montpellier National Choreographic Centre and founder of the Montpellier Dance Festival. In 1992, just months before his premature death from Aids, he received widespread recognition when the Paris Opera Ballet invited his company to present So schnell at the Opera. As a choreographer he worked with both abstraction and characterization; his style, which favoured the use of gestures, was almost baroque in its rigour and precise detailing. A list of his works includes Night Song (1976), Under the Waning Light (1980), Elusives (1982), Love Deserts (1984), Lucien's Crawl (1985), Assai (1986), Fantasia Semplice (1986), Angel Jump (1987), and Basically Furnished (1989).

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Baiser de la fée, Le (Eng. title The Fairy's Kiss).

Ballet in one act with choreography by Nijinska , music by Stravinsky (after Tchaikovsky ), and designs by Benois . Premiered 27 Nov. 1928 by Ida Rubinstein's Company at the Paris Opera, with Rubinstein as the Fairy, Anatole Vilzak as the Young Man, and Ludmila Schollar as the fiancée. Stravinsky based his libretto on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy-tale The Ice Maiden, in which a fairy steals a young man from his bride. The source material, and Stravinsky's score, have attracted numerous choreographers, among them Ashton (Sadler's Wells Ballet, 1935), Balanchine (American Ballet, 1937, the first of several stagings), MacMillan (Royal Ballet, 1960), and Hynd (Dutch National Ballet, 1968, London Festival Ballet, 1974). The 1935 British staging was notable for featuring the first major role created by Ashton for the young Fonteyn, who played the Fiancée.

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Baker , Josephine

(b St Louis, Mo., 3 June 1906, d Paris, 12 Apr. 1975).
US-born dancer and singer who became one of the biggest stars of the Paris music halls. She began her career as a chorus girl in an African-American revue in Philadelphia and also appeared at the Cotton Club in Harlem. In the 1920s she was hired to work on the New York musical comedies Shuffle Along and The Chocolate Dandies, but her big break came when she went to Paris in 1925 in La Revue nègre at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées. Paris was charmed; she posed for Picasso and Man Ray ; André Levinson called her ‘the black Venus’. For her debut at the Folies-Bergère, she wore a belt of bananas and sang ‘Yes, We Have No Bananas’. She subsequently made the French capital her home. As one of the first black international stars, she performed regularly at the Folies-Bergère and the Casino de Paris, as well as on numerous foreign tours. Her sex appeal and scanty costumes, as well as her singing and dancing skills, guaranteed her audiences everywhere she went. She also studied ballet with Balanchine . She opened her first cabaret in 1926, Chez Joséphine , and published her memoirs the following year. She started international touring in 1928. She appeared in several films, including Zouzou (1934), co-starring Jean Gabin . During the Second World War she did volunteer work for the Red Cross and entertained French troops. Between 1954 and 1965 she adopted twelve children of various races, dubbing them her ‘rainbow tribe’. She gave a series of farewell performances in the 1950s, largely to raise funds for her large family. On 8 Apr. 1975 she opened in Joséphine, a revue based on her life at the Bobino Music Hall in Paris, but she died only four days later.

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Baker's Dozen.

Modern dance in one act with choreography by Tharp , music by Willie ‘The Lion’ Smith , costumes by Santo Loquasto , and lighting by Jennifer Tipton . Premiered 15 Feb. 1979 by the Twyla Tharp company at the Opera House, Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York. It was one of the signature works of the Twyla Tharp company. In her autobiography, Tharp said the ballet ‘represents an ideal society’.

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Bakst , Léon (orig. Lev Rosenberg ;

b Grodno, 10 May, 1866, d Paris, 27 Dec. 1924).
Russian designer and painter. As part of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, he revolutionized both theatrical design and contemporary fashion with his sensual and exotic visions. He first collaborated with Diaghilev in St Petersburg on the magazine World of Art, which he co-founded in 1899. His career as a designer began in 1900 with Petipa's Le Cœur de la Marquise, for the Hermitage Theatre in St Petersburg. In 1909 he went with Diaghilev to Paris, designing Fokine's Cléopâtre, the first of a series of gorgeous Bakst creations for the Ballets Russes. Subsequent seasons brought Carnaval and Scheherazade (1910), Spectre de la rose and Narcisse (1911), Le Dieu bleu, Thamar, L'Après-midi d'un faune, and Daphnis et Chloé (1912), Jeux (1913), Les Femmes de bonne humeur (1917), and Diaghilev's London staging of The Sleeping Princess (1921), for which Bakst designed elaborate and extravagantly expensive sets and costumes. He also worked with the choreographer and dancer Ida Rubinstein . He designed Pavlova's The Sleeping Beauty (New York, 1916), including real dogs, cats, and birds on stage. Although Bakst used many styles, he is probably best remembered for his wildly coloured Orientalist designs and his tantalizing eroticism, the finest example of which is undoubtedly Scheherazade.

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Bal, Le.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Balanchine , music by Rieti , and designs by de Chirico . Premiered 7 May 1929 by the Ballets Russes de Diaghilev in Monte Carlo, with Danilova , Dolin , Doubrovska , Lifar , and Balanchine . A young officer woos a beautiful woman at a masked ball.

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balancé.

A term used in classical ballet to denote a rocking step that transfers weight from one foot to the other, usually in 3/4 time.

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Balanchine , George (orig. Georgi Balanchivadze ;

b St Petersburg, 22 Jan. 1904, d New York, 30 Apr. 1983).
Russian-US dancer, choreographer, and ballet director. Arguably the single most influential figure in 20th-century ballet and widely regarded as the chief architect of classical ballet in the US. He is most closely associated with New York City Ballet which he founded with Lincoln Kirstein . Balanchine trained at the Petrograd Ballet School (1914–21) and joined the GATOB (as the Kirov was then known) in 1921. He began choreographing in 1920 while still a student, exhibiting an independence and unconventionality that would soon get him into trouble with his superiors. In 1924, while touring Germany with a company of Russian dancers and singers, he auditioned for, and was hired by, Diaghilev . Within a year Balanchine became chief choreographer of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. It was here he met Stravinsky , who was to become a life-long collaborator. In 1928 Balanchine created Apollo (originally known as Apollon musagète, to Stravinsky's score) which is generally regarded as the world's first neo-classical ballet; in 1929 he made Prodigal Son, another early masterpiece. After the death of Diaghilev in 1929, Balanchine spent several years working with various companies in Europe, including a brief spell as artistic director of Les Ballets 1933, which he founded with Boris Kochno . Also in 1933 came Kirstein's invitation to go to America. There Balanchine founded the School of American Ballet (1934) and out of it grew the American Ballet, which made its first appearance in New York in 1935. Balanchine's first ballet in the US, Serenade (1934), was made for his students; it has since become a signature work of New York City Ballet and a favourite with companies around the world. The American Ballet was resident at the Metropolitan Opera House (1935–8), after which it was disbanded. For the next few years Balanchine worked in Hollywood and on Broadway musicals. The American Ballet was revived as American Ballet Caravan for a S. American tour in 1941. In 1946 Balanchine and Kirstein founded Ballet Society, which two years later became New York City Ballet, based at the City Center. In 1950 NYCB made its first European visit (to London); in 1962 it went to the USSR. In 1964 NYCB moved to the New York State Theater in Lincoln Center, which was built to Balanchine's specifications. His artistic leadership of NYCB turned it into one of the foremost companies in the world and the ballets he made for it are among the most outstanding creations of the 20th century.
Although most of his time and energy was devoted to NYCB, Balanchine also worked with European companies and he helped to nurture regional ballet companies in the US. His great achievement was to take the classical ballet of his St Petersburg roots and redefine it in a totally different—and plotless—context. He made many forays into outright experimentation (not all of them successful) and his attempts at narrative dance were generally ill-fated. But his ability to honour the technical sophistication and sweeping elegance of 19th-century Russian classicism while stripping it of its artifice, plot, and theatricality (even to the extent of eschewing the elaboration of sets and costumes) led to the development of neo-classicism, a form which married the essence of Russian ballet to the modernist and dynamic sensibilities of an American audience. Works such as The Four Temperaments, Theme and Variations, Symphony in C, Ballet Imperial, Agon, and Symphony in Three Movements are among the greatest ballets ever made. In his work he gave equal weight to ensemble and soloists alike, and he rejected (for the most part) the star system he had been brought up with.
At the heart of every Balanchine ballet is one simple belief: that dance is music brought to physical life. Balanchine's musical credentials were impeccable: he studied piano from the age of 5 and as a teenager continued his musical education by studying theory and piano at the Petrograd Conservatory of Music. His choice of scores was adventurous and ground-breaking (from Bach to Xenakis). Balanchine married four of his ballerinas: Tamara Geva , Vera Zorina , Maria Tallchief , and Tanaquil LeClercq . A brief list of Balanchine's ballets (he made more than 200) includes: for Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo Cotillon (mus. Chabrier , 1932) and Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (mus. R. Strauss , 1932); for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes Le Chant du rossignol (mus. Stravinsky , 1925), Apollon musagète (Apollo) (mus. Stravinsky , 1928), Le Bal (mus. Rieti , 1929), and The Prodigal Son (mus. Prokofiev , 1929); for Les Ballets 1933 Mozartiana (mus. Tchaikovsky ) and The Seven Deadly Sins (mus. Weill ); for American Ballet Serenade (mus. Tchaikovsky , 1934), Le Baiser de la fée (mus. Stravinsky , 1937), and Jeu de cartes (mus. Stravinsky , 1937); for American Ballet Caravan Concerto Barocco (mus. Bach , 1941) and Ballet Imperial (mus. Tchaikovsky , 1941); for Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo Danses concertantes (mus. Stravinsky , 1944); for Ballet Society The Four Temperaments (mus. Hindemith , 1946) and Orpheus (mus. Stravinsky , 1948); for Paris Opera Le Palais de cristal (later Symphony in C, mus. Bizet , 1947); for American Ballet Theatre Theme and Variations (mus. Tchaikovsky , 1947). The following ballets were all made for New York City Ballet: Firebird (mus. Stravinsky , 1949), La Valse (mus. Ravel , 1951), Scotch Symphony (mus. Mendelssohn , 1952), Nutcracker (mus. Tchaikovsky , 1954), Western Symphony (mus. Kay , 1954), Pas de dix (mus. Glazunov , 1955), Allegro brillante (mus. Tchaikovsky , 1956), Divertimento No. 15 (mus. Mozart , 1956), Agon (mus. Stravinsky , 1957), Square Dance (mus. Vivaldi and Corelli , 1957), Stars and Stripes (mus. Sousa-Kay , 1958), The Seven Deadly Sins (mus. Weill , new version 1958), Episodes (mus. Webern , 1959), Liebeslieder Walzer (mus. Brahms , 1960), A Midsummer Night's Dream (mus. Mendelssohn , 1962), Bugaku (mus. Mayuzumi , 1963), Movements for Piano and Orchestra (mus. Stravinsky , 1963), Don Quixote (mus. Nabokov , 1965), Variations (mus. Stravinsky , 1966), Jewels (mus. Fauré , Stravinsky, and Tchaikovsky , 1967), Slaughter on Tenth Avenue (mus. R. Rodgers , 1968), Who Cares? (mus. Gershwin , 1970), Symphony in Three Movements (mus. Stravinsky , 1972), Violin Concerto (mus. Stravinsky , 1972), Duo Concertant (mus. Stravinsky , 1972), Pulcinella (with Robbins , mus. Stravinsky , 1972), Coppélia (with Danilova , mus. Delibes , 1974), Vienna Waltzes (mus. J. Strauss , Lehár , and R. Strauss , 1977), Kammermusik No. 2 (mus. Hindemith , 1978), and Davidsbündlertänze (mus. Schumann , 1980). For New York City Opera he made Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (mus. R. Strauss , 1979) and Dido and Aeneas (mus. Purcell , 1979). Broadway musicals include On Your Toes (1936) and The Boys from Syracuse (1938); films include The Goldwyn Follies (1938), On Your Toes (1939), and A Midsummer Night's Dream (1966); television includes Stravinsky's Noah and the Flood (1962). Co-author (with F. Mason ) of Balanchine's Complete Stories of the Great Ballets (1954, 1977). Awarded the Légion d'honneur (1975), Order of Dannebrog (1978), and US Medal of Freedom (1983). In 1983 the George Balanchine Foundation was established ‘as an educational foundation to further the work and aesthetic of George Balanchine’. One of its most important projects is the Archive of Lost Choreography, which seeks to retrieve Balanchine choreography no longer in the current repertoire.

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Balasaraswati

(b Madras, 13 May 1918, d Madras, 9 Feb. 1984).
Indian dancer. She was regarded as one of the foremost exponents of South Asian classical dance. After making her public debut at the age of 7 at the Ammanakshi Amman temple in Kanchipuram, she achieved fame throughout India. From 1961, through her appearances in Europe and the US, she became well known internationally and taught widely in America. She choreographed more than 200 solos and several danced dramas. She was considered to be the premier interpreter of the Tanjore style of bharata natyam.

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Bal de blanchisseuses, Le.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Petit , libretto by Kochno , music by V. Duke , and designs by Stanislav Lepri . Premiered 19 Dec. 1946 by the Ballets des Champs-Elysées, at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Paris, with Danielle Darmance and Petit . A young apprentice flirts with a laundress and her co-workers in the streets of Paris.

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Baldwin , Mark

(b Fiji, 16 Jan. 1954).
British-based dancer and choreographer. Born in Fiji, he was raised in New Zealand where he graduated with a Fine Arts degree from the Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland. He was a founding member of Limbs Dance Company and danced with New Zealand Ballet and Australian Dance Theatre before moving to Britain where he joined Rambert Dance Company (1983–92). One of Rambert's key dancers for a decade, he also made his first important choreography for Rambert in 1991 (Island to Island). In 1992 he left Rambert to start his own company, Mark Baldwin Dance Company. As well as making work for his own dancers, he has choreographed for Rambert, Modern Ballet of Argentina, Phoenix Dance Company, Cisne Negro, and the Turkish State Opera House. In 1996 he was resident choreographer of Scottish Ballet, where he created Haydn Pieces and Ae Fond Kiss. In 1997 he created Labyrinth for the Berlin Staatsoper, in collaboration with the composer Hans Werner Henze and the sculptor Anish Kapoor . In 1998 he returned to Berlin to choreograph a full evening of works, including Der Dämon (mus. Hindemith ) and Die Josephslegende (mus. R. Strauss ). In 1999 he made his choreographic debut at the Royal Ballet with Towards Poetry, which like most of his work is expressive without being explicitly narrative. Like Cunningham , he is interested in the use of computer technology. His work is frequently created with the aid of a computer program, although his choreography remains resolutely human and often slyly humorous. In 1996 he put one of his works, Mirrors, onto the Internet, inviting choreographic contributions from the public. A list of works for his own company includes More Poulenc (1994), Dances from Cyberspace (mus. Handel , 1995), Concerto Grosso (mus. Handel , 1995), Vespri (mus. Monteverdi , 1995), Mirrors (mus. Ravel , 1996), Confessions (mus. Macmillan , 1996), A Collection of Moving Parts (mus. Chopin , 1996).

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ballerina.

The term, which in Italian means female dancer, strictly refers to a principal female dancer in a ballet company. It is never correctly used in connection with any other form of dance.

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ballet.

A form of Western academic theatrical dance based on the technique known as danse d'école (the classical school), usually presented with elements of music and design to dramatic or lyric effect. The history of ballet began with the Renaissance spectacles (which combined all the artforms in a single entertainment) and quickly moved to France where the foundations of classical ballet as we know it today were laid at the royal court. Louis XIV was a keen performer himself in his younger days, and featured in ballets by Lully and Beauchamps . Following his retirement, the Académie Royale de Musique was set up in 1671 and ballet became the province of professional performers instead of royal amateurs, while theatres replaced banquet halls as the preferred performance venue. By the early 19th century technique had been codified (see Blasis , Carlo). The delicate and refined Romantic ballet flowered in France in the first half of the 19th century, with ballets such as Giselle. Dance developed a more virtuosic and athletic style in Russia in the latter half of the 19th century, the era which gave birth to the three Tchaikovsky ballets (Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcracker). In 1909 Diaghilev brought Russian dance to the West, sparking an international ballet boom that eventually led to the creation of schools and companies throughout Europe and America (the founding of the Royal Ballet by de Valois , for example). Strictly speaking, the term ballet should only be applied to works based on the danse d'école and subsequent permutations of the academic form, but with the enormous cross-fertilization of dance in the 20th century the term took on a much broader meaning and is now frequently used to describe a wide range of non-classically based theatrical dance.

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Ballet Annual, The.

British yearbook, published between 1947 and 1963, and edited by Arnold Haskell . There were eighteen issues in total.

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ballet blanc.

In classical ballet, a dance in which the women wear the familiar white tulle skirts first seen in La Sylphide in 1832 and thereafter immortalized in many romantic lithographs. One of the most famous examples of ballet blanc is Act II of Giselle.

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Ballet Caravan.

A short-lived troupe founded by Lincoln Kirstein in 1936 as a platform for young choreographers in America. Among the talents it fostered were Lew Christensen (Filling Station), William Dollar , and Eugene Loring (Billy the Kid). Balanchine made two of his greatest works for the company: Ballet Imperial (1941) and Concerto Barocco (1941). The company, which gave its first performance on 17 July 1936 at Bennington College in Vermont, was finally disbanded in 1941 after a less-than-successful tour (as American Ballet Caravan) to S. America.

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Ballet comique de la reine, Le.

This production, performed 15 Oct. 1581, is widely acknowledged as the first ballet, although other court spectacles in a similar vein preceded it. It was performed at the Salle de Bourbon in the Louvre, a lavish marriage of music, song, and dance staged by Balthasar de Beaujoyeux (or Beaujoyeulx ) on the occasion of the marriage of the Duc de Joyeuse and the Queen's sister, Mlle de Vaudemont . Running from 10 p.m. to 3.30 a.m., the ballet presented scenes from the legend of Circe. It was hugely successful and exorbitantly expensive and ensured its place in history with a lavishly illustrated book.

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ballet d'action.

A ballet which is primarily designed to tell a story, generally a tragic one. The supremacy of plot in ballet was a principle widely attributed to Jean-Georges Noverre , the 18th-century French choreographer. He determined that steps and gestures should be used to describe the characters' motives and advance the plotline. The role of the corps de ballet was also enhanced, from mere decorative background to an integral part of the action. Noverre's reforms also meant that music and costumes had to be adapted to fit the dramatic imperative. Noverre was not the only one interested in putting story before spectacle; Weaver , Hilverding , and Angiolini were of a similar mind.

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ballet de chevaux.

A ballet performed on horseback by knights, widely popular in the 17th century, especially in France, Italy, and Austria. The famed Lipizzaner stallions at the Spanish Riding School of Vienna can trace their roots back to these 17th-century entertainments.

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ballet de cour.

A court ballet. Derived from the spectacles of the Italian Renaissance, which were designed as entertainment for the nobility, the ballet de cour was performed by aristocrats (usually enthusiastic amateurs under the guidance of a professional dancing master) from the royal courts of Europe and included elements of music and verse as well as dance. It enjoyed its greatest flowering in France, from the middle of the 16th century until the reign of Louis XIV a century later. The ballet de cour, with its lavish decor and costumes and elaborate special effects, was often used to mark an important event or to convey a political message. In the case of Louis XIV, who as a teenager appeared as the Sun in Ballet de la Nuit, the grand theatrical display was also used as a public assertion of power. The subject-matter of such ballets was usually mythological or allegorical. The Ballet comique de la reine (1581) is the earliest-known example of ballet de cour.

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Ballet de la Nuit, Le.

A court ballet, one of the most famous examples of a ballet de cour, staged at the Salle du Petit-Bourbon in the Louvre, Paris, on 23 Feb. 1653. The ballet lasted twelve hours, beginning at sunset and ending with sunrise, and featured figures from mythology in various nocturnal episodes. One of the performers was Louis XIV, who was 14 at the time. He appeared as the Sun, a role which led to his being known as the Sun King.

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Ballet der Lage Landen.

Dutch company founded in 1947 with Mascha Ter Weeme as its artistic director. The company did important pioneering work in educating the Dutch public about ballet. In 1959 it was absorbed into the Amsterdam Ballet, which in 1961 merged with the Netherlands Ballet to form Dutch National Ballet.

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Ballet de Santiago.

See Santiago Ballet.

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ballet director.

The individual who heads a ballet company. Such a person is usually either a retired dancer or a choreographer. It is common nowadays for companies to divide management responsibilities between an artistic director, who decides on repertoire, casting, and general artistic policy, and an administrative director, who deals with budgets and other non-artistic matters.

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Ballet du Nord.

French dance company founded in 1983 in Roubaix. Its founding director was Alfonso Catá . In 1991 Jean-Paul Comelin became artistic director. The company frequently tours.

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Ballet du Rhin.

Ballet company based in Strasbourg. It was founded in 1972 with Jean Babilée as director, although he left the following year.

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Ballet Folklórico de México.

The national folklore company of Mexico. It was founded in 1952 by the dancer Amalia Hernandez , who headed the company until 1998 and still acts as chief choreographer (with her daughter Norma Lopez as artistic director). A company of 75 dancers and musicians, it performs regularly throughout the US and Europe.

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Ballet for All.

An offshoot of the Royal Ballet, founded in 1964 to bring ballet to new audiences in Britain. Its first director was Peter Brinson , who created special ballet-plays that combined dance with narration in an effort to educate its audience. The company was disbanded in 1979.

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Ballet Frankfurt.

See Frankfurt Ballet.

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Ballet Gulbenkian.

See Gulbenkian Ballet.

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Ballet Hispanico.

US dance company founded in 1970 by Tina Ramirez . The repertoire, which is inspired by Hispanic culture, includes works by Ramon Oller , Alberto Alonso , David Rousseve , and Ann Reinking . The New York-based troupe, still directed by Ramirez , has an associated school.

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Ballet Imperial.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Balanchine , music by Tchaikovsky , and designs by Doboujinsky . Premiered 29 May 1941, by American Ballet Caravan, at the Hunter College Playhouse, New York, with Marie-Jeanne , Gisella Caccialanza , William Dollar , and Nicholas Magallanes . A plotless ballet set to Tchaikovsky's 2nd Piano Concerto, this is Balanchine's tribute to Tsarist Russia, to the classical style of his roots at the Maryinsky (Imperial) Theatre in St Petersburg. It was revived for the Sadler's Wells Ballet in 1950 with new designs by Eugene Berman , and for New York City Ballet in 1964 (designs Ter-Arutunian), when the cast was led by Suzanne Farrell and Jacques d'Amboise . For a 1973 restaging at the New York State Theater, the choreographer changed the title to Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2 after discarding the women's classical tutus and the men's princely tunics in favour of less formal costumes. The ballet has also been staged by the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo (1944) and American Ballet Theatre (1988).

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Ballet Internacional de Caracas.

Ballet company based in Venezuela, founded in 1975 by the Fundación Pro-Artes Coreograficas. For many years it was directed by Vicente Nebrada , who was also resident choreographer. Not to be confused with Ballet Nacional de Caracas, which was founded in 1980 as the Ballet Fundación Teresa Carreño and is currently directed by Nebrada .

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Ballet International.

See Cuevas , Marquis George de.

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ballet master.

Originally a term describing the man at court who oversaw all dance aspects of a production, it now commonly refers to the individual who is responsible for setting the rehearsal schedule in a ballet company. Ballet masters are also in charge of ensuring the maintenance of performing standards and frequently coach dancers in new roles.

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Ballet Nacional Chileno.

See Chile.

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Ballet Nacional Clásico.

See Compañía Nacional de Danza; National Ballet of Spain.

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Ballet Nacional de Cuba.

See National Ballet of Cuba.

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Ballet Nacional de Mexico.

See Bravo , Guillermina.

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Ballet Nacional Español.

See Gades , Antonio; Spain.

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Ballet National de Marseilles.

French ballet company based in Marseilles. It was founded in 1972 by the choreographer Roland Petit , who served as artistic director for 25 years and whose ballets dominated the repertoire. In 1998 Marie-Claude Pietragalla , an étoile at the Paris Opera Ballet, was named artistic director of the company and its associated school. The company's current repertoire includes works by Kylián , Claude Brumachon , and Pietragalla.

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Ballet of Flanders.

Belgian company founded in 1969, based in Antwerp. It tours mostly in Belgium. Its repertoire includes works by Bournonville , Jooss , de Valois , Cullberg , Flindt , van Dantzig , and van Manen , along with works by its founders, Brabants and Leclair . Artistic directors include Brabants and V. Panov (1984–6). In 1977 the company became the Royal Ballet of Flanders.

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Ballet of the 20th Century (Ballet du XXe Siècle).

The Brussels-based company formed in 1960 with Maurice Béjart as director. Attached to the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, it none the less toured widely. The repertoire, which was highly reliant on Béjart's own work, was noted for its mass spectacles and multi-media theatricality, qualities which earned the company international popularity through more than twenty years of touring, although many critics complained of bombastic choreography and musical compromise. Productions included Sacre du printemps (mus. Stravinsky , 1959, which Béjart choreographed for Ballet-Théâtre de Paris, the ensemble which eventually became the Ballet of the 20th Century), Bolero (mus. Ravel , 1960), Tales of Hoffmann (mus. Offenbach , 1961), A la recherche de Don Juan (1962), Les Noces (mus. Stravinsky , 1961), The Merry Widow (mus. Lehár , 1963), Ninth Symphony (mus. Beethoven , 1964), Mathilde (mus. Wagner , 1965), Romeo and Juliet (mus. Berlioz , 1966), Baudelaire (1968), The Firebird (mus. Stravinsky , 1970), Nijinsky, clown de Dieu (music Henry-Tchaikovsky , 1971), Stimmung (mus. Stockhausen , 1972), Le Marteau sans maître (mus. Boulez , 1973), Notre Faust (mus. Bach , 1975), Petrushka (mus. Stravinsky , 1977), Gaîté parisienne (mus. Offenbach-Rosenthal , 1978), Magic Flute (mus. Mozart , 1981), Wien, Wien nur du allein (mus. Schoenberg , Beethoven , and others, 1982), Messe pour le temps futur (mus. Wagner , Beethoven, 1983), Cinq nô modernes (text Mishima, 1984), Malraux; ou, La Métamorphose des dieux (mus. Beethoven , Le Bars , traditional, 1986). The company attracted illustrious guest artists, among them Rudolf Nureyev , Suzanne Farrell , Judith Jamison , Maya Plisetskaya , Vladimir Vasiliev , Marcia Haydée , and Jean Babilée . In 1987 the company was disbanded when Béjart left the Théâtre de la Monnaie to start a new troupe in Lausanne.

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balletomane.

A ballet enthusiast. The term was coined in the 19th century to describe the partisan fans of Russian ballet, so extreme in their support of a particular dancer that they sometimes became hysterical. Arnold Haskell introduced the term to the West in his 1934 book Balletomania: The Story of an Obsession. Today the term has less drastic connotations, and is more commonly used to refer to ballet lovers or experts.

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ballet-opera.

A form of opera in which dance and music are equally important components in a production. Early examples include works by Campra , Lully , and Rameau . Although not strictly a ballet-opera, Gluck's Orpheus and Eurydice is often produced as one.

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ballet-pantomime.

The term used to describe nearly all the ballets created at the Paris Opera during the Romantic period (c.1830–50), including such famous ballets as Giselle and La Sylphide. They were so called because they made extensive use of both dance and mime. Ballet-pantomime was the successor to the ballet d'action.

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Ballet Rambert.

See Rambert Dance Company.

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Ballet Review.

A non-profit-making US dance journal published by the Dance Research Foundation. It was founded in 1965 by Arlene Croce . It is currently edited by Francis Mason .

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Ballet Russe.

There is much confusion regarding the use of the names Ballet Russe and Les Ballets Russes. The first so-called Russian Ballet was Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes (1909–29) but following his death various directors and impresarios, eager to capitalize on the Diaghilev phenomenon, used the term freely. The two most important successors to the Diaghilev company were the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo (1938–62), which was in effect a US company based in New York (led by Denham and Massine ), and Les Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo (1932–52), which was Colonel de Basil's (and initially also Blum's) touring enterprise and was variously known as Ballets Russes de Colonel W. de Basil, Covent Garden Russian Ballet, and Original Ballet Russe. Several choreographers worked with both subsequent companies, including Massine and Balanchine , who also worked with Diaghilev .

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Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo.

A descendant of René Blum's Ballets de Monte Carlo, and part of the proliferation of companies which sprung up in the 1930s hoping to capitalize on the enormous popularity of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. Although it eventually became an American company, it came into existence because Massine , ballet master of the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, had a falling out with Colonel de Basil , who ran the Ballets Russes, and wanted a company of his own. The opening season of the new enterprise was at the Monte Carlo Opera in April 1938; its first artistic director was Massine, who choreographed Gaîté parisienne and Seventh Symphony for the company's debut. In June 1938 the company appeared at the Drury Lane Theatre in London. Just up the road, the rival Colonel de Basil Ballets Russes was performing at the Covent Garden Opera House. The two companies became engaged in a protracted lawsuit in pursuit of the performing rights to the Diaghilev repertoire (the battle was over Massine's ballets in particular); a legal compromise was eventually reached between Massine and de Basil. The London season of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo included the premiere of Massine's Nobilissima visione, considered one of his greatest creations. The following year, in Monte Carlo, Massine unveiled Capriccio espagnol and Rouge et noir. In 1939, with war looming in Europe, the company moved to the US with Massine still in charge (he resigned as director in 1942); based in New York the troupe never returned to Europe. During the Second World War the leading dancers included Danilova , Markova , Toumanova , Franklin , Platoff , Youskevitch , and, briefly, Lifar . With the move to America came a new American identity, both in terms of dancers and choreographers. Agnes de Mille made Rodeo for the company in 1942, while in 1944 Balanchine , who was resident choreographer, gave them Danses concertantes and Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (originally staged in 1932), as well as many other ballets, both new and revived. Sergei Denham became director in 1942. The troupe toured regional America but after the war came to rely more and more on the old European repertoire, and any new work was largely insignificant. In the early 1950s, following the departure of Danilova, the company was disbanded. It was revived as a touring outfit in 1954 with Maria Tallchief and Franklin as stars; the following season Alicia Alonso and Igor Youskevitch began an important association with the company. In the mid-1950s it toured exhaustively, notching up 188 performances in 104 cities in one season alone. The Ballet Russe introduced many Americans to ballet and inspired many young Americans to take up the study of dance. In 1957 it appeared at the Metropolitan Opera, an engagement that broke box office records for a US company at that venue. However, with creativity stagnating and the repertoire shrinking, Denham finally closed the company at the end of the 1961–2 season. The last important work created for the company was probably Massine's Harold in Italy in 1954.

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Ballets Africains, Les.

Dance company founded in the early 1950s in Paris by the Guinean Keita Fodeba . Originally an all-male folkloric troupe, it comprised musicians and dancers from several French colonies in Africa and the Caribbean. Following Guinean independence in 1958 the troupe became based in Guinea (Conakry) and took the name Les Ballets Africains of the Republic of Guinea. In 1969 Fodeba, heavily involved in politics (he held several posts in the country's new government), was arrested and imprisoned in Camp Boiro, never to be seen again. The company, which has toured extensively, is considered a pioneer in the development of African theatrical dance.

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Ballet School.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Messerer , music by Liadov , Glazunov , Rubinstein , Liapunov , and Shostakovich . Premiered 6 May 1961, by the Ballet of the 20th Century, at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels. A subsequent (and definitive) production was premiered 17 Sept. 1962, by the Bolshoi Ballet at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, with Plisetskaya , Maximova , Fadeyechev , Vasiliev , and Lavrovsky . The ballet, reminiscent of Harald Lander's Études, is a showcase of classical dancing which culminates in a series of dazzling virtuoso tricks. Nowadays only the Shostakovich music is used in performance.

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Ballets de l'Étoile, Les.

See Béjart , Maurice.

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Ballets de Monte Carlo, Les.

A company, based at the Monte Carlo Opera, founded by René Blum in 1936 following his split from Colonel de Basil . Massine became artistic director in 1938, at which point the company's name was changed to Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. In 1985 Les Ballets de Monte Carlo was revived under the auspices of Princess Caroline of Monaco. Its repertoire includes works by Balanchine , Childs , and Duato , as well as creations by its artistic director, Jean-Christophe Maillot , and revivals of ballets from the Diaghilev company.

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Ballets de Paris.

French company founded in 1948 by Roland Petit after his departure from the Ballets des Champs-Elysées. The first performance was at the Théâtre Marigny in Paris on 21 May 1948 with Charrat , Jeanmaire , Marchand , Petit , Skouratoff , Perrault , and Hamilton , with Fonteyn as a guest artist. Early repertoire included some of Petit's most important works: Les Demoiselles de la nuit (staged for Fonteyn in 1948), Carmen (1949), which was the hit of the season following its premiere in London, and La Croqueuse de diamants (1950). Other choreographers included Charrat and Dollar . The company was officially disbanded in 1950 but Petit continued to revive it on an ad hoc basis throughout the 1950s and 1960s. For its 1953 Paris season Petit created Le Loup, Deuil en 24 heures, Cine-Bijou, and Lady in the Ice (with a libretto by Orson Welles ). Later Petit works included Cyrano de Bergerac (1959) with Jeanmaire, Beaumont , Petit, Reich , and Ferran . The company's final appearance was on 9 Mar. 1966 at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées.

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Ballets des Champs-Elysées.

An influential French company which performed at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris from 1945 to 1950 under the guidance of Roger Eudes , the theatre's director. It grew out of the Soirées de la Danse performances organized by the French critic Irène Lidova at the Sarah Bernhardt Theatre in Paris. These were designed to provide a forum for young and disgruntled choreographers fed up with the tradition-bound Paris Opera. Roland Petit's first ballet, Les Forains (mus. Henri Sauguet , des. Christian Bérard ), had been presented at one of these evenings, so impressing Eudes that he invited Petit to form a company at his theatre. Petit was joined by Lidova and the writer Boris Kochno , who had worked with Diaghilev . Petit and Charrat were among the first to make dances for the Champs-Elysées company. Dancers included Petit, Jeanmaire , Philippart , Perrault , and Vyroubova . The company was noted for its high artistic standards, its innovative and experimental choreography, its elegant designs, and its roster of chic young dancers. It was also fortunate to have as collaborators several of Diaghilev's former associates—Cocteau , Kochno , and Bérard . Among its most significant creations were Charrat's Jeu de cartes (1945), Babilée's L'Amour et son amour (1948), Milloss's Le Portrait de Don Quichotte (1947), and Petit's Déjeuner sur l'herbe, Le Rendez-vous, La Fiancée du diable (1945), Les Amours de Jupiter, Le Jeune Homme et la mort (1946), Le Bal des blanchisseuses, and Treize danses (1947), the last bringing Violette Verdy and Leslie Caron to prominence. The company toured widely abroad, becoming a glamorous ambassador for post-war French dance. Petit left in 1947–8 (having fallen out with Kochno) to found Ballets de Paris. After his departure new works by Babilée and Lichine were added to the repertoire. Following the death of the designer Bérard and the loss of its leading ballerina Irene Skorik , the company lost its home at the Champs-Elysées Theatre in 1950 and disbanded shortly thereafter.

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Ballets Jooss.

Company founded in 1933 by the German choreographer Kurt Jooss . Forced to flee Nazi Germany, Jooss and members of the former Folkwang Tanzbühne Essen emigrated to England where they were offered a home first at Dartington Hall in Devon and then at the Jooss—Leeder school in Cambridge. The company toured extensively and during the Second World War performed for Britain's ENSA cultural programme. Jooss returned to Germany in 1949 and reorganized his company as Folkwang Tanztheater. It disbanded in 1953, after performing at Sadler's Wells Theatre in London. In the 1960s it was revived again as the Folkwang Ballett Essen. The most famous work in the repertory was always Jooss's The Green Table (1932), although The Big City (1932), Ball in Old Vienna (1932), The Prodigal Son (1933), Ballade (1935), Pandora (1944), and Dithyrambus (1948) were also important.

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Ballets 1933, Les.

A Paris-based chamber ballet company which survived only one season, but was notable for having Balanchine as its sole choreographer. Specially commissioned scores were written by Milhaud and Weill , while Derain , Bérard , and Caspar Neher were the designers. Ballets performed at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris and at the Savoy Theatre in London included Fastes, Les Songes, L'Errante, Mozartiana, and The Seven Deadly Sins. The company owed its existence to the patronage of a wealthy Englishman, Edward James , who was married to the Viennese dancer Tilly Losch . She created leading roles in both L'Errante and The Seven Deadly Sins. One of the most historic meetings in all ballet, that of Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein , took place during the company's appearance in London.

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Ballet Society.

Founded in 1946 by Lincoln Kirstein and George Balanchine , this was the precursor to New York City Ballet. It was set up like a private club, performing new works before a subscription audience. Its productions included Balanchine's stagings of Ravel's L'Enfant et les sortilèges, Hindemith's Four Temperaments, and Stravinsky's Orpheus. In 1948 the company was invited to join the New York City Center of Music and Drama as New York City Ballet.

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Ballet Sopianae.

Hungarian modern ballet troupe founded in 1960 by the dancer Imre Eck and attached to the opera house in Pécs. In the first year of the company's existence Eck produced fourteen one-act ballets; he eventually choreographed more than a hundred. The Hungarian choreographer Sándor Tóth enjoyed a lasting success with his ballet What Is Under Your Head? (mus. Joszef Kincses , 1964) and went on to contribute many more works to the repertoire, including the full-length Romeo and Juliet (1980). In 1992 Istvan Herczog became artistic director.

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Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, Les.

Company founded in 1932 to succeed the Ballets Russes de Diaghilev . It was a fusion of the Ballets de l'Opéra de Monte Carlo and the Ballet de l'Opéra Russe à Paris, with Colonel de Basil as director and René Blum as artistic director. Many former members of the Diaghilev troupe joined the new Monte Carlo-based company, including Kochno (artistic adviser), Balanchine (who was appointed ballet master), and Massine , while the addition of the three ‘baby ballerinas’, Baronova , Riabouchinska , and Toumanova , helped to generate international excitement. The company opened its first full season in Monte Carlo on 12 Apr. 1932. The company toured Europe with its repertoire of Diaghilev ballets, notching up considerable success in London, and undertook its first US tour in 1933. Later dancers included Danilova , Eglevsky , and Lichine . In 1933 Balanchine left, having added La Concurrence, Cotillon, and Le Bourgeois gentilhomme to the repertoire. He was succeeded by Massine who created Jeux d'enfants (1932), Beau Danube, Beach, Scuola di ballo, Les Présages, and Choreartium (1933) for the company. The last two works were part of the new genre of symphonic ballets; the idea of setting dance to symphonic music was a cause of great controversy at the time. Ballets by Nijinska were also mounted. The company began to falter in 1936 when de Basil and Blum fell out. The company lost its home at Blum's Monte Carlo theatre; Blum resigned and founded the Ballets de Monte Carlo (which was eventually absorbed into the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo), while de Basil renamed his company Ballets Russes de Colonel W. de Basil. In 1938 the name was changed again, this time to Covent Garden Russian Ballet, and the following year it became the Original Ballet Russe. In 1938 the company was involved in the famous ‘ballet war’ in London, with de Basil's outfit at Covent Garden and Massine's rival Ballet Russe down the road at the Drury Lane Theatre. In 1937 Fokine was engaged as choreographer. The most important works of the middle years were Massine's Symphonie fantastique (1936), Lichine's Francesca da Rimini (1937), Prodigal Son (1938), and Graduation Ball (1940), and Fokine's Cendrillon and Paganini (1939). During the 1930s it was the most influential ballet company in the world, with regular seasons in Europe and America and several major tours to Australia; one of its most important engagements was a regular summer season at Covent Garden. The company's four-year stay (1942–6) in S. America proved instrumental in the development of ballet in Brazil and Argentina. In the 1940s de Basil encountered a series of financial crises; in 1948 he disbanded the company, but he was planning to revive the enterprise when he died in 1951. His former associate, the designer George Kirsta , did manage a brief revival with a company that performed in England in 1951, but within a year it, too, was gone.

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Ballets Russes de Serge Diaghilev, Les.

The company formed in 1909 by the Russian impresario Serge Diaghilev to bring Russian dance to the West. Its success was so enormous, its ballets so revolutionary, and its artists so electrifying that its appearances in Paris before the First World War sparked an international ballet boom, while its dissolution two decades later prompted the establishment of schools and companies throughout Europe and N. America, many of them run by former Diaghilev dancers. Diaghilev had already enjoyed success in Paris in 1908 when he presented a season of Russian art, music, and opera in the French capital. He was invited back the following year to give a programme of Russian opera and ballet. On 19 May 1909 (the dress rehearsal on 18 May is often cited as the first night) his company made its debut at the Théâtre du Chatelet, with Le Pavillon d'Armide, the Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor, and Le Festin. The evening was a sensation. The company returned in 1910; in 1911 it was presented under Diaghilev's own name and made its debut in London. It eventually moved to Monte Carlo; following the October Revolution Diaghilev severed all ties with Russia. From then on it became a totally Western organization, dependent on private patronage and what it could earn at the box office, although the company was frequently on the verge of bankruptcy and many of its seasons were salvaged only at the last minute. It continued to perform regularly in Paris, toured in Europe, and visited the US for the first time in 1916–17. It gave its last performance on 4 Aug. 1929 in Vichy. On 19 Aug. 1929 Diaghilev died, and the company was dissolved. But by then its impact on European ballet was irreversible. The extraordinary confluence of talents gathered under Diaghilev's roof, with some of the leading composers and artists of the day collaborating on ballets, was never to be repeated.
During the twenty years of its existence the company's influence was enormous both on and off stage. Diaghilev's artistic policy, which placed as much emphasis on original music and design as on choreography, changed the way ballet was viewed in the West; while the vibrant and exotic Oriental look of some of its productions set fashion trends in the streets of Europe's capitals. Its dancers were among the greatest names of the 20th century: Nijinsky , Pavlova , Karsavina , Fokine , Nijinska , and Bolm in 1909; Karsavina, Spessivtseva , Danilova , Tchernicheva , Doubrovska , Sokolova , Dolin , Lifar , Woizikowski , and Balanchine in 1929. In between came Rubinstein , Lopokova , Cecchetti , Massine , Rambert , and de Valois (the last two went on to found major companies of their own in Britain). Its chief choreographers were Fokine , Nijinsky , Massine, Nijinska, and Balanchine. The list of composers engaged by Diaghilev was equally impressive: Stravinsky , Ravel , Debussy , R. Strauss , Satie , de Falla , Respighi , Prokofiev , Poulenc , Auric , and Milhaud . Its designers were among the most important painters of the day: Benois , Bakst , Golovine , Roerich , Picasso , Derain , Goncharova , Matisse , Gris , Braque , Utrillo , Ernst , Miró , and de Chirico . The most important productions are listed by choreographer. Fokine: Le Pavillon d'Armide, the Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor, Les Sylphides, Cléopâtre (1909), Le Carnaval, Scheherazade, Firebird (1910), Le Spectre de la rose, Narcisse, Petrushka (1911), Le Dieu bleu, Thamar, Daphnis and Chloe (1912), and Les Papillons, The Legend of Joseph (1914). Nijinsky: L'Après-midi d'un faune (1912), Jeux, and Sacre du printemps (1913). Massine: Las Meninas (1916), Les Femmes de bonne humeur, Parade (1917), La Boutique fantasque, The Three-Cornered Hat (1919), Le Chant du rossignol, Pulcinella (1920), and Les Matelots (1925). Nijinska: Renard (1922), Les Noces (1923), Les Biches, Les Fâcheux, The Night on Bare Mountain, Le Train bleu (1924), and Romeo et Juliette (1926). Balanchine: Barabau (1925), La Pastorale, Jack-in-the-Box, The Triumph of Neptune (1926), La Chatte (1927), Apollon musagète, The Gods Go a-Begging (1928), Le Bal, and Prodigal Son (1929).

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Ballets Suédois, Les.

Company founded in 1920 in Paris by Rolf de Maré , a Swedish art patron and amateur ethnographer who hoped to emulate the enormous success of the Diaghilev company. The repertoire was extremely unconventional, and highly experimental; the subject-matter of its ballets embraced everything from African dance and Muslim traditions to roller skating, feminism, and abstract expressionism. The sole choreographer throughout the five years of its existence was the company's star soloist Jean Börlin , who had been a dancer with the Royal Swedish Ballet in Stockholm. Börlin's choreography was influenced by the Diaghilev repertoire, although he also created dances based on Swedish folklore and the folklore of other, non-European cultures. Like the Diaghilev troupe, the company was noted for its collaborations with avant-garde composers and painters, while Börlin often turned to poets like Claudel and Cocteau for his librettos. L'Homme et son désir placed its protagonist in a tropical rainforest; La Création du monde, subtitled A Negro-Jazz Ballet, was a marriage of African creation myths and American jazz; Relâche was a Dadaist multi-media spectacle which featured an appearance by Man Ray and a ‘cinematographic entr'acte’ which stands alone as a work of avant-garde cinema. The company made its debut on 25 Oct. 1920 at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, and toured extensively in Europe and the US until it was disbanded in 1925. Most of its dancers came from Scandinavia. The company was particularly associated with a group of composers known as Les Six; the score for Les Mariés de la Tour Eiffel (1921) was written by five of them (Auric , Milhaud , Poulenc , Tailleferre , and Honegger ), and has the distinction of being the only orchestral work produced collectively by Les Six. Painters who collaborated with the company included Bonnard , Léger , and de Chirico . Unlike the Diaghilev repertoire, very few of the Ballets Suédois works have survived. In 1998 the Royal Swedish Ballet staged an evening of reconstructed works from the Ballets Suédois repertoire, including Skating Rink (originally reconstructed for the Zurich Ballet) and Within the Quota. Among Börlin's most important creations were Maison de fous, Le Tombeau de Couperin, El Greco (1920), L'Homme et son désir, Les Mariés de la Tour Eiffel (1921), Skating Rink (1922), La Création du monde (1923), La Jarre, and Relâche (1924).

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Ballets Trockaderos de Monte Carlo, Les.

A company founded in 1974 in New York by a group of ballet enthusiasts ‘for the purpose of presenting a playful, entertaining view of classical ballet in parody form and entravesti’. The all-male troupe, who first performed in late shows in Off-Off Broadway lofts, quickly won international popularity with their comic take on the classics. Their repertoire later broadened to take in 20th-century choreographers such as Balanchine , Cunningham , and Robbins . Part of their appeal to balletomanes is their respect for the traditional Russian repertoire, and their commitment to honour the style of original choreography even as they parody sylphs and swans in their tutus and hunking great pointe shoes. Their cast list says it all: Maya Thickenthighya , Mikhail Mypansarov , Adam Baum , Ida Nevasayneva , Helen Highwaters , and Jacques D'Ambrosia . The company is more affectionately known as The Trocks.

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Ballets: USA.

See Robbins , Jerome.

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Ballett der Staatsoper Unter den Linden.

See German State Opera Ballet.

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Ballet Theatre.

See American Ballet Theatre.

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Ballet-Théâtre Contemporain.

A short-lived company established by the French Ministry of Culture in 1968 to create modern choreography in collaboration with modern musicians and painters. Originally based in Amiens (north of Paris), it moved to Angers where in 1978 it was absorbed into the Centre National de Danse Contemporaine. Choreographers who worked with the company included Joseph Lazzini , Jean Babilée , George Skibine , Brian Macdonald , John Butler , Jacques LeCog , Lar Lubovitch , John Neumeier , and Louis Falco . Jean-Albert Cartier , the founding artistic adviser, later moved to Nancy , where he helped to establish the Ballet Théâtre Français de Nancy.

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Ballet-Théâtre de Paris.

See Ballet of the 20th Century.

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Ballet West.

Regional US ballet company based in Salt Lake City, founded in 1963. Until 1978 its artistic director and chief choreographer was Willam Christensen . Subsequent directors have included Bruce Marks and John Hart .

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Ballet Workshop.

A club based at the Mercury Theatre in London between 1951 and 1955, directed by David and Angela Ellis . New works were presented on Sunday evenings. Choreographers included Jack Carter , Peter Darrell , and Walter Gore .

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Ball in Old Vienna, A.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Jooss , music by Joseph Lanner , arranged by Cohen , and designs by A. Simola . Premiered 21 Nov. 1932 at the Folkwang Tanzbühne, Cologne. The ballet, which has no specific plot, shows the carefree life of waltzing couples at a formal ball in the 1840s.

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ballo.

Italian standard dances of the 15th and 16th centuries. The word ballet comes from its diminutive, balletto.

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ballon.

A term commonly used to describe a dancer's proficiency in jumping. In strict classical usage, however, it designates a dancer's ability seemingly to hang suspended in the air during a jump.

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Ballon , Claude

(b Paris, 1671, d Versailles, 9 May 1744).
French dancer, teacher, choreographer, and chancellor of the Académie Royale de Danse. He joined the Paris Opera in 1690, making his debut in Cadmus et Hermione, and quickly established himself as the most fashionable dancer of his day. In 1699 he performed in London. In 1712, or thereabouts, he retired from the Paris Opera to work at the Duchesse du Maine's court at Sceaux where in 1714 he performed (with great personal success) in Apollon et les Muses, a work widely considered to be a forerunner of the ballet d'action. In 1715 he became dancing master to the 5-year-old Louis XV; in 1719 he was appointed composer of the king's ballets. Also in 1719 he succeeded Pierre Beauchamps as head of the Académie Royale de Danse. In 1731 he was named Dancing Master to the Children of France. As a teacher, his private pupils included Marie Sallé . He is said to have been possessed of extremely good looks and charm, as well as abundant talent as a dancer. Among his roles pictured in surviving portraits of him are those from Amadis de Grèce (1699) and Le Carnaval et la Folie (1704). Several of his duets with Marie Thérèse de Subligny were recorded in Feuillet notation, thus ensuring their survival. Often (but incorrectly) referred to as Jean Ballon (or Balon ).

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ballonné.

A jumping step in ballet in which one leg is stretched to either the front, the back, or the side. The dancer then jumps on the supporting leg, landing with the stretched leg bending at the knee and the foot placed on the supporting ankle. A ballonné can be done in any direction.

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ballotté.

A rocking step in ballet in which the body leans forward and backward during each transfer of weight.

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ballroom dance.

Social dance usually performed by couples in dance halls or at social gatherings. During the 20th century these dances came to be performed widely in competitions, which flourished in Britain and America following the First World War. In 1929 the Official Board of Ballroom Dancing was founded and by the 1930s standardization of training and levels of expertise had been established. Today Britain leads the world in ballroom dancing, and the annual Open British Championship is the most important competition. Standard ballroom dances include the waltz, Viennese waltz, foxtrot, tango, lindy, charleston, and the quickstep. Latin American dances such as the rumba, samba, paso doble, and cha-cha-cha are also part of the ballroom repertoire.

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Banes , Sally

(b Washington, DC, 9 Oct. 1950).
US dance writer, critic, historian, and lecturer. Ph.D. from New York University (1980). She was a senior critic at Dance Magazine, dance editor at the Soho Weekly News, dance and performance art critic for Village Voice, and editor of Dance Research Journal. Currently Marian Hannah Winter Professor of Theatre and Dance Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where from 1992 to 1996 she was chair of the Dance Program. She has also taught at New York University, the School of Visual Arts, Florida State University, the State University of New York at Purchase, Wesleyan University, and Cornell University. One of America's leading writers on dance, she is the author of Terpsichore in Sneakers: Post-Modern Dance (1980; rev. 1987), Democracy's Body: Judson Dance Theater 1962–64 (1983, rev. 1993), Greenwich Village 1963: Avant-garde Performance and the Effervescent Body (1993), Writing Dancing in the Age of Postmodernism (1994), Dancing Women: Female Bodies on Stage (1998), and Subversive Expectations: Performance Art and Paratheater in New York 1976–85 (1998). She has also worked on dance films and videos.

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Bangarra Dance Theatre.

Australian contemporary dance company, founded in 1989, which ‘embraces the cultures of the Indigenous peoples of Australia’. The repertoire, which consists of works choreographed by artistic director Stephen Page , draws its inspiration from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander traditions and lores, but deals with the contemporary issues facing the indigenous population in a modern urban environment. Works include Ochres (1995), which explores the mystical significance of ochre, and Fish (1997), which celebrates the rivers and the seas. Both feature original scores by David Page , S. Page's brother. In 1997 Bangarra Dance Theatre collaborated with the Australian Ballet on Rites, a new version of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring choreographed by S. Page. Bangarra , which performed at the Sydney Olympics in 2000, also tours internationally.

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Bar aux Folies-Bergère.

Ballet in one act with choreography and libretto by Ninette de Valois , music by Chabrier , and designs by Chappell . Premiered 15 May 1934 by Ballet Rambert at the Mercury Theatre in London, with Markova , Argyle , Gould , and Ashton . The ballet is based on Manet's famous painting and was the only work ever choreographed by de Valois for the Rambert company.

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Barber , Samuel

(b West Chester, Pa., 9 Mar. 1910, d New York, 23 Jan. 1981).
US composer. He wrote the music for Martha Graham's Cave of the Heart (1946). His scores have been used by many choreographers, including Bolender , Neumeier , MacMillan , and Ailey .

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Barberina, La (also Barbarina ; orig. Barbara Campanini ;

b Parma, 1721, d Barschau, Silesia, 7 June 1799).
Italian dancer. She was as famous for her love affairs off stage as for her brilliant technique on stage. She made her debut at the Paris Opera in 1739, dancing in Rameau's Les Fêtes d'Hêbé. Her success at the Paris Opera ultimately led to Sallé's retirement. Renowned for her pirouettes and entrechats huit, she made guest appearances in London and Dublin. When not dancing, she enjoyed liaisons with Prince de Carignan (director of the Paris Opera), Lord Arundel , the Marquis de Thébouville, and the Duke of Durfort. In 1744 she was hired by Frederick the Great of Prussia for an engagement in Berlin, but instead of honouring it she travelled with her lover, Lord Stuart Mackenzie , to Venice. The king then had her brought to Berlin by military guard. Once there, it seems she won him over to her charms, for it is believed they embarked on a romance. She danced at the Berlin Court Opera until 1748, when she fell out of favour with the Prussian king over her love affair with Charles-Louis de Cocceji , son of the king's chancellor. In 1749 she married Cocceji secretly against his family's wishes, accompanying him to exile in Silesia. They separated in 1759 and divorced in 1788. A year later, having purchased the Barschau estate in Silesia, she was given the title Countess von Barschau. She had her estates in Silesia turned into a charitable institution for poor noble ladies. Her colourful life was the subject of a 1935 ballet by Maudrik at the Berlin State Opera, entitled Die Barberina.

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barn dance.

A rural American dance in 4/4 time which was introduced in the early 19th century. It is so named not because it was danced in a barn, but because it was performed to the song ‘Dancing in the Barn’. It was originally called Military Schottische.

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Barnes , Clive

(b London, 13 May 1927).
British-US dance critic. He was educated at Oxford University and started his career in Britain, writing for The Times, New Statesman, Daily Express, and Spectator. He was dance critic of the New York Times (1965–77) and was also its drama critic (1967–77). In 1977 he became dance and drama critic of the New York Post. Also senior editor of Dance Magazine and a regular contributor since 1958. One of America's most senior and longest-serving dance critics.

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Baron (Baron Nahum ;

b Manchester, 1906, d London, Sept. 1956).
British ballet photographer. He was official photographer for the Sadler's Wells Ballet at Covent Garden. His photographs were published in several major editions: Baron at the Ballet (1950), Baron Encore (1952), and Baron's Ballet Finale (1958).

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Baronova , Irina

(b Petrograd, 28 Feb. 1919).
Russian-born dancer, one of the three ‘baby ballerinas’. Although she was born in Russia her entire career was in the West. She studied with Preobrajenska as a child in Paris, where her parents settled after emigrating from Russia. In 1932, at the age of 13, she was hired by Balanchine as one of the three baby ballerinas for the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, the other two being Toumanova and Riabouchinska . She created roles in Massine's Les Présages, Jeux d'enfants, Beau Danube (1933), and Nijinska's Les Cent Baisers (1935). In 1939 she went to the US, appearing in the Hollywood film Florian (1939). When her husband (German Sevastianov ) became managing director of (American) Ballet Theatre, she joined the company as prima ballerina (1941–2). She performed with various companies in the US throughout the 1940s, guesting with Denham's Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and de Basil's Original Ballet Russe in New York and Cuba. She made a second film, Yolanda (Mexico, 1942), and appeared with Massine in the musical A Bullet in the Ballet. She retired from the ballet stage in 1946. She lived in England for many years. In 1986 she staged Fokine's Les Sylphides for Australian Ballet.

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Barra , Ray (Raymond Martin Barallobre ;

b San Francisco, 3 Jan. 1930).
US dancer, and ballet master. He studied at San Francisco School of Ballet and American Ballet Theatre School and joined San Francisco Opera Ballet (1949). From 1953 to 1959 he danced with American Ballet Theatre. In 1959 he joined Stuttgart Ballet as a principal, where he remained until injury forced him to stop dancing in 1966. He created roles in Cranko's Romeo and Juliet (1962), Swan Lake (1963), Firebird (1964), and Onegin (title role, 1965), and MacMillan's Las Hermanas (1963) and Song of the Earth (1965). He was ballet master of Berlin Opera Ballet (1966–70), Frankfurt Ballet (1970–3), and Hamburg Ballet (1973–6), associate director and guest choreographer of Madrid's Ballet Nacional Clásico in the late 1980s, and artistic director of Berlin Opera Ballet (1994–6). He has staged Don Quixote and Swan Lake for the Bavarian State Ballet.

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barre.

The wooden bar attached to the walls of a ballet studio at about waist height. It is used by dancers to aid balance during the exercises that constitute the first part of a daily class.

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Bart , Patrice

(b Paris, 30 July 1945).
French dancer, choreographer, and ballet master. He studied at the Paris Opera Ballet School and joined the Paris Opera Ballet in 1959, becoming a member of the corps de ballet before his fifteenth birthday. He was promoted to danseur étoile in 1972. He excelled in demicaractère roles, and was particularly noted for his Blue Bird. He became ballet master of the Paris Opera Ballet in 1986 (a position he still holds) and briefly acted as interim ballet director. He retired from the stage in 1989. His first choreography was for the Berlin Staatsoper Ballet, a new staging of Don Quixote, in 1993, which was later taken into the repertoire of the Finnish National Ballet (1995). In 1996 he staged Coppélia for the Paris Opera and in 1997 a new Swan Lake for the Berlin Staatsoper. In 1998 he staged a new version of La Bayadère for the Bavarian State Ballet. Gold medal, Moscow (1969).

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Bartók , Béla

(b Nagyszentmiklós, 25 Mar. 1881, d New York, 26 Sept. 1945).
Hungarian composer. He wrote only two ballet scores: The Wooden Prince (1917), which was rejected by Diaghilev as ‘false modernism’, and The Miraculous Mandarin (1926), which proved to be an enduring favourite with choreographers throughout the 20th century. Many of his concert works have been used as ballet scores.

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Baryshnikov , Mikhail

(b Riga, 27 Jan. 1948).
Latvian-born Soviet-US dancer, choreographer and ballet director. One of the greatest stars of 20th-century dance. He studied at the Leningrad Ballet School (the Vaganova) with Pushkin and joined the Kirov in 1967, where he quickly became one of its leading artists. Jacobson created the solo Vestris (1969) to showcase his brilliance, and he created the title role in Sergeyev's Hamlet (1970) and Adam in Kasatkina and Vasiliov's Creation of the World (1971). In 1974, while on tour in Canada with a troupe of Soviet dancers, he defected in Toronto, following the example of his famous Kirov predecessors Nureyev and Makarova . He danced with many companies in the West, including the Royal Ballet and Paris Opera Ballet, but he was most closely associated with American Ballet Theatre (1974–8, 1980–9), where his partnership with Gelsey Kirkland in the classics was a notable success. In addition to performing the classical repertoire, he also sought out the challenges of modern choreography: he worked with the Paul Taylor, Alvin Ailey, and Martha Graham companies, among others. He enjoyed enormous success with Twyla Tharp's crossover ballet Push Comes to Shove (1976), which became his signature piece. He joined New York City Ballet in 1978 for a season in order to work with Balanchine , although Balanchine was not able to create anything new for Baryshnikov. While at NYCB he created roles in two new Robbins ballets, The Seasons and Opus 19. In 1980 he returned to ABT as principal dancer and artistic director, where he remained until 1989. His directorship met with mixed success; his stagings included Giselle (1980), Cinderella (1983), and Swan Lake (1988), the last two of which were quickly withdrawn from the repertoire. As a classical dancer, he was possessed of a superlative and pure technique, an extraordinary musicality and an uncanny ability to inhabit the characters he portrayed on stage. He was also remarkably versatile, excelling equally well at noble princes and light-hearted rogues.
Following his retirement from classical ballet, he joined forces with the choreographer Mark Morris to found the White Oak Dance Project in 1990, using his celebrity and the undiminished splendour of his dancing to bring modern dance to new audiences around the world. For White Oak he has commissioned new works from Taylor , Tharp , Lubovitch , and Robbins , among others, while reviving works by Holm , Graham , Limón , and Cunningham ; in 1996 he and Dana Reitz collaborated on a programme of solo dances.
The list of his created roles includes Neumeier's Hamlet: Connotations (1976), Ailey's Pas de Duke (1976), Petit's Dame de pique (1978), Robbins's Other Dances (1976), and Opus 19 (1979), Ashton's Rhapsody (1980), MacMillan's The Wild Boy (1981), Tharp's Push Comes to Shove (1976), The Little Ballet (also called Once Upon a Time, 1983), and Sinatra Suite (1984), Armitage's The Mollino Room (1986), and Mark Morris's Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes (1988) and Wonderland (1989). He starred in several films, including The Turning Point (1977), White Nights (1985), Dancers (1987), and The Cabinet of Dr Ramirez (1991). He made his Broadway stage debut in 1989 in Metamorphosis, a play by Steven Berkoff based on Franz Kafka . He has appeared frequently on television in America, featuring in the programmes Baryshnikov at the White House, Baryshnikov on Broadway, and Baryshnikov in Hollywood. He made his debut as a choreographer with Nutcracker (American Ballet Theatre, 1976) and followed that up with a new production of Don Quixote (ABT, 1978). Gold Medals at Varna, 1966, and Moscow, 1969. Nijinsky Prize, Paris, 1969. Emmy Award, 1979; Best Actor Award, Outer-Circle Drama Critics, 1989.

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bas, en.

Indicates a low position in ballet, especially of the arms.

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Basel Ballet.

Now-defunct Swiss municipal ballet company, based in Basle. The company was formed in 1955 when the Russian dancer and choreographer Vaslav Orlikovsky assumed the post of ballet master in Basel. He imported many foreign dancers, built up the repertoire, and brought the company to international attention, using the classics as well as popular Soviet works to draw audiences. Orlikovsky created two important ballets of his own: Peer Gynt (1956) and The Prince of the Pagodas (1961). The company fell into decline following Orlikovsky's departure in 1967, but it was revitalized by Heinz Spoerli , who became resident choreographer (later company director) in 1973. He contributed many works to the repertoire, including a popular restaging of Giselle, and also invited outside choreographers such as Christopher Bruce , William Forsythe , Hans van Manen , and John Cranko to make work. The company made its New York debut in 1983. Spoerli left the company in 1991. In 1996, following a decision by the theatre's management, the company was disbanded.

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Basil , Colonel de (Vassily Voskresensky ;

b Kaunas, 1888, d Paris, 27 July 1951).
Russian ballet impresario and co-director of the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo. Following service in the Russian Army during the First World War, the former Cossack officer began his theatrical career in Paris in 1925. He eventually became assistant to the exiled Georgian impresario Prince Zeretelli, who ran London and Paris seasons of Russian opera. In 1932 he founded the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo with René Blum, running the business side of the company and organizing its tours. An unlikely advocate for Russian ballet, he none the less helped to bring it to an enormous worldwide audience through the company's exhaustive international touring. After Massine left in 1938 (Blum having departed in 1936), he continued to direct the company under several names, the one most commonly used being the Original Ballet Russe. The company disbanded in 1948.

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basse danse.

A French term which refers to a group of 15th-century court dances. Usually they were dignified walking dances and are considered a precursor of the minuet. Ashton's Capriol Suite features a basse danse.

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Bat-Dor Dance Company.

Israeli dance company based in Tel Aviv, founded by Baroness Batsheva de Rothschild , who had previously founded the Batsheva Dance Company. It made its debut in 1968 under the direction of the South African ballet dancer Jeannette Ordman , who was also its leading dancer. The company has a broad repertoire of modern ballets based on the classical technique. Foreign choreographers who have worked with it include Tudor , van Dantzig , P. Wright, Bolender , Robert Cohan , and Lubovitch . In 1993, following a serious fire at its headquarters, the financially ailing company closed. Two years later, it resumed operations on a reduced scale. The company, still directed by Ordman , has an associated school.

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Batsheva Dance Company.

Israeli dance company founded in 1964 and named after its sponsor, Baroness Batsheva de Rothschild , Martha Graham's wealthy benefactor. The foremost modern dance ensemble in Israel, it made its debut in Tel Aviv in 1964. From the beginning it took artistic advice from Martha Graham, and until 1970 it was directed by the ex-Graham dancer Jane Dudley . In the 1980s Robert Cohan , another Graham dancer, acted as artistic adviser. The repertoire featured works by Graham including Errand into the Maze, Embattled Garden, Cave of the Heart, and Diversion of Angels, plus The Dream, which Graham created for the company in 1974. In the mid-1970s, however, the special relationship between Batsheva and Graham was severed when Linda Hodes (who had been joint artistic director) became a director of Graham's company in New York. Works by Robbins and Limón were added to the repertoire. Foreign choreographers who made work for the company included Tetley , Morrice , Butler , and Cranko . Israeli choreographers who contributed to the repertoire included Rena Gluck , Moshe Efrati , Ehud Ben-David , and Rina Schenfeld . In 1973 Batsheva de Rothschild broke her ties with the company in order to devote her energies and financial support to Bat-Dor. Following her departure, the company received financial support from the Israeli Government. In the 1980s, under the joint directorship of Shelley Sheer and David Dvir , choreographers such as Mark Morris , Daniel Ezralow , and Ohad Naharin were invited to make work. In 1990 Naharin was appointed artistic director. He brought Kylián , Vandekeybus , Preljocaj , and Forsythe into the repertoire, while his own Anaphase (1993) has become one of the company's most popular works.

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battement.

A ballet term which indicates a beating movement of a stretched or a bent leg.

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batterie.

A ballet term which refers to movements in which the legs are beaten together in the air.

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Baudelaire.

A dance spectacle in nine scenes based on the poems of Baudelaire, directed by Maurice Béjart , who adapted the text, did the choreography, and organized the musical montage. Premiered 9 Feb. 1968 by the Ballet of the 20th Century at Grenoble, with Michel Bringuies , Bortoluzzi , Donn , Lowski , Lommel , Albrecht , Bari , Gielgud , and Kerendi . Béjart incorporated songs by Debussy and excerpts from Wagner's Tannhäuser in this mammoth work, which sets out to draw a parallel between Baudelaire's paradises and the drug-induced psychedelic experiences of hippies.

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Bauhaus Dances.

Experimental dances by the painter Oskar Schlemmer which sought to explore the relationship between a moving figure and space. His research into dance began after he joined the Bauhaus in 1920. In 1925 at Dessau he presented his so-called ‘Bauhaustänze’, which were really analytical studies of movement. See also Triadic Ballet.

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Bausch , Pina

(b Solingen, 27 July 1940).
German dancer, choreographer, and company director. One of the most influential avant-garde artists on the European dance scene. She began her dance studies at the age of 14 with Kurt Jooss at the Folkwang School in Essen. Further studies at the Juilliard School of Music in New York (1960–1), with Antony Tudor . In 1961–2 she danced with the New American Ballet at the Metropolitan Opera, a company then directed by Tudor . In 1962 she returned to Germany to work as a soloist with Jooss's Folkwang Ballet. She began choreographing in 1968. When Jooss retired in 1969 she became company director. In 1973 she founded Tanztheater Wuppertal , in Germany's industrial Ruhr Valley. Her first work as director of Tanztheater Wuppertal was Fritz (mus. Wolfgang Hufschmidt , 1974). Her breakthrough came in 1975 with her landmark staging of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring; in it, she covered the stage with wet earth. Her 1976 production of The Seven Deadly Sins confirmed her move away from dance conventions and into the world of dance-theatre. From her base in Wuppertal she has built an international reputation as the leading exponent of European dance-theatre.
A natural heir to the German expressionist dance tradition called Ausdruckstanz, her productions stress ideas—usually feelings of alienation, anguish, frustration, and cruelty—rather than the elaboration of pure movement. As Bausch herself has said, she is ‘not interested in how people move, but in what moves them’. Her productions usually avoid a linear narrative logic; speech, props, and costumes play a large role. They are masterpieces of theatrical imagination, if not choreographic invention. In Arien she covered the stage with water; in Viktor she placed the action inside a huge earthwork grave; in Nelken she covered the stage with thousands of carnations. A list of her productions includes In the Wind of Time (1969), Actions for Dancers (1971), Tannhäuser-Bacchanale (1972), Fritz (1974), Iphigenia in Tauris (1974), Orpheus and Eurydice (1975), The Rite of Spring (1975), The Seven Deadly Sins (mus. Weill , 1976), Bluebeard (1977), Cafe Müller (1978), Kontakthof (1978), Arien (1979), Legend of Chastity (1979), Bandoneon (1980), Walzer (1982), Nelken (1982), On the Mountain a Cry Was Heard (1984), Two Cigarettes in the Dark (1985), Viktor (1986), Palermo, Palermo (1989), A Dreamplay (1994), Danzon (1995), Only You (1996), and Masurca Fogo (1998). In 1982 she collaborated with the film-maker Fellini on And the Ship Sails On. She subsequently made her own film, The Lament of the Empress. In 1997 she re-staged her Rite of Spring for the Paris Opera Ballet.

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Bavarian State Ballet.

Ballet company based in Munich, formerly known as the Munich State Opera Ballet or the Bavarian State Opera Ballet; also known as the Bavarian National Ballet. The company, which performs at the National Theatre, can trace its roots back to 1818 when the theatre opened. The Taglionis appeared as guest artists in 1825; Lucile Grahn was ballet mistress from 1869 to 1875. Heinrich Kröller (1917–30) staged many important premieres, including R. Strauss's Die Josephslegende and Bartók's The Wooden Prince. Pia and Pino Mlakar ran the company from 1939 to 1944 (and again from 1952 to 1954), and revived Jocko, the Brazilian Ape, choreographed by Filippo Taglioni for his daughter Marie in 1826. Marcel Luipart (1945–8) was responsible for the world premiere of Werner Egk's Abraxas (1948), a Faustian ballet which was withdrawn after a handful of performances on moral grounds. Subsequent directors have included Victor Gsovsky (1950–2), Alan Carter (1954–9), Heinz Rosen (1959–68), Ronald Hynd (1970–3 and 1984–6), Lynn Seymour (1978–80), Konstanze Vernon (1989–98), and Ivan Liska (from 1998). In 1989 the company became independent of the opera and its name was changed to Bavarian State Ballet. The repertoire is based on the classics but also features works by van Manen , Kylián , Forsythe , Neumeier , Ek , Cranko , Balanchine , Tharp , Childs , and Teshigawara .

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Bayadère, La.

Ballet in four acts with choreography by Petipa , libretto by Sergei Khudekov and Petipa , music by Minkus , and scenery and costumes by Ivan Andreyev , Mikhail Bocharov , Petr Lambin , Andrei Roller , Matvei Shishkov , and Heinrich Wagner . Premiered 4 Feb. 1877 at the Bolshoi Theatre, St Petersburg, with Vazem , Ivanov , Gorshenkova , and Johansson . The ballet is set in ancient India and is based on Kalidasa's 5th-century Sanskrit masterpiece Sakuntala. It tells of the bayadère (temple dancer) Nikiya who loves the warrior Solor. Solor, although returning her love, is forced to become engaged to the Rajah's daughter Gamzatti . Gamzatti conspires to have her rival bitten by a snake, and Nikiya duly dies. In the famous Kingdom of the Shades scene, an opium-smoking Solor dreams of meeting his beloved again. In the final act, often omitted in later productions, the temple collapses during Solor and Gamzatti's wedding, burying them in the ruins. With its extraordinary opening procession of the corps de ballet moving slowly down a ramp one by one, the Kingdom of the Shades scene is considered to be one of Petipa's masterpieces. The Kingdom of the Shades was first seen in the West in 1961 performed by the Kirov; Nureyev then staged it for the Royal Ballet in 1963. Makarova mounted the first full-length Bayadère in the West (for American Ballet Theatre) in 1980; in 1992 Nureyev staged a complete La Bayadère for the Paris Opera Ballet.

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Bayanihan Philippine Dance Company.

Philippine company founded in Manila in 1957 to preserve the traditions of Filipino folk dance and to present them on the international stage. Its first appearance in the West occurred at the Brussels World Fair of 1958. The company evolved from presenting simple folk dances into offering more stylized theatrical dance productions.

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Baylis , Lilian

(b London, 1874, d London, 1937).
British theatre manager whose vision helped to create what eventually became the Royal Ballet. She began by running the Old Vic Theatre in 1912, and in 1926 she engaged de Valois to stage dances for the plays and operas she was presenting. When Sadler's Wells was rebuilt in 1931 Baylis took de Valois and her dancers with her to the new theatre, thus establishing a permanent home for both a national dance company and a school.

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Baylis , Nadine

(b London, 15 June 1940).
British designer. She studied at the Central School of Art and Design in London. She began an association with Ballet Rambert in 1965, designing Norman Morrice's Realms of Choice. She is most closely associated with the ballets of Glen Tetley , for whom she designed Ziggurat (Ballet Rambert, 1967), Embrace Tiger and Return to Mountain (Ballet Rambert, 1968), Field Figures (Royal Ballet, 1970), Sacre du printemps (Munich State Opera, 1974), The Tempest (Ballet Rambert, 1979), Alice (National Ballet of Canada, 1986), Orpheus (Australian Ballet, 1987), and Oracle (National Ballet of Canada, 1994). She also designed Michael Corder's Romeo and Juliet (1992) for the Norwegian National Ballet and London Contemporary Dance Theatre's The Phantasmagoria in 1987. An austere and stylish designer.

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Beach.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Massine , music by Françaix , and designs by Dufy . Premiered 19 Apr. 1933 by the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, Monte Carlo, with Lichine , Riabouchinska , Baronova , and Massine . The gods of the sea take human form as bathers at a fashionable seaside resort.

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Beach Birds.

Modern dance in one act with choreography by Cunningham , music by Cage , and costumes by Marsha Skinner . Premiered 20 June 1991 by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company at Theater 11 in Zurich. An abstract fluid work for eleven dancers, it was made in part with the help of the LifeForms computer program. It was later revised for a film version called Beach Birds for Camera.

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beat.

In ballet a term which means the beating of one leg against the other, or the beating of both legs together, often crossing one another, while in the air.

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Beaton , (Sir) Cecil

(b London, 14 Jan. 1904, d Salisbury, 18 Jan. 1980).
British photographer, stage designer, and author. He was most closely associated with Ashton , designing sets and costumes for the latter's Apparitions (Vic-Wells Ballet, 1936), Les Sirènes (Sadler's Wells Ballet, 1946), Les Patineurs (Ballet Theatre, 1946), Illuminations (New York City Ballet, 1950), Picnic at Tintagel (New York City Ballet, 1952), Casse-Noisette (Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet, 1951), and Marguerite and Armand (Royal Ballet, 1963). He also designed Balanchine's Swan Lake for New York City Ballet in 1951, and the musical My Fair Lady. An elegant and romantic designer whose visions epitomized the height of fashion in their day. He won two Academy Awards, for Gigi (1958) and My Fair Lady (1964). Knighted in 1972.

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Beatty , Patricia

(b Toronto, 13 May 1936).
Canadian dancer, choreographer, artistic director, and writer. She studied ballet with Gladys Forrester and Gweneth Lloyd in Toronto, and got a BA in dance from Bennington College in 1959. She studied modern dance at the Connecticut College Summer School, the José Limón School, and the Martha Graham School. She danced with Mary Anthony Dance Company (1959–60) and Pearl Lang Dance Company (1960–5). In 1965 she returned to Canada and opened a school. In 1967, drawing on the students she had trained, she founded the New Dance Group of Canada and in 1968 she co-founded (with David Earle and Peter Randazzo ) Toronto Dance Theatre and its school. Most of her choreography has been for Toronto Dance Theatre. Her work is distinguished by its intensely visual impact and the seriousness of its themes. Her later pieces are dedicated to exploring the power of the feminine in nature and the idea of the goddess in myth and religion. She retired from performing in 1983. In 1993 she gave up her position as resident choreographer of Toronto Dance Theatre. A list of her works includes Against Sleep (mus. Southam , 1968), First Music (mus. Ives , 1970), Seastill (mus. Southam , 1979), Raptures and Ravings (mus. Robert Daigneault , 1983), Emerging Ground (mus. Southam , 1983), Mandala (1992), Gaia (mus. Sharon Smith , 1993), Garden of Origins (mus. David Akal Jaggs , 1993), and Assara (mus. Sharon Smith , 1997).

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Beatty , Talley

(b Cedargrove, La., c.1923, d New York, 29 Apr. 1995).
US dancer, choreographer, and company director. He started his career in 1940 dancing with Katherine Dunham , under whom he had trained. Later studies were with Martha Graham . In 1946 he left Dunham and struck out on his own. He performed in musicals, including a revival of Show Boat (1946); in Maya Deren's film, A Study in Choreography for Camera (1945); and in Helen Tamiris's Inside U.S.A. (1948). In 1949 he formed his own company, Tropicana, for which he created Southern Landscape, which looked at the plight of African Americans in the South after the Civil War. In 1955 he disbanded his company, and turned his energies to giving solo concerts and choreographing for others. His dances frequently highlighted social injustice, particularly for black Americans. A list of his works includes The Road of the Phoebe Snow (1959), the full-length Come and Get the Beauty of It Hot (1960), Powers of Six (1964), and Montgomery Variations (1967). He also created The Black District (1968) and The Stack Up (1982) for the Alvin Ailey company, Poème de l'extase for Cullberg Dance Company in 1972, and Cathedral of Heaven for the Batsheva Dance Company in 1973. Other companies he worked with include the Boston Ballet and Dance Theatre of Harlem. He collaborated with Duke Ellington on two television specials: A Drum Is a Woman (NBC, 1956) and Black, Brown and Beige (CBS, 1974). His tribute to the composer, Ellingtonia, had its premiere at the American Dance Festival in 1993.

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Beauchamps , Pierre (also Pierre Beauchamp ;

b Paris, 1631 (baptized 30 Oct.), d Paris, 1705).
French dancer, choreographer, ballet master, and composer. He is credited with inventing the five classic positions of classical ballet. He trained as a violinist and dancer. He made his debut as a dancer in 1648, appearing in the court ballet Le Dérèglement des passions. He appeared in many ballets de cour with Louis XIV, whom he taught. In 1661 he was appointed the first Intendant des Ballets du Roi, thus making him responsible for the staging of all ballets at court. As a choreographer he collaborated frequently with the composer Lully , both men sometimes contributing both music and steps (Lully had started his career as a dancer) to the same production. Together they helped to change the face of ballet, both at the court and at the newly founded Paris Opera. As a composer Beauchamps also worked with Molière (who was in fact a relative) and wrote the score for (and conducted the orchestra) as well as choreographing Molière's 1661 comedy-ballet, Les Fâcheux. It was the first of many collaborations with Molière; later productions included Le Mariage forcé (1664) and Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (1670), both of which had music by Lully. On 19 Mar. 1671 he choreographed Pomone, the first opera produced at the Paris Opera. In 1672 he joined the Paris Opera as ballet master, working there in partnership with Lully until 1687, when Lully died and Beauchamps retired. In 1680 he was appointed chancellor of the Académie Royale de Danse. His most famous production was Le Triomphe de l'amour (1681), which was notable for featuring the first public appearance of professional female dancers. Following his retirement from the Paris Opera, he continued to work as court choreographer. As a dancer he was noted for his brilliant technique, and is said to have been one of the first dancers to execute tours en l'air. He also designed his own system of notation, and in 1704 sued his rival notator Raoul-Auger Feuillet for plagiarism. Beauchamps lost. Rather than inventing the five classic ballet positions of arms and feet, he was probably the first to codify them. He is sometimes described as ‘the father of all ballet masters’. He was also a noted art collector.

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Beau Danube, Le (orig. title Le Beau Danube bleu).

Ballet originally in two acts with choreography by Massine , music by Johann Strauss II and Josef Strauss arr . Roger Désormière , set by Vladimir and Elizabeth Polunin (after Constantin Guys ), and costumes by É. de Beaumont . Premiered 17 May 1924, Soirées de Paris de Comte É. de Beaumont , Théâtre de la Cigale, Paris, with Lopokova and Massine . A comedy set in the Vienna Prater of the 1860s, and involving an eternal triangle between a hussar, his high-born fiancée, and his former mistress, a street dancer. This last role is particularly associated with Danilova , who performed it when Massine revived the ballet in its final one-act version in 1933 for the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo. There have been many revivals, including London Festival Ballet in 1971 and the Joffrey Ballet in 1972.

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Beaujoyeux , Balthasar de (also Balthasar de Beaujoyeulx ; orig. Baldassare da Belgiojoso ;

b Paris, early 16th century, d Paris, c.1587).
Italian-French violinist, composer, and choreographer. He was a personal servant to Catherine de Médicis and musical tutor to her sons. He took part in the masquerade Défense du paradis (1572), arranged the Ballet aux ambassadeurs polonais (1573), and choreographed the Ballet comique de la reine in 1581. The latter, a five-hour extravaganza celebrating the marriage of the Duc de Joyeuse to the Queen's sister, is widely considered to be the first ballet de cour. As such, he is considered to be the first French choreographer.

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Beaumont , Comte Étienne de

(b 8 Mar. 1883, d 1956).
French designer and ballet patron. In 1924, in conjunction with Cocteau and Massine , he organized the Soirées de Paris at the Théâtre de la Cigale, which presented the first performances of many works by Massine . These included Romeo and Juliet, Salade, Mercure, Le Beau Danube, Scuola di ballo, and Gaîté parisienne.

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Beaumont , Cyril William

(b London, 1 Nov. 1891, d London, 24 May 1976).
British critic, writer, bookseller, and publisher. One of the most important dance historians of the 20th century. He wrote more than 40 books on ballet, including the mammoth Complete Book of Ballets, and translated many early writings on the subject by Noverre , P. Rameau , and Gautier . He also recorded and preserved the Cecchetti system of training, and founded the Cecchetti Society to further the master's teaching methods. He fell in love with ballet after seeing Pavlova perform in 1911 and the following year saw Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, an event which prompted him to devote himself to chronicling the achievements of the Diaghilev era. In 1910 he opened a dance bookshop in Charing Cross Road in London which became world famous, and he kept it open for the next 55 years until his retirement in 1965. He was honoured by the French, Italian, and British governments. Author of A Manual of the Theory and Practice of Classical Theatrical Dancing (with Idzikowski , 1922), A Bibliography of Dancing (1929), Michel Fokine and His Ballets (1935), The Complete Book of Ballets (1937), The Diaghilev Ballet in London (1940), Supplement to the Complete Book of Ballets (1942), The Ballet Called Giselle (1944), The Sadler's Wells Ballet (1946), Ballet Design: Past and Present (1946), Dancers Under My Lens (1949), The Ballet Called Swan Lake (1952), Ballets of Today (1954), Ballets Past and Present (1955), and A Bookseller at the Ballet, his 1975 autobiography. Légion d'honneur (1950). Chairman of the Cecchetti Society from 1922 to 1970. Editor of Dance Journal (1924–39); dance critic of the Sunday Times (1950–9).

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Beauty and the Beast.

1 Ballet in one act with choreography by Cranko , music by Ravel , and designs by Margaret Kaye . Premiered 20 Dec. 1949, by Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet, Sadler's Wells Theatre, London, with David Poole and Patricia Miller . A dance version of the fairy-tale; filmed for BBC Television in 1953.

2 Full-length ballet by Peter Darrell for Scottish Theatre Ballet, with libretto by Colin Graham , music by Thea Musgrave , and designs by Peter Minshall . Premiered 19 Nov. 1969 at Sadler's Wells Theatre, London.
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Beck , Hans

(b Haderslev, 31 May 1861, d Copenhagen, 9 June 1952).
Danish dancer, choreographer, and ballet master. His greatest achievement was the preservation of the Bournonville repertoire. He studied at the Royal Danish Ballet School and made his debut in 1871 (with Bournonville among the audience). He became a soloist in 1881 and performed all the leading male roles in the Bournonville repertoire. He was ballet master of the Royal Danish Ballet from 1894 to 1915 and ensured that the repertoire was dedicated to keeping alive the Bournonville legacy. It is his editions of Bournonville which continue to be performed in Copenhagen. He choreographed the solo variations for the last act of a new production of Napoli, and his production of Coppélia (1896) proved to be enduringly popular. As a choreographer he enjoyed great success with The Little Mermaid (1909), based on Hans Christian Andersen's fairy-tale and set to music by Fini Henriques . Ellen Price , who danced the title role, is the inspiration behind the famous statue in Copenhagen's harbour.

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Bedells , Phyllis

(b Bristol, 9 Aug. 1893, d Henley on Thames, 2 May 1985).
British dancer and teacher. She studied dance with Bolm , Cecchetti , and Pavlova . In 1906 she made her debut at the age of 13 in Alice in Wonderland at the Prince of Wales Theatre in London. She danced regularly at the London Empire Theatre (1907–16), and from 1914 she was prima ballerina there, the first British dancer to hold the post. She then danced mostly in West End musical revues and in opera ballets at Covent Garden. In 1920 she was a founding member of the Royal Academy of Dancing, helping to draw up its first syllabus. She was also a member of the Camargo Society. In 1931 she appeared as a guest artist with the Vic-Wells Ballet. Following her retirement from the stage in 1935 she became very active in teaching and as an examiner for the Royal Academy of Dancing. She published her autobiography, My Dancing Days, in 1954.

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Beethoven , Ludwig van

(b Bonn, prob. 16 Dec. 1770, d Vienna, 26 Mar. 1827).
German composer. He wrote only two ballets: Ritterballett (chor. Habich , Bonn, 1791) and The Creatures of Prometheus (chor. S. Viganò , Vienna, 1801; new version by Ashton for Royal Ballet Touring Company, Bonn, 1970). His concert works have been used by many choreographers, most notably Massine (Seventh Symphony, Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, 1938, Moonlight Sonata, American Ballet Theatre, 1944); Béjart (Ninth Symphony, Ballet of the 20th Century, 1964); Taylor (Orbs, Paul Taylor Company, 1966); van Manen (Grosse Fuge to String Quartet, Op. 133, Netherlands Dance Theatre, 1971, and Adagio Hammerklavier, to Op. 106, Dutch National Ballet, 1973); Kudelka (Pastorale, National Ballet of Canada, 1990); de Keersmaeker (Erts, Brussels, 1992); and Tharp (Seventh Symphony, NYCB, 2000).

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Behemoth.

Modern dance in one act with choreography by Mark Morris , performed to silence. Premiered 14 Apr. 1990, by the Mark Morris Dance Group at the Halles de Schaerbeek in Brussels. A ritualistic and emotionally introverted work. Joan Acocella , in her biography of Morris (1993), described Behemoth as ‘the coldest, darkest dance Morris has ever made’.

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Béjart , Maurice (orig. M. Berger ;

b Marseilles, 1 Jan. 1927).
French dancer, choreographer, and ballet director. A controversial and influential figure of 20th-century ballet, he has turned his hand to everything from pure dance to text-driven theatrical spectacle and even works of scandalous explicitness. Born the son of the philosopher Gaston Berger , he studied dance in Marseilles, Paris (with Egorova ), and London (with Volkova ) and made his debut in 1945. From 1945 to 1947 he toured with Schwarz , Charrat , and Petit ; in 1949–50 he performed with Mona Inglesby's International Ballet, where he spent most of his time dancing the Prince in Swan Lake. He was with the Cullberg Ballet and the Royal Swedish Ballet (1950–2). In 1953 he founded Les Ballets de l'Étoile (with the writer Jean Laurent ), the precursor to the Ballet Théâtre de Paris de Maurice Béjart (1957). He choreographed several ballets for the fledgeling troupe, including Symphonie pour un homme seul (1955), which was notable for being the first ballet choreographed to musique concrète (recorded sounds not made with musical instruments). In 1957 he created Sonate à trois, set to Bartók and based on Sartre's play No Exit. In 1959 he choreographed the wildly successful Sacre du printemps for the Brussels Opera, using a specially assembled company. This formed the nucleus of the Ballet of the 20th Century, set up the following year with Béjart as director and based at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels, the city's opera house. This company became one of the most popular and well-travelled troupes in the world, with its repertoire of Béjart ballets bringing new, and especially younger, audiences to dance. They were attracted by his flamboyant and ambitious ballets (like Les 4 Fils Aymon, 1961, and The Merry Widow, 1963), which although firmly based in the classical technique carried a very modern sensibility and a grandiose theatricality (deemed pompous and pretentious by his critics). He was also quick to pick up on the new: he was one of the first choreographers to use electronic music, for instance, and in the late 1960s he tapped into the prevailing hippie zeitgeist, adding mysticism and Eastern ideologies to his choreography (Bakhti, 1968, and Nijinsky, clown de Dieu, 1971, for example). He has also enjoyed a lifelong fascination with Wagner, taking part in Wieland Wagner's 1961 Bayreuth production of Tannhäuser, choreographing Venusberg (1963), Mathilde (1965), Baudelaire (1968), and Les Vainqueurs (1969) to Wagner scores, and capping it all with Ring um den Ring for the Berlin Opera Ballet in 1990. In 1970 he became head of the Mudra Centre in Brussels, an international training school for the performing arts.
In 1987, following a disagreement with the Monnaie management, Béjart left Brussels and moved his operation to Lausanne, where it changed its name to Béjart Ballet Lausanne. In 1992 he founded the École-Atelier Rudra Béjart Lausanne, similar to the Mudra Centre. In the 1990s he often collaborated with the French ballerina Sylvie Guillem. Although he created several works for the Paris Opera Ballet (Damnation of Faust, 1964, Renard, 1965, and Firebird, 1970), most of his choreography has been for his own company. A representative list of his other ballets includes Symphony for a Lonely Man (mus. Pierre Henry and P. Schaeffer , 1955), Promethée (mus. Maurice Ohana , 1956), Sonate à trois (mus. Bartók , 1957), Orphée (mus. Henry , 1958), Bolero (mus. Ravel , 1960), The Seven Deadly Sins (mus. Weill , 1961), Tales of Hoffmann (opera by Offenbach , 1961), Les 4 Fils Aymon (with Charrat ; mus. 15th and 16th century, 1961), Les Noces (mus. Stravinsky , 1962), A la recherche de Don Juan (revised version, mus. 16th century, 1962), Suite viennoise (mus. Schoenberg , Berg , and Webern , 1962), Ninth Symphony (mus. Beethoven , 1964), L'Oiseau de feu (second version; mus. Stravinsky , 1964), Romeo and Juliet (mus. Berlioz , 1966), Messe pour le temps present, or Mass for Our Time (1967), A la recherche de … (mus. various, 1968), Serait-ce la mort? (mus. R. Strauss , 1970), Song of a Wayfarer (mus. Mahler , 1971), Nijinsky, clown de Dieu (mus. Tchaikovsky and Pierre Henry , 1971), Stimmung (mus. Stockhausen , 1972), Golestan—Garden of Roses (1973), Le Marteau sans maître (mus. Boulez , 1973), La traviata (Verdi opera, 1973), Seraphite (mus. Mozart , 1974), I trionfi (mus. Berio , 1974), Notre Faust (mus. Bach , 1975), Le Molière imaginaire (mus. Rota , 1976), Les Illuminations (mus. Henry , oriental, 1979), Eros-Thanatos (mus. various, 1980), La Flute enchantée (mus. Mozart , 1981), Wien, Wien nur du allein (mus. Schoenberg , Beethoven , and others, 1982), Messe pour le temps futur (mus. Wagner , Beethoven , 1983), Cinq nô modernes (text Mishima, 1984), The Contest (mus. Le Bar and others, 1985), Malraux, ou, La Métamorphose des dieux (mus. Beethoven , Le Bars, traditional, 1986), Le Martyre de Saint-Sébastien (mus. Debussy , 1986), Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (mus. Debussy , 1987), Piaf (mus. Piaf , 1988), 1789 … et nous (1989), Tod in Wien (mus. Mozart , 1991), Le Mandarin merveilleux (1992), Lear-Prospero (1994), Journal (1995), Mutation X (1998), and The Nutcracker (1998). In 1997 in Lausanne he staged Ballet for Life, with music by Mozart and the rock group Queen and costumes by Versace ; the work drew its inspiration from the lives of the singer Freddie Mercury and the dancer Jorge Donn , both of whom died of Aids. Author of Maurice Béjart: Un instant dans la vie d'autrui, Memoires (Paris, 1979), and Ballets par Béjart (Paris, 1979). He also wrote the novel Mathilde, ou le temps perdu (1963) and the plays La Reine verte (1963) and La Tentation de Saint-Antoine (1967). Erasmus Prize (1974). Medal of the Order of the Rising Sun, Japan.

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Belgium.

Dance came late to Belgium, and was restricted for the most part to Brussels and Ghent. Like elsewhere in Europe, it took the form of a ballet company attached to the local opera house and performances were usually limited to dancing in opera ballets. In 1816 a permanent corps de ballet was established at the Théâtre de la Monnaie opera house in Brussels; in 1819 Jean-Antoine Petipa was hired as premier danseur and ballet master. In 1826 he founded the Conservatory of Dancing, the place where Marius Petipa and his brother Lucien began their dance studies. In 1841 the Royal Opera was founded in Ghent; a dance academy followed seven years later. Dance continued to find itself taking a back seat to opera until well into the 20th century, and most of those working in Belgium were foreigners. After the First World War a resident ballet company was established at the Monnaie, and ballet productions began to proliferate. Outside the world of ballet, expressionist modern dance was developing in the 1930s, thanks to the efforts of artists like Elsa Darciel , Lea Daan , and Isa Voos . In 1947 the first independent ballet company in Belgium, Ballet Belges, was formed, although it was short-lived. In 1960 Béjart founded the Ballet of the 20th Century in Brussels, a company which achieved a huge following both at home and abroad. In 1966 the Charleroi-based Ballet Royal de Wallonie was founded; in 1991 the name of the company was changed to Charleroi/Danses-Centre Chorégraphique de la Communauté Française. In 1970 Antwerp launched its Ballet of Flanders. Dance flourished in the latter half of the 20th century, with Béjart establishing himself as one of the most important choreographers on the international ballet scene, and with dancemakers like de Keersmaeker and Vandekeybus proving key figures in experimental modern European dance. From 1988 to 1991 the US choreographer Mark Morris and his dancers were resident at the Monnaie Opera House in Brussels (successors to Béjart's company) and as such were the national company of Belgium. In 1992 de Keersmaeker and her company Rosas became the resident dance group at the Monnaie.

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belly dancing.

See raqs sharqi.

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Belsky , Lgor

(b Leningrad, 28 Mar. 1925, d St Petersburg, 3 July 1999).
Soviet dancer, choreographer, and ballet director. He studied ballet at the Leningrad Ballet School, graduating in 1943, and acting at the Leningrad Institute for Theatre Arts, graduating in 1957. He joined the Kirov Ballet in 1943, and during the next twenty years he became one of the company's leading character dancers. He created roles in Jacobson's Shurale (1950) and Spartacus (1956), Sergeyev's Path of Thunder (1958), Grigorovich's The Stone Flower (1957), and Boris Fenster's Taras Bulba (1955). His own choreography for the Kirov included Coast of Hope (mus. A. Petrov , 1959), which was one of the first Soviet ballets to deal successfully with a contemporary theme (patriotism and loyalty), and Leningrad Symphony (1961), which was set to the first movement of Shostakovich's 7th Symphony and celebrated the Soviet spirit in battle. From 1962 to 1973 he was chief choreographer and artistic director of the Leningrad Maly Theatre where he produced new versions of The Humpbacked Horse, Swan Lake, and Nutcracker, while creating Eleventh Symphony (mus. Shostakovich , 1966), and Gadfly (mus. Tchernov , 1967). He enjoyed a brief spell as chief choreographer and artistic director of the Kirov Ballet (1973–7); for the Kirov he made Icarus (1974). Chief choreographer of the Leningrad Music Hall (1979–92); artistic director of the Vaganova Ballet Academy (from 1992). He began teaching character dance in 1946 at the Leningrad school (the Vaganova); from 1966 he taught choreography at the St Petersburg Conservatory. People's Artist RSFSR (1966).

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Benesh , Rudolf and Benesh , Joan née Rothwell.

British husband and wife who devised the Benesh system of dance notation. Rudolf (b London, 16 Jan. 1916, d London, 3 May 1975), an engineer, and Joan (b Liverpool, 24 Mar. 1920), a dancer, developed their system in 1955 and began teaching it in 1956 at the Royal Academy of Dancing. In 1960 the Royal Ballet became the first company to hire a professional choreologist. In 1962 Joan and Rudolf Benesh founded the Institute of Choreology, since renamed the Benesh Institute (and incorporated into the Royal Academy of Dancing). The Benesh Institute is responsible for training choreologists and for preserving notated scores. Benesh notators now work with virtually every major ballet company in the Western world. Most new ballets are notated in the Benesh system, while Labanotation continues to be favoured by those working in non-classical dance. Benesh Movement Notation uses a five-line stave, similar to music, with symbols that represent the various positions and movements of a body.

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Bennett , Michael

(b Buffalo, 8 Apr. 1943, d Tucson, Ariz., 2 July 1987).
US dancer, choreographer and Broadway director. He studied tap, jazz, and modern dance as a child. He dropped out of high school in 1960 to dance in a European touring production of West Side Story. Returning to New York a year later, he became a chorus boy, dancing in Subways Are for Sleeping (1961), Nowhere to Go But Up (1962), Here's Love (1963), and Bajour (1964). On television he danced for The Ed Sullivan Show, Hollywood Palace, and The Dean Martin Show. His first work as a billed choreographer was for A Joyful Noise (1966), which closed after only twelve performances on Broadway but still earned Bennett his first Tony nomination for choreography. Henry, Sweet Henry (1967–8) followed, but his first Broadway hit was Promises, Promises (1968), a musical based on Billy Wilder's 1960 film The Apartment. Coco (1969) and Company (1970) followed. For Follies (1971) Bennett was hired as co-director (with Harold Prince) and choreographer, picking up a Tony Award for each. In 1975 he directed, choreographed, and wrote (winning a Pulitzer Prize) A Chorus Line, the longest-running show on Broadway until it was overtaken by Cats in 1997. Other musicals he worked on include Ballroom (1978) and Dreamgirls (1981), which ran for more than 1,500 performances on Broadway.

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Bennington School of the Dance.

One of the most important platforms for modern dance in the US in the 1930s. The summer courses, which began in 1934 at the Bennington College and Undergraduate Liberal Arts College for Women in Vermont, presented works by the most important modern choreographers of the day, from Graham , Humphrey , and Holm to Weidman . Graham's El Penitente and Letter to the World, Humphrey's New Dance, With My Red Fires, and Passacaglia in C minor, and Holm's Trend all had their premieres during the summer courses. Merce Cunningham , Erick Hawkins , and José Limón were among many other choreographers who had Bennington premieres. The school was also the first to offer a college degree in dance. In 1940 its name was changed to Bennington School of the Arts, but in 1942 the summer programmes were discontinued.

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Benois , Alexandre

(b St Petersburg, 4 May 1870, d Paris, 9 Feb. 1960).
Russian painter and designer. One of the key figures of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. Like Diaghilev he studied law at the University of St Petersburg and in 1899, along with Diaghilev, Bakst, and Nouvel , founded the art magazine Mir Iskusstva (The World of Art) which led directly to the Paris exhibitions of Russian art, the success of which allowed Diaghilev to branch out into Russian opera and, in 1909, ballet. Benois was the first artistic director of the Ballets Russes de Diaghilev , remaining until 1911 when a quarrel led to his departure. He began designing for the ballet at the Maryinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, where his productions included Sylvia (never staged), Cupid's Revenge (1902), and Le Pavillon d'Armide (1907). For the Ballets Russes he designed Les Sylphides and Le Festin (1909), Giselle (1910), Petrushka (1911), and Song of the Nightingale (1914). His career as a designer continued long after he parted from Diaghilev, and he subsequently worked with Ida Rubinstein's company (Bolero, Le Baiser de la fée, and Nocturne), the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo (Le Bourgeois gentilhomme, 1932, Graduation Ball and Nutcracker, 1940, Raymonda, 1946), and London Festival Ballet (Nutcracker and Graduation Ball, 1957). His flair as a designer was for delicate and historically accurate stage settings, although he will always be remembered most for the colourful folkloric designs of Petrushka. Author of Reminiscences of the Russian Ballet (London, 1941) and Memoirs (2 vols., London, 1960 and 1964).

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Bérard , Christian

(b Paris, 20 Aug. 1902, d Paris, 13 Feb. 1949).
French painter and designer. One of the co-founders of the Ballets des Champs-Elysées (with Petit and Kochno , 1945). He designed Balanchine's Cotillon (Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, 1932) and Mozartiana (Les Ballets 1933); Massine's Symphonie fantastique (Colonel de Basil's Ballets Russes, 1936), Seventh Symphony (Sergei Denham's Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, 1938), and Clock Symphony (Sadler's Wells Ballet, 1948). For the Ballets des Champs-Elysées he designed Petit's Les Forains (1945) and Lichine's La Rencontre (1948).

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Beretta , Caterina

(b Milan, 8 Dec. 1839, d Milan, 1 Jan. 1911).
Italian dancer and teacher. She danced in the first production of Verdi's opera Les Vêpres siciliennes in Paris in 1853, and was famous as a ballerina throughout Europe, appearing in London as well as in Italy. She was maîtresse de ballet at the Maryinsky Theatre in St Petersburg (1877), and also at La Scala (1905–8). Pavlova , Legnani , and Karsavina were among those she taught.

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Berg , Alban

(b Vienna, 9 Feb. 1885, d Vienna, 24 Dec. 1935).
Austrian composer. Although he wrote no ballet music, his concert works have been used by choreographers, including Béjart (Suite viennoise, 1961), Tetley (Threshold, 1972), and William Tuckett (Enclosure, 1990).

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bergamasca (also bergomask, bergamasco, or bergamasque).

An old Italian peasant dance, from the area around Bergamo in Lombardy. Believed to be a fast circular dance in duple time for men and women, although there are no dance records of it extant. It originated in the mid-15th century.

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Berger , Augustin

(b Boskovice, 11 Aug. 1861, d Prague, 1 June 1945).
Czech dancer, choreographer, and ballet master. He danced at the opera houses in Dresden and Prague, and was a soloist at the Stavovské Theatre (1876–80). In 1883 he became a soloist at the Prague National Theatre. He eventually became ballet master of the Prague National Theatre (1912–23), where he helped to develop the national Czech ballet, and the court opera in Dresden (1900–10). He was artistic director of the Warsaw Ballet (1910–12), and staged Carmen at the Alhambra Theatre in London. He was ballet master of the Metropolitan Opera Ballet in New York (1926–32). He also choreographed the first non-Russian production of the second act of Swan Lake in 1888, an event attended by Tchaikovsky himself during a trip to Prague.

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Bergsma , Deanne

(b Pretoria, 1941).
South African-born British dancer. She was a member of the Royal Ballet from 1958, becoming a principal in 1967. She created the role of Lady Mary Lygon in Ashton's Enigma Variations (1968) and a principal part in Tetley's Field Figures (1970). She retired from the company in 1974, although she returned to the Royal Ballet in 1988 to take the role of Berta in a revival of Ashton's Ondine. A tall and extremely elegant dancer, she made a strong impression on stage.

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Berio , Luciano

(b Imperia, 24 Oct. 1925).
Italian composer. He wrote the score for Béjart's I trionfi (Florence, 1974). His concert music has been used by many choreographers for their ballets, including Tetley (Circles, Netherlands Dance Theatre, 1968), van Manen (Keep Going, Düsseldorf, 1971), Morrice (That Is the Show, Ballet Rambert, 1971), van Dantzig (Après visage, Dutch National Ballet, 1972) and Kylián (Dream Dances, Netherlands Dance Theatre, 1979).

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Beriosova , Svetlana

(b Kaunas, 24 Sept. 1932, d London, 10 Nov. 1998).
Lithuanian-born British dancer, teacher, and coach. Daughter of Nicholas Beriozoff . She left Lithuania at the age of 3 with her mother and went to Paris where she studied dance with her father. When the Second World War broke out the family took refuge in the US. The young Beriosova studied dance at the Vilzak-Schollar school in New York, and later with Olga Preobrajenska in Paris and Vera Volkova in London. She made her debut in The Nutcracker with the Ottawa Ballet in 1947 at the age of 15 and then danced briefly with the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas in Europe. In 1948–9 she was ballerina with the Metropolitan Ballet in England (where she created the role of ‘heartbreak’ girl in John Taras's Designs with Strings), before becoming a soloist with the Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet in 1950. She transferred to the Sadler's Wells Ballet (later the Royal Ballet) in 1952, eventually becoming a ballerina in 1955. A rather aristocratic dancer, with beautifully expressive arms and back, she was noted for her interpretations of the classics, and was frequently hailed as the natural successor to Fonteyn. Like Fonteyn, she was particularly acclaimed for her Aurora and Odette-Odile, although she brought to these roles a ‘Russian-ness’ unique in the Royal Ballet. Her much-admired performance as the Tsarevna in the 1954 revival of The Firebird was recorded on film. She created leading roles in Balanchine's Trumpet Concerto (1950), Cranko's Prince of the Pagodas (1957), and Antigone (1959), Ashton's Birthday Offering (1956), Persephone (1961, in which she also had to declaim the French text), and Enigma Variations (1968, the role of Lady Elgar), and MacMillan's Baiser de la fée (1960) and Anastasia (1971, dancing the Tsarina). She retired in 1975, although she continued to coach.

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Beriozoff , Nicholas

(b Kaunas, 16 May 1906, d Zurich, 18 Feb. 1996).
Lithuanian-British dancer, choreographer, and ballet master. He studied in Czechoslovakia at the National Ballet School in Prague and danced with the Prague Opera Ballet and with the Lithuanian National Ballet in Kaunas before joining René Blum's Ballets de Monte Carlo in 1936, where, as rehearsal assistant to Fokine, he learned intimately the Fokine ballets that were to become his speciality as a producer. From 1938 to 1944 he danced with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, decamping to the US with Massine. In 1944 a knee injury ended his career as a dancer, and it is as a ballet master that he is best remembered. He worked all over Europe with many companies, including Ballet International (1944), Metropolitan Ballet (1948), La Scala, Milan (1950–1), London Festival Ballet (1951–4), and Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas (1947, 1956, 1962). He also directed the companies in Stuttgart (where he was Cranko's predecessor, 1957–60), Helsinki (Finnish National Ballet, 1962–4), Zurich (1964–71), and Naples (Teatro San Carlo, 1971–3). As a choreographer he specialized in restaging the 19th-century classics. For London Festival Ballet he revived Les Sylphides, Petrouchka, Scheherazade, and the Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor. His own choreography includes Le Baiser de la fée (mus. Stravinsky , 1958), Ondine (mus. Henze , 1965), Romeo and Juliet (mus. Prokofiev , 1966), and Cinderella (mus. Prokofiev , 1967). Father of Svetlana Beriosova .

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Berkeley , Busby

(b Los Angeles, 29 Nov. 1895, d Palm Desert, Calif., 14 Mar. 1976).
US director, choreographer, and stager of extravagant Hollywood musicals in the 1930s. During the First World War he was an entertainment officer, staging elaborate drill routines. On Broadway he acted in, directed, or produced 21 dance musicals, despite having no formal training as a dancer. He went to Hollywood in 1930 to work on Whoopee. For more than a decade his spectacular dance sequences—he loved to make complex geometrical shapes with a huge ensemble of dancers—graced many of cinema's most successful musicals. His precision choreography took place on ambitious sets in which hydraulic lifts and revolving platforms featured, while his penchant for overhead camera angles allowed the full geometry of his kaleidoscope-like choreography to be appreciated. Daringly for the age, his dances were full of sexual innuendo. As the most illustrious dance director in Hollywood history, he made more than 50 films, most of them musicals. A list of his films (which he either directed or choreographed) includes 42nd Street (1933), Gold Diggers of 1933 (also Gold Diggers of 1935, Gold Diggers of 1936, and Gold Diggers of 1938), Footlight Parade (1933), Dames (1934), Fashions of 1934, Wonder Bar (1934), Varsity Show (1937), Hollywood Hotel (1937), Broadway Serenade (1939), Lady Be Good (1941), For Me and My Gal (1942), Ziegfield Girl (1943), Girl Crazy (1943), and Jumbo (1962). In January 1971 he supervised a Broadway revival of the 1925 stage musical No, No Nanette.

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Berlin Opera Ballet.

The German ballet company based at the Opera House in the former West Berlin. Also known as the German Opera Ballet, or Deutsche Oper Berlin. Although it became the Berlin Opera Ballet in 1961, its history goes back to 1912 when the Opera House first opened. After the Second World War, the Opera House having been damaged by air raids, the company was moved to the Theater des Westens. In 1961 it moved back into the rebuilt Deutsche Oper in West Berlin. Ballet was active under Rudolf Kolling , who was director from 1934 to 1945, and particularly so under Tatjana Gsovsky , a Russian dancer and choreographer who ran the company (which until 1961 was known as the West Berlin Municipal Opera) from 1957 to 1966 and gave it many new ballets, including Hamlet and The Moor of Venice. One of the first successes after the war was Janine Charrat's staging of Egk's Abraxas in 1949; Mary Wigman provided a controversial new version of Sacre du printemps in 1957. When the British choreographer Kenneth MacMillan took over as director (1966–9) he introduced the classics, as well as creating such longstanding successes as Concerto (1966) and Anastasia (1967). Antony Tudor staged Giselle, MacMillan added his own versions of Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty, Nureyev contributed a Nutcracker. Other foreign choreographers who have worked with the company include Balanchine , Cranko , van Manen , van Dantzig , Forsythe , and Lucinda Childs , who choreographed the full-length Light Explosion in 1987. From 1972 to 1990 the company was directed by Gert Reinholm ; he was succeeded by Peter Schaufuss , who staged the three Tchaikovsky ballets before departing prematurely in 1994. Richard Cragun followed him as artistic director (1996–9). In 1999 Sylviane Bayard was appointed acting director, with Angelin Preljocaj as artistic adviser, until the planned amalgamation in 2001 of the Berlin Ballet, the Staatsoper Ballet (German State Opera Ballet), and the Komische Ballet into a single Berlin company.

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Berlin Staatsoper Ballet.

See German State Opera Ballet.

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Berlioz , Hector

(b Côte-Saint André, 11 Dec. 1803, d Paris, 8 Mar. 1869).
French composer. Although he wrote nothing specifically for the ballet (other than within the context of an opera), his music has been used by many choreographers, particularly Béjart (Romeo and Juliet, Ballet of the 20th Century, 1966; Damnation of Faust, Paris Opera, 1964) and Massine (Symphonie fantastique, Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, 1936; Harold in Italy, Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, 1954).

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Berman , Eugene

(b St Petersburg, 4 Nov. 1899, d Rome, 14 Dec. 1972).
Russian-US painter and designer. One of the foremost ballet designers in America for more than thirty years. His productions included Ashton's Devil's Holiday (1939), Balanchine's Concerto Barocco (1941), Danses concertantes (1944), Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (1944), and Pulcinella (1972), Tudor's Romeo and Juliet (1943), and American Ballet Theatre's 1946 production of Giselle. He also designed the opulent aristocratic setting for Balanchine's Ballet Imperial when it was revived for Sadler's Wells Ballet in 1950.

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Berners , Lord (Gerald Hugh Tyrwhitt-Wilson ;

b Bridgnorth, 18 Sept. 1883, d Berkshire, 19 Apr. 1950).
British composer and designer most closely associated with Sadler's Wells Ballet. Self-taught as a composer, he wrote several ballet scores, including The Triumph of Neptune for Balanchine (1926) and A Wedding Bouquet (1937, which he also designed), Cupid and Psyche (1939), and Les Sirènes (1946), all for Ashton.

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Bernstein , Leonard

(b Lawrence, Mass., 25 Aug. 1918, d New York, 14 Oct. 1990).
US composer and conductor. As a ballet composer, he worked mainly with the choreographer Jerome Robbins in the 1940s and 1950s, writing the music for Robbins's Fancy Free (1944), Facsimile (1946), and Dybbuk Variations (1974). For his part, Robbins choreographed all Bernstein's musicals, including On the Town (1944), Wonderful Town (1953), Candide (1956), and most successfully of all, West Side Story (1957). The latter, a collaboration between Bernstein , Robbins , Arthur Laurents (librettist), and Stephen Sondheim (lyricist), is regarded as one of the greatest masterpieces of American musical theatre.

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Bessies.

See Schönberg , Bessie.

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Bessmertnova , Natalia

(b Moscow, 19 July 1941).
Russian dancer. Star of the Bolshoi Ballet for three decades. She trained at the Moscow Bolshoi School from 1953 to 1961, and joined the Bolshoi Ballet upon graduation as one of the highest achievers in the school's history. Her repertoire included all the leading roles in the classical Russian repertoire (Swan Lake, The Fountain of Bakhchisarai, Don Quixote, and Romeo and Juliet in particular), and she made an auspicious debut as Giselle, creating the title role in Lavrovsky's production at the Bolshoi Theatre in 1963, proving herself to be a truly Romantic dancer. A unique artist who combined great delicacy and lyricism with extraordinary physical strength, she was equally well-suited to the more robust theatrical works choreographed by her husband Yuri Grigorovich . She frequently starred in his Legend of Love (creating the role of Shirin in his Moscow version in 1965) and Spartacus, and created the role of Anastasia in his Ivan the Terrible (1975), the female lead in his Angara (1976), Juliet in Grigorovich's new Romeo and Juliet (1979), and the title role in his new production of Raymonda (1984). She also created the role of Rita in Grigorovich's The Golden Age at the Bolshoi in 1982. Gold Medal, Varna, 1965. Anna Pavlova Prize, 1970. People's Artist of the USSR, 1976. In 1989 she was put on pension at the Bolshoi, and finally left the company in 1995.

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Bessy , Claude

(b Paris, 20 Oct. 1932).
French dancer and ballet school director. After training at the Paris Opera Ballet School (from 1942), she joined the Paris Opera in 1945, and was promoted to danseuse étoile in 1956. She created leading roles in Lifar's Snow White (1951), Noces fantastiques (1955), and Daphnis and Chloe (1958), Cranko's La Belle Hêlène (1955), and Skibine's Daphnis and Chloe (1959), while Gene Kelly created his Pas de dieux (1960) at the Paris Opera especially for her. She also made many television appearances and featured in Gene Kelly's film Invitation to the Dance (1956). In 1972 she became director of the Paris Opera Ballet School. She also staged ballets for the Opéra Comique and the Comédie Française, and staged the dances for the musical My Fair Lady (1984). Published Danseuse étoile in 1961. Pavlova Prize (1961); Légion d'honneur (1972).

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Bettis , Valerie

(b Houston, 20 Dec. 1919, d New York, 26 Sept. 1982).
US dancer, choreographer, company director, and educator. She studied with Hanya Holm in New York, and her later ballet studies were with Carmelita Maracci. She danced with Hanya Holm's company (1937–40) and appeared as a soloist (1941–8) performing her own work. In 1964 she founded the Dance Studio Foundation and the Valerie Bettis Dance/Theater Company, which she ran for several decades in New York. Many of the works she choreographed were solos for herself; her best-known solo was The Desperate Heart (1943), which was accompanied by a recited poem by John Malcolm Brinin . In 1947 she choreographed Virginia Sampler for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, while her most successful ballet was A Streetcar Named Desire (mus. Alex North ) which she choreographed for the Slavenska-Franklin Ballet in 1952. In 1954 it was taken into the repertoire of American Ballet Theatre, in 1974 by the National Ballet of Washington, and in 1986 by Dance Theater of Harlem. She taught for many years at her New York studio, and was also considered a pioneer in television dance, making several ground-breaking programmes in the 1940s and 1950s. In the 1950s she went to Hollywood, appearing in several films as an actress. She choreographed several Broadway shows and frequently appeared on stage as an actress and a singer.

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Bewegungschor.

A term coined by Rudolf von Laban for his mass-movement choirs. He used them in such works as The Rocking Temple (1922), Light Turn (1923), Agamemnon's Death (1924), Dusky Rhythms (1925), and Titan (1927). For a time the use of Bewegungschor became popular in the German theatre, especially in opera productions.

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bharata natyam.

A solo classical Indian dance form of religious origin performed traditionally by women. It is believed by some scholars to be more than 3,000 years old and was once performed by Hindu temple dancers, or devadasis. Today it is to be found mostly in southern India, in the Madras region, although exponents have exported the artform to the West, particularly Britain, where it is popular with non-Asian audiences. Much of its traditional repertoire derives from the early part of the 19th century when four brothers, known as the Tanjore Quartet, codified it. Traditional performances can last up to three hours. The emphasis in the choreography is on the upper body, and the style is distinguished by its low centre of gravity, its rhythmic footwork, its straight spine, and its extensive vocabulary of hand gestures which carry dramatic meaning. The face is also used for expressive purposes, with the eyes, nose, and mouth all possessing their own specific choreographic language. The dance is in six parts, beginning with alarippu, which invokes the deity and greets the audience. The style incorporates all three aspects of Indian dance: nrtta (abstract, pure, and rhythmic), nrtya (expressive, rhythmic, and narrative), and natya (pure storytelling, a combination of song and dance). The performance ends with tillana, a purely rhythmic coda designed to showcase the dancer's mastery of complex rhythms. The dancer wears a silk sari, usually decorated with gold, and her feet are bare, although bells are worn around the ankle. In Britain the Madras-born choreographer Shobana Jeyasingh has successfully blended bharata natyam and Western contemporary dance styles.

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Biagi , Vittorio

(b Viareggio, 24 May 1941).
Italian dancer and choreographer. He studied at the La Scala ballet school and began his career with La Scala in Milan (1958–60) where he was a soloist. From 1961 to 1966 he was a member of Béjart's Ballet of the 20th Century in Brussels, where he created roles in Béjart's Bacchanale de Tannhäuser, Divertimento, and Ninth Symphony, in addition to starting his own choreography (Jazz Impressions, 1964; L'Aprèsmidi d'un faune, 1965; Walpurgis Night, 1965). From 1966 to 1968 he was an étoile with the Paris Opéra Comique. His works from this period include L'Enfant et les sortilèges (1967) and Platée (1968). In 1969 he became ballet director at the Lyons Opera. For Lyons he staged many ballets, including Alexander Nevsky (mus. Prokofiev ), Scythian Suite (mus. Prokofiev ), Romeo and Juliet (mus. Prokofiev ), Requiem (mus. Berlioz , 1969), Seventh Symphony (mus. Beethoven ), Symphonie fantastique (mus. Berlioz ), and Song of the Earth (mus. Mahler ). As a choreographer he has favoured work with a narrative; as a dancer he was noted for his dramatic flair. He was founding artistic director of Aterballetto (1977–9). In 1978 he founded his own company, Danza Prospettiva, in Italy and created Requiem senza parola (1980) and Don Juan (1982). From 1982 to 1986 he was artistic director of the Teatro Massimo in Palermo. He subsequently choreographed for other Italian companies.

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Bias , Fanny

(b Paris, 3 June 1789, d Paris, 6 Sept. 1825).
French dancer. After training at the Paris Opera Ballet School, she joined the company in 1807, eventually becoming a grand sujet (first-rank soloist). She danced in London in 1821, where the manager of the King's Theatre, John Ebers , described her ‘beautiful little half steps, which, more than any other, correspond to the epithet twinkling’. She is remembered today for being one of the first dancers to be shown on pointe, a historic moment captured in a lithograph by Waldeck in 1821. She was forced to give up the stage because of ill health, and died at the age of 36.

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Biches, Les.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Nijinska , music by Poulenc , and designs by Marie Laurencin . Premiered 6 Jan. 1924, by the Ballets Russes de Diaghilev at the Théâtre de Monte Carlo, with Nijinska, Nemchinova , Tchernicheva , Sokolova , Vilzak , Woizikowski , and Zvereff . The title is a colloquial French term for ‘the little darlings’. The ballet is set in the south of France in the 1920s at a chic house party where muscle-bound men and giggling girls flirt shamelessly. A lesbian couple and a sexually ambiguous character dressed in blue add an erotic complication to the proceedings. The choreography, reflecting the period, has a jazz inflection. It was revived by the Markova-Dolin Ballet in 1937, by the de Cuevas Ballet in 1947, and by the Royal Ballet in 1964.

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Big Bertha.

Modern dance in one act with choreography by Paul Taylor , music from the collection of band machines in the St Louis Melody Museum. Premiered 9 Feb. 1971 by the Paul Taylor Company in New York. The ballet, influenced by the macabre cartoons of Charles Addams , shows an American family visiting a fair, where they become dangerously fascinated by Big Bertha , an animated doll on top of a musical box. A television version, which Taylor created as a duet, featured de Jong and Nureyev .

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Big City, The.

Ballet in one act with choreography and libretto by Jooss , music by Alexander Tansman , and designs by Heckroth . Premiered 21 Nov. 1932 by the Kurt Jooss company at the Folkwang Dance Stage in Cologne. The ballet, which depicts urban loneliness and disillusion, is widely regarded as the first to deal with serious social criticism. Its original German title was Grossstadt 1926. It was revived by Wuppertal Dance Theatre (1974), City Center Joffrey Ballet (1975), and Britain's Northern Ballet Theatre (1976).

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Bigonzetti , Mauro

(b Rome, 25 Feb. 1960).
Italian dancer, choreographer, and company director. He trained at the Rome Opera Ballet School and danced with the Rome Opera Ballet as a soloist. In 1982 he joined Aterballetto, and danced with the company until 1993. He began to choreograph in 1990; his first work, Sei in movimento (mus. Bach ), was taken into the repertoire of the Rome Opera Ballet. In the early 1990s he worked extensively with Italy's Balletto di Toscana, for whom he made Turnpike (mus. Bach , 1991), a piece inspired by America's highways, and Mediterranea (1993), a full-length ballet inspired by the cultural mix of people who live by the Mediterranean. The latter was so successful that it became Balletto di Toscana's calling card. Bigonzetti made his international debut as a choreographer with English National Ballet, for whom he choreographed X. N. Tricities (1994) and Symphonic Dances (mus. Rachmaninov , 1995). He has also made works for the Stuttgart Ballet, the Berlin Opera Ballet, Ballet National de Marseilles, and Ballet Argentino. In 1997 he became artistic director of Aterballetto. In his first season as director he made six ballets, among them Persephassa (mus. Xenakis ), Furia Corporis (mus. Beethoven ), and Comoedia, the first part of a trilogy inspired by Dante's Divine Comedy (the final part of which was premiered in 2000). As a choreographer his style is often abstract, vigorously athletic, technically daring, and occasionally brutally anti-romantic.

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Bigottini , Émilie

(b Toulouse, 16 Apr. 1784, d Paris, 28 Apr. 1858).
French dancer. She studied at the Paris Opera Ballet School and joined the Paris Opera in 1801. She stayed there until 1823, creating numerous roles, including Nina in Milon's 1813 ballet Nina, ou la folle par amour. As a dramatic ballerina she won great praise; the Viennese described her as ‘the ear of the deaf’. She was also acclaimed for her skills as a mime. Napoleon was one of her admirers, and among her many lovers was Napoleon's stepson, Eugène de Beauharnais .

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Billboards.

Ballet in four sections with choreography by Laura Dean , Charles Moulton , Margot Sappington , and Peter Pucci , set to rock music by Prince . Premiered 27 Jan. 1993 by the Joffrey Ballet at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. Choreographed to thirteen songs by the pop star Prince, the full-length rock ballet single-handedly saved the Joffrey from going under in the 1990s. Although not an artistic or critical triumph, Billboards earned millions of dollars at the box office in its first three years.

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Billy the Kid.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Loring , libretto by Kirstein , music by Copland , and designs by Jared French . Premiered 16 Oct. 1938, by Ballet Caravan at the Chicago Opera House with Loring , Marie-Jeanne , L. Christensen , and Bolender . The first great US ballet about America, it was based on the Wild West tale of the gunfighter William H. Bonney (Billy the Kid), who boasted that he had killed a man for every year of his life. At the age of 21 his killing career came to an end when he was shot in an ambush by Pat Garrett , the sheriff who had been his friend. In 1940 it was taken into the repertoire of American Ballet Theatre. In 1988, on the occasion of its fiftieth anniversary, it was revived by Dance Theatre of Harlem and the Joffrey Ballet.

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Bintley , David

(b Huddersfield, 17 Sept. 1957).
British dancer, choreographer, and ballet director. After training at the Royal Ballet Upper School, he joined Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet in 1976. He created roles in works by Seymour and MacMillan , but was most noted as a superb character dancer, especially in Ashton's ballets (his Widow Simone in La Fille mal gardée was considered brilliant and he inherited Ashton's role as the little Stepsister in Cinderella). He began choreographing in 1978, becoming company choreographer in 1983. In 1985 he moved to Covent Garden where he became resident choreographer of the Royal Ballet. Some of the works from his Covent Garden period, like The Planets (mus. Holst , 1990) and Cyrano (mus. Wilfred Josephs , 1991), proved to be ill-judged, although he gave the Royal Ballet a great box office success with Still Life at the Penguin Café (mus. Jeffes , 1988). His Hobson's Choice (Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet, 1989, mus. Paul Reade ) was also enormously popular, revealing his instinctive flair for narrative ballets featuring more down-to-earth characters. In 1993 he left Covent Garden and worked as a freelance choreographer, creating Job (mus. Vaughan Williams ) for the San Francisco Ballet (1992) and Edward II for the Stuttgart Ballet (mus. John McCabe , 1995). In 1995 he became artistic director of Birmingham Royal Ballet, where he created Carmina Burana (mus. Orff , 1995), Far from the Madding Crowd (mus. Paul Reade , 1996), Nutcracker Sweeties (mus. Ellington after Tchaikovsky , 1996), The Protecting Veil (mus. Tavener , 1998), and Arthur (mus. McCabe , 2000). A list of his other ballets includes The Outsider (mus. Bohác , 1978), Take Five (mus. Brubeck , 1978), Meadow of Proverbs (mus. Milhaud , 1979), Adieu (mus. Panufnik , 1980), Night Moves (mus. Britten , 1981), The Swan of Tuonela (mus. Sibelius , 1982), Choros (mus. Meyer , 1983), Consort Lessons (mus. Stravinsky , 1983), Young Apollo (mus. Britten , Crosse, 1984), Flowers of the Forest (mus. Britten , 1985), The Sons of Horus (mus. McGowan , 1985), The Snow Queen (mus. Tovey after Mussorgsky , 1986), Galanteries (mus. Mozart , 1986), Allegri Diversi (mus. Rossini , 1987), The Trial of Prometheus (mus. Burgon , 1988), The Spirit of Fugue (mus. McGowan , 1988), Brahms/Handel Variations (mus. Brahms , 1990), and Tombeaux (mus. Walton , 1993).

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Birmingham Royal Ballet.

An offshoot of the Royal Ballet organization, now a fully autonomous company based in Birmingham, England. Until 1997, when it severed its links with the Royal Opera House, it was the touring company of the Royal Ballet. Its origins extend as far back as 1946 to the Sadler's Wells Opera Ballet, the company Ninette de Valois created for Sadler's Wells Theatre when the Sadler's Wells Ballet moved to Covent Garden. In 1947 it became Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet, in 1957 the Royal Ballet Touring Company, and in 1976 Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet. In 1990 the company left Sadler's Wells and moved to Birmingham, thus confirming the distinct identity it had already forged for itself. In the early years, as ‘sister company’ to the resident company at Covent Garden, it acted as a training ground for dancers and choreographers (most notably Cranko and MacMillan ), and some of the most important British ballets were made for it, including Cranko's Pineapple Poll and The Lady and the Fool, MacMillan's The Invitation, and Ashton's The Two Pigeons. It has also been home to some of Britain's finest dancers, among them John Field , Doreen Wells , Peggy van Praagh , David Blair , Margaret Barbieri , and Marion Tait . It was directed from 1975 to 1995 by Peter Wright , who gave the company fine productions of the classics, as well as reviving important early 20th-century works, such as Massine's Choreartium and Jooss's The Green Table. In 1995 David Bintley (another choreographer whose career had been nurtured here) became director, and created many new works for the company, among them Carmina Burana, Far from the Madding Crowd, Nutcracker Sweeties, and Arthur.

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Birthday Offering.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Ashton , music by Glazunov (arr. Irving ), and designs by André Levasseur . Premiered 5 May 1956 by Sadler's Wells Ballet at Covent Garden, with Fonteyn , Grey , Elvin , Nerina , Jackson , Beriosova , Fifield , and Somes . A virtuosic classical display piece for seven ballerinas, it was created to celebrate the company's 25th birthday. In 1989 it was revived for American Ballet Theatre to celebrate that company's 50th anniversary in 1990.

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Bissell , Patrick

(b Corpus Christi, Tex., 1 Dec. 1957, d Hoboken, NJ, 28 Dec. 1987).
US dancer. He studied at the School of American Ballet, joined the Boston Ballet in 1975 and American Ballet Theatre in 1977, where he became a principal in 1979. A tall, dark, and handsome dancer, who brought a Hollywood-style charisma to the stage, he was noted for his interpretations of Solor, Siegfried, and Romeo. He created the leading male role in Tudor's The Tiller in the Fields (1978) and in Tetley's Contredances (1979). He left ABT in 1980 (dismissed by the management after he failed to appear for a dress rehearsal) and briefly became a guest artist, working with the National Ballet of Canada, Scottish Ballet, and Pacific Northwest Ballet. He returned to ABT as a principal in 1981. He was much in demand as a partner by many of the leading ballerinas of the day, including van Hamel , Gregory , Kirkland , Makarova , and Kain . He died at 30, the result of a drug overdose.

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Bix Pieces, The.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Twyla Tharp , set to music by Bix Beiderbecke and Abide With Me by Thelonius Monk . Premiered 2 Nov. 1971 at the IX International Festival of Dance in Paris. Cast included Tharp, Sara Rudner , Rose Marie Wright , Isabel García-Lorca , and Kenneth Rinker . Inspired by Tharp's love of 1920s' and 1930s' jazz, the work explores the connections between classical ballet and popular dance styles like tap, ballroom, and even baton-twirling.

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Bjørn , Dinna (orig. D. B. Larsen ;

b Copenhagen, 14 Feb. 1947).
Danish dancer, choreographer, and ballet director. The daughter of Niels Bjørn Larsen , she was admitted as an apprentice at the Royal Danish Ballet in 1964. In 1966 she made her debut as the Young Girl in Robbins's Afternoon of a Faun. As a principal dancer she performed leading roles in a wide repertoire of classical and contemporary works. Her most important roles included Masha (Nutcracker) and in Sylphide, The Kermesse at Bruges, and Far from Denmark. She also danced at the Tivoli Pantomime Theatre, where she created von Rosen's Mam'zelle Nitouche in 1970. She made her choreographic debut in 1970 with 8 plus 1 for the Royal Danish Ballet. In 1976, with Frank Andersen , she founded a company of soloists from the Royal Danish Ballet to perform Bournonville's works; the company continued for fourteen years and toured extensively. In 1987 she left the Royal Danish Ballet. She is one of the world's foremost experts on the Bournonville technique and has produced a number of Bournonville ballets for companies in Europe and the US, including Napoli and Le Conservatoire for the Danes. In 1990 she became artistic director of the Norwegian National Ballet.

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Bjørnsson , Fredbjørn

(b Copenhagen, 10 Sept. 1926, d Copenhagen, 19 Dec. 1993).
Danish dancer, choreographer, and teacher. He trained at the Royal Danish Ballet School and joined the company in 1944, becoming a soloist in 1949. Early in his career his roles included Franz in Coppélia and the first Junior Cadet in Graduation Ball. But he is best remembered as a noted character artist, particularly associated with the Bournonville repertoire: Eskimo in Far from Denmark, Carelis in The Kermesse at Bruges, Gennaro in Napoli, and Diderik in A Folk Tale. He was also much admired as Dr Coppelius, Petrushka, and the General in Graduation Ball. He choreographed several works, including Behind the Curtain (mus. Schmidt , 1954) and Happiness on Journey (mus. Sark , 1958) for the Royal Danish Ballet. He taught at the Royal Danish Ballet School and was an international guest teacher, and coach of the Bournonville repertoire. Knight of the Order of Dannebrog (1961). He was married to the dancer Kirsten Ralov .

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Blache , Jean-Baptiste

(b Berlin, 17 May 1765, d Toulouse, 24 Jan. 1834).
French dancer and choreographer. He danced at the Paris Opera from 1781 to 1786 and then launched himself as a choreographer working throughout France, including Montpellier , Bordeaux , Lyons , and Marseilles . His most popular ballets include Les Meuniers, Daphnis, La Noce villageoise, La Fête indienne, and La Fille fugitive, ou La Laitière polonaise, the first ballet to put dancers on roller skates. With Duport he made Le Barbier de Séville for the Paris Opera in 1806 and Les Filets de Vulcain, ou Mars et Vénus (mus. Schneitzhoeffer , 1826). His last big success was Almaviva ou Rosine for Lyons.

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Black Crook, The.

A 19th-century theatrical extravaganza which had an enormous impact on the development of American music hall and vaudeville. First produced on 12 Sept. 1866 at Niblo's Garden in New York, it was directed by David Costa who engaged a Great Parisienne Ballet Troupe from the Grand Opera, Paris. Marie Bonfanti and Rita Sangalli were the premières danseuses. The production, which used music, dance, and drama in a four-act spectacle, had a running time of five-and-a-half hours at its first performance. During the course of its sixteen-month run in New York and its subsequent touring versions hundreds of dancers were employed and its success helped to introduce ballet to Americans. The impresario William Wheatley used lavish sets and costumes imported from Europe and the innovative stage effects included calcine lights and sophisticated machinery. The plot involved an alchemist (the Black Crook of the title) who promised to deliver souls to Satan (represented by Zamiel , the Arch Fiend).

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Black Swan.

The grand pas de deux in Act III of Swan Lake, in which the evil sorceress Odile seduces Prince Siegfried into believing she is his beloved Odette. Traditionally called the Black Swan because Odile is usually dressed in black, while the swan queen Odette is in white. The Petipa choreography is incisively virtuosic and includes the famous 32 fouetté turns, the downfall of many a ballerina (including, famously, Fonteyn). The Black Swan is also a favourite showpiece for ballerinas and is often presented as an item on gala programmes.

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Black Tights.

A 1960 French film showcasing ballets by Roland Petit . They include abbreviated versions of La Croqueuse de diamants (Jeanmaire , Dirk Sanders ), Cyrano de Bergerac (Shearer , Petit ), Deuil en 24 heures (Charisse , Petit), and Carmen (Jeanmaire , Petit, Kronstam ).

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Blair , David (orig. David Butterfield ;

b Halifax, 27 July 1932; d London, 1 Apr. 1976).
British dancer and ballet master. After training at the Sadler's Wells Ballet School, he joined Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet in 1947, and was promoted to soloist with Sadler's Wells Ballet at Covent Garden (the Royal Ballet) in 1953 and principal in 1955. He created roles in Cranko's Pineapple Poll (1951), Harlequin in April (1951), Prince of the Pagodas (title role, 1957), and Antigone (1959); Ashton's La Fille mal gardée (1960); and MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet (Mercutio, 1965). After the retirement of Michael Somes in 1961 Blair became Fonteyn's regular partner until Nureyev arrived on the scene. A versatile and brilliant dancer, he was probably most admired for his demi-caractère parts, where he could indulge his flair for comedy. He was the first Colas, the farmer hero of La Fille mal gardée, and it was in this role that he gave his farewell performance at Covent Garden in 1973. He was also a noted interpreter of the major classical roles, and staged productions of the classics in America: Swan Lake (1965) and Sleeping Beauty (1966) for the Atlanta Civic Ballet; Swan Lake (1967) and Giselle (1968) for American Ballet Theatre. After retiring in 1973 he became a freelance teacher and coach. In 1976 he was appointed artistic director of Norwegian National Ballet but died of a heart attack, aged 43, only months before he was due to start the job.

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Bland , Alexander.

Pseudonym for the husband-and-wife writing team of Nigel Gosling and the former dancer Maude Lloyd . Gosling (b London, 29 Jan. 1909, d London, 21 May 1982), studied part-time at the Ballet Rambert School (1935–9) and started writing dance criticism in 1951 for Ballet magazine. ‘Alexander Bland’ was ballet critic of the Observer from 1955 to 1982, wrote The Dancer's World with M. Peto (1963), A History of Ballet and Dance (1976), and The Royal Ballet—The First 50 Years (1981), and edited Nureyev, An Autobiography (1962).

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Blasis , Carlo

(b Naples, 4 Nov. 1795 (some sources 1797); d Cernobbio, 15 Jan. 1878).
Italian dancer, choreographer, teacher, and codifier of ballet technique. He studied with Dauberval in Bordeaux (where he learned the theories of Noverre) and Gardel in Paris. His first ballets were made for productions of operas by Gluck , Sacchini , and Mozart . From 1818 he danced at La Scala, Milan, and from 1826 to 1830 he was a soloist and choreographer at the King's Theatre in London; he also appeared in St Petersburg. In 1837, forced by injury to quit the stage, he became director of the school attached to La Scala, where his work helped to spread the influence of the so-called Italian school, particularly to Russia. He was a guest teacher in several European cities, including Warsaw, Lisbon, and Paris. His students included Fanny Cerrito . His prime importance, though, is as a writer. His books on academic dance, its theories, and the codification of its technique, are among the most important ever published and the classical vocabulary still used today owes much to his work. Author of Traité élémentaire, théoretique et pratique de l'art de la danse (Milan, 1820, repr. New York, 1944, as An Elementary Treatise upon the Theory and Practice of the Art of Dancing); The Code of Terpsichore (London, 1828); Notes Upon Dancing (London, 1847); L'uomo fisico, intellettuale e morale (Milan, 1857); and Dances in General, Ballet Celebrities, and National Dances (Moscow, 1864). Arguably the most important ballet teacher of the 19th century.

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Blaska , Félix

(b Gomel, Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, 8 May 1941).
French dancer, choreographer, and company director. He graduated from the Paris Conservatoire in 1960 and danced with the Marquis de Cuevas ballet, the Zizi Jeanmaire revue, and the Roland Petit company, where he started choreographing his own works (Octandre, 1966, and Les Affinités electives, 1967). In 1968 he created Danses concertantes (mus. Stravinsky ) and Équivalences (mus. Jean-Claude Eloy ) for the newly formed Ballet-Théâtre Contemporain in Amiens. He started his own troupe in 1969, Les Ballets de Félix Blaska, which moved to Grenoble in 1972. He has also made works for the Marseilles Opera (Deuxième concerto, mus. Prokofiev , 1970), the Royal Danish Ballet, the Hamburg State Opera, and the Paris Opera (La Poème électronique and Arcana, 1973). Ballets for his own company include En blanc et noir (mus. Debussy ), Ya Sin (mus. J. P. Drouet ), Contre (mus. Berio ), Electro Bach (mus. Walter Carlos , 1969), Ballet pour tamtam et percussion (mus. J. P. Drouet , 1970), Sonate pour deux pianos et percussion (mus. Bartók , 1971), Spectacle Berio (1974), L'Homme aux loups (mus. Marius Constant , 1974). In 1979 he created a duet for himself and Martha Clarke at Pilobolus Dance Theatre. After moving to the US he formed a new company, Crowsnest, with Martha Clarke in 1978 which made its debut at the American Dance Festival in 1979. He performed in and collaborated on several Clarke productions, including The Garden of Earthly Delights (1984) and Vers la flamme (1999). He continued to collaborate with Pilobolus and in 1990 choreographed Charlotte (mus. Pärt) for Ballet du Nord in Roubaix, France.

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Bliss , (Sir) Arthur

(b London, 2 Aug. 1891, d London, 27 Mar. 1975).
British composer. He was closely associated with the early days of Britain's Sadler's Wells Ballet, where he wrote the music for de Valois's Checkmate (1937, also the libretto), Helpmann's Miracle in the Gorbals (1944), and Adam Zero (1946). He also wrote the score for Lew Christensen's The Lady of Shalott for San Francisco Ballet in 1958. MacMillan used his Music for Strings in his 1961 ballet Diversions and Neumeier used his Quintet for Oboe and Strings for his 1969 work Frontier.

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Blondy , Michel

(b Paris, probably 1676 or 1677, d Paris, 6 Aug. 1739).
French dancer, choreographer, and teacher. He played an important role in the early development of dance in Paris. He was the nephew and pupil of Beauchamps and joined the Paris Opera in the 1690s, where he performed in ballets and operas by Lully and Campra . In 1729, already established as the leading danseur noble of his day, he became compositeur des ballets de l'Académie Royale de Musique, in other words dance director of the Paris Opera. His best-known ballet was Les Amours des déesses (mus. Quinault , 1729). As a teacher, his students included Sallé and Camargo .

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Blood Wedding.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Rodrigues , music by ApIvor , and designs by Isabel Lambert . Premiered 5 June 1953 by Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet at Sadler's Wells Theatre, London, with Fifield , Poole , and Trecu . The libretto, based on Lorca's 1933 play, is a violent tale of jealousy and revenge in a Spanish village in which two men kill each other over their love for the same woman.

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Bluebeard.

Ballet in four acts with choreography and libretto by Fokine , music by Offenbach , arr. Dorati , and designs by Marcel Vertes . Premiered 27 Oct. 1941 by Ballet Theatre at the Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, with Dolin , Markova , Baronova , and Ian Gibson . The ballet is based on Offenbach's famous 1866 opera Barbe-bleu, which tells of the Count who kills his wives for their curiosity. The first US performance was on 12 Nov. 1941 at the 44th Street Theatre in New York. Petipa also choreographed a version (with music by P. Schenk ) for St Petersburg in 1896. In 1977 Pina Bausch choreographed Bluebeard—While listening to a tape recording of Béla Bartók's opera Duke Bluebeard's Castle, in which Bluebeard listens to the opera on a tape recorder, rewinding and replaying various sections.

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Bluebell Girls.

The name given to the cabaret and nightclub dancers managed by Miss Bluebell , a.k.a. Margaret Kelly (b Dublin, 24 June 1912), an Anglo-Irish dancer who ran the dance troupe at the Folies-Bergère in Paris. Like the Rockettes in America, the Bluebell Girls were a tall and well-drilled ensemble, decked out in feathered head-dresses, G-strings, and high heels. They first appeared in the 1930s in Paris, and performed throughout Europe and America. In the 1950s they made their debut in Las Vegas, which eventually became headquarters for the Bluebell Girls. Kelly retired at the age of 80, although the Bluebell Girls continued to stage their Las Vegas spectacles.

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Blue Bird, The.

The famous pas de deux from the final act of Petipa's The Sleeping Beauty. It is a virtuoso display piece danced by Princess Florine and the Blue Bird as part of the wedding festivities for Aurora and the Prince, and is often to be found as a showpiece on gala programmes. Cecchetti performed the role of Blue Bird at the ballet's premiere in St Petersburg in 1890 (with Nikitina ). The airborne choreography for the male is especially demanding with its series of brisés volés.

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Blues Suite.

Modern dance in one act with choreography by Ailey , set to traditional blues music, arranged and sung by Brother John Sellers . Premiered 30 Mar. 1958 by the Alvin Ailey Company at the 92nd Street YMHA in New York, with Thompson and Ailey . The dance, which takes place at night in a bordello, became one of the most popular works in the Ailey repertory.

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Blum , René

(b Paris, 13 Mar. 1878, d en route to Auschwitz, 28 Sept. 1942 (some sources say 28 Apr. 1942)).
French ballet impresario. A former art critic, publisher, and theatre director, he was appointed ballet director of the Monte Carlo Opera after Diaghilev's death in 1929. In 1931 he joined forces with Colonel de Basil to found the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, with Blum contributing the artistic vision and de Basil the business acumen. Balanchine and Massine were hired, Diaghilev's old ballets were restaged, and the ‘baby ballerinas’ fired the public's imagination. In 1934 Blum reduced his role from that of manager to that of artistic director and left the company in 1935, after quarrelling with de Basil, to form his own group. This, the René Blum Ballets de Monte-Carlo (with Fokine as ballet master), eventually became the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo (co-directed by Massine), which enjoyed international success. He was probably the most important ballet impresario of the 1930s (and certainly one of the main conservators of the Diaghilev repertoire). In December 1941 Blum, a Jewish intellectual, was arrested by the Nazis in Paris. After several months of detention in Compiègne and Drancy, he was deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp but died during the journey.

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Boal , Peter

(b Bedford, NY, 1965).
US dancer. He studied at the School of American Ballet and joined New York City Ballet in 1983; promoted to principal in 1989. He performs leading roles in a wide repertoire, including Balanchine's Agon, Apollo, Duo Concertant, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Prodigal Son, La sonnambula, and Square Dance; Robbins's Dances at a Gathering and Opus 19/The Dreamer; and Martins's The Sleeping Beauty. He has created roles in Robbins's Brandenburg and Quiet City; Martins's Black and White, Eight Miniatures, Eight More, Les Gentilhommes, A Musical Offering, Les Petits Riens, Reliquary, and Stabat Mater; Ulysses Dove's Red Angels and Twilight; and Sean Lavery's Romeo and Juliet. He has also performed as a principal with Ballet du Nord in France and Birmingham Royal Ballet. A fine dancer possessed of impeccable technique and an aristocratic demeanour on stage. Also a full-time faculty member at the School of American Ballet.

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Bocca , Julio

(b Buenos Aires, 6 Mar. 1967).
Argentinian dancer and company director. He first studied with his mother, a ballet teacher at the National Dance School in Buenos Aires, and later with his father, who taught Argentine folk dancing. He studied at the Instituto Superior de Arte de Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires from 1974 and later studied with Maggie Black and Wilhelm Burmann . Principal dancer with Fundación Teresa Carreño de Venezuela, Caracas (1982) and Ballet del Teatro Municipal de Rio de Janeiro (1982–5). He leapt to international attention when he won the gold medal at the Fifth International Ballet Competition in Moscow in 1985. He was a guest artist in Russia with the Bolshoi Ballet and Novosibirsk Ballet that year. In 1986 he joined American Ballet Theatre as a principal where, despite his short stature, he has danced most of the leading male roles in the classical repertoire. A fiery and intense dancer, he is particularly noted for his interpretations of Basil in Don Quixote and Romeo in MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet. He created leading roles in Morris's Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes (1987) and Tharp's Brief Fling (1990). He has appeared frequently as an international guest artist, with the Royal Ballet, Stuttgart Ballet, Paris Opera, La Scala Milan, Royal Danish Ballet, and English National Ballet among other companies. In 1990, with Eleonora Cassano, he founded Ballet Argentino to showcase young Argentinian dancers. The company tours internationally.

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Bodenwieser , Gertrud

(b Vienna, 3 Feb. 1890, d Sydney, 10 Nov. 1959).
Austrian dancer, teacher, choreographer, and company director. She taught mime and dance at the Vienna State Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. She made her debut as a performer in 1919 and in 1923 started her own company, which toured Europe and visited America. She was considered a leading exponent of Ausdruckstanz. In 1939, after having been forced out of Austria by the Nazi annexation, she emigrated to Australia, where she was reunited with her company. They continued to perform her works as the Boldenwieser Ballet, and toured extensively in Australia, as well as travelling to South Africa and India in the 1950s. Through her teaching and choreography, she exerted a major influence on the development of modern dance in Australia.

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Bogdanova , Nadezhda

(b Moscow, 2 Sept. 1836, d St Petersburg, 5 Sept. (some sources 3 Sept.) 1897).
Russian dancer. Dance was a family affair: she was trained by her father, Konstantin Bogdanov , dancing La Sylphide at the age of 12 with her father as James ; her mother was the dancer Tatiana Karpakova ; and the family toured together with its own troupe. In 1850 she moved to Paris with her family, eventually becoming principal dancer of the Paris Opera from 1851 to 1855. Her most illustrious parts were the title roles of Giselle, La Sylphide, and Esmeralda. She returned to Russia where as a ballerina she was much admired in St Petersburg and Moscow for her lyrical style. She took 42 curtain calls upon her debut as Giselle at the Bolshoi Theatre in St Petersburg on 2 Nov. 1856. She danced with the Bolshoi until 1864 when she fell out of favour with the ballet management. She spent the last three years of her career dancing in Warsaw, Vienna, Budapest, and Berlin. She retired prematurely in 1867.

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Bolender , Todd

(b Canton, Ohio, 17 Feb. 1919).
US dancer, choreographer, and ballet director. After studying with Chester Hale , Vilzak , and at the School of American Ballet, he began his career in 1937 dancing with Ballet Caravan, the Littlefield Ballet, American Ballet Caravan, Ballet Theatre and Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. While with Ballet Caravan, he created the role of the State Trooper in Lew Christensen's Filling Station (1938), Alias in Loring's Billy the Kid (1938), a Father in Loring's City Portrait (1939), and a leading role in Dollar's A Thousand Times Neigh! (1940). In 1946 he joined Ballet Society, precursor to New York City Ballet, where during the next fifteen years he created many roles for Balanchine (Phlegmatic in Four Temperaments, The Fox, Divertimento, Metamorphoses, Agon, Ivesiana) and for Robbins (Age of Anxiety, The Pied Piper, Fanfare, Quartet, The Concert). He made his first choreography in 1943 with Mother Goose Suite, set to Ravel, which he made for American Concert Ballet, a group he co-founded with William Dollar and Mary Jane Shea . For NYCB he made The Miraculous Mandarin (mus. Bartók , 1951), Souvenirs (mus. Barber , 1955), The Still Point (mus. Debussy , 1956), Creation of the World (mus. Milhaud , 1960), Serenade in A (mus. Stravinsky , 1972), and Piano Rag Music (mus. Stravinsky , 1972). He was ballet director in Cologne (1963–6); and in Frankfurt (1966–9). He co-founded Pacific Northwest Ballet in 1975 (and ran it until 1977); director of ballet company, Ataturk Opera House, Istanbul, Turkey (1977–80). He was artistic director of Kansas City Ballet (which became the State Ballet of Missouri in 1986) from 1981 until 1995, and made many works for the company, including Classical Symphony (mus. Prokofiev , 1982), Grand Tarentella (mus. Louis Moreau Gottschalk , 1984), Folktale (mus. Stravinsky , 1984), An American in Paris (mus. Gershwin , 1987), and Celebration (mus. Gershwin , 1989). He also danced in and directed Broadway musicals.

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bolero.

Spanish dance in triple time with the dancer also singing and playing castanets. Guitars and tambourine provide the instrumental accompaniment. It originated in the mid-18th century.

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Bolero.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Nijinska , music by Ravel , and designs by Benois . Premiered 22 Nov. 1928 for the Ida Rubinstein Ballet at the Paris Opera, with Rubinstein , Vilzak . A gypsy dancing on a table in a Spanish tavern entices the onlookers. Although several other choreographers subsequently choreographed their own versions, Béjart's brazenly seductive 1960 work achieved the most widespread success, with both male and female dancers taking the central role.

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Bolger , Ray

(b Dorchester, Mass., 10 Jan. 1904, d Los Angeles, 15 Jan. 1987).
US dancer and actor. A familiar face on America's movie and television screens, he also appeared in revues and musicals, including Balanchine's ballet Slaughter on Tenth Avenue from the 1936 musical On Your Toes. His first Broadway appearance was in The Passing Show of 1926; he went on to perform in more than a dozen Broadway shows. He won a Tony Award for his appearance in Where's Charley? (1948), which featured choreography by Balanchine. His most famous role was as the Scarecrow in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz.

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Bolm , Adolph

(b St Petersburg, 25 Sept. 1884, d Los Angeles, 16 Apr. 1951).
Russian-US dancer and choreographer. He trained at the Imperial Ballet School in St Petersburg (where his teachers included Karsavin and Legat ), graduating in 1903. He also later studied with Cecchetti . He joined the Maryinsky Theatre (later the Kirov Ballet) in 1904. He danced with Anna Pavlova on her first tours abroad and was hired by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in 1909, becoming a regular with Diaghilev's troupe until 1917. He resigned from the Maryinsky in 1911. A brilliant character dancer, he created roles in Fokine's Prince Igor (Chief Warrior), Le Carnaval (Pierrot), The Firebird (Ivan Tsarevich), Petrushka (the Moor), Thamar (the slave to Karsavina), Daphnis et Chloé (Dorkon), Le Coq d'or (King Dodon), and Midas (title role). For Diaghilev he choreographed Sadko (mus. Rimsky-Korsakov , 1916). He toured the US with Diaghilev in 1916 and 1917, when he decided to remain in the US. He produced and choreographed operas and ballets at the New York Metropolitan Opera House, the Chicago Civic Opera, and the San Francisco Opera, where his lasting legacy was the founding of the ballet school. He choreographed the first production of Stravinsky's Apollon musagète in Washington in 1928 (beating Balanchine's Paris debut by a mere two months) and staged some of Fokine's ballets at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. For Ballet Theatre he choreographed Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf in 1940, which became one of the most popular offerings in ABT's repertoire, unlike his subsequent Firebird for ABT. In Hollywood, where he eventually settled, he did the choreography for several films (The Mad Genius, The Men in Her Life, and Life of Cellini) and in 1932 created Ballet mécanique set to the music of Aleksandr Mosolov's The Iron Foundry, which was performed at the Hollywood Bowl (under the title The Spirit of the Factory).

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Bolshoi Ballet.

Russian ballet company with its own school, based in Moscow. Arguably the most famous ballet company in the world. It is now customary to date the Bolshoi's beginnings from 1776, with the foundation of a private company (owned by Prince Urusov and an Englishman called Michael Maddox ) of actors and dancers who eventually fed a dance company at the Petrovsky Theatre, established in 1780 on the site of the present Bolshoi Theatre. It burned down in 1805, forcing the company to move to the Arbat (New Imperial) Theatre for the next twenty years. The present Bolshoi Theatre opened its doors on 19 Jan. 1825 (it was renovated after a fire in 1856). By 1850 the company comprised 155 dancers. Important stagings included the 1869 debut of Petipa and Minkus's Don Quixote and, in 1877, the disastrous first production of Reisinger and Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. A unique Bolshoi style was already developing, thanks to early choreographers like Adam Glushkovsky , who ran the company from 1812 to 1839: folk dancing, comedy, pantomime, and melodrama were some of its defining features. But all the truly important developments in 19th-century Russian ballet were taking place at the Maryinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, under Petipa's direction. By 1882 the size of the Bolshoi company had been cut by almost half. The Bolshoi only really came into its own in the new political climate engendered by the Russian Revolution, which saw the country's capital—and hence its artistic focus—moved to Moscow. The company was revitalized at the beginning of the 20th century under Gorsky's direction (1900–24), his many productions helping to develop its intensely dramatic style. The 1917 October Revolution led to the reorganization of the company, under the leadership of Gorsky and the dancers Geltser and Tikhomirov . The Communist regime, which happily supported ballet as a suitable entertainment for the masses, encouraged the new genre: Socialist Realism. In works such as Tikhomirov's The Red Poppy (1927), choreographers sought to incorporate the prevailing Communist ideology into their subject-matter. The 1930s saw the arrival in Moscow of the St Petersburg choreographers Vainonen (Gayané) and Zakharov (Fountain of Bakhchisarai, Prisoner of the Caucasus, Taras Bulba). During the Second World War the company was evacuated to Kuibyshev, but returned to its Moscow home in 1945 with the first production of Zakharov and Prokofiev's Cinderella.
The company entered a new era after the war with the transfer to Moscow of the St Petersburg ballerina Ulanova and the choreographer Lavrovsky , who brought his Romeo and Juliet with him. In 1954 the Bolshoi premiered Lavrovsky's and Prokofiev's The Stone Flower. The company could now boast a roster of stars including Plisetskaya, Struchkova, and Fadeyechev. In 1956 the company made its breakthrough visit to the West, astonishing audiences in London with Ulanova's Juliet and Lavrovsky's staging of Giselle; in 1959 it repeated its triumph in New York. In the following decades it established itself as the single most important cultural export of the Soviet Union. Important productions included Radunsky's The Humpbacked Horse (1960 with new music by Shchedrin ); Kasatkina-Vasiliov's Vanina Vanini (1962); Goleizovsky's Scriabiniana (1962); Kasatkina-Vasiliov's Heroic Poem (1964); Vinogradov's Asel (1967); Plisetskaya's Anna Karenina (1972). Probably the most lasting of the one-act creations was Messerer's Ballet School (1962), which frequently toured abroad. In 1964 Grigorovich was appointed chief choreographer; later he succeeded Lavrovsky as artistic director. Grigorovich stamped his unique personality on the company with ballet blockbusters like Spartacus (1968), Ivan the Terrible (1975), and The Golden Age (1982), works which more than lived up to the name Bolshoi (Russian for big). These were the productions that received endless performances on the company's lucrative foreign tours and helped to create the larger-than-life performing personas of Bolshoi dancers like Bessmertnova , Maximova , Sorokina , Vasiliev , Liepa , Gordeyev , and Mukhamedov .
Post-Communist Russia was not kind to the Bolshoi; in the 1990s, forced to fend for itself in the capitalist marketplace, it underwent artistic as well as financial decline. Grigorovich , the effectiveness of his directorship waning, was ousted; standards of performance and production fell; and the paucity of new choreography meant there was insufficient material to fuel the company's artistic engine. In 1995 Vladimir Vasiliev took over as director of the Bolshoi Theatre, with ultimate responsibility for both the ballet and opera companies. Vasiliev staged new productions of Swan Lake and Giselle, as well as adding more international works to the repertoire and inviting new choreographers to make work for the company. In 1998 he appointed Alexei Fadeyechev as artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet. In 2000 Vasiliev was replaced. In 2000 Boris Akimov became director of the Bolshoi Ballet. The Bolshoi Ballet School can trace its origins to dance classes held in a Moscow orphanage in 1773.

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Bolt.

Ballet in three acts with choreography by Lopukhov and music by Shostakovich . Premiered 8 Apr. 1931, by GATOB (later the Kirov Ballet), St Petersburg. It was the first example of a Soviet industrial ballet. A satire in which a group of drunken bourgeoisie attempt to sabotage the march of socialism by putting a bolt in a machine. Needless to say, they are duly punished for their treachery.

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Bonfanti , Marie (also Maria Bonfanti or Marietta Bonfanti ;

b Milan, 16 Feb. 1845, d New York, 25 Jan. 1921).
Italian-US dancer and teacher. She studied with Blasis , both privately and at the La Scala school, and danced in Italy and London in the early 1860s. In 1866 she went to America as the prima ballerina assoluta (a billing she always insisted upon in her contracts) in the influential show The Black Crook at Niblo's Garden Theater in New York. She toured the US and appeared in several musical revues, including The White Fawn, the follow-up to The Black Crook. She was prima ballerina of the Milan Italian Grand Opera Company which toured the US; and was prima ballerina of the New York Metropolitan Opera House (1885–6). Following her retirement from the stage in 1892, she opened a school in New York, where she taught until 1916. One of her students was Ruth St Denis .

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Bonnefoux , Jean-Pierre

(b Bourg-en-Bresse, 25 Apr. 1943).
French dancer. He studied at the Paris Opera Ballet School with Lorcia , Franchetti , and Mulys ; joined the company in 1959 and was made an étoile in 1965. He created roles in ballets by Béjart (Damnation of Faust, 1964, Webern Opus V, 1966) and Petit (Notre-Dame de Paris, 1965). In 1970 he was invited to join New York City Ballet as a principal, where during the next ten years he danced leading roles in many Balanchine ballets, including Apollo, Orpheus, Agon, Valse, Who Cares?, and Violin Concerto. He also created roles in Robbins's A Beethoven pas de deux (1973) and An Evening's Waltzes (1973). He retired in 1980 to teach. With his wife, the former New York City Ballet star Patricia McBride , he directed the dance department at Indiana University. In 1996 he was appointed artistic director of the N. Carolina Dance Theater, with McBride as associate director. Nijinsky Prize (1965).

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Borchsenius , Valborg (née Jorgensen ;

b Copenhagen, 19 Nov. 1872, d Copenhagen, 5 Jan. 1949).
Danish dancer and teacher. She entered the Royal Danish Ballet School in 1879 and while a young student appeared as one of Nora's children in the first performance of Ibsen's A Doll's House. She made her official debut with the company in 1891, became a soloist in 1895, and danced with the Danish ballet until her retirement from the stage in 1918. She was frequently partnered by Hans Beck in the Bournonville ballets. In the 1930s and 1940s she helped Harold Lander to restage the Bournonville repertoire and became one of the leading Bournonville teachers in Denmark.

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Börlin , Jean

(b Haernosand, 13 Mar. 1893; d New York, 6 Dec. 1930).
Swedish dancer and choreographer. He was responsible for the entire repertoire of the Paris-based Ballets Suédois in the 1920s. He trained at the Royal Theatre in Stockholm and entered the corps de ballet in 1905. A protégé of Fokine, he left the company in 1918 to continue working with the Russian choreographer in Copenhagen. The Swedish patron Rolf de Maré financed a dance recital for him in Paris in 1920. When de Maré founded the Ballets Suédois in Paris that same year, Börlin became its star performer and sole choreographer. His many ballets revealed a wide-ranging and eccentric choice of subject-matter and he had the good fortune to work with many of the leading composers (Milhaud , Honegger ) and painters (Léger , Bonnard , de Chirico ) in France in the 1920s. A list of his works includes Iberia (mus. Albéniz , 1920), Les Vierges folles (mus. Atterberg , 1920), La Nuit de Saint Jean (mus. Alfvén , 1920), Jeux (mus. Debussy , 1920), L'Homme et son désir (mus. Milhaud , 1921), Les Mariés de la Tour Eiffel (mus. Tailleferre , Auric , Honegger , Milhaud , Poulenc , 1921), La Boite à joujoux (mus. Debussy , 1921), Skating Rink (mus. Honegger , 1922), La Création du monde (mus. Milhaud , 1923), Relâche (mus. Satie , 1924), and La Jarre (mus. Casella , 1924). After the Ballets Suédois disbanded, Börlin gave recitals in South America and Paris before his premature death at the age of 37. He also appeared in two films directed by René Clair : Entr'acte (1924, part of Relâche) and Le Voyage imaginaire (1925).

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Borodin , Alexander

(b St Petersburg, 12 Nov. 1833, d St Petersburg, 27 Feb. 1887).
Russian composer. Although he wrote no ballet music, the Polovtsian Dances from his opera Prince Igor was one of the most popular works in the repertoire of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, choreographed by Fokine .

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Borovansky , Edouard

(b Prerov, 24 Feb. 1902, d Sydney, 18 Dec. 1959).
Czech-Australian dancer, choreographer, and director. He began his career in the corps de ballet at the National Theatre in Prague and joined Anna Pavlova's touring company in 1926, travelling to Australia in 1929. He was a soloist with Colonel de Basil's Russian ballet companies (1932–9) and again toured Australia in 1938. When the Second World War broke out, he decided to stay in Australia. He founded a ballet school in Melbourne and formed a company which made its debut in 1940, billing itself as the Borovansky Australian Ballet. During the 1940s and 1950s his company toured Australia; among its guest artists were Margot Fonteyn and Michael Somes . The company continued until his death in 1959; it was dissolved in 1961 but many of its dancers formed the nucleus of the Australian Ballet, founded by van Praagh in 1962.

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Bortoluzzi , Paolo

(b Genoa, 17 May 1938, d Brussels, 16 Oct. 1993).
Italian dancer and ballet director. He studied with Ugo Dell'Ara , Victor Gsovsky , Asaf Messerer , and Béjart . He made his debut in 1957 at the Nervi Festival, briefly danced with Massine's Balletto Europeo in 1960, and in the same year joined Béjart's Ballet of the 20th Century, where he became one of the company's leading soloists, creating many roles in Béjart ballets. After leaving Béjart in 1972 he continued to perform Béjart's choreography as a guest artist with various companies in Germany and America; he was a regular guest with American Ballet Theatre (1972–1). He opened a school in Turin in 1973, was ballet director of La Scala (1981–4), the German Opera on the Rhine, Düsseldorf (1984–90), and the Grand Theatre, Bordeaux (from 1990). His list of created roles in Béjart ballets includes Boléro (1960), Ninth Symphony (1964), Les Oiseaux (1965), Romeo and Juliet (1966), Mass for Our Time (1967), Neither Flowers Nor Wreaths (1968), Baudelaire (1968), Bhakti (1968), Nomos Alpha (1969), Firebird (1970), Songs of a Wayfarer (1971), Nijinsky, clown de Dieu (1971). Nijinsky Prize, Paris.

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Bosl , Heinz

(b Baden-Baden, 21 Nov. 1946, d Munich, 12 June 1975).
German dancer. He studied at the Bavarian State Opera Ballet School in Munich and graduated into the ballet company in 1962, becoming a soloist in 1965. He created roles in Heinz Rosen's Symphonie fantastique (1966), Cranko's Encounter in Three Colours (1968), and Charrat's Casanova in London (1970). Tall and talented, he was a natural for the danseur noble roles in the traditional repertoire; he was also acclaimed in the title role of Cranko's Eugene Onegin. He was a favourite partner of Fonteyn , who took him on several foreign tours in 1973 and 1974 before he died of leukaemia, not yet 30.

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Boston Ballet.

US ballet company founded in 1964 by E. Virginia Williams , a local teacher and choreographer. It grew out of the New England Civic Ballet, a non-professional troupe fed by Williams's students. They were noticed by Balanchine , who recommended to the Ford Foundation that a grant be awarded to the company to allow it to become professional. Balanchine served as artistic adviser in the early days, thus allowing Boston to acquire a large number of his ballets. Other US choreographers represented in the repertoire included Lang , Holder , de Mille , and Cunningham . The company's world premieres include Sokolow's Time Plus Six (mus. Teo Macero , 1966), Taras's Dolly Suite (mus. Fauré , 1971), Falco's The Gamete Garden (mus. Michael Kamen , 1971), and de Mille's Summer (mus. Schubert , 1975). From 1980 to 1984 Violette Verdy was joint artistic director. In 1980 it became the first US company to visit China. Bruce Marks (artistic director 1985–97) increased the company's international profile and secured it a proper home in Boston, as well as bringing in independent choreographers, such as Bill T. Jones , Ralph Lemon , Susan Marshall , Mark Morris , and Twyla Tharp , who gave Boston Ballet a more adventurous repertoire. The company has its own school, and a second company, Boston Ballet II. In 1997 Anna-Marie Holmes was appointed artistic director.

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Boulez , Pierre

(b Montbrison, 25 Mar. 1925).
French composer. Although he has composed no music for the ballet, several of his concert pieces have been used by choreographers. Notable among them are Paul Taylor , whose 1960 work Meridian is set to Boulez's Le Marteau sans maître, and Béjart , whose 1975 Pli selon pli is based on Boulez's score of the same name.

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Bourgeois gentilhomme, Le.

1 Comédieballet by Molière , with music by Lully and choreography by Beauchamps . Premiered 14 Oct. 1670 at Chambord. It was Molière's most famous comedy-ballet. A parody of 17th-century social climbers in which music, song and dance play equal parts in developing plot and characterization.

2 Ballet in one act with choreography by Balanchine , music by R. Strauss , and designs by Benois . Premiered 3 May 1932 by the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo in Monte Carlo, with Lichine . It was revived in 1979 for Nureyev at New York City Opera.
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Bourmeister , Vladimir (also Vladimir Burmeister ;

b Vitebsk, Belarus, 15 July 1904, d Moscow, 5 Mar. 1971).
Soviet dancer, choreographer, and ballet master. A distant relative of Tchaikovsky, he studied at Moscow's Lunacharsky Theatre Technicum (1925–9) and while still a student appeared with the Dramatic Ballet Workshop. In 1930 he joined the Moscow Art Ballet where he remained until his death, first as leading character dancer and then as chief choreographer and artistic director when the company became the Moscow Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Musical Theatre (1941–60, 1963–71). He was a prolific choreographer, drawn to heroic themes, such as the bravery of Soviet youth during the Second World War, and he was a foremost exponent of the school of Socialist Realism. Among the ballets he made were Straussiana (1941), The Merry Wives of Windsor (mus. V. Oransky , 1942), Lola (mus. S. Vasilenko , 1943), Scheherazade (mus. Rimsky-Korsakov , 1944), Carnaval (mus. Schumann , 1946), The Coast of Happiness (mus. A. Spadavecchia , 1948), La Esmeralda (mus. Pugni , Glière , Vasilenko , 1950), Jeanne d'Arc (mus. N. Peiko , 1957), Kalevipoeg (mus. Eugen Kapp , 1961), Bolero (mus. Ravel , 1964), Appassionata (mus. Beethoven , 1970), and A Lonely White Sail (1970). For the Kirov Ballet he made Tatiana (mus. Aleksandr Krein , 1947). Today, however, Bourmeister is best remembered for his 1953 production of Swan Lake which—controversially—used Tchaikovsky's score in its original sequence and restored cuts that had been made to the music. This production was introduced to the West when his company visited Paris in 1956; he then revived it for the Paris Opera in 1960. In 1961 he became the first Soviet choreographer allowed to work with a Western company when he was invited to choreograph The Snow Maiden (mus. Tchaikovsky ) for London Festival Ballet. People's Artist of the USSR.

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Bourne , Matthew

(b London, 13 Jan. 1960).
British dancer, choreographer, and company director. He studied at the Laban Centre for Movement and Dance, graduating in 1985 and joining Laban's Transitions Dance Company. Within two years he had co-founded Adventures in Motion Pictures (over which he later assumed sole control). He started making work for AMP in 1987, while continuing to perform; he was a founding member of Lea Anderson's all-male company, The Featherstonehaughs in 1988. His early pieces for AMP were witty, ironic, and wryly observant: Spitfire (1988) took Jules Perrot's Pas de quatre and transported it to the world of men's underwear advertising; The Infernal Galop (1989) was a wickedly funny parody of the French. In 1992 he produced his first full-length work for AMP, Deadly Serious, a tribute to Alfred Hitchcock films. In the late 1980s and early 1990s he choreographed productions at the Royal Shakespeare Company (As You Like It), the National Youth Theatre (The Tempest), and English National Opera (A Midsummer Night's Dream) before making a break into the commercial theatre of London's West End. His West End musical credits include Children of Eden (1990) and Oliver! (1994). In 1992 he marked a turning point in his career when he created a revisionist and tongue-in-cheek new Nutcracker. In 1994 there followed Highland Fling, a wildly modernized staging of La Sylphide which featured the sylph as a drug user and James as a lager lout. It laid the groundwork for his biggest hit, a gender-bending production of Swan Lake which imagined the Prince as heir to the British throne, Odette as a male swan (and gay icon), and Odile as a mystery man in tight leather trousers. Swan Lake, which premiered in 1995, went on to prolonged success in the West End, earning awards and a claim as the longest-running dance production in the history of the West End. Three years later it transferred to Broadway, winning three Tony Awards. In 1997 Bourne took another ballet classic, Prokofiev's Cinderella, set it during the Second World War in bomb-damaged London, and opened it in the West End. In 2000 he premiered The Car Man (mus. Bizet ).

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Bourne , Val

(b Rangoon, 27 Dec. 1938).
British dancer, arts administrator, and founder of Britain's Dance Umbrella festival. She trained at the Royal Ballet School and performed briefly with the Royal Ballet. Danced with Sadler's Wells Opera Ballet for three years. In 1968 she began working as an arts administrator, first with London Festival Ballet and later with Ballet Rambert. In 1978 she organized the first Dance Umbrella festival, which went on to become the largest festival of contemporary dance in the world. In 1985 she won a ‘Bessie’ (New York Dance and Performance Award). In March 1990 she received the International Theatre Institute's Award in recognition of her achievements in international dance; also Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et Lettres. As artistic director of Dance Umbrella for more than twenty years she has fostered the careers of dozens of British dance artists and introduced many international performers and companies to Britain.

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Bournonville , Antoine

(b Lyons, 19 May 1760, d Fredesborg, Denmark, 11 Jan. 1843).
French dancer, choreographer, and ballet director. Father of August Bournonville . He studied with Noverre in Vienna and Paris, where he danced at the Paris Opera. An invitation from King Gustav III of Sweden brought him to the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm, where he danced for ten years. In 1792 he travelled to Copenhagen but it was not until 1795 that Bournonville, known for his revolutionary sympathies, was invited to join the Royal Danish Ballet. During his 24 years with the company he created leading roles in many ballets by Vicenzo Galeotti and succeeded the Italian as director of the Royal Danish Ballet (1816–23). One of his most famous ballets, choreographed in 1785, was Les Meuniers provençaux. In 1971 Mary Skeaping and Ivo Cramér reconstructed his 1789 ballet, Fiskarena (The Fishermen).

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Bournonville , August

(b Copenhagen, 21 Aug. 1805, d Copenhagen 30 Nov. 1879).
Danish dancer, choreographer, teacher, and ballet director. The most influential Danish choreographer of the 19th century. The son of Antoine Bournonville , he studied at the Royal Danish Ballet School, a pupil of both his father and Vincenzo Galeotti . He joined the company at the age of 15 and stayed three years (1820–3). The following year, still on salary in Copenhagen, he went to Paris to study with Vestris and joined the Paris Opera (1826–8), becoming Taglioni's favourite partner. In 1829 he returned to the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen as a guest artist but by the following year he had become not only a full member of the company but also its director. He was the Royal Danish Ballet's leading male soloist and chief choreographer and continued to perform with the company until his retirement from the stage in 1848. Apart from spending a year at the Vienna Court Opera (1855–6) and three years at the Stockholm Opera (1861–4), he spent the rest of his career in Copenhagen. He retired in 1877, having built the Royal Danish Ballet into one of the world's top companies. His ballets, the most famous of which is La Sylphide, formed the basis of the Danish repertoire and defined a national style which is still internationally recognized as uniquely Danish. It is a style marked by the buoyancy of its technique, the warmth of its characterizations, the brilliance of its allegro, and the grace of its presentation. He was greatly influenced by his years in Paris where he absorbed the ideals of Romantic ballet. But his own works often took a less exalted outlook and were flavoured with the quaint exoticism of foreign lands (Italy, Spain, Norway). A list of his ballets includes La Sylphide (mus. H. Løvenskjold , 1836), The Festival in Albano (mus. J. F. Froehlich , 1839), Napoli (mus. H. S. Paulli , E. Helsted , N. W. Gade , and H. C. Lumbye , 1842), The Dancing School (Konservatoriet, mus. Paulli , 1849), The Kermesse in Bruges (mus. Paulli , 1851), A Folk Tale (mus. Gade and J. P. E. Hartmann , 1854), La Ventana (mus. Lumbye , 1854), Flower Festival at Genzano (mus. Helsted and Paulli , 1858), Far from Denmark (mus. Jos. Glaeser , L. Gottschalk , Lumbye , Eduart Dupuy , A. F. Lincke , 1860), Valkyrien (mus. Hartmann , 1861), and The King's Lifeguards on Amager (mus. W. Holm , Dupuy , and Lumbye , 1871). His last ballet was From Siberia to Moscow, which he made for the Royal Theatre in 1876, drawing on inspiration from a visit to Russia made two years earlier. As director of the opera at the Royal Theatre he also presented the Danish premieres of Wagner's Lohengrin, Die Meistersinger, and Tannhäuser. He published his memoirs Mit Theaterliv in three parts (1848, 1865, and 1877), which were translated into English as My Theatre Life (Middletown, Conn., 1979).

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bourrée.

1 French folk dance performed either in 3/4 time or 2/2 time, with a strong rhythm and a skipping step. It was first recorded during the Renaissance.

2 A court dance popular in France during the 17th and 18th centuries. It was performed by couples, either on their own or with other couples.
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3 In classical ballet, bourrées are usually tiny running steps in which the feet are kept close together. They are most often performed on pointe and can travel in any direction.
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Bourrée fantasque.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Balanchine , music by Chabrier , and costumes by Barbara Karinska . Premiered 1 Dec. 1949 by New York City Ballet at City Center, New York, with LeClercq , Robbins , Maria Tallchief , Magallanes , Janet Reed , and Herbert Bliss . A frivolous and light-hearted plotless work in three movements. It was revived for London Festival Ballet in 1960, restaged by Balanchine for the Paris Opera Ballet in 1963, and revived by American Ballet Theatre in 1981.

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Boutique fantasque, La (Eng. title The Fantastic Toyshop).

Ballet in one act with choreography by Massine , decor and libretto by Derain , and music by Rossini arranged by Respighi . Premiered 5 June 1919 by the Ballets Russes de Diaghilev at the Alhambra Theatre, London, with Cecchetti , Idzikowski , Lopokova , Massine, Sokolova , and Woizikowski . Set in the 1860s, the ballet tells the story of a toyshop in which the dolls come to life at night and prevent the management from separating two toy can-can dancers that have been sold separately. It is full of wonderfully comic cameo roles, such as the Snob and the naughty American boy. Massine himself often danced the role of the male can-can dancer. The ballet was revived many times, mostly by Massine, who staged it for Sadler's Wells Ballet in 1947 at Covent Garden.

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Boyarchikov , Nikolai

(b Leningrad, 27 Sept. 1935).
Soviet dancer, choreographer, and ballet director. He studied at the Leningrad Ballet School and graduated in 1954. He danced at the Maly Theatre in Leningrad from 1954 to 1971. From 1971 to 1977 he was artistic director of the ballet company at the Perm State Theatre. In 1977 he became chief choreographer of the Maly Theatre in Leningrad (later renamed the Mussorgsky Theatre). In 1989, following a visit to the American Dance Festival in Durham, N. Carolina, he invited Betty Jones to stage José Limón's modern dance classic There is a Time in Leningrad, an important event in Russian dance. As well as contributing his own ballets to the repertoire, Boyarchikov expanded the Maly's international repertoire. His own ballets are often inspired by classics of Russian literature. A list of his ballets includes The Three Musketeers (mus. V. Basner , Maly Theatre, 1964), The Woodcut Prince or The Wooden Prince (mus. Bartók , Maly Theatre, 1965), The Queen of Spades (mus. Prokofiev , Leningrad Chamber Ballet, 1968), Romeo and Juliet (mus. Prokofiev , Perm, 1972, also West Berlin German Opera, 1974), The Miraculous Mandarin (mus. Bartók , Perm, 1973), Tsar Boris (mus. Prokofiev , Perm Theatre, 1975), Hercules (1980), The Robbers (1983), Macbeth (1984), The Marriage (1986), Quiet Flows the Don (1988), Petersburg (1992).

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Bozzacchi , Giuseppina

(b Milan, 23 Nov. 1853, d Paris, 23 Nov. 1870).
Italian dancer. Her impressive career was one of the shortest on record. After training with the Milan prima ballerina Amina Boschetti, she studied with Mme Dominique in Paris. Her claim to fame is the fact that she created Swanilda in the first production of Coppélia in Paris in 1870. She danced the role eighteen times before contracting a fever. She died on her seventeenth birthday.

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Brae , June

(b Ringwood, Hampshire, 18 May 1917, d Bath, 3 Jan. 2000)
British dancer. One of the biggest stars of the Vic-Wells Ballet during the 1930s. She studied with George Goncharov in Shanghai (where she met Fonteyn), with Legat in London, and Kschessinska in Paris. She joined the Vic-Wells Ballet in 1935 but early on was invited by Tudor to guest with Ballet Rambert. She was a principal dancer with the Vic-Wells Ballet (1936–42) where she created the role of the Black Queen in de Valois's Checkmate (1937), the Rich Girl in Ashton's Nocturne (1936), and Josephine in his A Wedding Bouquet (1937). She also created roles in Ashton's Les Patineurs (1937), Harlequin in the Street (1937), and Dante Sonata (1940). She made a brief comeback in 1946, dancing with the Sadler's Wells Opera Ballet, where she created roles in Helpmann's Adam Zero and Howard's Assembly Ball. In 1981 she appeared at a gala marking the 50th anniversary of Sadler's Wells, performing in the orgy scene from de Valois's The Rake's Progress.

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Brahms , Caryl

(b Surrey 1901, d London, 4 Dec. 1982).
British writer and critic. She was best known as the author (with S. J. Simon ) of the satirical novel A Bullet in the Ballet (1937). She was editor of Footnotes to Ballet (1936), and wrote Robert Helpmann, Choreographer (1943) and A Seat at the Ballet (1951). A Bullet in the Ballet was later turned into a musical starring Massine and Baronova.

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Brahms , Johannes

(b Hamburg, 7 May 1833, d Vienna, 3 Apr. 1897).
German composer. Although he wrote no ballet music, his music has been used by many choreographers. Massine controversially used his 4th Symphony for the 1933 ballet Choreartium; Nijinska created Brahms Variations in 1944 to Variations on Themes by Handel and Paganini; while Balanchine's Liebeslieder Walzer (1960) and Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet (1966) used Brahms scores. Tharp choreographed Brahms' Paganini in 1980 to the Paganini Variations and in 1984 made (with Robbins ) Brahms/Handel, set to Variation and Fugue on a Theme by Handel. Mark Morris set his 1982 New Love Song Waltzes to Neue Liebeslieder and his 1989 Love Song Waltzes to Liebeslieder.

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Brandstrup , Kim

(b Aarhus, 9 Jan. 1956).
Danish-born, British-based choreographer. He studied film at the University of Copenhagen and choreography under Nina Fonaroff at the London Contemporary Dance School. He choreographed several works for London Contemporary Dance Theatre, including Orfeo, which won an Olivier Award in 1989. He founded Arc Dance Company in 1985. His productions are strongly influenced by the cinema, relying on striking visual imagery to tell their stories. His works for Arc include Peer Gynt (1991), Antic (based on Hamlet, 1993), Othello (1994), Saints and Shadows (1994), Crime Fictions (1996), Garden of Joys and Sorrows (1997), Les Noces (1997), and The Return of Don Juan (1999). Other work includes Sacre du printemps (1991) for Geneva Ballet, Britten's Death in Venice (1992) for the Royal Opera and the Metropolitan Opera, White Nights for English National Ballet, Mysteries (1994), and the full-length Cupid and Psyche (mus. Kim Helweg , 1997) for the Royal Danish Ballet, Eidolon (1996) for Rambert Dance Company, and Sleeping Beauty (1998) for the New Zealand Ballet.

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branle (Fr., swing, shake; can also be spelled bransle).

The term for old French folk dances, frequently accompanied by singing. In modified form they found their way into the entertainments at the court of Louis XIV and hence later became connected with various ballets and pantomimes. In his L'Orchésographie (1588), Thoinot Arbeau described more than two dozen kinds of branles. In the 20th century the branle can be found in Stravinsky's Agon.

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Braque , Georges

(b Argenteuil, 13 May 1882, d Paris, 31 Aug. 1963).
French painter and designer. Among his ballet designs were Nijinska's Les Fâcheux (1924), and Massine's Salade (1924) and Zéphire et Flore (1925).

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Braunsweg , Julian

(b Warsaw 1897, d London, 26 Mar. 1978).
Polish-born British impresario and ballet director. His career began in Berlin in the 1920s with organizing theatre performances. He was manager of the Russian Romantic Ballet and acted as manager for several artists, including Karsavina and La Argentina , and several companies, Pavlova's and Nijinska's , the Metropolitan Ballet and the Original Ballet Russe among them. He founded London Festival Ballet (later English National Ballet) in 1950 and remained as its general director until 1965. Author of Braunsweg's Ballet Scandals (London, 1973).

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Bravo , Guillermina

(b Vera Cruz, 13 Nov. 1923).
Mexican dancer, choreographer, company director, and teacher. She studied folk dance at the National School of Dance in Mexico City and music at the National Conservatory (1936). In 1938 she started training with Estrella Morales . She danced (1940–5) with the Fine Arts Ballet and the Theater of the Arts Ballet and subsequently founded her own modern dance troupe, Ballet Waldeen, in 1946. In 1947 she co-founded the Academy of Mexican Dance; in 1948 in Mexico City she founded the National Ballet of Mexico, the most important dance institution in Mexico (which, since 1991, has been based in Queretaro). She retired from performing in 1960, although she continued to direct the National Ballet of Mexico. In 1991 she founded the National Center of Contemporary Dance in Queretaro, which she still directs. Her teaching methods owe much to Martha Graham's technique, although Bravo has modified them to give her training its own style. She has choreographed for ballet, musical comedy, and drama productions. Her work has dealt with social issues, Mexican nationalism, psychological exploration, and magic realism, as well as pure abstraction. She is widely regarded as the most important figure in Mexican modern dance.

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Brazil.

Although there were visits by European dancers in the 19th century, ballet in Brazil did not really begin until 1927 when the former Pavlova dancer, the Russian ballerina Maria Oleneva , was invited to start a corps de ballet in the Teatro Municipal de Rio de Janeiro. Drawing her dancers from Brazil's ballet schools, Oleneva presented a dance company that performed in the opera seasons; a few years later her troupe was able to give complete ballet programmes. In 1934 the newly remodelled Teatro Municipal was reopened and a special season was organized that included Lifar and three of his dancers, working with Oleneva's corps de ballet. Five years later the company, the Municipal Ballet of Rio de Janeiro, gave its first official season with guest choreographer Vaslav Veltchek at the helm. Veltchek returned to Rio in 1943 to mount a new all-Brazilian dance season. At this point Yuco Lindenberg appeared on the scene, a choreographer who would later become director of the company. In 1945, with Schwezoff as artistic director, there was another major season featuring the Brazilian-born ballerinas Edith Pudelko , Rosanova , Tamara Capeller , and Vilma Lemos Cunha . The company went through hard times during Lindenberg's directorship in the late 1940s, with the director having to pay the dancers out of his own pocket. Lindenberg died in 1947 but it was not until 1950 that the company saw better days. It was in that year that Tatiana Leskova, one of the ballerinas of the Original Ballets Russes, was hired as ballet mistress, choreographer, and dancer for the Municipal Ballet of Rio de Janeiro. The classics were staged and guest choreographers like Massine , Dollar , and H. Lander were brought in to work with the company.
Meanwhile, São Paulo saw the foundation of the Ballet of the Fourth Centennial in 1953 under the direction of Milloss. In 1954 the company opened in Rio with a repertoire of Brazilian ballets. Although it survived only a few years, its influence on the dance scene was significant, with its emphasis on Brazilian designers, composers, and themes. Modern dance in Brazil was launched by Chinita Ullman , who had studied with Wigman in Germany; she later opened a school in São Paulo. In 1954 Nina Verchinina , another veteran of the Original Ballets Russes, moved to Rio. As both a choreographer, working with the Municipal Ballet, and a teacher, who had her own school for more than 30 years, she was a major influence on the development of modern dance in the country. Today Brazilian modern dance is represented by Stagium , founded and directed by Marika Gidali and Decio Otero , which tours internationally; Grupo Corpo , founded in 1975 by members of the Pederneiras family in Belo Horizonte ; Cisne Negro , founded in 1977 in São Paulo by Hulda Bittencourt ; and the Deborah Colker Dance Company, founded in 1993.

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Brenaa , Hans

(b Copenhagen, 9 Oct. 1910, d Copenhagen, 14 Apr. 1988).
Danish dancer, teacher, and ballet director. He studied at the Royal Danish Ballet School from 1918 and joined the company in 1928; promoted to principal in 1945. He created roles in Balanchine's Legend of Joseph (1931) and in numerous ballets by Lander , including Études (1948). He produced Aurora's Wedding for the Royal Danish Ballet in 1950. After retiring from the stage in 1955 he became a producer, staging the Bournonville repertoire in Denmark and elsewhere. He also taught at the Royal Danish Ballet School in Copenhagen from 1942 and was a tireless teacher of the Bournonville style throughout Europe and America. Among the Bournonville productions he staged for the Royal Danish Ballet are The Kermesse in Bruges (1957 and 1978), La Sylphide (1967), Konservatoriet (1968), The King's Volunteers on Amager (1970), Far from Denmark (1973), and La Ventana (1979).

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Brianza , Carlotta

(b Milan 1867, d Paris 1935 (some sources 1930)).
Italian dancer. She was most famous for creating the role of Aurora in Petipa's Sleeping Beauty. She studied at the La Scala school in Milan and became prima ballerina of La Scala. In 1883 she toured the US, and in 1887 appeared in St Petersburg at the Arcadia Theatre (dancing in Manzotti's Excelsior), where her superior Italian technique thrilled audiences. She was a popular guest artist in the Russian city and was eventually hired by the Maryinsky Theatre, where she made her debut with Cecchetti in Ivanov's The Tulip of Haarlem in 1889. In 1890 Petipa chose her as his Aurora; in 1891 he used her again for the leading role in Kalkabrino. She returned to Europe shortly thereafter, where she continued to dance in Vienna, Italy, Paris, and London. After her retirement she taught in Paris. When Diaghilev staged The Sleeping Princess in London in 1921 he brought her out of retirement to assist Bronislava Nijinska in the staging and to dance Carabosse. Remarkably little is known about her later years; even the date and circumstances of her death are a mystery.

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Bright Stream, The.

Ballet in three acts with choreography and libretto by Lopukhov , music by Shostakovich , and designs by V. Bobyshov . Premiered 4 Apr. 1935 by the Maly Theatre, Leningrad. The ballet, set on a collective farm, shows socialist morals prevailing over regressive behaviour when a married agronomist indulges in an extra-marital flirtation. However, the ballet's choice of music and movement vocabulary was not considered appropriate to its subject-matter by the authorities and Lopukhov was dismissed from his post as ballet chief at the Maly Theatre. A seminal work in the Soviet school of Socialist Realism.

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Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk.

US dance musical with choreography by Savion Glover , music by Daryl Waters , Zane Mark , and Ann Duquesnay , book and lyrics by Reg E. Gaines . Conceived and directed by Savion Glover and George C. Wolfe . Premiered 15 Nov. 1995 at the Joseph Papp Public Theater in New York. It transferred to Broadway's Ambassador Theater in April 1996. The musical traces the history of black America through its dance forms, from the days of slave ships to contemporary urban street dancing, encompassing tap and hip-hop dancing. It earned Glover the 1996 Tony Award for Choreography.

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Brinson , Peter

(b Llandudno, 6 Mar. 1923, d London, 7 Apr. 1995).
British writer and dance educator. He was educated at Oxford University, graduating in 1948. He was scriptwriter and research director of the London Film Centre from 1948 to 1953; he wrote and produced the first stereoscopic ballet film, The Black Swan, in 1952, and was editor of Pavlova (1954). He lectured on ballet at Oxford, Cambridge, and the University of London (1954–64). He was founder-director in 1964 of the Royal Ballet's Ballet for All, writing and directing the programmes himself; the initiative was designed to introduce young people to theatrical dance through education and entertainment. Briefly director of the Royal Academy of Dance (1968–9). Director of the British and Commonwealth Branch of the Gulbenkian Foundation (1971–82). Head of research and community development at the Laban Centre, London (1982–7), and professor of dance at York University in Toronto. Chairman of national enquiry into the state of dance in education (1975–80) and author of the report of this enquiry, Dance Education and Training in Britain (London, 1980). Author of The Choreographic Art (with van Praagh , London, 1963); The Polite World (with Joan Wildeblood , London, 1965); Background to European Ballet (London, 1966); Ballet for All (with Clement Crisp, London, 1970); Dance as Education: Towards a National Dance Culture (1991).

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brisé.

In classical ballet, a travelling leap in which the legs are beaten in the air while the body is moving upwards and forwards in a straight line. The most famous example is the coda of the Blue Bird pas de deux in The Sleeping Beauty, which begins with a diagonal of 24 brisés volés.

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Britain.

See Great Britain.

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Britten , Benjamin

(b Lowestoft, 22 Nov. 1913, d Aldeburgh, 4 Dec. 1976).
British composer. His only ballet score, The Prince of the Pagodas, was choreographed by Cranko in 1957 for the Royal Ballet and again by MacMillan in 1989, also for the Royal. His opera Death in Venice contains several ballet sequences, which were choreographed by Ashton at the work's premiere in 1973. His concert music has been used by many choreographers, including Soirées musicales (Tudor , 1938; Cranko in Bouquet garni, 1965), Simple Symphony (Gore, 1944; Dollar, 1961), Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge (Ashton in Le Rêve de Léonor, 1949; Neumeier in Stages and Reflections, 1968; Bintley in Night Moves, 1981), The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (Robbins in Fanfare, 1953; Ashton in Variations on a Theme of Purcell, 1955), Les Illuminations (Ashton, 1950; Alston in Rumours Visions, 1996), and Sinfonia da Requiem (Tetley in Dances of Albion, 1980; Kylián in Forgotten Land, 1981).

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Bronze Horseman, The.

Ballet in three acts with choreography by Zakharov , music by Reinhold Glière , design by Mikhail Bobyshov , and libretto by Petr Abolimov , after the poem by Pushkin . Premiered 14 Mar. 1949 by the Kirov Ballet, St Petersburg, with Sergeyev and Dudinskaya . The ballet tells the tragic story of the lovers Yevgeny and Parasha; the latter drowns in the devastating St Petersburg flood of 1824. The Bronze Horseman is the famous statue of Peter the Great which dominates the centre of St Petersburg. In his grief-induced delirium, Yevgeny believes the statue is pursuing him. The ballet was also staged at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow on 27 June 1949 with Yermolaev and Lepeshinskaya .

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Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Theatre in the New York borough of Brooklyn which is an important showcase for US contemporary dance.

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Brown , Carolyn

(b Fitchburg, Mass., 26 Sept. 1927).
US dancer and choreographer. She studied with her mother, Marion Rice , a product of the Denishawn school, and graduated in philosophy from Wheaton College in 1950. After attending a masterclass with Cunningham in Denver in 1951, she decided to pursue dance full-time and moved to New York to continue her studies at the Juilliard School. She also studied with Cunningham and became one of the founding members of his company, which was born at Black Mountain College in N. Carolina in the summer of 1953. She was the most important female dancer in Cunningham's company for the next twenty years and danced in 40 of his works, often collaborating with Cunningham and Cage in the creative process. She created a role in Cage's Theatre Piece (1960) and on pointe in Robert Rauschenberg's first dance work Pelican (1963). Her own choreography includes Car Lot (1968), As I Remember It, a solo in homage to Shawn (Jacob's Pillow, 1972), Bunkered for a Bogey (1973), House Party (1974), Circles (1975), and Balloon II (Ballet-Théâtre Contemporain, 1976). Upon retirement in 1973 she took up teaching. A dancer of great purity and virtuosity, she was considered the ideal Cunningham interpreter.

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Brown , Trisha

(b Aberdeen, Wash., 25 Nov. 1936).
US dancer, choreographer, and company director. One of the most important figures in post-modern American dance. She received a BA in Dance from Mills College in Oakland, California, and trained with Louis Horst , Anna Halprin , and Robert Dunn at the American Dance Festival. She was one of the founders of Judson Dance Theatre in 1962 and of the improvisational company, Grand Union, in 1970. She formed her own company in 1970. One of the first choreographers in the post-modern school, she devoted her early career to stripping dance to its essentials. For the first twenty years her dances eschewed the usual theatrical elements of costumes and lighting and they were performed, for the most part, without music. One of her early works, Falling Duet (1968), consisted of two dancers taking turns falling and catching one another. In 1969, with the improvisational Yellowbelly, she encouraged the audience to heckle. Fascinated by the process of making dance, she also took the performance of it into hitherto unexplored places. In Roof Piece (1971) she placed her dancers on rooftops over twelve blocks in lower Manhattan and had them relay the movements from one to the next. In Walking on the Wall (1971) she had her dancers supported by ropes, pulleys, and mountain-climbing gear as they literally did just what the title implied. In 1979 she began to collaborate with other artists, the most important of whom was Robert Rauschenberg ; their Glacial Decoy (1979) marked a turning point in her career. In 1980 her Opal Loop featured a sculpture made of fog. She has worked extensively in mixed-media presentations, but has remained resolutely anti-theatrical in her choreography, rejecting the glamour and artifice of classical ballet and the spectacle and storytelling of the Martha Graham school of modern dance. Late in her career she turned to choreographing to classical music with M.O. (1995), set to Bach's Musical Offering. A list of her other works includes Trillium (1962), Lightfall (1963), Improvisation on a Chicken Coop Roof (1963), Rulegame 5 (1964), Planes (1968), Man Walking Down the Side of the Building (1970), Accumulation (1971), Group Primary Accumulation (1973), Discs (1973), Drift (1974), Locus (1975), Water Motor (1978), Son of Gone Fishin' (1981), Set and Reset (1983), Lateral Pass (1985), Newark (1987), Astral Convertible (1989), Foray Forêt (1990), For M.G.: The Movie (1991), Twelve Ton Rose (mus. Webern , 1996), If You Couldn't See Me (1994), a solo for Brown, You Can See Us (1995), a duet for herself and Mikhail Baryshnikov , and Canto/Pianto (mus. Monteverdi , 1997). In 1998 she choreographed and directed Monteverdi's L'Orfeo at La Monnaie in Brussels. Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (1988).

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Browne , Leslie

(b New York, 29 June 1958).
US dancer. Hailing from a family of dancers, she studied with M. Craske and with her parents, Isabel Mirrow and Kelly Brown , in Phoenix. She finished her training at the School of American Ballet (1972–4) and joined New York City Ballet (1974–6). She moved to American Ballet Theatre as a soloist in 1976, becoming a principal in 1986. She was particularly noted as a dramatic ballerina in works by Tudor , acclaimed for her Hagar in his Pillar of Fire as well as her Caroline in Lilac Garden. Kenneth MacMillan chose her for his first-cast Juliet when he staged Romeo and Juliet for ABT. In 1977 she achieved widespread fame by starring as the juvenile lead (a role originally intended for Gelsey Kirkland ) in Herbert Ross's film The Turning Point, a performance which earned Browne an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She also appeared as Romola Nijinsky in Ross's Nijinsky (1980) and as Nadine in his Dancers (1987). She also toured with Baryshnikov and Company in 1985, 1986, and 1987. After leaving ABT in the early 1990s she began choreographing. She also appeared, both acting and dancing, in the 1993 Broadway musical version of The Red Shoes.

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Bruce , Christopher

(b Leicester, 3 Oct. 1945).
British dancer, choreographer, and company director. His career has been most closely associated with Rambert Dance Company, both as dancer and choreographer. He studied in Scarborough and at the Rambert School, and joined Ballet Rambert in 1963. He became the leading male dancer in the company after its re-formation in 1966 and was widely admired for his performances as the Faun in Nijinsky's L'Après-midi d'un faune and as Pierrot in Tetley's Pierrot lunaire. He created roles in Morrice's The Realms of Choice (1965), Hazard (1967), Blind Sight (1969), and That is the Show (1971), and in Tetley's Embrace Tiger and Return to Mountain (1968). He also created the role of the poet Lorca in Cruel Garden, which he co-choreographed with Lindsay Kemp for Rambert in 1977. He was associate director of Rambert (1975–9) and associate choreographer (1979–87). He was also associate choreographer of London Festival Ballet (now English National Ballet, 1986–91) and was appointed resident choreographer of the Houston Ballet in 1989. In 1994 he took over as artistic director of Rambert. He is a prolific and accomplished choreographer with several major hits to his credit, among them Cruel Garden (with Lindsay Kemp , mus. C. Miranda , 1977), Ghost Dances (mus. S. American folksongs, 1981), Swansong (mus. Philip Chambon , London Festival Ballet, 1987), and Rooster (mus. The Rolling Stones, Geneva Ballet, 1991). Like Tetley, Bruce is equally at home with classical ballet and modern dance. He is fond of using popular music by artists such as Bob Dylan , John Lennon , and the Rolling Stones for his scores, and is partial to a heavy political content in much of his work, the best of which is entertainingly theatrical. A list of his works includes For Those who Die as Cattle (no mus., 1972), There Was a Time (mus. Brian Hodgson , 1972), Unfamiliar Playground (mus. Anthony Hymas , Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet, 1974), Ancient Voices of Children (mus. G. Crumb , 1975), Black Angels (mus. G. Crumb , 1976), Echoes of a Night Sky (mus. G. Crumb , 1977), Night with Waning Moon (mus. G. Crumb , 1979), Dancing Day (mus. Holst , 1981), Intimate Pages (mus. Janáek , 1984), Sergeant Early's Dream (mus. folk-songs, 1984), Remembered Dances (mus. Janáek , 1985), Silence is the End of Our Song (Chilean poems, Royal Danish Ballet, 1985), Land (mus. Nordheim , London Festival Ballet, 1985), The Dream is Over (mus. John Lennon , the Cullberg Ballet, 1986), Waiting (mus. Errolyn Wallen , London Contemporary Dance Theatre, 1993), Moonshine (mus. Bob Dylan , Netherlands Dance Theatre, 1993), Crossing (mus. Henryk Górecki , 1994), Meeting Point (mus. Michael Nyman , 1995), Quicksilver (mus. Nyman , 1996), Four Scenes (mus. Dave Heath , 1998), and God's Plenty (mus. Dominic Muldowney , 1999), a full-length work based on Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.

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Bruhn , Erik

(b Copenhagen, 3 Oct. 1928, d Toronto, 1 Apr. 1986).
Danish dancer, choreographer, and ballet director. He studied at the Royal Danish Ballet School (from 1937) and joined the company in 1947, promoted to soloist in 1949. Although he remained closely associated with the Royal Danish Ballet for the next fifteen years, his career as a guest artist found him frequently in America. From 1947 to 1949 he guested with the English Metropolitan Ballet; then he worked with American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet, the National Ballet of Canada, the Royal Ballet, the Harkness Ballet, and the Ruth Page Ballet. At American Ballet Theatre he became the partner of Markova and Fracci , with whom he formed a legendary partnership in Giselle. His debut as Albrecht, on 1 May 1955 partnering Alicia Markova at the Metropolitan Opera House, caused a sensation. He was undoubtedly one of the finest male dancers of the 20th century, possessed of a sublimely pure classical technique and a striking nobility as a performer. His commitment to the drama and artistry of everything he danced was never sacrificed to self-promoting virtuosity. As a foremost exponent of the Bournonville style, he was an outstanding James in La Sylphide, but he was also the definitive Albrecht for an entire generation of dance-goers. A premier danseur noble, he also was a brilliant character artist and in later years gave profoundly moving interpretations of Madge and Dr Coppelius . He also excelled in modern roles, including Jean in Cullberg's Miss Julie and Don José in Petit's Carmen. He created roles in Taras's Designs with Strings (1948), MacMillan's Journey (1957), Cullberg's Lady from the Sea (1960), Cranko's Daphnis and Chloe (1962), S. Hodes's The Abyss (1965), and a new pas de deux for him and Makarova added to Ailey's The River (1971). He was director of the Royal Swedish Ballet (1967–71), resident producer of the National Ballet of Canada (1973–6), and director of the National Ballet of Canada from 1983 until his premature death three years later. He re-staged many of the classics for companies around the world, including the Royal Danish Ballet, the Royal Swedish Ballet, the Bavarian State Opera, and the Harkness Ballet. His productions include La Sylphide in 1965, Swan Lake in 1966, and Coppélia in 1975, all for the National Ballet of Canada. He won the Nijinsky Prize in 1963 and became a Knight of Dannebrog in 1963. Author (with Lillian Moore ) of Bournonville and Ballet Technique (London, 1961).

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Brumachon , Claude

(b Rouen, 2 May 1959).
French dancer, choreographer, and company director. He studied dance at the Fine Arts School. He danced with Ballet de la Cité (1978–80) and worked with Christine Gérard (1980–1) and Karine Saporta (1982). He started working as an independent choreographer in 1981 when he and Benjamin Lamarche founded a research group in choreography. In 1984 he founded his own company. In 1989 he staged Féline for the Paris Opera. From 1992 he was director of the Centre Chorégraphique National de Nantes, where Compagnie Claude Brumachon is based. His style is strongly athletic and occasionally physically punishing. His works have been performed in the street, in museums, castles, even on a submarine base (Emigrants, 1993).

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Buckle , Richard

(b Warcop, 6 Aug. 1916).
British dance writer and critic. Dance critic of the Observer from 1948 to 1955 and of the Sunday Times (1959–75). He was founder of the influential magazine Ballet (1939–52). He organized the Diaghilev exhibition in Edinburgh in 1954, to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the impresario's death. Author of Adventures of a Ballet Critic (London, 1953), In Search of Diaghilev (London, 1955), Modern Ballet Design (London, 1955), Nijinsky (London, 1971), Diaghilev (London, 1979) and Buckle at the Ballet (London, 1980).

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Bugaku.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Balanchine , music by Toshiro Mayuzumi , scenery and lighting by David Hays , and costumes by Barbara Karinska . Premiered 20 Mar. 1963 by New York City Ballet, City Center, New York, with Kent and Villella . The ballet, in three parts, illustrates a ritualistic love coupling between a leading male and female dancer. It was inspired by Japanese gagaku court dancers, whom Balanchine had seen in New York. Later performed by Dance Theatre of Harlem (1975) and Royal Ballet, Covent Garden (1988).

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Buirge , Susan

(b Minneapolis, 1940).
US-French dancer, choreographer, and company director. After studying law at college, she studied dance at the Juilliard School of Music in New York, graduating in 1963. Further training was with Alwin Nikolais and Murray Louis . She danced with Nikolais Dance Theater (1963–8) and Murray Louis Dance Company (1963–8) and in 1968 created the groundbreaking work Televanilla, a multimedia dance which incorporated film and video elements into the choreography. In 1970 she moved to France, where during the next two decades she was influential in the development of French New Dance. In 1975 she founded her own company, Dance Theater Susan Buirge, later renamed Susan Buirge Project. She has made several prominent ‘sitespecific’ works, including Charge allaire (1982), made for the airport at Aix-en-Provence. She was artistic consultant of the Aix Dance Festival (1980–6). She retired from the stage in 1990. She worked in Kyoto, Japan (1992–3), and was artist in residence at the Arsenal Theatre in Metz, France, from 1997. Her more recent work has reflected a growing interest in Oriental imagery and ideas.

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Bujones , Fernando

(b Miami, 9 Mar. 1955).
US dancer. He studied with Alonso in Cuba and at the School of American Ballet (from 1967). He made his professional debut with the Eglevsky Ballet in 1970 and joined American Ballet Theatre in 1972. He won the gold medal at Varna in 1974 (the first American to do so) and became a principal in 1974. He left ABT in 1985 (although he returned in 1990 as a permanent guest artist). His subsequent career as an international guest artist was hugely successful; he appeared with companies in N. and S. America, Europe, and Japan. Grigorovich invited him to dance with the Bolshoi (1987) and he had an ongoing relationship with the Boston Ballet. He appeared in the film The Turning Point (1978). A prodigiously talented dancer, he owed his stardom to his bravura technique and his amazing self-confidence. ‘Baryshnikov has the publicity, I have the talent,’ he was quoted as saying after winning Varna, an event that coincided with the Russian's much-publicized defection to the West. His rivalry with Baryshnikov at ABT eventually led to his departure from the company. He created roles in Tharp's Bach Partita (1984) and Béjart's Trois études pour Alexandre (1987). He published his autobiography, Fernando Bujones, in Rio de Janeiro in 1984. He made his final appearance with American Ballet Theatre in 1995; following his retirement from the stage he has worked as a freelance teacher and choreographer, mainly in the US.

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bulerias.

A component of Spanish flamenco. It is usually danced at the end of flamenco performances. The dances are rapidly executed, with mime and elements of humour. Also called chuflas (boasting).

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Bull , Deborah

(b Derby, 22 Mar. 1963).
British dancer and writer. She trained at the Royal Ballet School and won the 1980 Prix de Lausanne. She joined the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden in 1981, promoted to principal in 1992. She dances many of the leading roles in the classical repertoire and is noted for her performances in ballets by MacMillan and Forsythe . She has created roles for Page, Bintley, Tetley, and Tharp. In 1996 she debated at the Oxford Union; in 1998 she published two books, Dancing Away and The Vitality Plan. Appointed to the Arts Council of England (1998).

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Burgmüller , Friedrich

(b Regensburg, 4 Dec. 1806, d Beaulieu, France, 13 Feb. 1874).
German composer. He wrote La Péri for Coralli (1843) and Lady Henriette, ou la servante de Greenwich for Mazilier (with F. von Flotow , 1844). His most famous ballet composition is the Peasant pas de deux, which he wrote for the first production of Giselle in 1841.

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Burra , Edward

(b London 1905, d Rye, 1976).
British painter and ballet designer. He studied at the Chelsea School of Art and the Royal College of Art. Among the ballets he designed are Rio Grande (Ashton, 1932), Don Juan (Ashton, 1948), Barabau (de Valois , 1936), Don Quixote (de Valois , 1950), and Miracle in the Gorbals (Helpmann , 1944).

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Burrow, The.

Ballet in one act with choreography and libretto by MacMillan , music by F. Martin , and designs by Georgiadis . Premiered 2 Jan. 1958, by the Royal Ballet, Covent Garden, with Heaton , Britton , Seymour , and MacLeary . The ballet deals with a group of terrified people hiding in a small room from an unspecified menace. Parallels with The Diary of Anne Frank were often drawn, although MacMillan himself rejected the connection. It was the first ballet to bring the young Lynn Seymour to prominence.

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Burrows , Jonathan

(b Bishop Auckland, 23 Mar. 1960).
British dancer, choreographer, and company director. He studied at the Royal Ballet School (from 1970) and danced with the Royal Ballet from 1979 to 1991, promoted to soloist in 1986. At Covent Garden he excelled in character roles. In 1988 he founded his own company, the Jonathan Burrows Group, which was initially supported by the Royal Ballet. Since 1992, however, it has been fully independent. His early style as a choreographer, while sharing many characteristics with the post-modern school, was strongly influenced by English folk dance and he taught English folk dance at the Royal Ballet School (1979–84). A list of works for his own company includes Hymns (1988), dull morning, cloudy mild (1989), Stoics (1991), Very (1992), Our (1994), The Stop Quartet (1996). He has also choreographed works for Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet (Catch and The Winter Play) and the Frankfurt Ballet (Walking/music, 1997).

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Bussell , Darcey

(b London, 27 Apr. 1969).
British dancer. She trained at the Royal Ballet School (1982–7), won the Prix de Lausanne in 1986, and joined Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet in 1987. The following year she was famously plucked from the corps de ballet by Kenneth MacMillan to create the leading role in his full-length ballet, The Prince of the Pagodas. Its Covent Garden premiere, on 7 Dec. 1989, catapulted her to stardom. Immediately after the performance, she was promoted to principal dancer. A tall, long-limbed dancer, she changed people's expectations of what a British dancer should look like, while her athleticism and the generous scope of her movement set her firmly outside the so-called ‘English school’ of dancers (as epitomized by Margot Fonteyn ). Admired by audiences and critics alike, she is the first British ballerina since Fonteyn to achieve widespread stardom outside the dance world, thanks in part to her celebrity as a fashion model and her frequent exposure on television. As a dancer, she is particularly acclaimed for her Aurora, Odette-Odile, and Cinderella, although she also excels in the Balanchine repertoire and is a popular Juliet. In 1998 she was invited to the Kirov Ballet in St Petersburg where she danced La Bayadère with Igor Zelensky. She created roles in Bintley's Spirit of Fugue (1988), MacMillan's Prince of the Pagodas (1989) and Winter Dreams (1991), Page's Bloodlines (1990), Tharp's Mr Worldly Wise (1995), Matthew Hart's Dances with Death (1996), Christopher Wheeldon's Pavane pour une infante défunte (1996), Tetley's Amores (1997), and Mark Baldwin's Towards Poetry (1999).

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Butcher , Rosemary

(b Bristol, 4 Feb. 1947).
British choreographer, educator, and company director. She studied dance at Dartington College of Arts in Devon (1965–8) and at the University of Maryland (1968–9). Further studies in New York with Elaine Summers and Yvonne Rainier (1970–2) brought her into contact with the Judson Church movement. She founded her own company, the Rosemary Butcher Dance Company, in London in 1975–6. She was resident choreographer at London's Riverside Studios (1977–8). She has made more than 40 works, most of which reflect her strict minimalist approach to dance and her interest in both visual arts and architecture. Her pieces have frequently been performed in art galleries and have utilized art installations. A list of her works includes Anchor Relay (1977), Dances for Different Spaces (1979), Five-Sided Figure (1980), Traces (1982), The Site (1983), Flying Lines (1985), Touch the Earth (1987), Body as Site (1993), Unbroken View (1995), After the Last Sky (1996), and Fractured Landscape, Fragmented Narratives (1997). She lectured on dance at Dartington College (1969–70, 1980–1), Dunfermline College in Scotland (1973–4), Middlesex Polytechnic (1974–6), and the University of Surrey (1994–7). Visiting fellow of the Royal College of Art, London (1995–7).

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Butler , John

(b Greenwood, Miss., 29 Sept. 1918, d New York, 11 Sept. 1993).
US dancer, choreographer, and ballet director. He studied at the Graham School and at the School of American Ballet. He danced with the Martha Graham company (1945–55), where he inherited some of Merce Cunningham's roles, and appeared in musicals and on television. In 1944 he appeared on Broadway dancing the lead role of Dream Curly in Agnes de Mille's Oklahoma! ballet. He founded his own company in 1955 (later renamed American Dance Theater), which toured Europe; it disbanded in 1961. He was best known as a choreographer, both prolific and well-travelled, and enjoyed a higher reputation in Europe than in the US. He was one of the first dancemakers to marry classical ballet and modern dance. He choreographed for Broadway, New York City Opera, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Australian Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Batsheva Dance Company, Harkness Ballet, Metropolitan Opera, New York City Ballet, Netherlands Dance Theatre, Paris Opera Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet, and the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. He choreographed the world premiere of Menotti's The Unicorn, the Gorgon and the Manticore (1956), later taken into the repertoire of New York City Ballet, and frequently collaborated with Menotti. He made Carmina Burana for New York City Opera in 1959, staging it for Netherlands Dance Theatre in 1962, and for Pennsylvania Ballet in 1966. Carmina Burana became his most popular work, produced by more than 30 companies. After Eden (mus. Lee Hoiby , 1967), a pas de deux created for the Harkness Ballet, also achieved widespread success. Portrait of Billie, based on the life of the blues singer Billie Holiday , was choreographed for Carmen de Lavallade and himself in 1960 and premiered at the Newport Jazz Festival. It was taken into the repertoire of the Ailey company in 1974. At the Spoleto Festival in 1975 he choreographed Medea for Fracci and Baryshnikov, the first new work created for the Russian following his defection to the West; Medea was taken into the ABT repertoire in 1976. He was dance director for Menotti's annual Spoleto festival, and choreographed Menotti's television opera, Amahl and the Night Visitors, in 1951. He also choreographed for television and for ice shows. A noted teacher, he counted Lar Lubovitch and Glen Tetley among his pupils.

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butoh.

An expressionist contemporary dance form which originated in Japan in the late 1950s. It was pioneered by choreographers such as Tatsumi Hijikata , Kazuo Ohno and Kasai Akira . The first recorded butoh performance was Hijikata's Kinjiki in 1959. Although Hijikata stresses the spiritual imperative in butoh, the form is most readily identified by its physical appearance: the white painted faces, shaved heads, and nakedness of its performers and the distorted shapes of its slow-moving choreography. Companies such as Sankai Juku have added a designer sheen to butoh perfomances and found a new international audience.

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Byrd , Donald

(b New London, NC, 21 July 1949).
US dancer, choreographer, and educator. He was educated at Yale University (1967–8), Tufts University (1968–73), Cambridge School of Ballet (1969–73), London School of Contemporary Dance (1972), and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center (1976). He danced with Twyla Tharp , Karole Armitage , and Gus Solomons jun. He formed his own company, Donald Byrd/The Group, in 1978 in Los Angeles and moved it to New York in 1983. He has made more than 80 works for his own company, including Prodigal (1991), The Minstrel Show (1991), Drastic Cuts (1992), Bristle (1993), Life Situations: Daydreams on Giselle (1995), The Beast (1996), Still (1996), and Jazz Train (1998). The Minstrel Show, which, like much of his work, deals with racial issues, cemented his reputation as a choreographer. In 1995 he collaborated with the director Peter Sellars , the composer John Adams and the poet June Jordan on the musical/opera I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky. In 1996 he choreographed the full-length The Harlem Nutcracker, telling ballet's favourite tale from an African-American viewpoint. The $1 million production had as its music David Berger's rearrangement (and expansion) of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn's famous jazz version of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite. For New York City Opera he choreographed Carmina Burana (1997); for San Francisco Opera he choreographed Aida (1997). For the Alvin Ailey company he made Shards (1988) and Fin de siècle (1997); for Pacific Northwest Ballet he made Capricious Night (1998) and In the Courtyard (mus. Louis Andriessen , 1999), and for Ohio Ballet he made Ellington Phantasia (1999). Professor of Dance, California Institute for the Arts (1976–82).

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C

cabriole.

In ballet a leaping step, usually performed by male dancers, in which stretched legs are beaten together in the air. The term derives from the Latin word capra, meaning goat; thus cabriole represents the leap of a goat. The male variation in Act II of Giselle contains one of the finest examples.

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cachucha.

Spanish dance in 3/4 or 3/8 time, originally performed as a couple dance. In the mid-19th century the dance, in its solo form, was particularly associated with the Austrian ballerina Fanny Elssler , who did her own arrangement of it in Coralli's Le Diable boîteux in 1836. It was notated by F. A. Zorn and recreated in 1967 for the Royal Ballet's Ballet for All group, danced by Philippa Heale . In 1981 it was filmed as Fanny Elssler's Cachucha with Margaret Barbieri .

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Cage , John

(b Los Angeles, 5 Sept. 1912, d New York, 12 Aug. 1992).
US composer. He collaborated with Merce Cunningham over a period of 50 years and played an enormous role in the life of the Cunningham company. He began working with the choreographer in 1942 and became music director of the Cunningham company when it was formed in 1953. He wrote many works for Cunningham, although in keeping with his radical experimentalism as a composer (one who rejected both harmony and traditional instrumentation) his music and Cunningham's choreography were created in isolation from one another, only coming together at the moment of performance. Whatever association there was between the two elements was the result of pure chance. A list of dance works which he composed for Cunningham, or for which Cunningham used his music, includes Root of an Unfocus (1944), Four Walls (1944), The Seasons (1947), Sixteen Dances for Soloist and Company of Three (1951), Suite for Two (1958), Antic Meet (1958), Music with Dancers (1960), Aeon (1961), Field Dances (1963), Museum Event no. 1 and 2 (1964 marked the beginning of what became a series), How to Pass, Kick, Fall and Run (1965), Second Hand (1970), Un jour ou deux (Paris Opera, 1973), Roaratorio (1983), Points in Space (1986), and Beach Birds (1991). Author of Silence (Middletown, Conn., 1961), A Year from Monday (Middletown, Conn., 1967), M (Middletown, Conn., 1972), Empty Words (Middletown, Conn., 1980), and For the Birds (Boston, 1981).

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Cage, The.

Ballet in one act with choreography and libretto by Robbins , music by Stravinsky (his Concerto in D), set and lighting by Rosenthal , and costumes by Ruth Sobotka . Premiered 14 June 1951 by New York City Ballet at City Center, New York, with Kaye , Magallanes , Mounsey , and Maule . A group of predatory females castrate and kill two male intruders after mating with them. It was revived by Birmingham Royal Ballet in 1996 and San Francisco Ballet in 1998.

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Cahusac , Louis de

(b Montauban, 1700 (or 6 Apr. 1706), d Paris, 22 June 1759).
French ballet librettist, dance historian, and theorist on dance. He wrote the librettos for many opera ballets at the Académie Royale (the Paris Opera) from 1743 to 1759, collaborating with the composer Rameau on Les Fêtes de Polymnie (1745), Les Fêtes de l'Hymen et de l'Amour (1747), Zaïs (1748), Naïs, (1749), Zoroastre (1749), and La Naissance d'Osiris (1754). In 1754 he published his three-volume treatise La Danse ancienne et moderne, ou traité historique sur la danse, in which he made the case for dramatic structure and integrity in mimed dance. In this he was a precursor of Noverre .

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cakewalk.

A strongly syncopated competitive dance of African-American origin, popular in the US in the 19th century. It was widely performed by slaves for gatherings in the homes of slaveowners. The black performers were free to determine the course the dance would take. It derived its name from the fact that a piece of cake would be given as a reward to the dancer who performed with the most virtuosity and imagination. At the end of the 19th century it was taken up by performers in minstrel shows and vaudeville. In 1951 New York City Ballet performed a work of the same name, choreographed by Ruthanna Boris , and with music by L. M. Gottschalk (arr. H. Kay ), that was a parody of the old-fashioned minstrel show. Its finale was a cakewalk for the entire cast.

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Calegari , Maria

(b New York, 30 Mar. 1957).
US dancer. She studied at the School of American Ballet from 1971, a pupil of Danilova. She joined New York City Ballet in 1974, becoming principal in 1983. She created roles in Martins's Histoire du soldat (1981) and A Schubertiad (1984); in Robbins's Piano Pieces (1981), Gershwin Concerto (1982), Four Chamber Works (1982), Glass Pieces (1983), Antique Epigraphs (1984), Eight Lines (1985), and Ives Songs (1988); in Tharp and Robbins's Brahms/Handel (1984); and in LaFosse's Waltz Trilogy (1991). She was a highly versatile dancer who shone in a wide variety of roles. She retired in 1994 and took up teaching.

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Camargo , Marie (orig. Marie-Anne de Cupis de Camargo;

baptized in Brussels, 15 Apr. 1710, d Paris, 28 Apr. 1770).
French dancer of Spanish and Italian descent. One of the most famous and influential ballerinas in history. Born the daughter of Ferdinand Joseph de Cupis , the aristocratic Italian who was dancing master in Brussels, she made her debut in Brussels but continued her studies with Prévost and Blondy in Paris and became a member of the Paris Opera in 1726, where she became the first ballerina to exhibit a dazzling and virtuosic technique. On one famous occasion, she executed a sudden improvised solo to cover the gap left when one of her male colleagues failed to show up for his entrée. For eight years she enjoyed a fierce rivalry with the more graceful and poetic Sallé which ended when Camargo retired in 1734 to the country chateau of her lover, Louis de Bourbon , Comte de Clermont. In 1740 she returned to the stage where she spent ten successful years dancing in 78 ballets, and reaffirming her position as queen of the Paris Opera. When she retired in 1751 she was granted the largest pension ever given to a dancer. She was possessed of a brilliant batterie and changed public perceptions about the way women should dance. She performed steps which were hitherto considered the exclusive province of the male—like cabrioles and entrechats—and even shortened the traditional skirt of the ballerina to just above the ankle to facilitate her more daring allegro movements, and to ensure that the public could actually see what she was doing with her feet. She was one of the stars of 18th century ballet, influential in the fashion of the day, and the inspiration for many a culinary creation, including Filet de Bœuf Camargo, Soufflé Camargo, and Bombe Camargo. Petipa choreographed Camargo, a ballet in her honour, in St Petersburg (1872). Enrico de Leva and Charles Lecocq wrote operas about her. In 1930 the Camargo Society was founded in London.

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Camargo Society, The.

A group founded in London in 1930 to promote the cause of ballet by staging productions and nurturing the development of British dancers and choreographers. The brainchild of Haskell and Richardson , it provided a platform for such key British choreographers as Ashton , de Valois , and Tudor . Its first subscription performance was on 19 Oct. 1930 at the Cambridge Theatre. Ballets by Genée , N. Legat , de Valois (Danse sacrée et danse profane), and Ashton (Pomona) were on the debut programme. Dancers were drawn from the schools of Rambert and de Valois, and the society recruited such established stars as Markova , Lopokova , Spessivtseva , and Dolin . Its subscribers included leading figures of British intellectual society. Like Diaghilev , the directors believed in collaborating with distinguished painters, and commissioned designs from Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant among others. The society staged the first British productions of Giselle and Swan Lake, Act II. Among new British ballets to be premiered were de Valois's Job (1931), and La Création du monde (1931), Ashton's Façade (1931), and Tudor's Adam and Eve (1932). After two gala performances at Covent Garden, the society was dissolved in 1933. Many of its ballets were given to the Vic-Wells Ballet.

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Campra , André

(b Aix-en-Provence, baptized 4 Dec. 1660, d Versailles, 29 June 1744).
French composer. As chef d'orchestre royale et directeur des pages de musique, a post he took up in 1723, he wrote about 25 ballets and ballet operas for the Paris Opera, including Les Ages (1718) and Les Amours de Mars et de Vénus (1712). His 1699 ballet, Le Carnaval de Venise, was revived for the Aix-en-Provence Festival in 1975 with choreography by Schmucki .

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Canada.

The first professional ballet company in the country was the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, which began in 1939 on a semiprofessional basis. The foundations of ballet in Canada were developed in the late 1940s when schools throughout the country sent performing troupes to the Canadian Ballet Festival (1948–54). In 1951 the National Ballet of Canada, closely modelled on Sadler's Wells Ballet, was formed in Toronto; it became the biggest and most important company in the country. The following year Montreal followed suit with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens. The companies based in Winnipeg, Toronto, and Montreal remain the top three, although smaller regional troupes sprung up across the country in the wake of their success. Up until the 1970s Canadian ballet dancers like Lynn Seymour and Jennifer Penney found greater opportunities abroad, but the emergence of dancers like Veronica Tennant , Frank Augustyn , and, especially, Karen Kain , signalled the arrival of popular stars who made their entire careers at home. Canada also has a thriving modern dance culture. Winnipeg Contemporary Dancers was founded in 1964; La Groupe de la Place Royale in 1967; Toronto Dance Theatre in 1968; and Anna Wyman Dance Theatre in Vancouver in 1971. Today some of the top artists in the field of independent modern dance live and work in Canada, among them Édouard Lock , Robert Desrosiers , Margie Gillis , and Danny Grossman . Through its international dance festival (Festival International de Nouvelle Danse), Montreal has become one of the most important centres for modern dance in the world.

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Canada, National Ballet of.

See National Ballet of Canada.

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canary.

A jaunty toe-tapping dance in 3/4 or 6/8 time. It is similar to the jig and the gigue. It probably originated in the Canary Islands; hence its name. Its first recorded appearance in European dance history was in Fabritio Caroso's dance manual II ballarino (1581). The first musical examples of canaries are found in the harpsichord suites of Couperin and de Chambonnières. The dance is mentioned in Shakespeare's All's Well That Ends Well: ‘Make you dance Canary with sprightly fire and motion.’

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can-can.

Famous for its licentious connotations, the dance none the less had its origins in the chahut, a very modest and respectable social dance invented by Monsieur Masarié in 1830. Within fifteen years, however, it had moved into the French music halls where it emphasized the immodest display of leg and undergarment, so much so that it was eventually banned by the authorities. It is an exhilarating, high-kicking dance in 2/4 time. Offenbach featured the can-can in his operas, most notably in Orpheus in the Underworld, and Toulouse-Lautrec immortalized the dance and its demi-monde dancers in his drawings of the Moulin Rouge. In ballet, it can be found as the climax to two of Massine's best-known works, Boutique fantasque and Gaîté parisienne. It was also the subject of the 1953 Broadway musical Can-Can.

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Canfield.

Modern dance with choreography by Cunningham , music by Pauline Oliveros , sets by Robert Morris , and costumes (uncredited) by Jasper Johns . Premiered 4 Mar. 1969 by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, at Nazareth College in Rochester, New York, with Cunningham , C. Brown , Sandra Neels , Setterfield , Meg Harper , Susana Hayman-Chaffey , Jeff Slayton , Chase Robinson , and Mel Wong . The piece, whose music was inspired by the work of Nikola Tesla , Cosmic Engineer, takes its title from the game of canfield, a type of solitaire named after Richard Canfield . A full-length, plotless work for nine dancers which is divided into twenty-six sections, thirteen ‘hands’, and thirteen ‘deals’.

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Cape Town City Ballet.

Ballet company based in Cape Town, South Africa. It was founded in 1963 as CAPAB Ballet, so-called because it was originally funded by the Cape Performing Arts Board, a state organization. It grew out of the University of Cape Town Ballet Company. It performs throughout South Africa, and abroad. Its first director was Dulcie Howes ; David Poole , who succeeded her in 1967, added many ballets of his own to the repertoire before he retired in 1990. For many years Phyllis Spira was its leading ballerina. Frank Staff was resident choreographer until his death in 1971. A classically based company, it also has ballets by Cranko , de Valois , Ashton , Bournonville , and Jooss in its repertoire. Guest artists who have danced with the company include Fonteyn and Fracci . In 1991 Veronica Paeper took over as artistic director. She is a prolific choreographer who has made many original full-length works for the company. In 1997 CAPAB officially changed its name to Cape Town City Ballet.

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capoeira.

A stylized martial-art dance from Brazil which is characterized by acrobatic fighting manœuvres and athletic dance steps. It has been designated as a national sport in Brazil, where it is taught in schools and performed, especially in festivals, as a contest between combatants. Once only performed by men, it is now also danced by women and has exerted a considerable influence on some modern dance choreographers in Europe and the US, where it was introduced in 1975.

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Capriccio espagnol.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Massine in collaboration with Argentinita, libretto by Massine , music by Rimsky-Korsakov , and designs by Mariano Andreu . Premiered 4 May 1939 by the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, Monte Carlo, with Argentinita, Massine, Danilova, and Panaieff. A plotless Spanish-flavoured work involving five dances and four characters: a gypsy fortune-teller, a young gypsy boy, a country girl, and a peasant. It was filmed in 1941 by Warner Brothers as Spanish Fiesta. Fokine had earlier made a version of it for his own company in New York in 1924, called Olé Toro.

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Capriol Suite.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Ashton , music by Peter Warlock , and designs by William Chappell . Premiered 25 Feb. 1930 by Rambert Dancers at the Lyric Theatre, London, with Howard , Gould , Turner , Ashton , and Chappell . Although Warlock's music is taken from the airs in Arbeau's Orchésographie, Ashton gave the original French dances (including the pavane and the branle) an English Elizabethan setting. This was Ashton's first important ballet and was danced by Rambert for many years; later it was taken into the repertoire of the Vic-Wells Ballet (1938).

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Capucilli , Terese

(b Syracuse, NY, 1956).
US dancer. She studied in Syracuse with Augustine and Boughton , earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at the State University of New York at Purchase and studied at the Jacob's Pillow School in Massachusetts, and later with Maggie Black in New York City. She won a scholarship to the Martha Graham School. She danced with Kazuko Hirabayashi Dance Theater and Marcus Skulkind Dance Company and joined the Martha Graham company in 1979. During a twenty-year career with the Graham company, she became its leading dancer and inherited more than 25 roles originally performed by Graham . She created roles in Graham's The Rite of Spring (The Chosen One, 1984), Temptations of the Moon (1986), and Maple Leaf Rag (Woman, 1990), and in the reconstructions of Salem Shore (1992) and Sketches from Chronicle (1994). The 1937 solo Deep Song was reconstructed for her in 1988. In 1993 Tharp choreographed a lead role for her in Demeter and Persephone, a work created for the Graham company. Capucilli has been actively involved in the research and reconstruction of early Graham works. On stage, she is the embodiment of the fierce heroic woman who features at the heart of many of Graham's works.

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Caracalla Dance Theatre.

Lebanese company based in Beirut founded in 1970 by Abdel-Halim Caracalla . The troupe made its international debut at the 1972 Festival of Osaka in Japan. It travels extensively in Europe and North America. Its first full-length production was Mystery of the Bizarre in 1974. In recent years Caracalla has favoured Shakespearean themes, and has choreographed full-length productions of an Oriental Midsummer Night's Dream and Taming of the Shrew. His style is based on an amalgamation of Western contemporary dance and traditional Middle Eastern dance.

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Carlson , Carolyn

(b Oakland, Calif., 7 Mar. 1943).
US dancer and choreographer. She studied at Utah University, at the San Francisco Ballet School, and with Alwin Nikolais , with whom she danced (1965–71). She then moved to Paris, and performed and choreographed for companies in France, Germany, and Italy. From 1973 to 1980 she was danseuse étoile chorégraphique at the Paris Opera, where she founded the Groupe de Recherches Théâtrales de I'Opéra. For Paris she made Densité, 21.5 (mus. Varèse ), L'Or des fous (mus. G. Arrigo ), and Les Fous d'or (mus. I. Wakhevitch , 1973), Sablier prison (mus. various), Il y'a juste un instant (mus. Barre Phillips , 1974), and Wind, Water, Sand (1976). She also created the leading role in Tetley's Tristan (Paris Opera, 1974). She directed her own group at the Teatro la Fenice in Venice (1980–4), but returned to Paris in the mid-1980s, where she continued to exert a great influence on the modern dance scene. She subsequently created work for the Folkwang Ballet in Essen, and acted as guest choreographer for Netherlands Dance Theatre and the Finnish National Ballet. Artistic director of Sweden's Cullberg Ballet (1993–5). Recent work includes Commedia (1993) and Signes (1997).

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Carmen.

Ballet in one act with choreography and libretto by Petit , music by Bizet , and designs by Antonio Clavé . Premiered 21 Feb. 1949 by the Ballet de Paris, Prince's Theatre (now Shaftesbury Theatre), London, with Jeanmaire , Petit , Perrault , and Hamilton . The ballet, based on the famous Bizet opera, caused a sensation at its debut, not least because of Petit's erotically charged choreography, especially the sexually explicit bedroom pas de deux he created for Jeanmaire and himself as Don José. Petit revived the ballet for several other companies, including the Royal Danish Ballet in 1960 and the Paris Opera in 1990. The ballet was captured on film, in Black Tights (1960). Other choreographers who have used the same subject include Petipa (Carmen et son torero, Madrid , 1845), Goleizovsky (Moscow, 1931), R. Page (Guns and Castanets, Chicago, 1939), Alberto Alonso (Carmen, mus. Shchedrin after Bizet , Moscow, 1967), Cranko (mus. W. Fortner and W. Steinbrenner after Bizet, Stuttgart, 1971), and Mats Ek (mus. Shchedrin-Bizet , Cullberg Ballet, 1992, filmed 1994). Antonio Gades choreographed a flamenco version in 1983, which was filmed by Carlos Saura .

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Carmina Burana.

Carl Orff's famous musical setting of bawdy medieval songs has inspired many choreographers. The first production was 8 June 1937 in Frankfurt with choreography by Inge Härtling . It was followed by stagings from Lizzie Maudrik (Berlin State Opera, 1941), Hanka (La Scala, Milan, 1942–3), Wigman (Leipzig, 1943), H. Rosen (Bavarian State Opera, Munich, 1959), Butler (New York City Opera, 1959, revived Netherlands Dance Theatre, 1962, Pennsylvania Ballet, 1966, Alvin Ailey, 1973), Nault (Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, 1967), Darrell (Berlin Opera Ballet, 1968), and Bintley (Birmingham Royal Ballet, 1995).

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Carnaval, Le.

Ballet in one act with choreography and libretto by Fokine , music by Schumann , orchestrated by Glazunov , Rimsky-Korsakov , Liadov , Tcherepnin , and Arensky , and designs by Bakst . Premiered 5 Mar. 1910, at the Pavlov Hall, St Petersburg, with Karsavina , Leontiev , Schollar , Nijinska , Nijinsky , and Meyerhold . The ballet was first seen at a charity ball in which the masked dancers of the Maryinsky Imperial Ballet had to appear anonymously because of contract restrictions. It is a series of dances for commedia dell'arte characters including Columbine, Harlequin, and Pierrot. The designs were inspired by the Viennese Biedermeyer period of 1840. Widely considered to be one of Fokine's masterpieces, it was taken up by the Ballets Russes of Diaghilev (who premiered it on 20 May 1910 in Berlin) and often revived by Fokine . In 1911, with new designs by Bakst , it entered the Maryinsky repertoire. Karsavina was a famous Columbine, Nijinsky a famous Harlequin. It was revived for the Camargo Society, London (1930), and for several British companies.

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Carnival of Animals, The.

Ballet in one act with choreography and designs by Andrée Howard , music by Saint-Saëns . Premiered 26 Mar. 1943 by Ballet Rambert, at the Mercury Theatre, London, with Elisabeth Schooling, Gilmour, Harrold, and Holmes. A Victorian child meets the various animals in the composer's Grand Zoological Fantasy, although Le Cygne, the most famous of them, is not included.

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Caroline Mathilde.

Ballet in two acts with choreography by Flemming Flindt , music by Peter Maxwell Davies , and designs by Jens-Jacob Worsaae . Premiered 14 Mar. 1991 by the Royal Danish Ballet at the Royal Theatre, Copenhagen, with Rose Gad in the title role. The ballet tells the story of the disastrous marriage between the 15-year-old English princess Caroline Mathilde and the 17-year-old Danish king, the epileptic and insane Christian VII. It was performed by the Royal Danish Ballet at Covent Garden in 1995.

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Caron , Leslie

(b Paris, 1 July 1931).
French-US dancer and actress. She studied at the Paris Conservatoire and made her debut in 1948 with the Ballets des Champs-Elysées. That same year she created the Sphinx in Lichine's La Rencontre. In 1951 she was hired by Gene Kelly for his film An American in Paris. Although she briefly returned to Petit's Ballet de Paris in 1954, at which time she created his La Belle au bois dormant in London, she devoted the rest of her career to acting. Her Hollywood films include Daddy Long Legs (1954), opposite Fred Astaire , Gigi (1958), Fanny (1961), and Father Goose (1964). She also featured in the British film The L-Shaped Room (1963) and in Louis Malle's Damage (1992).

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Carter , Alan

(b London, 24 Dec. 1920).
British dancer, choreographer, and ballet director. He studied with Astafieva and N. Legat and danced with the Vic-Wells Ballet (1937–41), where he created a principal role in Ashton's Harlequin in the Street (1938). He returned briefly to Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet in 1946 after military service, when he choreographed his first ballet, The Catch. He also appeared in films, including The Red Shoes, Tales of Hoffmann, and Invitation to the Dance. He was director of several companies, including the St James Ballet, the London Empire Theatre Ballet, the Munich Ballet, Wuppertal, Bordeaux, Helsinki, and the Icelandic Ballet.

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Carter , Jack

(b Shrivenham, 8 Aug. 1923(some sources say 1917), d London, 30 Dec. 1998).
British dancer and choreographer. He studied at Sadler's Wells School and with Preobrajenska in Paris. He danced with Ballet Guild, Molly Lake's Continental Ballet, Original Ballet Russe, Ballet Rambert, and London Festival Ballet. As a choreographer he worked with Ballet der Lage Landen in Amsterdam (1954–7) for whom he made his most famous work, The Witch Boy (mus. L. Salzedo , 1956), and with other companies in Europe, S. America, and Japan. He was chief choreographer of London Festival Ballet (1965–70). A list of his works includes Past Recalled (mus. Bloch , 1953), Love Knots (mus. Hummel , arr. Salzedo , 1954), The Life and Death of Lola Montez (mus. Verdi , orch. Salzedo , 1954), London Morning (mus. Coward , 1959), Agrionia (mus. Salzedo , 1965), Beatrix (or La Jolie Fille de Gand, mus. Adam , Horovitz, 1966), Cage of God (mus. A. Rawsthorne , Western Theatre Ballet, 1967), Pythoness Ascendant (mus. Berio , 1973), Three Dances to Japanese Music (mus. Katada , Scottish Ballet, 1973), Shukumei (mus. Stomu Yamash'ta , Royal Ballet Touring Company, 1975), and Lulu (mus. Milhaud , Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet, 1976). He also produced Swan Lake for Buenos Aires (1963) and London Festival Ballet (1966) and Coppélia for London Festival Ballet (1968).

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Casado , Germinal

(b Casablanca, 6 Aug. 1934).
Moroccan dancer, designer, and theatre director. He studied with Nina Leontiev , Zvereff , and V. Gsovsky . He danced in Wuppertal and with the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas, but most of his career was spent with Béjart's Ballet of the 20th Century, dancing with him from 1957 to the early 1970s. As one of Béjart's leading soloists he created roles in many of his ballets, including Sacre du printemps (1959), A la recherche de Don Juan (1962), Mathilde (1964), Ninth Symphony (1964), and Romeo and Juliet (1966), in which he played Tybalt. He also designed many Béjart ballets, including Les 4 Fils Aymon (1961), Tales of Hoffmann (1961), A la recherche de Don Juan (1962), The Merry Widow (1963), The Damnation of Faust (Paris Opera, 1964), Renard (Paris Opera, 1965), Les Oiseaux (1965), Romeo and Juliet (1966), The Temptation of Saint Anthony (Paris, 1967), La Nuit obscure (1968), and Bhakti (1968). He became artistic director of the Karlsruhe State Theatre Ballet in 1977.

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Casanova ballets.

Choreographers who have been inspired by the story of the famous 18th-century Italian adventurer Giacomo Girolamo Casanova include Laban (1923), Kröller (1929), Charrat (Casanova in London, mus. W. Egk , Munich, 1969), and Preljocaj (Casanova, Paris Opera, 1998).

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Castil-Blaze (orig. François-Henri-Joseph Blaze ;

b Cavaillon, 1 Dec. 1784, d Paris, 11 Dec. 1857).
French ballet critic. From the early 1820s to 1832, in his capacity as critic of the Journal des débats, he was the leading ballet critic in Paris. Several of his writings became standard reference works, among them La Danse et le ballet depuis Bacchus jusqu'à Mille Taglioni (1832), L'Académie Impériale de Musique… de 1645 à 1855 (published in three volumes, 1847–55); and L'Opéra italien, 1548–1856 (Paris, 1856).

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Castle , Irene (née Foote) and Castle , Vernon .

One of the most famous ballroom dancing couples in history. Vernon came from Norwich, England (b 2 May 1887, d Fort Benbrook, Tex., 15 Feb. 1918), while Irene hailed from New Rochelle in New York (b 7 Apr. 1893, d Eureka Springs, Ark., 25 Jan. 1969). They married in 1911 and went on to have successful careers in Europe and the US. An elegant partnership, they were famous for the Castle Walk, the Castle Polka, the Hesitation Waltz, and the Tango. Their joint career was cut short in 1918 when Vernon, an aerial photographer for the Royal Air Force, was killed in an air crash during an instructional flight. Irene retired from dancing and wrote two books: My Husband (1919) and Castles in the Air (1958). A 1939 movie, The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle, brought them to life again in the form of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Authors of The Modern Dance (1914).

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Catá , Alfonso

(b Havana, 3 Oct. 1937, d Tourcoing, France, 15 Sept. 1990).
Cuban dancer, choreographer, and ballet director. He studied at the School of American Ballet in New York. He danced with many companies, including Petit, Joffrey, Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas, Stuttgart Ballet, and New York City Ballet. He was director of the Geneva Ballet (1969–73), Frankfurt Ballet (1973–7), and the Baltimore Ballet (1980–1). In 1983 he became founding director of Ballet du Nord, based at Roubaix in France, and continued to direct the company until his death in 1990.

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Catarina, ou La Fille du bandit.

Ballet in three acts with choreography and libretto by Perrot , music by Pugni , and designs by Charles Marshall . Premiered 3 Mar. 1846, at Her Majesty's Theatre, London, with Grahn , Gosselin , and Perrot . The ballet, said to be based on an incident in the life of the 17th-century Italian painter Salvatore Rosa, tells of his love for Catarina, leader of a group of bandits. She, however, is also loved by her lieutenant, Diavolino. After several adventures, Catarina and Salvatore are happily united. Fanny Elssler enjoyed one of her biggest successes in the title role, in both Milan and St Petersburg.

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Catherine Wheel, The.

A dance project destined for Broadway, with choreography by Twyla Tharp , music by David Byrne , sets and costumes by Santo Loquasto , and lighting by Jennifer Tipton . Premiered 22 Sept. 1981, by the Twyla Tharp Dance Company, at the Winter Garden Theater, New York. Described by Tharp , in her autobiography When Push Comes to Shove, as ‘a full-length spectacle of the disintegration of family—prototypes borrowed from When We Were Very Young—commented on by a chorus. A shadow play portrayed a pineapple—the traditional symbol of housewarming—turning into a nuclear bomb. Mom and Pop battled onstage, Daughter was sold into slavery, and the chorus leader was transformed from a goddess of innocence and sensuality into a hag surrounded by insane dancers, incapable of controlling their own bodies.’ Although it was a collaboration between one of the leading choreographers in the US and one of the top names in the world of pop music—David Byrne of the Talking Heads rock group—the work was not a financial success and it closed after a short Broadway run. However, the energetically charged final part, The Golden Section, survived as a one—act ballet in its own right and has been performed by Tharp's company and Rambert Dance Company. Tharp adapted the entire ballet for television in 1983.

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Cats.

Hit international musical based on the poems of T. S. Eliot (Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats) with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber , choreography by Gillian Lynne , and direction by Trevor Nunn . It opened in 1981 at the New London Theatre in London's West End and transferred to Broadway the following year, opening at the Winter Garden Theater on 7 Oct. 1982. On 19 June 1997 it became the longest-running show in Broadway history, its 6,138th consecutive performance pushing it ahead of A Chorus Line. It is also the longest-running musical in London's West End.

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Cave of the Heart.

Modern dance in one act with choreography by Martha Graham , music by Samuel Barber , set by Isamu Noguchi , costumes by Edythe Gilfond , and lighting by Jean Rosenthal . Premiered 10 May 1946 by the Martha Graham company at the McMillin Theater, Columbia University, New York, with Graham , Hawkins , Yuriko , and O'Donnell . The ballet, a masterpiece of expressionist dance rich in Jungian symbolism, is based on the legend of Medea and Jason. It was originally titled Serpent Heart, but became Cave of the Heart in 1947.

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Cecchetti , Enrico

(b Rome, 21 June 1850, d Milan, 13 Nov. 1928).
Italian dancer, choreographer, and ballet master. One of the greatest teachers in the history of ballet, and renowned as a fine mime artist. His system of teaching, known as the Cecchetti method, is still used in schools around the world. He was born—in a theatre dressing-room—the son of two dancers and made his debut while only 5 years old in Genoa. He studied with Blasis' pupil Giovanni Lepri in Florence and made his La Scala debut in 1870 in Gods from Valhalla. He guested throughout Europe while still a principal dancer at La Scala (where he had been promoted in 1885) and made his debut at the Maryinsky Theatre in St Petersburg in 1887 in Ivanov's The Tulip of Haarlem. A brilliant technician, he so impressed the Russians that he was appointed principal dancer and second ballet master to the Imperial Theatres. For a decade, from 1892, he taught at the school of the Imperial Theatres, where his pupils included Pavlova , Vaganova (who went on to become a legendary teacher herself), Preobrajenska , Karsavina , Gorsky , Legat , Fokine , and Nijinsky . In 1902 he left to teach in Warsaw but returned to St Petersburg in 1906 to open a school of his own. In 1909 he was hired by Diaghilev as ballet master and character dancer for his new Ballets Russes company. Cecchetti remained with Diaghilev until 1918, creating several memorable roles as a character artist in ballets by Fokine and Massine . In 1918 he and his wife Giuseppina opened a ballet school in London, where his students included Rambert , de Valois , and Markova . He also ran the La Scala Ballet School in Milan (1925–8). In 1922 in London the Cecchetti Society was formed to preserve his system of teaching, and in 1924 it was incorporated into the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing. Among the roles he created were Carabosse and Blue Bird in Sleeping Beauty (1890), the Chief Eunuch in Scheherazade (1910), the Old Showman in Petrushka (1911), the Astrologer in Le Coq d'or (1914), the Shopkeeper in La Boutique fantasque (1919) and the Doctor in Pulcinella (1920). He made his last stage appearance in Milan in 1926, dancing the Old Showman. Although he choreographed some ballets, none of them have survived. He collaborated with Cyril Beaumont and Idzikowski on A Manual of the Theory and Practice of Classical Theatrical Dancing: Cecchetti Method, published in London in 1922.

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Céleste, Madame (born Anastasie Céleste des Rousselles ;

b Marcilly-la-Campagne, 6 Aug. 1810, d Paris, 18 Feb. 1882).
French dancer. She trained at the Paris Opera Ballet School and danced briefly with the Paris Opera. She toured the US extensively in the 1820s and 1830s and was much admired there, even being presented to President Andrew Jackson in Washington in 1836. She is credited with being the first ballerina to perform La Sylphide in America. She was acclaimed more as a pantomimic artist than a classical dancer; in 1837 the Paris Opera refused to hire her on the grounds that she was not good enough. One of her most successful roles was in The French Spy, one of the most famous melodramas of the 19th century. In 1843 she began a new career as a theatre manager, first at the Theatre Royal in Liverpool and then at the Adelphi Theatre in London, which she co-managed with Benjamin Webster for fourteen years, presenting ballet burlesques. She subsequently managed the Lyceum Theatre in London. She made her farewell tour of the US in 1865–6 and retired from the stage in 1874 after appearing in The Green Bushes, another popular melodrama, in London.

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Cell.

Modern dance in one act with choreography by Robert Cohan , music by Ronald Lloyd , and designs by Norberto Chiesa . Premiered 11 Sept. 1969 at the Place Theatre, London. An abstract modern work for six dancers, it was created for the opening season of London Contemporary Dance Theatre. Its theme is society's suffocation of the individual. It became one of the most popular and enduring works in the LCDT repertoire.

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Cendrillon.

See Cinderella.

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Cent Baisers, Les (Eng. title The Hundred Kisses).

Ballet in one act with choreography by Nijinska , libretto by Kochno , music by Frederic d'Erlanger , and set by J. Hugo . Premiered 18 July 1935 by Colonel de Basil's Ballets Russes, at Covent Garden, London, with Baronova and Lichine . It is based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy-tale about a swineherd, a princess, and a magic bowl.

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Central Ballet of China.

Chinese national ballet company based in Beijing. The appetite for Western ballet was slow to develop in China, and was strongly influenced by Russian models. China's national company grew out of beginnings in 1959 with the start of the performing group of the Beijing Dance Academy, under the direction of the Soviet teacher Petr Gusev . In 1963 it achieved its independence to become a full-time professional dance company. In 1980 the Ministry of Culture officially named it the Central Ballet of China. China's ties with the Soviet Union meant the company was set up along traditional Russian lines, although very early on the company made clear its determination to establish a uniquely Chinese identity. This occurred in 1964 with the creation of the landmark ballet The Red Detachment of Women, the first of the so-called ‘revolutionary model ballets’. With its corps de ballet of rifle-wielding female soldiers—all on pointe—the work, set on Hainan Island during the Chinese Civil War of 1927–37, married the political ideology and culture of contemporary China to the centuries-old court-based tradition of Western ballet. The company brought in guest dancers, teachers, and choreographers from the West, including Fonteyn , Grey , Dolin , Baryshnikov , and Nureyev . Thus it acquired classics such as Swan Lake (with Bai Shu-xiang the first Chinese swan queen), Giselle, Le Corsaire, Don Quixote, and The Fountain of Bakhchisarai. Chinese ballets have also been created for the company: works such as Ode to the Yimeng Mountain, Son and Daughter of the Grassland, The Maid of the Sea, The New Year's Sacrifice, and Trilogy of Searching for Light. Jiang Zuhui (one of the choreographers of The Red Detachment of Women) staged several full-length ballets for the company, including Laurencia, La Esmeralda, and The New Year's Sacrifice.

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Cerrito , Fanny

(b Naples, 11 May 1817, d Paris, 6 May 1909).
Italian dancer. One of the most famous ballerinas of the Romantic era. She studied with Perrot, Blasis, and Saint-Léon. She made her debut at the Teatro Regio in Naples in 1832. For the next twenty years she became a star throughout Europe, appearing in all the major capitals, including—in the 1850s—Moscow and St Petersburg. In Vienna in 1841 she studied and performed with Arthur Saint-Léon, whom she married. She was also a special favourite in London, where she danced many seasons at Her Majesty's Theatre from 1840. A voluptuous, even erotic dancer, she was noted for her strength and fiery personality on stage. She created leading roles in Alma ou La Fille de feu (London, 1842), Ondine (London, 1843), La Vivandière (1844), and Lalla Rookh (London, 1846) and took part in the first productions of the Pas de quatre (London, 1845) and the Le Jugement de Pâris (London, 1846). Her marriage to Saint-Léon (who was also her dancing partner) broke up in 1851 when she became the mistress of the Marquis de Bedmar. From 1847 to 1854 she was at the Paris Opera, where she created the title roles in Mazilier's Orfa (1852) and her own ballet Gemma (1854). In 1855 she appeared at Covent Garden and in 1856–7 at the Lyceum Theatre (where the opera was based after Covent Garden was destroyed by fire). In 1856 she took part in the celebrations in Moscow for Alexander II's coronation. While performing there she was struck by a piece of falling scenery, a fact which could have been instrumental in her decision to retire from the stage the following year. Ironically, for someone who had enjoyed such celebrity, her death in 1909 went unreported in the Paris press.

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Chabukiani , Vakhtang (also spelled Chaboukiani ;

b Tbilisi, 12 Mar. 1910, d Tbilisi, 5 Apr. 1992).
Soviet dancer, choreographer, ballet master, and teacher. His early studies were with Maria Perrini in Tbilisi; from 1926 he attended the Leningrad Ballet School. He graduated in 1929 into the GATOB company (as the Kirov was known in those days) and rapidly progressed so that within two years he was its leading soloist, a position he maintained until 1941. An athletic and vigorous dancer, the Georgian came to embody the Soviet ideal of heroic maleness, uninhibited and all-conquering. He created important roles in many Soviet ballets, including Vainonen's , Jacobson's , and Chesnakov's The Golden Age (1930), Vainonen's Flames of Paris (1932) and Partisans' Days (1937), Zakharov's Fountain of Bakhchisarai (1934) and Lost Illusions (1936), and Lopukhov's Taras Bulba (1940). Ballets he choreographed include The Heart of the Hills (mus. Andrei Balanchivadze , Kirov, 1938) and Laurencia (mus. A. Krein , 1939). In 1934 he toured the US, becoming, with Tatiana Vecheslova , the first Soviet dancer to do so. In 1941, with war forcing the evacuation from Leningrad of many dancers, he returned to Tbilisi. For the next 30 years he ran Tbilisi's Paliashvili opera house. There he choreographed and staged numerous works (many featuring powerful roles for himself), including Othello (mus. A. D. Matchavariani , 1957), Poem-Ballet (mus. Liszt and Gershwin , 1963), Hamlet (1971), and The Demon (mus. S. Sinadze , 1961), in which he took the title role at the age of 50. He retired from the stage in 1968. He did much to promote the cause of the male dancer in classical ballet, seeking to restage the 19th-century repertoire in order to boost the male role to beyond that of mere partner. His 1947 production of La Bayadère for the Kirov (achieved with the help of his old teacher Ponamarev) completely redefined the part of Solor; indeed, the variations we see today in Russian productions owe more to Chabukiani than to Petipa. His Corsaire is also part of the standard male repertoire. He also appeared in a number of films: he directed and danced the leading roles in Masters of the Georgian Ballet (1955) and Othello (1960), and appeared in Stars of the Russian Ballet (dancing in Flames of Paris, 1946). He taught extensively in the Soviet Union and abroad. Peoples Artist of the USSR, 1950; recipient Lenin Prize, 1958.

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chaconne.

A dance in triple time, which probably originated in Spain (where it is known as the chacona). It began as a sensuous dance for a couple, but by the time it showed up in the ballet de cour and the ballet operas of Lully and Rameau it had acquired a more sober refinement.

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Chagall , Marc

(b Vitebsk, 7 July 1887, d St Paul de Vence, 28 Mar. 1985).
Russian-French painter and designer. He designed Massine's Aleko (1942), Bolm's The Firebird (American Ballet Theatre, 1945) and Lifar's Daphnis and Chloe (1958). He also created the murals for the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center in New York. Légion d'honneur (1962).

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chainé

(Fr., chained). A series of continuous turns on alternating feet in which the body rotates rapidly. The feet, which move along in a straight line, are kept as close together as possible.

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Chalon , Alfred Édouard

(b Geneva, 15 Feb. 1780, d London, 3 Oct. 1860).
Swiss-British painter and illustrator. Much of what we know about the look of romantic ballet is owed to his lithographs and illustrations. He was Taglioni's portraitist and his 1845 lithograph of the Pas de quatre, with Carlotta Grisi , Marie Taglioni , Lucile Grahn , and Fanny Cerrito , is one of the most famous images in all dance.

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Champion , Gower

(b Geneva, Ill., 22 June 1920(some sources say 1919), d New York, 25 Aug. 1980).
US dancer, choreographer, and director. Famed for his dance partnership with Marge Champion (also his wife), he choreographed his first musical in 1948 (Lend an Ear), which launched his career on Broadway and in Hollywood. His musical shows include Bye Bye Birdie (1960), Carnival (1961), Hello Dolly (1964), I Do! I Do! (1966), The Happy Time (1968), Mack and Mabel (1974), and 42nd Street (1980). He was one of Broadway's leading director-choreographers.

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Chandralekha

(b Nadiad, Gujarat, 6 Dec. 1929).
Indian dancer, choreographer, designer, and writer. She was educated in Bombay and moved to Madras in 1949. She trained in bharata natyam with E. Pillai in Madras and made her debut in 1952. She enjoyed a career as a soloist in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Disenchanted with the profession, however, she took up writing and designing and pursued radical feminist causes. In 1982 she was charged with sedition by the Indian government, although she was later cleared. In 1984 she was lured out of retirement to present Tillana, originally made in 1960, at the East-West Dance Encounter in Bombay. In 1985 she returned to the stage with a groundbreaking production, Angika, which rejected the decoration and narrative of bharata natyam and offered new directions in Indian contemporary dance. Since then she has produced work on a regular basis. She and her company have toured internationally; in 1997 she collaborated with Toronto Dance Theater on Namaskar, marking the first time she had set her work on Western dancers. Author of the novel The Street and a collection of poems.

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Chanel.

See fashion.

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changement de pieds

(Fr., changing feet). A jump during which the position of the feet changes.

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Chant du rossignol, Le (Eng. title Song of the Nightingale).

Ballet in one act with choreography by Massine , music by Stravinsky , and designs by Matisse . Premiered 2 Feb. 1920 by the Ballets Russes de Diaghilev at the Paris Opera, with Karsavina , Sokolova , and Idzikowski . Based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale, the ballet tells the story of the Emperor of China who is saved from death by the song of the nightingale. The score is the symphonic poem which Stravinsky extracted from his opera Le Rossignol. In 1925 Diaghilev revived the ballet and commissioned the young—and untested—Balanchine to choreograph it. It was Balanchine's first creation in the West. Later versions include Cranko (Munich, 1968) and Taras (New York City Ballet, 1972). In 1999 Kenneth Archer and Millicent Hodson staged a reconstruction of Balanchine's version for Les Ballets de Monte Carlo.

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Chappell , William

(b Wolverhampton, 27 Sept. 1908, d Rye, 1 Jan. 1994).
British dancer and designer. An enormously versatile talent, he studied ballet with Rambert and art at the Chelsea Art School. A member of Ballet Rambert in its earliest days (1929–34), he also danced with the Vic-Wells Ballet from 1934 to 1940. With the Camargo Society he created roles in de Valois's Job (1931) and Ashton's Façade (1931). At the Vic-Wells Ballet he created roles in de Valois's The Haunted Ballroom (1934), The Rake's Progress (1935), and Checkmate (1937). As a designer he worked for both Rambert and the Vic-Wells Ballet, designing Ashton's Capriol Suite (1930), Les Rendezvous (1933), and Les Patineurs (1937), de Valois's Cephalus and Procris (1931) and Bar aux Folies-Bergère (1934), and Tudor's Lysistrata (1932). He also designed productions of Giselle (1935) and Coppêlia (1940) for Vic-Wells Ballet and in 1936 he designed Boris Romanov's Nutcracker staging for René Blum's Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo. He published Studies in Ballet in 1948, Fonteyn: Impressions of a Ballerina in 1951, and Edward Burra: A Painter Remembered by his Friends in 1982. From 1951 he worked as a producer of plays and revues. In 1980 he was reunited professionally with Frederick Ashton , designing his Rhapsody for the Royal Ballet. In 1985 he designed Ashton's La Chatte metamorphosée en femme.

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character dance.

Dance which does not fall into the category of classic-academic dance. Character dance is a wide-ranging term which can refer either to the national dances so prevalent in 19th-century ballets, or to folk, ethnic, and rustic dances. It is also used to describe choreography which specifically illustrates a character's function or occupation (sailor, farmer, shoemaker) or choreography which is performed by older dancers or by dancers portraying older figures. The latter kind is usually heavily reliant on mime. National dances (like Polish, Hungarian, Spanish, Italian, and Russian) are found in many 19th-century ballets where they are frequently performed as entertainments at court gatherings, and as such they provide a lively and exotic contrast to classical dancing. Swan Lake and Raymonda contain fine examples of national dancing which serve no narrative purpose but provide an abundance of vivid celebration. Character dance associated with certain types of characters—such as jesters, buffoons, villains, magicians, and supernatural creatures—is rarely performed on pointe (a notable exception being the role of Bottom in Ashton's The Dream). In ballet, the demi-caractère dancer is often shorter in stature but possesses all the technical virtuosity of a leading artist. A famous example of the demi-caractère dancer is the Blue Bird in The Sleeping Beauty.

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Charisse , Cyd (orig. Tula Ellice Finklea ;

b Amarillo, Tex., 8 Mar. 1923).
US dancer and actress. After studying with Bolm , Nico Charisse (her first husband), and Nijinska in California, she began her career as a ballet dancer, making her debut in 1937 with Colonel de Basil's Ballets Russes. In 1946, however, she turned her attention to the world of musicals, film, television, and cabaret, and became one of the best-known dancers in the US, famous—like Betty Grable—for her long, beautiful legs. She made several notable Hollywood films with Fred Astaire who once described her as ‘beautiful dynamite’; and she also partnered Gene Kelly in Singin' in the Rain (1952). She appeared, either as dancer or actress, in many films, including Mission to Moscow, Thousands Cheer, Ziegfeld Follies, The Harvey Girls, Till the Clouds Roll By, The Unfinished Dance, Fiesta, The Kissing Bandit, The Band Wagon, Brigadoon, It's Always Fair Weather, Meet Me in Las Vegas, Silk Stockings, and in Petit's 1960 film Black Tights. She made her Broadway debut as the Russian ballerina in Grand Hotel in 1992.

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Charleston.

A fast-paced and strongly syncopated American social dance that was especially popular in the 1920s. It took its name from Charleston in South Carolina and was originally a solo dance performed by African-Americans. In 1926 it was accepted as a ballroom dance. Josephine Baker was one of the most celebrated performers of the Charleston.

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Charlip , Remy

(b Brooklyn, NY, 10 Jan. 1929).
US dancer, choreographer, designer, writer, actor, artist, and teacher. He studied art at Straubenmuller Textile High School in New York and fine arts at Cooper Union in New York, graduating in 1949. He studied dance at the New Dance Group Studio and at the Juilliard School with Tudor and Craske . He began dancing and teaching in 1949 and from 1950 to 1961 was a member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, performing as well as designing costumes and posters. For Cunningham he created roles in Suite for Five in Space and Time (1956), Antic Meet (1958), and Aeon (1961). He also danced with Charles Weidman , Jean Erdman , and Donald McKayle . While with Cunningham, he also worked as director and performer with the Living Theater company. In 1958 he co-founded the Paper Bag Players, a children's theatre in New York. From 1964 to 1970 he worked as choreographer, designer, performer, and director with the Judson Dance Theater. He wrote and directed two plays, Biography (1970) and Secrets (1971), as director of the National Theater of the Deaf. He has made more than 200 dances, either for his own company (which he founded in 1977) or for others. His works have been performed by London Contemporary Dance Theatre and the Joffrey Ballet among others. As a choreographer he has rhythmic sophistication and a highly developed sense of fun, and sign language has frequently been incorporated into his physical language. In 1972 he initiated his ‘air mail dances’, a series in which he sent out sketches of positions in the dance and asked contributors to link them together in whatever way they wished. For each work he would supply from 20 to 40 sketches. These dances, some of them performed by up to 250 people, have been staged in Europe, S. America, Australia, and America. He has illustrated and written more than two dozen books and as a children's author he is both prolific and respected. As an artist, he has been exhibited in France, Russia, Japan, and the US.

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Charrat , Janine

(b Grenoble, 24 July 1924).
French dancer, choreographer, and ballet director. She studied with Jeanne Ronsay , Egorova , and Volinine . She made her debut in the film La Mort du cygne in 1937, playing the part of a ‘petit rat’ at the Paris Opera who commits a crime. By the age of 14 she was giving recitals in Paris, dancing solos created by herself. She was an intense and poetic dancer, with a preference for serious subjects. From 1941 to 1944 she danced with Petit in a series of recitals which led to the creation of the Ballets des Champs-Elysées. In 1945 she choreographed Stravinsky's Jeu de cartes for the company, enjoying tremendous success at the age of 20. A series of ballets for various companies confirmed her reputation as a choreographer, including Concerto No. 3 (mus. Prokofiev ) for the Opéra Comique in 1947; 'Adame miroir (mus. Milhaud ) for Petit's Ballets de Paris in 1948 and La Femme et son ombre for the same company a year later. She also created Abraxas (mus. Werner Egk ) for the Berlin Municipal Opera in 1949, which remains her most successful ballet. She founded her own company in 1951 (Les Ballets Janine Charrat , later renamed Ballet de France) and produced two very successful works, Le Massacre des Amazones (mus. Y. Semenoff ) and Les Algues (mus. Guy Bernard , 1953), in which she created the role of the mad heroine. She also choreographed ballets for La Scala, Milan, Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, the Monnaie in Brussels, the Marquis de Cuevas company, the Geneva Ballet, the Vienna State Opera Ballet, and the Paris Opera. In 1961 she co-choreographed Les 4 Fils Aymon with Béjart in Brussels. During television filming of Les Algues in 1961 she was badly burned when her ballet skirt was set on fire by a lighted candelabra. After almost a year of recovery, she returned to the stage. From 1962 to 1964 she led the company at the Grand Theatre in Geneva and created several works there. In 1970 she opened a school in Paris. She was dance director at the Centre Pompidou (1980–9). She was awarded the Légion d'honneur in 1973.

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Chase , Lucia

(b Waterbury, Conn., 24 Mar. 1907, d New York, 9 Jan. 1986).
US dancer and ballet director. Co-founder of American Ballet Theatre. Her first love was theatre and she studied drama at New York's Theater Guild School where she also took ballet lessons. After deciding that dance was to be her life, she studied seriously with Mordkin , Fokine , Tudor , Vilzak , and Nijinska . She performed with the Mordkin Ballet from 1937 to 1939, where she danced the title roles in The Sleeping Beauty and Giselle, despite the fact that her late start meant she never fully developed a convincing classical technique. In 1940 she and Richard Pleasant founded Ballet Theatre (later American Ballet Theatre) with Chase as principal dancer (and prime financial backer), although she concentrated on the more dramatic and comedic roles. She created the Eldest Sister in Tudor's Pillar of Fire (1942) and the Greedy One in de Mille's Three Virgins and a Devil (1941). In 1945 she and Oliver Smith jointly took over direction of American Ballet Theatre. She retired from the stage in 1960, and retired as company director in 1980 (when she was succeeded by Baryshnikov ). Without Lucia Chase ABT might never have survived. During the course of 40 years she devoted her energy—and a large part of her personal fortune—to ensuring the company's survival. She brought Tudor and Baryshnikov to ABT and encouraged US choreographers such as Robbins , Tetley , and Tharp . She was awarded the US Medal of Freedom in 1980.

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chassé

(Fr., hunted). In ballet, a sliding step in which one foot appears to be chasing the other.

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chat, pas de

(Fr., step of the cat). In ballet, a cat-like leaping step which moves sideways. It starts from a fifth position of the feet and ends in fifth position, with the dancer jumping off one foot and landing on the other.

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Chatte, La.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Balanchine , libretto by Sobeka (alias Kochno), music by Sauguet , and designs by Naum Gabo and Antoine Pevsner . Premiered 30 Apr. 1927 by the Ballets Russes de Diaghilev in Monte Carlo, with Spessivtseva and Lifar . Balanchine based his ballet on Aesop's fable, in which a young man begs Aphrodite to change a cat into a young girl. The goddess grants him his wish, only for him to discover that the girl cannot reciprocate his love, whereupon the young man dies. The ballet's original constructivist decor featured transparent materials that reflected a dazzling array of light. Although the work had been intended as a showcase for Spessivtseva, Diaghilev's favoured ballerina at the time, it made a star of Lifar. In 1978 Ronald Hynd choreographed a version using the same music for London Festival Ballet.

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Chauviré , Yvette

(b Paris, 22 Apr. 1917).
French dancer and teacher. Widely considered to be the finest French ballerina of her generation. She studied at the Paris Opera Ballet School and later with Boris Kniaseff and Victor Gsovsky . She joined the Paris Opera Ballet in 1936 as a principal dancer. She was quickly spotted by Lifar , who became her mentor throughout her long career. He did much to promote her at the Opera by giving her major roles early on. She created her first solo role in his Le Roi nu (1936) and appeared in the film La Mort du cygne a year later. In 1941, at the age of 24, she was promoted to étoile of the Paris Opera after stunning audiences with her eighteen-minute solo in Lifar's Istar. Barring a few interruptions when she branched out on her own, she remained with the company until her retirement in 1972. When Lifar was forced to leave the Opera for political reasons, she joined him for a season at the Nouveau Ballet de Monte Carlo (1946–7). On her return to Paris with Lifar in 1947, she scored an immediate hit in his ballet Les Mirages, in which she played the Shadow, one of her most enduring creations. She left the Opera again in 1949, returning in 1953. She frequently appeared as a guest artist with many companies, including the Royal Ballet and the Bolshoi. A beautiful and elegant dancer, she was famous for her interpretations of the classics, especially Giselle (with which she made her farewell to the Paris Opera). She created roles in many of Lifar's ballets, including David triomphant (1937), Alexandre le grand (1937), Le Chevalier et la demoiselle (1941), Istar (1941), Joan de Zarissa (1942), Suite en blanc (1943), Dramma per musica (1946), Chota Roustaveli (1946), Nautéos (1947), Mirages (1947), La Péri (1957), and Constellations (1969). She also created a role in Cranko's La Belle Hélène in 1955, and the role of Marguérite in Gsovsky's La Dame aux camélias, first with the Berlin Ballet in 1957, then in an expanded version for Paris in 1960. She also created the female role in Gsovsky's famous Grand pas classique (1949), made for the Ballets des Champs-Elysées. From 1963 to 1968 she directed the Paris Opera Ballet School and from 1970 she directed the International Academy of the Dance in Paris. Although retired, she continued to make occasional stage appearances, including Lady Capulet in Nureyev's Romeo and Juliet in 1985. Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur (1964), Officer de la Légion d'honneur (1974), Commandeur de la Légion d'honneur (1988). Author of Je suis ballerine (Paris, 1960).

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Checkmate.

Ballet in one act with prologue, with choreography by de Valois , libretto and music by Bliss , and designs by Edward McKnight Kauffer . Premiered 15 June 1937, by the Vic-Wells Ballet at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, with Brae , May , Helpmann , and Turner . The ballet uses the familiar characters from a chess game to enact a story of love and death. The game is won by the Black Queen, who captures the Red Queen, seduces then murders the Red Knight, and humiliates the enfeebled Red King. The work's London premiere was on 15 Oct. 1937 at Sadler's Wells Theatre. The ballet remains, along with The Rake's Progress, among de Valois's most significant work.

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Chicago City Ballet.

Short-lived company founded by Maria Tallchief , which gave its first season in 1981.

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Children of Theatre Street.

A Soviet-US film (1978) which took a behind-the-scenes look at the famous St Petersburg Ballet School, known as the Vaganova Institute. The film was directed by Robert Dornhelm , with English commentary spoken by Princess Grace of Monaco. It featured as its climax a graduation performance by students.

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Childs , Lucinda

(b New York, 26 June 1940).
US dancer and choreographer. She graduated as a dance major from Sarah Lawrence College in 1962 (where she studied with Judith Dunn and Bessie Schönberg ) and then at the Cunningham studio. She became a member of the influential and avant-garde Judson Dance Theater in 1963. She formed her own company, the Lucinda Childs Dance Company, in 1973. As one of America's leading modern dance choreographers, she makes work which can often be described as conceptual dance. Its rigorous structure, often using minimalist variations within highly repetitive sequences, is coupled to an emotional spareness. Her choreography is fascinated by patterns, perspectives, and points of view, although its vocabulary has expanded beyond the basic non-dance movements found in her earlier work. In Street Dance (1964) she took her audience, seated in the windows of a loft, on an architectural tour of a New York block; with Dance (1979) she made her first full-length work, the Philip Glass score marking her first use of music. In 1983 she worked with the architect Frank Gehry and the composer John Adams on Available Light, in which the choreography took place on a split-level stage. Childs has also worked in theatre and opera, most notably with Robert Wilson and Philip Glass in the mixed-media opera production Einstein on the Beach (1976), in which she also appeared. She choreographed the Dance of the Seven Veils for Luc Bondy's Salzburg staging of Strauss's Salome (1992) and in 1996 choreographed Bondy's production of Verdi's Don Carlos. She made her debut as an opera director with Mozart's Zaide at the Monnaie in Brussels in 1995. She has choreographed works for Rambert Dance Company, the Lyons Opera Ballet, the Berlin Opera Ballet, the Bavarian State Ballet, the Paris Opera Ballet, and Pacific Northwest Ballet. A list of her other works includes Pastime (1963), Carnation (1964), Geranium (1965), Museum Piece (1965), Untitled Trio (1968), Particular Reel (1973), Mad Rush (mus. Glass , Paris, 1981), Relative Calm (mus. Jon Gibson , 1981), Cascade (mus. Steve Reich , Pacific Northwest Ballet, 1984), Field Dances (mus. Glass , 1984), Portraits in Reflection (mus. Galasso , Nyman , Shawn , Swados , 1986), Mayday (mus. Christian Wolff , 1989), Perfect Stranger (mus. Zappa , Lyons , 1990), Four Elements (mus. Gavin Bryars , Rambert , 1990), Chamber Symphony (mus. Adams , Munich, 1994), From the White Edge of Phrygia (mus. Stephen Montague , Paris, 1995), and Hammerklavier (mus. Eggert , Munich, 1996).

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Chile.

Although there were occasional visiting artists in the 19th century, Chile did not really take to European theatrical dance until the 20th century following a visit by the Pavlova company in 1917–18. In 1921 the former Pavlova dancer Jan Kaweski founded a ballet school in Santiago, which provided a foundation for ballet activity in the city. Doreen Young , a pupil of Astafieva, was also a leading teacher who later became ballet mistress of the National Ballet of Chile. Visitors continued to play a key role in the development of dance in Chile throughout the 1930s and 1940s, among them were de Basil's Original Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and the Ballets Jooss. Two of the latter's dancers, Ernst Uthoff and Lola Botka , returned to Santiago in 1942 and started a school with the help of the State University. Performances followed; eventually the professional National Ballet of Chile (Ballet Nacional Chileno) emerged, with a repertoire heavily weighted in favour of Uthoff and Jooss . Uthoff's greatest triumph was his 1953 ballet based on Carl Orff's oratorio Carmina Burana. When the Russian-trained E. Poliakova took over as ballet mistress in 1952, the repertoire became more classically orientated. The company gave regular seasons at the Teatro Municipal; in 1957 it moved to the smaller Teatro Victoria. In 1964 the company made its first visit to America. Uthoff resigned in 1964, and was succeeded by a number of directors, none of whom made a lasting mark. Meanwhile, in 1949 the Soviet dancers Vadim Sulima and Nina Gritsova established a school at the Teatro Municipal in Santiago which gave birth to the Santiago Ballet (Ballet de Santiago), modelled on the Russian tradition. In 1960 the company and school were reorganized by Ottavio Cintolesi , who introduced some of the ideas of the European avantgarde. Ivan Nagy (1982–9) helped to improve classical standards and brought in many foreign dancers and choreographers, including Julio Bocca and Ben Stevenson . The Santiago Ballet made its North American debut in 1986, although after Nagy's departure the company lost its momentum. In 1993 Marcia Haydée , artistic director of the Stuttgart Ballet, took over as artistic director of the Santiago Ballet and initiated an exchange policy with Stuttgart. Chilean dancers went to the German company and vice versa. She also brought Cranko's Onegin, Romeo and Juliet, and The Taming of the Shrew into the repertoire. In 1995 Nagy returned as artistic director of the company. Today, the National Ballet of Chile and the Santiago Ballet remain the two most important companies in Chile.

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China.

The country has a long tradition of folk and acrobatic dance, which reached the height of virtuosity as part of the Peking Opera. Western theatrical dance found a toehold in China in the middle of the 20th century, under the guidance of the Soviets. China's first ballet company was the Experimental Ballet Troupe, set up in the Beijing Dance Academy, which had been founded in 1954. Teachers from the Bolshoi and the Kirov helped to establish the Beijing school and the Shanghai Dance School in 1960. In 1959 the Beijing students staged their first full-length ballet, Swan Lake, under the guidance of the Russian ballet master Petr Gusev ; this marked the founding of China's national ballet company (the Central Ballet of China). In 1962 the Beijing Ballet (as it was then known) made its first international foray, visiting Burma. In 1964 the British ballerina Beryl Grey went to China to work with the company. However, with the arrival of the Cultural Revolution in the mid-1960s ballet was denounced as politically damaging. With relations between the Soviet Union and China now severed, China was left to go its own way. In the absence of foreign teachers and choreographers, and in an effort to appease its political opponents, Chinese ballet turned to national revolutionary subject-matter, most notably, in 1964, with the groundbreaking The Red Detachment of Women and The White-Haired Girl (staged by the Shanghai School of Dance), both of which were personally supervised by Mao Zedong's wife and both of which were performed to the exclusion of all else until the end of the Cultural Revolution. The style of these new ballets blended the classical academic vocabulary with the more athletic feats of traditional Chinese mime. Western classical ballet was reintroduced into China in the 1970s. Today the leading company is the Beijing-based Central Ballet of China (also called the National Ballet of China), which draws its dancers from the Beijing Dance Academy. The Shanghai Ballet is the country's second company. In 1992 the Guangdong Modern Dance Company was founded by the Chinese Government, the first professional modern dance company in China. In 1993 the Beijing Dance Academy started a modern dance course and some of its graduates have been taken into the Beijing Modern Dance Company.

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Chiriaeff , Ludmilla

(b Riga, 24 Jan. 1924, d Montreal, 22 Sept. 1996).
Latvian-Canadian dancer and ballet director. Founder of the Montreal-based company Les Grands Ballets Canadiens. She studied in Berlin with Alexandra Nikolaeva and danced with Colonel de Basil's Ballets Russes (1936) as an apprentice. She worked with Fokine and Massine and at the Berlin Opera Ballet (1940–1). During the Second World War she was sent to a Nazi labour camp, but escaped during a bombing raid and was rescued by the Red Cross who got her safely into Switzerland. After the war she worked as dancer, choreographer, and ballet mistress in Lausanne and Geneva, and in 1949 founded Les Ballets du Théâtre des Arts in Geneva. In 1952 she and her family moved to Canada, settling in Montreal. There she became one of the most influential figures in the emerging dance scene. She started her own school and her early choreography was for Canadian television (1952–7), participating in about 300 broadcasts and making dozens of ballets. In 1955 her television troupe, Les Ballets Chiriaeff, started performing in theatres. In 1957 it became Les Grands Ballets Canadiens. She choreographed many works for the repertoire, which mixed new and populist works with the classics. Her 1962 staging of Cendrillon (mus. Mozart ) was Canada's first original full-length ballet. She encouraged Canadian designers, composers, and choreographers to work with the company, and tried to give it a truly French-Canadian flavour. The company made its US debut at Jacob's Pillow in 1959. In 1965 she appointed Fernand Nault as her assistant. One of her most important productions was Stravinsky's Les Noces, which she choreographed in 1956 and then remounted in 1973. She retired as director in 1974 and devoted herself to running the company's two schools. Companion of the Order of Canada (1984). Nijinsky Medal (1992).

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Chirico , Giorgio di

(b Volos, 10 July 1888, d Rome, 20 Nov. 1978).
Greek-Italian painter and set designer. He designed Börlin's The Jar (La giara) for the Ballets Suédois (1924), Balanchine's Le Bal for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes (1929), Bacchus and Ariadne (Lifar, 1931), Protée (Lichine, 1938), Amphion (Milloss, 1944), Dances from Galanta (Milloss, 1945), The Legend of Joseph (Wallmann, 1951), and Apollon musagète (Lifar, 1956). His surrealist architectural visions are among the most striking dance sets ever created.

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Chopin , Fryderyk Frantizek

(b Zelazowa Wola, 1 Mar. 1810, d Paris, 17 Oct. 1849).
Polish composer. Although he wrote no music for the ballet, his works for piano have often been used by choreographers. The most famous example is Fokine, who used a selection of the composer's work in his Chopiniana (1907, restaged 1909 as Les Sylphides). Robbins was also attracted to Chopin, using his music for The Concert (1956), Dances at a Gathering (1969), and In the Night (1970). Ashton chose Chopin for A Month in the Country (1976) and Neumeier for Lady of the Camellias (1978). Nijinska's Chopin Concerto (1937) and In Memoriam (1949) are also set to his music.

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Chopiniana.

The original title of Les Sylphides.

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Choreartium.

Ballet in four movements, with choreography by Massine , music by Brahms , and designs by Constantine Terechkovich and Eugène Lourié . Premiered 24 Oct. 1933 by Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, at the Alhambra Theatre, London, with Baronova , Danilova , Riabouchinska , Verchinina , Zorina , Jasinski , Lichine , Petrov , and Shabelevski . An abstract choreographic response to Brahms's 4th Symphony, it was the second of Massine's so-called symphonic ballets. It outraged music critics of the day who believed it was inappropriate—if not downright immoral—to dance to a Brahms symphony. Massine himself briefly revived it in Buenos Aires in 1959 and again in Edinburgh in 1960. Birmingham Royal Ballet mounted a major revival in 1991, staged by Tatiana Leskova after Massine.

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choreographer.

One who makes dances. The person responsible for creating and arranging the steps and patterns of a dance work.

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choreography.

Derived from the Greek for dance and writing. Although the term originally referred to the actual writing down of the steps of a dance (which today is called dance notation), ever since the late 18th century it has meant the art of composing dance.

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choreology.

Derived from the Greek, its literal translation is ‘the science of dance’. The term is most closely associated with the system of dance notation invented by Rudolf and Joan Benesh , who defined the term in their 1977 book Reading Dance as ‘the scientific and aesthetic study of all forms of human movement made possible by Benesh Movement Notation’. It was first used in the 1920s by Rudolf Laban . Today, those trained in the Benesh system are known as choreologists. Most of the world's major ballet companies have a choreologist on their staff, and most new ballets are now notated by a choreologist.

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Chorus Line, A.

A long-running Broadway musical, directed and choreographed by Michael Bennett with music by Marvin Hamlisch , book by James Kirkwood , and lyrics by Ed Kleban . Premiered 21 May 1975 at the New York Shakespeare Festival Public Theater, it transferred to Broadway's Shubert Theater on 25 July 1975 where it ran until 1990. The musical depicts an audition for a job in a Broadway chorus line. It won nine Tony Awards and the Pulitzer Prize for Best Musical Play of the 1975–6 season. With it, Bennett gave added power to the role of the director-choreographer on Broadway.

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Christensen , Aage Thordal.

See Thordal-Christensen , Aage.

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Christensen , Lew

(b Brigham City, Utah, 9 May (some sources 6 May) 1909, d California, 9 Oct. 1984).
US dancer, choreographer, and ballet director. The youngest of the three dancing Christensen brothers. Like them, he began his studies with his uncle Lars Peter Christensen in Salt Lake City and continued his studies with Stefano Mascagno and L. Albertieri in New York and at Balanchine's School of American Ballet. After touring the vaudeville circuit with his siblings, he joined the American Ballet in 1936, becoming one of the most important of the early Balanchine dancers. In 1937 he became Balanchine's first American Apollo, which prompted Kirstein to write of his ‘suave and monumental elegance’ in the part. Tall, blonde, and handsome, and possessed of a strong technique, he was America's first real danseur noble of the 20th century. For Ballet Caravan he choreographed Filling Station (mus. V. Thomson ) in 1938, one of the first all-American ballets, and Pocahontas (mus. E. Carter , 1936). In 1946 he joined the faculty of the School of American Ballet, and also became ballet master of Ballet Society and later New York City Ballet. In 1951 he moved to California to take over the San Francisco Ballet, which his brother William had been running. He choreographed over 70 ballets and operas for San Francisco, including Con amore (mus. Rossini , 1953), Nutcracker (1954), Beauty and the Beast (mus. Tchaikovsky , 1958), Divertissement d'Auber (1959), Jest of Cards (mus. Krenek , 1962), and Life: A Do It Yourself Disaster (‘A Pop Art Ballet’, mus. Ives , 1965).

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Christensen , Willam (orig. William Christensen ;

b Brigham City, Utah, 27 Aug. 1902).
US dancer, choreographer, teacher, and ballet director. Studied with his uncle Lars Peter Christensen in Salt Lake City, and with Stefano Mascagno and L. Albertieri in New York; also with Fokine , in whose company he later danced. Toured the vaudeville circuit with his brothers from 1927 to 1932. In 1932 he opened a school in Portland, Oregon, out of which grew the Portland Ballet. From 1937 he danced with the San Francisco Opera Ballet, becoming ballet master and choreographer in 1938. When the opera disbanded its ballet company during the Second World War, he and his brother Harold bought the opera's ballet school and established the independent San Francisco Ballet. He choreographed the first American full-length versions of Coppélia (1939), Swan Lake (1940), and Nutcracker (1944). He left San Francisco Ballet in 1951 to become Professor of Dance at the University of Utah. In 1952 he founded the Utah Ballet, later Ballet West (1968).

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Chronicle.

Modern dance in five sections with choreography by Graham , music by Wallingford Riegger , designs by Isamu Noguchi , and costumes and lighting by Graham . Premiered 20 Dec. 1936 by the Martha Graham company at the Guild Theater in New York. ‘Chronicle does not attempt to show the actualities of war; rather, by evoking war's images, it sets forth the fateful prelude to war, portrays the devastation of spirit which it leaves in its wake, and suggests an answer.’ Although the original work in its entirely has been lost, three sections have been reconstructed from film clips by the Martha Graham company: ‘Spectre-1914’, ‘Steps in the Street’ (reconstructed by Graham herself in 1989), and ‘Prelude to Action’.

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Chujoy , Anatole

(b Riga, 1894, d New York, 24 Feb. 1969).
Latvian-US writer, editor, and critic. A graduate in law from the University of St Petersburg, he was also a committed balletomane in Russia, where he was a passionate supporter of Karsavina . He emigrated to the US in the early 1920s; US citizen from 1931. In 1936 he co-founded the influential Dance Magazine, and edited it until 1941. He founded Dance News in 1942, remaining as editor and publisher until his death. He wrote, edited, and translated many books on dance, including the groundbreaking Dance Encyclopedia (New York, 1949; second edition, with P. W. Manchester , 1967), and The New York City Ballet (New York, 1953). Translated the first English edition of Vaganova's Fundamentals of the Classical Ballet (New York, 1946, later published as Basic Principles of Classical Ballet). Edited Fokine's Memoirs of a Ballet Master (London, 1961).

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Ciceri , Pierre

(b Paris, 17 or 18 Aug. 1782, d Saint-Chéron, 22 Aug. 1868).
French designer and chief decorator of the Paris Opera. He designed the sets for Taglioni's La Sylphide (1832), Coralli's Giselle (1841), and Mazilier's Le Diable à quatre (1845). He was the first to use gas lighting to illuminate the stage.

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Cieplinski , Jan

(b Warsaw, 10 May 1900, d New York, 17 Apr. 1972).
Polish dancer, choreographer, teacher, and writer. He trained at the ballet school at Warsaw's Wielki Theater and performed there (1917–21). He was briefly a member of Anna Pavlova's company and then directed his own troupe (1922–5). From 1925 to 1927 he danced with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. He was then ballet director in Stockholm (1927–31) and Budapest (1931–4). In the mid-1930s he worked in Buenos Aires and Warsaw. In 1938–9 he worked as a choreographer for the Polish Ballet. One of his most acclaimed productions was The Highlanders (mus. Szymanowski ), which he made for the Polish Ballet in 1938. During the Second World War he worked in Warsaw and Budapest. In 1948 he moved to London, where for the next eleven years he worked with the Anglo-Polish Ballet, Legat Ballet, and the Mercury Theatre. From 1959 until his death he lived in New York, working as a teacher and writer. Author of Outline of Polish Ballet History (1956).

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Cincinnati Ballet.

US regional dance company founded in 1962. Its school is part of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. Artistic directors have included David McLain and Ivan Nagy .

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Cinderella.

Perrault's popular fairy-tale has been the subject of many ballets, starting with a version by Duport in Vienna in 1813. In 1822 François Decombe (or Monsieur Albert , as he was known) choreographed Cendrillon with music by Fernando Sor for the King's Theatre in London and re-staged it for the Paris Opera the following year. In 1893 the Maryinsky Theatre staged a version with choreography by Ivanov , Cecchetti , and M. Petipa to music by Boris Schell or Schel , which featured Legnani making her Maryinsky debut (she stunned the Russian audience with her celebrated feat of 32 consecutive fouettés). Fokine staged Cendrillon (mus. Frederic d'Erlanger , designs Goncharova ) for the Original Ballet Russe (de Basil) at Covent Garden on 19 July 1938. Andrée Howard choreographed a version (mus. Carl Maria von Weber ) for Ballet Rambert in 1935, with Pearl Argyle in the title role and Frederick Ashton as the Prince. But it was not until Prokofiev completed his famous score in 1944 that the ballet was able to achieve its greatest success. The first Prokofiev staging was at the Bolshoi Theatre on 21 Nov. 1945(its Russian title was Zolushka), with choreography by Zakharov , designs by Pyotr Williams , and featuring Olga Lepeshinskaya as Cinderella. On 8 Apr. 1946 Sergeyev staged Zolushka (sets by Boris Erdman ) for the Kirov with Natalia Dudinskaya as Cinderella and himself as the Prince. Ashton's historic version for Sadler's Wells Ballet (again using the Prokofiev score, although eliminating the extended Act III divertissement) was unveiled at the Royal Opera House on 23 Dec. 1948, the first full-length British ballet. Scenery and costumes were by Jean-Denis Malclés ; the cast included Shearer , Somes , Ashton , and Helpmann . The Royal Ballet revived it on 23 Dec. 1965 with new sets and costumes by Henry Bardon and David Walker , with Fonteyn , Blair , Ashton , and Helpmann . It entered the repertoire of the Australian Ballet in 1972. Celia Franca choreographed a new version for the National Ballet of Canada (Toronto, 1968) and Ben Stevenson staged it for the National Ballet of Washington (1970). Rudolf Nureyev enjoyed one of his greatest successes when he staged an updated Cendrillon (starring Sylvie Guillem ) for the Paris Opera Ballet in 1986 which set the story in Hollywood. Vasiliev did a new version for the Ballet Theatre of the Kremlin in 1991. In 1996 Michael Corder choreographed an award-winning new version for English National Ballet, which also went to the Boston Ballet. In 1997 Matthew Bourne's West End production set Prokofiev's ballet in the British capital during the Second World War. Other stagings include de Warren for Northern Ballet Theatre (mus. J. Strauss II, 1979) and Darrell for Scottish Ballet (mus. Rossini , 1979).

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Cintolesi , Ottavio

(b Santiago, 14 Apr. 1924).
Chilean dancer, choreographer, and ballet director. He studied at the Dance Conservatory of the University of Chile with Uthoff , Jooss , and V. Sulima . In 1946 he joined the National Ballet of Chile, where he became principal dancer and choreographer in 1948 and ballet master in 1950. In 1958 he became founder-director and chief choreographer of the Santiago Ballet, a position he held until 1966. After working mostly in Europe in the 1970s he returned to the Santiago Ballet (1979–82).

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Circe.

Modern dance in one act with choreography and libretto by Graham , music by Hovhaness , set by Noguchi , and lighting by Rosenthal . Premiered 6 Sept. 1963 by the Martha Graham company at the Prince of Wales Theatre in London, with Hinkson , Ross , and Clive Thompson . Graham's adaptation of the myth of Circe, it was created as a homage to Robin Howard , founder of London Contemporary Dance School and London Contemporary Dance Theatre.

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Circus Polka.

A ‘ballet for elephants’ choreographed by Balanchine to a commissioned score by Stravinsky and performed by the Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Circus at Madison Square Garden in New York in the spring of 1942. Properly titled Fifty Elephants and Fifty Beautiful Girls, at the first performances it featured Vera Zorina riding at the head of the troupe. It was an enormous success, and was performed 425 times. In 1972 Jerome Robbins choreographed Circus Polka for the Stravinsky Festival using young girls from the School of American Ballet with himself as ringmaster. At its first performance (New York State Theater, Lincoln Center, 23 June 1972) it was such a big hit that it was immediately repeated.

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Clark , Michael

(b Aberdeen, 2 June 1962).
British dancer, choreographer, and company director. He trained in traditional Scottish dance from the age of 4 and in ballet. Studied at the Royal Ballet School with Richard Glasstone (1975–9). In 1979 he joined Ballet Rambert, where he starred in important works by Richard Alston , but he left in 1981 to work as a freelance dancer with Ian Spink and Karole Armitage . He was resident choreographer at London's Riverside Studios (1983) and founded his own company in 1984. As a dancer he is admired for his startling grace, superb technique, and amazing control. His early works as a choreographer established his reputation as a flamboyant iconoclast, using props such as giant phalluses and assaulting his audience with ear-splitting rock music. For many years he enjoyed being branded the ‘enfant terrible’ of British dance. Works like I Am Curious Orange (mus. The Fall, 1988) evinced his desire to shock and his interest in overturning all the precepts of classical dance. In 1989 he and his lover, the US choreographer Stephen Petronio , shocked the public even further when they appeared together in bed in a London art gallery performing a fifteen-minute duet with an explicit sexual agenda. But his celebrity as the ‘punk prince of ballet’ always masked a considerable talent for making dances. In 1992 his Mmm, or Michael's Modern Masterpiece, with music by the Sex Pistols, Sondheim , and Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, revealed a choreographer of both power and poetry, as well as one still wedded to his provocative gimmicks. With O (1994), set to Stravinsky's Apollo, he produced his most spellbinding work. In 1998 he returned to the stage after a long absence with current/SEE, which revealed a fresh interest in the fundamentals of dance composition. Companies he has worked with include the Paris Opera Ballet, Scottish Ballet, London Festival Ballet, and Ballet Rambert. He danced the role of Caliban in Peter Greenaway's film Prospero's Books (1991). A list of his other works includes Drop Your Pearls and Hog it, Girl (1986), Swamp (mus. Bruce Gilbert , 1986), and No Fire Escape in Hell (1986). He has also collaborated regularly with the film-maker Charles Atlas .

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Clarke , Martha

(b Baltimore, 3 June 1944).
US dancer and choreographer. She studied dance at the Peabody Conservatory with Carolyn Lynn , attended summer schools at the Connecticut School of Dance and the American Dance Festival, and was a full-time student at the Juilliard School, where she studied with Tudor . She danced with Anna Sokolow's company (until 1966) and then with Pilobolus Dance Theater (1971–8). In 1978 she co-founded Crowsnest Dance Company with the French choreographer Félix Blaska and the Pilobolus dancer Robby Barnett . She is best known as the creator of full-length works of dance-theatre. In 1982 she collaborated with the actress Linda Hunt on the play A Metamorphosis in Miniature (mus. Noa Ain ), a reworking of Kafka's Metamorphosis; it won an Obie award for best new American play. Her most famous piece is The Garden of Earthly Delights (mus. Richard Peaslee , 1984), which was inspired by the paintings of the Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch . It combined dance with acrobatics and stage effects. In 1986 she made Vienna: Lusthaus, about fin de siècle Vienna, another success for the choreographer. The Hunger Artist (1987) was based on stories by Kafka , while Miracolo d'amore (1988) was inspired by drawings by Tiepolo . Endangered Species (1990), an environmental epic that added animals to the cast, closed before the end of its scheduled run at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. In 1995 she choreographed An Uncertain Hour (mus. Berg , Wolf , Schumann , Webern ) for Netherlands Dance Theater 3 in New York. In 1996 she choreographed and directed Tan Dun's opera Marco Polo for the Munich Biennale. Her most recent work for Crowsnest includes Vers la flamme (mus. Scriabin , 1999).

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Clarke , Mary

(b London, 23 Aug. 1923).
British writer on dance. Since 1963 editor of Dancing Times, Britain's oldest dance magazine; London correspondent of Dance Magazine, New York (1943–55); assistant editor and contributor to Ballet Annual (1952–63); dance critic of the Guardian (1977–94). One of Britain's leading critics and dance historians, she is the author of many books on dance, including The Sadler's Wells Ballet: A History and an Appreciation (London 1955); Six Great Dancers (1957); Dancers of Mercury: The Story of Ballet Rambert (London 1962); Ballet, an Illustrated History (with Clement Crisp , London, 1973, second edition 1992); Making a Ballet (with Crisp , 1974); Introducing Ballet (with Crisp , 1976); The Encyclopedia of Dance and Ballet (editor, with David Vaughan , 1977); Design for Ballet (with Crisp , 1978); Ballet in Art (with Crisp , 1978); The History of Dance (with Crisp , 1981); Dancer: Men in Dance (with Crisp , 1984); Ballerina (with Crisp , 1987). Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Award, Royal Academy of Dancing (1990). Nijinsky Medal, Poland, 1996. Knight of the Order of Dannebrog, Denmark (1992).

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classical ballet.

A form of theatrical dance that has evolved over the past 300 years from its origins in France. It is highly academic in its training and technically demanding in performance. It differs from other forms of dance in its fundamental requirement for turnout, in which the legs rotate 90 degrees in the hip socket to allow greater freedom of movement, thus giving ballet its distinctive line. The use of pointe work is also common in classical ballet.

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Clauss , Heinz

(b Esslingen, 17 Feb. 1935).
German dancer and ballet school director. He studied with Robert Mayer in Stuttgart and with Nora Kiss and Preobrajenska in Paris. He joined the Stuttgart Ballet in 1951 while still a student, moved to the Zurich Ballet as a soloist in 1957, and was with the Hamburg State Opera (1959–67). In 1967 he returned to the Stuttgart Ballet at Cranko's invitation as a principal, where he created leading roles in many Cranko ballets, among them Onegin (new version 1967), Présence (1968), Taming of the Shrew (1969), and Brouillards (1970). He was famous for his Onegin, and also for his interpretation of Balanchine's Apollo, which he danced in Hamburg under the choreographer's direction. He subsequently staged many Balanchine and Cranko works for companies in Europe and America. He was director of the John Cranko Ballet School in Stuttgart from 1976 to 1990. One of the outstanding German dancers of the 20th century.

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Cléopâtre.

Ballet in one act with choreography and libretto by Fokine , music by Arensky , set by O. Allegri , costumes by M. Zandin . Premiered 21 Mar. 1908 at the Maryinsky Theatre, St Petersburg, with Pavlova , Gerdt , Preobrajenska , Nijinsky , Fokine , and Karsavina . A dance telling of the doomed romance between Cleopatra and the slave Amoûn . The Diaghilev company presented an extended version on 2 June 1909 with additional music (by Glinka , Glazunov , Rimsky-Korsakov , and Taneyev ) and new designs by Bakst at the Théàtre du Châtelet in Paris, with Rubinstein , Pavlova , Fokine , Karsavina , and Nijinsky .

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Cleveland-San Jose Ballet.

US regional ballet company. In 1976 two dancers from American Ballet Theatre, Ian Horvath and Dennis Nahat , founded the Cleveland Ballet. In 1986 the company acquired a second home in San Jose, California, and changed its name. Nahat's ballets formed the backbone of the Cleveland repertoire and he also staged The Nutcracker, Romeo and Juliet, Giselle, Coppélia, and A Midsummer Night's Dream. The company collapsed in 2000.

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clog dance.

A percussive folk dance performed in wooden-soled shoes which originated in northern England. The most famous use of a clog dance in ballet is in Ashton's La Fille mal gardée, where it is performed in the travesti role of Widow Simone.

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Cloud Gate Dance Theatre.

Taiwan-based dance company founded by Lin Hwai-min in 1973. Its style blends traditional Chinese Opera movements and martial arts with Western contemporary dance techniques. It draws on Asian myths, folklore, religion, and history for its subject-matter. It was the first modern dance company to be founded in the Republic of China on Taiwan. Today, with an active international touring schedule, the company is Taiwan's most celebrated cultural export.

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Clustine , Ivan

(b Moscow, 10 Aug. 1862, d Nice, 21 Nov. 1941).
Russian dancer, ballet master, and choreographer. He trained at the Moscos Theatre School and officially joined the Bolshoi Ballet in 1882 upon graduation. He was promoted to premier danseur in 1886 and ballet master in 1898. Among the ballets he made for the Bolshoi were Stars (1898), Magic Dreams (1898), and The Magic Slipper (1899). In 1903 he retired from the Bolshoi and moved to France. He opened a ballet school in Paris and was ballet master of the Paris Opera (1909–14). At the Paris Opera he choreographed Rusalka (1911), Les Bacchantes (1912), and Suite de danses (1913), among others. He was ballet master of Anna Pavlova's company from 1914 until her death in 1931 and choreographed some of the most popular ballets in her repertoire, including The Fairy Doll, Gavotte Pavlova, and an abridged version of The Sleeping Beauty.

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Clytemnestra.

Modern dance in two acts with prologue and epilogue, with choreography and libretto by Martha Graham , music by Halim El-Dabh , sets by Noguchi , costumes by Graham and Helen McGehee , and lighting by Rosenthal . Premiered 1 Apr. 1958 by the Martha Graham company at the Adelphi Theater, New York, with Graham , Bertram Ross , Paul Taylor , McGehee , and Yuriko . In the Underworld a guilt-ridden Clytemnestra reviews her life of treachery and murder while she waits for the gods to decide her fate. Based on Aeschylus' Oresteia, it was Graham's only full-length work and is considered by many to be her masterwork.

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Cocteau , Jean

(b Maison-Lafitte, nr. Paris, 5 July 1889, d Milly-le-Forêt, 11 Oct. 1963).
French writer, artist, designer, and film director. Part of Diaghilev's circle from the first Paris season in 1909, he wrote the scenarios for several of the ballets as well as designing company posters. He wrote the librettos for Fokine's Le Dieu bleu (1912), Massine's Parade (1917), and Nijinska's Le Train bleu (1924). He also worked with Börlin and the Ballets Suédois in the 1920s, for whom he wrote Les Mariés de la Tour Eiffel (1921), and with Roland Petit , for whom he wrote Le Jeune Homme et la mort (1946). He wrote L'Amour et son amour for Babilée in 1948 and Phèdre for Lifar in 1950, for which he also did the designs. He wrote numerous articles and essays on dance, and made many sketches and caricatures of the Diaghilev circle.

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Code of Terpsichore.

Book by Blasis considered to be the leading reference work on classic-academic dance technique in the 19th century. First published in London in 1828, it was republished in Paris in 1830 under the title Manuel complet de la danse.

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Coe , Kelvin

(b Melbourne, 18 Sept. 1946, d Melbourne, 9 July 1992).
Australian dancer. He studied with Rex Reid before joining the newly formed Australian Ballet as an apprentice in 1962. He was made a principal in 1968, the first male dancer to rise through the ranks of the Australian Ballet. He danced all the leading male roles in the repertoire, and formed an acclaimed partnership with the ballerina Marilyn Rowe . He appeared as a principal dancer with London Festival Ballet (1974) and from 1982, having left the Australian Ballet, he danced with Sydney Dance Company. From 1985 he taught at the Australian Ballet School. He died prematurely from an Aids-related illness.

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Cohan , Robert

(b New York, 27 Mar. 1925).
US dancer, choreographer, teacher, and company director. One of the most influential figures in the development of modern dance in Britain through his directorship of London Contemporary Dance Theatre, the first Graham-style company in Europe. Following service in the US Navy during the Second World War, he studied dance with Graham and joined her company in 1946, staying for ten years and becoming one of her regular partners, as well as teaching at the Graham school. He also worked in the theatre, on Broadway, and in films, and ran his own company (1958–62). In 1962 he returned to the Graham company and in 1966 he became co-director. He also worked as choreographer for the Batsheva Dance Company (1964–5). In 1967 he left New York to run the newly established London School of Contemporary Dance, which led to the creation in 1969 of London Contemporary Dance Theatre. For the next twenty years he made numerous works for LCDT, among them Cell (mus. Ronald Lloyd , 1969), Stages (mus. A. Nordheim and B. Downes , 1971), People Alone (mus. Downes , 1972), Mass (mus. Vladimir Rodzianko , 1973, revived 1977 with mus. J. Weir ), Waterless Method of Swimming Instruction (mus. Downes , 1974), Stabat Mater (mus. Vivaldi , 1975, revived by Rambert Dance Company, 1995), Class (mus. John Keliehor , 1975), Forest (mus. Brian Hodgson , 1977), Songs, Lamentations and Praises (mus. G. Burgon , 1979), Field (mus. Hodgson , 1980), Dances of Love and Death (mus. Carl Davis and Conlon Nancarrow , 1981), The Phantasmagoria (mus. Barrington Pheloung , 1987), In Memory (mus. Henze , 1989), and Metamorphosis (mus. Britten , 1989). His choreography, much influenced by Graham , was noted for the theatricality of its visual imagination. After stepping down from LCDT in 1988 (although he returned in an advisory capacity 1992–4) Cohan worked with Scottish Ballet, for whom he choreographed A Midsummer Nightapos;s Dream (mus. Pheloung , Mendelssohn , 1993) and The Four Seasons (mus. Vivaldi , 1996). He has also taught extensively in the US. He also worked as a lighting designer, using the name of Charter.

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Cole , Jack

(b New Brunswick, NJ, 27 Apr. 1911, d Los Angeles, 17 Feb. 1974).
US dancer and choreographer. He studied with St Denis and Ted Shawn in New York and performed with Shawn's Men Dancers in 1933, and later with the Humphrey-Weidman company. In 1936–7 he toured with his own group on the nightclub circuit and he continued to dance in clubs for more than 30 years. He created Hindu Serenade for the Ziegfeld Follies of 1942 and choreographed several Broadway musicals, including Magdalena (1948), Kismet (1953), and Jamaica (1957), while he directed and choreographed Donnybrook! and Kean in 1961. He choreographed the original Broadway productions of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962) and Man of La Mancha (1965). In Hollywood he helped to train dancers for screen musicals, and he choreographed the film On the Riviera (1951). Among the stars he coached were Rita Hayworth , Betty Grable , and Marilyn Monroe . He choreographed Requiem for Jimmy Dean (1968) for the Harkness Ballet. In all, he worked on 30 films and 20 musicals.

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Collier , Lesley

(b Orpington, 13 Mar. 1947).
British dancer. She studied with Irene Ayres and at the Royal Ballet School, where she danced the leading role in The Two Pigeons at her graduation performance. She joined the Royal Ballet in 1965 and was promoted to principal in 1972. During her three decades with the Royal Ballet she danced all the ballerina roles in the repertoire, bringing great authority and musicality to everything she danced. A petite dancer, she was particularly associated with Lise in Ashton's La Fille mal gardée, a role which showcased her warmth and natural flair for comedy. She was also an excellent Giselle. She created roles in MacMillan's Elite Syncopations (1974) and Four Seasons (1975), van Manen's Four Schumann Pieces (1975), Ashton's Rhapsody (with Baryshnikov , 1980), Tetley's Dances of Albion (1980), and Miranda in Nureyev's The Tempest (1982). For David Bintley she created roles in Consort Lessons (1983), Galanteries (1986), and Roxane in Cyrano (1991). Following her retirement from the Covent Garden stage in 1995, she took up teaching at the Royal Ballet School.

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comédie-ballet.

A kind of comedic entertainment which included a large element of ballet; most popular in the 17th and 18th centuries in France. Its most famous exponents were Molière and Lully .

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commedia dell'arte.

Italian improvised comic theatre popular from the 16th to 18th centuries, whose stock characters, such as Harlequin and Columbine , are familiar to audiences all over Europe. The form, which from the start incorporated many dance-like elements such as acrobatics and pantomime, has provided the inspiration for many ballets, from Petipa's Les Millions de Harlequin (1900), to Fokine's Carnaval (1910), Massine's Pulcinella (1920), and Tetley's Pierrot lunaire (1962).

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Communauté.

Society of French dancing masters and violinists founded by Louis XIV in 1659. It led, in 1661, to the formation of the Académie Royale de Danse.

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Compan , Le Sieur.

One of the earliest writers on the subject of dance, he published his treatise in Paris in 1787, with the grand title of Dictionnaire de danse, contenant l'histoire, les règles et les principles de cet art.

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Compañía Nacional de Danza.

State-run Spanish dance company which grew out of the company founded by Victor Ullate in 1979; previously known as Ballet Nacional Clásico and Ballet del Teatro Lírico Nacional. In 1990, when the company was reorganized and the current name adopted, Nacho Duato was appointed artistic director. Duato has succeeded in giving the company a unique style. Since 1992 the company has been touring internationally.

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Company B.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Paul Taylor and music by the Andrews Sisters. Premiered 20 June 1991 by the Houston Ballet at the Kennedy Center in Washington. A poignant and nostalgic piece inspired by the popular culture of the Second World War era, it looks at the men who went to war and the women they left behind. It is one of Taylor's most popular works and has been re-staged for many companies, including the Royal Swedish Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, South Africa's State Theatre Ballet (formerly PACT Ballet), and Taylor's own.

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competitions.

Although the dance world has fewer competitions than the world of music, there are a number of high-profile events which have launched the careers of young unknowns. Varna in Bulgaria hosts one of the most prestigious such events, while the Moscow competition is also important. Others include the New York International Ballet Competition and the Erik Bruhn competition, staged by the National Ballet of Canada in memory of the great Danish dancer. The annual Prix de Lausanne is a major forum for competing students aged 16–19. The Paris suburb of Bagnolet hosts a choreographic competition which is one of the leading showcases for contemporary dance.

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computer dance.

In the 1980s choreographers began using computers as an aid to making work. For some it was simply an economic and efficient way to sort out their movement ideas without the necessity of hiring dancers and studio space. But for others, such as the ground-breaking Merce Cunningham, the visualization of movement on the computer screen began to affect the way they perceived dance and their understanding of what bodies can do. A few choreographers even chose to develop interactive dance programs which allowed keyboard users to play an active role in determining the action on screen.

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Comus.

Ballet in two scenes, with choreography by Helpmann , music by Purcell , and designs by Oliver Messel . Premiered 14 Jan. 1942 by Sadler's Wells Ballet at the New Theatre, London, with Helpmann , Fonteyn , J. Hart , and Paltenghi . A mimed play based on Milton's masque, it tells of the magician Comus, son of Bacchus and Circe , who tries to seduce a Lady in the forest, only to be thwarted by her chastity.

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Concert, The.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Robbins , music by Chopin (partly orchestrated by Hershy Kay ), and costumes by Irene Sharaff . Premiered 6 Mar. 1956 by New York City Ballet, City Center, New York, with LeClercq , Mounsey , Curley , and Bolender . An outrageously funny ballet, filled with sight gags and slapstick, it features a group of concert-goers who enact fantasies inspired by listening to a pianist playing Chopin. Its subtitle, The Perils of Everybody, echoes the famous Perils of Pauline serials of the silent films era. Revived for the Spoleto Festival in 1958 with new scenery by Saul Steinberg . The Royal Ballet revived it in 1975 for Covent Garden with new scenery by Edward Gorey .

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Concerto.

Ballet in one act with choreography by MacMillan , music by Shostakovich , and designs by Jürgen Rose . Premiered 30 Nov. 1966 by the Berlin Opera Ballet, with Carli , Kapuste , Seymour , Holz , and Kesselheim . A plotless ballet set to Shostakovich's 2nd Piano Concerto, Op. 102. It was MacMillan's first new ballet as director of the Berlin company. It was subsequently revived for American Ballet Theatre and the Royal Ballet touring company in 1967.

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Concerto Barocco.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Balanchine , music by Bach , designs by Eugene Berman . Premiered 29 May 1941 by the American Ballet Caravan at Hunter College Playhouse in New York, with Marie-Jeanne , Mary Jane Shea , and William Dollar . A resolutely plotless ballet set to Bach's Concerto in D minor for Two Violins, it epitomizes Balanchine's love of creating a danced dialogue with music. It had its first official performance (New York being considered a preview) on 27 June 1941 at the Teatro Municipal in Rio de Janeiro, part of the American Ballet Caravan's S. American tour. Frequently revived, it is usually performed without any decor and with the dancers in practice clothes (the original costumes were highly decorated). It entered the repertoire of New York City Ballet on 11 Oct. 1948.

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Conley , Sandra

(b Hatfield, 24 Oct. 1943).
British dancer. She studied with Stella Wallace at the Sutton School of Dancing and at the Royal Ballet School. She made her debut with the Royal Ballet's touring company in 1962 and transferred to Covent Garden in 1970. Appointed principal in 1980. She created leading roles in Tudor's Knight Errant (1968), Ashton's Creatures of Prometheus (1969), MacMillan's Manon (1974), and Neumeier's Gustav Mahler's Fourth Symphony(1977). She is one of the Royal Ballet's leading character artists.

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Conservatory, The, or A Proposal of Marriage Through a Newspaper (orig. Dan. title Konservatoriet).

Ballet in two acts with choreography by Bournonville and music by Holger Paulli . Premiered 6 May 1849 by the Royal Danish Ballet in Copenhagen. In its original staging, the ballet featured a dancing class of the Paris Conservatory set against a background of complicated romantic intrigues. In 1941 in Copenhagen H. Lander and V. Borchsenius revised the ballet using the classroom scene only. This latter staging was taken into the repertoires of the Joffrey Ballet (1969) and London Festival Ballet (1973), the Royal Swedish Ballet (1973), Paris Opera Ballet (1976), the Royal Ballet (1982), and the Bolshoi Ballet (1989). The two-act version was revived by the Royal Danish Ballet in 1995. The ballet shows a typical Bournonville class in which the great Danish choreographer pays tribute to his illustrious teacher Auguste Vestris .

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Contact Improvisation.

The term given to a system of improvised movement which is based on the relationship between two moving bodies and the effect that the laws of gravity, momentum, friction, and inertia have on their movement. The system was devised by Steve Paxton in New York in 1972. It has since had a significant influence on many contemporary choreographers.

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contraction and release.

Key elements in the Martha Graham technique of modern dance. They refer to the moment of complete inhalation of breath (the release) and the moment of total exhalation (the contraction).

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Cook , Bart

(b Ogden, Utah, 7 June 1949).
US dancer. He studied with W. Christensen and at the School of American Ballet (from 1970). He joined New York City Ballet in 1971, becoming a principal in 1979. In 1981 he became assistant ballet master. He created leading roles in Robbins's Scherzo fantastique(1972), An Evening's Waltzes (1973), Dybbuk Variations (1974), and The Four Seasons (1979), and in Balanchine's Vienna Waltzes (1977). Following his retirement in 1993 he worked for the Balanchine Trust, staging Balanchine's ballets. Chairman of the dance faculty at the Richmond Ballet Center for Dance in Virginia (1997).

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Cooper , Adam

(b London, 22 July 1971).
British dancer. Studied at the Arts Educational School and at the Royal Ballet School. He joined the Royal Ballet in 1989, promoted to principal in 1994. Although not a purely classical dancer, he performed most of the leading male roles in the repertoire. He created roles in MacMillan's Winter Dreams and The Judas Tree, in Bintley's Tombeaux and Page's Bloodlines, Renard, and Ebony Concerto. In 1995 he was chosen by the choreographer Matthew Bourne to star in a new production of Swan Lake in which Cooper portrayed the Swan. The radical staging enjoyed huge success in the West End, had a run on Broadway and toured internationally. It was filmed for television. In 1997 he left the Royal Ballet and has since choreographed works for Scottish Ballet and the K Ballet in Japan. He married the ballerina Sarah Wildor .

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Cope , Jonathan

(b Crediton, 20 Dec. 1962).
British dancer. He trained at the Royal Ballet School and joined the Covent Garden company in 1982. Promoted to soloist in 1985, and principal in 1986. Although he interrupted his career for several seasons when he briefly retired from dance, he remains one of the Royal's most impressive performers. Tall and classically good-looking, with a perfectly proportioned physique, he is naturally suited to the danseur noble roles and is frequently cast as Siegfried, Solor, Albrecht, and Florimund. He has established an acclaimed partnership with the French ballerina Sylvie Guillem , especially in Manon and Romeo and Juliet. He created roles in MacMillan's Different Drummer and Prince of the Pagodas; in Bintley's Galanteries and Still Life at the Penguin Café; and in Page's A Broken Set of Rules, Pursuit, Piano, and Fearful Symmetries.

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Copland , Aaron

(b Brooklyn, NY, 14 Nov. 1900, d North Tarrytown, NY, 2 Dec. 1990).
US composer. Through his ballet scores he was one of the key figures in the development of a distinctly American style, incorporating American folk-songs, cowboy melodies, square dances tunes, and traditional hymns into his music. He wrote the scores for Ruth Page's Hear Ye! Hear Ye! (1934), Eugene Loring's Billy the Kid (1938), Agnes de Mille's Rodeo (1942), Martha Graham's Appalachian Spring (1944), and Heinz Rosen's Dance Panels, Ballet in Seven Movements (1963). Other ballets using Copland's music include Tudor's Time Table (1941), Humphrey's El Salon Mexico (1943), Robbins's The Pied Piper (1951), and Neumeier's Hamlet: Connotations (1976).

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Coppélia (also La Fille aux yeux d'émail).

Ballet in three acts with choreography by Saint-Léon , libretto by Charles Nuitter and Saint -Léon, music by Delibes , scenery by Cambon , Despléchin , and Lavastre (or Levastre ), and costumes by Alfred Albert . Premiered 25 May 1870 at the Paris Opera with Bozzacchi as Swanilda and Eugénie Fiocre as Franz. The ballet is based on E. T. A. Hoffmann's story Der Sandmann (although a light-hearted treatment of a more macabre original) and weaves the romance of Swanilda and Franz into a tale of the old dollmaker Dr Coppelius, whose dream it is to bring a mechanical doll to life. Franz falls in love with the doctor's creation, Coppélia, believing her to be human, but returns to Swanilda at the end when all indiscretions are forgotten in the happy final grand divertissement. It was noted for its ingenious integration of classical ballet and national dances. The ballet remains one of the most popular works in the international repertoire, although little remains of the original Saint-Léon choreography. In its original staging, the role of Franz was danced by a woman. The Paris Opera continued the traditional en travestie casting as late as 1958. The first production in London was a one-act version at the Empire Theatre on 8 Nov. 1884. A full-length staging was premiered on the same stage on 14 May 1906 with Adeline Genée as Swanilda. The first New York production was on 11 Mar. 1887, given by the American Opera at the Metropolitan Opera House with Marie Giuri and Felicita Carozzi . Petipa staged his own version in St Petersburg in 1884, which cast Franz as a male dancer. This was the production brought to the West by Sergeyev who mounted a two-act version (after Petipa and Cecchetti) for the Vic-Wells Ballet with Lydia Lopokova as Swanilda and Stanley Judson as Franz on 21 Mar. 1933. A three-act version for the Sadler's Wells Ballet followed on 15 Apr. 1940 with Mary Honer as Swanilda and Robert Helpmann as Franz. On 2 Mar. 1954 de Valois staged the full-length ballet at Covent Garden with new designs by Osbert Lancaster , a production which was revived by the Royal Ballet in 2000. The work has received countless new stagings, including Pierre Lacotte's reconstruction of the original Saint-Léon for the Paris Opera in 1973, Balanchine and Danilova's for New York City Ballet in 1974, Roland Petit's for Marseilles in 1975 with Karen Kain as Swanilda, and Peter Wright's for Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet (1976) and for Birmingham Royal Ballet (1995).

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Coq d'or, Le (Eng. title The Golden Cockerel, orig. Russ. title Zolotoi petushok).

Opera in three acts with music by Rimsky-Korsakov and libretto by V. Belsky after Pushkin's poem. Although written as an opera, it was as a ballet that the work earned its international reputation. Fokine staged it for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes on 24 May 1914 at the Paris Opera, with all the roles acted by dancers, leaving the singers to sing the action from the side of the stage. Each singer was paired with a dancer; only the Golden Cockerel did not appear on stage. The designs, based on Russian folk art, were by Goncharova . Fokine's cast included Karsavina , Bulgakov , and Cecchetti . Fokine restaged his work for de Basil's Ballets Russes in 1937 as a one-act ballet without using singers, starring Baronova and Riabouchinska . This was the version revived by Beriozoff for London Festival Ballet in 1976. The humorous ballet recounts the folk tale of the Golden Cockerel, which rewards those who keep their promises.

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Coralli , Jean (orig. Giovanni Coralli Peracini ;

b Paris, 15 Jan. 1779, d Paris, 1 May 1854).
Italian-French dancer and choreographer. Best known as the co-choreographer of Giselle. He studied at the Paris Opera Ballet School and made his debut as a dancer there in 1802. As a choreographer he made early work for Vienna, Milan, Lisbon, and Marseilles, and was ballet master of the Théâtre de la Porte-Saint-Martin (1825–9). But he is best remembered for his work at the Paris Opera where he went as ballet master in 1831 (remaining until 1850). A list of his ballets there includes L'Orgie (mus. M. E. Carafa , 1831), La Tempête, ou L'Île des génies (mus. Schneitzhoeffer , 1834), Le Diable boteux (mus. C. Gide , 1836), La Chatte métamorphosée en femme (mus. A. de Montfort , 1837), La Tarentule (mus. Gide , 1839), Giselle (in collaboration with Perrot , mus. Adam , 1841), La Péri (mus. Burgmüller , 1843), Eucharis (mus. E. Deldevez , 1844), and Ozai, ou L'Insulaire (mus. Gide , 1847). As one of the most famous choreographers of the Romantic era, he created four ballets for Fanny Elssler and one for Carlotta Grisi . His enduring legacy, Giselle, was not typical of his work. He preferred the spectacle and grandeur of more exotic subject-matter and was praised for his ability to create magical stage effects. But his choreography for the Wilis in Act II, with its air of poetic mystery, remains one of the most resonant images of Romantic ballet.

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Corder , Michael

(b London, 17 Mar. 1955).
British dancer and choreographer. He studied at the Royal Ballet School and joined the Royal Ballet in 1973. In 1978–9 he was with Dutch National Ballet, and returned to Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet in 1979 as a soloist. He left the company in 1981 and joined the Joffrey Ballet in New York. Although he enjoyed reasonable success as a dancer, it is as a choreographer in the classical mould that he has made his greatest impression. He began making work in 1974 for the Royal Ballet Choreographic Group and his first professional production was Rhyme nor Reason (mus. Stravinsky ) for Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet in 1978. For the same company he choreographed Day into Night (mus. Martin , 1980), Three Pictures (mus. Bartók , 1981), St Anthony Variations (1983), The Wand of Youth (1985), and Gloriana (1987). For Covent Garden he made L'Invitation au voyage (1982), Party Game (1984), and Number Three (1985). After a hiatus of fourteen years, he returned to the Royal Ballet to make Masquerade (mus. Stravinsky , 1999). For English National Ballet he made the multi-award-winning Cinderella (mus. Prokofiev , 1996) which was taken into the repertoire of the Boston Ballet and the National Ballet of Portugal. He also choreographed Romeo and Juliet (mus. Prokofiev , 1992) for the Norwegian National Ballet. He has also made work for the Hong Kong Ballet, the Royal Danish Ballet, and the Kobayashi Ballet Theater in Tokyo.

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corps de ballet.

The term originally referred to the entire body of dancers in a ballet company, although nowadays it refers only to the dancers who regularly perform together as a group, i.e. not soloists, principals, or character artists. On stage the dancers of the corps de ballet give added fullness to a scene, enhancing the drama and acting as background support to the soloists. Some of the greatest of all classical choreography is for the corps de ballet; the Kingdom of the Shades scene in La Bayadère, for example, when one by one the dancers repeat the same opening sequence until the stage is filled with their hallucinatory presence. Swan Lake and Giselle are two other ballets which provide a glorious showcase for the beauty and power of a corps de ballet in which many dancers perform as one single entity.

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Corsaire, Le.

Ballet in three acts, with choreography by Mazilier , libretto by Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges and Mazilier , music by Adam , sets by Martin , Despléchin , Cambon , and Thierry , costumes by Albert , and machinery by Sacré . Premiered 23 Jan. 1856 at the Paris Opera, with Carolina Rosati and Domenico Segarelli . Mazilier based his ballet on Byron's poem, The Corsair. The story, albeit a rather convoluted one, tells of a young Greek woman, Medora , who is sold as a slave girl to the lecherous Ottoman Pasha Seyd . She is then rescued by the dashing pirate Conrad , who becomes her lover. More hardships follow, including yet another capture and rescue; rival sultanas outmanœuvre each other in Seyd's harem; the pirates fall out; and the ballet ends in a spectacular shipwreck with only the happy lovers left alive. There was an earlier version of the ballet, choreographed by F. D. Albert to music by Robert Bochsa , which was premiered at the King's Theatre in London in 1837, but it was eclipsed by the popularity of Mazilier's staging. Perrot staged a version (after Mazilier) with additional music by Pugni at the Bolshoi Theatre in St Petersburg in 1858 that featured Petipa as Conrad; with Petipa contributing a pas d'esclave with music by Prince Peter von Oldenburg . Petipa revived it in 1868 in a new version for his wife, Marie Petipa , which included the Le Jardin Animé scene to music by Delibes . The ballet's most significant staging occurred in 1899 when Petipa completely reworked it for the Maryinsky (with additional music by Drigo and Minkus ) with Pierina Legnani as Medora. This is the production which formed the basis for subsequent Russian stagings. Gorsky choreographed an especially successful version for the Bolshoi in 1912 with interpolated music by Chopin that gave Conrad and Medora a new love duet. The ballet is still most popular in Russia, where it remains active in the Kirov repertoire. In the West, however, the ballet is most often represented by a single pas de deux (which, incidentally, was originally conceived as a pas de trois), whose extrovert demeanour and virtuoso choreography make it a gala favourite. American Ballet Theatre has a full-length Corsaire in its repertoire.

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coryphée

(Fr., derived from the Greek for leader of the chorus). In the hierarchy of classical ballet, as set out by the French and Russian traditions, the term is applied to a minor soloist.

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cotillon.

A popular ballroom dance which emerged in the late 18th century. It was usually performed as the finale to a ball. It features a leading couple, although there is a continual change of partners throughout. A well-known theatrical example can be found in the second act of Tchaikovsky's opera Eugene Onegin.

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Cotillon.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Balanchine , libretto by Kochno , music by Chabrier , and designs by Christian Bérard . Premiered 12 Apr. 1932 by the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo in Monte Carlo, with Toumanova (who was only 13 at the time), Lichine , and Woizikowski . The action, which unfolds in a ballroom, is secondary to the development of atmosphere. Hodson and Archer reconstructed the ballet for the Joffrey Ballet in New York on 26 Oct. 1989.

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Coton , A. V. (orig. Edward Haddakin ;

b York, 1906, d Blackheath, 7 July 1969).
British dance critic and writer. He began life as a merchant seaman and policeman but took up ballet criticism in 1935. He helped Tudor to form the London Ballet in 1938. He was ballet critic of the Daily Telegraph (1954–69). Author of A Prejudice for Ballet (London, 1938), The New Ballet: Kurt Jooss and his Work (London, 1946), and Writings on Dance 1938–68 (ed. posthumously; London, 1975).

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cou-de-pied.

Sur le cou-de-pied describes the position that places the working foot on the ankle of the supporting leg.

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Coulon.

A famous family of French dancers who performed at the Paris Opera in the 18th and 19th centuries. They include Anne-Jacqueline (who danced at the Opera from 1778 to 1802); her brother Jean-François (1764–1836), who taught Taglioni ; and his son Antoine Louis (1796–1849). The latter's son Eugene was a popular ballroom dancing teacher in England.

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coupé

(Fr., cut). An intermediary step in which one foot takes the place of the other foot.

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courante

(Fr., running dance). A 16th-century French court dance.

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Covent Garden, or The Royal Opera House.

London's premier opera house and home of the Royal Ballet since 1946. It opened in 1732 as a dramatic theatre but was destroyed by fire in 1809 and rebuilt the following year. It became the Royal Italian Opera in 1847 but was again destroyed by fire in 1856. The present opera house was rebuilt in 1858. In 1946, after the Second World War, it became the permanent home of the Royal Opera (then known as the Covent Garden Opera) and the Royal Ballet which, as the Sadler's Wells Ballet, transferred to Covent Garden from its home at Sadler's Wells. In 1997 the Royal Opera House closed for a two-year redevelopment, forcing the Royal Ballet and Opera to tour during the closure period. It reopened in December 1999.

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Cragun , Richard

(b Sacramento, Calif., 5 Oct. 1944).
US dancer. His early studies included tap dance with Jean Lucille and ballet with Barbara Briggs , and he attended the Banff School of Fine Arts in Canada, where he was a student of Gweneth Lloyd and Betty Farrally . He also attended the Royal Ballet School in London and spent a year as a private pupil with Vera Volkova in Copenhagen. In 1962 he joined the Stuttgart Ballet, the company to which he devoted his entire performing career, and was promoted to principal in 1965. He formed a celebrated 30-year partnership with the ballerina Marcia Haydée , partnered Fonteyn and most other leading ballerinas of the day, and appeared frequently as a guest artist around the world. A gifted and virtuosic dancer, robustly masculine in performance and blessed with handsome good looks and a glamorous stage presence, he was one of the leading male artists of the latter half of the 20th century. He was noted for his interpretations of Romeo and Onegin in Cranko's stagings and created many roles for Cranko, including parts in L'estro armonico (1963), Opus 1 (1965), Mozart Concerto (1966), Présence (1968), Taming of the Shrew (1969, the role of Petrucchio), Brouillards (1970), Poème de l'extase (1970), Carmen (1971), Initials R.B.M.E. (1972), and Traces (1973). He also created roles in Peter Wright's The Mirror Walkers (1963), MacMillan's Song of the Earth (1965), Requiem (1977), and My Brother, My Sisters (1978), Tetley's Voluntaries (1973) and Daphnis and Chloe (1975), Neumeier's Lady of the Camellias (1978) and A Streetcar Named Desire (1983), which showcased his enduring partnership with Haydée , Forsythe's Orpheus (1979), and Kylián's Forgotten Land (1981). He also created roles in ballets by Béjart , including La Danse (1983) and Operette (1985). In 1990 he returned to his childhood love of tap dancing when he starred in the Stuttgart revival of the Broadway musical On Your Toes. He retired from the stage in 1996 and was appointed artistic director of the Berlin Opera Ballet. He left Berlin in 1999 to start a new ballet company in the Brazilian city of Curitiba. He is also a noted cartoonist, and has mounted several exhibitions of his work.

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Cramér , Ivo

(b Gothenburg, 5 Mar. 1921).
Swedish dancer, choreographer, and ballet director. He studied with Cullberg , Volkova , and Sigurd Leeder . He danced in 1944 with the Cullberg Group and toured Sweden with a troupe of his own in 1945; he was co-director with Cullberg of Swedish Dance Theatre (1946–7). From 1948 to 1949 he was director of the Verde Gaio folk dance company in Lisbon. He worked extensively as a freelance choreographer and operetta director in Scandinavia, most notably with the Royal Swedish Ballet, for whom he choreographed a highly successful folklore version of The Prodigal Son (mus. H. Alfvén , 1957) which is considered his master-work. He founded the Cramér Ballet in Stockholm with his wife Tyyne Talvo in 1967, and made many ballets for the company, including Good Evening, Beautiful Mask (1971), about the assassination of King, Gustav III (founder of the Royal Swedish Ballet), and Peasant Gospel (1972). He ran the company until 1975 when he became director of the Royal Swedish Ballet, but returned to his own troupe five years later and continued to direct it until 1986. A choreographer much interested in Nordic folk art and religious themes, he has made ballets for churches. He is also a leading producer of early ballets and has worked on many historical reconstructions, especially works from the 18th century (and often in collaboration with Mary Skeaping ). His 1989 reconstruction of Dauberval's La Fille mal gardée for Nantes Opera Ballet was a particular success. In 1992 he staged a Noverre ballet, Medée et jason, for the Ballet du Rhin.

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Cranko , John

(b Rustenburg, 15 Aug. 1927, d en route from Philadelphia to Stuttgart, 26 June 1973).
South African dancer, choreographer, and ballet director. Architect of the Stuttgart Ballet. He studied at the Cape Town University Ballet School and choreographed his first ballet there in 1945, the suite from Stravinsky's The Soldier's Tale; he followed that with his first hit, Tritsch-Tratsch (1946), set to Johann Strauss's famous polka. In 1946 he went to England to study at Sadler's Wells School and subsequently joined Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet, and Sadler's Wells Ballet at Covent Garden. He never worked again in S. Africa. As a British choreographer (he stopped dancing at the age of 23) he created many ballets during his time with Sadler's Wells and the Royal Ballet, including Children's Corner (mus. Debussy , 1947), Sea Change (mus. Sibelius , 1949), Beauty and the Beast (mus. Ravel , 1949), Pineapple Poll (mus. Sullivan , arr. Mackerras , 1951), Harlequin in April (mus. Richard Arnell , 1951), Bonne-Bouche (mus. Arthur Oldham , 1952), The Shadow (mus. E. von Dohnányi , 1953), The Lady and the Fool (mus. Verdi , arr. Mackerras , 1954), The Prince of the Pagodas (mus. Britten , 1957), and Antigone (mus. Theodorakis , 1959/60). For New York City Ballet he choreographed The Witch (mus. Ravel , 1950); for Ballet Rambert he made Variations on a Theme (mus. Britten , 1954) and La Reja (mus. Scarlatti , 1959); and for the Paris Opera he made La Belle Hèléne (mus. Offenbach-Rosenthal , 1955); and for La Scala, Milan, he created Romeo and Juliet (mus. Prokofiev , 1958). He directed and choreographed the London revues Cranks (1955) and New Cranks (1960) and also directed the first production of Britten's opera A Midsummer Night's Dream at Aldeburgh in 1960. After the failure of his Antigone for Covent Garden and a musical, Keep Your Hair On, Cranko decided to accept an invitation to become director of the Stuttgart Ballet in 1961. He went on to turn the provincial German company into one of the world's leading ensembles, developing a team of superb dancers—such as Haydée, Barra, and Cragun—and giving them many fine new works to dance. His early death from a heart attack, while flying home from a US tour, was a tremendous loss to the international ballet world, as well as to Stuttgart. As a choreographer he was one of the few in the late 20th century to create creditable full-length story ballets. He could handle comedy, tragedy, and romance equally well, and his narrative works combined wonderfully detailed characterization with a profoundly dramatic sweep and real theatrical flair. His productions of Romeo and Juliet, Onegin, and Taming of the Shrew have become mainstays of the international repertoire. A list of the works he created for Stuttgart includes The Catalyst (mus. Shostakovich , 1961), Daphnis and Chloe (mus. Ravel , 1962), Romeo and Juliet (Stuttgart staging, mus. Prokofiev , 1962), L'estro armonico (mus. Vivaldi , 1963), Swan Lake (producer, 1963), Jeu de cartes (mus. Stravinsky , 1965), Onegin (mus. Tchaikovsky-Stolze , 1965), Opus 1 (mus. Webern , 1965), Mozart Concerto (1966), The Nutcracker (1966), The Interrogation (mus. B. A. Zimmermann , 1967), Quatre images (mus. Ravel , 1967–8), Présence (mus. Zimmermann , 1968), Taming of the Shrew (mus. Scarlatti-Stolze , 1969), Brouillards (mus. Debussy , 1970), Poème de l'extase (mus. Scriabin , 1970), Carmen (mus. Bizet-Fortner-Steinbrenner , 1971), Initials R.B.M.E. (mus. Brahms , 1972), and Traces (mus. Mahler , 1973).

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Craske , Margaret

(b Norfolk, 26 Nov. 1892, d Myrtle Beach, SC, 18 Feb. 1990).
British dancer and teacher. Although she danced briefly with Diaghilev (her career was cut short by injury), it is as a teacher and one of the 20th century's leading authorities on the Cecchetti method that she is most remembered. A former pupil of Cecchetti, she was chosen by him to carry on his teachings when he left England in 1923 to retire to his native Italy. In 1924 she opened her own school in London and among her pupils were Ashton , Dolin , Tudor , van Praagh , and Fonteyn . From 1939 to 1946 she settled in India, becoming a disciple to the guru Meher Baba. In 1946 she moved to the US where she became ballet mistress of American Ballet Theatre. From 1950 to 1968 she taught at the Metropolitan Opera Ballet School. She was co-author (with C. W. Beaumont ) of The Theory and Practice of Allegro in Classical Ballet (Cecchetti Method) (1930) and (with F. Derra de Moroda ) Practice of Advanced Allegro in Classical Ballet (Cecchetti Method) (1956). She ran the Manhattan School of Dance (1968–83); Paul Taylor , Agnes de Mille , Glen Tetley , Viola Farber , and Carolyn Brown were among those who were influenced by her teaching.

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Creation of the World, The (orig. Fr. title La Création du monde).

Ballet in one act with choreography by Börlin , libretto by Blaise Cendrars , music by Milhaud , and designs by Léger . Premiered 25 Oct. 1923 by the Ballets Suédois at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Paris, with Börlin and Ebon Strandin . Often ascribed the term ‘ballet Négre’, the work tells the story of the Creation as imagined by a black African. Other choreographers, including de Valois (Camargo Society, 1931), MacMillan (Royal Ballet, 1964), and Bolender (New York City Ballet, 1964) have staged their own versions.

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Creatures of Prometheus, The.

Heroicallegorical ballet in two acts with choreography by S. Viganò and music by Beethoven . Premiered 28 Mar. 1801 at the Burg Theatre, Vienna , with Cesari , Mme Brendi , Cassentini , and Viganò . One of only two ballet scores by Beethoven , it has been taken up by many other choreographers, including Lifar for the Paris Opera in 1929, de Valois for Vic-Wells Ballet in 1936, and Ashton for the Royal Ballet Touring Group in Bonn in 1970. Viganò choreographed a new version for La Scala in Milan in 1813 using music by different composers. The ballet tells of Prometheus as the creator of mankind.

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Crickmay , Anthony

(b Woking, 20 May 1937).
British ballet and theatre photographer. He has worked mainly with the Royal Ballet, although also with companies in Europe and N. America. Noted for the glamour and polish of his dance photography.

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Crisp , Clement

(b Romford, 21 Sept. 1931).
British dance critic and writer. He was educated at Bordeaux and Oxford Universities. Ballet critic of the Spectator (1966–70) and dance critic of the Financial Times since 1970. One of Britain's pre-eminent critics. Librarian and archivist of the Royal Academy of Dancing (1963–85) and archivist from 1985. Author of Ballet for All (with P. Brinson , London, 1970, revised edition, 1980); Ballet:An Illustrated History (with M. Clarke , London, 1973, revised edition, 1992); Making a Ballet (with Clarke, London, 1974); Ballet in Art (with Clarke, 1976); Design for Ballet (with Clarke, London, 1978); Introducing Ballet (with Clarke, 1978); History of Dance (with Clarke, London, 1981); The Balletgoer's Guide (with Clarke, 1981); Dancer (with Clarke, 1984); and Ballerina (with Clarke, 1987). Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Award, Royal Academy of Dancing, 1992. Knight of the Order of Dannebrog, Denmark, 1992.

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Croce , Arlene

(b Providence, RI, 5 May 1934).
US critic and writer on dance. She founded Ballet Review in 1965 and continued as editor until 1978. Dance critic of the New Yorker (1974–98). Author of The Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers Book (New York, 1972). Her collected reviews have been published in three volumes: Afterimages (1978), Going to the Dance (1982), and Sight Lines (1987). One of America's foremost and most influential dance critics, she has also worked in television, as a writer for the Dance in America series.

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croisée

(Fr., crossed). A position in classical ballet in which the body is presented at a sideways angle to the audience and in which the working leg crosses the line of the body.

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Cruel Garden.

Modern dance in two acts with choreography by Christopher Bruce , direction by Lindsay Kemp , music by Carlos Miranda , sets by Ralph Koltai , and costumes by Kemp . Premiered 5 July 1977 by Ballet Rambert at the Roundhouse in London, with Bruce , John Tsakiris , Michael Ho , and John Chesworth . A surreal fantasy based on the life and writings of the murdered Spanish poet Federico García Lorca .

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Crumb , George

(b Charleston, W. Va., 24 Oct. 1929).
US composer. His score Ancient Voices of Children has been used by many choreographers, including J. Stripling (Stuttgart, 1971), Butler (in La Voix, Ballet du Rhin, 1972), and, most notably, Christopher Bruce for Ballet Rambert in 1975. Bruce also used his music for Black Angels (Rambert, 1976), Echoes in Autumn for Stationary Flying (Utah Repertory Dance Theatre, 1973), Echoes of a Night Sky (Rambert, 1977), and Night with Waning Moon (Rambert, 1979).

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Cry.

Solo modern dance with choreography by Ailey , music by Alice Coltrane , Laura Nyro , and Voices of East Harlem, and lighting by Chenault Spence . Premiered 4 May 1971 by the Alvin Ailey company at City Center, New York, with Judith Jamison . A life-affirming solo about oppressed womanhood, it is performed in a flowing white costume. Ailey created it for Jamison and it became her most famous role. The choreographer dedicated the piece, to ‘black women everywhere—especially our mothers’.

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csardas (also czardas).

A Hungarian dance for couples. It first appeared in Hungarian ball-rooms in the mid-19th century. The dance is in two parts: the first slow and melancholy, the second fast and high-spirited. There are several famous examples in classical ballet, including the ballroom act in Swan Lake and the divertissement in Raymonda.

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Cuba.

Cuban audiences got their first major exposure to European classical ballet in 1841 when Fanny Elssler appeared in La Sylphide at the Tacón Theatre in Havana. There were other touring companies from Europe, including appearances by Pavlova in 1915, 1917, and 1918. An indigenous ballet culture can be dated from the early 1930s when ballet evenings were started by the Sociedad Pro-Arte Musical. The first director of its school was the Russian Nikolai Yavorsky (1931–8); one of its first graduates was Alberto Alonso , who was hired by de Basil's Ballets Russes in 1935. A subsequent graduate was Alicia Alonso , hired by Ballet Caravan in 1939. In 1948 she started her own company in Havana, drawing on the resources of the SPAM, and in 1950 added her own school. In 1955 her company was renamed Ballet de Cuba, and following the Revolution of 1959 it was reorganized as the National Ballet of Cuba, with full state support. On its first S. American tour that year it was led by Alonso and Igor Youskevitch . The company soon attracted international attention, partly because of its active touring and partly because its dancers were so successful in competitions like Varna. It remains the preeminent Cuban dance company, with a large repertoire of both classical and modern works by Cuban choreographers. Cuba has produced many fine dancers besides Alonso, although many have left to dance abroad. In 1967 the Cuban choreographer Alberto Alonso was invited to the Bolshoi Ballet to create a new ballet for Maya Plisetskaya . The work, Carmen, which had its debut on 28 Apr. 1967, marked the first time that a foreign choreographer had been invited to work with the Bolshoi. The Danza Contemporánea de Cuba, founded in 1959 by Ramiro Guerra with generous support from the state, is the country's leading modern dance ensemble, while in the aftermath of the withdrawal of Soviet support various unsubsidized companies sprung up in the 1990s.

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Cuevas , Marquis George de (orig. Marquis de Peidrablanca de Guana de Cuevas ;

b Santiago, 26 May 1885, d Cannes, 22 Feb. 1961).
Chilean-American patron and director of his own company, Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas. A passionate balletomane, he was married to Margaret Strong, granddaughter of John D. Rockefeller , whose fortune allowed him to run his own company from his base in Paris. He founded his first company, Ballet International, in 1944. In 1947 he took over the Nouveau Ballet de Monte Carlo, renaming it first the Grand Ballet de Monte Carlo and then the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas. In 1947 he hired Bronislava Nijinska as his ballet mistress. Unusually for a European company, his had a strong line-up of American dancers, among them Rosella Hightower, Marjorie Tallchief, William Dollar, and George Skibine. He also took ballets by US choreographers into the repertoire. His company toured exhaustively between 1947 and 1960. He hired some of the biggest names in dance, including Markova , Toumanova , Massine , Lichine , and Bruhn . The company continued briefly after his death, under the directorship of his nephew Raymundo de Larrain, but was dissolved in 1962. The Marquis was a flamboyant figure, much loved by the French public, and he was a frequent giver of elaborate balls. At one such event, the so-called ‘Ball of the Century’, he appeared dressed as the Sun King while his corps de ballet performed Act II of Swan Lake on a raft in the middle of a lake. His last production was The Sleeping Beauty, begun by Nijinska and finished by Robert Helpmann , and it was in this that Nureyev made his debut in the West after defecting from the Kirov in 1961.

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Cullberg , Birgit

(b Nyköping, 3 Aug. 1908, d Stockholm, 8 Sept. 1999).
Swedish dancer, choreographer, and ballet director. Despite early training in both classical and modern dance, she only decided to become a dancer at the age of 27 after seeing a performance of Kurt Jooss's The Green Table in Stockholm. She studied with Jooss and Sigurd Leeder at Dartington Hall in England (1935–9), and later with Lillian Karina and Graham in New York. She founded her first group in 1939 and in 1942 gave her first solo recital in Stockholm. With Ivo Cramér (her pupil) she founded the Swedish Dance Theatre in 1946, which toured Europe. Her breakthrough came in 1950 with Miss Julie, based on the Strindberg play (she had been a literature student at Stockholm University and frequently used literary sources for her ballets). Its success brought her to the attention of the Royal Swedish Ballet, where from 1952 to 1956 she was resident choreographer. She then pursued a freelance career, working for the Royal Danish Ballet (for whom she made The Moon Reindeer in 1957) and American Ballet Theatre (Lady from the Sea, 1960). In 1967 she returned to Sweden to found her own government-backed company, the Cullberg Ballet, which she directed until 1985. She made her last appearance as a dancer at the age of 68, performing in her son Mats Ek's ballet Soweto. A pioneer in the field of television dance, she also made many ballets for the small screen; The Evil Queen won her the Prix d'Italia in 1961. Her ballets, strongly influenced by Jooss's ideas about modern dance, favour psychological themes and strong drama, although she was also known for her satiric humour. Her best-known works include Miss Julie (mus. T. Rangström , 1950), Medea Bartók-Sandberg , 1950), Romeo and Juliet (mus. Prokofiev , 1955, second version), The Moon Reindeer (mus. K. Riisager , 1957), Lady from the Sea (mus. Riisager , 1960), Eden (mus. H. Rosenberg , 1961), I Am Not You (mus. B. Brustad , 1966), Romeo and Juliet (mus. Prokofiev , 1969, third version), Bellman (mus. Beethoven , 1971), Revolt (mus. Bartók , 1973), and War Dances (mus. A. Petterson or Petersson , 1979). Two of her sons, Niklas and Mats Ek , also became dancers.

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Cullberg Ballet, The.

Stockholm-based company founded by the Swedish Government in 1967 to provide a platform for the work of the choreographer Birgit Cullberg . It was directed by Cullberg until 1985, and by her son, the choreographer Mats Ek , from 1985 to 1993. As well as works by Cullberg and Ek , the repertoire features choreography by Ulf Gadd , Elsa Marianne von Rosen , Flindt , Cunningham , Ailey , Jooss , Béjart , Bruce , and Kylián . Carolyn Carlson succeeded Ek as artistic director (1993–5).

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Cunningham , Merce

(b Centralia, Wash., 16 Apr. 1919).
US dancer, choreographer, and company director. One of the towering figures of 20th-century modern dance. He studied tap, folk, and ballroom dancing in Centralia, then studied acting at the Cornish School of Fine Arts in Seattle. There, under the influence of the former Graham dancer Bonnie Bird , he changed his major from theatre to dance. It was also there that he met the composer John Cage , his lifelong partner and collaborator. Further dance studies at Mills College in Oakland, California, and at the Bennington Summer School of Dance, held in 1939 in Oakland, followed. Accepting an invitation to join the Martha Graham company in 1939, he left the Cornish School before graduation and went to New York. For the next six years he was one of Graham's leading dancers, creating roles in many of her works, including Every Soul is a Circus (1939), El Penitente (1940), Letter to the World (1940), Punch and Judy (1941), Deaths and Entrances (1943), and Appalachian Spring (1944). During this time he also studied ballet at the School of American Ballet. In 1942 he gave a recital of his own choreography at Bennington College in Vermont, an event which marked the beginning of his artistic collaboration with Cage ; in 1944 he and Cage gave their first joint concert at the Humphrey-Weidman Studio Theater in New York, with the choreographer performing six solos all set to Cage's music. After leaving Graham in 1945 Cunningham became an independent choreographer. One of his early commissions was a piece (again with Cage ) for Ballet Society, The Seasons, danced at its premiere on 18 May 1947 by Tanaquil LeClercq and Cunningham . He set up his own company in the summer of 1953, with dancers such as Carolyn Brown , Viola Farber , Remy Charlip , and Paul Taylor . John Cage and David Tudor were the company musicians. The company made its New York debut on 29 Dec. 1953 at the Theater de Lys in Greenwich Village. It made its first US tour in 1955, its first international tour in 1964. A leading light of the American avant-garde, Cunningham has always chosen equally radical collaborators, such as Cage. Painters such as Robert Rauschenberg (resident designer 1954–64), Andy Warhol , Frank Stella , and Jasper Johns also contributed hugely to the success of Cunningham's work, although his unorthodox dance philosophy insisted upon the total independence of movement from their input. His choreography relies on neither music nor design for inspiration; indeed, such elements are created in isolation from the choreography and all three often meet for the first time in performance. The only commonality between them is that they happen at the same time. Choreography itself is often the result of chance, the movement options selected at random. Like Cage, Cunningham was willing to allow artistic decisions to be made by the toss of a coin, for example, or the roll of the I Ching. Late in life, still the keen experimenter, Cunningham became the first major choreographer to use computer technology, creating movement sequences on screen before setting them on his dancers. He has rarely made dances to existing music (although Septet from 1953 is a famous exception, being set to Satie) and most of the scores which accompany his work are electronic. In 1964 he started his famous series of Events, performances of excerpts from the repertory which are then arranged into a single evening without interval. His works are in the repertoires of ballet and modern dance companies around the world, and his company has toured to virtually every corner of the globe. He was much loved as a performer, his appearances on stage adding an impish sense of humour to the proceedings. His influence on other choreographers has been tremendous. He has been a guest teacher at universities throughout America and opened his own New York studio in 1959. A selection of his works includes The Seasons (mus. Cage , 1947), Septet (mus. Satie , 1953), Minutiae (mus. Cage , 1954), Suite for Five (mus. Cage , 1956), Nocturnes (mus. Satie , 1956), Antic Meet (mus. Cage , 1958), Summerspace (mus. Morton Feldman , 1958), Rune (mus. Wolff , 1959), Crises (mus. Nancarrow , 1960), Aeon (mus. Cage , 1961), Story (mus. Ichiyanagi , 1963), Field Dances (mus. Cage , 1963), Winterbranch (mus. LaMonte Young , 1964), How to Pass, Kick, Fall and Run (mus. Cage , 1965), Scramble (mus. Ichiyanagi , 1967), RainForest (mus. D. Tudor , 1968), Walkaround Time (mus. D. Behrman , 1968), Canfield (mus. P. Oliveros , 1969), Tread (mus. Wolff , 1970), Signals (mus. Tudor , Mumma , Cage , 1970), Landrover (mus. Cage , 1972), Un jour ou deux (mus. Cage , Paris Opera, 1973), Sounddance (mus. Tudor , 1975), Changing Steps (mus. Cage , 1975), Rebus (mus. Behrman , 1975), Squaregame (mus. Kosugi , 1976), Locale (mus. Kosugi , for video, 1979), Roadrunners(mus. Tone , 1979), Duets (mus. Cage , 1980), Fielding Sixes (mus. Cage , 1980), Quartet (mus. Tudor , 1982), Roaratorio (mus. Cage , 1983), Pictures (mus. Behrman , 1984), Points in Space (mus. Cage , for video, 1986), Fabrications (mus. Pimenta , 1991), Field and Figures (mus. Tcherepnin , 1989), Inventions (mus. Cage , 1989), Beach Birds (mus. Cage , 1991), Trackers (mus. Pimenta , 1991), Change of Address (mus. Zimmerman , 1992), CRWDSPCR (mus. John King, 1993), Ocean (mus. David Tudor and Andrew Culver , 1994), Signals (mus. Cage , 1994), Ground Level Overlay (mus. Stuart Dempster , 1995), Rondo (mus. Cage , 1996), Pond Way (mus. Brian Eno , 1998), and BIPED (mus. Gavin Bryars , 1999). He has choreographed a number of video and film dances, working in collaboration with Charles Atlas and Elliot Caplan . Author of Changes: Notes on Choreography (New York, 1968). L'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (1983), Légion d'honneur, 1989; National Medal of Arts, US, 1990.

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Currier , Ruth (née Miller ,

b Ashland, Ohio, 1926).
US dancer, choreographer, teacher, and ballet director. She studied with Humphrey and Limón and joined the latter's company in 1949. She created roles in several Limón works, including There is a Time (1956) and Missa Brevis (1958). She served as Humphrey's assistant (1952–8) and completed Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 after Humphrey's death in 1958. She formed Ruth Currier and Dancers in 1961. After Limón's death in 1972 she took over artistic direction of his company and held the position for five years.

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Curry , John

(b Birmingham, 9 Sept. 1949, d Binton, 15 Apr. 1994).
British ice skater, choreographer, and creator of Dance Theatre of Skating. A virtuoso skater, he was also much admired for his musicality and the artistic sensibility of his competitive skating. He won both the Olympic Gold Medal and the World Championship in 1976. That same year he started his Theatre of Skating (later called Ice Dancing) with performances at the Cambridge Theatre in London. He engaged choreographers such as Kenneth MacMillan , Peter Martins , and Twyla Tharp to make ballets for him and his company. Later he worked with Laura Dean , Eliot Feld , and Lar Lubovitch . He died prematurely from an Aids-related illness.

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Cyrano de Bergerac.

Ballet in three acts, with choreography and libretto by Petit , music by Constant , sets by Basarte , and costumes by Saint-Laurent . Premiered 17 Apr. 1959 by the Ballets de Paris at the Alhambra Theatre in Paris, with Petit , Jeanmaire , and Reich . The ballet is based on Rostand's 1897 heroic comedy about Cyrano, the man with the unfortunate nose who is forced to woo the woman he loves on behalf of another man. It was revived for the Royal Danish Ballet in 1961. David Bintley also choreographed a full-length version for Covent Garden in 1991 using a commissioned score by Wilfred Josephs , although the ballet was not a success.

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D

Dafora , Asadata

(b John Warner Dafora Horton; Freetown, Sierra Leone, 1890, d New York, 4 Mar. 1965).
West African singer, dancer, composer, choreographer, and writer. He studied singing in Milan and in 1912 joined a touring ensemble of African dancers. In 1929 he moved to the US where he presented dance dramas based on African legends, using authentic African dance and music, the most successful of which was Kykunkor (1934). These highly popular productions pioneered the appreciation of African traditions and inspired artists like P. Lang .

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Dai Ai-lian

(b Trinidad, 10 May 1916).
Chinese dancer, choreographer, director, and pioneer in the development of ballet in China. She trained locally and in 1931 moved to London where she studied ballet with Dolin , Craske , and others, also modern dance with Borrows-Goossens and with Laban and Jooss at Dartington. She returned to China in 1940 where she studied indigenous dance forms and taught modern dance as well as performing in various solo and group recitals. A committed popularizer of dance, she was appointed director of the Central Song and Dance Ensemble (1949–54) after which she was principal of the Beijing Dance School (1956–64), director of the Central Ballet (1963–4), and vice-director of the Central Opera and Ballet Theatre (1964–6). During the Cultural Revolution (1966–76) she was marginalized but in 1978 was reinstated as artistic adviser of the Central Ballet. She has choreographed several works in both London and China and served on many international committees, as well as continuing her research into local Chinese dance forms.

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Dakin , Christine

(b New Haven, 25 Aug. 1949).
US dancer, choreographer, and teacher. She studied at the Martha Graham School and performed with various companies, including Lang's , before joining the Graham company as principal dancer from 1976. In 1988 she recreated, with Graham , the speaking part in Letter to the World and in 1993 she created the lead role in Tharp's Demeter and Persephone. She has taught internationally as well as at the Graham, Ailey, and Juilliard schools and in 1997 was appointed associate artistic director of the Graham company.

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Dalcroze

See Jaques-Dalcroze , Émile.

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Dale , Margaret

(b Newcastle upon Tyne, 30 Dec. 1922).
British dancer, choreographer, and television producer. She studied with Nellie Potts and from 1937 at the Sadler's Wells School, joining Vic-Wells Ballet in 1938 where she became soloist in 1942. She created roles in de Valois's The Prospect Before Us (1940) and Helpmann's Comus (1942) as well as dancing many character roles. In 1953 she choreographed The Great Detective for Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet and between 1951 to 1955 created six ballets for BBC TV. In 1954 she left the Royal Ballet to work with the BBC where she produced and directed many dance programmes until leaving in 1976 to become associate professor and chairman of the Dance Department at York University, Canada, remaining in those posts for one year.

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Dalí , Salvador

(b Figueras, 11 Mar. 1904, d Figueras, 23 Jan. 1989).
Spanish surrealist painter who designed several ballets including Massine's Bacchanale (1939), Labyrinth (1941) and Mad Tristan (1944), Argentinita's Café de Chinitas (1944), and Béjart's Gala (1961).

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Dallas Ballet.

US ballet company. It was founded in 1957 as an educational organization called the Dallas Civic Ballet, but in 1969 began to expand its scope with the appointment of G. Skibine and Marjorie Tallchief as director and associate director respectively. The company's associated school was opened in 1971 and the repertoire grew to include many Skibine ballets as well as works by Balanchine , Taras , etc. After Skibine's death F. Flindt was appointed artistic director (1981–9). The company was then dissolved and in 1993 the Fort Worth Ballet was renamed Fort Worth-Dallas Ballet incorporating works by S. Welch and Kevin O'Day into its repertory.

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Dalman , Elizabeth

(b Adelaide, 23 Jan. 1934).
Australian dancer, teacher, choreographer, and director. She studied classical ballet locally and modern dance at the Folkwang School, Essen , and with Nikolais , dancing with the Ballet der Lage Landen (1958–9) then in the Dutch and Australian productions of My Fair Lady. In 1964 she opened her own school in Adelaide, from which developed the Australian Dance Theatre in 1965. She was director and choreographer of the company until 1975 after which she taught extensively in New York, the Netherlands, and Australia. In 1999 she was artistic director of a major dance drama event on the shores of Lake George , Canberra.

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d'Amboise , Jacques.

See Amboise , Jacques d'.

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Dame aux camélias, La.

The younger Dumas's 1848 novel has inspired many ballets including Taras's Camille (mus. Schubert-Rieti , Original Ballet Russe, 1946), Tudor's Lady of the Camellias (mus. Verdi , New York City Ballet, 1951), T. Gsovsky's La Dame aux camélias (Berlin Festival, mus. Berlioz , 1964), Ashton's Marguerite and Armand (mus. Liszt-Searle , Royal Ballet, 1963), and Neumeier's Lady of the Camellias (mus. Chopin , Stuttgart, 1978.)

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Dance and Dancers.

British monthly dance magazine, dealing with all forms of theatre dance. It was first published in 1950 with Peter Williams as editor. He was succeeded by John Percival who was editor from 1981 until the magazine folded in 1995.

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Dance Books.

Dance bookshop in London's Cecil Court, founded in 1964 as Ballet Bookshop, becoming Dance Books in 1974, under the co-direction of David Leonard and John O'Brien . It also publishes a significant list of British and foreign dance books and since 1992 it has published the magazine Dance Now with editors including Ann Nugent , Leonard , Sanjoy Roy and Allen Robertson .

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Dance Chronicle.

US dance journal prized for its academic authority. It was founded by George Dorris and Jack Anderson in 1977. It is published three times a year.

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Dance Europe.

British monthly dance magazine, covering all aspects of dance performance in Europe, with some coverage of America and Asia. It was founded in 1995 by Emma Manning and Naresh Kaul .

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Dance Index.

Historic series of scholarly dance writings which was first published in 1942 by Dance Index, Ballet Caravan Inc. under the editorship of Baird Hastings , Lincoln Kirstein , and Paul Magriel and which ceased publication in 1948.

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Dance Magazine.

American monthly magazine devoted to all forms of theatre dance. It was first published in 1927 under Ruth Eleanor Howard under the title The American Dancer. Between 1938 and 1941 it ceased publication but it is now one of the world's major dance publications. In 1954 it presented the first of its Dance Magazine Awards, its recipients including many of the major names in 20th-century dance. Long-standing editor Richard Philp was succeeded in the post by Janice Berman in late 1999 when the magazine's office moved from New York to California.

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Dancemakers.

Toronto-based modern dance company. It was founded as a co-operative by a group of dancers and choreographers, including Andrea Ciel Smith and Marcy Radly , in 1974. Initially it performed to local audiences with a repertory featuring Canadian choreographers such as Kudelka and C. House as well as works by Lubovitch , P. Taylor , Cohan , and others. During the late 1980s it suffered a loss of direction and Serge Bennathan was appointed director and resident choreographer in 1990 to focus its identity and raise its international profile. He has created many works for the company including the full-length C'est beau ça, la vie (mus. collage, Michael J. Baker , 1998).

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Dance Masters of America.

A professional association for dance teachers founded in 1848 (though its present name dates from 1926). It currently has separate divisions for Ballroom, Performing Arts, and Business Administration.

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Dance Museum.

Stockholm's Dansmuseet, opened in 1953 to display Rolf de Maré's large collection of Asian dance costumes, masks, and instruments. It expanded to include other areas of dance including comprehensive documentation of Les Ballets Suédois. Originally housed at the Royal Theatre, it now has its own building.

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dance notation.

Dance only acquired a fully comprehensive system of notation during the 20th century, which means that many ballets prior to this date were lost or handed down in only partial form. The fact that movement requires both spatial and temporal notation makes it hard to record accurately on paper though attempts to do so date back to the late 15th century. In early notation, letters were used to denote various steps, e.g. R for reverence, s for single, d for double. This method was used in two surviving manuscripts: Margherita d'Austria's Livre des Basses Danses (c.1460) and L'Art et instruction de bien danser (c.1488). More elaborate descriptions of the manner in which dances should be performed were published in books by the leading dancing masters of the 16th and 17th centuries, the most famous of these being Arbeau's L'Orchésographie (Langres, 1588). The first sophisticated attempt at a system was published by Feuillet in his Chorégraphie ou L'Art de décrire la danse par caractères, figures et signes demonstratifs (Paris, 1700), which was based on ideas originated by Beauchamps . This became highly popular all round Europe as a means of recording and teaching dances. It depicted the floor patterns of the dances, adding signs for the direction of each step as well as for turns, beats, and other details of footwork. The problem of notating body and arm positions was addressed in the 19th century by Saint-Léon in his Sténochorégraphie (Paris, 1852) and by the dancing master Albert Zorn in his Grammatik der Tanzkunst (Leipzig , 1887), both of whom used stylized stick figures to record whole body movement. The idea of writing down dance in a manner similar to music was first developed by B. Klemm in 1855 and further developed by the Russian dancer Stepanov . In his Alphabet des mouvements du corps humain (Paris, 1892) he placed movement symbols on a special stave while recording the floor patterns above it. This system was taught at the Imperial Ballet and was used by Sergeyev to notate the Petipa and Ivanov ballets which he later mounted in the West. During the 20th century the necessity for recording styles of movement other than ballet led to attempts at more rigorous and complete notation based on abstract symbols. The most famous of these was originated by Laban and first published in 1926 in his Choreographie. Now widely referred to as Labanotation this system uses a vertical staff to represent the body and has symbols that indicate not only the position but also the direction, duration, and the quality of any movement. The system has since been refined and elaborated by many scholars and is so accurate that any dance can be protected by the laws of copyright. Hitherto any dancer or choreographer could stage someone else's work with few restrictions, hence the number of 19th-century productions around Europe and America of ballets originally created by Taglioni , Perrot , etc. Another widely used system is that developed by R. and J. Benesh . This began as a shorthand for notating ballets and was first published as An Introduction to Benesh Dance Notation (London, 1956). Now termed ‘choreology’, the Benesh system uses a five-line musical stave running horizontally across the page with abstract stick figures indicating the position of the body and special symbols indicating timing, direction, etc. Though most widely used in ballet companies, choreology has subsequently been evolved to deal with non-classical movement also, and together with Labanotation is the most internationally used system. Other systems have been less widely adopted, for example N. Eshkol and A. Wachman's , published in Movement Notation (London, 1958), which is based on a mathematical record of the degree of rotation made by each of the moving parts of the body. Recently the availability of simple and inexpensive video equipment has provided another means of recording dances.

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Dance Notation Bureau.

A centre for the analysis of movement, primarily concerned with Labanotation which was founded in New York in 1940. It offers a research library and training programmes as well as aid to dance professionals in the notation and reconstruction of dance works.

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Dance Now.

Quarterly British dance magazine published by Dance Books covering most areas of theatre dance. It was founded in 1992 with David Leonard and Ann Nugent as editors.

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Dance Observer.

Magazine founded by Horst in 1934 to expound the theories and publicize the developement of modern dance. It ceased publication when Horst died in 1964.

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Dance Perspectives.

A series of quarterly critical monologues which was published in New York from 1958 to 1976.

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Dancer's World, A.

A historic television documentary made in 1957 about Graham and her company which featured Graham as commentator, explaining her dance philosophy and technique. It was screened in many countries.

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Dances at a Gathering.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Robbins , music by Chopin , costumes by J. Eula , and lighting by T. Skelton . Premiered 22 May 1969 (gala benefit preview, 8 May) by New York City Ballet at the State Theater, New York, with McBride , Villella , A. Kent , Leland , Mazzo , Verdy , A Blum , J. Clifford , Maiorano , and Prinz . It was first conceived as a pas de deux for McBride and Villella but grew as Robbins enlarged his chosen music to include a selection of études, waltzes, mazurkas, a nocturne, and a scherzo. In its final form, five couples dance in joyous response to the music and to the changes in landscape and mood evoked by the lighting. It was dedicated to Jean Rosenthal (who died 1 May 1969) and has been revived for Royal Ballet (1970) and Paris Opera Ballet (1991), both in stagings by Robbins himself.

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Dance Symphony, The Greatness of Creation (also The Magnificence of the Universe; orig. Russ. title Tants simfoniya—Velichiye myrozdaniya).

Ballet in one act with choreography by Lopukhov , music by Beethoven , and costumes by Pavel Goncharov . Premiered 7 Mar. 1923 by GATOB in Leningrad with Balanchine (then still Balanchivadze), Gusev , Lavrovsky , Mikhailov , and Danilova . This setting of Beethoven's 4th Symphony was one of the first and most ambitious attempts at a symphonic ballet. Its four themes are monumentally titled: ‘Birth of Light’, ‘Triumph of Life over Death’, ‘Awakening of Nature in the Sun of Spring’, and ‘The Cosmogonic Spiral’, and its choreography (for eighteen dancers) runs a gamut of forms from strict classicism to free invention. Although performed only once (it was fiercely criticized—partly on the grounds of obscenity), the ballet exerted considerable influence on other choreographers.

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Dance Theater Workshop.

New York-based performance space. It was founded by Jeff Duncan , Jack Moore , and Art Bauman in 1965 for the presentation of new dance work and in 1975 it moved to Robbins's American Theater Laboratory where, under the artistic direction of David White , it began to present regular seasons. It has subsequently aided the early careers of several major choreographers including Mark Morris and Bill T. Jones . In the early 1980s it founded its Bessie Award scheme, designed to honour artists outside the dance mainstream.

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Dance Theatre Journal.

British dance magazine published by the Laban Centre. Originally titled Laban News it changed its name in 1983 under its founding editors Chris de Marigny and Alastair Macaulay. With an emphasis primarily on modern and post-modern dance it has been especially successful in nurturing new generations of dance writers. From 1997 it has been edited by Ian Bramley .

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Dance Theatre of Harlem.

The first major ballet company to prioritize black dancers. It was founded by Arthur Mitchell , who was himself a principal dancer with New York City Ballet during the 1950s and 1960s and who, after the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968, felt impelled to fight for the position of black dancers in the world of ballet. In order to counter prejudice against them and to nurture their talent he opted to found a school in Harlem. This opened in 1969 with K. Shook as artistic adviser and after its first summer attracted over 400 pupils. Two years later Mitchell formed a company which gave its first performance on 8 Jan. 1971 at the Guggenheim Museum in New York presenting three chamber ballets by Mitchell . Other works in its first season were by Balanchine and Robbins , and the company's unique energy and charm won them widespread acclaim. In the same year it gave its European debut at the Spoleto Festival and in 1981 it became the first black company to appear at Covent Garden. Mitchell has nurtured many impressive dancers including the ballerina V. Johnson and male principals P. Russell , J. Cippola , and D. Williams . The company's repertoire not only boasts a wide range of 20th-century classics, including works by Nijinska , de Mille , and Balanchine but also a distinctive black classicism. Works by choreographers like Holder and Vincent Mantsoe have drawn on the company's African and African-American heritage while Mitchell and Franklin's 1984 staging of Giselle famously re-located the ballet to a Creole setting, drawing on issues of American race and class conflict. In 1992 the company toured to S. Africa and to celebrate its 30th anniversary in 1999 it gave the New York premiere of an expanded version of South African Suite (mus. various, chor. Mitchell and others). Though suffering periodic financial stresses, Dance Theatre of Harlem has retained its position as one of the world's leading companies.

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Dance Umbrella.

British annual dance festival, based in London, which presents modern and post-modern dance. Its first programme was organized by V. Bourne in 1978, at the request of the Arts Council, and its success led to large-scale expansion. The London management team has gone on to organize similar festivals in other towns (e.g. Woking and Newcastle) and promoted national tours by visiting artists. Boston (US) also ran an annual Dance Umbrella festival, founded in 1980 by Jeremy Alliger but threatened with closure in 1999.

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Danceworks.

Australian modern dance company based in Victoria, under the direction of Helen Herbertson . Though poorly funded it is one of the country's most vigorous experimental dance ensembles.

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Dancing Times.

The oldest monthly dance magazine in current publication. It was founded in London in 1894 as the house magazine of the Cavendish Rooms, but was bought by P. J. S. Richardson and T. M. Middleton in 1910 and turned into a national periodical covering all forms of social and theatrical dance. It played an important role in the founding of the Royal Academy of Dancing. Richardson was editor until 1957 when he was succeeded by A. H. Franks , then by Mary Clarke in 1963. In 1956 the ballroom and social dance sections were moved to the Ballroom Dancing Times. In 1992 the company attained newspaper trust status.

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Dandré , Victor E.

(b 1870, d London, 1944).
Russian ballet impresario, and possibly husband of Pavlova . A wealthy landowner with a passion for ballet he became involved with Pavlova in 1914. He certainly acted as her manager but no official evidence of marriage has come to light. Following Pavlova's death in 1931 he assembled a company which toured to Europe, S. America, India, and Australia and in 1938 he managed the Ballets Russes de Colonel de Basil, renaming the company Royal Covent Garden Russian Ballet and later the Original Ballet Russe. He wrote Anna Pavlova in Art and Life (London, 1932).

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Danielian , Leon

(b New York, 31 Oct 1920, d Canaan, Conn., 8 Mar. 1997).
US dancer, choreographer, and teacher. He studied with Mordkin , at the School of American Ballet, and with Fokine , Dolin , and Tudor , making his debut in 1937 in the corps of the Mordkin Ballet. In 1938 danced on Broadway in I Married an Angel (mus. Rodgers , chor. Balanchine ), after which he was a soloist with the newly formed Ballet Theatre (1939–41) and dancer with de Basil's Original Ballet Russe (1941–2). He was then principal dancer with Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo (1943–57, continuing as guest artist until 1961) where he danced roles in the Balanchine and Massine repertoire. During a period when most top male dancers were Russian or English he was a rare example of American male talent (he was the first American to perform an entrechat huit). He was considered an exemplary classicist with exceptional speed, elevation, and elegance of line. During his career he also appeared as principal guest artist with various companies including Ballets des Champs Elysées and San Francisco Ballet, as well as dancing in various opera productions. From 1956 he was choreographer with Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and in 1960 he became director and choreographer of his own ballet group. An eloquent and dedicated teacher, he then became director of American Ballet Theatre School (1968–80). In 1980 he was appointed Assistant Dean of Dance at Purchase State University of New York, and from 1982 to 1991 he was Professor of Dance at the University of Texas.

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Daniels , Pauline

(b 1951).
Dutch dancer and choreographer. She studied at the Theaterschool in Amsterdam and at the London School of Contemporary Dance, later with Cunningham and Farber in New York. She was a dancer with Rotterdam Danscentrum (1971–5) then in 1977 was cofounder of Stichting Dansproduktie where she was both dancer and choreographer, for example in Profiel (1985). She left the company to pursue a career as solo dancer and has taught at the Amsterdam Theaterschool.

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Danilova , Alexandra

(b Peterhof, 11 Nov 1903, d New York, 13 July 1997).
Russian-US dancer and teacher. She studied at the Petrograd Theatre School where her teachers included Vaganova and Preobrajenska and graduated in 1920. In 1921 she joined GATOB becoming soloist in 1922. In 1924 she left Russia with Balanchine and a small group calling themselves the Soviet State Dancers and was engaged by Diaghilev to dance with his Ballets Russes (1924–9) becoming ballerina in 1927. In 1925 and again from 1929 to 1930 she danced with Monte Carlo Opera Ballet, after which she starred in the musical Waltzes from Vienna (mus. A Rasch , London, 1931–2). She was then ballerina of de Basil's Ballets Russes (1933–8) and prima ballerina of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo (1938–52). She was also guest ballerina with several companies including Sadler's Wells Ballet (1949) and London Festival Ballet (1951). Between 1954 and 1956 she toured with her own group, Great Moments of Ballet, and gave her farewell performance in 1957 as a guest artist with Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo at the New York Met. She was one of the most popular dancers of her era—technically versatile with enormous charm, elegance, and wit. Massine said her performance of the Street Dancer in his ballet Beau Danube was like ‘champagne on the stage’. She danced all the major ballerina roles, most famously Odette and Swanilda, and created principal roles in several Balanchine works including The Triumph of Neptune (1926), Le Bal (1928), Danses concertantes (1944), and La sonnambula (1946). She staged and choreographed ballets for opera as well as for several ballet companies including Coppélia for New York City Ballet (1974). Between 1964 and 1989 she was a teacher at the School of American Ballet. In 1986 she was awarded the Handel Medallion, New York, and in 1989 a Kennedy Center Award. Her autobiography, Choura, was published in New York in 1986.

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Danilova , Maria

(b St Petersburg, 1793, d St Petersburg, 20 Jan. 1810).
Russian dancer. She studied at the Imperial Theatre School in St Petersburg where she was considered exceptionally talented particularly by Didelot who cast her in several of his ballets while she was still at school. She danced partly on pointe and at 15 she scored a notable triumph in Les Amours de Vénus et d'Adonis ou La vengeance de Mars, partnered by Duport with whom she had an unhappy love affair. This was considered to have undermined her delicate constitution, since she died of consumption aged 17.

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Danina, or Jocko the Brazilian Ape.

Ballet in four acts with choreography and libretto by F. Taglioni and music by Peter von Lindpaintner . Premiered 12 Mar. 1826 in Stuttgart with M. Taglioni , Anton Stuhlmüller , and Jean Briol . This highly popular ballet was based on a French melodrama about a Brazilian woman, Danina , who saves an ape, Jocko, from being bitten by a snake. The ape later repays her kindness by preventing her son from being kidnapped. The ballet was given 33 performances during its first two seasons alone and was staged in many European cities.

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Danovschi , Oleg

(b Vosnesensk, Ukraine, 9 Feb. 1917, d 21 Oct. 1996).
Romanian dancer and choreographer. He studied with Kniaseff and others and made his debut with the company of Ivan Dubrovin . From 1938 to 1970 he was with Bucharest Opera as principal dancer, becoming ballet master, choreographer, and director, and as well as staging the classics he created many works in an epic dramatic style. In 1979 he founded and directed Fantasio, the first independent Romanian ballet company which from 1993 has borne his name.

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Dans.

Swedish quarterly magazine featuring in-depth studies of individual dance topics. It was founded in 1973 and is edited by Bengt Hagar .

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danse d'école

(Fr., school dance). Term which refers to the pure academic style of classical ballet founded on the principles laid down by Beauchamps , Blasis , and subsequent teachers.

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danse macabre.

The image of Death as a dancer, urging mankind forward in its heedless dance to destruction extends far back to ancient art and ritual but was particularly widespread during the 14th and 15th centuries. A 20th-century adaptation of this concept can be seen in Jooss's Green Table (1932).

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Danses concertantes.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Balanchine , music by Stravinsky and design by Eugene Berman . Premiered 10 Sept. 1944 (two years after the concert premiere of the score) by Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo at City Center, New York, with Danilova and Danielian . An exuberant witty setting of Stravinsky's score of the same title it was subsequently re-worked for New York City Ballet's Stravinsky Festival in 1972. Other versions include MacMillan (London, 1955), Blaska (Amiens, 1968), and Taras (Berlin, 1971).

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danseur, danseuse

(Fr., (male and female) dancer). These terms are no longer in popular English-speaking usage, though they are still used when designating types of dancer, e.g. danseur noble, a dancer who performs princely classical roles, or danseur caractère, a character dancer.

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Danseuses Viennoises.

Viennese-based troupe of small girls which toured Europe and the US (1845–8) under the direction of Josephine Weiss . They were highly popular, appealing to a public taste for diminutive dancers which had previously been gratified by troupes like the one appearing in the Horschelt Vienna Children's Ballet. This latter ensemble performed in Vienna between 1815 and 1817 and nurtured several stars possibly including Elssler though she denied any connection with it. Weiss's company was finally closed down due to moral objections.

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Dansomanie, La.

Comedy ballet with choreography by Gardel and music by E. N. Méhul . Premiered 14 June 1800 at Paris Opera, with Gardel . It was the first new work to be premiered at the Opera after the revolution and tells the story of a gentleman who is so fanatical about dance that he insists on his entire household being able to dance—including his daughter's suitors. Contemporary critics worried that Gardel was parodying the artform and playing with trivial subjectmatter, but the ballet was very popular with audiences and was revived several times for example in Paris (1811, 1819, and 1824), Sweden (1804), and Vienna (1805). Reconstructions have been performed at Drottningholm (chor. Cramér and Skeaping after Gardel, 1976) and Paris (chor. Cramér after Gardel, 1986).

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Dansproduktie.

Amsterdam-based modern dance company. It was founded as a cooperative but from 1983 was run by Biancavan Dillen , staging mixed-media works like George (chor. van Dillen , A. Linseen , and D. Louwerse , mus. G. Antheil , 1987). It folded in 1993.

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Dante Sonata.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Ashton , music by Liszt , and design by Fedorovitch . Premiered 23 Jan. 1940 by Vic-Wells Ballet, Sadler's Wells, London, with Fonteyn , Brae , Somes , and Helpmann . Ashton's powerful response to the fall of Poland in 1939 was choreographed in a style untypically close to modern dance and performed barefoot. It was revived by Birmingham Royal Ballet in 2000.

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Dantzig , Rudi van

(b Amsterdam, 4 Aug. 1933).
Dutch dancer, choreographer, and director. He studied with Gaskell and made his debut with her Ballet Recital in 1952, dancing full time with it (1954–9) after it became Netherlands Ballet. In 1959 he became a founder member of Netherlands Dance Theatre but in 1960 returned to Gaskell's company (which became Dutch National Ballet in 1961) becoming co-director in 1969 and sole director in 1971. He retired in 1991 but continued as resident choreographer until 1994 when he left to pursue a career as a writer. He has created many works for Dutch National Ballet but has also worked as guest choreographer for many companies including Ballet Rambert, Royal Ballet, Royal Danish Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, and the Bat-Dor Company. Gaskell commissioned his first ballet, Night Island, in 1955 (mus. Debussy , revived Ballet Rambert, 1966) but his first work to achieve international fame was Monument for a Dead Boy (mus. Jan Boerman , 1965) which was subsequently revived for several companies including Harkness Ballet (1960) and American Ballet Theatre (1973). The ballet's probing psychological approach became a characteristic of his subsequent works, many of which were made in collaboration with van Schayk as both dancer (initially) and designer. Van Dantzig's style combines academic classicism with a Graham-based modern vocabulary, and he frequently uses 20th-century music as in Moments (mus. Webern , 1968), Epitaph (mus. Ligeti , 1969), The Ropes of Time (mus. Boerman , created for Nureyev and the Royal Ballet, 1970), Painted/Coloured Birds (mus. Castiglioni and J. S. Bach which used film images as well as dance), and Four Last Songs (mus. R. Strauss , 1977), Bend or Break (mus. Meijering , 1987). He has also choreographed his own versions of Romeo and Juliet (1967) and Swan Lake (1988) and his last work for DNB was Pleisterplaats (1994). In 1991 he was appointed Officer of the Order of Oranje Nassau.

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Daphnis and Chloe (orig. Fr. title Daphnis et Chloé).

Ballet in one act with choreography and libretto by Fokine , music by Ravel , and design by Bakst . Premiered 8 June 1912 at the Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris, with Karsavina , Nijinsky , and Bolm . It is set to Ravel's score of the same title and is based on the pastoral by Longus which tells of the love of a young shepherd, Daphnis, for Chloe. She is captured by pirates but is restored to him by the intervention of Pan. Fokine originally wrote the libretto in 1904 in the first flush of his enthusiasm for ancient Greek themes but it was turned down by the management of the Imperial Theatres. He ultimately choreographed the ballet for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. Its reception was overshadowed by the more scandalous premiere of Nijinsky's L'Après-midi d'un faune, given less than three weeks earlier. A more successful version was Ashton's for Sadler's Wells Ballet, premiered in London on 5 Apr. 1951 with Fonteyn , Somes , Elvin , Field , and Grant . This followed Fokine's libretto fairly closely but John Craxton's designs gave it a more contemporary feel. Other versions include Lifar (design by Chagall , Paris, 1958), Cranko (design by Georgiadis , Stuttgart, 1962), van Manen (2nd suite only, design by Vroom , Dutch National Ballet, 1972), Tetley (Stuttgart, 1975), and Taras (design by J. Elula , New York City Ballet, 1975).

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Dark Elegies.

Ballet in one act with choreography and libretto by Tudor , music by Mahler , and design by Nadia Benois . Premiered 19 Feb. 1937 by Ballet Rambert at Duchess Theatre, London, with Lloyd , van Praagh , de Mille , Gore , and Laing . This setting of Mahler's Kindertotenlieder was Tudor's own favourite work and is considered by many to be his greatest. Following Mahler's song-cycle it portrays members of a community mourning the loss of their children after some unspecified tragedy and gradually moving from anguish to acceptance. The baritone sings on stage and the dancers, moving in a fusion of classical and expressionist styles, parallel his words with their own potent though often unspecific images. It has been revived by many other companies, including Ballet Theatre (in a re-staging by Tudor , New York, 1940), National Ballet of Canada (1955), Dutch National Ballet (1972), Royal Ballet (1980), Paris Opera Ballet (1985), San Francisco Ballet (1991), and by the Limón Company (1999) in a version without pointework.

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Dark Meadow.

Modern dance work in one act with choreography by Graham , music by Chavez , costumes by Edythe Gilfond , lighting by Rosenthal , and set by Noguchi . Premiered 23 Jan. 1946 by the Graham company at the Plymouth Theater, New York, with Hawkins and Graham . It is one of Graham's most densely symbolic representations of the human psyche, influenced by the writings of Jung, and was described by her as a ‘reenactment of the Mysteries which attend the eternal adventure of seeking’.

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Darrell , Peter (orig. Peter Skinner ;

b Richmond, 16 Sept. 1929, d Glasgow, 2 Dec. 1987).
British dancer, choreographer, and director. He studied at Sadler's Wells Ballet School and danced with Sadler's Wells Ballet (1944–6) and then Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet (1946–7). He left to dance in musicals and with various companies including London Festival Ballet, and choreographed his first work Midsummer Watch for Ballet Workshop in 1951. In 1957 he founded Western Theatre Ballet with Elizabeth West and when she died in 1962 he became its sole director, moving with the company to Glasgow in 1969 where it became Scottish Theatre Ballet (now Scottish Ballet). From the beginning Darrell's choreography shaped his company's unique image. Prisoners (mus. Bartók , 1957) established his commitment to exploring social issues in dance while Mods and Rockers (mus. The Beatles, 1963) demonstrated his swiftness in responding to contemporary material and attracting young audiences. His theatrical instincts were displayed in works as various as Jeux (mus. Debussy , 1963) which turned Nijinsky's original libretto into a mystery ballet; Home (mus. Bartók , 1965) about a young woman in a mental hospital; and the ambitious 1966 piece Sun into Darkness (mus. Malcolm Williamson ) about barbaric ritual in a Cornish village. When the company moved to Scotland Darrell was obliged to widen his range to cater for a larger audience, as in Tales of Hoffmann (mus. Offenbach , arr. Lanchbery , 1972) and Cinderella (mus. Rossini , 1979) and to stage productions of the classics such as Giselle (1971) and Swan Lake (1977). He also made works for several other companies, such as La Péri (mus. Dukas , London Festival Ballet, 1973), but it was with Scottish Ballet that he made his international reputation, nurturing a company of versatile dancers with a distinctively wide-ranging repertoire of experimental and classical work.

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Darsonval , Lycette (orig. Alice Perron ;

b Coutances, 12 Feb. 1912, d St Lô, 1 Nov. 1996).
French dancer, choreographer, and teacher. She studied at Paris Opera Ballet School and joined the Paris company in 1930. She left in 1933 to guest abroad, with Lifar among others, returned in 1936, and was promoted étoile in 1940. She remained with the company until 1960, although she spent some time guesting and touring with her own small group in France and abroad. A virtuoso technician and expressive actress, she danced the major ballerina roles as well as creating leading roles in several ballets, including Lifar's David triomphant (1937), Sylvia (1941), and Suite en blanc (1943) and Balanchine's Le Palais de cristal (1947). She also choreographed two works for the Opera (one of the few women ever to do so) and successfully re-worked Sylvia for the company in 1979 (staging it also for Central Ballet of Peking in 1980). She gave her farewell performance in Giselle in 1959 by which time she was already director of the Opera Ballet School (1957–9, the first woman appointed to the position). Between 1963 and 1964 she was maîtresse de ballet at Nice Opera Ballet and between 1971 and 1976 professor of dance at Nice Conservatory. In 1975 she returned to the Paris Opera School as teacher. Her many honours include Commandeur de l'Ordre National du Mérite and Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres.

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Dartington College.

Devon-based arts college. It was used as a base by Laban , Jooss , and others during and just after the Second World War, and from 1963 it ran a teacher-training course in Graham-based modern dance. This was taken over by Mary Fulkerson in 1973 and became a focus for post-modern dance studies and training. The annual Dartington Dance Festival was founded in 1978 to offer a platform for new work as well as classes by a range of international teachers.

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Dauberval , Jean (orig. Jean Bercher ;

b Montpellier, 19 Aug. 1742, d Tours, 14 Feb. 1806).
French dancer, choreographer, and ballet master. He studied at the Paris Opera Ballet School with Noverre and danced in Bordeaux and Lyons before joining the Paris company in 1761. Between 1762 and 1764 he danced under Noverre in Stuttgart as well as working at London's King's Theatre as dancer and choreographer (1763–4) and dancing in Paris where he was promoted premier danseur demi-caractère in 1763 and premier danseur noble in 1773. In the same year he was also appointed assistant ballet master, first to Vestris and later M. Gardel , resigning following differences with the latter in 1783. He was renowned as a dramatically expressive dancer but is now best remembered as a choreographer. He created his first work in 1759 during a season at Turin but his most famous ballet, La Fille mal gardée, was created in Bordeaux where he was ballet master (1785–90). Influenced by Noverre's theories of the ballet d'action, Dauberval was one of the first choreographers to create ballets about ordinary people—handling both serious and comic subjects and weaving together dance and mime with unusual subtlety. His other works included Le Déserteur (1784) and Le Page inconstant (after Beaumarchais's Le Mariage de Figaro, 1787). His pupils included Didelot, Aumer, and S. Viganò and he was married to the dancer Mlle Théodore .

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Davidsbündlertänze.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Balanchine , music by Schumann , and design by Ter-Arutunian . Premiered 19 June 1980 (gala preview 12 June) by New York City Ballet at New York State Theater, New York, with Farrell , von Aroldingen , Watts , Mazzo , d'Amboise , Luders , Martins , and I. Andersen . This setting of Schumann's 1837 piano cycle Op. 6 was created three years before Balanchine's death and surprised critics by its mysterious, Romantic quality. The stage is set as a melancholy ballroom, peopled by four emotionally fraught couples. There are some glancing references to Schumann's own life but the work's meaning seems ultimately held in the anguished and hesitant style of the dancing.

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Davies , (Sir) Peter Maxwell

(b Manchester, 8 Sept. 1934).
British composer. He has written dance scores for W. Louther's Vesalii Icones (London, 1970) and for F. Flindt's Salome (Copenhagen, 1978) and Caroline Mathilde (Copenhagen, 1991). His concert music has also been used by others, including B. Moreland in Journey to Avalon (London Festival Ballet, 1980) and R. Alston in Bell High (1980) and Hymnos (1988—both for Ballet Rambert).

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Davies , Siobhan

(b London, 18 Sept. 1950).
British dancer and choreographer. She studied art before enrolling at the London School of Contemporary Dance in 1967 and performed as a founder member of London Contemporary Dance Theatre in 1969 while still a student. She became one of its leading dancers, also performing with Ballet for All in 1971, and in 1974 was appointed associate choreographer with London Contemporary Dance Theatre. Her many works for the company included Relay (mus. C. Wood and B. Watson , 1972), The Calm (mus. G. Burgon , 1974), Sphinx (mus. Barrington Pheloung , 1977), and Something to Tell (mus. Britten , 1980). In 1981 she left to form her own group for which she choreographed, for example, Plain Song (mus. Satie ), and in 1982 she was co-founder of Second Stride (with Spink and Alston). She created many works for that company—her rangy, fluid style revealing a basic debt to Cunningham but also displaying her own delicate nuances of characterization and humour, as shown in Silent Partners (1984). She also continued to make work for London Contemporary Dance Theatre, such as New Galileo (1984), and in 1988 re-formed her own company. Her works from this date have evinced a range of styles (from the intimately gestural to the sharply percussive), often in response to her choice of music, including White Man Sleeps (mus. Kevin Volans , 1988), Different Trains (mus. Reich , 1990), Art of Touch (mus. Matteo Fargion , 1995), and Trespass (mus. G. Barry , 1996). She has also choreographed works for Rambert Dance Company, including Winnsboro' Cotton Mill Blues (1992, revived for Siobhan Davies Dance Company, 1998), for English National Ballet, Dancing Ledge (1990), and, for Royal Ballet, A Stranger's Taste (1999).

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Davis , Carl

(b New York, 1936).
US composer. He has written the scores for several ballets including A Simple Man (chor. Lynne , Northern Ballet Theatre, 1987), The Picture of Dorian Gray (chor. D. Deane , Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet, 1987), and A Christmas Carol (chor. Massimo Moricone , Northern Ballet Theatre, 1992), and arranged music by Tchaikovsky for the score of D. Deane's Alice (1995).

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Davis , Chuck

(b Raleigh, NC, 1 Jan. 1937).
US dancer, choreographer, and director. He studied with Owen Dodson and danced with several companies before founding his own Chuck Davis Dance Company in 1967. He specialized in presenting traditional African-American dances but has also choreographed his own works including Odun De (mus. Saleem , 1986) and Waterwheel (1995). He has been active in raising the profile of African-American dance and in 1977 founded the annual festival DanceAfrica, also in 1994 the African-American Dance Ensemble.

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Daydé , Bernard

(b Paris, 3 Feb. 1921).
French designer. His many designs for dance include Béjart's L'Etranger (1957), Lander's Études (London Festival Ballet, 1956), Flindt's La Leçon (1964), and Paris Opera's Hommages à Varèse (1973).

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Daydé , Liane

(b Paris, 27 Feb. 1932).
French dancer. She studied at the Paris Opera Ballet School and graduated into its company at the age of 13, becoming étoile in 1950. A tiny, charming, and brilliant dancer, her almost childlike appearance was exploited by Lifar when he created the role of Snow White for her in Blanche-Neige (1951). She left the Opera in 1960 to work as an international guest artist. In 1961 she danced with the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas and after 1962 with the Grand Ballet Classique de France, a touring company directed by her husband, Claude Giraud . She danced most of the classical ballerina roles as well as creating leading parts in Lifar's Romeo and Juliet (1955), Lander's Printemps à Vienne (1954), and Rosen's Dance Panels in Seven Movements (1963). After retiring from the stage she became a teacher, subsequently directing the dance department of the Regional Conservatory of the City of Paris.

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Day on Earth.

Modern dance work in one act with choreography by Humphrey and music by Copland . Premiered 10 May 1947 at Beaver County Day School, Massachusetts, by Jose Limón Dance Company with Limón . Set to Copland's 1941 Piano Sonata, it evokes the human cycle of work, love, marriage, death, and birth.

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Dead Dreams of Monochrome Men.

Full-length dance theatre work, directed by Lloyd Newson . Premiered 5 Oct. 1988 by DV8 Physical Theatre at the Third Eye Centre, Glasgow. It is based on the story of the mass murderer Dennis Nilsen and, through movement that fuses raw expression with physical risk-taking, four dancers explore issues of male loneliness, desire, and trust.

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Dean , Christopher

(b Nottingham, 27 July 1958).
British ice dancer and choreographer. He formed his renowned ice-dance partnership with Jayne Torvill in 1975, winning four consecutive world championships from 1981 to 1984. In 1984 the pair won the gold medal in the Sarajevo Olympics, performing a free dance interpretation of Ravel's Bolero which set new standards for musicality and expressiveness in the sport. Between 1985 and 1990 they toured the world with their own company also starring in the television special Fire and Ice in which Dean danced without skates. In 1990 they returned to amateur competitions, winning the gold medal at the World Championships in 1994, then continued to stage a number of spectacular ice dance shows. In 1996 Dean choreographed his first stage ballet for English National Ballet, Encounters (mus. Paul Simon ). See also Torvill and Dean .

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Dean , Laura

(b Staten Island, NY, 3 Dec. 1945).
US dancer and choreographer. She studied at the High School of Performing Arts, at the School of American Ballet and also with Hoving , Sansardo , and Cunningham . She made her debut with the Paul Taylor Dance Company in 1965 and also danced with Sanasardo , Monk , K. King , and Robert Wilson . She began choreographing in 1967 and formed the Laura Dean Dance Company in 1971. Her work was strictly minimalist in style, featuring repetitive, often spinning movements, performed in geometric patterns and on a steady pulse. She frequently collaborated with Steve Reich notably in Drumming (1975) and Song (1976), in which the performers vocalized as they danced. In 1975 she changed the name of her company to Laura Dean Musicians and Dancers, after which she began to use some of her own musical compositions for her dances, for example Fire (1982, revived 1989). In 1980 she also began to create works for other companies including Night (mus. Dean , City Center Joffrey Ballet, 1980), Space (mus. Reich , New York City Ballet, 1988), and the first section of Billboards (mus. Prince , Joffrey Ballet, 1993). She has also created several works for ice dance companies, including Reflections (1993). In 1994 she disbanded her company and continued to work as a freelance choreographer. She has also taught at the Universities of Texas and Rhode Island.

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Deane , Derek

(b Cornwall, c.1954).
British dancer, choreographer, and director. He studied at the Royal Ballet Upper School and joined the company in 1972, becoming principal in 1978 and creating roles in several ballets including Mayerling and Valley of Shadows. He also choreographed several works including Fleeting Figures (1984) and The Picture of Dorian Gray (mus. C. Davis , 1987) for Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet. In 1989 he left the Royal Ballet, becoming deputy artistic director and resident choreographer at Teatro dell'Opera in Rome (1990–2) and working freelance. Between 1993 and 2001 he was artistic director of English Natinal Ballet for which he staged new productions of Giselle (1994), Swan Lake and Nutcracker (1997), and Romeo and Juliet (1998), among others. He also choreographed the full-length ballet Alice in Wonderland (mus. Tchaikovsky , arr. Davis , 1995).

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Death and the Maiden.

Ballet in one act with choreography and costumes by A. Howard and music by Schubert . Premiered 23 Feb. 1937 by Ballet Rambert at the Duchess Theatre, London, with Howard. It is set to the Andante con moto from Schubert's String Quartet in D minor and portrays a young girl being overcome by Death. It was revived by Ballet Theatre in 1940 and Northern Dance Theatre in 1969. Other choreographers who have used Schubert's quartet include Walter (Wuppertal, 1964) and R. North (Ballet Rambert, 1984).

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Deaths and Entrances.

Modern dance work in one act with choreography by Graham , music by Hunter Johnson , set by Arch Lauterer , costumes by Edythe Gilford , and lighting by Rosenthal . Premiered 26 Dec. 1943 by Martha Graham and Company at 46th St. Theater New York with Graham , Dudley , Maslow , Hawkins , and Cunningham . It is based on the lives of the Brontë sisters, but rather than narrating their stories it focuses on the relationships within the family, and on the workings of memory and the imagination. A preview performance was given on 18 July at Bennington College Theater. Other Brontë ballets include Hynd's Charlotte Brontë (mus. D. Young , Royal Ballet Touring Company, 1974) and G. Lynne's The Brontës (mus. D. Muldowney , Northern Ballet Theatre, 1995).

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deboulé

(Fr., suddenly running away). A fast sequence of half turns performed by stepping onto one leg, and completing the turn by stepping onto the other, the dancers stepping high on the toes and with the legs held very close together. These can be performed in a circle (en manège) or a straight line (chainé).

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Debussy , Claude

(b St Germain-en Laye, 22 Aug. 1862, d Paris, 26 Mar. 1918).
French composer. He wrote several commissioned scores for ballet and dance theatre including Le Martyre de Saint-Sébastien (chor. Fokine , 1911, also by Béjart , 1986) and most famously Jeux for Nijinsky (1913), though he remained notoriously aloof from the choreographic process. His concert music has also been used by many choreographers, such as the lush tone poem Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune in Nijinsky's ballet, L'Après-midi d'un faune, 1912 and in Robbins's Afternoon of a Faun (1953); La Mer in Schilling's 1968 and Lifar's 1984 ballets of the same title; several piano preludes in Cranko's Brouillards (1970); Clair de Lune in Béjart's ballet of the same title (1977); and music from Pelléas et Mélisande in Petit's 1984 ballet.

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Decouflé , Philippe

(b Paris, 1961).
French dancer, choreographer, and director. He danced with the companies of Régine Chopinot , Karole Armitage , and Nikolais and in 1983 founded his company, DCA. His work creates arresting stage images and optical illusions out of dance, video imagery, lighting effects, mirrors, stage machinery, and elaborate costumes, and his productions include Codex (1986), Petites pièces montées (1993), Decodex (1995), and Shazam (1998). He also directed the opening and closing ceremonies of the 1992 Winter Olympics and the Japanese musical DORA, the cat who died a million (1996) and has directed several short films and commercials.

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dedans

(Fr., inside). Term indicating that a movement travels or is turned in towards the body rather than away from it (en dehors).

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défilé

(Fr., march past). A spectacular parade, often used in continental opera houses to mark the opening or closing of the season, in which the entire ballet company is presented to the audience on stage. It starts with the most junior dancers and progresses through the company hierarchy to the stars.

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dégagé

(Fr., disengaged). A movement in which one foot is freed to move forward, backward or to the side, along the floor.

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Degas , Edgar Hilaire Germain

(b Paris, 19 July 1834, d Paris, 26 Sept. 1917).
French painter. He drew, painted, and modelled many studies of dancers which focused on real rather than idealized qualities, for example their peculiar musculature and their attitudes of exhaustion as well as of beauty. He also exaggerated more abstract compositional elements such as the play of light and shade over their bodies. These studies have inspired several ballets including Ashton's Foyer de la danse (1932) and Lifar's Entre deux rondes (1940).

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D'Egville , James Harvey

(b c.1770, d c.1836).
British dancer and choreographer. He was the son of Pierre D' Egville (ballet master at Drury Lane and Sadler's Wells Theatres), and as a child danced at the King's Theatre (1783). Between 1784 and 1785 he performed at the Paris Opera and was much admired by Dauberval . After 1793 he was back in London, working with Noverre , and between 1799 and 1809 he was choreographer at the King's Theatre, creating such works as Achille et Déidamie (1804). He composed the music for many of his ballets and also founded an academy of dance—responding to the non-availability of foreign dancers during the Napoleonic Wars and the need to train English replacements. After the war ended, however, the demand for English dancers decreased, and interest in developing English talent waned.

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De Hesse , Jean-Baptiste François (also Jean-Baptiste François Des-Haies , Jean-Baptiste François Dezaies , or Jean-Baptiste François Deshayes ;

b The Hague, Sept. 1705, d Paris, 22 May 1779).
French dancer, choreographer, and ballet master, possibly related to the famous Deshayes family. He was trained by his French parents, both actors, and toured with them performing mostly comic, grotesque, and character parts. He began choreographing his own dances and was ballet master of Le Théâtre des Petits Appartements at Versailles (1747–51) where he worked with children and groups of both professional and non-professional artists. He went on to the Paris Opéra Comique from which he retired in 1768. His works, considered to be seminal in the developing trend of the ballet d'action, included Le Pédant (1748) and Divertissement pantomime, la Guingette (1750).

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dehors

(Fr., outwards). Term indicating that a movement turns or travels away from the body as opposed to inwards (en dedans).

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De Jong , Bettie.

See Jong , Bettie De.

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Delibes , Clément Philibert Léo

(b St-Germain-du-Val, 21 Feb. 1836, d Paris, 16 Jan. 1891).
French composer. He studied under Adam and was commissioned to write part of the score for Saint-Léon's La Source (Paris Opera, 1866). Delibes composed Act II and the first scene of Act III; Minkus composed the rest. In 1867 he contributed to the score for Le Corsaire and in 1870 was commissioned to compose Coppélia (chor. Saint-Léon , Paris Opera, 1870). Influenced by Adam , this score made extensive use of leitmotifs for character and mood but its vivid scene painting was surpassed in his score for Sylvia (chor. Mérante , Paris Opera, 1876) which is renowned for its brilliant and varied orchestration. Tchaikovsky both admired and was influenced by Delibes's ballet music.

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Deller , Florian (orig. Florian Drosendorf ;

baptized 2 May 1729, d Munich, 19 Apr. 1773).
Austrian violinist and composer. A member of the Stuttgart court orchestra, he later became one of Noverre's closest collaborators, writing the music for the latter's Orfeo ed Euridice (1763), Der Sieg des Neptun (1763), and La Morte di Licomede (1764).

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Dello Joio , Norman

(b New York, 24 Jan. 1913).
US composer. Noted especially for his melodic gifts, he wrote the music for Loring's Prairie (1942), Kidd's On Stage! (1945), Graham's Diversion of Angels (1948), Seraphic Dialogue (orig. Triumph of St. Joan, 1951), and A Time of Snow (1968), and Limón's There is a Time (1956).

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Delsarte , François

(b Solesmes, 11 Nov. 1811, d Paris, 20 July 1871).
French music teacher. He developed a system known as the Delsarte method by which performers were taught to develop the expressiveness of their bodies. He divided human movement into three categories (eccentric, concentric, and normal) and three zones (head, torso, and limbs) in his attempt to develop his pupils' physical control. His adherents, including Jaques-Dalcroze and Shawn , made use of his methods in evolving modern dance techniques.

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demi

(Fr., half). Designates any movement or position executed in half measure, e.g. a demiplié in which the legs are not bent as fully as they can be, or a demi-retiré where the pointed foot crosses the supporting leg at calf rather than knee height. Demi-caractère is a type of dancer or style of dancing in which academic technique is coloured by a more dramatic or comic element of character.

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Demoiselles de la nuit, Les.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Petit , libretto by Anouilh , music by J. Françaix , and design (including the ballet's fantastic cat masks) by Fini . Premiered 22 May 1948 by Ballets de Paris at the Théâtre Marigny, Paris, with Fonteyn , Petit , and Hamilton . It tells the story of a musician who falls in love with his beautiful cat Agathe, who has assumed semi-human form. Agathe tries to be faithful to her human lover but is lured away by the sound of tomcats and the call of freedom. She leaps off the rooftops and the musician falls to his death as he tries to grab hold of her. She falls after him and they are united in death.

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Denard , Michaël

(b Dresden, 5 Nov. 1944).
French dancer. He did not begin serious training until the age of 17 when he studied with Golovine , Franchetti , and others. He made his debut at Capitole de Toulouse in 1963, then went on to dance with many companies including those of Lorca Massine and Pierre Lacotte until joining Paris Opera Ballet in 1966. He was appointed premier danseur in 1969 and étoile in 1971. His technical elegance, expressive stage presence, and adroit partnering equipped him both for the classics and also for the 20th-century repertoire. He created the role of Iskander in Lifar's 1969 revival of Istar and leading roles in Petit's Shéhérazade (1974) and Symphonie fantastique (1975). He was also admired by Béjart who created lead roles for him in Comme la Princesse Salome est belle ce soir and Oiseau de feu (both 1970) in which he was able to express his full dramatic range. He also appeared in many Balanchine ballets and in Cunningham's Un jour ou deux (1973) and his interest in new work was also given an outlet in his many appearances with the Opera's Groupe de Recherche Chorégraphique. He guested with many other companies including American Ballet Theatre (where between 1972 and 1975 he was Gregory's frequent partner) and with Ballet of the 20th Century. After retiring from the Opera in 1989 he turned increasingly to acting, for example taking the role of the narrator in Béjart's Ring um den Ring (1989). He was also artistic director of the Berlin Staatsoper Ballet (1992–6).

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Denby , Edwin

(b Tientsin, China, 1903, d Searsport, Me., 12 July 1983).
US writer and critic. He studied at Harvard University, in Vienna, and at Hellerau-Laxenburg, and during the 1930s danced with the Darmstadt company. He was then appointed dance critic of Modern Music (1936–42) and the New York Herald Tribune (1942–5). He also contributed to many dance magazines. His reviews were collected together in two volumes: Looking at Dance (London, 1944 and New York, 1949) and Dancers, Buildings and People in the Streets (New York, 1965), and in the collected edition Dance Writings, ed. Cornfield and Mackay (London, 1986 and New York, 1987).

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Denham , Sergei (orig. Dokuchayev ;

b Moscow, 1897, d New York, 30 Jan. 1970).
Russian-US impresario. As a ballet enthusiast he became vice-president of the American corporation which took over the running of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in 1938, following the departure of Massine. He directed the company for 24 years and founded the Ballet Russe School in New York in 1954.

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Denishawn.

The school and company of Ruth St Denis and Ted Shawn , from which most American modern dance descends. The school was founded in 1915 in Los Angeles teaching many forms of dance including oriental, primitive, and German modern dance, and further studios rapidly spread throughout the US. Many of the early modern dance pioneers were taught at Denishawn including Graham , Humphrey , Shurr , Weidman , and Cole , and its musical director was Horst. Dancers from the school, performing with its founders, formed the Denishawn company which toured widely until 1931 when the couple separated and disbanded both it and the school.

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Denmark.

Ballets were performed at the court in Copenhagen from the second half of the 16th century and were heavily influenced by French taste. In 1722 the Lille Grønnegade Theatre was built to stage Danish work, with dance playing a popular role in many of its productions and in 1748 the Theatre Royal (built to accommodate ballet, opera, and theatre) became home to the Royal Danish Ballet. This company has dominated Danish dance ever since. At first it was run by a series of French and Italian ballet masters, most outstandingly Galeotti , who radically improved its standards. Between 1775 and 1811 Galeotti produced a repertoire of over 50 ballets and divertissements, one of which, The Whims of Cupid (1786), is still performed today. Under Antoine Bournonville's direction (1816–23) ballet declined but the advent of his son August turned the company into a major artistic force. August Bournonville was not only a performer of inspiring virtuosity but proved to be the greatest choreographer the country has ever produced, creating over 50 ballets many of which still form the basis of the company's repertoire today. He also reorganized the education of dancers and during his years as director (1829–75) he tightly controlled both school and company to ensure strict standards, so much so that while ballet suffered a marked decline in both quality and popularity in the rest of Europe, it enjoyed a renaissance in Denmark. After Bournonville's death the company deteriorated, though Beck and Borchsenius tried to preserve some of the former's works, but it revived dramatically under Harald Lander's direction (1932–51) and under subsequent directors it has established a world-wide reputation performing not only its Bournonville heritage but also a wide 20th-century repertoire (see also Royal Danish Ballet). Other dance activity in the country has received relatively little encouragement, though from the 1970s onwards some small modern dance companies have emerged, the most successful being the New Danish Dance Theatre and Uppercut Danseteater. In 1997 the city of Holtsebro invited Peter Schaufuss to establish a new company, the Peter Schaufuss Ballet Company, to serve the Jutland area.

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Denvers , Robert (orig. Robert Nennertheim ;

b Antwerp, 9 Mar. 1942).
Belgian dancer, teacher, and director. He trained at the Strasbourg Ballet with Jean Combes and at the Studio Wacker with Nora Kiss and Victor Gsovsky , making his debut with the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas in 1961. He was a soloist with Béjart's Ballet of the 20th Century (1963–73), after which he was soloist with National Ballet of Canada. In 1977 he went to New York to study, and between 1977 and 1979 was teacher and assistant director of Béjart's company. In 1979 he established his own studio in New York and until 1987 also worked as guest teacher with many companies, including New York City Ballet and Paris Opera. In 1987 he was appointed artistic director of the Royal Ballet of Flanders where he not only added many full-length ballets to the repertoire but also focused on new commissions from, among others, Mauricio Wainrot and resident choreographer Danny Rousseel . In 1999 he married the company's principal ballerina, Aysem Sunal .

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Derain , André

(b Chatou, 10 June 1880, d Chambourcy, 8 Sept. 1954).
French painter. One of the Fauves group he was commissioned by Diaghilev to design Massine's La Boutique fantasque (1919). He proved himself a brilliant colourist and went on to design many other ballets including Balanchine's La Concurrence (1932) and Les Songes (1933), also Lifar's Salade (1935), Fokine's L'Épreuve d'amour (1936), Ashton's Harlequin in the Street (1938), Petit's Que le diable l'emporte (1948), and other Massine ballets including Mam'zelle Angot (1947), Les Femmes de bonne humeur (prod. of Grand Ballet de Marquis de Cuevas, 1949), and La Valse (1950).

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Derman , Vergie

(b Johannesburg, 18 Sept. 1942).
South African-British dancer. She studied at the Royal Ballet School and made her debut with the company in 1962. After a year with the Berlin Opera Berlin (1966–7) she returned and was promoted soloist in 1968 and principal in 1972. She was a favourite dancer of MacMillan and created roles in several of his ballets including Anastasia (extended version, 1971), Manon and Elite Syncopations (1974), and Four Seasons (1975) as well as Ashton's The Dream (1964) and Jazz Calendar (1968).

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Derra de Moroda , Friderica

(b Pozsony (Bratislava), Hungary, 2 June 1897, d Salzburg, 19 June 1978).
Greek-British dancer, teacher, ballet mistress, and writer. She studied in Munich and toured parts of Europe as a recital dancer before coming to London in 1913 to dance in music hall and pantomimes. She studied with Cecchetti , becoming co-founder of the Cecchetti Society and revising the Cecchetti Manual in 1932 with Craske and Beaumont . She arranged dances for Glyndebourne and Sadler's Wells Operas and in Berlin founded and directed the KDF Ballet (1940–4). After the war she founded a school in Salzburg where she taught until 1967. She was an international authority on 18th-century dance notation and Cecchetti.

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derrière

(Fr., behind). Indicates that a movement is directed backwards from the dancer's body.

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Descombey , Michel

(b Bois-Colombe, 28 Oct. 1930).
French dancer, choreographer, and director. He studied with Egorova and at the Paris Opera Ballet School making his debut in the company in 1947. He was appointed premier danseur in 1959 and became ballet master in 1963. Between 1971 and 1973 he was ballet director at Zurich then in 1975 moved to Mexico where he became chief choreographer and associate director of the Ballet Teatro del Espacio de Mexico in 1977. He began choreographing in 1958 for the Opéra Comique (Paris) and his subsequent works, which often make use of contemporary music and design, include L'Enfant et les sortilees (mus. Ravel , 1960), Sarracenia (mus. Bartók , 1964), Coppélia (mus. Delibes , 1966), Spectacle Berio (1970), Mandala (mus. Toshiro Mayuzumi , 1970), and ES, le 8ème jour (mus. Stockhausen , 1973). Since 1977 most of his works have been for Ballet Teatro del Espacio, including Pavana para un amor muerto (1985), Sinfonia fantastica (mus. Berlioz , 1998), and La Silla (mus. Webern , 1999).

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Deshayes , André Jean-Jacques

(b Paris, 24 Jan. 1777, d Batignolles, 9 Dec. 1846).
French dancer and choreographer. The son of a celebrated dance teacher he also descended from a famous French theatrical family. He trained at the Paris Opera school and in 1794 made his debut with the company, working under Gardel. Ambitious and restless he also guested abroad, in Lisbon (1799) and London (1800), and finally left the opera in 1802. After this he danced in Milan, Naples, Germany, and Vienna and was principal dancer at London's King's Theatre (later Her Majesty's) for long periods between 1800 and 1842. Here he was much admired not only for the strength and elegance of his technique but also for his expressiveness. He was also the theatre's official choreographer during this time where he created over a dozen ballets including Masaniello (mus. Auber , 1829), Kenilworth (mus. Costa , 1831), and Faust (mus. Adam , 1837). His works were characterized by strong story lines, imaginative local colour, and extensive mime. In 1842 he joined forces with Perrot to stage the first London production of Giselle and also that year wrote the libretto for Alma ou la Fille de feu which he staged with dances by Perrot and Cerrito . He married Élisabeth Duchemin who as Mme Deshayes became one of the most distinguished female dancers on the London stage.

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design.

Dance is a visual artform and the design of the stage and of the dancers' costumes naturally plays a major role in establishing the style and tone of any work. Narrative works may depend heavily on scenery and costumes to identify the characters and the action, a plotless ballet may take its mood from an abstract set, lighting, backdrop, or costumes. In any work, what the dancers wear will influence greatly how we look at their movement.
In the court ballets of the 15th–17th centuries artists, architects, and artisans were employed as stage designers. These ballets were often elaborate spectacles, intended to display the status of the nobility or monarchs who had commissioned them. Scenery often involved complex stage machinery designed to create magical effects while the dancers' costumes, often fantastical versions of court dress, were extremely opulent, involving highly ornamented clothes and huge wigs. When dance moved onto the stage, specialist theatre designers began to emerge and by the early 19th century some regarded themselves as poets of the theatre. As the highly formalized classical settings of the 18th century gave way to Romanticism, designers created mysterious moonlit forests for sylphs and wilis to inhabit or colourful exotic settings for gypsies and adventuresses. The invention of gas lighting made it possible to create evocative shadows, to suggest woodland glades or starry nights through which dancers flew using flying wires and harnesses. At the same time the dancers' costumes became much simpler. Ornamental wigs were out of fashion, the women's dresses featured shorter, more light-weight skirts. The men no longer wore the stiff skirt or tonnelet of the 18th century but simple tights, trunks, and tunics which gave them more freedom to move. Costumes aimed to reflect the ballet's dramatic setting, for example drifting white skirts for sylphs or versions of national or peasant costume for exotic ballets.
Towards the middle and end of the 19th century taste shifted back towards more ornamental design. Extravagantly detailed scenery reflected the period's love of spectacle, with ballets taking place in rajahs' palaces, temples, or even on storm-tossed seas. The dancers retained freedom of movement in their costumes, with the women's skirts gradually shortened to form the first version of the now familiar tutu, but authenticity was not considered essential. Ballerinas wore tutus whatever the historical or geographical setting of their role, and frequently adorned themselves with their personal jewellery. When Fokine started crusading for artistic reform in ballet (from 1904) one of his concerns was that design should more faithfully reflect subject-matter. In his own ancient Greek ballet Eunice (1907) he fought, unsuccessfully, for his dancers to perform bare-legged and with bare feet. (The Imperial Theatre's management forced him to put his dancers in flesh-coloured tights with knees and toes painted on.) But once Fokine had joined Diaghilev (who shared his belief in ballet as fully integrated theatre) he was allowed to pursue his vision of a new realism, and easel painters like Benois , Bakst , and Golovine were commissioned to create carefully researched but poetic settings for ballets like Petrushka, Scheherazade, and The Firebird. Some of these painters also began to experiment with colour and pattern as a means of defining a mood or style, such as Bakst's dappled stage canvas for Nijinsky's L'Après-midi d'un faune (1912). When the Ballets Russes entered its more radically modernist phase Diaghilev began to commission avant-garde painters whose designs brought new aesthetics from the art world onto the stage—Cubism, Fauvism, and Surrealism—sometimes even dominating the ballet, as in Picasso's Cubist ballet Parade (1917). Design by modernist painters also determined the look of many works performed by Les Ballets Suédois (1920–5) and influenced the aesthetic of choreographer Oskar Schlemmer who, aiming for a purely abstract form of dance, clothed his dancers in sculpted costumes that virtually concealed their human form. By contrast as Balanchine pursued his own version of neo-classical purity he often stripped his stages down to a bare minimum, in ballets like The Four Temperaments (revised version, 1951) and Agon (1957) putting his dancers in practice costumes on an empty stage so that the choreography would be free of visual distraction. In modern dance Graham began by working on bare stages and with her dancers wearing simple jersey dresses which revealed the uncompromising bluntness of the choreography's lines. When she began to use sets she frequently worked with the sculptor Noguchi whose free-standing sets amplified the symbolism and setting of the piece as well as providing a physical architecture on and around which the dancers could move. Cunningham , by contrast, frequently collaborated with artists whose designs were created separately from the choreography and thus had a more contingent relationship with the dance, for example Andy Warhol's helium-filled balloons which bobbed unpredictably through RainForest (1968), or Jasper Johns' free-standing set for Walkaround Time (1968) which squeezed the dancers into sometimes confined spaces. Such designs did not aim to define meanings within the choreography but to create an independent visual place within which the dance moved. Many of Cunningham's works have also been shown on bare stages and he has tended to clothe his dancers in unitards so that their movement can be plainly seen.
During the second half of the 20th century, building materials and stage machinery have become increasingly sophisticated, making it possible to build more complex sets. In Maria Bjørnson's controversial designs for the Royal Ballet's 1994 production of Sleeping Beauty the scenery was changed with a speed that looked like the closing and opening of a giant's eye and in Act II the cobwebs surrounding the sleeping Aurora magically ripped apart at the Prince's kiss. Realism, surrealism, and abstraction are now considered equal options for any dance designer.
In some dances the set is central to the entire conception and execution of the piece. Japanese choreographer and designer Saburo Teshigawara has created work like Bones in Pages (1991) which takes place in a kind of art installation and with which the choreography is created specifically to interact. DV8's Strange Fish (des. Peter Davison , 1992) had a set constructed with numerous cubbyholes, doors, and footholds which allowed the dancers to make abrupt entrances and exits from all round the stage, as well as a false water tank beneath the floor in which dancers were briefly immersed. Lighting has also become far more sophisticated with the advent of computer-operated systems. Artists like Rosenthal established lighting as a major design force in the 1940s and 1950s, not only cueing day- or night-time and basic mood but also defining the stage space. In Dana Reitz and Sara Rudner's 1993 work Necessary Weather lighting designer Tipton was actually listed as co-choreographer, creating pools and columns of light within and around which the dancers moved, casting them into silhouette or colour that altered the apparent dynamic of the movement.
In the late 20th century almost all costume options were now available to dance from historically realistic costumes to tutus, jeans, designer clothes, and nudity. Most costumes aim to flatter the dancers and give them freedom to move—although many choreographers, such as Yolande Snaith , Michael Clark , and Philippe Decouflé , may also use constricting or distorting costumes for surreal or dramatic effect.

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Designs with Strings (also Design for Strings, Dessins pour Six, and Variationer).

Ballet in one act with choreography by Taras , music by Tchaikovsky , and design by George Krista . Premiered 6 Feb. 1948 by the Metropolitan Ballet in Edinburgh with Beriosova , Arova , Franca , Delysia Blake , Bruhn , and David Adams . Taras' setting of the second movement of Tchaikovsky's Trio in A major was an early example of the plotless ballet. It drew on the highly varied styles of its original lead dancers, creating an atmosphere of fresh, youthful romanticism that was especially popular with post-war audiences. It has been revived for several companies including Ballet Theatre (1950), Royal Danish Ballet (1952), Berlin Opera Ballet (1964), and Dance Theatre of Harlem (1974).

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Desoxy Theatre.

Australian dance, theatre, and music group. It was founded in 1990 by Teresa Blake and Daniel Witton , performing mixed-media events. It makes frequent appearances at international festivals.

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Desrosiers Dance Theatre.

Toronto-based dance company of ten dancers founded in 1971 by Robert Desrosiers (b Montreal, 1953). Desrosiers choreographs the company's repertory, his works, such as Jeux (mus. E. Cadesky and J. Lang , 1992), fusing dance with acrobatics, mime, and theatrical effects. The company tours Canada, the US, and Europe. Desrosiers himself has also choreographed for other companies including National Ballet of Canada (Blue Snake, 1989).

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dessous

(Fr., under). Indicates that a step (e.g. a jeté or assemblé) is executed with the working foot starting in front of the supporting foot and ending up behind it.

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dessus

(Fr., over). Indicates that a step (e.g. a jeté or assemblé) is executed with the working foot starting behind the supporting foot and ending up in front of it.

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Deuce Coupe.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Tharp , music by the Beach Boys, and design by New York graffiti artists. Premiered 1 Mar. 1973 by City Center Joffrey Ballet with Tharp and her dancers. This was Tharp's first work for a classical company and was a literal bringing together of dance worlds, featuring Tharp's own modern dancers as well as the classical dancers of the Joffrey Ballet. At its centre a classical soloist performs academic steps, in alphabetical order, while around her the other dancers execute much freer, pop-inflected dances. The revised version Deuce Coupe II for Joffrey dancers only and with new design by James Rosenquist was premiered 1975.

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Deutsche Oper, Berlin.

See under Berlin Opera Ballet.

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deutscher.

A dance for individual couples in 3/4 or 3/8 time, also called the ländler, popular during the 18th and early 19th centuries.

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Deux Pigeons, Les (Eng. title The Two Pigeons).

Ballet in three acts with choreography by Mérante , libretto by Mérante and Henry Régnier , music by Messager (his first ballet score), sets by Rubé , Chaperon , and J. B. Lavastre , and costumes by Bianchini . Premiered 18 Oct. 1886 at the Paris Opera with Marie Sanlaville and Rosita Mauri . The story is based on La Fontaine's fable of the two pigeons, in which the hero Pepino (originally a travesti role) fantasizes about a life of pleasure with the gypsies and abandons his fiancée Gourouli. Disguised as a gypsy she follows him to the gypsy camp where she sees him being robbed. Chastened he returns home to her and is forgiven. A one-act version was choreographed by Aveline at the Opera in 1919 (possibly 1923) with Zambelli as Gourouli (she had learnt the original role from Mauri) and it was not until 1942 that the role of Pepino was finally danced by a man. Ashton's two-act version, set to John Lanchbery's arrangement of Messager's music and with designs by Jacques Dupont , was premiered on 14 Feb. 1961 by the Royal Ballet Touring company at London's Covent Garden with Seymour and Gable .

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de Valois , Ninette.

See Valois , Ninette de.

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devant

(Fr., in front). A movement that is executed in front of the dancer's body.

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developpé

(Fr., developed). A movement where the dancer draws one foot up the side of the supporting leg and then slowly unfolds the working leg into the air, where it is held. Modern ballerinas like Guillem are famous for being able to achieve the ‘half past twelve position’ where the working foot is lifted almost as high as the dancer's ear. Developpés can be performed to the front and back as well as to the side.

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Devi , Ritha

(b Baroda, 12 June 1934).
Indian dancer and teacher. She studied many forms of Indian dance including bharata natyam, kathakali, and odissi with some of India's most acclaimed gurus and from 1958 toured internationally as a solo dancer. She retired to teach Indian dance technique at New York University.

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Devil in the Village, The (orig. Croatian title Davo u selu).

Ballet in three acts with choreography and libretto by Pia and Pino Mlakar , music by F. Lhotka , and design by Roman Clemens . Premiered 18 Feb. 1935 in Zurich with the Mlakars, Mischa Panajew , and Maja Küblera . It tells the story of Mirko , a young man who is seduced by the devil to tread the slippery downward path to hell. His good heart finally wins out against the latter's cunning and he returns just in time to save his beloved Jela from being married to a wealthy fool. A very popular ballet, it was revived in this and other versions in many middle European countries.

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Devil's Violin, The.

See Violon du diable, Le.

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Diable à quatre, Le (Eng. title The Devil to Pay or The Wives Metamorphosed).

Ballet in three acts with choreography by Mazilier , libretto by Adolphe de Leuven , music by Adam , sets by P. L. C. Ciceri , E. D. J. Despléchin , and C. Séchan , and costumes by P. Lormier . Premiered 11 Aug. 1845 at the Paris Opera with Grisi , L. Petipa , Mazilier , and Maria Jacob . The plot is based on an English farce of the same title and contrasts the lives of two Polish women, a spoilt Countess and Mazourka , a sweet-tempered woman who is married to a brutal basket-maker called Mazourki. The two women encounter a magician disguised as a blind fiddler. The Countess behaves offensively but Mazourka is kind and in return he causes them to change places for a day. Mazourka astonishes everybody at the Countess's castle with her unexpected kindness while the Countess has to suffer Mazourki's rough treatment. Chastened, she promises to behave more humanely when returned to her real life, while Mazourki promises never to beat his wife again. The ballet's simple comic realism, rare during the Romantic era, was warmly praised, and gave Grisi the opportunity to display a sparkling wit, rather than her usual poetic lyricism. The first London production was at the Drury Lane Theatre (1845) and the first in New York at Broadway Theater (1848).

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Diable boîteux, Le (Eng. title The Devil on Two Sticks).

Ballet in three acts with choreography by Coralli , libretto by Butat de Gurguy and A Nourrit , music by Casimir Gide , sets by Feuchères , C. Séchan , J.-P.-M. Diéterle , C. A. Cambon , and H.-R. Philastre , and costumes by E. Lami . Premiered 1 June 1836 at the Paris Opera, with Elssler and Mazilier . The plot is based on Le Sage's novel of the same title and tells the story of a Spanish student, Cléophas , who helps a demon to escape from a bottle and is rewarded by an introduction to three beautiful women, the dancer Florinda , the rich woman Dorotea , and the penniless Paquita . His attempts to pursue the first two are thwarted by other admirers and he also loses his money gambling. Finally he realizes it is Paquita he loves, and with a purse of gold given to them by Florinda they decide to marry. The ballet became famous for the cachucha which Elssler danced as Florinda. Based on a traditional Spanish rhythm, this dance is characterized by intricate stamping and tapping footwork, coquettish glances, and a supple, swaying torso. It became the most talked-about ballet in Paris and in the first London production of 1836 at the Drury Lane Theatre Pauline Duvernay scored a personal triumph.

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Diaghilev , Sergei

(b Novgorod, 31 Mar. 1872, d Venice, 19 Aug. 1929).
Russian impresario, who played a major role in re-creating ballet for the 20th century. He studied law (and, briefly, musical composition) in St Petersburg where he also joined the circle of artists surrounding Benois and Bakst . With this group he was co-founder of the art review Mir iskusstva (The World of Art) in 1899 which ran till 1904. Between 1899 and 1901 he was also Assistant to the Director of Imperial Theatres where he oversaw the publication of the theatre annual, though disagreements over his supervision of a production of Sylvia led to his dismissal. In 1905 he mounted an exhibition of historical portraiture at the Tarud Palace and in 1906 took a lavish exhibition of Russian painting to Paris. In 1907 he presented five concerts of Russian music at the Paris Opera and in 1908 returned with a production of Boris Godunov with Chaliapin . This led to an invitation to bring a season of Russian opera and ballet in May and June 1909. With a company that included Russia's finest young dancers, Pavlova , Karsavina , Nijinsky , and Bolm and a repertoire that featured the radical new choreography of Fokine he scored a huge triumph. Repeated visits led to the formation of a full company, Les Ballets Russes, which became permanent when Nijinsky resigned from the Maryinsky Theatre in 1911 and he and Diaghilev left Russia for good. For the next eighteen years the company toured widely in Europe and N. and S. America, and though often close to bankruptcy was regarded as one of the most inspired and experimental troupes in the world. Its success was primarily due to Diaghilev's genius for spotting new talent and setting up collaborations between artists. He believed that ballet should be a complete theatrical art and that music, design, and choreography should equally break new ground. His ballets reflected, and were sometimes even catalysts for, new artistic trends. Most of his designers were painters, creating vibrant imagery, patterns, and colours for the stage. The exotic palette of Bakst's designs for the early Fokine ballets influenced not only other stage designers but also fashion and interior decoration. Picasso's Cubist costumes for Parade were typical of the way that Diaghilev's artist-designers (e.g. Matisse , Braque , di Chirico , and Miró ) enlivened the possibilities of stage design with their own unique aesthetic. Diaghilev also encouraged leading new composers to write scores for him, many of which revolutionized both the genre of ballet music and also the principles of musical composition, e.g. Stravinsky's Petrushka and The Rite of Spring, Satie's Parade, and Debussy's Jeux. Diaghilev also nurtured the talents of some of the 20th century's greatest choreographers, including Fokine , Nijinsky , Massine , Nijinska , and Balanchine , through he quarrelled with them all and his taste often followed his heart—both Nijinsky and Massine were Diaghilev's lovers and both fell out of favour when they fell in love with women. Finally, throughout its twenty years of existence his company attracted some of the era's greatest dancers, not only émigrés from Russia like Spessivtseva and Danilova but also dancers like the English ballerina Markova who had no national ballet company with which to perform. In 1921 an opulent production of The Sleeping Princess in London nearly brought Diaghilev to financial ruin, but he was saved by securing a permanent base for his company at the Monte Carlo Casino. After his death in 1929 many of the ballets in his repertoire survived in the companies of Blum and de Basil and are still performed today. Many of his commissioned scores, too, have become classics of the 20th-century concert repertoire, while his company's designs are treasured in museum collections. But it was perhaps through his dancers and choreographers, e.g. Balanchine , Fokine , Lifar , Markova , Massine , Danilova , de Valois , and Rambert , many of whom went on to found schools and companies throughout the world, that Diaghilev's influence has been most widespread.

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Diana ballets.

Diana , or Artemis, the goddess of hunting, chastity, and the moon has been the subject of several ballets including Noverre's Diane et Endymion (mus. Starzer , Vienna, 1772), Onorato Viganò's Diana sorpresa (Venice, 1774), and Nijinska's Aubade (mus. Poulenc , 1929). Heine published a ballet libretto Die Göttin Diana in 1854 which does not seem to have been produced. The famous pas de deux, Diana and Actaeon, often performed as a gala divertissement, is based on a pas de deux from Petipa's Esmeralda.

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Didelot , Charles-Louis

(b Stockholm, 1767, d Kiev, 7 Nov. 1837).
French dancer, choreographer, and teacher. He studied with Louis Frossard and his father at the Royal Theatre in Stockholm and later in Paris with Dauberval , Lany , Deshayes , Noverre , and both G. and A. Vestris . As a student he danced at the Paris Opera in 1783 then in 1786 returned to Stockholm to dance in opera productions where he also created his first choreography. Between 1787 and 1789 he was in London, as leading dancer under Noverre at the King's Theatre, then after dancing with Dauberval in Bordeaux (1789–90) he was appointed leading dancer under Noverre at Paris Opera (from 1791), where he danced with Guimard . In 1796 he moved back to London where he staged his most famous ballet Zephyr and Flora (mus. Bossi ) at the King's Theatre on 7 July 1796. Here he introduced dancing from wires, or flying ballet. Other innovations with which he is credited include the wearing of flesh-coloured tights and simplified costumes and, in his later ballets, some rudimentary dancing on pointe. Between 1801 and 1811 he was choreographer for the Imperial Ballet in St Petersburg where he reorganized the whole system of teaching, introducing the finest points of French technique as well as insisting on expressive acting. In doing so he established the essential principles of the great St Petersburg style. Between 1811 and 1816 he worked in London and Paris, reviving several of his ballets, then returned to Russia where he continued his reforms. Differences with Emperor Nicholas I led to his official dismissal in 1830, although he actually retired in 1834. He created over 50 ballets in a style heavily influenced by the ballet d'action of Noverre and Dauberval —Pushkin remarked that there was more poetry in his ballets than in the entire French literature of the time. These included Apollo and Daphne (1802), Cupid and Psyche (mus. C. Cavos , 1810), and The Prisoner of the Caucasus (mus. C. Cavos , 1823). He was also in charge of the first Russian production of Dauberval's La Fille mal gardée. His second wife was Rose Colinette, a popular dancer of the time.

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Dido and Aeneas.

Modern dance setting of Purcell's opera, with choreography by Mark Morris , set by Robert Bordo , and costumes by Christine Van Loon . Premiered 11 Nov. 1989 by the Mark Morris Dance Company at Théâtre Varia, Brussels. The action is presented by the dancers, while the singers are seated with the orchestra. Dido is a male role, created for Morris, who originally conceived the whole work as a solo for himself. The role still doubles up with that of the Sorceress, thus linking the two characters as mirror images of each other.

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Dienes , Valéria

(b Szekszárd, 25 May 1879, d Budapest, 8 June 1978).
Hungarian teacher, choreographer, and dance theoretician. She studied at Budapest University then with Henri Bergson at the Paris Collège de France. After seeing Isadora Duncan perform and taking lessons with Raymond Duncan she began her own systematic study of human movement, resulting in the highly individual system of teaching and choreographing she called her Orchestric School. This analysed basic elements of human movement—space, time, power, and meaning—in choreographic terms of sculpture, rhythm, dynamics, and symbolism. She taught and published widely and in 1917 began to give performances. During the 1920s and 1930s she produced several large-scale movement dramas many involving the musical collaboration of Lajos Bárdos. These included The Eight Beatitudes (1926), The Children's Road (1935), and The Mother (1937). Her collected works on orchestrics were published in 1996 and the Orchestrics Foundation was created in Hungary in 1991 for reviving the Duncan—Dienes movement method. She was mother of the dance publicist Gedeon Dienes .

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Dieu bleu, Le.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Fokine , libretto by Cocteau and F. de Madrazo , music by R. Hahn , and design by Bakst . Premiered 13 May 1912 by Ballets Russes de Diaghilev at Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris. Nijinsky originally starred as the Indian god who succeeds in reuniting two lovers.

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Dieu et la bayadère, Le.

Ballet divertissement from Auber's opera, based on Goethe's ballad Der Gott und die Bajadere with choreography by F. Taglioni . Premiered 13 Oct. 1830 at the Paris Opera with M. Taglioni . The role of Zoloé the bayadère was one of M. Taglioni's most successful creations, and the story is similar to that of Petipa's La Bayadère (St Petersburg, 1877).

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Diversion of Angels.

Modern dance work in one act with choreography by Graham , music by Dello Joio , set by Noguchi (abandoned after the first performance), costumes by Graham , and lighting by Rosenthal . Premiered 13 Aug. 1948 by Martha Graham Dance Co. at Connecticut College, New London, with O'Donnell , Lang , McGehee , Hawkins , and Cohan . It is one of Graham's few purely lyric works. It tells no story but celebrates the passions of youth, love, and dancing. Its original title, Wilderness Stair: Diversion of Angels, was taken from a poem by Ben Belitt . It was revived by American Ballet Theatre in 1999.

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Diversions.

Welsh modern dance company. It was founded in 1983 under the direction of Roy Campbell-Moore and it performs a wide repertoire including works by Campbell-Moore , Dorfman , J. Pearson , and Bill T. Jones .

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Divertimento No. 15.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Balanchine , music by Mozart , set by Morcom and costumes by Karinska . Premiered 31 May 1956 by New York City Ballet at the American Shakespeare Festival Theater, Stratford, Connecticut. Its New York premiere was 19 Dec. 1956 at the New York State Theater with D. Adams , Hayden , Mounsey , Wilde , Millberg , Magallanes , Tobias , and Jonathan Watts . Balanchine's setting of Mozart's Divertimento in B flat major, K. 287, is choreographed for five ballerinas, three men and eight corps de ballet, the movement luminously reflecting the mood and structure of each of the score's five movements. Although it has no plot its dance imagery can partly be viewed as a celebration of love. A first version of the ballet was premiered under the title Caracole in 1952 at City Center, New York, and a later version with sets by Hays was premiered 27 Apr. 1966 at New York State Theater. It has entered the repertory of many companies including Dutch National Ballet (1971), Royal Danish Ballet (1978), Paris Opera Ballet (1978), and Birmingham Royal Ballet (1989).

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divertissement

(Fr., entertainment). A term originally given to the songs and dances which featured in 18th-century stage spectacles, either as inter-act diversions or as episodes loosely connected with the plot. It is also used to describe (1) the ballet interludes which featured in many 18th-century French operas, such as Rameau's Platée and Gluck's Iphigénie en Aulide and (2) the suite of dances which often dominated the final acts of late 19th-century ballets (e.g. the dances performed by fairy-tale characters in The Sleeping Beauty). The term is also given to concert programmes of varied solos, duets, and small group dances.

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Docherty , Peter

(b Blackpool, 21 June 1944).
British designer. He trained at Regent Street Polytechnic, Central School of Art and Design, and the Slade. His many ballet designs include Peter Darrell's Ephemeron (Western Theatre Ballet, 1968), Tales of Hoffmann (American Ballet Theatre production, 1973), and Mary, Queen of Scots (Scottish Ballet, 1976), and many works by Hynd , including In a Summer Garden (Royal Ballet, 1972), The Sanguine Fan and Nutcracker (both London Festival Ballet, 1976), Rosalinda (PACT Ballet, 1977, London Festival Ballet, 1979, and Berlin Opera Ballet, 1998), Les Valses (Grands Ballets Canadiens, 1980), The Seasons (Houston Ballet, 1980), Hunchback of Notre Dame (Houston Ballet, 1988), and Sleeping Beauty (new production, English National Ballet, 1993); also W. Dollar's Francesca da Rimini (Asami Maki Ballet, 1978) and Louther's Cages of Love (Dance Theatre Corporation, 1988). He has lectured on Theatre Design at Wimbledon School of Art and at St Martins Central School of Art and Design where he has been professor since 1996. His publications include Design for Performance—from Diaghilev to the Pet Shop Boys (1996).

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Dolgushin , Nikita

(b Leningrad, 8 Nov. 1938).
Russian dancer, choreographer, and teacher. He studied at the Leningrad (Vaganova) Ballet School, and graduated into the Kirov Ballet in 1959. Between 1961 and 1966 he was principal dancer with Novosibirsk Ballet (dir. Gusev ) except for a season with Australian Ballet in 1963, and he then joined Moiseyev's State Concert Ensemble (1966–8). In 1969 he became a principal with the Maly Theatre Ballet where he danced until 1983. He has also guested regularly with the Kirov (partnering Makarova in 1968) and abroad, making several appearances in film and on television. Tall and elegant with an unusually refined technique (often described as an intellectual dancer), he danced lead roles in the classics as well as creating many new roles including Colin in Vinogradov's versions of La Fille mal gardée (1971), Franz in his version of Coppélia (1973), and Prince Igor in his Yaroslavna. He began choreographing in 1967 and his works include Concert in White (mus. Tchaikovsky , Maly Theatre Ballet, 1969), Romeo and Juliet (mus. Tchaikovsky , Maly Theatre Ballet, 1971, new production Leningrad Conservatory Student Ballet, 1980), King Lear (with Aleksidze, Leningrad Conservatory Student Ballet, 1990), and The Cinderella Suite (mus. Prokofiev , Towson State University, 1991). After retiring from the stage he became professor of the Choreographer's Faculty of Leningrad Conservatory and artistic director of the Student Ballet. From 1989 he was also guest instructor for the International Ballet Symposium at Towson State University. He was made People's Artist of the USSR in 1976.

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Dolin , (Sir) Anton (orig. Sydney Francis Patrick Chippendall Healey-Kay ;

b Slinfold, 27 July 1904, d Paris, 25 Nov. 1983).
British dancer, choreographer, and director. He studied in Brighton, then later with Astafieva , Nijinska , and Cecchetti , appearing as a child actor and dancing as a page (as Patrikieff) in Diaghilev's 1921 production of The Sleeping Princess. In 1924 he joined Diaghilev's Ballets Russes as a soloist, creating roles in Nijinska's Le Train bleu (1924) and Balanchine's The Prodigal Son and Le Bal (both 1929). He also appeared in revues, and from 1927 to 1928 ran his own company with Nemchinova , choreographing ballets to Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue and Chopin's ‘Revolutionary’ Étude. In 1930 he became a founder member and dancer of the Camargo Society. He created the role of Satan in de Valois's Job in 1931, and was then principal guest artist with the Vic-Wells Ballet (1931–5). In 1933 he also danced with de Basil's Ballets Russes and in 1935 he founded the Markova-Dolin Ballet with Markova , which toured widely in the UK until 1938. In 1939 he danced with the Original Ballet Russe in Australia and in 1940 joined New York's newly formed Ballet Theatre, not only dancing principal roles but also staging several classics and choreographing his version of Pas de quatre (mus. Pugni , 1941), which he subsequently staged all over the world. He also created the title role in Fokine's Bluebeard (1941). Between 1944 and 1945 he appeared with New York's Seven Lively Arts revue for which he choreographed the first production of Stravinsky's Scènes de ballet. He then toured with the reformed Markova-Dolin Ballet (1945–8) after which he guested with the Original Ballet Russe, Sadler's Wells Ballet, and Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. In 1950 he and Markova formed Festival Ballet (becoming London Festival Ballet) which he directed and danced with until 1961. He then directed Rome Opera Ballet (1961–4), after which he freelanced as teacher, ballet master, and choreographer all around the world. As the first British male dancer to win world acclaim in the 20th century he was a vital role model within the emerging British ballet scene. He was noted as an exemplary partner, though his critics complained that his technique was marred by flashy effects, and by too many excursions into commercial theatre. He acted in several plays and films including the role of Cecchetti in Herbert Ross's 1980 film Nijinsky and was author of several books including Divertissement (London, 1931), Alicia Markova (London, 1953), Autobiography (London, 1960), and The Sleeping Ballerina—the Story of Olga Spessivtzeva (London, 1966). He was knighted in 1981.

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Dollar , William

(b St. Louis, Mo., 20 Apr. 1907, d Flourtown, Pa., 28 Feb. 1986).
US dancer, choreographer, director, and teacher. He studied with Fokine , Mordkin , Balanchine , Vladimirov , and Volinine and made his debut with the Municipal Opera St Louis in 1930. He danced with Philadelphia Opera Ballet (1933–5), becoming principal with American Ballet (1935–7) then principal with Ballet Theatre in 1940. In 1941 he danced with American Ballet Caravan and in 1942 with New Opera Company, subsequently guesting with American Ballet Theatre, Ballet International (1944) and Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas. He also performed in musicals and films including The Goldwyn Follies (dir. Marshall , chor. Balanchine , 1938). As one of the first American classical male dancers he created roles in many Balanchine ballets including Le Baiser de la fée (1937) and Four Temperaments (1946). He began choreographing in 1936, his first ballet Concerto (mus. Chopin , Ballet Caravan) was created with Balanchine who was a major influence on his style. His other works include a recreation of Nijinsky's Jeux (mus. Debussy , Ballet Theatre, 1950) and Le Combat, renamed The Duel (mus. de Banfield , Petit's Ballet de Paris, 1949). After arthritis forced his early retirement he became renowned as a teacher and ballet master in Europe, N. and S. America, and Iran.

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Domenico da Piacenza (also D. da Ferrara ;

b Piacenza, c.1400, d Ferrara, c.1476).
Italian dancer and teacher. Little is known about his life except that he was probably teaching in Piacenza from around the 1440s and arranged and performed dances for court festivities and weddings. He worked at the court in Ferrara where he assembled his theories about the art of dance in his treatise De arte saltandi et choreas ducendi in a period some time between 1450 and 1460. This is now in the Paris National Library. Written in the third person, it analyses the qualities necessary for a good dancer and its illustrative comments frequently illuminate the spirit of the era's dance. He gives instructions for eighteen balli (usually in mixed rhythm) and four bassedanze (in 6/8 time). Descriptions of his dances suggest he was drawn to dramatic mime and to small numbers of dancers whom he deployed in elaborate floor patterns.

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Donizetti , Gaetano

(b Bergamo, 29 Nov. 1797, d Bergamo, 8 Apr. 1848).
Italian composer. He wrote no ballet scores but some of his operas contained ballet divertissements, e.g. Les Martyrs (chor. Coralli , 1840) and La Favorite (chor. Albert , 1840). The music for some of these has later been used by e.g. Howard in Veneziana (1953), Balanchine in Donizetti Variations (1960), and Harkarvy in La Favorita (1969).

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Donizetti Variations.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Balanchine , music by Donizetti , costumes by Karinska , and lighting by Hays . Premiered 16 Nov. 1960 by New York City Ballet at City Center, New York, with Hayden and Watts . This setting of music from Donizetti's opera Dom Sébastien de Portugal was originally titled ‘Variations from Don Sebastian’ and is choreographed for a principal couple and a corps of six women and three men. It was revived for Hamburg State Opera in 1967.

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Don Juan ou Le Festin de pierre.

Ballet pantomime in three acts with choreography by Angiolini , libretto by Angiolini and Raniero di Calzabigi (based on Molière's 1665 play), music by Gluck , and designs by Giovanni Maria Quaglio . Premiered 17 Oct. 1761 at the Burg Theatre, Vienna. It was the first dance work to tell the story of the legendary philanderer, and was a classic example of the ballet d'action as developed by Noverre . Its simple, dramatic narrative and (for that era) surprisingly tragic ending made it very popular with audiences and it was kept in the repertory for more than 40 years. Some later 18th-century productions followed Angiolini's, including Galeotti's for Milan, 1766, and LePicq's for the King's Theatre, London, 1785 (as Il convitato di pietra). New versions set to Gluck's score include Kröller (Vienna State Opera Ballet, Vienna, 1924), Fokine (Ballets de Monte Carlo, London, 1936), Massine (as Don Giovanni, Teatro alla Scala, Milan, 1959), and Neumeier (Frankfurt Ballet with additional music by de Victoria , Frankfurt , 1972, revived National Ballet of Canada, 1974). Other dance treatments of the story include those by O. Viganò (Venice, 1787), T. Gsovsky (mus. R. Strauss , Berlin, 1938), Ashton (mus. R. Strauss , London, 1948), and L. Christensen (mus. Rodrigo , San Francisco, 1973).

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Donn , Jorge

(b Buenos Aires, 28 Feb. 1947, d Lausanne, 1 Dec. 1992).
Argentinian dancer. He studied at the Teatro Colón Ballet School and in 1963 joined Béjart's Ballet of the 20th Century where he rapidly became a principal. A dancer with a magnetic stage presence, capable of great power as well as fluid lyricism, he created lead roles in many of Béjart's works, including Ninth Symphony (1964), Romeo and Juliet (1966), Nijinsky, clown de Dieu (1971), Notre Faust (1975), Dichterliebe (1978), and Magic Flute (1981). He also guested abroad with various companies including the Bolshoi. In 1976 he was appointed artistic director of the Yantra Company and in 1980 joint artistic director of Ballet of the 20th Century. In 1989 he briefly took over direction of the Vichy Company, then returned to Béjart's company, under its new name Béjart Ballet Lausanne. He appeared in several films and television productions including Le Danseur (Béjart, 1968) and La Vie d'un danseur (French television, 1968).

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Don Quixote.

The hero of Cervantes' novel has been the subject of many ballets but most surviving productions are based on Petipa's . This has a complex history. Petipa's first version was a four-act comedy ballet, with music by Minkus and design by Isakov , Shenian , and Shagin . Premiered at Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre on 26 Dec. 1869 with Sobeshanskaya , Sokolov , and Geltser . His second version was extended to five acts using the same music and designs but with many choreographic revisions, including the addition of numerous classical ensembles. This was premiered 21 Nov. 1871 in St Petersburg. Its plot centres on the love affair between Kitri and Basilio (described in the second volume of the novel), and their attempts to escape Kitri's arranged marriage to the foppish Gamache . Don Quixote and his servant Sancho Panza are almost incidental characters whose adventures link the plot together, for example the famous tilting at windmills scene and the Don's dream of his ideal woman, Dulcinea , which provides the ballet with its lyrical vision scene. In 1900 Gorsky mounted a drastically revised production for Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre, retaining some of Petipa's choreography but controversially introducing much more comic realism in the mime and characterization. This version was also shown in St Petersburg in 1902 with a cast including Kschessinska and N. Legat and it remained in the repertoire of both the Bolshoi and Kirov companies forming the basis of subsequent productions, such as those of Lopukhov (Leningrad, 1923) and Zakharov (Moscow, 1940). It was also the basis for the first complete production of the ballet in the West staged by Witold Borkowski for Ballet Rambert (London, 1962). Other subsequent productions based on the Petipa/Gorsky version have been Nureyev's for Vienna State Opera Ballet (Vienna, 1966, revived for Australian Ballet, 1970) and Baryshnikov's for American Ballet Theatre (Washington, 1978, revived for Royal Ballet, 1993). One of the most robust and varied of the extant classics, its mixture of Spanish dance, pure classicism, and comic farce has sustained its popular appeal. Several early ballets were choreographed on the subject of Cervantes' hero including Hilverding (Vienna, 1740), Noverre (Vienna, 1768), Didelot (St Petersburg, 1808), and Bournonville (Copenhagen, 1837). Twentieth-century versions of the same story include those of de Valois (mus. R. Gerhard , London, 1950), Lifar (as Le Chevalier errant, mus. Ibert , Paris, 1950), and Balanchine (New York City Ballet, 1965). Set to music by Nabakov , Balanchine's version was created in homage to its original Dulcinea, Suzanne Farrell.

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Dorati , Antal

(b Budapest, 9 Apr. 1906, d Gerzensee, nr. Berne, 13 Nov. 1988).
Hungarian-US conductor who was second conductor for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo (1935–7), conductor for the Original Ballet Russe (1938–41), and music director of Ballet Theatre (1941–5). He also arranged the music for several ballets including Lichine's Graduation Ball (after J. Strauss , 1940) and Fokine's Bluebeard (after Offenbach, 1941). In the 1950s he conducted the first complete recordings of Tchaikovsky's ballet scores. His autobiography Notes of Seven Decades was published London, 1979.

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Dorfman , David

(b Chicago, 7 Nov. 1961).
US dancer, choreographer, and director. He trained with Nagrin and at Connecticut College and danced with various companies including Kei Takei's Moving Earth and Susan Marshall & Co. He founded his own company in 1985 for which he has choreographed many works, including Desired Effect (mus. Froot , 1990) and A Cure for Gravity (mus. Joe Jackson , 1997). His style is fast, acrobatic, and imagistic, sometimes combining text with dance as in Sleep Story (1987) and Gone Right Back (mus. Elaine Buckholtz , Shannon McGuire , and Dorfman , 1997). The company tours extensively in N. and S. America and Europe. He has also created work for other companies, including Diversions Dance Company, Balletethnic Dance Company, and Uppercut Dance Theatre.

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Dorris , George

(b Eugene, Ore., 3 Aug. 1930).
US teacher, writer, and editor. He studied at the University of Oregon and Northwestern University. He was associate editor of Ballet Review (1967–78), and is contributor to Ballet Today, Dance Now, and Dancing Times. In 1977 he was founder and co-editor (with J. Anderson ) of Dance Chronicle. He was associate editor of the International Encyclopedia of Dance (New York, 1998) and editor of The Royal Swedish Ballet (London, 1999). He has lectured widely on dance history and is Associate Professor of English at York College, City University of New York.

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Doubrovska , Felia (orig. Felizata Dluzhnevska ;

b St Petersburg, 1896, d New York, 18 Sept. 1981).
Russian-US dancer and teacher. She studied at the Imperial Theatre School in St Petersburg and in 1913 graduated into the Maryinsky Theatre, where she became a soloist. In 1920 she left Russia for Paris to become ballerina with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes where she danced until 1929. An unusually tall and technically adventurous dancer she created the role of the Bride in Nijinska's Les Noces (1923), Polyhymnia in Balanchine's Apollo musagète (1928), and the Siren in his Prodigal Son (1929). Between 1929 and 1931 she danced with Pavlova then subsequently with various companies including Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo (1932), Nijinska's company (1934), de Basil's Ballets Russes, London (1937), and Metropolitan Opera Ballet in New York where she was prima ballerina (1938–9). After retiring she became a much respected teacher at the School of American Ballet (1949–80). She was married to the dancer Pierre Vladimirov .

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Dougill , David

(b Blackpool, 10 Jan. 1944).
British dance critic. He was research assistant to Richard Buckle between 1968 and 1975 and has been critic of the Sunday Times since 1975.

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Douglas , Scott

(b El Paso, Tex., 16 June 1927, d New York, 26 Mar. 1996).
US dancer and teacher. He studied with St Denis , Horton , and W. Christensen and joined San Francisco Ballet in 1948. He danced with American Ballet Theatre (1950–62) and created roles in several ballets including Bettis's A Streetcar Named Desire (1954). He moved to Dutch National Ballet (1963–4), rejoined American Ballet Theatre in 1964 and then became ballet master of Netherlands Dance Theatre (1969–70). He subsequently worked as a freelance teacher and choreographer.

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Douvilier , Suzanne Theodore (née Vallande ;

b Dole, d New Orleans, 30 Aug. 1826).
French dancer and choreographer. It is thought she studied at Paris Opera Ballet School and in 1792 came to New York with her partner, Alexandre Placide . They toured America before making a base in Charleston where she danced in ballets by Gardel and Noverre and also choreographed her own Echo and Narcissus (1796). She married the singer Louis Douvilier after he fought a duel with Placide and settled with him in New Orleans where she continued to perform as well as choreograph many ballets, for which she also designed and painted the scenery.

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Dove , Ulysses

(b Columbia, SC, 17 Jan. 1947, d New York, 11 June 1996).
US dancer and choreographer. He studied dance locally and at Bennington College, making his debut with Mary Anthony and Lang . Between 1970 and 1973 he danced with Cunningham and between 1973 and 1980 with Ailey's company where he became a principal. He created his first work for Ailey in 1979 and in 1980 was appointed assistant director of the Choreographic Research Group of the Paris Opera. His style was characterized by an urgent athleticism and was driven by vigorous if abstract emotion. He created works for many companies including American Ballet Theatre (Serious Pleasures, 1992, inspired by Kazantzakis's novel The Last Temptation of Christ), Royal Swedish Ballet (Dancing on the Front Porch of Heaven, 1993), and New York City Ballet (Red Angels, 1994, and Twilight, 1996).

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Dowell , (Sir) Anthony

(b London, 16 Feb. 1943).
British dancer and director. He studied with June Hampshire and from 1953 at Sadler's Wells Ballet School, becoming the Royal Ballet School. In 1960 he joined Covent Garden Opera Ballet and in 1961 the Royal Ballet where he was promoted principal in 1966. With his unforced technical facility, elegant classical line, and natural poise he rapidly became the leading danseur noble of his generation, performing all the major classical roles. In 1964 Ashton paired him with Antoinette Sibley in The Dream, and in doing so initiated one of the era's great partnerships, the dancers' slender bodies and classical line finding a startling echo in each other. The role of Oberon drew out a quality of magical glamour from Dowell, while the experience of working with Tudor on the leading role in Shadowplay (1967) considerably deepened his dramatic expression. He also created roles in many other ballets including Ashton's Monotones (1965), Jazz Calendar (1968), Enigma Variations (1968), Meditation from Thaïs (1971), and A Month in the Country (1976), and MacMillan's Anastasia (1971 version) and Manon (1974). Between 1978 and 1980 he took leave of absence to dance with American Ballet Theatre where he partnered Makarova and experienced the technical challenge of a new repertoire. He continued to make occasional dance appearances into his fifties, creating roles in MacMillan's Winter Dreams (1991) and Wright's revised version of The Nutcracker (1999). In 1984 he was appointed assistant to Norman Morrice , the Royal Ballet's director; a year later he was made associate director, and in 1986 was appointed artistic director, retiring in 2001. He succeeded in checking falling technical standards in the company and nurtured important new talent, notably Bussell. He staged new productions of Petipa and Ivanov's Swan Lake (1987) and Petipa's Sleeping Beauty (1994). He was knighted in 1995.

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Doyle , Desmond

(b Cape Town, 16 Jan. 1932, d Marica, Brazil, July 1991).
South African dancer and ballet master. He studied with Dulcie Howes , danced with University Ballet of Cape Town, and joined Sadler's Wells Ballet in 1951, becoming soloist in 1953. He created roles in several ballets including Ashton's Jazz Calendar (1968) and Enigma Variations (1968), Cranko's Lady and the Fool (1955), and MacMillan's The Invitation (1960) and Romeo and Juliet (1965). He was ballet master of the Royal Ballet (1970–5).

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Dracula ballets.

The legend of the vampires became extremely popular among choreographers in the late 20th century, inspiring well over twenty works within two decades. Bram Stoker's novel Dracula has been the direct basis of several versions, including Stuart Sebastian (mus. various, Royal Ballet of Flanders, 1991), Gable and Pink (mus. P. Feeney , Northern Ballet Theatre, 1996), and Mark Godden (mus. Mahler , Royal Winnipeg Ballet, 1998). Other looser interpretations include Kudelka's Dracula (mus. Baker , Grands Ballets Canadiens, 1985, revised as Love, Dracula, 1989), Ezralow's Irma Vep (mus. Bartók, London Contemporary Dance Theatre, 1987), Mark Morris's One Charming Night (mus. Purcell , 1985), and Stevenson's Dracula (mus. Liszt , arr. Lanchbery , Houston Ballet, 1997).

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Draper , Paul

(b Florence, 25 Oct. 1909, d 20 Sept. 1996).
US tap dancer and choreographer. He studied locally and at the School of American Ballet and during the late 1920s taught ballroom dance and appeared in clubs and revues. In 1933 he teamed up with Jack Albertson to found Paul Draper and Company, then as a soloist he began to combine tap with classical music, attempting to create a classical artform. He became widely respected in the American dance community and between 1940 and 1949 appeared with Larry Adler , the concert harmonica player, performing both classical and jazz numbers. Both artists were blacklisted in 1951 and Draper's career suffered, though he continued to choreograph and perform, often very experimental works like Name-Who? Number-What?…(1966) at the American Dance Festival.

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Dream, The.

Ballet in one act with choreography and libretto by Ashton , music by Mendelssohn (arr. Lanchbery ), scenery by Henry Bardon , and costumes by David Walker . Premiered 2 Apr. 1964 by the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden, London, with Sibley , Dowell, K. Martin , and A. Grant . It was created to mark Shakespeare's quatercentenary and broadly follows the plot of his A Midsummer Night's Dream. However, its central characters are effectively Oberon and Titania, the roles which launched the partnership of Sibley and Dowell . It has been revived by Royal Ballet Touring Company (designs by Peter Farmer , 1966), also by Australian Ballet (1969), Joffrey Ballet (1973), Royal Swedish Ballet (1975), National Ballet of Canada (1978), and Ballet West (1985). Other treatments of the same story include Petipa (St Petersburg, 1877), Fokine (St Petersburg, 1906), Balanchine (New York, 1962), Neumeier (Hamburg, 1977), and de Warren (Manchester, 1981).

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Drew , David

(b London, 12 Mar. 1938).
British dancer and choreographer. He studied in Bristol and at Sadler's Wells School and joined Sadler's Wells Ballet in 1955. After returning from national service he was promoted to soloist in 1961 and principal in 1974. He created roles in several ballets including Ashton's The Dream (1964), Tudor's Shadowplay (1967), and MacMillan's Manon (1974), Mayerling (1978), and Isadora (1981). He choreographed his first ballet, Intrusion, in 1969 (mus. Schubert , Royal Ballet) and his other works include St Thomas' Wake (mus. Maxwell Davies , 1971) and Sword of Alsace (mus. J. Raff , 1973.) After retiring from principal roles he became a senior character artist and teacher at the Royal Ballet School.

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Drigo , Riccardo

(b Padua, 30 June 1846, d Padua, 1 Oct. 1930).
Italian composer and conductor. He was conductor at the Maryinsky Theatre, St Petersburg (1886–1917) where he led the premieres of Sleeping Beauty (1890), Nutcracker (1892), and his rearrangement of Swan Lake (1895). He composed scores for several ballets, including Petipa's The Talisman (1889) and The Pearl (1896) and Ivanov's The Magic Flute (1893). He also edited and amended scores for older ballets, such as Le Corsaire.

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Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Mark Morris , music by Virgil Thomson, and costumes by Santo Loquasto . Premiered 31 May 1988 by American Ballet Theatre at Metropolitan Opera House, New York, with Baryshnikov , Bocca , Jaffe , and van Hamel . This setting of Thomson's thirteen piano études takes its name from the famous 17th-century song and was Morris's third work for a classical company (commissioned by Baryshnikov ). The dancers, dressed in simple white costumes, perform deceptively plain-looking ballet steps set in increasingly complex and resonant patterns.

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Driver , Senta

(b Greenwich, Conn., 5 Sept. 1942).
US dancer and choreographer. She studied at Ohio State University and danced with the Paul Taylor Company (1967–73) before founding her own company, Harry , which she directed until 1991. Her works experimented with all aspects of dance performance, including sound (and silence), the roles of male and female dancers, and the use of weight and body mass. After retiring from dance she trained as a nurse.

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Dror , Liat

(b Kibbutz Lochamei-Hagentot, July 1960).
Israeli dancer and choreographer. She studied at the Rubin Music and Dance Academy in Jerusalem and with the Dance Workship of the Kibbutz Dance company and created her first work in 1986. In 1987 she and her partner Nir Ben-Gal (b July 1959) began working as a choreographic and performance duo, creating Two Room Apartment (1987) and Equus Asinus (1988), among others. In 1992 they expanded into a company (still under their joint names) developing their highly imagistic, often brutal style of dance theatre in works like Anta Oumri (1994), The Enquiry (1996), and The Dance of Nothing (1998). They have occasionally choreographed for other companies, e.g. Batsheva and London Contemporary Dance Theatre.

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Drottningholm.

Swedish court theatre which was built in 1766 near the castle of Drottningholm. Opera and ballet used to be performed there every summer until the shooting of King Gustaf III in 1792. After a long period of neglect the stage machinery and about 30 18th-century sets were found to be still intact and the theatre was restored in 1921 for the performance of small-scale and period works.

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Drumming.

Modern dance work in one act with choreography by Laura Dean and music by Steve Reich . Premiered 3 April 1975 by the Laura Dean Dance Company at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York. Its vocabulary of simple repetitive steps mirrors the trance-like power of the music.

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Drummond , (Sir) John

(b London, 1934)
British writer, television producer, administrator, and dance activist. He was writer, editor, and producer at the BBC (1958–78) during which time he created two seminal documentaries on artists associated with Diaghilev , whose interviews are recorded in Speaking of Diaghilev (London, 1997). As director of the Edinburgh Festival (1978–83) he was responsible for enlarging the dance programme there and in his various roles as Director of the BBC Proms and Controller of Music for Radio 3 was responsible for raising the profile of dance on radio. He has been active on many dance committees, also governor of both the Royal and Birmingham Royal Ballets.

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Drzwiecki , Conrad

(b Poznán, 14 Oct. 1926).
Polish dancer, choreographer, and director. He studied with Mikolaj Kopinsky , Woizikowski , and others and made his debut in 1946 with Kopinsky's company in Kraków. He danced with Poznán Opera Ballet (1947 and 1950–6) and between 1956 and 1963 worked abroad, for example with Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas. He was ballet master and choreographer of Poznán Opera (1963–73) after which he was founder, artistic director, and choreographer of the Poznán-based Polish Dance Theatre. His works include versions of The Miraculous Mandarin (1970) and Les Biches (1973). He has also created works for other companies including Berlin Opera Ballet (The Moor of Venice, 1975, and Epitaph for Don Juan, 1980) and La Scala (The Childhood of Jesus, 1980).

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Duato , Nacho

(b Valencia, 8 Jan. 1957).
Spanish dancer, choreographer, and director. He trained at the Rambert School, Béjart's Mudra School, and at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center making his debut with Cullberg Ballet in 1980. In 1981 he joined Netherlands Dance Theatre where he was appointed Resident Choreographer in 1988. He has created works for many companies including Cullberg, Netherlands Dance Theatre, Berlin Opera Ballet, Australian Ballet, and Stuttgart Ballet. His versatile style fuses the physical lyricism of Kylián with his own distinctive theatrical imagination. In 1990 he was appointed artistic director of Compañia Nacional de Danza for which he has created many works including Tabulae (mus. A. Iglesias , 1994), Por vos muero (mus. 15th- and 16th-century Spanish music, 1996), and Romeo y Julieta (mus. Prokofiev , 1997).

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Dublin.

See Ireland.

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Dubrovska , Felia.

See Doubrovska , Felia.

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Dudinskaya , Natalia

(b Kharkov, 21 Aug. 1912).
Ukranian-Soviet dancer and teacher. She studied with her mother and then at the Petrograd Ballet School under Vaganova. She made her debut as Princess Florine before graduating in 1931, and six months after joining GATOB (Kirov) she danced Odette-Odile. A brilliantly virtuoso dancer with a powerful jump she danced all the major classical roles but also created many roles in new ballets including the title role (her most famous creation) in Chabukiani's Laurencia (1939); also K. Sergeyev's Cinderella (1946), Zakharov's The Bronze Horseman (1949), Jacobson's Shuraleh (1950), and Fenster's Taras Bulba (1955). Though lacking the expressive acting talent of dancers like Ulanova , she dominated the company for much of her career, only retiring from principal roles when she was 52. She taught the Class of Perfection at the Kirov (1951–70) and in addition taught at the Leningrad Ballet School (from 1964) and was repetiteur at the Kirov (1963–78). She frequently appeared in film and television and was made People's Artist of the USSR in 1957 and appointed to the order of the Red Banner in 1973. She was married to the dancer and choreographer Konstantin Sergeyev .

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Dudley , Jane

(b New York, 3 Apr. 1912, d 19 Sept. 2001).
US dancer, choreographer, teacher, and director. She studied at the Wigman School (1931–5) under Holm and was a soloist with Graham's company (1936–46). She also taught with Graham (1938–46 and 1954–65) and returned as guest artist with her company (1953–4). In 1942 she formed the Dance Trio with Sophie Maslow and William Bales , for which she choreographed several works including The Lonely Ones (1946) and Family Portrait (1954) and with which she toured the US until 1952. With the Trio she was also a charter member of the New London Summer School of Dance (1948–52). She taught at Bennington College (1966–8) and was then artistic director of the Batsheva Dance Company (1968–70). In 1970 she was appointed vice-principal and director of dance studies at London School of Contemporary Dance, where she has continued to teach. She also continued to choreograph and even to perform in her eighties, creating Proverbs (mus. Klezmer , 1990).

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Duets.

Modern dance work in one act with choreography by Cunningham , design by Mark Lancaster , and music by Cage (Improvisation III). Premiered 26 Feb. 1980 by Merce Cunningham Dance Company at City Center, New York. A dance elegantly constructed around six duets, it was revived for American Ballet Theatre in 1982.

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Dukas , Paul

(b Paris, 1 Oct. 1865, d Paris, 17 May 1935).
French composer. His dance poem La Péri (1911) was first choreographed by Clustine in Paris in 1912 and has since been used by many other choreographers. He also composed the symphonic poem L'Apprenti sorcier (1897) which was choreographed by Fokine in Petrograd in 1916.

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Duke , Vernon (orig. Vladimir Dukelsky ;

b Pskov, 10 Oct. 1903, d Santa Monica, Calif., 1969).
Russian-US composer. He wrote the music for several ballets including Massine's Zéphire et Flore (1924), Petit's Le Bal des blanchisseuses (1946), and L. Christensen's Emperor Norton (1957). He also composed ballet music for several musicals, including Ziegfeld Follies (1935) and Cabin in the Sky (1940), and for the film Goldwyn Follies (1938) all of which were choreographed by Balanchine .

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Dumas , Russell

(b Brisbane, 17 Oct. 1946).
Australian dancer, choreographer and director. He studied ballet and modern dance and danced with many companies including Ballet Rambert and the groups of Trisha Brown and Tharp , before becoming codirector of the Sydney-based company Dance Exchange (1976). His created works for it include Surround (1993) and The Oaks Café (ongoing 1997–2000).

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Dumoulin , David (dates unknown).

French dancer, the youngest of four famous dancing brothers (the eldest, a half-brother, Henri ; François and Pierre ). He danced at the Paris Opera (1705–51) and frequently partnered Camargo, Prévost, and Sallé.

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Duncan , Irma (orig. Irma Dorette Henriette Ehrich-Grimme ;

b Schleswig-Holstein, 26 Feb. 1897, d Santa Barbara, Calif., 20 Sept. 1977).
German-US dancer and teacher; adopted daughter of Isadora Duncan . She was one of the first pupils to join Isadora's Grünewald school and made her debut at the Berlin Kroll Opera in 1905. She toured with the children's group, then in 1911 became a teacher at the Elizabeth Duncan school (run by Isadora's sister) in Darmstadt. In 1914 she went to teach in Isadora's school in Bellevue-sur-Seine and between 1918 and 1920 she performed as one of the six Duncan girls in New York. She then danced with Isadora in Paris and in 1921 founded the Moscow school with her. After Isadora's death in 1927 she became director of the school and toured the US and China with her pupils. In 1930 she settled in the US and gave her last performance in New York, Ode to Peace, set to the last movement from Beethoven's 9th Symphony. She was author of Isadora Duncan's Russian Days (with A. Ross Macdougall , New York, 1929), The Technique of Isadora Duncan (New York, 1937), and Duncan Dancer (Middletown, Conn., 1966).

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Duncan , Isadora

(b San Francisco, 26 May 1877, d Nice, 14 Sept. 1927).
US dancer and teacher who pioneered the free dance movement. She took a few classes in ballet but then rebelled against what she considered its unnatural contortions and constrictions. Her own dance style, inspired by the movements of waves and trees, by ancient Greek sculpture, and by the writings of Nietzsche and Havelock Ellis , was based on simple flowing movements of the body which for her expressed the rhythms of nature and the nobler emotions of man. She believed that the solar plexus was the source of all movement, and her dancing, unlike ballet, acknowledged gravity and the body's weight. Her vocabulary was composed of simple runs, skips, and jumps; large, expressive gestures and playful mime. She danced barelegged and with bare feet in loose, filmy tunics, and, rebelling against the prevailing view that great classical music was inappropriate for dance, she used the scores of Beethhoven , Chopin , Mendelssohn , and Schubert , among others. Her professional career began as an actress in the troupe of Augustin Daly , then in 1897 she moved with her family to London where she studied ancient Greek art and consolidated her ideas on dance. She began to give recitals in private homes and art galleries, and in 1902 Loie Fuller sponsored her concerts in Vienna and Budapest. She made her first professional appearance in Paris at the Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt in 1903 though French audiences did not seriously appreciate her until 1909 when she performed at the same time as Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. In 1903 she visited Greece with her family, where they built a house and in 1904 she toured Russia where she possibly influenced Fokine in his own choreographic innovations. In 1905 she opened a school for 40 children in Grünewald, near Berlin, with her sister Elizabeth , which she moved to Paris in 1908. She left most of the teaching to others but supported the school financially from her own performances which she gave all over Europe to rapturous acclaim. Her dances were fuelled by her fierce libertarian beliefs and by the passions and tragedies of her own life. She had several affairs, in bold defiance of social convention, with, among others, the stage designer E. Gordon Craig , the sewing machine millionaire Paris Singer, and the poet Sergei Esenin (who went mad and committed suicide in 1925). She tragically lost her two children in a drowning accident in 1913 and her two famous dances of this period, the Marseillaise (1915) and the Marche Slave (1916), portrayed the resilience of human spirit in the face of adversity.
Though her performances were carefully prepared they were given in an improvisatory spirit and their effect relied heavily on her considerable charisma and her profound emotional response to music. She never created a technique that could be passed on to others, though she had a huge influence on many who saw her, including Ashton, who much admired the flow and plastique of her movement. America never responded very enthusiastically to her work though she performed there on several visits. She was, however, very popular in Russia. She expressed fervent sympathy for the new Soviet state and opened a school in Moscow in 1921. She also composed two dances for Lenin's funeral and toured the Ukraine, donating her earnings to the poor. In 1924 she left Russia in poverty and in 1925 settled in Nice where she gave a few performances. She gave her last recital in Paris in July 1927 and was killed soon afterwards when her scarf became entangled in the wheel of her open car. Her autobiography My Life was published in New York, 1927, and London, 1928 (with some posthumous editorial tampering). Though the ‘Isadorables’ (six of her pupils who staged Duncan-style recitals) continued to teach her ideas and her movement after her death, no one could replicate the magic of her own performances. Interest in Duncan waned after the 1940s, though the 1980s saw a revival. Impressions of her dancing can be drawn from many contemporary drawings and photographs, from the television documentary by Ken Russell (1966), from Karel Reisz's film Isadora (1969), and from Ashton's dance homage, Five Brahms Waltzes in the Manner of Isadora, created for Lynn Seymour . The first version, with only one waltz, was premiered at a gala in Hamburg (1975), the complete version was premiered by Ballet Rambert (London, 1976). Béjart choreographed a solo, Isadora, for Plisetskaya (Brussels, 1976) and MacMillan a two-act Isadora for the Royal Ballet (London, 1981).

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Dunham , Katherine

(b Chicago, 22 June 1912).
US dancer, teacher, choreographer, and director who helped establish African-American dance as an international theatre form. She studied anthroplogy, specializing in dance at the University of Chicago, and took dance classes locally, making her major professional debut in Page's La Guillablesse in 1933. After a period of dance research in the West Indies (1937–8) she returned to Chicago to work for the Federal Theatre Project, and was then appointed director of dance for the New York Labor Stage in 1939, choreographing movement for plays and musicals. In 1940 she presented her own programme of work, Tropics and Le Jazz Hot—from Haiti to Harlem, with a specially assembled company. This launched her career as a choreographer. In the same year she and her company danced in the Broadway musical Cabin in the Sky (chor. Balanchine ), after which she moved to Hollywood to dance and choreograph for various films including Carnival of Rhythm (1942) and Stormy Weather (1943). She then developed her own style of black revues, designed by her husband John Pratt , with which she toured the US. These productions, such as Carib Song, Bal Nere, and later Bamboche, included full-scale ballets that were based on her anthropological research, including Rites de Passage (1943) and Chôros (1943, revived Alvin Ailey Dance Theater, 1972) as well as numbers based on popular dance forms. The combination of theatrical dance, vividly coloured costumes, and traditional music won a huge audience for African-American dance while the school she opened in 1945 in New York, which taught ballet, modern, and Afro-Cuban dance, trained a new generation of black dancers to follow her. In 1963 she choreographed the New York Metropolitan Opera House production of Aida, and between 1965 and 1966 was technical cultural adviser to the President and the Minister of Cultural Affairs in Senegal. She was subsequently appointed director of the Performing Arts Training Center at Southern Illinois University, East St Louis. She was author of Katherine Dunham's Journey to Accompong (New York, 1946) and the autobiographical A Touch of Innocence (London, 1959). In 1987 the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater staged fourteen of her works in a programme called The Magic of Katherine Dunham.

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Dunn , Douglas

(b Palo Alto, Calif., 19 Oct. 1942).
US dancer and choreographer. He studied with members of Princeton Regional Ballet Co. (1962–4), then took courses at various places, including the Martha Graham Summer School, the Joffrey School, and Margaret Jenkins Studio. In 1968 he moved to New York where he began working with Yvonne Rainer and studying with Cunningham . He danced with Cunningham's company (1969–73) and was also a member of the avant-garde improvisational group, Grand Union (1970–6), forming his own group in 1977. A puckish, idiosyncratic performer, his minimalist choreographic structures have often incorporated text, props, and a humorous play of human gesture. Some have been conceived around specific sites. In his 1974 work 101 he lay motionless for several hours a day on top of a maze which he had built in his SoHo loft and through which the audience were free to wander. In Disappearances (1994) his dancers performed amidst the lunchtime crowds in Wall Street, New York. His other works include Four for Nothing (1974), Gestures in Red (1975), Lazy Madge (1976), Pulcinella (mus. Stravinsky , Paris Opera, 1980), Cycles (mus. Steve Lacey , Groupe de Recherche Chorégraphique, 1981), Landing (mus. Steve Lacey , 1992), and Spell for Opening the Mouth of N. (mus. Joshua Fried , 1996).

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Dunning , Jennifer

(b New York, 4 Feb. 1942).
US dance writer. She studied ballet and modern dance and in 1977 became critic and reporter for the New York Times. Her publications include But First a School: The First Fifty Years of the School of American Ballet (New York, 1985) and Alvin Ailey, a Life in Dance (New York, 1996).

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Duo Concertant.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Balanchine , music by Stravinsky , and lighting by Ronald Bates . Premiered 22 June 1972 by New York City Ballet at State Theater New York, with Mazzo and Martins . In this setting of Stravinsky's five-part duo for violin and piano the two dancers periodically engage with the musicians who play on stage. It has been revived by many companies, including the Royal Ballet (1995).

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Dupond , Patrick

(b Paris, 14 Mar. 1959).
French dancer and director. He studied at Paris Opera School and graduated into the Paris company in 1975, becoming premier danseur in 1979 and étoile in 1980. His precocious talent won him the Varna Gold Medal, with a rare special citation for excellence at the age of 17. From the beginning of his career his flamboyantly virtuoso technique and charismatic charm have attracted the interest of contemporary choreographers and though he has danced several classical roles he is best known for his created roles in, for example, Neumeier's Vaslav (orig. created in Hamburg, 1979, but soon after taken into the Paris Opera repertory), Petit's Le Fantôme de l'Opéra (1980), Ailey's Au bord de précipice (1983), Nureyev's Romeo and Juliet (1984), Béjart's Salomé (1985), and Tharp's Grand Pas: Rhythm of the Saints (1991). His handsome looks and theatrical flair have brought him international star status and since 1980 he has danced widely as a guest artist with, among others, Ballet du Rhin, American Ballet Theatre, Ballet of the 20th Century, and Twyla Tharp. In 1985 he founded his own group, Patrick Dupond and Stars, appearing also as principal guest artist with Paris Opera, and in 1988 he became artistic director of Ballet de Nancy. Between 1990 and 1995 he was director of the Paris Opera where he brought in works by Tharp , Robbins , Graham and others. After leaving he continued to dance there as étoile until 1997, also appearing in television and film. In 1999 he starred in a dance and equestrian spectacle (with the equestrian Ballet du Cadre Noir de Saumur), choreographed by J.-H. Tanto . He was made Commandeur des arts et lettres in 1988.

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Duport , Louis Antoine

(b Paris, 1781, d Paris, 19 Oct. 1853).
French dancer, choreographer, and ballet master. He made his debut at the Paris Opera in 1797 where he rapidly became one of the most successful dancers of his time, rivalling even the legendary Vestris. (In 1804 they agreed to appear on stage together in an unofficial competition of prowess. A contemporary wrote: ‘It would take a Virgil to describe this contest.’) Especially admired for the speed of his pirouettes and the vivacity of his dancing, he also began choreographing ballets, including Acis et Galathée (mus. Darondeau , 1805), with the ambition of unseating the reigning ballet master Gardel. As he sought more and more power at the Opera the authorities, including Napoleon himself, were forced to try to curb his demands. Thwarted, he fled Paris in 1808 disguised as a woman in the company of a former mistress of Napoleon . He went first to Vienna where he produced Figaro or the Barber of Seville, then to St Petersburg where he enjoyed spectacular popularity (he is mentioned in Tolstoy's War and Peace). His outrageous ego infuriated Didelot who was ballet master there until 1811, and in 1812 Duport finally left for Vienna. Here he choreographed many ballets for the Kärntnertor Theater including La Fille mal gardée (after Dauberval, 1814), though according to Elssler ‘he never gives the public anything new’. He also danced in Naples (1817 and 1820) and at London's King's Theatre (1819), before returning to co-direct the Kärntnertor Theatre with the impresario-producer D. Barbaia . In 1836 he retired to Paris.
A talented child dancer of the same name performed in America during the first half of the 1790s though it is not established whether he had any connection with his famous namesake.

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Dupré , Louis

(b c.1690, d Dec. 1774).
French dancer, choreographer, and ballet master. He studied at the Paris Opera school and may have appeared in the company as a child before making his official adult debut in 1714. Known as Le Grand Dupré and admired for his elegant physique and noble dancing, he did not retire from his position as premier danseur until 1751 and continued dancing into his sixties. For a few years he also lived and worked in London; he presented a group of students at Lincoln's Inn Fields and also at theatres in Dresden and Warsaw. He staged several works for the Paris Opera and for the Opéra Comique and until 1743 was director of the Opera's ballet school where Vestris and Noverre were among his pupils. Casanova admired his dancing in his Mémoires.

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Dupuy , Dominique and Dupuy , Françoise, née Michand

Dominique, b Paris, 31 Oct. 1930; Françoise, b Lyons, 6 Feb. 1925).
French dancers and choreographers. Françoise trained with Zvereff , Cunningham , and others, Dominique with Preobrajenska , Cunningham , and others and they both danced with Ballet des Arts. In 1951 they married and in the same year formed Ballets Modernes de Paris, the first important professional modern dance company in France, which lasted until 1979. They both choreographed works for the company, separately and together, including The Miraculous Mandarin (mus. Bartók , 1965), as well as for other ensembles. They have both taught widely. In 1990 she was appointed director of dance at the Institut de Formation à l'Enseignement de la Danse et de la Musique (later the Centre National de la Danse) and from 1991 to 1995 he was director of the dance department of the Institut de Pédagogie Musicale et Chorégraphique.

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Durang , John

(b York, Pa., 6 Jan 1768, d Philadelphia, 1822).
US dancer and choreographer, the first American-born dance artist to become widely famous. He had no formal dance training but was fascinated by the theatre and at 15 left home to learn the craft. He appeared with the Old American Company of Lewis Hallam (1785–96) in both Philadelphia and New York, learning dance and mime skills from several performers, then became director of pantomimes for Ricketts circus troupe, before moving to the Chestnut Theatre (1800–19) where he taught and staged many ballets. As a dancer he was particularly famous for his hornpipes and Harlequinades. His children were all trained as dancers, including his son Charles (1794–1870) who became a performer, ballet master, stage manager, critic, and writer.

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Durante , Viviana

(b Rome, 8 May 1967).
Italian dancer. She studied in Italy then at the Royal Ballet School, London, graduating into the company in 1984, where she was promoted principal in 1989. A dancer of classical elegance and polish, she came to prominence in 1987 when she replaced an injured Odette mid-performance, having never actually learnt the role. The rest of the standard classical ballerina roles quickly followed, and she grew rapidly in authority, although she was sometimes criticized for the coolness of her interpretations. It was dancing in the MacMillan repertoire, particularly Manon (1991, with Mukhamedov ) that broke through her reserve, revealing a powerful acting talent. She went on to create the role of Irina in MacMillan's Winter Dreams (1991), the only female role in his Judas Tree (1992), and to dance the title role in the revival of his full-length Anastasia (1996). She has also created roles in ballets by Bintley , including Cyrano (1991), and Page, including Now langorous, now wild … (1996). Since 1996 she has worked with the Royal company as a guest artist, also appearing with American Ballet Theatre (1999).

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Dutch National Ballet (Dutch: Het Nationale Ballet).

The Netherlands' national ballet company. Based in Amsterdam, it was formed in 1961 through an amalgamation of Sonia Gaskell's Netherlands Ballet and the two-year-old Amsterdam Ballet, directed by Mascha ter Weeme . The two women ran it jointly for one season then Gaskell was sole director until 1965, when Rudi van Dantzig and Robert Kaesen joined her as co-directors. Van Dantzig created his seminal Monument for a Dead Boy for the company in the same year. Gaskell left in 1969, followed two years later by Kaesen . Harkarvy took the latter's place for one season after which van Dantzig remained as sole director until 1991. During its early years the company had an almost unmanageably large repertoire of 19th-century classics, major 20th-century ballets, and new works. The dancers were also expected to perform in Opera productions. Under van Dantzig there was a greater focus on work by its trio of resident choreographers—himself, Toer van Schayk , and Hans van Manen (who created Adagio Hammerklavier for the company in 1973)—thereby giving the company a more distinct identity. However, it retained its commitment to both classicism and the 20th-century canon, particularly Balanchine. (In 1996 it presented a two-week Balanchine festival, performing nine of his ballets.) In 1986 the company moved to the newly built Muziektheater and in 1987 van Manen left, but works from a new generation, including Maguy Marin and Édouard Lock , continued the company's commitment to new choreography. In 1991 van Dantzig was succeeded by ex-Royal Ballet dancer Wayne Eagling who has maintained the balance between old and new in the repertoire, introducing works by several European choreographers including himself, and also reviving classics of modern dance such as Graham's Errand into the Maze. The company tours extensively in the Netherlands and abroad.

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Duvernay , Pauline

(b Paris, 1813, d Norfolk, 1894).
French dancer. She studied with F. Taglioni and Vestris at the Paris Opera school making her debut in Mars et Vénus in 1831. She made her London debut in Aumer's La Belle au bois dormant in the same year. In 1836 she scored a huge personal success as Florinda in Coralli's Le Diable boîteux (revived as The Devil on Two Sticks) at Drury Lane. She was generally a great favourite with audiences due to her delicate beauty and elegant technique, but her career was adversely affected by a disastrous love affair and she retired in 1837, marrying an English banker in 1845.

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DV8 Physical Theatre.

British dance theatre company. It was founded by Lloyd Newson in 1986 and, influenced by the work of Pina Bausch and European dance theatre, it has committed itself to work which reflects issues in the real world rather than abstract dance concerns. It makes a practice of involving all performers in the creation of the work, drawing on their personal experiences as well as their choreographic ideas. Its first major work, My Sex, Our Dance (1987), was a duet for Newson and Charnock in which physical risk-taking mirrored the emotional challenges of a male relationship. In My Body, Your Body (1987) eight male and female dancers explored sexual stereotyping while Dead Dreams of Monochrome Men (1988) tackled issues of male alienation and desire. The work was filmed for television, as were several of the company's subsequent productions, including Strange Fish (1994), and Enter Achilles (1995), which won the Prix d'Italia award in 1996. The company tours internationally.

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Dvoák , Antonín

(b Nehalozeves, 8 Sept. 1841, d Prague, 1 May 1904).
Czech composer. He wrote no ballet scores but several of his compositions have been used for dance, including Symphonic Variations (chor. Hynd , London Festival Ballet, 1970) and several pieces for Tudor's The Leaves are Fading (American Ballet Theatre, 1975).

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Dybbuk Variations.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Robbins , music by Bernstein , sets by Ter-Arutunian , and costumes by Patricia Zipprodt . Premiered 16 May 1974 by New York City Ballet at New York's State Theater, with McBride and Tomasson . It is based on the play by Ansky about a Jewish girl who is possessed by the soul of her lover, and evokes the story's atmosphere and relationships via a series of dance episodes. Other versions of the same story include P. Lang's (mus. Meyer Kupferman and Joel Spiegelman , New York, 1975) and K. Brandstrup's (mus. Ian Dearden , London, 1988).

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Dying Swan, The (orig. Russ. title Umirayushchy lebed; Fr. title Le Cygne).

Solo ballet in one act with choreography by Fokine and music by Saint-Saëns . Premiered at a gala on 22 Dec. 1907 at the Hall of Noblemen, St Petersburg, with Pavlova . This setting of Saint-Saëns's music from Le Carnaval des animaux was created for Pavlova. Its poignant fluttering movements not only convey the struggles of the dying bird, but also evoke the art of the ballerina, performer of an ephemeral art which ‘dies’ after every show. A film of Pavlova dancing it still survives and it remains ‘her’ ballet (she became known as the Immortal Swan). Other celebrated performances have been by Markova , Ulanova , and Plisetskaya . Les Ballets Trockaderos perform a notorious comic, ‘moulting’ version and de Frutos also created his own solo to the music in 1990.

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Dzikunu , George Kwame.

Ghanaian dancer and director. He was born into a family of Master Drummers from the Anlo tribe and performed with the African Theatre Troupe and Ghana National Dance Ensemble where he also studied choreography. He formed the Sankofa Dance Company which came to UK in 1974. He remained in London and in 1984 founded Adzido Pan African Dance Ensemble for which he has choreographed and directed many works, including Sye Goli (1992).

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E

Eagling , Wayne

(b Montreal, 27 Nov. 1950).
Canadian dancer, choreographer, and director. He studied with Patricia Webster and at the Royal Ballet School, joining the company in 1969 where he was promoted soloist in 1972 and principal in 1975. A supple and powerful dancer, he performed the major classical roles but was best known for his versatility in the 20th-century repertory. He created roles in MacMillan's Triad (1972), Elite Syncopations (1974), Gloria (1980), and Different Drummer (1984), van Manen's Four Schumann Pieces (1975), and Bintley's Consort Lessons (1983), among others. He has also choreographed several works, including Frankenstein, the Modern Prometheus (mus. Vangelis , Royal Ballet, London, 1984), Beauty and the Beast (mus. Vangelis , Royal Ballet, London, 1986), Byron (mus. Tchaikovsky , La Scala Ballet, Italy, 1988), and Nijinsky (mus. Debussy , Ballet of Naples, Naples, 1989). In 1991 he was appointed director of the Dutch National Ballet where he has not only maintained the classical and neo-classical repertory but also commissioned new works by, for example, Ashley Page and David Dawson . In 1996 he co-choreographed a version of The Nutcracker with van Schayk for Dutch National Ballet and in 1999 they collaborated again on The Magic Flute (mus. Mozart ).

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Earle , David

(b Toronto, 17 Sept. 1939).
Canadian dancer, choreographer, and director. He studied locally and at the National Ballet School of Canada, later with Graham , Limón, and others in New York. He danced with the Limón company (1965–6) then worked as dancer, choreographer, and assistant artistic director at London Contemporary Dance Theatre (1966–8) before returning to Canada where he co-founded Toronto Dance Theatre (Canada's first major modern dance company) and its school. He remained director until 1994, assuming the role of resident choreographer (1994–6), and created many works for the company, including El amor brujo (mus. de Falla ), Dreamsend (mus. Webern ), Sunrise (mus. Brahms ), and Untitled Monument (mus. Takemitsu , 1992). In 1997 he founded the Dance Foundation David Earle and Dancetheatre David Earle in Ontario and continues to teach widely around Canada.

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Early , Fergus

(b Worthing, 4 Aug. 1946).
British dancer, choreographer, and director. He studied at the Royal Ballet School and danced with Royal Ballet (1964–8). He then became assistant ballet master and choreographer with Ballet for All. In 1971 he left to work freelance, including teaching at London School of Contemporary Dance, and in 1976 became co-founder of the X6 dance collective in London, a focus of independent dance activity. He choreographed several works, including Naples (mus. Paulli , Helsted , Gade , 1978 for X6, revived 1982 for Extemporary Dance Theatre) which was a 20th-century update of Act III of Bournonville's Napoli. He has also choreographed works for the Norwegian Ballet and The Kosh. In 1987 he founded the community dance group Green Candle for which he has choreographed and directed many works.

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Eaters of Darkness (orig. Ger. title Die im Schatten leben).

Ballet in one act with choreography by Gore , music by Britten , and design by H. Heckroth . Premiered 29 Jan. 1958 by Frankfurt Ballet, Frankfurt, with Hinton , Paul Herbinger , and Wolfgang Winter . This setting of Britten's Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge is one of Gore's most powerful ballets and features an intensely dramatic leading female role. It tells the story of a young bride who is falsely committed to an asylum by her husband, and there becomes genuinely mad. It has been revived for several companies including Harkness Ballet (1970, a version filmed for German television) and Northern Ballet Theatre (1976).

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Ebony Concerto.

Stravinsky's 1945 concerto for jazz clarinet which has been choreographed by, among others, Taras (New York City Ballet, 1960),Cranko (Munich, 1970), van Manen (Dutch National Ballet, 1976), Woetzel (New York City Ballet, 1994), and Ashley Page (Royal Ballet, 1995).

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Ebreo , Guglielmo (also Guillaume le Juif, or William the Jew of Pesaro;

b c.1420, d c.1481).
Italian dancing master. He studied with Domenico da Piacenza in the 1440s and travelled extensively between major Italian courts including Naples, Urbino, Milan, and Ferrara (where he was dancing master to Isabella d'Este), teaching, performing, and choreographing court festivities. In 1480 he was recommended as the finest dancer in Italy. He was also author of Guglielmi Hebraei pisauriensis de pratica seu arte tripudii vulgari opusculum (1463) a treatise in which he defended the nobility of the art of dance, emphasizing the important role of music, describing the qualities necessary for dancers (memory, style, posture, musicality, etc.), and recording dances by himself and his contemporaries.

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ecarté

(Fr., wide apart). Any position in ballet where the leg is raised at an oblique angle to the body and where the body itself is placed at an oblique angle to the audience.

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echappé

(Fr., escaped). A jump in which the feet spring apart from a closed to an open position.

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Echoing of Trumpets (orig. Sw. title Ekon av Trumpeter).

Ballet in one act with choreography by Tudor , music by Martin , and design by Birger Bergling . Premiered 28 Sept. 1963 by Royal Swedish Ballet in Stockholm with Gerd Andersson , Svante Lindberg , Anette Wiedersheim-Paul , and Mario Mengarelli . This setting of Martin's Fantaisies symphoniques is a brutal portrait of village women victimized by an occupying army. Though it has been associated with specific Nazi attacks in the Second World War Tudor himself claimed it was more broadly concerned with people's sadistic compulsion to dominate each other. ‘The soldiers … torment [the women] until they make the women feel degraded and, in so doing, they degrade themselves.’ It has been revived for Metropolitan Opera Ballet (as Echoes of Trumpets, New York, 1966), American Ballet Theatre (Michigan, 1967), and London Festival Ballet (1973).

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Eck , Imre

(b Budapest, 2 Dec. 1930).
Hungarian dancer, choreographer, and director. He studied with Nádasi, and danced with Budapest State Opera Ballet (1946–60) where he was promoted character solo dancer in 1950. He began choreographing in the 1950s, creating his first major work for BSOB in 1958—Csongor and Tünde (mus. L. Weiner ), then in 1960 he founded the Ballet Sopianae, based in Pécs, which he directed until 1968 but continued with as chief choreographer until 1993. Though Eck began his career in isolation from modern developments in Western ballet he created a repertory that was, for Hungary, avant-garde. His early ballets were centred around strong social, philosophical, and erotic themes and his style mixed classical vocabulary with jazz, acrobatics, and expressionist dance. Many of his ballets were set to music by Bartók and other Hungarian composers, including the first production of W. Bukovy's Hiroshima (1962). Other works for Ballet Sopianae include The Wooden Prince (mus. Bartók ) and The Miraculous Mandarin (mus. Bartók , both 1965), Lulu (mus. Berg , 1967), Salome (mus. Petrovics , 1979), and Carmina Burana (mus. Orff , 1989). His works for BSOB include Le Sacre du printemps (mus. Stravinsky , 1963) and Ondine (mus. Henze , 1969). He has also choreographed for Finnish National Ballet, for example Tempest (mus. Sibelius , 1974) and Swan of Tuonela (mus. Sibelius , 1988).

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École de Danse de I'Opéra de Paris, L'.

The ballet school of the Paris Opera which dates back to 1713 and supplies nearly all of the company's dancers. Girls enter at the age of 8–12 and boys at 13. It is considered to be one of the finest schools in the world and teaches an academic curriculum alongside ballet training. Claude Bessy was appointed director in 1981.

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ecossaise.

Contredanse originating either from France or Germany, performed by four or more couples in 2/4 time. It was based on genuine or imitated Scottish airs and was popular in Europe during the first two decades of the 19th century.

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Education of the Girl Child.

Mixed-media work with choreography by Meredith Monk . The original solo version was premiered 22 Apr. 1972, at the House Loft, New York, and the final version 8 Nov. 1973, at 70 Grand St., New York. It incorporated music, movement, text, and visual imagery, with Part 1 showing Monk and six other women ‘taking a walk through life’ and Part 2 showing Monk as an old woman, reliving her life backwards.

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Edur , Thomas

(b Tallinn, 20 Jan. 1969).
Estonian dancer. He studied at the State Ballet School and joined Estonian State Opera Ballet. With his partner Agnes Oaks he joined English National Ballet in 1990 as principal. Noted for his elegant classical style and exemplary partnering skills, he appeared in most of the classics as well as the 20th-century repertory, creating roles in Roriz's Seven Silences of Salome (1993) and C. Dean's Encounters (1996), among others. Between 1996 and 1997 he and Oaks danced with Birmingham Royal Ballet, then worked freelance, returning to English National Ballet in 1998.

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Edward II.

Ballet in two acts with libretto and choreography by Bintley , music by John McCabe , sets by Peter J. Davison , and costumes by Jasper Conran . Premiered by Stuttgart Ballet, Stuttgart, with Wolfgang Stollwitzer and Sabrina Lenzi . It is based on Marlowe's play and highlights the contrast between the King's private passions and the violence of the Barons. In 1997 it was revived for Birmingham Royal Ballet with the same two principals.

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Edwards , Leslie.

(b Teddington, 6 Aug. 1916, d 8 Feb. 2001).
British dancer and ballet master. He studied with Rambert and at Sadler's Wells Ballet School making his debut with the Vic-Wells Ballet (later Sadler's Wells and Royal Ballet) in 1933. Apart from two seasons with Ballet Rambert (1935–7) he stayed with the company until retiring in 1993. He was one of its finest character dancers, and created roles in, for example, de Valois's The Rake's Progress (1935), Ashton's Enigma Variations (1968), Tales of Beatrice Potter (1971), and La Fille mal gardée (1975), Helpmann's Miracle in the Gorbals (1944), Massine's Donald of the Burthens (1951), MacMillan's Noctambules (1956), and Cranko's Prince of the Pagodas (1957) and Antigone (1959). From 1958 he was teacher at Royal Ballet School and ballet master for Royal Opera and from 1967 was director of the Royal Ballet Choreographic Group. In 1962 he was guest director of Washington Ballet.

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effacé

(Fr., obscured). A position in ballet where the body is at an oblique angle to the audience and thus only partly seen.

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Eglevsky , André

(b Moscow, 21 Dec. 1917, d Elmira, NY, 4 Dec. 1977).
Russian-US dancer and teacher. He studied with Egorova , Kshessinska , Volonine , N. Legat , and at the School of American Ballet, joining de Basil's Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo in 1931 (possibly 1932). He subsequently danced with Woizikowski's company (1935), R. Blum's Ballets de Monte Carlo (1936–7), American Ballet (1937–8), Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo (1939–42), Ballet Theatre (1942–3 and 1945–6), Marquis de Cuevas' Ballet International (1944), Massine's Ballet Russe Highlights (1945), de Basil's Original Ballet Russe (1947), de Cuevas's Grand Ballet de Monte Carlo (1947–50), and New York City Ballet (1951–8). The first great male dancer of the post-Diaghilev era, he was renowned for his grace and virtuosity (especially his ability to perform over a dozen pirouettes). He was also a fine actor and excelled in Fokine's ballets, creating roles in his L'Épreuve d'amour (1936), Don Juan (1936), and Les Éléments (1937). He created roles in many other works, too, including Massine's Choreartium (1933) and Mam'zelle Angot (1943) and Balanchine's Capriccio brillant (1951), Swan Lake (1951), Scotch Symphony (1952), Western Symphony (1954), and Waltz-Scherzo (1958). He also appeared at Radio City Music Hall and in Chaplin's film Limelight (1952). From 1958 he taught at School of American Ballet and in 1961 founded the Eglevsky School in New York. He was coauthor (with John Gregory) of The Heritage of a Ballet Master, Nicolas Legat (New York, 1977).

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Egorova , Lubov (became Princess Nikita Troubetzkoy ;

b St Petersburg, 8 Aug. 1880, d Paris, 18 Aug. 1972).
Russian dancer and teacher. She studied at the Imperial Theatre School, St Petersburg, with Cecchetti and graduated into the Maryinsky Theatre in 1898. Her qualities of simplicity and lyricism did not immediately win her admirers in an era dominated by extrovert virtuosos and she was not promoted ballerina until 1914. She did, however, become renowned for her interpretations of both Odette and Giselle. In 1917/18 she moved to Paris where she danced with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes (1921–2) and in 1923 opened her own school, founding Les Ballets de la Jeunesse in 1937. Among her pupils were S. Schwarz , Charrat , Lifar , and Dolin . She was married to Prince Troubetzkoy and was awarded Chevalier de l'Ordre des arts et lettres (1964).

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Egypt.

The country is rich in indigenous dance forms, but during the late 19th and 20th centuries it became largely identified with the bastardized cabaret form of belly dance. In 1959 Mahmoud Reda formed the Firqat Reda troupe in order to research disappearing folk dances and re-stage them in theatrical forms, and in 1963 the Ministry of Culture founded a second folkloric ensemble, the National Folkloric Troupe. Both companies are now maintained by the Folk Art section of the Ministry of Culture and tour widely both at home and abroad. Raqs sharqi, the Egyptian solo dance form, has become popular outside the country and is both taught and performed widely, including in the UK by Suraya Hilal. Ballet was introduced in 1958 via the government-sponsored Ballet Institute which was modelled on the Soviet training system and directed by A. Zhukov . This is now part of Cairo's Academy of Arts. Cairo Ballet Company evolved out of the Institute and gave its first performance in 1966 with The Fountain of Bakhchisarai, directed by Lavrovsky . Its repertory includes the classics and some Egyptian works such as The Difficult Days (inspired by events of the 1967 Arab—Israeli war; chor. Abd el Monein Kamel , mus. Mukhtar Ashrafi ). The company first toured E. Europe and the USSR during the 1970s, and Japan in 1977. In 1988 Cairo Opera Ballet was founded at the newly rebuilt Opera House, directed by Kamel , with Russian and Ukrainian dancers in its ranks. Contemporary works by Kamel and Béjart among others are combined with a repertory of 19th-century classics. Modern dance has been slow to come to Egypt though the Cairo Opera Dance Theatre was established in 1993 under the direction of Walid Awni.

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Eidos: Telos.

Modern dance work in three parts, with choreography by Forsythe , text by Dana Caspersen , music by Thom Willems , costumes by Stephen Galoway and Naoki Takizawa , and video production by Richard Caon . Premiered 28 Jan. 1995 by Frankfurt Ballet, Frankfurt. This densely wrought mix of dance, spoken text, and theatrical imagery was made in close collaboration with its cast and its sections are linked by the concepts of time and death. The first section, ‘Self Meant to Govern’, is often performed as a separate work.

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Eifman , Boris

(b Rubtsovsk, 22 July 1946).
Soviet dancer, choreographer, and director. He studied at Kishinev Ballet School, graduating in 1964, then at the choreographic faculty of Leningrad Conservatory with Aleksidze , graduating in 1972. He joined Kishinev Opera and Ballet Theatre in 1964 where he was appointed soloist, and was then appointed ballet master at Leningrad Ballet School (1972–7). In 1977 he became founding artistic director of Leningrad Theatre of Contemporary Ballet, also known as New Ballet (1977–8), Leningrad Ballet Ensemble (1978–80), and Leningrad (later St Petersburg) Boris Eifman Ballet Theatre (from 1990). Eifman created his first ballet in 1970 and soon came to represent the vanguard of Soviet modern ballet. Though based in classical technique, his style possesses an acrobatic attack and expressive freedom, and his highly theatrical approach embraces a wide range of material including rock ballets, ballet buffo, fairy-tales, and works based on literary themes. He has created over 40 ballets including Gayané (mus. Khachaturian , Maly Theatre, Leningrad, 1972), Firebird (mus. Stravinsky , Kirov, Leningrad, 1975, and New Ballet, Leningrad, 1978), Bivocality (mus. Pink Floyd , New Ballet, Leningrad, 1977), The Legend (mus. Kogan , Leningrad Theatre of Contemporary Ballet, Leningrad, 1982), The Master and Margarita (mus. Petrov , Leningrad Theatre of Contemporary Ballet, Leningrad, 1987), Thérèse Raquin (mus. Bach , Boris Eifman Ballet Theatre, Paris, 1990), The Murderers (mus. Bach , Mahler , and Schnitke , BEBT, 1991), The Karamazovs (mus. Rachmaninov , Musorgsky , and Wagner , BEBT, 1995), My Jerusalem (mus. various, BEBT, 1998), Russian Hamlet (mus. Beethoven and Mahler , BEBT, 1999) and Don Juan (mus. Mozart and Berlioz , 2001). His company first appeared in Paris in 1988, London in 1992, and New York in 1998. Eifman has also choreographed for various films.
In 1988 he was made Honoured Artist of the Russian Federation.

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Eight Jelly Rolls.

Modern dance work in one act with choreography by Tharp , music by Jelly Roll Morton and The Red Hot Peppers, design by Kermit Love , and lighting by Tipton . Premiered 22 Jan. 1971 at Oberlin College, Ohio, with Tharp , Rudner , R. M. Wright , I. García Lorca , D. Reitz , and others. This was Tharp's first major work to be choreographed to music, also marking her shift from austere minimalism to popular dance. A revised version was performed in New York, Sept. 1971.

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Eiko and Koma (Eiko Otake ,

b Tokyo, 14 Feb. 1952;
Koma Otake ,b Niigata, 27 Sept. 1948).
Japanese-US dancers and choreographers. They studied law and political science but in 1971 joined the Tatsumi Hijikata Butoh company in Tokyo. In 1972 they performed their first work together and in the same year also began studying with Ohno . In 1972 they moved to Germany and studied with Manja Chmiell , a follower of Wigman (1972–3) and toured in Europe before settling in the US in 1976. Still inspired by butoh forms, their work often deals with elemental human needs, expressed through austere, often extremely distorted movement, such as Grain (mus. trad., 1983), Thirst (silent, 1985), Land (mus. Robert Mirabal , 1991), Wind (mus. Mirabal , Eiko , and Koma , 1993), and Breath (1998). They have also choreographed work for CoDanceCo and Dance Alloy.

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Einstein on the Beach.

Opera in four acts directed by Robert Wilson , with music by Philip Glass , libretto (‘spoken texts’) by C. Knowles , L. Childs , and S. M. Johnson , and choreography by Andy deGroat and Childs . Premiered in Avignon in 1976, it has been revived for Next Wave Festival, Brooklyn Academy of Music (1984), among others.

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Ek , Mats

(b Malmö, 18 Apr. 1945).
Swedish dancer and choreographer, son of Birgit Cullberg and actor Anders Ek ; brother of dancer Niklas Ek . He started his career as an actor then studied dance at Stockholm Ballet Academy from 1972. He danced with Cullberg Ballet (1973–4) and Düsseldorf Ballet (1974–5), then returned to Cullberg Ballet which subsequently became the Mats Ek/Cullberg Ballet. He began choreographing in 1976 with The Officer's Servant and his later works for the Cullberg include Soweto (mus. collage of contemporary scores, 1977) and The Four Seasons (mus. Vivaldi , 1978). He achieved international acclaim with his re-workings of Giselle, Swan Lake, and Sleeping Beauty in which his elemental dance style, fusing classical ballet, folk, and modern dance, was put in the service of radical re-interpretations of the original libretti. (He is quoted as saying ‘a fairy-tale is like a pretty little cottage but there's a sign on the door saying Mined Area’.) In Giselle (1982) the heroine is presented as a simple peasant, living in a rural world which revolves often brutally around the twin poles of sexuality and death. When Giselle's naïvety turns to madness she is dispatched to a lunatic asylum. In his Sleeping Beauty (Hamburg Ballet, 1996) the heroine rebels against her parents, turns drug addict, and heads a stubborn course towards disillusionment. His other works also bear narrative traces, in their attention to psychological detail, their strong, even surreal imagery, and mixture of humour and pain. Ek left Cullberg in 1993 to work freelance, but continued to maintain a close association with the company. His subsequent works include the dance theatre piece Dance with your Neighbour (1994), with both dance and text by Ek , She was Black (mus. Górecki , Cullberg Ballet, 1995), and A Sort of (mus. Górecki , Netherlands Dance Theatre, 1997). He has created several ballets for television, including Smoke (1995).

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Ek , Niklas

(b Stockholm, 16 June 1943).
Swedish dancer. He is the son of Birgit Cullberg and actor Anders Ek ; brother of choreographer Mats Ek . He studied with Donya Feuer in Stockholm and in New York with Graham and Cunningham . After dancing briefly with Cunningham's company he worked with Cullberg Ballet (1967–72), then Ballet of the 20th Century (1972–5), then again with Cullberg. A versatile dancer with an extremely powerful personality he has continued performing in his fifties, dancing with Netherlands Dance Theatre 3 and partnering Guillem in M. Ek's film dance Smoke (1995).

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Elektra.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Helpmann , music by Arnold , and design by A. Boyd . Premiered 26 Mar. 1963 by the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden, London, with Nerina , Blair , Mason , and Rencher . It tells the myth of Electra in colourfully dramatic dance imagery. Other versions of the story include Charrat's Electre (mus. Pousseur , Brussels , 1960) and Taubert's Electra—Study about Hysteria (mus. Stockhausen , Brunswick, 1972).

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Éléments, Les.

1 Ballet in one act with choreography by Perrot , music by Bajetti , and design by C. Marshall . Premiered 26 June 1847 at Her Majesty's Theatre, London. It was conceived as a showcase for the talents of Grisi (Fire), Rosati (Water), and Cerrito (Air) in an attempt to repeat the huge success of Pas de quatre (1845). After an opening ensemble dance representing the earth the three ballerinas competed to assert the dominance of their particular element.

2 A one-act ballet by Fokine , with music by Bach and design by Bouchene , which was probably premiered 1 Apr. 1937 by R. Blum's Ballets de Monte Carlo at Alhambra Theatre, London, with Theilade and Eglevsky . This setting of Bach's Overture in B minor featured ensemble numbers for Water, Flowers, Air, and Flames, and solos for Flora, Zephyr, Vulcan, and the Tritons.
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élévation

(Fr., height). Dance movements which are performed in the air, in contrast to those (terre à terre) which hardly leave the floor.

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Elgar , (Sir) Edward

(b Broadheath, 2 June 1857, d Worcester, 23 Feb. 1934).
British composer. He wrote only one ballet score, The Sanguine Fan, which was originally performed as a mimed play at London's Chelsea Palace (1917) for charity. Its first ballet production was R. Hynd's L'Éventail (1976), for London Festival Ballet, which was premiered at Monte Carlo's International Arts Festival (at subsequent performances the English title was restored). The score Enigma Variations was first choreographed by Frank Staff (Cambridge, 1940) and more famously by Ashton for his work of the same title (Royal Ballet, 1968). Other ballets to Elgar's music include Tom Ruud's Introduction and Allegro (San Francisco Ballet, 1980).

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Eliasen , Johnny

(b Copenhagen, 1949).
Danish dancer. He studied at the Royal Danish Ballet School and danced with Scandinavian Ballet as a soloist (1964–5), then with RDB from 1966 where he was promoted soloist in 1972. A versatile dramatic performer, he created leading roles in Flindt's Felix Luna and Trio (both 1973), and Triumph of Death (1971). In 1987 he became ballet master of London Festival Ballet, in 1990 was appointed deputy artistic director of the Berlin Opera Ballet, and in 1994 returned to RDB as assistant artistic director, acting as temporary director (1995–7).

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Elite Syncopations.

Ballet in one act with choreography by MacMillan , music by Scott Joplin and others, and design by Ian Spurling . Premiered 7 Oct. 1974 by Royal Ballet at Covent Garden, London, with Derman , Mason , Park , Penney , Coleman , Eagling , MacLeary , Sleep , and Wall . This ragtime ballet is set in a dance hall and accompanied by a twelve-piece band seated at the back of the stage. Its flamboyantly dressed dancers perform a series of burlesque and virtuoso routines. It has been revived by Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet (1978), National Ballet of Canada (1978), and Houston Ballet (1990), and was filmed by the BBC in 1975.

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Elkins , Doug

(b New York, 1950).
US dancer and choreographer. He did not begin formal training until he was 19, but taught himself to dance at clubs. His background feeds into his style which is an electric mix of hip-hop, martial arts, ballet, and modern dance. He choreographs primarily for his own company, for example BipolarbearNOS (mus. Evren Celimi , 1998), but has also created works for other groups, such as Union Dance.

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Ellis , Angela (née Dukes and Ellis , David,

Angela, b London, 1920; David, b London, 1921).
Daughter and son-in-law of M. Rambert , both of them British dancers and teachers. She studied with Rambert , Volkova , V. Gsovsky , and Craske . He studied with Rambert , Volkova , and V. Gsovsky . Both danced with Ballet Rambert (she 1943–7 and he from 1946) and he was its associate director until 1966. They formed London Ballet Workshop together in 1951. She went on to direct Rambert School, he became director of the Mercury Theatre Trust until he returned to medical research.

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Elmhurst Ballet School.

English stage school, founded in 1922, which offers academic studies as well as training in the performing arts. Past pupils include M. Park .

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El Penitente.

See Penitente, El.

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Elssler , Fanny (orig. Franziska Elssler ;

b Gumpendorf, 23 June 1810, d Vienna, 27 Nov. 1884).
Austrian dancer and choreographer who was considered to exemplify the sensual rather than ethereal side of Romantic ballet. She studied with her sister Therese E. (1808–78) at Horschelt's ballet school at the Theater an der Wien, possibly dancing with Horschelt's notorious Vienna Children's Ballet. In 1818 both sisters joined the Kärntnertor Theater where their older sister Anna E. (1804–63) was already performing. Here Fanny performed in ballets by F. Taglioni , A. Vestris , and others. Between 1825 and 1827 she danced in Naples, returning to Vienna (1827–30) then making her debut in Berlin (1830), London (1833), and Paris (1834). For this she was coached by A. Vestris and created the role of Alcine in Coralli's La Tempête. She remained at the Opera until 1840 where the dramatic intensity and sensuousness of her performances ensured that her popularity soon rivalled Taglioni's . The contrast between their styles was identified by Gautier as pagan and Christian respectively. Among her most successful created roles were Florinda in Coralli's Le Diable boîteux (1836) for which she choreographed her famously exotic solo, the cachucha; Sarah in Mazilier's La Gypsy (1839), and Lauretta in Coralli's La Tarentule (1839). In 1840 she went to America and toured as far south as Havana. Though she earned a fortune she had to pay Paris Opera a large sum for breach of contract by staying away so long. In 1842 she returned to Europe, dancing in Vienna, Berlin, Brussels, Dublin, and Hamburg, also dancing her first Giselle in London (1843) which was highly acclaimed, particularly the mad scene. In 1844 she danced at La Scala (where the political climate undermined her success), followed by triumphant performances in La Esmeralda in Budapest and London. She returned to Italy (1846–8) and in 1848 made her Russian debut in St Petersburg and in Moscow where she was received with tumultuous enthusiasm. One of her finest roles was Lise in Dauberval's La Fille mal gardée. In 1851 she gave twelve farewell performances at Vienna's Kärntnertor Theater, mostly in La Esmeralda, Catarina, and Faust. Her final appearance was on 21 June 1851. Her sister Therese, who had created much of the choreography for her early ballets, often appeared with her in en travestie roles, though in certain quarters she was mocked for her unusual height.

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Elvin , Violetta (née Violetta Prokhorova ;

b Moscow, 3 Nov. 1925).
Soviet-British dancer. She studied at Bolshoi Ballet School with Kozhukova , Gerdt , and others and in 1942 graduated into the Bolshoi Ballet as a soloist. In 1943 she danced as ballerina with State Theatre Tashkent and in 1944 re-joined the Bolshoi at its wartime location in Kuibyshev. After returning to Moscow with the company (1945–6) she left for London with her English husband and joined Sadler's Wells Ballet where she remained as principal dancer until 1956. A dancer with an exotic glamour and attack rare in the UK, she also represented Britain's first close acquaintance with the Soviet style. She danced most of the ballerina roles as well as creating roles in Ashton's Cinderella (Summer Fairy, 1948), Daphnis and Chloe (Lykanion, 1951), Homage to the Queen (1953), and Birthday Offering (1956), and Petit's Ballabile (1950). She also guested with various companies including La Scala, Milan, and retired from the stage in 1956. Between 1985 and 1986 she was ballet director at Teatro San Carlo, Naples.

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emboîté

(Fr., boxed in). A series of steps where alternate legs are swung a little out to the side, then closed in front. Resembles the movement of plaiting.

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Embrace Tiger and Return to Mountain.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Tetley , music by Morton Subotnick , and design by Baylis . Premiered 21 Nov. 1968 by Ballet Rambert at J. Cochrane Theatre, London, with Craig , Bruce , Taylor , and Willis . This setting of Subotnick's score Silver Apples of the Moon was inspired by the concentrated calm of the Chinese martial art T'ai Chi. It has been revived by Netherlands Dance Theatre, Royal Swedish Ballet, and the Feld Ballet.

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Empire ballets.

The Empire Theatre was, along with the Alhambra Theatre, London's main platform for ballet at the end of the nineteenth century. Between 1887 and 1914 it drew large crowds to performances by some of the era's finest dancers, including Cecchetti (one of its first premier danseurs), Genée (who was prima ballerina there, 1897–1907), and also Kyasht, Bedells, and Bolm. Katti Lanner was ballet mistress there from 1887 to 1897.

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enchaînement

(Fr., linking). A combination of several steps or movements.

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Enfant et les sortilèges, L' (Eng. title The Spellbound Child).

Lyric fantasy in two parts with choreography by Balanchine , libretto by Colette , and music by Ravel . Premiered 21 Mar. 1925 at Monte Carlo. It tells the story of a destructive child who is attacked by the toys, animals, and wildlife he has abused. Balanchine created choreography for the entire opera in 1946, again in 1975 in New York, and in 1981 for National Education Television. Descombey staged it in Paris, 1960, and Charrat in Vienna, 1964. Kylián choreographed a dance of the same title to Ravel's score in 1984.

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English Folk Dance and Song Society, The.

Society founded by Cecil Sharp in London in 1911, with the aim of preserving English folk dance and music.

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English National Ballet (formerly London Festival Ballet).

British ballet company based in London. It has its origins in the Markova-Dolin company which toured Britain (1935–7) and was re-formed as Gala Performances of Ballet in 1949. The two stars were anxious to drop their names from the company in order to avoid having to dance at every performance and when it was again reformed in 1950 it took its title from the approaching Festival of Britiain (1951). It gave its first performance as Festival Ballet in 1950, under the management of impresario Julian Braunsweg and the artistic direction of Dolin, first in Bournemouth, then at the Stoll Theatre, London. In 1951 it took the title London's Festival Ballet, establishing regular seasons at London's Royal Festival Hall from 1952, and at London's Coliseum from 1969. In the same year it changed its name to London Festival Ballet. It was renamed English National Ballet in 1989 to emphasize the company's status both nationally and internationally, and in 1997 finally severed its links with the Festival Hall, using the Coliseum as its London base. It has always toured widely both at home and abroad and still averages more performances a year than any other UK company. From the start its aim was to present popular ballets with star casts to the widest possible audience and its repertory ranged from 19th-century classics such as Dolin's 1950s' staging of Giselle, to ballets from the Diaghilev and subsequent Ballets Russes repertoires, to more recent work, such as Lander's Études (1954), Carter's Witch Boy (1957), and Dolin's Variations for Four (1957). Later acquisitions have included Bourmeister's The Snow Maiden (1961), Nureyev's Sleeping Beauty (1975), P. Schaufuss's La Sylphide (1979), and Michael Corder's Cinderella (1996). From the beginning the company has drawn its dancers from around the world and also featured numerous international guest artists, including Danilova , Toumanova , T. Lander , Flindt , Evdokimova , Ruanne , and Terabust . Markova was the company ballerina until 1952 and continued to guest until her retirement in 1964. Since then her involvement has continued, as president from 1986, and staging the company's current production of Les Sylphides (1976). Dolin retired as artistic director in 1960 but continued to make guest appearances as Drosselmeyer in The Nutcracker until 1980. Braunsweg left in 1965. Subsequent directors have been Donald Albery (1965–8), Beryl Grey (1968–79), and John Field (1979–84). Under their direction the repertory focused more heavily on the classics but when Schaufuss took over in 1984 he introduced a more adventurous policy with new works by, among others, M. Clark , S. Davies , and C. Bruce (Swansong, 1987). He also introduced Ashton's Romeo and Juliet into the repertory. He was succeeded in 1990 by Ivan Nagy and in 1993 by Derek Deane . Deane has pursued an increasingly populist policy, with his own full-length Alice in Wonderland (1995), for example, and productions of Swan Lake (1997), Romeo and Juliet (1998), and Sleeping Beauty (2000) designed for a mass audience in London's Royal Albert Hall. Matz Skoog was appointed director in 2001. The company's official school, based at Markova House, London, was founded in 1988.

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Englund , Sorella

(b Helsinki, 1945).
Finnish dancer. She studied with E. Sylverston and joined the State Opera Ballet, moving to the Royal Danish Ballet in 1967 where she was promoted soloist in 1970. She created roles in Flindt's Triumph of Death (1971) and Holm's The Firebird (1972), among other works. Her stage career was cut short by illness, which she has since publicly discussed in symposiums on anorexia, but she continued to be active in staging Bournonville productions, including La Sylphide for Scottish Ballet and Abdallah for National Ballet of Canada (1997), and in 1996 was appointed ballet mistress at Boston Ballet.

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Enigma Variations.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Ashton , music by Elgar , and design by Julia Trevelyan Oman . Premiered 25 Oct. 1968 by Royal Ballet, Covent Garden, London, with Rencher , Beriosova , and Doyle . Unlike F. Staff's abstract setting of 1940, Ashton's version follows the composer in creating a set of vividly delineated character studies based on Elgar and his friends. Though Oman's designs place the ballet very precisely in ‘Worcestershire, 1898’, it evokes qualities of pathos, tenderness, loyalty, and nostalgia, and an image of the artist's solitariness, which all possess universal resonance. The choreography is classically based but deeply interwoven with naturalistic gesture. It was filmed in 1969.

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Enters , Angna

(b New York, 28 Apr. 1907, d Tenafly, NJ, 25 Feb. 1989).
US dancer, painter, and writer. She studied ballet in Milwaukee, and also danced with Michio Ito , in 1922, performing as his partner in a series of recitals in 1923. The same year she created her first piece, Ecclesiastique, an evocation of a Gothic Virgin, which later became known as Moyen Age, and presented her first solo programme in 1924. For the next 36 years she choreographed, designed, and performed her own dance works. Numbering over 300, these were considered to defy categorization as art, dance, or theatre, but attracted audiences around the world. She also exhibited as a painter and sculptor and illustrated the several books she wrote on her life and work. After retiring from the stage in 1960 she taught at several US universities.

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entrechat

(Fr., caper). A jump in which the dancer's legs cross rapidly in front and behind each other while still in the air. They range from an entrechat deux, where the legs are crossed once, to an entrechat dix. Even-numbered entrechats are finished by landing on both feet, odd-numbered with the dancer landing on one foot. Camargo is said to be the first to perform an entrechat quatre on stage and shortened her skirt in order to do so.

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entrée

(Fr., entrance). An entrance or opening dance. Also an individual dance within a larger segment of performance. The 17th-and 18th-century court ballets were composed of several entrées of four or more dancers and a closing Grand Ballet that featured all the dancers. In 19th-century ballets, individual acts were divided into several entrées, each one advancing the plot or theme, and performed by one or more principals with members of the corps de ballet.

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épaulement

(Fr., shoulder). The slight twist in the torso, from the waist upwards, which tilts one or other shoulder slightly forwards, thus giving an extra three-dimensional quality to a pose.

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Episodes.

Ballet in two parts with choreography by Graham and Balanchine , music by Webern , set and lighting by David Hays , and costumes by Karinska . Premiered 14 May 1959 by the Martha Graham Dance Company and New York City Ballet at City Center, New York, with Graham , Ross , McGehee , Winter , S. Wilson , Verdy , Watts , D. Adams , d'Amboise , Kent , Magallanes , Hayden , Moncion , and P. Taylor . It was first planned as a close collaboration between the choreographers but developed into two separate sections. Part 1 by Graham was set to Webern's Passacaglia, Op. 1, plus Six Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 6, and it portrayed Mary Stuart (danced by Graham ) recalling events from her life as she awaits her execution. Part 2, by Balanchine , was a series of plotless dances set to Webern's Symphony, Op. 21 (an ensemble dance), Five Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 10 (a pas de deux), Concerto, Op. 24 (pas de deux with female quartet), Variations for Orchestra, Op. 30 (solo for Paul Taylor ), and Ricercar for Six Voices from Bach's Musical Offering (an ensemble dance). Graham's part was soon dropped as was Taylor's solo, so in its current form the ballet now consists of the remaining four Balanchine sections. This version has been revived by Berlin Opera Ballet (1969) and Dutch National Ballet (1973).

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Epitaph.

Ballet in one act with choreography by van Dantzig , music by Ligeti , and design by van Schayk . Premiered 26 June 1969 by Dutch National Ballet at Stadsschouwburg, Amsterdam, with G. Wijnoogst , van Schayk , and C. Geldorp . This setting of Ligeti's Atmosphères and Volumina deals with failures of communication in modern urban society. It has been revived for Munich Ballet (1972).

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Épreuve d'amour, L'.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Fokine , music by various composers, and design by Derain (who was also co-librettist with Fokine ). Premiered 4 Apr. 1936 by R. Blum's Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, at Monte Carlo, with Nemchinova , Eglevsky , Yazvinsky , Oboukhov , and Kirsova . Based on a Korean fairy-tale, this light and witty piece of chinoiserie tells the story of a Mandarin's daughter who is engaged to a rich Ambassador but loves an impoverished youth. The latter disguises himself as a dragon and steals all the Ambassador's gold so that the Mandarin loses interest in the marriage and allows his daughter to marry her beloved. The ballet's score was initially attributed to Mozart when first discovered (in Graz, 1928) but it is now believed to be a collection of pieces written by various composers for Effisio Catte's Der Rekrut (The Recruit)–a divertissement first performed at the Vienna Kärntnertor Theater in 1838. After its discovery, the score was first choreographed by H. J. Fürstenau in Karlsruhe (1930). The Fokine version was revived by G. Gé (Finnish National Ballet, 1956) and by Beriozoff (Indiana University, 1980).

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Erdman , Jean

(b Honolulu, 20 Feb. 1917).
US dancer, choreographer, and teacher. She studied with Graham at Bennington Summer School and at School of American Ballet as well as with various teachers of Eastern dance. Between 1938 and 1944 she performed with Graham where she danced major roles, including the One who Speaks in Letter to the World. She returned later to guest. Her own first works were made in collaboration with Cunningham and in 1944 she formed her own group for which she choreographed extensively. Her work increasingly shifted towards mixed-media, as in The Coach with the Six Insides (1962), based on Joyce's Finnegans Wake, which toured both the US and Europe. In the 1970s she founded the Theatre of the Open Eye where she produced plays by Yeats and her own work such as Gauguin in Tahiti (1976) and The Shining Hour (1980).

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Errand into the Maze.

Modern dance work in one act with choreography by Graham , music by Menotti , set by Noguchi , and costumes by Edythe Gilfond . Premiered 28 Feb. 1947 by Martha Graham Dance Company at Ziegfeld Theater, New York, with Graham and M. Ryder . Based on the legend of Theseus and the Minotaur, it symbolizes the struggle between the self and its most secret terrors. It has been revived by Batsheva Dance Company and by Dutch National Ballet (1999).

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Escuardo , Vicente

(b Valladolid, 27 Oct. 1892, d Barcelona, 4 Dec. 1980).
Spanish dancer. Though born into the middle class he learnt flamenco from gypsies in cafés and at fairs. He then studied in Paris, evolving his own more refined style, and with his partner Carmita García travelled the world, gaining a reputation as the most patrician of all Spanish dancers. He retired from the stage in 1961.

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Eshkol , Noa

(b Safad, 28 Feb. 1924).
Israeli dance notator. She founded the Chamber Dance Group in 1954, choreographing many works for it and also developing the Eshkol-Wachman notation system in collaboration with one of her first students Abraham Wachman. Her books include Movement Notation (London, 1958).

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Esmeralda, La

Ballet in three acts with choreography and libretto by Perrot , music by Pugni , sets by W. Grieve , and costumes by Mme Copère . Premiered 9 Mar. 1844 at Her Majesty's Theatre, London, with Grisi , Perrot , Saint-Léon , and A. L. Coulon . It is based on Hugo's novel Notre-Dame de Paris (1831) and tells the story of the deaf and hunchbacked Quasimodo who is hopelessly in love with the gypsy girl Esmeralda, who, in turn, loves Captain Phoebus. The priest Frollo is also infatuated with Esmeralda and stabs Phoebus out of jealousy. Esmeralda is then accused of Phoebus's murder but Quasimodo exposes Frollo's crime. Elssler scored an exceptional triumph in this ballet when she danced it in St Petersburg in 1849 and the work's unusually vivid characterization and tight dramatic structure ensured its enduring popular appeal. Petipa choreographed a new version in 1886 in St Petersburg for which Drigo composed several new numbers, including the Diana and Actaeon pas de deux which is still performed today (though in choreography based on the 1935 Vaganova staging). A completely new version with a tragic ending was choreographed by Bourmeister in 1950. With a libretto by himself and Tikhomirov and music by Glière and S. Vasilenko it was premiered 14 Oct. at the Moscow Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Lyric Theatre. A third version was choreographed by Beriozoff in 1954 for London Festival Ballet to music aranged by G. Corbett . Other treatments of the same story include Gorsky's Gudule's Daughter (Moscow, 1902), Petit's Notre-Dame de Paris (Paris Opera, 1965), B. Wells's The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Australian Ballet, 1981), and C. Gable and M. Pink's The Hunchback of Notre Dame (mus. P. Feeney , Northern Ballet Theatre, 1998). A much earlier version was by Antonio Monticioni at La Scala, Milan, in 1839.

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Espinosa.

Renowned family of dancers and teachers, originally of Spanish extraction. Léon E. (1825–1904) studied at the Paris Opera school, danced at the Théâtre de la Porte-Saint-Martin, then toured the US (where he was captured by Indians in 1850) before joining the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow as premier danseur de contrast (a category specially invented for him as he was so short). He finally settled in London in 1872 where he opened a school. His wife and daughter (Lea) both taught tap dance as well as ballet. His son Édouard (1871–1950) was a dancer and producer of spectacular entertainments as well as being a renowned teacher and author of several books. De Valois was one of his pupils. He was one of the founders of the Royal Academy of Dancing in 1920 and of the British Ballet Organisation in 1930. After his death the latter was directed by his son Edward Kelly-Espinosa (d 13 Oct. 1991) and daughter Yvette E. (d 5 May 1992). The wife of Édouard's nephew Geoffrey , Bridget E. (née Kelly ; b 1928) danced with Embassy Ballet (1947) and International Ballet (1948) and was artistic director of Elmhurst Ballet School from 1966.

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Esquivel , Jorge

(b Havana, 1950).
Cuban dancer. He studied with F. Alonso , Joaquín Banegas , Anna Leontieva , Michel Gurov , and Plisetski , graduating in 1968 to become a member of National Ballet of Cuba (with which he had already danced part-time). He was promoted to principal in 1972 and created roles in A. Mendez' La Dame aux camélias (1971) and Albert Alonso's Viet Nam: la lección (1973), among others. He became celebrated as one of Cuba's finest male dancers, and his departure from the island in 1992 was considered a major defection. He joined San Francisco Ballet where he is now senior character dancer and teacher.

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Estonia.

Professional dance in Estonia dates back to the beginning of the 20th century. Ballet is based at the two opera houses, Estonia Theatre in Tallinn and Vanemuine in Tartu. The Estonia company has 55 dancers and since the 1960s many of its works have been choreographed by Mai Murdmaa , including Crime and Punishment (mus. Pärt , 1994) and Catulli Carmina (mus. Orff , 1994). The smaller company at Tartu has many works by Mare Tommingas in its repertory, including Carmina Burana (mus. Orff , 1992). The financial situation of the country has not helped the development of dance and many of its finest dancers have left, including Thomas Edur and Agnes Oaks , who joined English National Ballet in 1990. Modern dance emerged in the 1990s with Dance Thetre Nordstar founded by Saima Kranig (former ballerina of the Estonian Theatre) in 1991 and Fine 5 founded in 1993 with choreographer René Nömmik.

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étoile

(Fr., star). The highest rank of dancer at the Paris Opera.

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Étude.

Ballet in six movements with choreography by Nijinska and music by Bach . It has been revised several times. The first version was titled Holy Études and was premiered 3 Aug. 1925 by Theatre Chorégraphique Nijinska at Margate, England. The second, Un estudio religioso, was premiered 27 Aug. 1926 at Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires, and the best-known was the 1931 version Étude created for Opera Russe de Paris with Nijinska and Lichine .

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Études (original Dan. title Étude).

Ballet in one act with choreography by H. Lander , music by Riisager (after Czerny ), and design by Erik Nordgren . Premiered 15 Jan. 1948 by Royal Danish Ballet in Copenhagen with M. Lander , Brenaa , and Jensen . This virtuoso staging of a ballet class has become a showcase for dancers around the world. It opens with the dancers at the barre then progresses through increasingly difficult exercises in adagio, petit and grand allegro. A revised version was created in 1951 with T. Pils (later Lander), Bruhn , and Jensen and a third version for Paris Opera 19 Nov. 1952. Always extremely popular with audiences, the ballet has been revived (with some revisions) by many companies including London Festival Ballet (for whom it has become a signature work, London, 1955), American Ballet Theatre (New York, 1961) and San Francisco Ballet (1998). It was revised for Danish television in 1969.

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eurythmics

(also Fr., eurythmie). From the Greek eurhythmia, meaning rhythmic order and graceful motion. The term was used during the Renaissance to designate unity between parts and harmonious proportion of part to whole. At the beginning of the 20th century it was used specifically to designate the movement theories and practice developed by Jaques-Dalcroze which were influenced by Delsarte and the new modern dance. Exercises in breathing, rhythmic awareness, group movements, and plastic gesture were used to explore and extend the body's response to music. These became a seminal influence in the teaching of dance and music in Europe and the US.

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Evdokimova , Eva

(b Geneva, 1 Dec. 1948).
US dancer. She studied at the Munich State Opera Ballet School and at the Royal Ballet School as well as with M. Fay (London), Volkova (Copenhagen), and Dudinskaya (Leningrad). In 1966 she joined Royal Danish Ballet then in 1969 moved to the Berlin Opera Ballet where she was prima ballerina (1973–85). A dancer whose eclectic schooling allowed her to excel in both Eastern and Western styles, she was particularly renowned for her interpretations of romantic roles, bringing an exceptional delicacy, refinement, and musicality to Giselle, among other works. Her repertory favoured the major Bournonville and Petipa roles but she also danced in ballets by Cranko and Tetley and created roles in Luipart's Scarecrows (1970) and Hynd's Nutcracker (1976) and Coppélia (1985), among others. Since 1971 she has also been an international guest artist appearing frequently with London Festival Ballet, as well as the Kirov, American Ballet Theatre, and National Ballet of Canada. She gave her last public performances in 1990.

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Éventail de Jeanne, L'.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Yvonne Franck and Alice Bourgat , music by various composers, sets by P. Legrain and R. Moulaert , and costumes by Laurencin . Premiered privately on 16 June 1928 in the Paris studio of the ballet mistress Jeanne Dubost. Dubost had herself conceived the ballet as a musical caprice and had given the ten leaves of her fan to ten different composers asking each of them to compose a single dance number. They were: Ravel (Fanfare), Ferroud (March), Ibert (Valse), Roland-Manuel (Canarie), Delannoy (Bourrée), Roussel (Sarabande), Milhaud (Polka), Poulenc (Pastourelle), F. Schmitt (Finale), and Auric . The resulting ballet was so well received it was taken into the repertory of the Paris Opera where it was premiered by Toumanova (then a virtuoso 10-year-old) and other petits rats from the Opera school on 4 Mar. 1929.

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Events.

Performance devised by Cunningham in which extracts from various works (old and new) are performed as a continuous whole and in an order determined by chance. They were originally conceived as a way of allowing Cunningham's company to perform in non-theatrical spaces, hence the first was called Museum Event 1 (performed in Vienna, 1964) and a later series in 1968 were called Gymnasium Events. Cunningham has also subsequently staged them in conventional theatres, with the intention of opening up fresh views of his choreography.

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Every Soul is a Circus.

Modern dance work in one act with choreography by Graham , music by Paul Nordhoff , set by Philip Stapp , and costumes by Edythe Gilfond . Premiered 27 Dec. 1939 by Martha Graham Dance Company at St James' Theater, New York, with Graham , Hawkins , and Cunningham (his first role with the company). It is based on a poem by Vachel Lindsay which humorously dissects the split personality of a woman. The central female character observes the reactions of her various partners as she flirts with a mischievous acrobat and a bullish ringmaster.

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Excelsior.

Ballet in six parts with choreography by Manzotti , music by Romualdo Marenco , and design by Alfredo Edel . Premiered at Teatro alla Scala, Milan, with Bice Vergani, Carlo Montanara, and Rosina Viale. This spectacular ballet, celebrating the progress of human civilization, was conceived at a time when the public's taste for ballet had declined into hunger for lavish entertainment and also when Italian national optimism was at a peak. In many ways it prefigured the epics of Hollywood. It traced human progress in terms of a tumultuous struggle between the Spirits of Light and Darkness, dramatizing such landmarks as the invention of the steamship, the iron bridge, telegraphy, and the building of the Suez Canal and the Mont Cenis tunnel. The final defeat of Darkness is marked by a Grand Festival of the Nations and an apotheosis of light and peace. The choreography for the original production was arranged for several hundred of dancers and was lavishly staged. It was extremely popular and was revived all over Europe albeit in often reduced versions. In Vienna it was in the repertory from 1885 to 1914, receiving 329 performances. It was re-staged by dell'Ara for the Teatro Communale, Florence (1967), and for La Scala (1974).

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Extemporary Dance Theatre.

British modern dance company. It was established in 1976 by students of London School of Contemporary Dance after they appeared at the Edinburgh Festival in 1975. G. Powell was director, followed by P. Taras in 1978 then E. Claid in 1981 when it became a highly successful repertory company performing works by M. Clark , D. Gordon , V. Farber , and others. L. Newson danced with it from 1981 to 1985. Sean Walsh became director in 1990 but its Arts Council revenue grant was withdrawn in 1991 and it was disbanded.

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extension.

Dancers are said to have good extension if they are able to raise their leg high into the air and sustain the position. A trend among modern female dancers—exemplified by Sylvie Guillem —is to aim for the half-past-midnight extension, i.e. with the lifted leg raised so high that it virtually brushes the dancer's ear.

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Ezralow , Daniel

(b Los Angeles, c.1957).
US dancer and choreographer. He trained locally and at the University of California (Berkeley) before going to New York in 1976 where he studied with the Ailey and Joffrey companies. He made his debut with Bruce Becker and Jane Kosminski's 5 × 2 Plus Dance Company (1976–9), going on to dance with the companies of Lubovitch (1978) and P. Taylor (1979–83) and also with Pilobolus. In 1983 he formed Momix with other ex-members of Pilobolus. He has co-created works for both Pilobolus and Momix as well as choreographing for Batsheva, London Contemporary Dance Theatre, Berlin Opera Ballet, etc. He now dances solo, for example in his own mixed-media show, Mandala (1997).

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F

Fables for Our Time.

Modern dance work in four parts with choreography by Weidman and music by Freda Miller . Premiered 11 July 1947 by the Charles Weidman Dance Theater Company at Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival with Weidman and Betty Osgood . It was based on four comic fables by James Thurber and became Weidman's most popular work. The New York premiere was 18 Apr. 1948.

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Fabre , Jan

(b Antwerp, 14 Dec. 1958).
Belgian choreographer, performance artist, and theatre director. He studied visual arts and presented a series of solo performance works (1976–82) exploring the dynamics of ordinary human movement within the context of theatrical ritual. In 1980 he began creating group works for dance, opera, and theatre, including The Sound of One Hand Clapping (mus. Knapik , 1990) for Frankfurt Ballet. He first introduced classical movement into his vocabulary in The Power of Theatrical Madness (1984), in which a dancer repeated a phrase of adagio movement for thirteen minutes with her back to the audience. In the 1990s he remained active as a creator of dance theatre works but also exhibited art installations.

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Façade.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Ashton , music by Walton , and design by John Armstrong . Premiered 26 Apr. 1931 by the Camargo Society at the Cambridge Theatre, London, with Lopokova , Ashton , and Markova . Walton's score was originally composed as a setting for Edith Sitwell's witty poems but is here used on its own to accompany Ashton's series of choreographic satires on popular dance forms and their dancers (Scotch Rhapsody, Yodelling Song, Polka, Foxtrot, Waltz, Popular Song, Tango, Tarantella). With its mix of succinct observation and absurdity the ballet was an immediate hit, and was taken into the repertories of Ballet Rambert and later the Vic-Wells Ballet. It is still danced by both the Royal and Birmingham Royal Ballets though some consider that its comedy has coarsened over the years. It has also been revived by several other companies, including City Center Joffrey Ballet (1969), Australian Ballet (1972), and Teatro Regio Ballet (1992). An earlier version was choreographed by Gunter Hess in Hagen, Germany.

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face, en

(Fr., facing). Any position in which the dancer's body is squarely facing the audience.

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Fâcheux, Les.

1 Seminal comédie-ballet with music and choreography by Beauchamps and libretto by Molière . Premiered 17 Aug. 1661 in front of Louis XIV at Vaux. Text and dance were combined to tell the story of a man thwarted from meeting his beloved by a string of eccentrics and bores. The ballet was a direct forerunner of Noverre's ballet d'action.

2 Ballet in one act based on Molière, with libretto by Kochno , choreography by Nijinska , music by Auric , and design by Braque . Premiered 19 Jan. 1924 by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes at Monte Carlo with Tchernicheva , Vilzak , and Dolin . Despite the latter's novelty pointe work and the excellence of Braque's designs this ballet was not a success. Massine choreographed a new version for the same company, premiered in Monte Carlo on 3 May 1927 and danced in it himself, but with no greater success.
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Facsimile.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Robbins , music by Bernstein , set by Oliver Smith , and costumes by Sharaff . Premiered 24 Oct. 1946 by Ballet Theater at Broadway Theater, New York, with Kaye , Robbins , and Kriza . This study of social mores is centred around a love triangle between a woman and two men on a beach.

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Fadeyechev , Alexei

(b Moscow, 16 Aug. 1960).
Russian dancer and director. He studied at the Bolshoi Ballet School with Alexander Prokofiev , and graduated into the Bolshoi Ballet as a principal dancer, holding that position for twenty years. Under the coaching of his father Nikolai he developed a refined classical style and a dramatic stage presence and he performed most of the major roles in the repertory. He also guested with many companies, including Royal Ballet, Kirov, Royal Danish Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Boston Ballet, and Tokyo Ballet. Between 1998 and 2000 he was artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet, mounting a critically acclaimed revival of Gorsky's 1900 version of Don Quixote in 1999.

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Fadeyechev , Nikolai

(b Moscow, 27 Jan. 1933).
Soviet dancer and teacher; father of Alexei Fadeyechev . He studied at the Bolshoi Ballet School (1943–52) with Rudenko and graduated into the Bolshoi Ballet. He was promoted soloist in 1953 and his combination of technical ease, dramatic talent, and exceptional partnering skills led to him dancing most of the principal roles in the classical and modern repertories. He was the favourite partner of Plisetskaya and also created roles in Vinogradov's Asel (1967), Alonso's Carmen Suite (1967), Grigorovich's Swan Lake (1969), and Plisetskaya's Anna Karenina (1972). In 1961 he was principal guest artist with Paris Opera and he also danced Albrecht in the BBC's 1958 film of Giselle. He was made People's Artist of the USSR in 1976 and a year later retired to become teacher and rehearsal director with the Bolshoi. In 1993 he became associated with the Renaissance Ballet in Moscow. He is married to dancer Irina Holina .

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fado.

Portugese folk-song, of a melancholy and nostalgic kind, often linked to Spanish flamenco music and dance. (Fado means fate.)

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Fagan , Garth

(b Kingston, 3 May 1940).
Jamaican-US dancer and choreographer. He studied African-Caribbean dance with Pearl Primus and Lavinia Williams and took master classes with Cunningham , Limón , Graham , and Ailey . As a teenager he toured with the Jamaican National Dance Company and while studying in Detroit (1960–70) also performed with various companies, including Dance Theater of Detroit. In 1970 he began teaching at the State University of New York at Brockport and formed a company out of enthusiastic but untrained adult dancers. The Bottom of the Bucket But … Dance Theater formed the basis of his Bucket Dance Theater which within a decade became a highly trained ensemble, performing his eclectic mix of jazz, modern, and African-Caribbean dance. His many works include Prelude (1981), Easter Freeway Processional (mus. Glass , 1983), Griot New York (mus. Marsalis , 1991), Drafts of Shadows (1993), and Nkanyit (mus. Carter-Lundy , 1997). He has also choreographed for Dance Theatre of Harlem, including Footprints Dressed in Red (mus. J. Adams , 1986), for the José Limón Company, Never No Lament (mus. Kronos Quartet, 1994), for the Broadway musical, The Lion King (1997) for which he won a Tony award, and for New York City Ballet, Ellington Elation, the middle section of Duke! (mus. Ellington , 1999).

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failli

(Fr., failed). The dancer springs into the air, landing on the front foot with the back foot raised. The back foot then slides through to the front. During the spring the body is turned slightly inwards towards the front foot with the face turned away.

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Fairy Doll, The (orig. Ger. title Die Puppenfee)

Pantomime-divertissement in one act with choreography by Hassreiter , libretto by F. Gaul and Hassreiter , music by Joseph Bayer , and designs by A. Brioschi . Premiered 4 Oct. 1888 at the Court Opera, Vienna, with C. Pagliero . It is set in a toy shop and portrays a group of dolls coming to life after their owner has shut up for the night. They dance with each other under the leadership of the Fairy Doll, to whom they pay homage in their final procession. The title role was mimed in the original version. The ballet has remained in the Vienna State Opera's repertoire (receiving its 750th performance in 1973) and different versions have been staged all over the world, most famously N. and S. Legat's (St Petersburg, 1903) and I. Clustine's for the Bolshoi (Moscow, 1901) which was re-staged for Pavlova in 1914 and became one of the most famous items in her repertory. Massine's La Boutique fantasque (1919) was a more dramatically lively adaptation of the libretto.

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Fairy's Kiss, The.

See Baiser de la fée, Le.

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Falco , Louis

(b New York, 2 Aug. 1942, d 26 Mar. 1993).
US dancer, choreographer, and director. He studied at the American Ballet Theatre School, American Ballet Center, and with Limón , Weidman , and Graham , making his debut with the Limón Dance Company in 1960. In 1967 he formed his own group for which he choreographed many works, including Caviar (1970), Escargot (1978), and Kate's Rag (1980), the majority of which were set to music by Burt Alcantara . Many of his early dances tended towards lyrical abstraction but after 1971 he increasingly incorporated text and props. He also made works for Netherlands Dance Theatre (Eclipse, 1974), for Ballet Rambert (Tutti Frutti, 1973), and La Scala Ballet (The Eagle's Nest, 1980). In 1980 he choreographed the film Fame.

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Falla , Manuel de

(b Cadiz, 23 Nov. 1876, d Alta Gracia, Argentina, 14 Nov. 1946).
Spanish composer who wrote two ballet scores: El amor brujo (chor. Pastora Imperio , 1915; new version chor. Peter Wright for Royal Ballet Touring Company, 1975) and Le Tricorne (chor. Massine , 1919). His posthumous opera Atlantida features several dance numbers (prod. M. Wallmann , La Scala, Milan, 1962).

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fall-recovery.

The dynamic opposition of movement, which forms the basis of Humphrey's system of modern dance and corresponds to Graham's contraction-release and Laban's Anspannung-Abspannung.

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Fall River Legend.

Ballet in one act with choreography by de Mille , music by Morton Gould , sets by Oliver Smith , and costumes by Miles White . Premiered 22 Apr. 1948 by Ballet Theatre at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, with A. Alonso , D. Adams , Kriza , and Bentley . It is based on the real-life murder case of Lizzie Borden who was accused of killing her parents with an axe in 1892. It is not a historical record but explores the frustrations and loneliness of a spinster in a small American town, and the reasons why she resorts to violence as a means of release. Lizzie later became one of Nora Kaye's most celebrated roles. The ballet has been revived for several companies including Dance Theatre of Harlem (1983) and Birmingham Royal Ballet (1994). Frank Staff also choreographed a ballet on the same story (S. Africa, 1975).

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Fancy Free.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Robbins , music by Bernstein , set by Oliver Smith , and costumes by Kermit Love . Premiered 19 Apr. 1944 by Ballet Theatre at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, with Lang , Kriza , Robbins , Bentley , and Reed . This seminal all-American ballet portrays three sailors on leave in New York, who meet two girls on a hot summer night. It was Robbins's first ballet, and an instant hit. With its cast of brash and lively modern characters, its mix of classical and vernacular dance, it influenced not only American ballet but also theatre and cinema and was turned into the musical On the Town (mus. Bernstein , chor. Robbins , dir. George Abbott , 1944) and later a film of the same title (1949). Robbins revived the ballet for New York City Ballet in 1980 and it was also staged for Dance Theatre of Harlem in 1985. New versions have been choreographed by F. Marteny (Graz , 1969, and Ballet of Marseilles, 1971) and T. Schilling (E. Berlin 1971).

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fandango.

A Spanish dance, believed to originate from S. America, in 3/4 or 6/8 time. It is accompanied by guitars and castanets and one of its distinctive features is that the dancers periodically speed up then come to a sudden stop. One of its first appearances in ballet was in Angiolini and Gluck's Don Juan (1761) and it also features in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro (1786). Tudor created a ballet of the same name for National Ballet of Canada (mus. Padre Soler , 1972).

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Fanfare.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Robbins , music by Britten , and design by I. Sharaff . Premiered 2 June 1953 at City Center, New York, by New York City Ballet with Mounsey , Larsson , Jillana , d'Amboise , Bolender , Bliss , and Hobi . It mirrors the logic of its music, Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (Purcell Variations), by portraying the qualities of individual instruments through dance. It was revived for Royal Danish Ballet in 1956.

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Fantasia.

Disney's seminal 1940 cartoon contains some masterpieces of animated choreography. Fairies, fish, and mushrooms dance to sections of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker while Ponchielli's Dance of the Hours becomes a ballet for ostriches, hippos, and alligators. Disney's team made extensive drawings of real dancers including Baranova , Riabouchinska , and Lichine to ensure the comic accuracy of the movement.

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farandole.

A lively old Provençal dance in 6/8 time which was originally performed by couples holding hands as they danced through the streets. It appears at the beginning of the Vision Scene in Sleeping Beauty and in Flames of Paris.

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Farber , Viola

(b Heidelberg, 25 Feb. 1931, d Bronxville, NY, 24 Dec. 1998).
US dancer, choreographer, and teacher. She studied with Litz , Craske , Corvino , and Cunningham , joining the latter's company when it was founded in 1953. She stayed with Cunningham until 1965 but also danced with P. Taylor and Litz . In 1965 she began choreographing her own work and founded her own company in 1968 which toured widely in N. America and Europe. Her style was characterized by dense demanding movement, a wry sense of humour, and a strong if allusive dramatic quality. Her works include Survey (mus. David Tudor , 1971), Notebook (mus. Farber , 1968), and Dune (mus. Alvin Lucier , 1972). Between 1981 and 1983 she was artistic director of the Centre Nationale de Danse Contemporaine in Angers and in 1983 was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for choreography. She worked as a freelance choreographer and teacher for many companies, colleges, and festivals throughout Europe and the US and in 1988 was appointed director of dance at Sarah Lawrence College, New York. In 1995 she gave one of her last stage performances in a collaborative duet Three Step (Shipwreck) with her expupil Ralph Lemon .

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Farmer , Peter

(b Luton, 3 Nov. 1941).
British designer. His first ballet designs were for Jack Carter's Agrionia (1964), and he has since designed for most major ballet companies, including Stuttgart Ballet (Peter Wright's Giselle), Royal Ballet Touring Company (Ashton's The Dream), London Festival Ballet (Carter's Coppélia), Australian Ballet (Prokovsky's The Three Musketeers), Royal Ballet (MacMillan's Winter Dreams), Vienna State Opera (MacMillan's Manon), and Birmingham Royal Ballet (Peter Wright's Coppélia).

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Farrell , Suzanne (orig. Roberta Sue Ficker ;

b Cincinnati, 16 Aug. 1945).
US dancer. She studied locally and at the School of American Ballet, making her debut with New York City Ballet in 1961. A tall, almost regal dancer, with a lyrical musicality and a capacity to push her technique to seemingly dangerous limits, she became Balanchine's last great muse—the instrument with which he conducted his final experiments into neo-classical dance (he used to refer to her as his Stradivarius). In 1965 she was promoted to principal and as well as dancing the standard Balanchine repertory she created several new roles, for example in Movements for Piano and Orchestra (1963), Don Quixote (which was almost a love-letter from choreographer to dancer, 1965), Variations (1966), Jewels (in which her classical qualities were crystallized in the ‘Diamonds’ pas de deux, 1967), and Slaughter on 10th Avenue (New York City Ballet staging, in which her capacity to move on a large, even vulgar scale was exploited in the role of Striptease Girl, 1969). In 1969 she married the dancer Paul Mejia which strained relations with the possessive Balanchine to breaking-point. A year later she left to dance with Béjart's Ballet of the 20th Century, where as the company's new star she created roles in several of his works, including Sonate (1970), Nijinsky, clown de Dieu (1971), and I trionfi (1974). In 1975 she returned to NYCB where, dancing with an even greater technical authority she assumed many of her old roles as well as creating several new ones, for example in Robbins's Piano Concerto in G (1975) and Balanchine's Union Jack (1976), Vienna Waltzes (1977), Davidsbündlertänze (1980), and a new version of Mozartiana (1981). During this time she also performed as an international guest star, for example with the Royal Danish Ballet (1976), and appeared in many television dance films. Since retiring from the stage in 1989 she has taught at the School of American Ballet, staged several Balanchine works including Scotch Symphony for the Kirov Ballet in 1988 and also founded her own company, Suzanne Farrell Ballet. Her autobiography Holding on to the Air, written with Toni Bentley , was published New York, 1990.

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Farron , Julia

(b London, 22 July 1922).
British dancer and teacher. She studied at the Cone-Ripman school and became the first scholarship pupil to attend the Sadler's Wells Ballet School in 1931. When she joined the Vic-Wells Ballet in 1936 she was its most junior member. A crisp, elegant dancer with strong dramatic talents she created roles in several ballets, most notably Princess Belle Épine in Cranko's Prince of the Pagodas (1957), but to the surprise of some she never joined the top rank of ballerinas. She danced with the Royal Ballet until 1961 and continued to perform some mime roles, e.g. Lady Capulet in MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet which she created in 1965. Since retiring from the stage she has taught at the Royal Ballet School and between 1983 and 1989 was artistic director, then director, of the Royal Academy of Dancing. She married the choreographer Alfred Rodrigues .

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farruca.

An expressive, virile dance, of gypsy origin, from Andalusia. It is performed by the Miller in Massine's Le Tricorne.

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fashion.

Throughout history the costumes worn by dancers have been influenced by contemporary fashions in their cut and fabric—even when they have been specially adapted to stage use. During the 20th century fashion designers were also directly commissioned to create costumes for dance—sometimes to create a particular look for the dancers, sometimes to bring in the added cachet of a voguish name. Diaghilev was one of the first directors to collaborate with a major fashion talent, commissioning Chanel to design the costumes for Le Train bleu (chor. Nijinska , 1924) with its cast of chic young people. (The work of his own designers, especially Bakst, also, conversely, had a profound influence on contemporary fashion designers, e.g. Poiret.) Later haute couture designers who have worked for dance include Halston, who designed nearly all of Graham's costumes between 1975 and 1988 (controversially, since some felt his costumes added an inappropriate sleekness and glamour to the choreography), Calvin Klein for Graham (Maple Leaf Rag, 1990), Versace for Béjart (ten works including Le Presbytère, 1997), Katherine Hamnett for Rambert Dance Company (Alston's Strong Language, 1987), Isaac Mizrahi for American Ballet Theatre (Twyla Tharp's Brief Fling, 1990) and for Mark Morris (several works including I Don't Want to Love, 1996), Oscar de la Renta for Twyla Tharp (Sinatra Suite, 1984), Lacroix for American Ballet Theatre (Gaïté parisienne and Swan Lake, both 1988), Jasper Conran for Royal Ballet (Bintley's Tombeaux, 1993), Scottish Ballet (Sleeping Beauty, 1994), and Swan Lake, 1995), Stuttgart Ballet (Bintley's Edward II, 1995), and Birmingham Royal Ballet (Bintley's Brahms Handel Variations, 1994, Nutcracker Sweeties, 1996 and Arthur, 2000), Rei Kawabuko for Cunningham (Scenario, 1997), and Hussein Chalayan for Michael Clark (current\SEE, 1998).

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Fauré , Gabriel

(b Pamiers, 12 May 1845, d Paris, 4 Nov. 1924).
French composer. He wrote no ballet scores but his concert music has often been used for dance, most notably Pelléas et Mélisande (chor. J. J. Etcheverry , Brussels, 1953, and Balanchine in the Emeralds section of Jewels, New York, 1967. The latter also incorporates Fauré's Shylock Overture). Other choreographed scores include Pavane (chor. MacMillan , London, 1973), Requiem (chor. MacMillan , Stuttgart, 1976, and also G. Casado and J. Russillo , 1976), and the various piano pieces and songs used in A. Howard's La Fête étrange (London, 1940).

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Faust ballets.

The legend of Faust has been a recurringly popular theme in dance. In 1723 John Rich presented his ballet pantomime The Necromancer or the History of Dr Faustus at the Lincolns Inn Fields Theatre in London and during the 19th century there was a rash of Faust-inspired ballets, including Bournonville's Faust (mus. P. L. Keck , Royal Danish Ballet, 1832), Deshayes's Faust (mus. Adam , London's King's Theatre, 1833), Perrot's Faust (mus. Panizza Milan, with Elssler as Gretchen, 1848), P. Taglioni's Satanella order Metamorphosen (mus. Hertel , based on Jaques Cazotte's Diable amoureux, Berlin, 1852), Reisinger's Mephistophelia (mus. Kredler , Hamburg, 1856), and Lanner's Faust (mus. M. Lutz and E. Ford , London's Empire Theatre, 1895). Remislav Remislavsky's Faust (mus. Frantiek Skvor , Prague National Theatre, 1926) was based on the libretto Der Doktor Faust, written by Heinrich Heine in 1847 but not staged at that date. Heine's libretto also inspired Kirsanova's Faust (mus. Henry Krips , Australian National Ballet, 1941) and Heiner Luipart's Abraxas (mus. W. Egk , Munich, 1948). There have been several dance stagings of Berlioz's La Damnation de Faust including Béjart's (Paris Opera, 1964). Béjart has also choreographed Notre Faust to Bach's B minor Mass (Brussels, 1975).

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Fearful Symmetries.

Ballet in one act with choreography by P. Martins and music by John Adams . Premiered 3 May 1990 by New York City Ballet at New York State Theater, New York. It is set to Adams's 1989 score of the same title. Other versions include Doug Varone (Rise, 1993), A. Page (Royal Ballet, 1994), and C. d'Amboise (Synchronicities, Royal Ballet of Flanders, 1999).

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Feast of Ashes.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Ailey , music by Carlos Surinach , and design by Jack Venza . Premiered 20 Sept. 1962 by the Robert Joffrey Ballet at New York's Fashion Institute of Technology with Martinet, Bradley, and Sutherland. It is based on Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba and tells the story of a young man who is intended to marry the eldest daughter of Bernarda Alba but who really loves the youngest. The lovers try to elope but the girl is killed for daring to disobey her family's edict. MacMillan's Las Hermanas (1963) is based on the same text.

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Fedicheva , Kaleria

(b Ust-Ijory, 20 July 1936, d 13 Sept. 1994).
Soviet dancer. She studied at the Leningrad Choreographic School, graduating in 1955 into the Kirov Ballet. She was best known for her modern repertory and created roles in several ballets, including Belsky's Leningrad Symphony (second premiere, 1961), K. Sergeyev's The Distant Planet (1963), and Hamlet (1970), and Vinogradov's Prince of the Pagodas (1972). In 1975 she left the USSR to join her American husband, dancer Martin Freedman , and in the same year staged the pas d'action from Act II of La Bayadère for US Terpsichore. She was made People's Artist of the RSFSR in 1967.

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Fedorova , Sophia

(b Moscow, 28 Sept. 1879, d Neuilly, 3 Jan. 1963).
Russian dancer. She studied at the Moscow Theatre School under V. Tikhomirov and graduated into the Bolshoi in 1899. A dancer of outstanding dramatic talent she was considered to capture the heart of both character and classical roles with a rare intensity. She created roles in several Gorsky ballets, including Mercedes in Don Quixote (1900), Esmeralda in Gudule's Daughter (1902), and during various seasons with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes (1909–13 and 1928) she also created roles in Fokine's Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor (1909) and Scheherazade (1910). In 1913 her debut performance of Giselle unnerved viewers with its almost nightmarish realism and the same year marked her increasing mental fragility. She was forced to leave the Moscow stage in 1917 and in 1922 sought treatment in Paris. She danced with Pavlova's company between 1925 and 1926 and again with Diaghilev , but in 1930 she suffered a total nervous collapse.

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Fedorovitch , Sophie

(b Minsk, 15 Dec. 1893, d London, 25 Jan. 1953).
Russian-British stage designer who played a seminal role in the development of British ballet. She studied painting in Moscow and at the St Petersburg Academy but after the Revolution settled in London in 1920. During the next decade she lived in various European cities, exhibiting her paintings but from 1932 worked almost exclusively in stage design. Her first professional commission came from Rambert, to design Ashton's first ballet A Tragedy of Fashion (1926). She and Ashton became close friends and collaborators and she designed many of his works including Le Baiser de la fée (1935), Symphonic Variations (1946), and Valses nobles et sentimentales (1947), the sophisticated economy of her design having an important influence on his choreography. She designed for several other British choreographers including de Valois , Tudor , and Howard as well as for opera and theatre. Between 1951 and 1953 she was a member of the artistic advisory panel of Sadler's Wells Ballet—a role she had unofficially undertaken for many years.

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Feld , Eliot

(b Brooklyn, NY, 5 July 1942).
US dancer, choreographer, and director. He studied at the High School of Performing Arts, at the School of American Ballet, and with Richard Thomas , making his professional debut aged 12 in off-Broadway shows. In 1958 he danced in Robbins's West Side Story and also performed with the companies of Lang , Maslow , and McKayle . He then danced with American Ballet Theatre (1963–8, 1971–2) and in 1967 choreographed his first ballet for the company, Harbinger (mus. Prokofiev ), to critical acclaim. A year later he created Meadowlark (mus. Haydn ) for Royal Winnipeg Ballet. Between 1969 and 1971 he was director and choreographer of his own group, the American Ballet Company, creating Early Songs (R. Strauss , 1970) and The Gods Amused (mus. Debussy , 1971), among others. Between 1971 and 1972 he was again with ABT then from 1972 to 1974 he was a freelance choreographer, for example for City Center Joffrey Ballet, creating Jive (mus. Gould , 1973). In 1974 he founded the Eliot Feld Ballet (becoming Feld Ballet c.1980 and Feld Ballets/NY in 1990) for which he has since choreographed most of his works. He is a highly prolific choreographer whose style draws freely on both modern and classical vocabularies, and, though shifting over the years from humorous theatricality to more densely crafted dance, it has retained its populist appeal. He also draws on an eclectic range of music, from Celtic to ragtime to Elizabethan lute music, though he has also made several works to scores by Reich , including Grand Canyon (1985), Kore (1988), Clave (1992), and Tongue and Groove (1995). In 1997 he choreographed a revival of Bernstein's musical On the Town (New York Shakespeare Festival). Feld is also an energetic dance activist, becoming founder and director of the New Ballet School, New York, in 1978 (giving free tuition to inner-city children) and in 1982 being instrumental in the founding of the Joyce Theater which functions both as home for his company and a venue for middle-scale dance. In 1997 he founded the company Ballet Tech, whose dancers are graduates from his school.

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Felix (orig. Felix Fernandez García ;

b c.1896, d Epsom, 1941).
Spanish dancer who was Massine's assistant for Le Tricorne. He was spotted by Diaghilev dancing in Seville and engaged to help Massine with the Spanish choreography of his 1919 ballet. He believed that he would also be dancing the role of the Miller, and his disappointment at not being cast apparently exacerbated his unstable mental condition. He was found dancing on the altar of a London church and put into an asylum.

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feminist ballets.

Classical ballet has not been noted for the vigour of its sexual politics though Filippo Taglioni's La Révolte au sérail (1833) is sometimes viewed as an early feminist ballet, with its heroine Zulma and her fellow harem inmates banding together with working women to protest against the tyranny of men. A later and more serious contender for the genre is Nijinska's Les Biches with its wry analysis of male and female roles both on and off the stage (see Lynn Garafola's study of the ballet in Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, New York, 1989). Some Soviet ballets have also taken a markedly feminist line in their presentation of powerful heroines, for example in Kasatkina and Vasiliov's Heroic Poem (The Geologists), 1964. Generally, though, the most overtly feminist attitudes to feature in dance have appeared in modern choreography. Isadora Duncan's vision of dance was bound up with her desire for female emancipation and she claimed that her art was ‘symbolic of the freedom of woman and her emancipation from the hidebound conventions that are the warp and woof of New England Puritanism’. She and later performers like Graham , Humphrey , and Wigman moved with a strength and freedom atypical of classical ballerinas, and also presented women in powerful roles. Duncan's prediction in 1902 that future dancers would ‘dance not in the form of a nymph nor fairy nor coquette but in the form of a woman in her greatest and purest expression’ was borne out by the complex and assertive dance heroines created by Graham and others. Significantly, many of the early modern companies were all-female and, even more importantly, were directed and choreographed by women. (In ballet women have exercised power as teachers and ballet mistresses much more than as directors and choreographers.) Later in the century the blurring of distinction between male and female dancers became evident in the choreography of both sexes. Cunningham and some later post-modern choreographers often created works where men and women were given identical movements to perform, while the duet form Contact Improvisation, pioneered by Steve Paxton , has since the 1970s enabled women to discover an active (and traditionally male) role in partnering. Some recent works have directly addressed issues of sexual politics, such as Jacky Lansley's feminist re-write of Giselle as I Giselle (London, 1981) and the repertories of DV8 and Urban Bush Women. In very recent years it has become common for modern dance and some classical ballet to reflect looser social attitudes towards sexuality and gender in their presentation of movement, character, etc. Feminism has become a mainstream part of dance scholarship and criticism, reflected in the writings of, for example, Susan Foster and publications such as Dance Gender and Culture (ed. Helen Thomas , London, 1993) and Sally Banes's Dancing Women (New York, 1998).

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Femmes de bonne humeur, Les.

See Good-Humoured Ladies, The.

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Fenley , Molissa

(b Las Vegas, Nev., 15 Nov. 1954).
US dancer and choreographer. She studied dance at Mills College, California (1971–5) and in 1978 made her New York choreographic and performance debut at the Cunningham studio with Planets. Her performing style is unusually fast and energetic and its exhaustive repetitions of movement are made possible by Fenley's own intensively athletic training programme. Her stamina has been particularly tested in extended solo works such as Eureka (1982) and State of Darkness (1988, a solo version of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring). She has also created group works, such as Hemispheres (mus. Anthony Davis , 1983) for her own ensemble and A Descent into the Maelstrom (mus. P. Glass , 1986) for Australian Dance Theatre. Later solo works include Sita (mus. Glass , 1995) and Trace (mus. Hart Makwaia , text Jesurun, 1997).

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Fenster , Boris

(b Petrograd, 17 Apr. 1916, d Leningrad, 29 Dec. 1960).
Soviet dancer, choreographer, and ballet master. He studied at the Leningrad Ballet School and after graduating in 1936 joined the Maly Ballet. He was later appointed chief choreographer (1945–53) after which he was moved to the Kirov. His early ballets tended to be highly dramatic and based on literary themes, including The False Bridegroom (mus. Chulaki , 1946) and Youth (mus. Chulaki , 1949), but in later works like Taras Bulba (mus. Solovyov-Sedoy , 1955) he began to explore the possibilities of more abstract dance imagery. He died at the premiere of his final ballet, Masquerade (mus. Laputin , 1960).

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fermé

(Fr., closed). Refers to positions where the dancer's feet are touching rather than being apart (ouvert).

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Ferri , Alessandra

(b Milan, 6 May 1963).
Italian dancer. She studied at the ballet school of Teatro all Scala (1974–8) and at the Royal Ballet School (1979–80). In 1980 she joined the Royal Ballet, becoming principal in 1983. An instinctively dramatic dancer with a tiny, flexible physique she excelled particularly in the MacMillan repertoire, creating roles in his Valley of Shadows (1983), The Seven Deadly Sins (television version, 1983), and A Different Drummer (1984). In 1985, she starred in Zeffirelli's production of Swan Lake in Milan and in the same year joined American Ballet Theatre as principal, where she has remained except for a leave of absence (1995–7). She has danced both the classical and modern repertories and also guested abroad with National Ballet of Canada, Balletto Argentino, and, most regularly, at La Scala where she has been named prima ballerina assoluta. She has created roles in Petit's Le Diable amoureux (Ballet National de Marseille, 1989), Maillot's In Flight (American Ballet Theatre, 1997), and others and also appeared on television and in film, notably Dancers (dir. Ross , 1987).

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Ferri , Olga

(b Buenos Aires, 20 Sept. 1928).
Argentinian dancer, choreographer, and director. She studied with A. Bulnes , then in Paris with V. Gsovsky and Zvereff , and later in the US. In 1959 she danced with Les Ballets de l'Étoile in Paris, with Berlin Opera Ballet, and with Munich State Opera Ballet, then during the 1960s danced with London Festival Ballet. Between 1971 and 1976 she danced at Teatro Colón, with Washington Ballet, and Eglevsky Ballet, then from 1976 to 1977 returned to Teatro Colón as guest prima ballerina and artistic director. She was considered by many to be one of the great Giselles of her era. In 1980 she became artistic adviser to the Argentine Classical Ballet Foundation.

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Festin de l'araignée, Le (Eng. title The Spider's Banquet).

Ballet pantomime in one act with choreography by Staats , libretto by G. de Voisins , music by Roussel , and design by Maxime Dethomas . Premiered 3 Apr. 1913 at Théâtre des Arts, Paris, with Sarah Djeli . It tells a cautionary tale about a spider and its prey. Later versions by Aveline (Opera, Paris, 1940), Howard (Sadler's Wells Ballet, 1944), and Bintley (Royal Ballet School, London, 1997).

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Fête étrange, La.

Ballet in one act with choreography by A. Howard , libretto by Ronald Crichton , music by Fauré , and design by Fedorovitch . Premiered 23 May 1940 by London Ballet at the Arts Theatre, London, with Lloyd , Staff , and Paltenghi . It is based on Alain-Fournier's novel Le Grand Meaulnes and portrays the experience of a young boy who stumbles upon an engagement party in a mysterious chateau, and by falling in love with the young châtelaine unintentionally causes her estrangement from her fiancé. With its sensitive, understated treatment of the central characters this ballet was widely considered Howard's greatest achievement. In 1957 it was revived for Royal Ballet and in 1971 for Scottish Theatre Ballet.

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Fêtes chinoises, Les.

Noverre's first ballet success. Its date is uncertain, possibly premiered in Paris in 1749 or in Marseilles or Strasbourg. It was later performed in Lyons, Paris, and London, sometimes under the title Les Métamorphoses chinoises.

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Feuillet , Raoul-Auger

(b c.1660, d 14 June 1710).
French dancing master, choreographer, author, and reputed inventor of the Feuillet system of dance notation. He taught ballroom dances from his studio in Paris and in 1700 published his Chorégraphie ou L'Art de décrire la danse par caractères, figures et signes demonstratifs, the first known method for using symbols to notate dance. In 1704 he was unsuccessfully sued for plagiarism by Beauchamps who claimed to have invented the system himself 22 years earlier. Feuillet had in fact failed to acknowledge his considerable debt to the latter but had also expanded and improved on Beauchamps's system in his own publication. He continued to embellish and refine it in later publications and also published collections of his own dances. The highly influential Chorégraphie was translated into several languages: P. Siris's English translation, The Art of Dancing Demonstrated in Characters and Figures, appeared in 1706.

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Field , John (orig. John Greenfield ;

b Doncaster, 22 Oct. 1921, d Esher, 3 Aug. 1991).
British dancer and director. He studied in Liverpool with Edna Slocombe and Shelagh Elliott-Clarke and made his debut with the Liverpool Ballet Club in 1938 before moving to London. Here he studied briefly at Sadler's Wells School and joined the Vic-Wells Ballet in 1939. He danced for two years before serving in the Second World War and on his return became one of the company's leading male principals, partnering Grey, Beriosova, and Elvin in the classics. In 1956 he was appointed director of Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet (later the Royal Ballet Touring Company) and developed a considerable roster of dance and choreographic talent. In 1970 he was made co-director of the Royal Ballet with MacMillan but resigned a year later to become director at La Scala, Milan (1971–4). He was then director of the Royal Academy of Dancing (1975–8), director of London Festival Ballet (1979–84), and director of the British Ballet Organisation (1984–91).

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Field Figures.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Tetley , music by Stockhausen , and design by Baylis . Premiered 9 Nov. 1970 by Royal Ballet at Theatre Royal, Nottingham, with Bergsma , Kelly , Derman , O'Conaire , Clarke , Johnson , and O'Brien . It is constructed around a central pas de deux which is repeatedly disrupted by five other dancers. Nureyev danced part of the ballet in his film I am a Dancer(1972).

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Fifield , Elaine

(b Sydney, 28 Oct. 1930, d Perth, 11 May 1999).
Australian dancer. She studied with Elizabeth Scully and at Sadler's Wells School, joining Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet in 1947, becoming principal dancer and creating the title role in Cranko's Pineapple Poll (1951). Between 1954 and 1957 she was ballerina with Sadler's Wells Ballet (later Royal Ballet) and created a role in Ashton's Birthday Offering (1956). She also danced with the Borovansky Ballet (1956–8) and then danced for periods with the Australian Ballet (1964–6 and 1969). She was married to the conductor John Lanchbery , and wrote In My Shoes (London, 1967).

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Fille de marbre, La.

Ballet in two acts with choreography and libretto by Saint-Léon , music by Pugni , sets by C. A. Cambon and J. Thierry , and costumes by P. Lormier . Premiered 20 Oct. 1847 at Paris Opera with Cerrito , Saint-Léon, and Desplaches . It tells the story of a sculptor who falls in love with his beautiful marble statue. The devil agrees to bring the marble girl to life on condition that she herself does not fall in love. When she fails to comply, she is returned to stone.

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Fille du Danube, La.

Ballet in two acts with choreography and libretto by F. Taglioni , music by Adam , sets by Ciceri , Despléchin , Diéterle , Feuchères , and Séchan , and costumes by H. d'Orschwiller . Premiered 21 Sept. 1836 at the Paris Opera with M. Taglioni , Legallois , Leroux , and Mazilier . It tells the story of an orphaned girl (found as a child on a river bank) who falls in love with a nobleman's son. When her lover's father seeks to marry her instead, she throws herself into the river. Her lover follows her and after enduring several trials of their strength and courage they are allowed to return to earth.

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Fille du Pharaon, La (orig. Russ. title Doch faraona).

Ballet in three acts with choreography by Petipa , libretto by Vernoy de Saint-Georges and Petipa , music by Pugni , sets by A. Roller and Wagner , and costumes by Kelwer and Stolyarov . Premiered 30 Jan. 1862 at St Petersburg's Bolshoi Theatre with Rosati , Goltz , Petipa , and Ivanov . It was inspired by Gautier's Le Roman de la momie and tells the story of an English lord who, under the influence of opium, dreams that the beautiful (dead) Princess Aspicia comes to life and that, in his wooing of her, he turns into an Egyptian, Ta-Hor. Typical of the opulence of the Tsar's productions it was nearly four hours long and had a cast of 400. Its huge success led to Petipa's appointment as assistant ballet master.

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Fille mal gardée, La (Eng. title Vain Precautions, also The Unchaperoned Daughter).

Ballet in two acts with choreography and libretto by Dauberval , set to various popular French songs. Premiered 1 July 1789 at Bordeaux's Grand Theatre with Mlle Théodore (Dauberval's wife) as Lise. This seminal work was one of the first ballets to deal with everyday characters and their lives. It tells the story of Lise and her lover Colas, and their attempts to outwit her mother's plans to marry her to Alain , the simple-witted son of a rich landowner. Its original title was Le Ballet de la paille but it gained its present title when staged at London's Pantheon Theatre in 1791. Highly popular, it was performed all around Europe, although not at the Paris Opera until 1803. In 1828 Dauberval's pupil Aumer revived it for the Opera with a new musical arrangement by Hérold , which included Rossini melodies and some of his own music. Elssler danced Lise to much acclaim in 1837 and the ballet remained in the Paris repertory until 1854. In St Petersburg it was first produced in 1818 by Didelot (who had danced Colas under Dauberval's coaching in 1791) followed by another production in 1828, and in 1850 Elssler danced in the Moscow production. P. Taglioni produced a new version to music by Hertel for Berlin in 1864 and when Petipa and Ivanov staged their own new production in St Petersburg (1885) with Zucchi and P. Gerdt they used the same score. This was the basis of many subsequent productions, including those of Gorsky (Moscow, 1901), Lavrovsky (Leningrad, 1937), Nijinska (Ballet Theatre, 1940, incorporating elements from Mordkin's 1938 production for the Mordkin Ballet), and Balashova (Nouveau Ballet de Monte Carlo, 1946, later taken into the repertory of the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas). Vinogradov's 1971 version for the Maly Theatre, Leningrad, returned to the Hérold score and in 1989 the Dauberval original was reconstructed by Ivo Cramér for Nantes Opera Ballet, using traditional airs arranged by Farncombe. H. Spoerli choreographed a new version for Paris Opera in 1981 using music adapted by J.-M. Damase but the most popular version seen today is Ashton's three-act version. Set to Lanchbery's arrangement of the Hérold music and with designs by Osbert Lancaster , it was premiered 28 Jan. 1960 by the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden, London, with Nerina , Blair , Grant , and Holden . This recaptures the innocence and humour of the Dauberval original but also exploits the advanced virtuosity of modern dancers (the choreography for Colas included some of the most dazzling dance Ashton wrote for a man). It is acknowledged as one of his most perfectly constructed ballets, with its seamless mix of humour and tenderness, classical dance, and mime (Karsavina taught Ashton mime sequences that date back to Zucchi's acclaimed performances) and it is loved for its vivid characterizations, especially the high-spirited lovers, the sharp but tender Widow Simone, and the daft, dreamy Alain. It has since been revived for many companies, including Royal Danish Ballet (1964), Australian Ballet (1967), Budapest State Opera Ballet (1971), PACT Ballet (1969), Munich State Opera Ballet (1971), Royal Swedish Ballet (1972), State Ballet of Turkey (1973), San Francisco Ballet (1978), Joffrey Ballet (1986), and Houston Ballet (1992).

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Filleule de fées, La.

Ballet in three acts with choreography by Perrot , libretto by V. de Saint-Georges , music by Adam and H. F. de Saint-Julien ., sets by Cambon , Thierry , and Despléchin , and costumes by P. Lormier and H. d'Orschwiller . Premiered 8 Oct. 1849 at Paris Opera with Grisi , L. Petipa , and Perrot . It tells the story of Ysaure who is in love with Hugues but whose marriage may not be celebrated in the palace of the fairies until Hugues submits to various trials. It famously featured an airy, fleet-footed performance from Grisi as well as Victor Sacré's sensational stage effects.

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Filling Station.

Ballet in one act with choreography by L. Christensen , libretto by Kerstein , music by V. Thomson , and design by Paul Cadmus . Premiered 6 Jan. 1938 by Ballet Caravan at the Avery Memorial Theater, Hartford, Connecticut, with Christensen, Marie-Jeanne , Hawkins , Kidd , and Bolender . It was one of the first all-American ballets and its cast of contemporary cartoon-style characters includes Mac the filling station attendant, some truck drivers, a motorist, a drunk couple, and a gangster who shoots a girl—who miraculously survives. In 1953 it was revived for New York City Ballet.

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film.

As a performing art, dance has existed primarily in the theatre, but during the 20th century the art of dancers and choreographers was also, increasingly, recorded by the camera. At the beginning of the century most film was taken by amateurs and only snippets remain of great dancers such as Pavlova , Spessivtseva , and Wigman alongside erratic records of early works by choreographers such as Fokine , Balanchine , and Graham . However, as filming techniques became both cheaper and simpler many companies and institutions started to preserve dance on film in order to complement notated records of choreography. Soviet companies did this quite routinely from the 1950s onwards (also preserving productions of some Western companies for their archives); Massine built up a collection of silent films of his works (which are used as aids in revivals); Graham's repertory was put on film in the mid-1960s, and Cunningham had his repertory videotaped in the early 1970s. In the 1960s the Dance Collection of New York's Public Library began a systematic effort to collect film records of classical and modern works, and since the advent of cheap video equipment even the smallest companies, theatres, and collections now preserve dance on videotape.
These films were for the purposes of record (though video is now also widely used as a rehearsal tool) rather than for public performance. However, since the 1930s choreographers and directors have also explored the potential of dance film as an alternative to live theatre. Early examples were the 1934 film of Humphrey's Air for the G String and La Mort du cygne (1938), choreographed by Lifar and featuring Slavenska , Chauviré , and Charrat . In 1941 Massine's Capriccio espagnol and Gaîté parisienne were both filmed in Hollywood, making use of sophisticated cinematic techniques to compensate for the loss of live performance. It was in the 1950s, however, that film versions of dance works started to become common. Paul Czinner produced two feature-length films of the Bolshoi and Royal Ballet, and Soviet film-makers also began making similar films, for example of Ulanova in Lavrovsky's Romeo and Juliet. Graham had Appalachian Spring filmed, and created the popular film A Dancer's World. Once television entered the world's sitting-rooms dance was filmed with increasing regularity, allowing a much larger audience access to both modern and classical repertory—as well as the chance to see star performances. Documentaries, too, gave the public a view of the working lives of dancers and choreographers which normally take place behind studio doors. Now that so much dance has been transferred to video it is possible for the public to own filmed versions of dances the way they own books, music CDs, or reproductions of paintings.
However, television exemplifies the shortcomings of transferring dance from stage to screen. First, the latter is a two-dimensional medium, so the spatial element of dance is flattened. Secondly, the camera and the editor pre-determine most of the ways in which viewers will see the choreography, giving audiences less freedom to scan the dancers as they do in the theatre. Thirdly, on the small screen the dancers lose much of their live impact and their detail. When a whole corps de ballet is squeezed onto a television screen the dance is reduced to a set of pin figures; if dancers are shown in close-up they are inevitably detached from the surrounding choreography. Some of these issues may be avoided where the choreography has either been adapted for the camera or created specially for it, rather than transferred from the stage.
Original dance sequences have played an important role in cinema from the era of the silent movies when directors like D. W. Griffith used dancers to enhance the emotional impact of scenes, such as the Babylon scenes in Intolerance, or alternatively as a tasteful image of eroticism as in Valentino's tango in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. But it was with the advent of the film musical that dance came into its own. Busby Berkeley used a barrage of cinematic effects in the filming and editing of his specially choreographed choral dances, transforming his dancers into kaleidoscopic patterns in films like 42nd Street or Goldiggers of 1933 (both 1933). Fred Astaire , by contrast, used few special effects but concentrated on making his dances look fluent and natural for the camera. Though his sequences were often highly virtuosic, they were woven into the storyline and the developing characters. Gene Kelly focused on the dancing body in an even more intimate fashion, with elaborate camera movements presenting the choreography in angled close-ups as well as in plain view (see Beth Genné's writings on Singin' in the Rain). He did, however, use more lavish special effects in On the Town where the dances were filmed on location all round Manhattan. During the 1950s film adaptations of stage musicals generally underwent a decline in the sensitivity and care with which dance sequences were handled, though the choreography for West Side Story (chor. Robbins , 1961) retained a raw, visceral, and musical impact. Some of the most successful dance sequences for the camera have actually featured in films about dancers and dance, such as The Red Shoes (chor. Helpmann and Massine , 1948), and the Turning Point (1977), Nijinsky (1980), and Fame (1980). Ashton's Tales of Beatrix Potter (1971) was an entire ballet created specially for the cinema—which then proved to work less well when transferred to the stage in 1992.
Outside the mainstream cinema, several experimental film-makers have worked with dance, for example the American poet and film-maker Maya Deren , whose Choreography for the Camera (1945) utilized stylized editing techniques, reverse, slow, and fast motion, to capture the movement quality of dancer Talley Beatty , and Shirley Clarke whose Moment in Love (1957) was made in collaboration with Sokolow . Since the 1950s the most innovative filming of dance has mostly occurred within the less expensive and smaller-scale medium of television. M. Dale and F. Flindt were among the first choreographers to make works especially for television, although technological innovations like handheld cameras, computer editing, and graphics give today's choreographers and directors far greater range in the creation of uniquely televisual dance, for example Cunningham's Points in Space (dir. E. Caplan , 1986, later adapted for stage), DV8's Strange Fish (stage version 1992, television version dir. D. Hinton , 1993), and Tharp's Catherine Wheel (stage version, 1981, television version, 1983). Such a large body of work has been made or adapted for the camera that television is now established as a genre with its own awards, e.g. IMZ Dance Screen.
See also under television.

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Finland.

Ballet in Finland dates back to the opening of the Alexander Theatre in Helsinki in 1879 where a group of dancers was employed to perform in opera and in occasional ballet performances (for which soloists were imported from St Petersburg). After the country gained its independence from Russia a full-size ballet company, the Finnish Opera Ballet (later becoming Finnish National Ballet) was formed with George Gé (from St Petersburg) as ballet master (1921–34). He staged the first Finnish Swan Lake in 1922. The first Finnish choreographer was Irja Koskinen who staged Sibelius's Scaramouche in 1955, and gradually the company built up its own native dance talent (though still importing many guest stars from Leningrad). After the late 1950s the company began to tour abroad, for example to the Edinburgh Festival in 1959 and London in 1979. Apart from the Finnish National Ballet, several smaller modern companies have emerged, such as Dance Theatre Raatikko, founded in 1972 by Marjo Kuusela , Dance Theatre Eri, founded in 1989 and directed by Tiina Lindfors , Lassi Sairela , and Eeva Soini , and Company Toothpick which features choreography by Tero Saarinen . The Helsinki City Theatre has its own dance group which tours abroad. Dance festivals in Finland, notably the International Dance Festival of Kuopio, bring in increasing numbers of foreign companies. Rimpparemmi, the country's main folk dance troupe, was formed 25 years ago and tours widely.

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Finnish National Ballet.

Finland's national ballet company. It was founded (as the Finnish Opera Ballet) in 1921 under the direction of Edvard Fazer who imported George Gé from St Petersburg Imperial Ballet as ballet master. Gé staged Swan Lake in 1922 followed by other 19th-century classics and works by Fokine . In 1934 Gé was succeeded by Alexander Saxelin , a Russian character dancer, but he returned to the company as ballet master from 1955 to 1962. After Gé's death Beriozoff was appointed to the post, staging Esmeralda for the ballerina Maj-Lis Rajala , his own version of Sleeping Beauty, and a new staging of Sacre du printemps. In 1970 the Finnish choreographer Elsa Sylvestersson became ballet mistress, followed by Konstantin Damianov , with Juhani Raiskinen as director from 1974. The repertory expanded to include Soviet ballets such as Fountain of Bakhchisarai and Stone Flower, as well as works by European and native Finnish choreographers. Doris Laine was made prima ballerina in 1956 and other principal dancers have included Leo Ahonen and Matti Tikkanen . Laine was director from 1984 to 1992 and was replaced by Jorma Uotinen , under whose direction the company's repertory has expanded to embrace a wide range of modern ballet including works by himself, Carolyn Carlson , Forsythe , Preljocaj , Naharin , and others as well as a new staging of Giselle by Guillem (1998), her first major production for the stage.

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Fiocre , Eugénie

(b Paris, 2 July 1845, d 1908).
French dancer. She was a principal at Paris Opera (1864 and 1875) where she was renowned for her beauty and for her dancing in travesti roles. She created Franz in Coppélia (1870), and Degas painted her in Saint-Léon's ballet La Source.

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Firebird (orig. Russ. title Zhar-ptitsa; Fr. title L'Oiseau de feu).

Ballet in one act with choreography and libretto by Fokine , music by Stravinsky , design by Golovin (sets and costumes) and Bakst (costumes). Premiered 25 June 1910 by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes at the Paris Opera with Karsavina , Fokine , and Fokina . The story is based on various Russian fairy-tales and tells of Prince Ivan who captures a magical Firebird while out hunting. She gives him one of her feathers in exchange for her freedom. Later, Ivan encounters a group of beautiful young women and falls in love with their leader, the Tsarevna, but he is then surrounded by monsters, slaves of the evil Kostchei who holds the women captive. He calls the Firebird with her feather, and she kills Kostchei, freeing the Tsarevna to marry Ivan. One of Diaghilev's early Russian productions, it featured Stravinsky's first commissioned ballet score. It has been revived several times: Diaghilev , with new designs by Goncharova (1926), Sadler's Wells Ballet (1954), Maly Theatre Ballet (1962), Bolshoi Ballet (1964), and Kirov (1993). New versions include Bolm (des. Chagall , Ballet Theatre, 1945), Balanchine (same Chagall des., New York City Ballet, 1949), and a later version with Robbins (1970), Lifar (Paris Opera, 1954), Cranko (Stuttgart, 1964), Béjart (all-male version, set to the concert suite, Ballet of the 20th Century, 1964), Neumeier (sci-fi version, Frankfurt Ballet, 1970), Tetley (Royal Danish Ballet, 1981), Taras (Caribbean version, Dance Theatre of Harlem, 1982), Scholz (Stuttgart, 1998), and Wheeldon (Boston Ballet, 1999).

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fish dive.

Dramatic pose executed in classical pas de deux where the woman is held almost upside-down by her partner, with her ankles crossed, her back arched, and her head lifted up and away from the floor.

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Fitzjames , Louise and Fitzjames , Nathalie .

French dancing sisters. Louise (b Paris, 10 Dec. 1809) danced at Paris Opera (1832–46) where her greatest success was as the Abbess in Robert le diable, a role she danced over 230 times. She was reviled by Gautier for her emaciated appearance but also danced Taglioni's role in Le Dieu et la bayadère and appeared in Albert's La Jolie Fille de Gand in 1842. Nathalie (b 1819) danced at Paris Opera (1837–42) where she created the peasant pas de deux in Giselle with Mabillé in 1841. She later toured Italy and America. She also performed as a singer, once appearing as singer, mime, and dancer during a single performance at Versailles in 1842.

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Five Brahms Waltzes in the Manner of Isadora Duncan.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Ashton and music by Brahms . It originated as a short gala piece for Lynn Seymour , premiered 22 June 1975 at the State Opera House, Hamburg, using only one Brahms Waltz, Op. 39, No. 15. In this impressionistic recall of Duncan, Seymour was dressed in a near-transparent shift like that worn by Duncan and though the movement was not an authentic reconstruction it evoked the visionary lyricism of her performances. The final version, with Waltzes Nos. 1, 2, 8, 10, and 13 added, was premiered by Seymour for Ballet Rambert's 50th anniversary gala at Sadler's Wells on 15 June 1976. It was revived for a gala with American Ballet Theatre in July 1976 and by Lucy Burge for Rambert's 60th birthday season in June 1986.

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five positions.

The standard positions of the feet in ballet date back to Beauchamps's identification at the end of the 17th century. In all five the legs and feet are turned out: 1st position: the heels touch with the feet ideally aiming to form a straight line; 2nd position: the feet are placed apart with the distance between the heels slightly less than hip-width; 3rd position: the feet cross so that the heel of the front foot fits the hollow of the instep of the back foot; 4th position: one foot is placed a small distance in front of the other (in 4th croisé the front heel is placed opposite the toe of the back foot, in 4th ouvert the front heel is opposite the heel of the back foot); 5th position: the feet are fully crossed and just touching each other so that the front heel fits against the base of the big toe of the back foot. Lifar attempted to introduce a 6th position where the feet are placed parallel side by side and the legs turned in; and a 7th, also parallel, where one foot is placed slightly forward of the other.

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5 Tangos.

Ballet in one act with choreography by van Manen , music by Piazolla , and design by Vroom . Premiered 3 Nov. 1977 by Dutch National Ballet at Stadsschouwburg, Amsterdam, with S. Marchiolli and C. Farha . It is set to Piazolla's 5 Tangos for Bandoneon and is danced by seven couples. It has been revived by several companies, including Berlin Opera Ballet (1979), Stuttgart Ballet (1981), Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet (1982), Birmingham Royal Ballet (1991), and City Ballet of London (1999).

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flamenco.

The traditional gypsy dance and music of S. Spain, in whose undulating vocals, supple arm movements, and stamping footwork can be discerned powerful Moorish and Arabic influences. The basic dances include alegrias, soleares, bulerias, and farruca. Originally, these were danced to the accompaniment of singing and clapping only, with guitars and castanets added later. Individual performances are distinguished by the inventiveness with which dancers play with the rhythms of each dance and by their intensity of expression—great flamenco dancers are known for their duende, a quality which expresses both their soul and their ability to translate themselves into pure states of emotion. Flamenco was originally danced in streets and cafés but in the 20th century it became increasingly popular in the theatre (see under Spain). Flamenco enjoyed a major international revival in the 1980s with A. Gades and Carlos Saura's flamenco films Carmen and Blood Wedding; also with world tours of traditional flamenco shows like Cumbre Flamenca and with dancers like Joaquin Cortes reaching new audiences with his high-tech ‘flamenco fusion’ shows.

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Flames of Paris, The (orig. Russ. title Plamya Parizha).

Ballet in four acts with choreography by Vainonen , libretto by N. Volkov and V. Dmitriev , music by Asafiev , and design by V. Dmitriev . Premiered 7 Nov. 1932 by GATOB, Leningrad, with Chabukiani , Jordan , Anisimova , Dudinskaya , and K. Sergeyev . It is set in the third year of the French Revolution (1792) and its action contrasts the political fervour of the oppressed people of Marseilles with the Court decadence at Versailles as the former march to Paris and storm the Tuileries. It was designed to suit the State's demand for politically correct ballets but is also a rich theatrical spectacle in its own right. The choreography ranges from vigorous folk dancing to court dances and pure classical numbers (including exceptionally virtuoso variations for the men) and the fourth-act pas de deux is often performed as a gala piece. Asafiev's music was similarly electric, drawing on popular songs and court music, and the designs were on an epic scale. It was staged in Moscow in 1933 and an abbreviated version was filmed for the Soviet film Trio Ballet (1953).

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Flatley , Michael

(b Chicago, c.1959).
Irish-US dancer. He began to study step dancing locally at the age of 11 and at 16 established a world record by tapping 28 times per second. At the age of 17 he became the first American to win the World Irish Dancing Championships and in 1993 starred in the Irish dance and music special Mayo 5000 with his partner Jean Butler . He then appeared in the Riverdance entertainment which featured in the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest. From this emerged the hit show Riverdance which he helped to choreograph and in which he starred for two years. In 1995 he left to create and star in his own highly successful show Lord of the Dance, and in 1998 announced his retirement from the stage.

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Flick und Flocks Abenteuer (Eng. title Flik and Flok).

Comedy ballet in three acts with choreography by P. Taglioni and music by Hertel . Premiered 20 Sept. 1858 at the Court Opera Berlin. This colourful tale of two friends' magical adventures was hugely popular, receiving over 400 performances in Berlin between 1858 and 1885. It was revived for Milan (1862) and Vienna (1865).

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Flier , Jaap

(b Scheveningen, 27 Feb. 1934).
Dutch dancer, choreographer, and director. He studied with Gaskell and made his debut in 1950 with Ballet Recital before moving to Netherlands Ballet. Here he danced the classical repertory as well as creating his first ballet, The Trial (1955). In 1959 he became a founder member of Netherlands Dance Theatre and as one of its principal dancers created many roles including the lead in Tetley's The Anatomy Lesson (1964). He also choreographed several ballets including Nouvelles aventures (mus. Ligeti , 1968) and Hi-kyo (mus. Kazuo Fukushima , 1971). Between 1973 and 1975 he was director of Australian Dance Theatre and between 1975 and 1976 he directed Sydney Dance Company. He subsequently returned to the Netherlands to teach. He was made Knight of the Order of Orange, Nassau, in 1968.

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Flindt , Flemming

(b Copenhagen, 30 June 1936).
Danish dancer, choreographer, and director. He studied at the Royal Danish Ballet and Paris Opera Schools, graduating into the RDB in 1955 as a soloist (principal). He rapidly developed a career as an international guest artist performing with many companies including London Festival Ballet (1955), Ballet Rambert (1960), Royal Ballet (1963), and Bolshoi Ballet (1968). In 1961 he was made an étoile at the Paris Opera. A dancer who excelled in the standard classics and Bournonville repertory he was also admired in modern works, for example those of Lander , Cullberg , and Petit , and when he was artistic director of RDB (1966–78) he brought in work by many modern choreographers including Taylor , Robbins , Tetley , and Field. He choreographed his first ballet, The Lesson (mus. Delerue ), in 1963. This adaptation of Ionesco's La Leçon was specially made for Danish television and later adapted for the stage, premiered by RDB, Paris, 1964. His many other works for the company include The Miraculous Mandarin (mus. Bartók , 1967), The Triumph of Death, a television ballet in which the whole cast danced naked (mus. Koppel , 1971, staged RDB, 1972), The Nutcracker (mus. Tchaikovsky , 1971), Jeux (mus. Debussy , 1973), and Dreamland (mus. Koppel , 1974). Flindt introduced a new, enthusiastic public to dance although he was criticized for threatening the purity of the Danish style and for the flamboyance of his Bournonville stagings and in 1978 he resigned to form his own company for which he choreographed Salome (mus. P. M. Davies , 1978). In 1981 he was appointed director of the Dallas Ballet and from 1989 he worked as a freelance choreographer, with a close connection to Cleveland Ballet, also reviving some of his works. He has returned to RDB to create Caroline Mathilde (mus. P. M. Davies , 1991) and Legs of Fire (mus. E. Norby , 1998). He was made Knight of Dannebrog in 1974 and awarded the Carina Ari Medal in 1975. He married the dancer Vivi Gelker .

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Flindt , Vivi (née Gelker ;

b Copenhagen, 22 Feb. 1943).
Danish dancer. She studied at Royal Danish Ballet School and graduated into the company, making her debut as Miss Julie in 1965 and becoming soloist in 1967. She married the dancer Flemming Flindt in 1970. As well as dancing the Bournonville repertory she created roles in several of her husband's ballets, including The Miraculous Mandarin (1967), Sacre du printemps (1968), Triumph of Death (1971), Felix Luna (1973), and Salome (1978).

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Flore et Zéphire.

Ballet divertissement in one act with choreography and libretto by Didelot , music by Cesare Bossi , and design by Liparotti . Premiered at the King's Theatre, London, on 7 July 1796 with Collinet (Mme Didelot), Hilligsberg , and Didelot. In many ways the work prefigured 19th-century Romanticism. Its plot is based on the Greek myth in which Zéphire, God of the Wind, falls in love with the nymph Flore, is then distracted by another beauty, but finally sweeps his true love up with him into the sky. By exploiting the advanced stage machinery of the King's Theatre, Didelot was able to fly his dancers through the air on wires and also aid his ballerinas in their efforts to hover on the tips of their toes. His choreography exaggerated differences between male and female dancing, and by experimenting with a more fluid and natural style of mime it created a dance language both more realistic and poetic than the current style. The ballet was very popular and performed all around Europe, thus establishing Didelot's reputation. Taglioni made her London debut in it in 1830.

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Flores Canelo , Raúl (orig. R. F. González ;

b Coahuila, 19 Apr. 1929, d Mexico City, 3 Feb. 1992).
Mexican dancer, choreographer, designer, and director. He studied ballroom dance with relatives, then ballet at the Mexican Dance Academy, joining the National Ballet of Mexico in 1951. In 1959 he joined Fine Arts Ballet as dancer and designer, and after a year studying modern dance in the US, he founded the Independent Ballet of Mexico in 1966. He choreographed and designed many works for the company, including La espera (mus. Revueltas , 1973), Terpsicore en México (mus. various, 1987), and Poeta (mus. Schubert and others, 1988), his eclectic style displaying a distinctive wit and irreverence.

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Florestan and his Sisters.

Pas de trois introduced by Diaghilev into Aurora's Wedding (1923) using the Act III music from Sleeping Beauty which originally accompanied the Diamond, Gold, Silver, and Sapphire Fairy variations.

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Flower Festival in Genzano (orig. Dan. title Blomsterfesten i Genzano).

Ballet in one act with choreography by Bournonville and music by E. Helsted and H. S. Paulli . Premiered 19 Dec. 1858 by the Royal Danish Ballet in Copenhagen. It tells the story of two real-life 19th-century lovers, Rosa and Paolo. It is no longer performed in full but a pas de deux extracted from one of the ensemble dances is frequently performed as a gala piece—a brilliant showcase for the Bournonville style.

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Flowers.

Full-length dance, mime, and theatre piece with choreography, libretto, and design by Lindsay Kemp and music by Joji Hirota . Premiered Dec. 1973 at Bush Theatre, London, by Lindsay Kemp and Company. It is based freely on the life and writings of Genet . When Kemp first appeared as its tragic heroine Divine he became established as one of the leading performers as well as directors of the 1970s avant-garde.

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Fokina , Vera (née Antonova ;

b 3 Aug. 1886, d New York, 29 July 1958).
Russian dancer. She studied at the Imperial Theatre School, St Petersburg, graduating into the Maryinsky in 1904. In 1905 she married Mikhail Fokine and danced in many of his ballets both with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and in the US. She created roles in Carnaval and Firebird (both 1910).

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Fokine , Mikhail (in the West he called himself Michel Fokine ;

b St Petersburg, 5 May 1880, d New York, 22 Aug. 1942).
Russian dancer, choreographer, teacher, director, and pioneering influence in 20th-century ballet. He studied at the Imperial Theatre School, St Petersburg, graduating in 1898 into the Maryinsky Theatre. He began teaching at the Theatre School in 1902 and was promoted first soloist in the company in 1904, partnering Karsavina and Pavlova . However, his interests lay primarily with choreography and ballet reform. He created his first ballet for the Theatre School graduation performance in 1905 and two years later created his first major ballet for the Maryinsky Theatre, Le Pavillon d'Armide (mus. N. Tcherepnin , 1907). Both works were made in accordance with his ambition to transform ballet into a serious and integrated artform, rather than the formulaic entertainment to which he felt it had descended.
His aims were based on five principles, which he later formulated in a letter to The Times (6 July 1914).
(1) Individual ballets should be choreographed in styles which were appropriate to their subjects, rather than in a uniform classical language. Fokine himself choreographed Chopiniana (1907, later Les Sylphides) in a lyrical, Romantic style, Eunice (1907) in the style of ancient Greece, and Petrushka (1911) in a style of folk and character dancing appropriate to a Russian street fair.
(2) Dance and mime should have no place in a ballet unless they were dramatically expressive.
(3) Expressive mime should be incorporated into dance, involving, where appropriate, the whole body rather than being restricted to conventional hand gestures.
(4) Group ensembles should be used to convey dramatic atmosphere rather than be used for purely decorative purposes.
(5) Dance music and design should be equal partners in ballet, each reflecting the dance's subject-matter, setting, and historical period.

These crusading ideas met with hostility from the conservative Maryinsky directorate and Fokine accepted Diaghilev's invitation to join the Ballets Russes and there put his reforms into practice. During his period with that company (1909–14) he produced his most successful body of work including Les Sylphides (mus. Chopin , 1909), the Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor (mus. Borodin , 1909), Cléopâtre (mus. Arensky and others, 1909), Carnaval (mus. Schumann , 1910), Scheherazade (mus. Rimsky-Korsakov , 1910), Firebird (mus. Stravinsky , 1910), Le Spectre de la rose (mus. Weber , 1911), Petrushka (mus. Stravinsky , 1911), Le Dieu bleu (mus. Hahn , 1912), Daphnis and Chloe (mus. Ravel , 1912), Papillon (mus. Schumann , 1912), and The Legend of Joseph (mus. R. Strauss , 1914). He continued to work occasionally for the Imperial Theatres and returned to St Petersburg in 1914 after falling out with Diaghilev (due to the latter's promotion of Nijinsky as a rival choreographer). In 1918 Fokine left Russia for good and worked mainly in Scandinavia, performing, teaching, and staging his ballets with his wife Vera . In 1920 he began working in the US, occasionally with his own company which was called the Fokine Ballet in 1922, then between 1924 and 1925 the American Ballet or the Fokine Dancers. Otherwise, he was freelance working with, among others. Metropolitan Opera House and Ziegfeld Follies in the US, and abroad with Paris Opera (1921), His Majesty's Theatre, London (1923), Teatro Colón (1931), Ida Rubinstein's Co., Paris (1934–5), and La Scala, Milan (1936). He was chief choreographer for R. Blum's Ballets de Monte Carlo (1936–8) and for Ballet Theatre (1941–2). His ballets during this period include The Sorcerer's Apprentice (mus. Dukas , Petrograd, 1916), Bolero (mus. Ravel , Paris, 1935), L'Épreuve d'amour (mus. various, Monte Carlo, 1936), Don Juan (mus. Gluck , London, 1937), Bluebeard (mus. Offenbach-Dorati , Mexico City, 1941). He also founded a school in New York in 1921. He was married to the dancer Vera Fokina , their son Vitale Fokine was a ballet teacher in New York, and their granddaughter Isabelle Fokine danced with the Pittsburgh Ballet and staged several of his works for the Kirov and other companies.

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folk dance.

Term denoting any kind of dance which has been developed within a traditional community, rather than being created by a choreographer or teacher. Steps and patterns are passed on from one generation to another, gradually undergoing change. Many folk dances have their origins in ritual—fertility, marriage, religious, or war—and express the character of the community who dance them. The term was coined in the 18th century to distinguish ‘peasant’ dance forms from those of the upper classes, but the distinction itself dates back to the 15th century when ballroom dances first began to emerge as separate forms. In the past folk dances have exerted a strong influence on social and theatre dance, particularly during the Romantic period when they were considered to add both local and expressive colour. They have also influenced the styles of some 20th-century choreographers such as Ek , Kylián , and Morris who was himself a performer with a Balkan folk dance troupe in the US. However, with urbanization and demographic change many of the original dances have been lost, even though many Western countries, during the 20th century, attempted to re-discover and preserve these dances, often through specialist troupes of folk dancers. Even where they have survived, however, they are mostly staged as theatre or as tourist attractions rather than being performed as genuine community events.

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Folk Tale, A (orig. Dan. title Et folkesagn).

Ballet in three acts with choreography and libretto by Bournonville , music by N. Gade and J. P. Hartmann , and design by Christensen , Lund , and Lehmann . Premiered 20 Mar. 1854 by the Royal Danish Ballet, Copenhagen , with J. Price . It is based on a Danish fairy story about a girl, Hilda, who lives with the trolls and saves a young nobleman Ove from their power, echoing the supernatural focus of Giselle, created thirteen years earlier. It has been revived in major productions by Lander and Borchsenius (1941), Brenaa (1969) and K. Ralov (1979), the controversially modern designs of the latter production replaced by the more traditional staging of 1991, directed by F. Andersen and A. M. Vessel Schlüter and designed by HM Queen Maygrethe II. Other productions include Berlin Opera Ballet (staged P. Schaufuss after Bournonville , Berlin, 1983) and London Festival Ballet (extracts, staged P. Schaufuss , 1988).

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Folkwang Ballett Essen.

German dance company originating from the theatrical training school founded by the city of Essen in 1927. Jooss was the school's director of dance, and was joined there by F. Leeder and others, who together formed a company (Folkwang Tanztheater-Studio) in 1928. In 1929 this was amalgamated into the Essen opera house and under the name Folkwang-Tanzbühne presented many ballets by Jooss , notably The Green Table (1932). Under threat of Nazi persecution the company (now called Ballets Jooss) moved to Dartington in the UK in 1933. Jooss returned to Essen in 1949 and the Folkwang Tanztheater was revived for several tours until 1953. Since then it has been an ad hoc ensemble of dancers associated with the Folkwang school.

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fondu

(Fr., melted). A step where the dancer bends the supporting leg, also a soft melting quality of movement.

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Fonteyn , (Dame) Margot (orig. Peggy Hookham ;

b Reigate, 18 May 1919, d Panama City, 21 Feb. 1991).
British ballerina who became the most internationally famous dancer of her age. She studied with H. Bosustov in Ealing, with G. Goncharov in Shanghai, and with N. Legat and Astafieva in London before being accepted at Sadler's Wells School in 1934. In the same year she made her debut with the Vic-Wells Ballet as a Snowflake in The Nutcracker and after Markova's departure from the company in 1935 she began to dance ballerina roles, including Markova's role in Rio Grande and Odette in Swan Lake, as well as creating her first major role, the Fiancée in Ashton's Le Baiser de la fée. By 1939 she had danced Giselle and Aurora as well as becoming established as Ashton's muse, creating roles in Apparitions (1936), Les Patineurs (1937), and A Wedding Bouquet (1937). During the war she toured widely with the company and afterwards matured into the supreme exponent of the British ballet style. Although she was not a brilliant virtuoso the exceptional beauty of her dancing was produced by a combination of qualities—great musicality, an apparently instinctive purity of line, lyrical expressiveness, and a rare intimacy which she established with audiences. She continued to create many new roles in, for example, Ashton's Symphonic Variations (1946), Scènes de Ballet (1948), Daphnis and Chloe (1951), and Ondine (1958) as well as Petit's Les Demoiselles de la nuit (1948). After the war she was international guest artist with various companies including Ballets de Paris (1948) and in 1959 she loosened her ties with the Royal Ballet to become a guest artist. In 1961 she danced with Nureyev for the first time in a charity gala and their ensuing partnership brought her a new artistic lease of life which lasted for a decade-and-a-half. His flamboyant Russian technique reacted extravagantly with her more English reserve to create the most famous partnership in ballet history. They appeared in the premiere of MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet (1965) and created the title roles in Ashton's Marguerite and Armand (1963). In 1979 she presented the television series The Magic of Dance and in the same year was awarded the title prima ballerina assoluta of the Royal Ballet, one among many distinctions which also included Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1956, Order of the Finnish Lion in 1960, and several honorary doctorates. Many of her performances have been filmed for television. In 1955 she married Panamanian politician Roberto Arias who ten years later was paralysed by the bullets of a would-be assassin. Her autobiography Margot Fonteyn was published in London, 1975 and New York, 1976.

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Foregger , Nikolai

(b 18 Apr. 1892, d Kuibyshev, 8 June 1939).
Russian drama director and ballet master. He invented and taught his own system of physical movement, and as director of his own ensemble (1921–5) created his highly controversial work Dance of Machines in which he demonstrated his vision of a modernist dance which would incorporate ‘dances of the pavement, of rushing motor cars … the grandeur of skyscrapers’. He was chief regisseur in Kharkov (1929–34), in Kiev (1934–6), and in Kuibyshev (1938–9).

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Fornaroli , Cia

(b Milan, 16 Oct. 1888, d New York, 16 Aug. 1954).
Italian dancer and teacher. She studied at the La Scala Ballet School and also with Cecchetti , and after performing minor roles in the ballets of Manzotti became prima ballerina at New York's Metropolitan Opera Ballet (1910–14). Between 1914 and 1916 she guested in Barcelona, Madrid, and Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires, then moved to Teatro Costanzi in Rome (1916–20). She was appointed prima ballerina assoluta at La Scala, Milan (1921–33), her musical and expressive dancing making her the most highly regarded Italian ballerina of her generation. She also guested in various European theatres and danced with Pavlova's company as well as appearing in Italian silent films. In 1929 she succeeded Cecchetti as director of the La Scala School and in 1933 began to create her own ballets. Due to Fascist attacks on her husband, Dr Walter Toscanini , she was forced to leave Italy for New York where she became ballet mistress at Ballet Theatre in 1940 and ran her own school (1944–66). After her death her husband handed over their collection of dance memorabilia to the Dance Collection of the New York Public Library.

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Forsythe , William

(b New York, 30 Dec. 1949).
US dancer, choreographer, and director. He studied with Jonathan Watts , Maggie Black , and Finis Jhung at the Joffrey Ballet School from 1969 and danced with the company (1971–3) before moving to Stuttgart Ballet (1973–81). He choreographed his first ballet Urlicht in 1976 (mus. Mahler , Noverre Society, staged Stuttgart Ballet, 1976) and became the company's resident choreographer until 1981, also creating there his highly popular work Love Songs (mus. Aretha Franklin and Dionne Warwick , 1979). After freelancing in Europe he was appointed choreographer of the Frankfurt Ballet in 1982, becoming its director and chief choreographer in 1984. Almost from the beginning his work has been a conscious assault on the line and ‘gracious rhetoric’ of classical ballet. His dancers have moved with a force that sends them almost off balance, their bodies stretched and tilted at drastic angles and their movements slamming from one position to another. In duets they have often appeared combative rather than mutually supportive. Some works have been created without obvious plot or character—simply deconstructing the theatrical language of ballet—while others have placed dance within surreal theatrical contexts. In France/Dance (1983) papier-maché animals, figures, and buildings were dotted around the stage as an actor recited a fragmented text; in Interrogation of Robert Scott (1986) a television screen showed a man apparently under interrogation while several voices (live and recorded) posed questions and answers. Most recently his work has been made collaboratively with the dancers in his company, emphasizing the process of creating and assembling the movement with its accompanying sound, images, and (sometimes) text. Other works include Steptext (mus. J. S. Bach , Aterballetto , 1984, staged Frankfurt Ballet, 1985, and Royal Ballet, 1995), The Loss of Small Detail (mus. Willems , Frankfurt Ballet, 1987), Impressing the Tsar (including In the middle some what elevated, mus. Willems , Beethoven , Stuck , Crossman-Hecht , Frankfurt Ballet, 1988, one-act version Paris Opera, 1988, also staged Royal Ballet, 1992), Herman Schmerman (mus. Willems , New York City Ballet, 1992, also staged Royal Ballet, 1993), Limb's Theorem (mus. Willems , Frankfurt Ballet, 1990), Quintett (mus. Bryars , Frankfurt Ballet, 1993), Firstext (with Dana Caspersen and Anthony Rizzi , mus. Willems , Royal Ballet, 1995), Hypothetical Stream (mus. Stuart Dempster , Ingram Marshall , for Daniel Larrieu's company, 1996, Hypothetical Stream II for Frankfurt Ballet, 1997).

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Forti , Simone

(b Florence, 1935)
Italian-US dancer and choreographer. She studied with Anna Halprin , Robert Dunn , Graham , and Cunningham and began performing in 1960 with her first husband, the painter and dancer Robert Morris . Her choreography has eschewed formal dance elements in favour of an ongoing exploration of the natural movement of animals and people. She has also performed in improvised events with her second husband Robert Whitman , and continues to appear on stage in her sixties.

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Fort Worth/Dallas Ballet

See Dallas Ballet

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Fosse , Bob

(b Chicago, 23 June 1927, d Washington, DC, 23 Sept. 1987).
US dancer, choreographer, and producer. The son of vaudeville performers he danced in burlesque from the age of 13 and performed as the opening act of striptease shows at 17. In 1940 he formed a night-club team with Charles Gross called the Riff Brothers and began choreographing for amateur productions. He made his debut as a Broadway dancer in 1950 and established himself as a professional choreographer with the musical The Pajama Game (1953, filmed 1957). With his provocative jazzy style, and unsentimental, even acid tone, he became one of the most sought-after choreographers of musicals and films and a profound influence on succeeding generations of theatre choreographers. In his later works he was director and choreographer, including Sweet Charity (1966), Cabaret (the film, 1971), Chicago (1975), and Dancin' (1978). His film All that Jazz (1979) was a frankly autobiographical portrayal of a workaholic Broadway director with a heart problem and it featured his most aggressively erotic dance number Airotica. In 1986 he wrote, staged, and choreographed his final musical, Big Deal. A compilation of his greatest dance numbers was presented in the Broadway show Fosse (dir. Tod Haimes , 1999).

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fouetté

(Fr., whipped). A whipping movement. It has various applications, the most popularly known being the virtuoso fouetté rond de jambe en tournant en dehors, in which the dancer throws the working leg out to the side and whips the foot in as she turns. The 32 fouetté turns performed in the coda of the Act III pas de deux of Swan Lake (first executed by Legnani ) are one of the most famous challenges in the classical ballerina's repertory.

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Fountain of Bakhchisarai, The (orig. Russ. title Bakhchisaraisky fontan).

Ballet in four acts with choreography by Zakharov , libretto by N. Volkov , music by Asafiev , and design by Khodasevich . Premiered 28 Sept. 1934 by GATOB in Leningrad with Ulanova , Vecheslova , and Mikhail Dudko . It is based on Pushkin's poem of the same title and tells the story of Maria , a Polish princess who is abducted by Khan Girei . Though she does not return his love she still arouses the jealousy of his chief wife Zarema who stabs her. In his grief the Khan builds a fountain of tears to Maria's memory. It was Zakharov's first and most successful ballet and a seminal work in the evolution of Soviet dramatic ballets, both in its use of literary sources and in its application of Stanislavsky's theatrical methods to the creation of realistic dance characterization. It was subsequently staged at the Stanislavsky Nemirovich-Danchenko Theatre in Moscow, Apr. 1936 and at the Bolshoi Theatre in June 1936, and has been revived by many East European and Russian companies. Nijinsky's father, Foma Nijinsky , choreographed a ballet on the same subject in 1892.

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Four Last Songs (orig. Dutch-Ger. title Vier letzte Lieder).

Ballet in one act with choreography by van Dantzig , music by R. Strauss , and design by van Schayk . Premiered 16 May 1977 by Dutch National Ballet at Stadsschouwburg, Amsterdam, with Farha , Sand , Sinceretti , Marchiolli , Jurriëns , Radius , and Ebbelaar . It is performed to Karajan's recording of Strauss's score with singer Gundula Janowitz and presents Death as a soothing rather than ominous presence. It was revived for Vienna State Opera Ballet in 1979 and other versions of the same music have included Béjart's Serait-ce la mort? (1970).

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Four Saints in Three Acts.

Opera by Virgil Thomson , with choreography by Ashton , libretto by Gertrude Stein , and designs by Kate Drain Lawson . Premiered 7 Feb. 1934 at Wadsworth Atheneum , Hartford , Connecticut , with A. Hines . A. Dorsey , E. Matthews , B. Robinson Wayne , B. Howard , E. Bowner , and B. Fitzhugh Baker (singers) and C. L. Baker , E. Dickerson , M. Hart , F. Miller , M. Baird , and B. Smith (dancers). A shortened version of the score was choreographed by Morris in 2000.

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Four Schumann Pieces.

Ballet in one act with choreography by van Manen , music by Schumann and design by Jean-Paul Vroom . Premiered 31 Jan. 1975 by the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden, London, with Dowell , Penney , Collier , and Eagling . A plotless setting of Schumann's String Quartet in A major, Op. 41, No. 3. It was revived for Dutch National Ballet and National Ballet of Canada in 1976.

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Four Seasons, The.

Ballet in one act. (Version 1) With choreography by MacMillan , music by Verdi , and design by Peter Rice . Premiered 5 Mar. 1975 by the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden, London, with Derman , Parkinson , MacLeary , Collier , Coleman , Ashmole , Eagling , Mason , Wall , Dowell , Penney , and Sleep . This lighthearted setting of ballet music composed by Verdi for the first Paris production of Les Vêpres siciliennes (chor. L. Petipa , 1855) also incorporates ballet music from Verdi's Jérusalem and Don Carlos. It was revived with new designs by Barry Kay for Paris Opera (1978). (Version 2) With choreography by Robbins , music by Verdi , and design by Santo Loquasto (costumes). Premiered 18 Jan. 1979 by New York City Ballet at the State Theater, New York, with K. Nichols , Duell , S. Saland , B. Cook , J.-P. Frohlich , McBride , and Baryshnikov . This suite of classical dances portraying the changing seasons is set to Verdi's ballet music for Les Vêpres siciliennes (see above) and also incorporates his ballet music from I Lombardi and Il trovatore.
Other settings of the Vêpres music include those by J. Carter (Ambassador Ballet, 1950) and Prokovsky (New London Ballet, 1973), and other ballets portraying the seasons include those by Hilverding (Vienna c.1750), Perrot (mus. Pugni , London, 1848), Petipa (Les Saisons mus. Glazunov , St Petersburg, 1900), Walter (mus. Vivaldi , Düsseldorf, 1970), Cohen (mus. Vivaldi , Scottish Ballet, Glasgow 1996), and Kudelka (mus. Vivaldi , National Ballet of Canada, 1997).

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Four Temperaments, The.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Balanchine , music by Hindemith , design by Kurt Seligmann , and lighting by Rosenthal . Premiered 20 Nov. 1946 by Ballet Society at the Central High School of Needle Trades, New York, with Dollar , Moylan , Danieli , Bolender , and LeClercq . Set to Hindemith's commissioned score Theme with Four Variations (According to the Four Temperaments), the dance is a series of variations based on the four humours—melancholic, sanguinic, phlegmatic, and choleric. It contains some of the most intricately composed and vividly suggestive images in Balanchine's choreography. In 1951 it was re-staged and revised by Balanchine for New York City Ballet with no decor and with the dancers in practice clothes. It is one of Balanchine's most frequently performed ballets and has been revived by Royal Swedish Ballet (1960), La Scala Ballet (1962), Royal Danish Ballet (1963), Paris Opera (1963), National Ballet of Canada (1969), Berlin Opera Ballet (1970), Royal Ballet (1973), San Francisco Ballet (1974), Sadler's Wells Ballet (1976), Dance Theatre of Harlem (1979), and other companies.

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Fourth Symphony, The.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Neumeier , music by Mahler , and design by Marco Arturo Marelli . Premiered 31 Mar. 1977 by the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden, London, with Sleep , Seymour , Wall , and Coleman . It is set to Mahler's 4th Symphony and its four parts (‘Beginning’, ‘Shadows’, ‘Evening’, and ‘Epilogue: The Lost Paradise’) portray a boy's rite of passage into adulthood. It was revived for Hamburg Ballet in 1977. Araiz used the same music for Eternity is Now choreographed for the Royal Winnipeg Ballet.

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foxtrot.

Popular ballroom dance of American origin danced to a march-like ragtime (slow or fast). From 1913 it was widely danced around the world.

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Foyer de la danse.

Studio behind the stage at the Paris Opera which is now used as a rehearsal stage and a reception venue but which was notorious in the 19th century (during the reign of Dr Véron ) as the salon where members of the Jockey Club could meet dancers. Ashton's Foyer de danse (mus. Berners , Ballet Club, 1932) was based on Degas's studies of Paris dancers and portrayed an encounter between a dancer (orig. Markova ) and her lascivious admirers.

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Fracci , Carla

(b Milan, 20 Aug. 1936).
Italian dancer and director. She studied at the La Scala Ballet School from 1946 with V. Volkova and others, graduating into the company in 1954. In 1956 she was promoted soloist and in 1958 principal, becoming established as Italy's leading ballerina but also as the first Italian dancer to win an international reputation in the 20th century. Among the roles she created at La Scala were Juliet in Cranko's Romeo and Juliet (1958) and Elvira in Massine's Don Giovanni (1959). She has also guested widely around Italy and appeared with many companies abroad, including London Festival Ballet (1959 and 1962), Royal Ballet (1963), Stuttgart Ballet (1965), and Royal Swedish Ballet (1969), and from 1967 was also a principal guest artist with American Ballet Theatre. Her greatest role has been Giselle which she has danced with many partners including Nureyev , Vasiliev , Kronstam , Baryshnikov , and above all Bruhn with whom she filmed the work in 1969. She is also renowned for her interpretation of other romantic roles, in which she has been compared to Taglioni . In 1964 she married the theatre director Beppe Menegatti with whom she formed the occasional touring company Carla Fracci and Dancers. Menegatti has also produced many ballets with and for her, collaborating with choreographer Loris Gai in The Seagull (after Chekhov , 1968), Macbeth (1969), and The Stone Flower (1973), among others. In 1990 she danced a reconstruction of Duncan's solo Fate's Warning (chor. M. Hodson ). She was director of ballet in Naples (1990–1) then in Verona (1995–7) where in 1996 she danced Karsavina's role in Hodson and Archer's reconstruction of Nijinsky's Jeux. In 2000 she was appointed director of La Scala Ballet, appearing with that company in Dec. 1999 in a revival of Manzotti's Excelsior. She appeared as Karsavina in Ross's 1980 film Nijinsky and her television film, An Hour with Carla Fracci, won the Goldon Rose of Montreux in 1973. She was a recipient of the Leopardo d'oro in 1959.

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Franca , Celia

(b London, 25 June 1921).
British-Canadian dancer, choreographer, and ballet director. She studied at the Guildhall School of Music and at the Royal Academy of Dancing with Rambert , Tudor , and Idzikowski . She made her debut in 1936 in the revue Spread it Abroad (chor. Gore ) and in the same year joined Ballet Rambert where she stayed until 1939 creating the role of the Dope Fiend in Gore's Paris Soir (1939). Still in London, she danced with Ballet des Trois Arts (1939), the Arts Theatre (1940), and International Ballet (1941), then between 1941 and 1946 she danced with Sadler's Wells Ballet creating roles in, among others, Helpmann's Hamlet (1942) and Miracle in the Gorbals (1944). Between 1947 and 1949 she danced with Metropolitan Ballet and between 1949 and 1951 with Ballet Workshop (both in London) as well as guesting with Ballet Rambert in 1950. She choreographed her first ballet for Ballet Rambert Constanza's Lament (mus. Beethoven , 1938) and went on to create two works for Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet, including Khadra (mus. Sibelius ) as well as ballets for television. In 1951 she moved to Canada where she founded the National Ballet of Canada and later its associate school. She was dancer with the company (1951–9), director (1951–74), and also choreographer of several works including her own versions of The Nutracker (1964) and Cinderella (1968). After retiring from the company she was a guest teacher in Canada and abroad. She published The National Ballet of Canada (with Ken Bell , Toronto, 1979).

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France.

Ballet in France originated from early entertainments at court which were composed of music, dance, and poetry. The seminal production Ballet comique de la reine (commissioned by Catherine de Médicis in Paris, 1581) set an example from which later examples of ballet de cour evolved. Most of the greatest dancers and ballet masters of the 16th and 17th centuries were associated with court ballet in Paris and in the late 17th century a systematic attempt to raise standards of dance was instituted, first with the founding of the Académie Royale de Danse in 1661 and secondly with the opening of a dancing school attached to the Académie Royale de Musique in 1672. In the same year Lully was appointed director of the Académie Royale de Musique and, working in close collaboration with Beauchamps, rapidly raised the status of dance. In his ballet Triomphe de l'amour (1681) Mlle de Lafontaine became the first female professional dancer to appear at the Palais Royal. During the 18th century travelling ballet masters like Noverre and Dauberval encouraged the spread of ballet to the provinces. Noverre's Caprices de Galatée (1758), remarkable for being the first ballet to be performed without any spoken text, was danced in Lyons while Dauberval's La Fille mal gardée (1789), the first notable ballet about everyday life and ordinary people, was premiered in Bordeaux. Ballet reached a pitch of popularity during the first half of the 19th century with Romantic classics like La Sylphide (F. Taglioni , 1832) and Coralli-Perrot's Giselle (1841). This was the great age of the ballerina and Taglioni , Elssler , Grisi , and Cerrito were starry rivals for the public's devotion and the critics' favour. This golden era ended with the death of Emma Livry , Taglioni's natural successor, and though fine dancers were still produced by the school, new ballets tended to be stale repetitions of old formulas. The public's enthusiasm was transferred to opera and Paris was no longer regarded as the ballet capital of the world. Saint-Léon's Coppélia (1870) and the premiere of Mérante's Sylvia at the opening of the opulent Palais Garnier theatre in 1876 were only temporary pauses in the decline of the art, the French having lost their greatest native choreographer, Marius , Petipa , to Russia. It was from Russia, though, that Paris received its next injection of energy, with the regular seasons given by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes between 1909 and 1929. Many French composers, painters, and writers collaborated with Diaghilev on new work, and ballet again became a highly fashionable art form. Jacques Rouch é, director of the Paris Opera from 1914, was stimulated by the Russian competition and commissioned new ballet scores from composers like Dukas and Ravel as well as inviting Fokine , Pavlova , Spessivtseva , and others to work in his theatre. When Lifar took over direction of the Opera Ballet in 1929 he revitalized the company and enthused a new public (though he alienated the less disinterested balletomanes by closing the Foyer de la danse to the public—hence ending liaisons between dancers and their admirers at the Opera). After 1945 many new, small, adventurous companies emerged both within and outside Paris, such as Ballets des Champs-Elysées, the de Cuevas Ballet, the companies of Petit , Charrat , Babilée , and a few years later those of Béjart and Miskovitch . Lifar was recalled to the Opera in 1947 (after having left in 1944 for political reasons), and worked there until 1959. He was succeeded by a rapid turnover of directors and the Opera went into an artistic decline. During the 1970s it began to look to a younger audience by bringing in work by modern choreographers such as Cunningham and Carlson and between 1983 and 1989 entered a new, if controversial, period under the direction of Nureyev. He brought forward young stars like Guillem, Platel, Hilaire, and Jude and widened the repertoire with works by Forsythe , Tharp , and others. Dupond and his successor Brigitte Lefèvre also continued this trend bringing in works by younger choreographers like Angelin Preljocaj . Outside Paris the proliferation of dance activity has continued under the government's policy of decentralization. In 1966 André Malraux set up the first of the state Maisons de la Culture which provided important bases for all the arts, and the Ballet-Théâtre Contemporain, based first in Amiens (1968–72) and then in Angers (1972–8), led the way in developing an experimental new edge in ballet. Ballet du Rhin was founded in 1972 and in 1972 Petit took over Ballet National de Marseilles. Other regional ballet companies include Ballet du Nord and Ballet-Théâtre Français de Nancy. Although Béjart, France's most prolific contemporary choreographer, left to work in Brussels and later Switzerland, he has continued to maintain a strong presence in his native country. During the 1980s a large number of modern dance choreographers (several profiting from generous funding in regional choreographic centres) emerged, including Dominic Baguouet, Maguy Marin , Angelin Preljocaj , Jean Claude Gallotta , Daniel Larrieu , and Claude Brumachon . Together these have created a powerful international reputation for new French dance. Numerous festivals including those at Avignon, Paris, and Lyons as well as adventurous programming by venues like Paris's Théâtre de la Ville have ensured that a very wide range of international companies are seen in the country every year.

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Franck , César

(b Liège, 10 Dec. 1822, d Paris, 8 Nov. 1890).
Belgian composer. He wrote no ballet scores but his concert music has often been used for dance, for example in Isadora Duncan's Redemption (Paris, 1915), Ashton's Symphonic Variations (London, 1946), and Babilée's Psyché (Paris, 1948).

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Frankfurt Ballet.

Ballet performances were given at the Frankfurt National Theatre (opened 1782) and at the Frankfurt Opera (opened 1880) but an independent ballet company at the Opera did not emerge until after the Second World War. There was a fast turnover of directors during this period, including Lutz (1948–51), Gore (1957–9), T. Gsovsky (1959–66), Neumeier (1969–73), and Catá (1973–6), until William Forsythe's appointment in 1984. The company's name was changed to Ballet Frankfurt, and its repertory became a showcase for Forsythe's choreography, with 35 dancers performing on the opera and playhouse stages in Frankfurt's main theatrical complex. In 1996 it also acquired the performing space of TAT, a converted tramway depot. Under Forsythe the company has acquired a high international profile.

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Frankie and Johnny.

Ballet in one act with choreography by R. Page and Stone , libretto by Michael Blandford and Jerome Moross (also music), and design by Paul Dupont . Premiered 19 June 1938 by the Page-Stone Ballet at Great Northern Theatre, Chicago, with Page and Stone . It is based on the popular American ballad about a prostitute who shoots her faithless pimp. It has been revived by several companies, including Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo (1945), Pittsburgh Ballet (1976), Dance Theatre of Harlem (1981), and Joffrey Ballet (1999).

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Franklin , Frederic

(b Liverpool, 13 June 1914).
British-US dancer, choreographer, teacher, and director. He studied with Shelagh Elliott-Clarke in Liverpool then with Kyasht , N. Legat , and Egorova . He made his amateur stage debut as a tap dancer and his professional debut with Mistinguette in the cabaret at Casino de Paris, 1931. From 1933 he danced in London cabarets, musicals, and operetta becoming soloist in the Markova-Dolin company (1935–7). In 1938 he was appointed principal dancer with Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, becoming ballet master in 1944. A dynamic, dramatically gifted dancer, he created roles in many ballets including Massine's Gaîté parisienne (1938), Seventh Symphony (1938), and Rouge et noir (1939), Ashton's The Devil's Holiday (1939), and de Mille's Rodeo (1942). In 1949 he and Danilova (his regular partner) were guest stars with Sadler's Wells Ballet and in 1952 he founded the Slavenska-Franklin ballet with Mia Slavenska , touring the US and the Far East. He returned to Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo (1954–6), after which he worked as director or adviser with many companies including American Ballet Theatre (1961), National Ballet, Washington, DC, and its associated school (1962–74), where he also choreographed several works; Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre (1974–7); and Cincinnati Ballet, where he was resident choreographer from 1978, creating his lyrical Sylvia pas de deux (mus. Delibes , 1978). He also continued to perform character roles. His legendary memory has enabled him to stage classics and the Ballet Russe repertoire for La Scala, Milan (1961), New York City Ballet (1964), and for many regional American companies, such as Tulsa Ballet, for whom he staged his Coppélia in 1995. In 1984 he set the choreography for Dance Theatre of Harlem's Creole version of Giselle.

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Freefall.

Ballet in one act with choreography and design by Tetley and music by Max Schubel . Premiered 13 Apr. 1967 by the Repertory Dance Theatre at the University of Utah. It is set to Schubel's Concerto for 5 Instruments (Insected Surfaces) and evokes the process of mental free association. It was revived for Ballet Rambert, 13 Nov. 1967, and again, with new designs by N. Baylis , in 1975.

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Fridericia , Allan.

See Rosen , Elsa-Marianne von.

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Froman , Margarita

(b Moscow, 8 Nov. 1890, d Boston, 24 Mar. 1970).
Russian-Yugoslav dancer, choreographer, teacher, and ballet mistress. She studied at the Imperial Theatre School, Moscow, graduating into the Bolshoi Theatre in 1909. Between 1914 and 1916 she danced with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes then in 1917 returned to the Bolshoi as a ballerina for a year, leaving in 1918 to dance with Mordkin . In 1921 she and her three brothers emigrated to Yugoslavia where they worked at the Zagreb Opera Ballet. As ballerina and choreographer she initiated the revival of ballet in Yugoslavia, staging the classics and the Ballets Russes repertoire (alone and in collaboration with her brothers) as well as creating several works including The Gingerbread Man (mus. Baranovi , 1923). In 1937 she worked as choreographer at the State Opera Ballet Belgrade, creating works such as The Legend of Ochrid (mus. Hristí , 1947) as well as founding and directing various schools (her pupils included Mia Slavenska). In the early 1950s she moved to the US where she taught at her own school in Connecticut.

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Frontier.

Modern dance in one act, with choreography by Graham , music by Horst , set by Noguchi , and costumes by Graham . Premiered 28 Apr. 1935 at the Guild Theater, New York, with Graham and her company. It portrays the determination and energy of the early pioneers. It was originally danced as part of a larger work, Perspectives Nos. 1 and 2, but the group section in this work, ‘Marching Song’, was subsequently dropped.

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Frutos , Javier De

(b Caracas, 15 May 1963).
Spanish dancer. He trained in Venezuela, at the London School of Contemporary Dance, at the Cunningham studios, and with Sara Rudner and others in New York, making his debut in Danza Teatro de Abelardo Gameche in 1983. He also performed with several other companies including Laura Dean Dancers (1989–92). His first work, The Dying Swan (mus. Saint-Saëns ), was choreographed in 1990, after which he created and performed a string of solo works including Sweetie J (mus. Bartók , 1995). He also created works for other companies including All visitors bring happiness, some by coming some by going (mus. Stravinsky , 1997) for Ricochet Dance Company and for his own company, such as Grass, a trio of extreme tenderness and violence set to music from Puccini's Madam Butterfly (1997).

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Fuller , Loie

(b Fullersburg, III., 22 Jan. 1862, d Paris, 21 Jan. 1928).
US dancer, choreographer, designer, and director. She had no formal dance education but gained her experience on stage as an actress, playwright, singer, dancer, and producer between 1865 and 1891. In 1891 a chance manœuvre dealing with an over-long skirt gave her the idea of The Serpentine Dance (1891), a solo whose effects were created by manipulating long trains of silk. Her subsequent dances gained her a world-wide audience, particularly in Europe where she made her debut in 1892. Embraced as a fellow revolutionary by the Symbolists, Impressionists, and Art Nouveau movements she was painted and sculpted by many artists. Her works employed light, thrown on lengths of diaphanous silk which she then manipulated with her own body movements and with long sticks to create an exotic range of forms, as in The Butterfly (1892), Clouds (1893), and Fire Dance (1895). From 1900 she began creating group works and using more complex costumes and light effects. She formed her own school in 1908 and in the same year published her autobiography, Quinze ans de ma vie (English translation, London, 1913). She continued performing until 1925 during which time she made significant contributions to the arts of stage costume and lighting.

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Fuoco , Sofia (orig. Maria Brambilla ;

b Milan, 16 Jan. 1830, d Carate Lario, 4 June 1916).
Italian dancer. She studied with Blasis at the school of La Scala, Milan, from c.1837 becoming one of his special group of ‘Pleiades’. She made her debut at La Scala in 1839 and was precociously appointed prima ballerina assoluta in 1843, in the same year dancing the first Giselle there. A lively dancer (fuoco signifies fire and passion in Italian), she acquired something of a cult following, though she was renowned more for her impressive technique than her acting ability. In 1846 she created one of the roles in F. Taglioni's staging of Perrot's Pas de quatre. Between 1846 and 1850 she danced various seasons at the Paris Opera where she was known as La Pointue due to her brilliance on pointe; she appeared in London in 1847 and 1848, and during the last decade of her career divided her time between Italy, France, and Spain. She retired in the late 1850s.

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Fuzelier , Louis

(b 1677, d 1752).
French writer who wrote the libretti for several ballets, including Les Indes galantes (1727).

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G

Gable , Christopher

(b London, 13 Mar. 1940, d Halifax, 23 Oct. 1998).
British dancer, actor, and ballet director. He studied at the Royal Ballet School and joined the touring section of the Royal Ballet in 1957, promoted to soloist in 1959 and principal in 1961. From early on he was paired with Lynn Seymour ; their mutual flair for dramatic interpretation made theirs one of the most popular and acclaimed partnerships in British ballet. A glamorous and intensely romantic dancer, he was also fine danseur noble material. In 1963 he transferred to Covent Garden where he stayed for four years, until resigning to pursue a career as an actor. He created roles in MacMillan's The Invitation (1960) and Images of Love (1964), and Ashton's The Two Pigeons (1961). MacMillan created Romeo and Juliet (1965) for him and Seymour, although opening-night honours went to Fonteyn and Nureyev, a snub that soured Gable's subsequent relationship with the Covent Garden management. His acting career was relatively successful, including the title role in Ken Russell's film The Boy Friend (1972) and John in Bryan Forbes's The Slipper and the Rose (1976). He also appeared as Lysander in Peter Brook's 1970 staging of A Midsummer Night's Dream, during his year spent with the Royal Shakespeare Company. In 1982 he opened the Central School of Ballet in London, which he continued to direct until his death. In 1987 he was named artistic director of Northern Ballet Theatre; one of his first acts was to save the company from potential closure following a threat to its public funding. He created the role of L. S. Lowry in Gillian Lynne's A Simple Man for Northern Ballet Theatre in 1987, also the role of Don Quixote in his The Amazing Adventures of Don Quixote for the same company in 1989. He staged many productions for NBT, including Giselle (1990, 1997), Romeo and Juliet (1991), Swan Lake (1992), A Christmas Carol (1992), Cinderella (1993), The Brontës (with Gillian Lynne, 1995), Dracula (1996), and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (with Michael Pink, 1998).

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Gabovich , Mikhail

(b Velikiye Gulyaki, Ukraine, 7 Dec. 1905, d Moscow, 12 July 1965).
Russian dancer and teacher. He studied at the Bolshoi Ballet School (Moscow Theatre School), a pupil of Alexander Gorsky and Vasily Tikhomirov . He graduated into the company in 1924 where he continued as a soloist until his retirement in 1952. One of the most acclaimed of the Bolshoi's leading dancers, he excelled in both the traditional repertoire and in modern works such as Fountain of Bakhchisarai and The Bronze Horseman. His partnership with Ulanova was greatly admired. He created roles in several ballets, including Antoine in Vainonen's Moscow staging of The Flames of Paris (1934), Vladimir in Zakharov's The Prisoner of the Caucasus (1938), Andrei in Zakharov's Taras Bulba (1941), the Prince in Zakharov's Cinderella (1945), and Romeo in Lavrovsky's 1946 Moscow version of Romeo and Juliet. He was director of the Bolshoi Ballet School (1954–8), and continued to teach there until his death. Father of the Bolshoi dancer Mikhail Mikhailovich Gabovich . Also a writer about dance, including ballet theory and criticism. Author of The Ballet School of the Bolshoi Theatre (Moscow, 1957).

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Gad , Rose

(b Copenhagen, 20 Sept. 1968).
Danish dancer. She studied at the Royal Danish Ballet School from 1978 and joined the company as an apprentice in 1985. Promoted to principal in 1991. She had her first major role in 1983 as Cupid in Grigorovich's production of Don Quixote; she was just 15 years old. As well as dancing the Bournonville repertoire, for which she is ideally suited, she has also appeared as the girl in Robbins's Afternoon of a Faun and in Balanchine's Theme and Variations, Tchaikovsky Pas de deux, Apollo, and Serenade. She also dances the leading ballerina roles in Giselle, The Sleeping Beauty, and Swan Lake. In 1991 she created the title role in Flindt's full-length Caroline Mathilde. In 1997 she was appointed principal dancer at the Hamburg Ballet but returned to the Royal Danish Ballet in 1999. She was the first recipient of the Erik Bruhn Prize (1988).

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Gadd , Ulf

(b Gothenburg, 8 Mar. 1943).
Swedish dancer, choreographer, and ballet master. He studied with Mila Gardemeister (from 1950) and at the Royal Swedish Ballet School, joining the Royal Swedish Ballet in 1960. He became a soloist in 1965. In 1968 he danced with the Harkness Ballet in the US, before returning to Sweden. In 1969 he made his choreographic debut in Gothenburg with Ebb and Flood (mus. Telemann ), which he later staged for London Festival Ballet. In 1970 he enjoyed great success with The Miraculous Mandarin, which he went on to stage for the Royal Swedish Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, and the Berlin Opera Ballet. In 1970 he founded the New Swedish Ballet (Les Nouveaux Ballets Suédois) with Conny Borg which toured Europe. In 1972 he was appointed ballet master and principal dancer in Gothenburg; he was named artistic director of the Gothenburg Ballet in 1976, a post he held for the next twelve years. A list of his works includes Tratto (mus. Zimmermann , 1972), Gemini Suite (mus. Jon Lord, 1972), Choreographic Études (mus. Ohana , Cullberg Ballet, 1973), Maison de fous (mus. Viking Dahl , 1973), Sleeping Beauty (with B. Holmgren, Royal Swedish Ballet, 1974), Kalevala (mus. Sibelius , Gothenburg , 1975), Queen Kristina (1978), Coppélia (mus. Delibes , 1979), Diaghilev's Russian Ballet (1980), The Tale of Gosta Berling (mus. Franz Berwald , 1981), The Rite of Spring (1982), The Ring (mus. Wagner , 1983), The Darkling Dances (mus. Eduard Tubin , 1984), and Tango Buenos Aires 1907 (mus. Argentinian tango music, 1985). In 1988 he went to Bali to study Balinese dance and music. In 1996 he returned to Sweden as ballet director in Gothenburg.

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Gades , Antonio

(b Alicante, Nov. 1936).
Spanish flamenco dancer and company director. He studied dance in Madrid and spent nine years dancing with Pilar López's company (1952–61). After working for several years as a choreographer in Italy he formed a company of his own in Spain in 1963. Its early success in Barcelona resulted in an invitation to the New York World's Fair in 1964. The enormous success of this venture launched him on decades of international touring. In 1978 he was invited by the Spanish Ministry of Culture to form the National Ballet of Spain (Ballet Nacional Español). In 1974 he created his famous Blood Wedding, inspired by Lorca's play; in 1981 the film-maker Carlos Saura committed it to screen, filming it without sets or costumes and staging it in a rehearsal hall. Blood Wedding was a cinematic triumph and led to further collaborations between Saura and Gades which resulted in both film and stage productions (Carmen, El amor brujo). In the 1980s and 1990s Gades formed several companies which toured internationally.

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Gaîté parisienne.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Massine , libretto and designs by Comte Étienne de Beaumont , and music by Offenbach arranged by Manuel Rosenthal . Premiered 5 Apr. 1938 by the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in Monte Carlo with Tarakanova , Eugénie Delarova , Massine , Jeanette Lauret , Franklin , and Youskevitch . A humorous divertissement set in a Paris night-club, the ballet uses characters from Offenbach's La Vie parisienne—a wealthy Peruvian, a Glove-Seller, a Flower Girl, and an Officer—and tells of their light-hearted flirtations. It was Massine's first work for the newly created Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. In 1941 it was filmed by Warner Brothers and released as The Gay Parisian. It was revived for several companies, including the Royal Swedish Ballet (1956), American Ballet Theatre (1970), London Festival Ballet (1973), and Les Ballets de Monte Carlo (1989). American Ballet Theatre remounted it in 1988 with controversial new costumes by Christian Lacroix .

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Gala Performance.

Ballet in one act with choreography and libretto by Tudor , music by Prokofiev , and designs by Hugh Stevenson . Premiered 5 Dec. 1938 by the London Ballet at Toynbee Hall Theatre, London, with Van Praagh , Maude Lloyd , Gerd Larsen , Tudor , and Laing . A wicked parody of ballet conventions, set to Prokofiev's 3rd Piano Concerto and his Classical Symphony, it shows preparations for a gala followed by the gala itself. Three rival ballerinas, La Reine de la danse from Moscow, La Déesse de la danse from Milan, and La Fille de Terpsichore from Paris, battle it out for the audience's approval. It was revived for several companies including Ballet Rambert (1940), Ballet Theatre (1941), the National Ballet of Canada (1953), Berlin Opera Ballet (1963), Royal Danish Ballet (1970), and Australian Ballet (1990). Although Tudor himself grew to dislike this ballet, it remains one of his most popular creations.

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Galeotti , Vincenzo (orig. Vincenzo Tomazelli or Tomasselli ;

b Florence, 5 Mar. 1733, d Copenhagen, 16 Dec. 1816).
Italian-Danish dancer, choreographer, teacher, and ballet master. Generally considered to be the father of Danish ballet. After studying in Italy with Gaspero Angiolini , he danced with many European companies before settling in Venice, where between 1765 and 1769 he choreographed opera ballets and divertissements. After time spent dancing at London's King's Theatre (1769–71), where he staged several works including Gluck's Orfeo, he returned to Venice as ballet master of the San Moise Theatre (1771–5). From there he was invited to Copenhagen in 1775 as ballet master, solo dancer, and teacher at the Royal Theatre. He spent the remainder of his life there, laying the foundations of the Royal Danish Ballet. He continued to dance until the age of 77 and made his last appearance on stage as Friar Laurence in Romeo and Juliet. He was responsible for creating a repertoire of more than 30 ballets for Copenhagen. A list of his works includes Dido Abandoned (1777), Don Juan (1781), Semiramis (1787), Telemachus on the Isle of Calypso (1792), Annette and Lubin (1797), Lagertha (mus. Claus Schall , 1801, the first ballet dealing with a Nordic theme), Inez de Castro (1804), Romeo and Juliet (1811), and Macbeth (1816). His most popular work was a comedy, The Whims of Cupid and the Ballet Master (mus. Jens Lolle , 1786), which is the world's oldest surviving ballet, still performed in Denmark.

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galliard (also gaillard).

A light-hearted and vigorous court dance performed in triple time, mainly after a pavane. It is thought to have originated in Lombardy. It was particularly popular at the court of England's Elizabeth I, where a variant known as the volta was much loved by the Queen.

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galop.

A spirited North German round dance in 2/4 time. It was first popular during the 1820s and eventually spread from Germany to France and England, where it was absorbed into the quadrille. It is characterized by a change of step or hop at the end of each musical phrase. The galop was also popular on the stage of the Paris Opera in the Romantic period, being danced in both operas and ballet-pantomimes.

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Garafola , Lynn

(b New York, 12 Dec. 1946).
US critic and writer on dance. Ph.D. in Comparative Literature, City University of New York (1985). From 1985 she has been a freelance critic, feature writer, and contributing editor of Dance Magazine; series editor of Studies in Dance History (1992–8); one of America's leading dance historians. She is the author and editor of many books on dance including Diaghilev's Ballets Russes (1989, repr. 1998), André Levinson on Dance: Writings from Paris in the Twenties (editor, with Joan Acocella , 1991), Rethinking the Sylph: Essays on the Romantic Ballet (editor, 1997), José Limón: An Unfinished Memoir (editor, 1998), Dance for a City: Fifty Years of the New York City Ballet (editor, with Eric Foner , 1999), and The Ballets Russes and Its World (editor, with Nancy Van Norman Baer , 1999). She has also translated The Diaries of Marius Petipa (1992).

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García Lorca , Federico.

See Lorca , Federico García.

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Gardel , Maximilien

(b Mannheim, 18 Dec. 1741, d Paris, 11 Mar. 1787).
French dancer, choreographer, and ballet master. He was born the son of a ballet master at the court of King Stanislas of Poland and studied at the Paris Opera School (Académie Royale de Musique) from 1755. He made his official debut at the Paris Opera in 1759 during the reign of Louis XIV. In 1772 he became the first dancer to appear without a mask or a wig when he took the stage as Apollo in Rameau's Castor et Pollux. He may have done it to avoid being mistaken for Gaetano Vestris, who had originally been scheduled to take the role. In 1773 he was appointed ballet master, along with Dauberval, at the Paris Opera. In 1781 he became ballet master, succeeding Noverre. He was a keen exponent of Noverre's revolutionary ballet d'action, the idea that dance could be used to tell a story instead of merely providing trifling divertissements. He often drew on the comic operas of the period for his stories. In 1787 he suffered a minor cut to his foot which became infected, and he died. He was succeeded by his younger brother Pierre Gardel . A list of his works for the Paris Opera includes Ninette à la cour (1778), Mirza et Lindor (mus. Gossec , 1779), La Rosière (1783), Le Premier Navigateur (mus. Grétry , 1785), Le Coq du village (mus. Favart , 1787), and Le Déserteur (1788).

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Gardel , Pierre

(b Nancy, 4 Feb. 1758, d Paris, 18 Oct. 1840).
French dancer, choreographer, teacher, and ballet master. He was taught by his elder brother, Maximilien Gardel , at the Paris Opera School from 1771 and became premier danseur noble of the Paris Opera in 1780. In 1780–1 he was a leading dancer with Noverre's company at the King's Theatre in London. In 1787 he succeeded his brother as chief ballet master of the Paris Opera. A prolific choreographer, he often shocked audiences with his choice of subject-matter, even turning to the Bible for inspiration, but he won wide popularity by never forgetting that audiences respond as much to spectacle as they do to story. Unlike his contemporaries, he often chose to commission original music for his ballets. He retired in 1829. A list of his works includes Télémaque (mus. Müller , 1790), Psyché (mus. Müller , 1790), Le Jugement de Pâris (1793), La Dansomanie (mus. Méhul , 1800), Achille à Scyros (mus. Cherubini , 1804), Paul et Virginie (mus. Kreutzer , 1806), La Fête de Mars (mus. Kreutzer , 1809), Persée et Andromède (mus. Méhul , 1810), Proserpine (mus. Schneitzhoeffer , 1818), and La Servante justifiée (mus. Kreutzer , 1818). He also composed the dances for Mozart's Don Giovanni at its Paris Opera debut in 1805. From 1799 to 1815 he was director of the Paris Opera Ballet School, where one of his pupils was Blasis. He was married to the ballerina Marie Gardel , who performed in his ballets.

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Garden of Earthly Delights, The.

Full-length dance theatre production with choreography by Martha Clarke , music by Richard Peaslee , lighting by Paul Gallo , costumes by Jane Greenwood , libretto by Peter Beagle . Premiered by the Crowsnest company at St Clement's Church in New York in November 1984. A large-scale work inspired by the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch , it combined dance with acrobatics and spectacle and was considered highly innovative in its breaking down of the barriers between theatre and dance. It was revived by Rambert Dance Company in 1994.

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Garnier.

See Palais Garnier.

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Gaskell , Sonia

(b Vilkaviskis, 14 Apr. 1904, d Paris, 9 July 1974).
Lithuanian-Dutch dancer, teacher, choreographer, and ballet director. One of the most important figures in the development of Dutch ballet. She studied in Kharkov in the Ukraine but fled to Palestine in 1921 to avoid the pogroms against Jews in Russia. She arrived in Paris in 1925 where she trained with Lubov Egorova and Léo Staats. She began her career as a cabaret dancer touring Europe in the 1930s. She was founder and choreographer of Les Ballets de Paris (1936–9) and taught in Paris before going to Amsterdam in 1939 as a teacher with her Dutch husband. During the Second World War she went into hiding, although she still managed to give ballet lessons to her students. She ran several companies (Ballet Studio '45, Ballet Recital, and the Netherlands Ballet); she also founded the Netherlands Ballet Academy in The Hague. In 1961 she was named artistic director of the newly formed Dutch National Ballet, a position she held until 1968. Although she choreographed many ballets for her various companies, it was as a teacher and director that she made her greatest contribution. She gave the Netherlands a ballet company capable of performing the 19th-century classics, and worked hard to promote new choreography from within her ranks. One of those whose careers she encouraged was van Dantzig.

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GATOB.

The abbreviation for Gosudarstvenny Akademichesky Teatre Opery i Baleta, or State Academic Theatre for Opera and Ballet. It was the name given to St Petersburg's Maryinsky Theatre, home of the Kirov Ballet, between 1917 and 1935.

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Gautier , Théophile

(b Tarbes, 30 Aug. (some sources say 31 Aug.) 1811, d Neuilly, 23 Oct. 1872).
French poet, writer, ballet critic, and librettist. As art and drama critic of La Presse from 1836 to 1855 he wielded great influence on the development of French romantic ballet in the 1830s and 1840s. He also wrote as a critic for Le Moniteur universel (1855–68). He was Carlotta Grisi's greatest admirer (and married her sister) and, in collaboration with Vernoy de Saint-Georges , wrote the libretto of Giselle for her in 1841. He also wrote the librettos for La Péri (1843), Pâquerette (1851), Gemma (1854), and Sacountala (1858). Le Spectre de la rose (1911) is based on one of his poems; while Le Pavillon d'Armide (1907) is based on one of his stories. Some of his copious writings on dance were collected by C. W. Beaumont and published as The Romantic Ballet as Seen by Théophile Gautier (London, 1932, repr. London, 1973). Ivor Guest's 1986 collection entitled Gautier on Dance is considered the best English edition of Gautier's dance writings.

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gavotte.

A dance in 4/4 time and steady rhythm which originated in the Pays de Gap region of France (where the residents were known as Gavots). It started in the 14th century as a simple peasant dance but became a fashionable court dance under Marie Antoinette . In its more complex form, it was performed by professional dancers.

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Gayané.

Ballet in four acts with choreography by Nina Anisimova , libretto by Konstantin Derzhavin , music by Khachaturian , sets by Natan Altman , and costumes by Tatyana Bruni . Premiered 9 Dec. 1942 by the Kirov Ballet in Perm, with Dudinskaya , Zubkovsky , Konstantin Sergeyev , Tatayna Vecheslova , and Boris Shavrov . The ballet, set in an Armenian cotton collective, tells the story of the cotton picker Gayané and her lover Armen, set against a background of political and military intrigue. The ballet, a prime example of the Soviet school of Socialist Realism, celebrates the virtues of socialist labour and incorporates Armenian folk dance into choreography which is rich in character dancing. The ballet includes the famous Sabre Dance, often performed on its own as a showpiece. Anisimova re-staged the ballet twice for the Kirov in St Petersburg, in 1945 and 1952. Vainonen choreographed a new version for the Bolshoi in Moscow in 1957, while Anisimova restaged her version for the Bolshoi in 1961. Boris Eifman choreographed yet another new staging for the Maly Theatre in St Petersburg in 1972.

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Gé , George (orig. George Grönfeldt ;

b St Petersburg, 1893, d Helsinki, 19 Nov. 1962).
Finnish dancer, choreographer, and ballet master. One of the pioneers of ballet in Finland. He studied with Legat and was engaged as the first Finnish ballet master of the Helsinki Suomalainen Opera (1921–35), the beginnings of the Finnish National Ballet. His first production was Swan Lake (1922). In 1935 he relocated to France where he worked with Fokine and the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, also in Paris at the Folies-Bergère. From 1939 to 1945 he was ballet master of the Royal Swedish Ballet. He returned to Helsinki in 1955 to become ballet master of the Finnish National Ballet for a second time, a post he held until his death. One of his most noteworthy achievements was the reconstruction of Fokine's L'Épreuve d'amour.

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Geltser , Ekaterina (also spelled Ekaterina Geltzer ;

b Moscow, 14 Nov. 1876, d Moscow, 12 Dec. 1962).
Russian-Soviet dancer. Generally regarded as the first ‘Soviet’ ballerina. Daughter of Vasily Geltser, mime artist and ballet master at the Bolshoi Ballet (who had the added distinction of having co-written the original libretto for Swan Lake). She studied at the Bolshoi School from 1884 and graduated into the company in 1894. She had further studies with Christian Johansson and Petipa in St Petersburg. In 1896 she went to St Petersburg where she danced with the Maryinsky (until 1898). She returned to the Bolshoi where she was promoted to first ballerina in 1901. A stocky dancer with a robust, even heroic style, she was the definitive Bolshoi ballerina in the early part of the 20th century. One of the strongest dancers of her day, she was frequently cast in Gorsky's ballets and was a performer of enormous personality particularly suited to the more dramatic roles. She created the role of Swanilda in Gorsky's new staging of Coppélia (1905), Colombine in his Harlequinade (1907), the title role in his Salammbô (1910), Medora in his 1912 staging of Le Corsaire, and Tsar-Maiden in his Little Humpbacked Horse (1914). She danced all the traditional ballerina roles, and yet she excelled in the demi-caractère roles of Kitri and Esmeralda. She appeared with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in Paris in 1910; the following year at the Alhambra Theatre in London with dancers from the Bolshoi. She also appeared at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York with Mordkin's All-Star Imperial Russian Ballet, dancing Odette-Odile in the first complete Swan Lake ever seen in America (1911). One of her most significant creations was the role of Tao-Hoa in the groundbreaking Soviet ballet The Red Poppy (1927), choreographed by her husband and stage partner Vassily Tikhomirov . She retired from the Bolshoi in 1935, although she continued to tour extensively in Russia. She was one of the first ballerinas to be awarded the title of People's Artist of the USSR (1925).

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Gemini.

Ballet in three movements with choreography by Tetley , music by Henze , and designs by Baylis . Premiered 6 Apr. 1973 by the Australian Ballet at the Elizabethan Theatre in Sydney, with Rowe , Carolyn Rappel , John Meehan , and G. Norman . Tetley's ballet, set to Henze's 3rd Symphony, is an abstract work for two couples who, like the twins of the title, are meant to resemble each other. It was revived for Stuttgart Ballet (1974), American Ballet Theatre (1975), and Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet (1977).

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Genée , (Dame) Adeline (orig. Anina Jensen ;

b Hinnerup, Århus, 6 Jan. 1878, d Esher, 23 Apr. 1970).
Danish-British dancer. She studied with her aunt and uncle in Denmark, making her debut in Christiania, Oslo, at the age of 10 in their touring company. In 1893 she joined the Centralhallen Theatre in Stettin, in 1896 the Berlin Court Opera, followed shortly thereafter by the Munich Court Opera. In 1897 she began her ten-year reign as the most popular dancer at London's Empire Theatre (these were the days when ballet was viewed more as music hall entertainment than as serious art). The first of many US tours followed. She made her New York debut in 1908 in Ziegfeld's The Soul Kiss and went on to enjoy great success in America in musicals. From 1912 she also danced at the Coliseum and the Alhambra in London, and managed tours of Australia and New Zealand in between. Her most famous role was Swanilda in Coppélia, which was perfectly suited to her light and vivacious style. She retired from the stage in 1917. Today she is perhaps best remembered as the founder and president of the Royal Academy of Dancing (previously known as the London Association of Operatic Dancing) from 1920 to 1954. She was also a founder-member of the Camargo Society. The Adeline Genée Gold Medal is the highest award given to a dancer by the RAD. Dame Commander of the British Empire, 1950.

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Georgi , Yvonne

(b Leipzig, 29 Oct. 1903, d Hanover, 25 Jan. 1975).
German dancer, choreographer, ballet director, and teacher. An important figure in the German dance renaissance of the 1950s and 1960s. She studied in Leipzig, at the Dalcroze Institute in Hellerau (1920) and from 1921 at the Wigman School in Dresden, where she performed with the Wigman group. Although trained in the Wigman aesthetic, and with no significant classical influences in her background, she none the less maintained an interest in classical dance, and as her career progressed so did her reliance on ballet as a medium for theatrical endeavour. She made her Leipzig debut in 1923, and then toured as a solo recital artist. She continued to tour until 1939 throughout Europe and North America; and also presented duet evenings with Harald Kreutzberg . In 1924 she joined Kurt Jooss's company in Münster. She was ballet mistress in Gera (1925) and in Hanover (1926–31, 1933–6), where she also opened a school. It was at this time that she worked with the ballet master Victor Gsovsky . She also worked in the Netherlands, where in 1931 she founded a dance school and a performing group in Amsterdam, which eventually became the Ballets Yvonne Georgi. In 1941 the group became the resident company of the Amsterdam Opera House. She continued to work in Holland during the Second World War. In Paris she choreographed Berger's 1950 film Ballerina, which starred Verdy. From 1951 she returned to Germany, first as ballet mistress of the Abraxas company and then of the Düsseldorf Opera Ballet (1951–4). She was ballet director in Hanover (1954–70) and director of the dance department at Hanover's Academy of Music until 1973. She staged ballets throughout Germany and the dances for many operas. Although never widely recognized as a choreographer of note, her 1962 ballet Metamorphosen is considered one of the great German ballets of the period.

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Georgiadis , Nicholas

(b Athens, 14 Sept. 1923, d 10 Mar. 2001).
Greek theatre designer. His career was launched by the choreographer Kenneth MacMillan who chose him to design his first professional ballet, Danses concertantes, in 1955, while Georgiadis was still a student at London's Slade School of Art. There followed commissions to design MacMillan's House of Birds (1955), Noctambules (1956), The Burrow (1958), Agon (1958), The Invitation (1960), Las Hermanas (1963), Romeo and Juliet (1965), Swan Lake (Berlin, 1969), Manon (1974), Mayerling (1978), and The Prince of the Pagodas (1989). He also designed Cranko's Daphnis and Chloe (Stuttgart, 1962) and Nureyev's Swan Lake (Vienna, 1964), Sleeping Beauty (Milan, 1966, National Ballet of Canada, 1972, London Festival Ballet, 1975), Nutcracker (London, 1968), and Raymonda (Zurich, 1972). As the designer of four of MacMillan's full-length ballets, Georgiadis ranks as one of the leading ballet designers of the latter half of the 20th century.

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Gerdt , Pavel (orig. Paul Friedrich Gerdt ;

b Volinkino, nr. St Petersburg, 4 Dec. 1844; d Vamaljoki, Finland, 12 Aug. 1917).
Russian dancer and teacher. The most famous Russian male dancer of the late 19th century. He studied at the Imperial Theatre School in St Petersburg with Petipa and Johansson and graduated in 1864. Between 1860 (as was the practice, he joined the company before finishing his studies) and 1916 he danced with both the Bolshoi and Maryinsky Theatres in St Petersburg. He had more than 100 roles in his repertoire, most of them in ballets by Petipa . His career was long, thanks to his ability to make the transition from premier danseur to character artist, and throughout his career he was considered a great mime. He created the role of Prince Désiré in The Sleeping Beauty in 1890 when he was 46 years old, and the role of Prince Siegfried in Petipa's 1895 St Petersburg staging of Swan Lake when he was 50. He created leading roles in Petipa's La Camargo (1872), Paquita (1881), Coppélia (1884), The Talisman (1889), Kalkabrino (1891), Cinderella (Prince Charming, 1893), Raymonda (1898), and in Ivanov's Nutcracker (1892). He also excelled as Conrad in Le Corsaire, Solor in La Bayadère, and Albrecht in Giselle. He gave his farewell performance as Don Gamache in Don Quixote in 1916. From 1880 to 1904 he taught at the Imperial Theatre School and he counted among his students Pavlova , Karsavina , Fokine , and Vaganova . He created a ballet for Anna Pavlova's graduation performance and collaborated with Ivanov on Delibes's Sylvia in 1901.

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German Opera Ballet.

See Berlin Opera Ballet.

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German State Opera Ballet.

The ballet company attached to the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in the former East Berlin. Also called Ballett der Staatsoper Unter den Linden, or the Staatsoper Ballet. Under the direction of Tatjana Gsovsky (1945–52), it became the model for ballet companies throughout the former East Germany. Its associated school was strongly influenced by Soviet teaching methods. With Daisy Spies (1952–5) came the staging of contemporary works such as The Lord's Law and The Converted Philistine which were tailored to meet strict criteria set down by the Communist regime. Under Lilo Gruber's direction (until 1970) the company was an important centre for Soviet-style dance. Following German reunification in 1989 the company broadened its repertoire to include works by Balanchine , Cranko , and Nureyev . Michaël Denard , a former star of the Paris Opera Ballet, took over as director in 1992; in 1993 Maurice Béjart was appointed chief guest choreographer. Denard resigned at the end of the 1995–6 season. Plans were later announced for the company to merge with the Berlin Opera Ballet and the Komische Ballet in 2001 to create a single Berlin company.

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Germany.

As it did elsewhere in Europe, ballet in Germany began at court. One of the earliest examples is Darmstadt's Die Befreiung des Friedens (The Liberation of Peace) in 1600, which was in effect a ‘sung ballet’. In 1717 in Leipzig, Gottfried Taubert published his Der rechtschaffene Tantzmeister, the first important German dance treatise. Stuttgart was put on the ballet map when Noverre worked there from 1760 to 1767, developing his controversial reforms while acting as ballet master. Stuttgart also attracted Filippo Taglioni and his daughter Marie , who both worked in the city from 1824 to 1828. There they created Danina, oder Jocko der Brasilianische Affe (1826), one of the most popular ballets of the day. Thirty years later Berlin played host to Paul Taglioni , Marie's brother, when he took charge of the Berlin Court Opera Ballet (1856–83). Regular ballet performances started in Berlin after the First World War at the State Opera (Staatsoper), whose directors included Heinrich Kröller (1921–3) and Rudolf von Laban (1930–4). After the Second World War the company, renamed the German State Opera Ballet (also known as the Staatsoper Ballet), continued in what was now East Berlin. In 1955 the company moved back to its rebuilt house, Unter den Linden, where it is still based. Berlin's second opera house, the Charlottenburg, which opened in 1912 in what became West Berlin, is today the German Opera House, home to the Berlin Opera Ballet.
Modern dance took hold in Germany after visits by Isadora Duncan and Ruth St Denis in the early 1900s. While interest in classical dance was waning, there was great interest in the new expressive dance, or Ausdruckstanz. In 1911 Jaques-Dalcroze opened his institute for applied rhythm in the Dresden suburb of Hellerau. The leading figures in German modern dance after the First World War were Rudolf von Laban (who had set up his school in Munich in 1910) and Mary Wigman , both of whom ran influential schools. The most significant work to emerge from this period was Kurt Jooss's The Green Table, which was premiered by the Essen Folkwang Ballet in Paris in 1932. The Second World War, and the Nazi regime, put a stop to the development of ballet in the country. In the 1950s ballet in East Germany came under the influence of the Soviet school, with the two main companies in East Berlin taking a lead in the development of Socialist Realism. In West Germany, meanwhile, every opera house had its own ballet company, most of them classically based. From the 1960s onwards, dance in West Germany was strongly influenced by British and American ideas, thanks to the influx of foreign directors and choreographers like John Cranko in Stuttgart, Kenneth MacMillan in Berlin, William Forsythe in Frankfurt, and John Neumeier in Hamburg. In the field of modern dance, Germany's Pina Bausch became a leading international player. Among German ballet companies today, the Stuttgart Ballet and the Frankfurt Ballet are the most internationally recognized for their innovation and excellence. The Bavarian State Ballet is one of the leading regional companies, while the Leipzig Ballet (under Uwe Scholz's direction) symbolizes the rebirth of dance in the former East Germany following the collapse of Communism. In 1999 plans were announced to amalgamate the Berlin Opera Ballet, the German State Opera Ballet (the Staatsoper Ballet), and the Komische Ballet to create a single Berlin company in 2001.

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Gershwin , George

(b Brooklyn, NY, 26 Sept. 1898, d Hollywood, Calif., 11 July 1937).
US composer. Although he wrote nothing specifically for the ballet, his songs and music for the concert hall have often been chosen by choreographers as suitable music for dance. His Rhapsody in Blue attracted Dolin and Milloss, among others, while Gene Kelly used his piano concerto for Pas de dieux which he choreographed for the Paris Opera in 1960. Robbins turned to the composer for The Gershwin Concerto for New York City Ballet in 1982 and Balanchine used Gershwin songs for his 1970 work Who Cares?

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Geva , Tamara (orig. Tamara Gevergeyeva ;

b St Petersburg, 17 Mar. 1906, d New York, 9 Dec. 1997).
Russian-US dancer and actress. She studied in St Petersburg and joined GATOB (as the Kirov was known in those days). She married Balanchine when she was 16 (he was 18) and went with him to the West in 1924, travelling in a troupe known as the Soviet State Dancers, all of whom were subsequently hired by Diaghilev . She left the Diaghilev company and danced with Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo. Eventually she ended up in America where she appeared in the Ziegfeld Follies. She starred on Broadway in On Your Toes in 1936, dancing Balanchine's famous ballet Slaughter on Tenth Avenue. She enjoyed a career as an actress in musicals, plays, and films and, with Haila Stoddard , wrote a musical comedy, Come Play With Me (mus. Dana Suesse ). Author of the autobiography Split Seconds.

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Ghost Dances.

Modern dance in one act with choreography by Christopher Bruce set to S. American folk music arranged by Nicholas Mojsiejenko , sets by Bruce , costumes by Belinda Scarlett , and lighting by Nick Chelton . Premiered 3 July 1981 by Ballet Rambert at the Bristol Old Vic. Bruce's tribute to victims of political oppression in S. America is one of the most popular works in the Rambert repertoire. It was revived by the company in 1999 for a British tour.

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Gielgud , Maina

(b London, 14 Jan. 1945).
British dancer and ballet director. The niece of the actor John Gielgud . She studied at the Hampshire School in London and later with Karsavina , Idzikowski , V. Gsovsky , Egorova , and Rosella Hightower , among others (in all, she claimed 35 separate teachers). She made her debut in 1961 with Petit's Ballets de Paris; joined the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas in 1962, and danced with the Grand Ballet Classique de France (1963–6), the Ballet of the 20th Century (1967–71), Berlin Opera Ballet (1971–2), and London Festival Ballet (1972–5). As a freelance guest artist she appeared with many companies, including Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet. As a dancer her greatest influence was Béjart; for him she created roles in Ni Fleurs, ni couronnes, Baudelaire, Bhakti (all 1968), Les 4 Fils Aymon II (1969), and Serait-ce la mort? (1970). From 1978 she toured with her own theatre production, Steps, Notes and Squeaks, which took audiences on a backstage tour of the ballet. Her first choreography was The Soldier's Tale in 1980. In 1983 she was appointed artistic director of the Australian Ballet. During the next thirteen years she helped to bring the company to international attention by resuming overseas touring. She also gave them several stagings of the classics, as well as bringing in works by outside choreographers such as Béjart, Forsythe, and Duato and developing new Australian choreographers. She was also artistic director of the Royal Danish Ballet (1997–9).

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gigue.

A spirited dance in 6/8 or 12/8 time, popular in France in the early 1700s. Somewhat similar to the Irish jig.

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Gillis , Margie

(b Montreal, 9 July 1953).
Canadian dancer and choreographer. She studied ballet and gymnastics in Montreal, and modern dance with May O'Donnell and others in New York. She began her career as a solo artist in Vancouver in 1975 and appeared as a guest artist with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, the Paul Taylor company, Momix, and in Martha Clarke's off-Broadway production of The Garden of Earthly Delights in 1984; she later appeared in Clarke's Vers la flamme (1999). In 1982 Taylor made Duet for Gillis and her brother Christopher , a long-time member of the Taylor company. She has choreographed many works for herself, and is particularly interested in political and social concerns. She tours frequently as a solo artist and enjoys a world-wide reputation. She also teaches her own method of ‘active kinesthesis’ in the US and Asia. Order of Canada 1988.

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Gilmour , Sally

(b Malaya, 2 Nov. 1921).
British dancer. She studied with Karsavina in London (1930–3) and at the Rambert school. She joined Ballet Rambert in 1937, becoming the company's leading ballerina. She created roles in Howard's Lady into Fox (1939), The Fugitive (1944), Sailor's Return (1947), and Orlando's Silver Wedding (1951), Staff's Peter and the Wolf (1940), and Gore's Confessional (1941), Simply Symphony (1944), Mr Punch (1946), Concerto Burlesco (1947), and Winter Night (1948). She retired from Rambert in 1953, although she came out of retirement to help revive some of the early works in the company's repertoire. She appeared as Louise in the musical Carousel in the West End in 1950.

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Gilpin , John

(b Southsea, 10 Feb. 1930, d London, 5 Sept. 1983).
British dancer. A successful child actor, he studied dance from 1940 at the Cone-Ripman and Rambert schools. In 1943 he won the Adeline Genée Gold Medal, the youngest person ever to do so. He joined Ballet Rambert in 1945, becoming a principal. During the 1949 season he danced with Roland Petit's company, and in 1950 with Le Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas. Later in 1950 he returned to London and joined London Festival Ballet, first becoming its premier danseur and then its artistic director (1965–7). Widely considered to be one of the most brilliant male dancers Britain has ever produced. He appeared as a guest around the world, with the Royal Ballet and American Ballet Theatre among many others. He created roles in Howard's The Sailor's Return (1947), Ashton's Le Rêve de Léonor (1949), Beriozoff's Esmeralda (1954), and Dolin's Variations for Four (1957). As a ballet master and teacher he worked in Copenhagen, Ankara, and Tokyo. He appeared in Maxim Mazumdar's play Invitation to the Dance, which was based on his own life, and starred as Oberon in Lindsay Kemp's Midsummer Night's Dream in Italy in 1981. He won the Nijinsky Prize in Paris in 1957. Published his autobiography, A Dance With Life, in London in 1982.

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Gingerbread Heart, The.

Ballet in three acts with choreography by Froman , music by K. Baranovic , sets by A. Augustinic , and costumes by Inges Kostincer-Bregovac . Premiered 17 June 1924 in Zagreb. A popular Yugoslavian ballet frequently revived for foreign tours. A young man gives a gingerbread heart to his fiancée. A dream sequence is featured in which gingerbread figures are brought to life.

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Ginner , Ruby

(b Cannes, 8 May 1886, d Newbury, 13 Feb. 1978).
British dance teacher and expert on ancient Greek dance. She studied ballet briefly but quickly became interested in ancient Greek dance. She founded a company, the Grecian Dancers, in 1913 which performed in London; during the First World War she established the Ruby Ginner School of Dance, which later became the Ginner-Mawer School of Dance and Drama. In 1923 she founded the Association of Teachers of the Revived Greek Dance; from this emerged the Greek Dance Association, which was ultimately absorbed into the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing. She wrote The Revived Greek Dance (London, 1933) and Gateway to Dance (1960).

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Gipsy, La.

See Gypsy, La.

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Giselle.

Ballet in two acts with choreography by Coralli and Perrot , libretto by Vernoy de Saint-Georges , Gautier , and Coralli , music by Adam , sets by Pierre Ciceri , and costumes by Paul Lormier . Premiered 28 June 1841 at the Paris Opera, with Grisi (Giselle), Lucien Petipa (Albrecht), Adèle Dumilâtre (Myrtha). The most famous of all Romantic ballets, it has enjoyed an enduring popularity and is to be found in the repertoire of virtually every classical company in the world. It was inspired by a story by Heinrich Heine , and is set in Germany's Rhine Valley. The innocent peasant girl Giselle is in love with the philandering Count Albrecht, who is betrothed to Bathilde, herself the daughter of a Duke. Albrecht's pursuit of Giselle provokes the jealous gamekeeper Hilarion to expose the true identity of the deceitful nobleman, an act which drives Giselle to madness and, eventually, death. The second act finds Giselle transported to the moonlit land of the Wilis, vengeful spirits of brides who died before their wedding day. Led by Myrtha , the Queen of the Wilis, the ghostly man-hating brigade dispatch Hilarion to an early grave but Albrecht is saved from a similar fate when Giselle intervenes. When dawn breaks the Wilis return to their graves and Albrecht is left alone and disconsolate. With its sense of mystery and its evocation of the supernatural, with its expression of undying love and selfless devotion, and with its exploration of the duality of the body and the spirit, Giselle is considered the quintessential Romantic ballet. Following its Paris premiere it was quickly taken up all over the world. London saw its first production in 1842; the same year saw Giselle travel to St Petersburg and Vienna. Berlin (1843), Milan (1843), and Boston (1846) were next. The title role became the testing ground for all leading ballerinas, from Carlotta Grisi, who originated the role in Paris, to Fanny Elssler who danced it in London, right up to Alicia Alonso , Carla Fracci , Alicia Markova , and Galina Ulanova more than a century later. The original Paris production survived until 1868; almost all subsequent stagings have been based on Petipa's St Petersburg productions (the last of which was in 1884). Diaghilev's Ballets Russes reintroduced Giselle into western Europe in 1910 with a new staging by Fokine starring Karsavina . Throughout the 20th century Giselle was treated to countless productions, and some radical retellings; the Dance Theatre of Harlem set Giselle in the Louisiana swamps, while Mats Ek set his production for the Cullberg Ballet in a lunatic asylum.

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Gitana, La.

Ballet in three acts with prologue, with choreography and libretto by Filippo Taglioni , and music by Hermann Schmidt and Daniel Auber . Premiered 5 Dec. 1838 at the Bolshoi Theatre in St Petersburg with Marie Taglioni and Nikolai Osipovich Glotz . Lauretta , the daughter of a Duke, is kidnapped as a child and raised by a tribe of gypsies. She falls in love with Ivan, son of the Governor of Nishni Novgorod. The title role was particularly associated with Taglioni . Not to be confused with Mazilier's ballet La Gypsy or La Gipsy (1839).

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Glass , Philip

(b Baltimore, 31 Jan. 1937).
US composer. His music has frequently been used by modern choreographers, most notably Robbins in Glass Pieces (New York City Ballet, 1983) and Lucinda Childs in Dance (New York, 1979), Mad Rush (Paris, 1981), and Field Dances (New York, 1984). Glass composed the score for Twyla Tharp's 1986 ballet In the Upper Room and for her 1996 ballet Heroes.

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Glazunov , Alexander

(b St Petersburg, 10 Aug. 1865, d Paris, 21 Mar. 1936).
Russian composer. He wrote the music for three Petipa ballets: Raymonda (1898)—the work for which he is best known—Les Ruses d'amour (1900), and Les Saisons (1900). Balanchine used music from Raymonda for his Pas de dix (1955), Raymonda Variations (1961), and Cortège hongrois (1973). Ashton used selections from Glazunov's music for his Birthday Offering (1956). Gorsky choreographed his 5th Symphony in 1916, one of the world's first symphonic ballets. Twyla Tharp used Glazunov's Scènes de ballet for The Little Ballet in 1984.

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Glière , Reinhold

(b Kiev, 11 Jan. 1875, d Moscow, 23 June 1975).
Russian composer. He wrote the scores for several ballets, including The Red Poppy (1927), and The Bronze Horseman (1949). His last ballet, Taras Bulba (1952), was never staged.

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glissade.

(Fr., glide). A gliding movement, which can be executed either forward, backward, or to the side. It is used mostly as a linking step.

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Gloria.

(1) Ballet in one act with choreography by MacMillan , music by Poulenc , and designs by Andy Klunder . Premiered 13 Mar. 1980 by the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden with Eagling , Penney , Hosking , and Ellis . The ballet is inspired by Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth and is set to Poulenc's Gloria. It is a heartfelt evocation of the tragic waste of young life in the trenches of the First World War.
(2) Ballet in one act with choreography by Mark Morris and music by Vivaldi . Premiered 12 Dec. 1981 by the Mark Morris Dance Group, at the Bessie Schönberg Theater, Dance Theater Workshop, New York. A solemn work inspired by the sentiments of the Roman Catholic Mass.

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Glover , Savion

(b Newark, NJ, 19 Nov. 1973).
US dancer and choreographer. He made his Broadway debut as the title character in The Tap Dance Kid when he was 10. He starred in Black and Blue (1989), an African-American revue on Broadway. He subsequently appeared on Broadway opposite Gregory Hines in Jelly's Last Jam (1992). In 1988 he co-starred with Hines and Sammy Davis Jr. in the film Tap. He won the 1996 Tony Award for Choreography for his work on the Broadway musical Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk, in which he also starred. Glover, a powerful hard-hitting tapper, is widely considered to be the most important voice in contemporary American tap. His style is greatly influenced by the heavy bass beats of hip-hop music.

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Gluck , Christoph Willibald von

(b Erasbach, 2 July 1714, d Vienna, 15 Nov. 1787).
German composer. He wrote the music for Angiolini's Don Juan (1761), Alessandro (1765), and Semiramis (1765). His operas Orpheus and Eurydice (1762) and Iphigenia in Aulis (1774) have a large dance content and have attracted the attention of choreographers throughout the years, most notably Pina Bausch . Balanchine's staging of Orpheus and Eurydice at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York in 1936 placed the dancers centrestage, as did Mark Morris's staging seen 60 years later at the Edinburgh Festival.

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Glushkovsky , Adam

(b St Petersburg, 1793, d Oct. 1870).
Russian dancer, teacher, and choreographer. He studied at the Imperial Theatre School in St Petersburg, a student of Didelot, who was also his guardian, and graduated in 1809; he later studied with Louis Duport . After dancing in St Petersburg for several years, he moved to Moscow where he became chief choreographer of the Bolshoi Theatre, its leading demi-caractère dancer and director of the Bolshoi Ballet School in 1812. He stayed with the Bolshoi until 1839, retiring from performing in 1831. He revived all of Didelot's most important ballets, including Zéphire et Flore, and was the first to choreograph a ballet based on a poem by Pushkin when he staged his Ruslan and Lyudmila in 1821 at the Bolshoi. At the school he set rigorous training standards, thus helping to establish its reputation as a leading institution. He also ensured its very survival when, in 1812, he saved the school from potential destruction by evacuating it just days before Napoleon's army invaded Moscow. Author of Memoirs of a Ballet Master, first published in 1856.

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Gods Go a-Begging, The, or Les Dieux mendiants.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Balanchine , libretto by Kochno (using the pen name Sobeka), music by Handel arranged by Beecham , sets by Bakst , and costumes by J. Gris . Premiered 16 July 1928 by the Ballets Russes de Diaghilev at Her Majesty's Theatre in London with Danilova and Woizikowski . A young shepherd falls in love with a maid at an aristocrats' picnic. When the lovers are mocked by the others, they reveal themselves to be gods. De Valois staged a version for Vic-Wells Ballet in 1936 (excerpts of which were revived by the Royal Ballet at the Barbican Theatre in 1998 to mark the de Valois centenary), while Lichine did a version for Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo in 1937.

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Godunov , Alexander

(b Sakhalin Island, 28 Nov. 1949, d Los Angeles, 18 May 1995).
Soviet dancer. He studied locally and at the Bolshoi Ballet School in Moscow, graduating into the company in 1966. He quickly became a soloist and created the role of Karenin in Plisetskaya's Anna Karenina (1972) and the leading role in Boccadora's Love for Love (1976). He won the Gold Medal at the Moscow competition in 1973. In 1979, while the Bolshoi was on tour in America, he defected in New York, an act which led to a political confrontation between the US and the Soviet Union. He joined American Ballet Theatre, where he stayed until 1982. After leaving ABT, he pursued a creditable career as a film actor, in movies such as Witness, Die Hard, and The Money Pit.

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Goh , Choo-San

(b Singapore, 1948, d New York, 28 Nov. 1987).
Chinese dancer, teacher, choreographer and ballet director. He studied in Singapore at the Singapore Ballet Academy and obtained a degree in biochemistry at the University of Singapore. In 1970 he left to join Dutch National Ballet, where he spent five years as a dancer and began to choreograph. In 1976 he became resident choreographer of the Washington Ballet and in 1984 was named associate artistic director. His ballets are in the repertoires of many companies, including Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, American Ballet Theatre, Australian Ballet, Bat-Dor Dance Company, Boston Ballet, Royal Danish Ballet, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Houston Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, and Royal Swedish Ballet. His best-known work was Configurations (mus. Barber ), commissioned by Baryshnikov for American Ballet Theatre in 1981. He died prematurely of an Aids-related illness.

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Goldberg Variations, The.

Ballet in two parts with choreography by Robbins , music by Bach , and costumes by Joe Eula . Premiered 27 May 1971 by New York City Ballet at the State Theater in New York with Kirkland, Leland, Clifford, Maiorano, von Aroldingen, Blum, McBride, Tomasson, and Martins. A plotless ballet set to the theme and 30 variations of Bach's famous work for the keyboard.

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Golden Age, The.

Ballet in three acts with choreography by Vasily Vainonen (with Vasily Chesnakov and Leonid Jacobson ), libretto by Alexander Ivanovsky , music by Shostakovich , and designs by Vera Khodasevich . Premiered 26 Oct. 1930 at the GATOB (later the Kirov) in Leningrad with Ulanova , Olga Iordan , and Boris Shavrov . Set in an unnamed capitalist city in the West, the ballet shows a fight between a group of Fascists and a touring Soviet football team. It ends with the capitalist workers joining the Soviet footballers in a dance celebrating the virtues of work. The ballet, a prime example of Socialist Realism, was the result of a competition for new ballet librettos, but it was deemed ‘ideologically destructive’ and disappeared from the repertoire after just one season. However, it was given new life 50 years later when Grigorovich choreographed an entirely new version for the Bolshoi in 1982 with designs by Simon Virsaladze . A new libretto, by Ivan Glikman and Grigorovich , only partly drew on the original. It retains the political theme of the original but sets the action in the post-revolutionary Soviet state in 1923 where the Golden Age is the name of a decadent nightclub. In a small Soviet resort on the Black Sea the idealistic young fisherman Boris falls in love with the cabaret dancer Rita , girlfriend of the gang leader Jashka . The first performance, on 4 Nov. 1982, starred Irek Mukhamedov as Boris, Natalia Bessmertnova as Rita, and Geminas (or Gediminas) Taranda as Jashka. It became one of the most popular ballets in the Bolshoi's repertoire, frequently performed on foreign tours.

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Goleizovsky , Kasyan

(b Moscow, 5 Mar. 1892, d Moscow, 4 May 1970).
Russian dancer and choreographer. Leader of the experimental movement in Moscow in the 1920s. He studied first in Moscow and then (1902–9) in St Petersburg, where he was a pupil of Fokine. He graduated in 1909 and danced with the Bolshoi (1909–18). In 1916 he established his own Moscow studio, called the Quest, and made numerous concert miniatures for it. He also began to stage small works at theatres outside the Bolshoi, especially in cabaret theatres such as the Bat or the Mamonovsky Theatre of Miniatures, rapidly becoming a popular choreographer in the world of cabaret. In 1918, with the fervour of revolution sweeping Russia, he was invited to head the studio of the Bolshoi Theatre School. In 1922 he formed his own company, the Moscow Chamber Ballet, for which he made some of his most innovative works, including the miniatures Faun (mus. Debussy ) and Salomé (mus. Strauss ), daring in its portrayal of eroticism on stage. An experimentalist who was not afraid to court controversy in his quest for modernity, he was a great influence on other young Russian choreographers, most notably George Balanchine. His most important work was Joseph the Beautiful, a 1925 ballet (with music by Vasilenko ) produced for the Bolshoi's Experimental Theatre. A controversial piece about the struggle of the individual for freedom, it prompted the traditionalists, led by Tikhomirov , to drop it from the repertoire. His Lola for the Bolshoi in 1925 was cancelled by the management; in 1927 he choreographed The Whirlwind (mus. Ber ) for the Bolshoi, but it was performed only once. With his works now dropped from the Bolshoi repertoire, Goleizovsky increasingly turned to concert programmes and music halls for his livelihood. In 1933–4 he made a brief return to the Bolshoi, and again in the 1960s when the post-Stalinist era was opening up new opportunities for choreographers. During the Second World War he worked as a choreographer for the Song and Dance Ensemble of the Ministry of the Interior. In the late 1930s he worked arranging folk dances in the various Soviet republics, prompting him to write Forms of Russian National Choreography or Images of Russian Folk Choreography (Moscow, 1964). A list of his other works includes Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor (Moscow, 1934), Sleeping Beauty (Kharkhov, 1935), Fountain of Bakhchisarai (Minsk, 1939), Two Roses (mus. A. Lensky , Moscow , 1941), Scriabiniana (Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow, 1962), and Leili and Medzhnun (mus. S. Balasanian , Moscow , 1964).

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Golovin , Alexander

(b Moscow, 1 Mar. 1863, d Pushkin, or Detskoye Selo, 17 Apr. 1930).
Russian painter and designer. He designed both opera and ballet for the Imperial Theatres in St Petersburg and Moscow, although his most famous commissions were for the Ballets Russes de Diaghilev : Fokine's Firebird (1910) and the Act II Swan Lake production (with Konstantin Korovin ) in 1911. He also designed Fokine's Jota Aragonesa (1916) and Lopukhov's Solveig (1927).

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Golovine , Serge

(b Monte Carlo, 20 Nov. 1924, d Paris, 31 July 1998).
French dancer and teacher. He studied with Julie Sedova in Nice (from 1935) and with Gustave Ricaux in Monaco, later with Preobrajenska and Volinine in Paris. He performed with the Opera Ballet of Monte Carlo during the Second World War. In 1947 he joined the Paris Opera Ballet, where he eventually became a soloist. His roles included Balanchine's Symphony in C and Serenade. From 1949 to 1961 he was with the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas, where he achieved international fame as a world-class dancer. Much admired for his batterie, he made the Blue Bird and Spectre de la rose his own; he was also acclaimed for his Petrushka. He created the role of the Man in Lifar's L'Amour et son destin (1957). In 1962 he founded his own troupe, Les Compagnons de la Danse, for whom he made several works; from 1964 to 1969 he was artistic director and principal dancer of the Geneva Opera Ballet. He retired from the stage in 1976. He founded his own school in Geneva in 1969, and taught at the Paris Opera Ballet School from 1981. Légion d'honneur (1998).

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Goncharova , Natalia

(b Ladyzhino, 4 June, 1881; d Paris, 17 Oct. 1962).
Russian painter and designer. Most closely associated with the Diaghilev company, she designed several key works for them, including Fokine's Le Coq d'or (1914), Nijinska's Renard (with her husband Larionov , 1922), Les Noces (1923), and Une nuit sur le mont chauve (1924) and the 1926 revival of Fokine's Firebird. She also designed Fokine's Ygrouchka (New York, 1921) and Cendrillon (London, 1938), Lifar's Sur le Borsythène (with Larionov , Paris, 1932) and Massine's Bogatyri (New York, 1938), as well as the 1954 Sadler's Wells Ballet production of Firebird. Her designs, which often drew inspiration from Russian folk art and Orthodox religious symbolism, were noted for their strong use of colour.

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Good-Humoured Ladies, The (orig. Fr. title Les Femmes de bonne humeur).

Ballet in one act, with choreography and libretto by Massine , music by Domenico Scarlatti arranged by Vincenzo Tommasini , and designs by Bakst . Premiered 12 Apr. 1917 by the Ballets Russes de Diaghilev at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome, with Lopokova , Tchernicheva , Massine , Cecchetti , Idzikowski , and Woizikowski . Massine based his ballet on Goldoni's play, Le donne di buon umore, which tells of the love affair between Costanza and Rinaldo and the obstacles that are put in the way of their happiness. Massine revived it for several companies, including the Royal Ballet in 1962, a production that was not a success.

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gopak.

A spirited dance in duple time originating in the Ukraine. It was originally danced only by men. A famous example occurs in Zakharov's ballet Taras Bulba.

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Gopal , Ram

(b Bangalore, 20 Nov. 1912).
Indian dancer, choreographer, and teacher. The most important ambassador for Indian dance around the world. He studied kathakali with Kunju Kunrup , bharata natyam with Sundaram , kathak with Misra , and manipuri with Nabakumar . He first came to Europe in 1938. He brought his own company to London in 1939, and embarked on several foreign tours which introduced the world to Indian dancing and helped to make it popular. He opened the Academy for Indian Dance and Music in London in 1962. His best-known works include Dances of India, Legend of the Taj Mahal, and Dance of the Setting Sun. Author of the autobiography Rhythm in the Heavens (London, 1957).

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Gordeyev , Viacheslav

(b Moscow, 3 Aug. 1948).
Russian dancer and ballet director. He studied at the Bolshoi Ballet School in Moscow, graduating in 1968. He joined the Bolshoi Ballet where he danced all the leading male roles in the standard repertory. In 1973 he won the Gold Medal at the Moscow competition. He started to choreograph in 1981 and in 1983 became artistic director of the Moscow-based Russian State Ballet (formerly the Russian Ballet Company of Moscow), for whom he choreographed most of his ballets. Director of the Bolshoi Ballet (1995–7).

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Gordon , David

(b New York, 14 July 1936).
US dancer and choreographer. He began dancing with James Waring while studying art at Brooklyn College, and had further dance studies with Cunningham , Louis Horst , and Robert Dunn . He was a member of the experimental Judson Dance Theater in the 1960s and danced with Yvonne Rainier (1966–70). In 1970 he became a founding member of the influential improvisatory group Grand Union. He also collaborated with Douglas Dunn and frequently worked with his wife, the dancer Velda Setterfield . In 1971 he formed his own company, the Pick Up Performance Company. A highly analytical choreographer, he also draws frequent references from film and popular music, and incorporates speech into his productions. A list of his work includes Random Breakfast (1963), Walks and Digressions (1966), One Part of the Matter (1972), What Happened (1978), T.V. Reel (1982), Trying Times (1982), Framework (1983), and United States (1989). For American Ballet Theatre he made Field, Chair and Mountain (1985) and Murder (1986); for Dance Theatre of Harlem he made Piano Movers (1984). He has also choreographed for the Paris Opera and the White Oak Dance Project (Punch and Judy, 1992). He choreographed Philip Glass and Robert Coe's opera The Photographer (1983). He has also worked in the theatre: he wrote and directed The Mysteries and What's So Funny? (1991) and The Family Business (1994). In 1994 he directed Schlemiel the First, a klezmer musical based on stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer, which was seen in Massachusetts and San Francisco. In 1995 he directed Max Frisch's The Firebugs for the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. He has collaborated with his son Ain several times, including 1997's Silent Movie.

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Gore , Walter

(b Waterside, Scotland, 8 Oct. 1910, d Pamplona, Spain, 16 Apr. 1979).
British dancer, choreographer, and company director. One of Rambert's early choreographers. He studied acting at the Italia Conti School (from 1924) and dance with Massine and Rambert . He danced in Rambert's first season in 1930 and stayed with Rambert's company until 1935. He then joined the Vic-Wells Ballet, where he created the title role in de Valois's The Rake's Progress. His time with de Valois was brief, however, and he quickly left to choreograph and dance in West End musicals. Two years later, he returned to Ballet Rambert as a soloist, and created his first ballet for the company in 1938, Valse finale (mus. Ravel ). Paris Soir (mus. Poulenc , 1939) and Cap over Mill (mus. Stanley Bate , 1940) for Rambert, and Confessional (mus. Sibelius , 1941) and Bartlemas Dances (mus. Holst , 1941) for the Oxford University Ballet Club followed. After service in the Royal Navy during the Second World War, he returned to Rambert, where he created Simple Symphony (mus. Britten , 1944), Mr Punch (mus. Oldham , 1946), Concerto burlesco (mus. Bartók , 1946), Winter Night (mus. Rachmaninov , 1948), and Antonia (mus. Sibelius , 1949). He left Rambert in 1950 and worked in many countries with many different companies. For New Ballet Company he created Street Games (mus. Ibert ) in 1952 and for Ballets des Champs-Elysées he made La Damnée, in 1951. For Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet he made Carte blanche (mus. J. Addison , 1953). In 1953 he formed the Walter Gore Ballet which toured Australia. He subsequently worked in Australia, America, Amsterdam, and Frankfurt, where he choreographed Eaters of Darkness (mus. Britten , 1958). He was founder and director of London Ballet (1961–3). He choreographed Night and Silence (mus. Bach , arr. Mackerras ) for the Edinburgh Festival in 1958. A list of his later works includes Sweet Dancer (mus. F. Martin , Ballet Rambert, 1964), The Maskers (mus. Foss , Western Theatre Ballet, 1965), and Embers of Glencoe (mus. Tom Wilson , Scottish Theatre Ballet, 1973). He was ballet master of the Gulbenkian Ballet in Lisbon (1965–9) and director of the Frankfurt Ballet (1957–9). Although he choreographed more than 80 ballets, few survived in the repertoire.

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Górecki , Henryk

(b Czernice, 1933).
Polish composer. In the 1990s his music became increasingly popular with choreographers who used his concert hall compositions for ballets. They include Christopher Bruce's Crossing (1994) and Mats Ek's She Was Black (1995) and A Sort Of (1997).

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Gorsky , Alexander

(b St Petersburg, 18 Aug. 1871, d Moscow, 20 Oct. 1924).
Russian dancer, choreographer, ballet master, and teacher. A pioneer in the development of dramatic ballet in Russia. He started his training at the Imperial Theatre School in St Petersburg in 1880, where he studied with Petipa , and graduated in 1889. He joined the Maryinsky Theatre where he was appointed a soloist in 1895. He began teaching at the school in 1896 and was responsible for ensuring that the Stepanov system of notation was introduced into the syllabus at the ballet school. In 1899 he was sent to Moscow to mount Sleeping Beauty at the Bolshoi, using the notated score of Petipa's St Petersburg staging. In 1900 he moved to Moscow where he became premier danseur and regisseur of the Bolshoi Ballet; in 1902 he was appointed director, a position he held until his death. During his more than twenty years at the Bolshoi he turned the company around, modernizing its productions to give them greater dramatic relevance and completely rewriting the repertoire by creating new ballets and revising old ones. Shortly after arriving in Moscow, he produced his own version of Don Quixote, and revised versions of Swan Lake and The Little Humpbacked Horse followed in 1901, productions which are still known. The next year he created Gudule's Daughter (mus. Anton Simon ); his version of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, it was the first production created wholly by Gorsky . A list of his other works includes The Magic Mirror (mus. Arseny Koreshenko , 1905), Pharaoh's Daughter (mus. Pugni , 1905), Coppélia (1905), Raymonda (1908), Études (mus. Rubinstein , 1908), Salammbô (mus. Arends , 1910), Giselle (1907), Le Corsaire (mus. Adam , 1912), Love is Quick (mus. Grieg , 1913), Eunice and Petronius (mus. Chopin , 1915), Fifth Symphony (mus. Glazunov , 1916), La Bayadère (1917), Stenka Razin (mus. Glazunov , 1918), Nutcracker (1919, the first Moscow staging), Swan Lake (new version, 1920), Salome's Dance (mus. R. Strauss , 1921), Les Petits Riens (mus. Mozart , 1922), Giselle (1922), and The Venus Grotto (mus. Wagner , 1923). In 1911, for the coronation of George V, he staged The Dance Dream at the Alhambra Theatre in London. The victim of deteriorating mental health in his later life, he died in a mental hospital.

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Goslar , Lotte

(b Dresden, 27 Feb. 1906, d Great Barrington, Mass., 16 Oct. 1997).
German-US dancer and mime artist. She studied with Wigman and Gret Palucca and appeared in cabaret in Berlin before leaving Germany in 1933. As part of Erika Mann's cabaret The Peppermill, she visited the US in 1937. In 1943 she formed her own company in Hollywood which toured the US and Europe; she choreographed several productions at the Hollywood Bowl and worked on several films. In 1954 she founded her Pantomime Circus, which combined dance and clowning in a satirical entertainment. Her productions included For Humans Only (1954) and Clowns and Other Fools (1966). She also taught her highly individual form of dance-mime; her pupils included Marilyn Monroe and Gower Champion .

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Gosling , Nigel.

See Bland , Alexander.

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Gothenburg Ballet.

Swedish company which began in 1920 when the local Stora Teater became a full-time opera house with a resident ballet company. As in all European opera houses, the ballet was usually to be found in opera productions; evenings devoted to ballet were rare in the beginning. Ivo Cramér , Cullberg , and Massine worked with the company in the 1950s, while Cullberg and Lifar staged several productions there during the 1960s. But it was not until Conny Borg became ballet director in 1967 that the company really began to make a name for itself with new choreography. Guest choreographers such as Cullberg , Cramér , Gore , Lander , and Petit were invited to work with the company. In 1970 Borg was succeeded by E. M. von Rosen , who staged Napoli, La Sylphide, Swan Lake, and Romeo and Juliet. Ulf Gadd (artistic director 1976–88) and Flemming Flindt also contributed new works. US choreographer Robert North , who was artistic director from 1991 to 1996, created The Snowman (mus. Howard Blake ) for the 1993–4 season. In 1996 Ulf Gadd returned to the company as artistic director; in 1999 Anders Hellström was named director.

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Gould , Diana

(b London, 12 Nov. 1913).
British dancer. She studied with Rambert in London and Egorova in Paris. At the age of 13 she danced with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and later danced with Pavlova . She was one of the leading soloists in the early days of Ballet Rambert. She created roles in Ashton's Leda and the Swan (1928) and Capriol Suite (1930), in Tudor's The Planets (1934), and in de Valois's Bar aux Folies-Bergère (1934). She also danced with Balanchine's Les Ballets 1933. After leaving Rambert in 1935 she danced briefly with de Basil's Ballets Russes, with the Markova-Dolin company (1935–7), and with the Arts Theatre Ballet (1940–1). She also appeared as an actress and was in a touring production of The Merry Widow (1944–6). She retired from the stage after marrying the violinist Yehudi Menuhin in 1947.

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Gould , Morton

(b Richmond Hill, 10 Dec. 1913, d Orlando, Fla., 21 Feb. 1996).
US composer. He composed the score for Agnes de Mille's Fall River Legend (1948) and E. Martinez's Fiesta (1957). His concert music was used by Robbins for his Interplay (1945), by Balanchine for his Clarinade (1964), and by Eliot Feld for his Jive (1973).

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Graduation Ball.

Ballet in one act with choreography and libretto by Lichine , music by Johann Strauss , arranged by Antal Dorati , and designs by Benois . Premiered 28 Feb. 1940 by the Original Ballet Russe at the Theatre Royal, Sydney, with Riabouchinska , Lichine , Orlov , and Runanine . The ballet, set in 1840s Vienna, tells of what happens when young cadets from a local military academy visit a girls' boarding school for their graduation ball. It is full of entertaining divertissements and romantic flirtations. A perennial favourite, it has been revived for many companies, including the Royal Danish Ballet (1952) and London Festival Ballet (1957).

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Graham , Martha

(b Allegheny, Pa., 11 May 1894; d New York, 1 Apr. 1991).
US dancer, choreographer, teacher, and company director. The towering figure of 20th-century American modern dance, she was its single most important influence. The technique she developed, antithetical to classical ballet in every sense, spread throughout North America and Europe, while her intensely dramatic personal choreography encouraged dancemakers everywhere into greater freedom of expression. She began studying at the Denishawn school in 1916, at the comparatively late age of 22, and joined the Denishawn company, where she remained until 1923. She performed with the musical revue Greenwich Village Follies (1923–5) before taking up teaching at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. On 18 Apr. 1926 she gave her first solo recital in New York at the 48th Street Theater. A year later she founded the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance, which became the leading school of its kind in the world. Her system of teaching stresses the importance of the lower back and pelvis in generating movement, and also the importance of breathing, the stylized method of which became known as the principle of contraction and release. Her choreography, with its earthbound dynamic and angular shaping, was revolutionary, although later her style softened into a more fluid and lyrical line. Her company was born out of her school; initially all women, they began to perform in 1929. They started touring to Europe in the 1950s and made their London debut in 1954. Her ballets, more like danced plays, drew their inspiration from Greek mythology (Medea in Cave of the Heart, Jocasta in Night Journey, Clytemnestra), Native American folklore (El Penitente), real-life historical figures (Emily Dickinson in Letter to the World, the Brontë sisters in Deaths and Entrances, Joan of Arc in Seraphic Dialogue) and were characterized by explorations into the troubled psyches of her characters, particularly the female ones. In Lamentation (mus. Kodály , 1930), for example, she explored grief; Frontier (mus. Horst , 1935) celebrated the pioneer women who settled in the American West, a theme she returned to again, most notably in Appalachian Spring (1944), one of her first works to feature male dancers. She was capable of humour too, as in Every Soul is a Circus (1939) and Acrobats of God, and of great lyricism, most significantly in Diversion of Angels. Graham the choreographer was inextricably linked to Graham the dancer, and she continued to perform until 1969, when she was 74.
She worked closely with her collaborators, including the music adviser Louis Horst and the designer Isamu Noguchi . Among those she taught, and later danced with, were the choreographers Bertram Ross , Erick Hawkins , Merce Cunningham , Paul Taylor , and Robert Cohan . In the 1957 film A Dancer's World she explained her artistic philosophy and illustrated her system of teaching. In 1975 she choreographed Lucifer for Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev , a work which also marked her first collaboration with the fashion designer Halston. She created 181 works in total. Author of The Notebooks of Martha Graham (New York, 1973) and her autobiography Blood Memory (New York, 1991). In 1976 she received the Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honour in the US. A list of her works includes Primitive Mysteries (mus. Horst , 1931), American Document (mus. Ray Green , 1938), El Penitente (mus. Horst , 1940), Letter to the World (mus. Hunter Johnson , 1940), Deaths and Entrances (mus. Hunter Johnson , 1943), Herodiade (mus. Hindemith , 1944), Appalachian Spring (mus. Copland , 1944), Cave of the Heart (mus. Barber , 1946), Errand into the Maze (mus. Menotti , 1947), Night Journey (mus. William Schuman , 1947), Diversion of Angels (mus. Dello Joio , 1948), Seraphic Dialogue (mus. Dello Joio , 1955), Clytemnestra (mus. Halim El-Dabh , 1958), Episodes: Part 1 (mus. Webern , 1959), Acrobats of God (mus. Surinach , 1960), Phaedra (mus. Robert Starer , 1962), Circe (mus. Hovhaness , 1963), The Witch of Endor (mus. Schuman , 1965), Cortege of Eagles (mus. Eugene Lester , 1967), A Time of Snow (mus. Dello Joio , 1968), The Lady of the House of Sleep (mus. Starer , 1968), The Archaic Hours (mus. Lester , 1969), Mendicants of Evening (mus. David Walker , 1973), Myth of a Voyage (mus. Hovhaness , 1973), Lucifer (mus. El-Dabh , 1975), Frescoes (mus. S. Barber , 1978 or 1979), Acts of Light (mus. C. Nielsen , 1981), The Rite of Spring (mus. Stravinsky , 1984), Persephone (mus. Stravinsky , 1987), Night Chant (mus. Carlos Nakai , 1988), American Document (mus. John Corigliano , 1989), Steps in the Street (reconstruction, mus. Wallingford Riegger , 1989), and Maple Leaf Rag (mus. Joplin , 1990). Following her death the Martha Graham Dance Company continued under the direction of Ronald Protas , who set up the Martha Graham Trust to license her work to dance companies and schools. Graham's works are now in the repertoires of several major ballet companies, including Dutch National Ballet and American Ballet Theatre. In May 2000 the Martha Graham Company suspended operations due to financial problems.

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Grahn , Lucile

(b Copenhagen, 30 June 1819, d Munich, 4 Apr. 1907).
Danish dancer. The most important Danish dancer of her day, and the first to achieve stardom outside Denmark. She studied with Bournonville at the Royal Danish Theatre School in Copenhagen; later with Jean-Baptiste Barrez in Paris. She made her debut at the age of 7 in Copenhagen, playing the part of Cupid; she made her official debut in 1834. The following year she created the role of Astrid in Bournonville's Valdemar and in 1836 she took the title role in his staging of La Sylphide, a ballet that was to bring her great success outside Denmark as well. Quitteria in his Don Quixote followed in 1837, the year she was appointed a principal. But after a few short years as Bournonville's favourite, she fled Copenhagen to launch herself on an international career. It was widely believed that she left because Bournonville made advances towards her; it is also possible that she could not fit in with his dictatorial style of leadership. She made her Paris Opera debut in Le Carnaval de Venise in 1838 and joined the Paris Opera in 1839, where she became Elssler's rival. In 1843 she made her first appearance in St Petersburg. She was one of the four original ballerinas in Perrot's Pas de quatre, made in London in 1845. Also at Her Majesty's Theatre in London, she created the title role in Perrot's Eoline (1845) and in his Catarina, ou La Fille du bandit (1846). She enjoyed a busy career as a guest artist on all the main stages of Europe. Her break with Denmark was sealed when she supported Germany in the war with Denmark in 1848. She resigned as a dancer in 1856, but worked as a ballet mistress in Leipzig (1858–61) and at the Munich Court Opera (1869–75) where she helped Wagner to stage Das Rheingold and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.

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Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas.

Ballet company founded by Marquis George de Cuevas in 1947. It was initially known as the Grand Ballet de Monte Carlo and was supported by the principality of Monaco. Its stars included Rosella Hightower , Marjorie Tallchief , George Skibine , and William Dollar . In 1950 the company became autonomous, left Monte Carlo for France, and was renamed Le Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas. It had regular Paris seasons and toured throughout France with its repertoire based on the classics. It was with this troupe, in 1961, that Rudolf Nureyev made his first appearance with a Western company, dancing in its new production of The Sleeping Beauty. When de Cuevas died in 1961 the company was quickly dissolved.

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Grand Duo.

Modern dance in one act with choreography by Mark Morris , music by Lou Harrison , and costumes by Susan Ruddie . Premiered 16 Feb. 1993 by the Mark Morris Dance Group, at the Fine Arts Center at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. A powerful and primitivist abstract work set to four of the five movements of Harrison's Grand Duo for Violin and Piano, it offers a potent excursion into Morris's darker side as choreographer.

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grand pas.

Found only in classical ballet, it consists of an entrée for ballerina, premier danseur, and corps de ballet, followed by an adagio, variations, and a coda. Both Paquita and Raymonda feature grand pas. It is also performed as a concert number, especially the Grand Pas from Paquita.

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Grand pas classique.

Pas de deux choreographed by Victor Gsovsky with music by Auber . Premiered 12 Nov. 1949 at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris with Chauviré and Skouratoff. Distinguished by its dazzling display of classical virtuosity, it has remained popular with dancers everywhere.

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Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal, Les.

The Montreal-based company founded by Ludmilla Chiriaeff in 1957. Despite her Russian origins, Chiriaeff strove to give the company a Canadian identity, using Canadian composers, encouraging Canadian choreographers, and drawing inspiration from French-Canadian folklore. The company has toured widely ever since visiting the US for the first time in 1959 and Europe in 1969. The repertoire mixes the 19th-century classics with landmark works from the 20th century, such as Nijinsky's L'Après-midi d'un faune and Kurt Jooss's The Green Table. Contemporary choreographers who have works in the repertoire include Paul Taylor , Mark Morris , James Kudelka , Édouard Lock , Nacho Duato , William Forsythe , and Jií Kylián. One of the company's biggest successes was Fernand Nault's 1970 staging of the rock opera Tommy. Directors besides Chiriaeff include Nault (1965–74), Brian Macdonald (1974–7), and Lawrence Rhodes (1989–99). In recent years the company has been active in reviving the Diaghilev repertoire. The company has an associated school. In 1999 Gradimir Pankov was named artistic director.

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Grand Union, The.

US improvisatory dance collective founded in 1970 by a group of like-minded post-modern choreographers in New York City. Some of its most important members included Trisha Brown , David Gordon , Yvonne Rainier , and Steve Paxton . It broke up in 1976.

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Grant , Alexander

(b Wellington, 22 Feb. 1925).
New Zealand dancer and ballet director. He studied with Kathleen O'Brien and Jean Horne and (from 1946) at Sadler's Wells Ballet School, where he made his debut on stage while still a student. During the Second World War he performed as a song and dance man entertaining the troops in the Pacific. He joined Sadler's Wells Ballet (later the Royal Ballet) and first came to public attention as the Barber in Massine's 1947 Covent Garden revival of Mam'zelle Angot. Two years later he was appointed soloist. He became the Royal Ballet's leading character dancer, indeed one of the 20th century's finest character artists, and created roles in many ballets. He was especially associated with the works of Ashton, for whom he created roles in Cinderella (1948), Daphnis and Chloe (1951), Sylvia (1952), Birthday Offering (1956), Ondine (1958), La Fille mal gardée (1960), Persephone (1961), The Dream (1964), Jazz Calendar (1968), Enigma Variations (1968), and A Month in the Country (1976). He was also acclaimed as Petrushka and created the role of Drosselmeyer in the Joffrey Ballet's 1987 production of The Nutcracker. He was a principal with the Royal Ballet from 1950 to 1976. From 1971 to 1975 he ran the Royal Ballet's Ballet for All group. He was artistic director of the National Ballet of Canada (1976–83). He also worked as dancer and coach with London Festival Ballet (1985–9).

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GRCOP.

Groupe de Recherche Chorégraphique de l'Opéra de Paris. The experimental wing of the Paris Opera Ballet. It was founded in 1981 and was active throughout the 1980s.

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Great Britain.

Theatrical dance in Great Britain dates back to the beginning of the 18th century with works like John Weaver's comic ballet d'action The Tavern Bilkers (1702) and his serious ballet d'action The Loves of Mars and Venus (1717). Handel included a substantial dance element in several of his operas of the 1730s (Il pastor fido, Ariodante, and Alcina). Didelot's most famous ballet, Zéphyre et Flore, was premiered in London in 1796, while Blasis published his Code of Terpsichore there in 1828. Romantic ballet flourished in the 1840s, thanks mainly to the productions of Perrot (Ondine, La Esmeralda, Pas de quatre). Late in the 19th century two London theatres, the Alhambra and the Empire, housed most of the important dance events in the country. Diaghilev's Ballets Russes came to Covent Garden in 1911, inspiring a new generation of dance lovers with its chic modernist repertoire. In 1921 Diaghilev presented his production of The Sleeping Princess at the Alhambra Theatre. Modern British ballet owes its roots to two early 20th-century pioneers, Marie Rambert and Ninette de Valois , both of whom had danced with Diaghilev . Rambert opened a school in London in 1920 and her students began performing as a company in 1926. Her troupe, which eventually became Ballet Rambert and later Rambert Dance Company, was the birthplace of two of the most important British choreographers, Ashton and Tudor . In 1966, when it moved away from classical dance and established itself as the leading modern dance company in the country, Ashton and Tudor were dropped from the repertoire to be replaced by choreographers such as Tetley and the young Christopher Bruce . De Valois , meanwhile, opened her school in 1926; her company, the Vic-Wells Ballet, made its debut in 1931 and was based at Sadler's Wells Theatre for fifteen years until it moved to Covent Garden in 1946. In 1949 the Sadler's Wells Ballet, with Fonteyn as its star, made its first appearance in the US, a triumphant visit that established its international reputation. In 1956 it received a royal charter, becoming the Royal Ballet. A second company, which remained at Sadler's Wells, was set up as a sister organization and this was the group which, in 1990, became Birmingham Royal Ballet. The Royal Ballet had the enormous advantage of two defining choreographers—Ashton and MacMillan —who helped to create a new national style recognized around the world, although de Valois was always careful to emphasize the importance of the Russian tradition through her stagings of the 19th-century classics. In 1950 Markova and Dolin started London Festival Ballet, which eventually became English National Ballet, the country's second largest company after the Royal. Today it is Britain's premier touring organization. Scottish Ballet, which grew out of the Bristol-based Western Theatre Ballet, was founded in 1969; Northern Ballet Theatre (based in Leeds) grew out of Laverne Meyer's Northern Dance Theatre, set up in Manchester in 1969. Modern dance in Britain was mostly inspired by Martha Graham , whose company had visited London in the 1950s. In 1969 London Contemporary Dance Theatre was founded by Robin Howard with Robert Cohan as artistic director. It drew its performers from the school Howard had founded two years earlier to train students in the Graham technique. Although disbanded in the 1990s, LCDT was the most important forum for new contemporary choreography and spawned many independent choreographers (led by Richard Alston and Siobhan Davies ) who set up their own companies. In 1978 Val Bourne , a former dancer, founded Dance Umbrella, still the country's preeminent showcase for new choreography. Its annual London festivals feature international as well as British artists and companies.

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Greco , José

(b Montorio-nei-Frentani, Italy, 23 Dec. 1919, d 26 Dec. 2000).
Spanish-Italian dancer. One of the most important figures in Spanish dance in the 20th century. He was raised in New York, where he studied Spanish dance with Helen Veola ; later studied with La Argentinita and La Quica . He danced in nightclubs until 1942 when La Argentinita chose him as her partner. After her death in 1945 he danced with her sister, Pilar López . In the late 1940s he formed his own company which took Spanish dance around the world. His productions were large in scale and played to audiences of up to ten thousand. Through his appearances on television and on film, in which he proved to be a glamorous entertainer, he helped to popularize Spanish dance in America. Among the films he appeared in were Around the World in Eighty Days (1955) and Ship of Fools (1964). Following his retirement from the José Greco company in the mid-1990s he settled in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where he taught. His son José Greco II now has his own flamenco company.

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Green Table, The.

Ballet, or ‘dance of death in eight scenes’, with choreography and libretto by Jooss , music by Frederick Cohen , and designs by Hein Heckroth . Premiered 3 July 1932 by the Folkwang Tanzbühne at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, with Jooss , Uthoff , Elsa Kahl , Lisa Czobel , and Karl Bergeest . The ballet, which begins with a group of black-suited diplomats arguing around a green table, is a strong attack on the futility of war and shows the horrific consequences it has for the general population. It won first prize at the inaugural choreographic competition organized by Rolf de Maré and Les Archives Internationales de la Danse in Paris. The ballet became Jooss's signature work and he staged it many times over the years, including a production for the Joffrey Ballet in 1967. His daughter, Anna Markard , staged it for Les Grands Ballets Canadiens in 1991 and for Birmingham Royal Ballet in 1992.

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Gregory , Cynthia

(b Los Angeles, 8 July 1946).
US dancer. Long-time star of American Ballet Theatre. She studied ballet with Carmelita Maracci , Michel Panaieff , and Robert Rossellat . In 1961 she joined San Francisco Ballet where she created leading roles in several works by Lew Christensen . In 1965 she joined American Ballet Theatre and was quickly promoted to principal dancer. She danced all the leading ballerina roles in the ABT repertoire, as well as excelling in works by Balanchine and Tudor . She made her debut as Odette-Odile in 1967, a role that was always associated with her. With ABT she created roles in Feld's At Midnight (1967), Smuin's The Eternal Idol (1969), Nahat's Brahms Quintet (1969), Ailey's The River (1970), the title role in Nureyev's 1975 staging of Raymonda, and Tharp's Bach Partita (1984). In 1974 she became the first American to dance in Cuba. A consummate technician, her statuesque physique and strongly dramatic presence also gave her a very distinctive stage personality. She retired in 1991, dancing her farewell performance as Odette-Odile with Fernando Bujones . In 1993 she staged Swan Lake for the Monterrey Ballet in Mexico.

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Grey , (Dame) Beryl (orig. Beryl Groom ;

b London, 11 June 1927).
British dancer and ballet director. She studied with Madeline Sharp and at Sadler's Wells Ballet School where she was a pupil of de Valois , Sergeyev , and Volkova ; later studies with Anna Northcote and Andrey de Vos . She joined Sadler's Wells Ballet (later the Royal Ballet) in 1941 when she was just 14, a unique British version of the famous Russian ‘baby ballerinas’. On her fifteenth birthday she danced her first Odette-Odile. Giselle and The Sleeping Beauty followed shortly thereafter. An exceptionally tall and supremely elegant dancer, she was an outstanding Lilac Fairy and Queen of the Wilis. She danced the Lilac Fairy at the historic reopening of the Royal Opera House in 1946. Her list of created roles is comparatively small: Ashton's The Quest (1943), Les Sirènes (1946), Cinderella (Winter Fairy, 1948), Homage to the Queen (1953), and Birthday Offering (1956); de Valois's Promenade (1943); Massine's Donald of the Burthens (1951); and Cranko's Lady and the Fool (1955). In 1952 she made the first stereoscopic ballet film,The Black Swan, with John Field . In 1957, after sixteen years with the Royal Ballet, she left the company to launch herself on an international career as a guest artist, although she continued to appear as a guest at Covent Garden. She was the first Western dancer to guest at the Bolshoi (1957–8) and subsequently danced in Leningrad, Kiev, and Tbilisi. She wrote about her experiences in the Soviet Union in Red Curtain Up (London, 1958). In 1964 she danced in China, guesting with the Peking and Shanghai Ballet companies, an excursion which prompted another book, Through the Bamboo Curtain (London, 1965). From 1968 to 1979 she was artistic director of London Festival Ballet (later English National Ballet). Chairman (from 1984) and President (from 1991) of the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing. In 1984 she staged Giselle for the West Australian Ballet, in 1986 The Sleeping Beauty for the Royal Swedish Ballet. Dame of the Order of the British Empire 1988.

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Greyling , Eduard

(b Germiston, Transvaal, 1948).
South African dancer. He studied with Jennifer Louw and at the University of Cape Town Ballet School. He joined CAPAB (later the Cape Town City Ballet) in 1967 and apart from a season (1974–75) with Dutch National Ballet he made his career with CAPAB. A leading soloist with the company, he enjoyed a famous stage partnership with the ballerina Phyllis Spira. The two starred in the 1978 South African television film The Dancer.

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Grigoriev , Serge

(b Tichvin or Tikhvin, 5 Oct. 1883, d London, 28 June 1968).
Russian dancer and ballet master. He was regisseur for the Diaghilev company for twenty years, responsible for the day-to-day running of Les Ballets Russes. He trained at the Imperial Theatre School in St Petersburg, graduating in 1900 into the Maryinsky Theatre company. In 1909 he was hired by Diaghilev as business manager and rehearsal director for the Ballets Russes Paris season; he stayed with the company until Diaghilev's death, the only member of the impresario's entourage to do so. As a dancer he created the role of Shah Shariar in Fokine's Scheherazade (1910), Guidone in Fokine's Le Coq d'or (1914), and the Russian Merchant in Massine's La Boutique fantasque (1919). When the Ballets Russes folded in 1929 he joined de Basil's Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo as chief regisseur, staying with that company until it, too, disbanded in 1948. Working with his wife, the dancer Lubov Tchernicheva , he produced several Fokine revivals for Sadler's Wells/Royal Ballet: Firebird (1954), Les Sylphides (1955), and Petrushka (1957) and the Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor (1965). For London Festival Ballet they staged Scheherazade (1956). Author of The Diaghilev Ballet (London, 1953).

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Grigorovich , Yuri

(b Leningrad, 2 Jan. 1927).
Soviet dancer, choreographer, and ballet director. The most important Russian choreographer of the latter half of the 20th century, he ran the Bolshoi Ballet for 30 years. He studied at the Leningrad Ballet School (later the Vaganova) with Vladimir Ponomarev and Alexander Pushkin , and graduated in 1946. From 1946 to 1964 he was a soloist with the Kirov, where he danced mostly demi-caractère roles. He created parts in Zakharov's The Bronze Horseman (1949), Vainonen's Nutcracker (1954), Fenster's Taras Bulba (1955), and Sergeyev's The Path of Thunder (1957). His real career breakthrough came in 1957 when he choreographed Prokofiev's The Stone Flower for the Kirov, a revolutionary work which proved such a great success that he was invited to stage it for the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow in 1959. His next important work was Melikov's Legend of Love, which he made for the Kirov in 1961 (and later restaged for the Bolshoi in 1965). In 1961 he was appointed ballet master in Leningrad. In 1964, however, he moved to Moscow as chief choreographer and artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet, a position he maintained for the next 30 years. His stagings of the classics at the Bolshoi (Sleeping Beauty, Nutcracker, Swan Lake, Raymonda, and Giselle) were often criticized for their heavy-handedness but his own ballets were a triumph of theatrical energy and emotional thrust. He proved to be a master of larger-than-life dramatic statement and intense lyrical expression; he was particularly adept at choreography en masse, often filling the stage with a thrilling display for the ensemble. His production of Khachaturian's Spartacus in 1968 was another big hit, particularly internationally, and featured some of the most explosive choreography ever written for the male dancer. His Ivan the Terrible (mus. Prokofiev , 1975), Romeo and Juliet (mus. Prokofiev , 1979), and The Golden Age (mus. Shostakovich , 1982) were similarly popular with audiences around the world. People's Artist of the RSFSR 1966, Lenin Prize 1970. He married the ballerina Natalia Bessmertnova .

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Grisi , Carlotta

(b Visinada, June 1819, d St Jean, Switzerland, 20 May 1899).
Italian dancer. One of the great ballerinas of the Romantic era, she earned her place in history by creating the title role in Giselle. She studied at the La Scala ballet school in Milan with Claude Guillet and joined the La Scala corps de ballet in 1829 while still a child. In 1834, while on tour in Italy, the 14-year-old Grisi met Jules Perrot , who was to become the most important influence in her career. He choreographed most of his important ballets for her; she became both his pupil and his mistress and in 1836 took the name of Madame Perrot, although they never married. In 1836 and 1837 she danced in Paris, London, and Vienna, although she did not really come to the public's attention until 1840 when she appeared with Perrot in the character dances of the opera Zingaro in Paris. The following year she got a contract with the Paris Opera; her first roles were ballet divertissements in operas, among them Donizetti's La Favorite. Then came the title role in Giselle in the summer of 1841, choreographed by Coralli and Perrot . Other ballerina roles followed: in Albert's La Jolie Fille de Gand (1842), Coralli's La Péri (1843), Perrot's La Esmeralda (London, 1844), Pas de quatre (London, 1845), Les Quatres saisons (London, 1848), La Filleule de fées (Paris, 1849), The Naiad and the Fisherman (St Petersburg, 1851), and Gazelda (St Petersburg, 1853), Mazilier's Le Diable à quatre (Paris, 1845), Paquita (Paris, 1846), and Grisélidis (Rome, 1848), and P. Taglioni's Métamorphoses (London, 1850). Grisi regularly appeared in London throughout the 1840s, and was ballerina with the Imperial Theatres in St Petersburg (1850–3). She retired in 1854, barely 34 years old, to Switzerland. Gautier, who wrote the librettos of Giselle and La Péri for her, wrote of Grisi that ‘she is nature and artlessness personified’.

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Grosse Fuge.

Ballet in one act with choreography and costumes by van Manen , music by Beethoven , sets by Jean Paul Vroom . Premiered 8 Apr. 1971 by Netherlands Dance Theatre in Scheveningen, with Sarstädt , Benoit , Venema , Vervenne , Westerdijk , Christe , Waterbolk , and Koning . Set to two Beethoven scores (Op. 133, 130), this sensuous work explores the relationships between four male-female couples. It was revived for the Royal Ballet in 1972 and is in the repertoire of Birmingham Royal Ballet.

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Grossman , Danny (orig. Daniel Williams ;

b San Francisco, 13 Sept. 1942).
US dancer, teacher, choreographer, and director based in Canada. He studied with Gertrude Shurr , May O'Donnell , Wishmary Hunt , and Don Farnworth . He danced with the Paul Taylor Company from 1963 to 1973. He then moved to Canada, invited to perform with Toronto Dance Theatre, with whom he maintained a lengthy association. In 1978 in Toronto he founded the Danny Grossman Dance Company, for which he has made many works. His choreography, often very athletic in style, reveals a strongly developed social conscience. His works are in the repertoire of the Paris Opera Ballet, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, and the National Ballet of Canada. In recent years his company's repertoire has expanded to include revivals of modern dance classics, including works by Charles Weidman and Anna Blewchamp . He has taught extensively in the US and Canada.

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grossvatertanz

(grandfather dance). A 17th-century German dance in polonaise style usually performed at wedding parties. A famous theatrical example is to be found in the first act of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker.

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Groupe de la Place Royale, Le.

Canadian experimental dance company founded in 1966 by Jeanne Renaud in Montreal. Renaud choreographed more than 40 works for the troupe. In 1972 she was succeeded by Peter Boneham and Jean-Pierre Perreault , who continued to pursue experimentation. In 1977 the company moved to Ottawa. In 1988 the company stopped touring and turned its attention to running workshops for Canadian choreographers.

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Gsovsky , Tatjana (orig. T. Isatchenko ;

b Moscow, 18 Mar. 1901, d Berlin, 29 Sept. 1993).
Russian-German dancer, ballet director, choreographer, and teacher. One of the most important influences on German ballet in the 20th century, and the leading German choreographer of the 1940s and 1950s. She studied at the Duncan studio in St Petersburg (Petrograd) and later with Laurent Novikov , Vera Kirsanova , Preobrajenska , and at the Dalcroze school in Dresden-Hellerau. After the October Revolution she became ballet mistress in Krasnodar, where she met Victor Gsovsky , the dancer and teacher whom she married. She left Russia in 1925 with him, eventually ending up in Berlin where she and her husband started a school in 1928. She worked as a choreographer in German variety theatres and at the opera houses in Essen, Leipzig, and Dresden. From 1945 to 1952 she was ballet director of the German State Opera in East Berlin, where she choreographed many works. After a short time with the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires (1952–3), she returned to Germany and joined the Municipal Opera in West Berlin (later the Berlin Opera Ballet) where she remained from 1954 to 1966. In 1955 she founded the pioneering chamber group, the Berlin Ballet, which toured widely and in 1961 became the touring section of the Berlin Opera Ballet. She was also ballet director in Frankfurt (1959–66). She created numerous ballets, most of them for the companies in East and West Berlin. She choreographed the first productions of Henze's Der Idiot (The Idiot, Berlin, 1952), Orff's Trionfo di Afrodite (Milan, 1953), Egk's Die chinesische Nachtigall (Munich, 1953), Nono's Der rote Mantel (The Red Cloak, Berlin, 1954), Sauguet's Die Kameliendame (Berlin, 1957), Klebe's Menagerie (Berlin, 1958), Gassmann's Paean (Berlin, 1960), and Blacher's Tristan (Berlin, 1965). She choreographed the first German production of Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet (Berlin, 1948) and Weill's The Seven Deadly Sins (Frankfurt, 1960). Author of Ballett in Deutschland (Berlin, 1954).

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Gsovsky , Victor

(b St Petersburg, 12 Jan. 1902, d Hamburg, 14 Mar. 1974).
Russian dancer, teacher, choreographer, and ballet director. He studied with Eugenie (Evgenia) Sokolova in St Petersburg and started teaching while still very young. He married Tatjana Isatchenko , whom he met in Krasnodar, and went with her to Berlin in 1925. He was appointed ballet master at the German State Opera, where he remained for three years; with his wife he opened a school in Berlin in 1928. From 1930 to 1933 he worked as a choreographer for the German UFA Film Company. After that his career took a remarkably peripatetic turn. From 1937 he was ballet master of the Markova-Dolin company; in 1938 he began teaching in Paris and in 1945 was appointed ballet master of the Paris Opera. In 1946–7 he was ballet master with the Ballets des Champs-Elysées and again in 1948 and 1953; with the Metropolitan Ballet in London in 1947. From 1950 to 1952 he was ballet director of the Munich State Opera. After leaving Munich he worked as a choreographer and ballet master in several European locations. He was ballet master in Düsseldorf (1964–7) and at the Hamburg State Opera (1967–70). He staged the first post-war production of La Sylphide for the Ballets des Champs-Elysées in 1946. His best-known work by far is the Grand Pas Classique (mus. Auber , 1949), which is still performed in galas around the world. An influential teacher, his students included Yvette Chauviré , Violette Verdy , and Vera Zorina .

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Guérin , Isabelle

(b Rosny sous Bois, 6 May 1961).
French dancer. She studied at the Paris Conservatoire and the Paris Opera Ballet School, and joined the Paris Opera Ballet in 1978, becoming an étoile in 1985. She created roles in Armitage's GV 10 (1984), Nils Christe's Before Nightfall (1985), Nureyev's Cinderella (1986), Forsythe's In the middle somewhat elevated (1987), Tharp's Rules of the Game (1989), and Preljocaj's Le Parc (1994). A glamorous and versatile dancer, she is highly acclaimed in both the classical and modern repertoire. She has also appeared as a guest artist with New York City Ballet. Pavlova Prize (1988).

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Guest , Ivor

(b Chislehurst, 14 Apr. 1920).
British dance historian. A solicitor by profession, he is one of the leading authorities on 18th- and 19th-century dance and author of many books on dance. A list of his titles includes The Ballet of the Second Empire 1858–70 (London, 1953), The Romantic Ballet in England (London, 1954), The Ballet of the Second Empire 1847–1858 (London, 1955), Fanny Cerrito (London, 1956), Adeline Genée (London, 1958), The Alhambra Ballet (New York, 1959), The Dancer's Heritage (London, 1960), The Empire Ballet (London, 1962), The Romantic Ballet in Paris (London, 1966), Two Coppélias (London, 1970), Fanny Elssler (London, 1970), Le Ballet de l'Opéra de Paris (Paris, 1976), Gautier on Dance (1986), and The Ballet of the Enlightenment (London, 1996). Also author of Adventures of a Ballet Historian: An Unfinished Memoir (1982). He discovered Hérold's original score for La Fille mal gardée.

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Guglielmo Ebreo .

See Ebreo , Guglielmo.

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Guillem , Sylvie

(b Paris, 23 Feb. 1965).
French dancer. After early training as a gymnast she studied at the Paris Opera Ballet School (1977–80) and joined the Paris Opera Ballet in 1981. A protégée of Nureyev, she quickly came to prominence and early on created leading roles in Forsythe's France/Dance (1984), van Dantzig's No Man's Land (1984), Armitage's GV 10 (1984), Child's Premier Orage (1984), Christe's Before Nightfall (1985), and Béjart's Mouvement-Rythme-Étude (1985). She was promoted to étoile in 1984 after her first performance of Swan Lake. In 1986 she created the leading role in Nureyev's Hollywood-era Cinderella and a principal role in Béjart's Arepo; in 1987 she created a leading role in Forsythe's In the middle somewhat elevated and in Neumeier's Magnificat. But in 1989, following a disagreement with Nureyev, she moved to London's Royal Ballet, where she became a principal guest artist. Her repertoire with the Royal Ballet includes the leading roles in Giselle, La Bayadère, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Swan Lake, Romeo and Juliet, Month in the Country, Manon, Don Quixote, Symphony in C, Grand Pas Classique, Herman Schmerman, and In the middle somewhat elevated. in 2000 she inherited Fonteyn's role in the first revival of Ashton's Marguerite and Armand. A busy international guest artist, she frequently dances in Japan and Europe. She is widely regarded as one of the most brilliant technicians in the world and is also much acclaimed as a powerful dance actress, especially in her partnerships with the Royal's Jonathan Cope and with Laurent Hilaire of the Paris Opera Ballet. In 1998 she staged Giselle for the Finnish National Ballet. Gold medal Varna 1983. Pavlova Prize (1989).

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Guimard , Marie-Madeleine

(baptized Paris, 27 Dec. 1743, d Paris, 4 May 1816).
French dancer. A celebrated ballerina with the Paris Opera who, thanks to a notorious love life, was as famous for her achievements off stage as on stage. She began her stage career at the age of 10 when she danced in the corps de ballet of the Comédie-Française; she made her official debut in 1756 (or 1758). In 1762 she moved to the Paris Opera where she was promoted to première danseuse de demicaractère four years later. One of her earliest roles was as Terpsichore in Les Fêtes grècques et romaines, and throughout her career she was often associated with the muse of dance (an image committed to canvas by Fragonard in a painting the ballerina hung in her Paris villa). During her 27 years with the Paris Opera she appeared in more than 100 ballets by Laval , Noverre , and Maximilien and Pierre Gardel , and in operas by Mozart , Rameau , and Gluck . She often danced for the court at Versailles and Fontainebleau. She was considered a great dramatic artist and was much admired for her terre-à-terre dancing. She was famous for portraying naïvety and innocence on stage, qualities far removed from her real-life personality. Behind the scenes, she agitated for parity with the male stars of the Paris Opera and for a say in how the company was managed. Even more scandalously, she enjoyed a love life to rival that of any courtesan, counting bishops and princes among her lovers. In 1772 she built a new home in Paris where she staged pornographic ballets and plays in her own private theatre. In 1789 she followed Noverre to London and appeared at the King's Theatre and at Covent Garden, finding another adoring public among the British. Later in 1789 she married the dancer and poet Jean-Étienne Despréaux and retired from public life.

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Gulbenkian Ballet.

Company founded by the Portuguese Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon in 1965. It has its own studios and theatre housed in the foundation's building, which opened in 1970. Its founding ballet master was Walter Gore .

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Gusev , Pyotr (or Petr Gusev ;

b St Petersburg, 29 Dec. 1904, d St Petersburg, 30 Mar. 1987).
Soviet dancer, teacher, and ballet master. Although little known in the West, his impact on 20th-century Soviet ballet was considerable, while he was also the most influential figure in the development of classical dance in China. He studied at the Imperial Theatre School with Ponomarev and Shiriaev . At school he was friendly with Balanchine and joined his Young Ballet group. After graduating in 1922, Gusev joined GATOB (as the Kirov was then known) where he remained until 1935. He and his wife Olga Mungalova were popular performers on the Maryinsky stage, famous for their acrobatic brilliance. In 1935 he moved to the Bolshoi in Moscow, where he was a soloist for the next ten years. When his stage career ended he moved into artistic direction and held three important posts as artistic director: at the Kirov (1945–50), the Leningrad Maly Theatre (1960–2), and the Novosibirsk Theatre (1963–6). He often worked abroad as a teacher and ballet master, especially in China (1958–62) where he was instrumental in creating the school of Chinese classical dance. He was responsible for the first ballet academies in Peking, Shanghai, and Guangzhou and taught the first generation of Chinese dancers and choreographers. In Russia he taught extensively at the Bolshoi Ballet School and in St Petersburg. He also served several times as ballet master of the Moscow Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theatre. He mounted numerous productions of the 19th-century Russian repertoire. His created roles include: Asak in The Ice Maiden (Lopukhov, 1927), title role in The Nutcracker (Lopukhov , 1929), and Jerome in The Flames of Paris (Vainonen , 1932). His own choreography includes his 1951 production of The Seven Beauties (mus. Karaev ) for Baku and his 1966 production of The Three Musketeers (mus. Basner ) for Novosibirsk. He also wrote extensively about dance theory.

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Gymnopédies.

Satie's three piano pieces, composed in 1888, have been used by several choreographers as ballet scores, including Ashton for Monotones (Royal Ballet, 1965) and van Manen for Squares (Netherlands Dance Theatre, 1969).

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Györ Ballet.

Hungarian ballet company based in the city of Györ. It was founded in 1979 by Iván Markó and until he left the company in 1991 the repertoire was dominated by his works. He was succeeded as director by János Kiss . Other choreographers represented in the repertoire include Maguy Marin and Robert North .

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Gypsy, La (also La Gipsy).

Ballet in three acts with choreography by Mazilier , libretto by Vernoy de Saint-Georges and Mazilier , music by Benoist , Ambroise Thomas , and Marliani , sets by Philastre and Cambon , and costumes by Paul Lormier . Premiered 28 Jan. 1839 at the Paris Opera with Elssler and Mazilier . The ballet, set in the time of England's Charles II, is based on Cervantes' Novelas exemplares, which tells of the abduction of Sarah, daughter of a Scottish lord, who is taken from her home in a castle and forced to live among the gypsies. Twelve years later, having grown up as a gypsy, she is the victim of a love triangle which sees her beloved Stenio murdered by her rival Mab, queen of the gypsies. In a fit of revenge, Sarah takes a dagger to Mab. It was Mazilier's first ballet. Not to be confused with La Gitana, a ballet by F. Taglioni which starred Marie Taglioni and was performed at the same time in St Petersburg.

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H

H.Art.Chaos.

All-female Japanese dance company. It was founded in 1989 by choreographer Sakiko Oshima and dancer Naoko Shirakawa , and is noted for its harsh, emotional deconstructions of classical works.

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habanera.

A slow Cuban dance, in 2/4 time with dotted rhythms. It may have originated in Africa and have come to Spain in the late 19th century via Havana (Habana = Havana). There is a famous example in Bizet's Carmen which is an adaptation of Yradier's popular song, La Paloma.

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Häger , Bengt

(b Malmö, 27 Apr. 1916).
Swedish museum director and author. He worked with several companies as impresario and in 1950 founded the Stockholm Dance Museum which he directed until 1989. In 1963 he also became founder director of the Swedish State Dance School, leaving in 1971. He has sat on numerous committees and boards including the Carina Ari Memorial Foundation and is author of several books and articles on dance including Les Ballets Suédois (Paris, 1989).

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Hall , Fernau

(b Victoria, BC, 1915, d London, 9 Aug. 1988).
Canadian dancer and critic. He studied with Nesta Brooking , Craske , Volkova , Sokolova , H. Turner , and others and danced with many companies including Sakuntala, Dance Theater, and de Basil's Ballets Russes. He produced dance programmes for British independent television and began writing on dance in 1937 for Dancing Times. Between 1958 and 1970 he was chief dance critic of Ballet Today and from 1969 until his death he was dance critic of the Daily Telegraph. He wrote several books including The World of Ballet and Dance (London, 1972).

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Halprin , Anna (née A. Shumann ;

b Winnetka, III., 13 July 1920).
US dancer, choreographer, and teacher. She studied with Margaret H'Doubler at the Univ. of Wisconsin and made her debut in Weidman's Sing out Sweet Land (1945). In 1948 she set up a studio in San Francisco with Welland Lathrop where she taught until 1955, at which point she founded Dancers Workshop, a group where dancers could collaborate with artists from other disciplines. She presented the first of her Summer Workshops in 1959, in which groups of avant-garde artists including Terry Riley , LaMonte Young , Yvonne Rainer , and Meredith Monk collaborated on works like Birds of America (1959), using improvisation and other non-academic dance forms. Though based on the West Coast she had a seminal influence on the New York experimental dance scene and during the early 1960s her works appeared in avant-garde festivals in Europe. A warrant for her arrest was issued in 1967 after New York performances of Parades and Changes (1965) because the event featured nude performers. Many of her works, including Cement Spirit and Imitations and Transformations (both 1971), were created communally within her inter-racial, multidisciplinary workshops and her interest has subsequently shifted from professional to community dance work. In 1995 she created and directed Planetary Dance: A Prayer for Peace, a work performed by hundreds of participants in Berlin, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. In June 1999, aged 79, she performed two solos—combining dance and speech—at the 92nd Street Y, New York.

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Hamburg Ballet.

Ballet company based at Hamburg Opera House. It has its origins in the ballet performances given during the 17th century by dancers associated with the opera company and by visiting companies and artists. During the 1830s and 1840s the great Romantic ballerinas, including Taglioni , Elssler , and Grahn , danced there and during the 1880s Katti Lanner choreographed her first ballets for the company. During the 20th century there was little notable activity until 1959 when Peter van Dyk became director of ballet at the opera and a close connection was forged with Balanchine who revived many of his ballets for the company and also directed some opera productions. In 1973 John Neumeier was appointed director and virtually re-created the company in his own image. Though some works by other choreographers (Cranko , Béjart , Kylián ) have been brought into the repertory, it has been dominated by the 60-plus ballets made by Neumeier . Their ambitious scale, theatricality, and variety have showcased the company's increasingly renowned dancers and brought it an international reputation to rival Stuttgart's. It frequently tours abroad, in Europe, the US, S. America, and Israel. Since 1978 a school has been attached to the company and since 1989 both it and the company have been housed in Ballettzentrum Hamburg.

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Hamel , Martine van

(b Brussels, 16 Nov. 1945).
Dutch-US dancer, choreographer, and director. The daughter of a diplomat, she studied in Copenhagen, Java, The Hague, Caracas, and with Betty Oliphant at the National Ballet School of Canada (1958–62). She made her debut with the National Ballet of Canada in 1963, becoming principal in 1965. She danced many of the classical ballerina roles but when she moved to America in 1970 she was obliged to take a backwards step, dancing first with the Joffrey Ballet as a soloist in 1970 and then joining American Ballet Theatre as a member of the corps de ballet in 1971. A tall, strong dancer with a technique that embraced both a muscular power and a delicate expressiveness, she was promoted to principal in 1973 and became established as one of the leading classical ballerinas in America. She also danced the modern repertoire, creating roles in, among others, Tharp's Push Comes to Shove (1976), in which she was a definitively witty vamp, and Morris's Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes (1988). After leaving ABT in 1991 she guested with various companies, primarily Netherlands Dance Theatre 3 (1992–7). She also worked as a freelance choreographer (she created her first ballet for Jacob's Pillow Festival in 1976). From 1984 she also directed and choreographed for her occasional company, the New Amsterdam Ballet.

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Hamlet.

Ballet in one act with choreography and libretto by Helpmann , music by Tchaikovsky , and design by Leslie Hurry . Premiered 19 May 1942 by Sadler's Wells Ballet at New Theatre, London, with Helpmann, Fonteyn , Franca , and Paltenghi . It is set to Tchaikovsky's Fantasy Overture and though based on Shakespeare's tragedy it does not re-tell the plot, but portrays the dying Hamlet reliving crucial moments of his life. It was revived for the Royal Ballet in 1964 and 1981 and for Australian Ballet in 1970. Other choreographic treatments of the play include Francesco Clerico (own mus., Venice, 1788), Louis Henry (mus. Gallenberg , Vienna, 1822), Nijinska (with herself in the title role, mus. Liszt , Paris, 1934), V. Gsovsky (mus. Blacher , Munich, 1950), Chabukiani (mus. Ravaz Gabichvadze , Tbilisi , 1971), Neumeier (Hamlet: Connotations, mus. Copland , New York, 1976), MacMillan (Sea of Troubles, mus. Martin and Webern , Dance Advance, London, 1988), Kim Brandstrup (Antic, mus. Ian Dearden , 1993), and P. Schaufuss (mus. Sort Sol/Black Sun and Rued Langgaard, Elsinore, 1996).

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Handel , George Frideric (orig. George Friedrich Händel ;

b Halle, 23 Feb. 1685, d London, 14 Apr. 1759).
German-British composer. He wrote no full ballet scores though several of his operas contained ballet divertissements, such as Almira (1705), and dance played an important role in operas like II pastor fido (1734) which had a Terpsichore prologue choreographed and danced by Sallé , and Alcina (1735) in which the dance role of Cupid was also created by her. Many dance pieces have been set to his concert works including P. Taylor's Aureole (1962), Cranko's Concerti Grossi (1964), and Morris's L'Allegro, il penseroso ed il moderato (1988).

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Hanka , Erika

(b Vincovci, Croatia, 18 June 1905, d Vienna, 15 May 1958).
Austrian dancer, choreographer, and director. She studied modern dance at the Vienna Academy under Bodenwieser (1923–4) and later ballet with Irmgard Thomas , making her debut in a recital with Fritz Kaiserfeld in Graz, 1927. The same year she founded a school of dance and gymnastics in Vienna. Between 1929 and 1935 she danced at the Düsseldorf Opera House where she was also assistant to the ballet director (1931–5), after which she joined Ballets Jooss in exile in England (1935–8). She returned to Germany to work as choreographer and ballet director at Apollo Theatre Cologne (1938–9), then at Essen Opera House (1939–40), Hamburg State Opera House (1940–2), and finally, after the success of her ballet Joan von Zarissa (mus. Egk , 1940, revived 1941 in Vienna), she took over direction of the Vienna State Opera Ballet (1942–58). The company was struggling with low standards and morale but during the war and post-war years she succeeded in building up a strong repertory of works—many choreographed by herself—in the modern Ausdruckstanz idiom. Her best-known work is probably The Moor of Venice (mus. Blacher , 1955). As the public's taste for ballet revived in the late 1940s she began to focus on more classical training and repertory. The last premiere she oversaw was of a Balanchine work, marking the company's return to an international status.

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Hansen , Emil

(b 1843, d 1927).
Danish dancer and ballet master. He studied with August Bournonville and became one of the great danseurs nobles of the Royal Danish Ballet. Between 1881 and 1893 he was also the company's ballet master and choreographed several ballets, including Aditi (mus. Rung ). He also developed his own system of dance notation in which he recorded the original choreography of several ballets including Bournonville's Napoli.

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Harangozó , Gyula

(b Budapest, 19 Apr. 1908, d Budapest, 30 Oct. 1974).
Hungarian dancer, choreographer, and ballet master. He studied at the Budapest State Opera Ballet School and in 1926 joined the company, becoming soloist in 1928. He was noted for his comic gifts and interpretations of character roles and from 1936 to 1974 (apart from two years as ballet master at La Scala Milan, 1939–41) he was the company's chief choreographer—effectively dominating Hungarian ballet for four decades. His style was a blend of classical and folk dance and his best-known ballets include The Wooden Prince (1939, revised 1958) and The Miraculous Mandarin (1945, revised 1956), both to Bartók's music. He also worked in a wide variety of genres, including versions of the Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor (mus. Borodin , 1938, revised 1961), Romeo and Juliet (mus. Tchaikovsky , 1939), Le Tricorne (mus. de Falla , 1947), Coppélia (mus. Delibes , 1953), and Scheherazade (mus. Rimsky-Korsakov , 1959), and also choreographed extensively for film and television. He was made Eminent Artist of the Hungarian Republic, 1957, and awarded Gold Medal of Socialist Labour, 1966.

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Hard Nut, The.

Modern dance work in two acts with choreography by Mark Morris , music by Tchaikovsky , set by Adrianne Lobel , and costumes by Martin Pakledinaz . Premiered 1 Dec. 1991 by the Mark Morris Dance Group at Théâtre Royale de la Monnaie, Brussels , with C. Marshall , R. Besserer , and W. Wagner . This dark, ironic, and highly comic version of The Nutcracker is inspired by the work of cartoonist Charles Burns . It is set in a pop American household where the Stahlbaums' guests wear bell-bottoms and Afro wigs and party in 1960s' disco style.

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Harkarvy , Benjamin

(b New York, 16 Dec. 1930).
US dancer, choreographer, and ballet master. He studied with Chaffee and Caton , at the School of American Ballet and with Tudor, Craske, and others, making his debut with the Brooklyn Lyric Opera (1949–50). After dancing with various concert groups he taught at the Fokine School (1951–5) and in 1955 founded his own school in New York, establishing his reputation as an outstanding teacher. In 1957 he was appointed director of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet; in 1958 he became ballet master of Netherlands Ballet and in 1959 formed his own company, Netherlands Dance Theatre, with the intention of marrying classical tradition with experiment. He was artistic co-director until 1969 and choreographed many works for the company including Septet (mus. Saint-Saëns , 1959), Madrigalesco (mus. Vivaldi , 1963), and Recital for Cello and Eight Dancers (mus. Bach , 1964). In 1969 he moved to Harkness Ballet as artistic joint director, then in 1970 became co-director of Dutch National Ballet. He resigned after a year and moved to Pennsylvania Ballet as associate director, becoming artistic director (1973–82). He created several ballets there including Time Passed Summer (mus. Tchaikovsky , 1973). After leaving he worked as a freelance choreographer and teacher with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens (1986–90), among others, and taught at the Juilliard School from 1990.

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Harkness , Rebekah

(b St Louis, 17 Apr. 1915, d New York, 17 June 1982).
US composer, director, and president of the Harkness foundation. She studied music with Nadia Boulanger and dance with L. Fokine , and in 1961 established the Harkness Foundation which sponsored Robbins's Ballet USA (1961) and the Joffrey Ballet (1962–4). She set up her own Harkness Ballet in 1964, the Harkness House for Ballet Arts in New York in 1965, and opened the Harkness Theater on Broadway in 1974.

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Harkness Ballet.

US ballet company named after its founder Rebekah Harkness . It was established in 1964 and gave its debut performance in Cannes in 1965 under the direction of Skibine , with Marjorie Tallchief as ballerina and a repertory featuring work by Ailey , Skibine , Bruhn , Brian Macdonald , and S. Hodes . It toured widely, giving its New York debut in 1967. The same year Macdonald was also appointed director but was succeeded by Lawrence Rhodes (1968), who was then joined by Harkarvy in 1969. These changes undermined the company's identity and in 1970 Harkness amalgamated it with the Harkness Youth Ballet (founded 1969) under the direction of Ben Stevenson who was succeeded by Vicente Nebrada . In 1972 she purchased the Harkness Theater which opened with a brief season by the company in 1974. Though the vitality of the dancers was widely admired, the repertory failed to establish a distinct personality and the company was soon disbanded. Its school, Harkness House for Ballet Arts (founded in 1965), continued to operate.

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Harlem, Dance Theatre of.

See Dance Theatre of Harlem.

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Harlequinade.

English commedia dell'arte, a pantomime.

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Harlequinade.

Commedia dell'arte ballet in two acts with choreography by Balanchine , music by Drigo , and design by Ter-Arutunian . Premiered 4 Feb. 1965 by New York City Ballet at New York State Theater with McBride and Villella . This is a re-working of Petipa's Les Millions d'Arlequin (1900), set to Drigo's original score. It tells the story of how Harlequin is given gold by a Good Fairy so that he can free Columbine from the power of her wealthy father. An extended production was premiered 14 Jan. 1973. Other versions of the score include Lichine (1950), Brenaa (after Petipa , 1958), and Dolin (after Petipa , 1960).

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Härm , Tiit

(b Tallinn, 1946).
Estonian dancer and choreographer. He studied in St Petersburg and made his debut as a soloist with the ballet of the Estonia Theatre in 1966. Between 1967 and 1968 he was first soloist with Young Ballet of Moscow then from 1971 to 1990 étoile with the Estonian Ballet, where he performed both the modern and classical repertories. He began creating ballets while still a dancer, including Confession (mus. Edison Denisov , Estonia, 1984). He was appointed director of the Estonian Ballet (1990–2) then became ballet master at La Scala (1992–4), at Rome Opera Ballet (1995–7), then again at La Scala. His later works include Romeo and Juliet (mus. Prokofiev , 1990) and Paolo e Francesca.

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Harper , Meg

(b Evanston, III., 1944).
US dancer, teacher, and choreographer. She studied at the University of Illinois and with Joan Skinner and Cunningham , joining the latter's company in 1967. She remained there for ten years, also teaching at the Cunningham Studio (1968–91). From 1979 to 1990 she was dancer and assistant rehearsal director with the Lucinda Childs Company. She created her first work, Long-Distance, for the Cunningham Dance Studio in 1978 and has since choreographed several pieces for herself or small ensembles, as well as teaching freelance.

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Harrington , Rex

(b Peterborough, Ont., 30 Oct. 1962).
Canadian dancer. He trained at the National Ballet School, Toronto, and joined National Ballet of Canada in 1983, becoming principal in 1988. Possessed of a powerful technique and charismatic dramatic presence he has performed leading roles in both the classical and modern repertories, and has created many roles, for example in Tetley's Alice (1986), La Ronde (1987), and Tagore (1989), in Kudelka's The Actress (1994), Nutcracker (1995), The Four Seasons (1997), and Swan Lake (1999), and in Alleyne's Blue-Eyed Trek (1988). He has partnered many leading ballerinas, including Maximova , Fracci , Kain , and Hart and guested with companies around the world, including La Scala (1993), Australian Ballet (1993), San Francisco Ballet (1994), CAPAB Ballet (1996), and Royal Winnipeg Ballet (many seasons from 1988). He has also appeared on film and television.

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Harrison , Lou

(b Portland. Ore., 1917).
US composer. During the Second World War, while collaborating with John Cage on percussion recitals, he also worked as a dancer and dance critic. He has written several scores for dance including Changing World (1936) and Rhymes with Silver (1997). Morris commissioned the latter score and has also choreographed Harrison's Grand Duo (1993) and World Power (1995).

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Hart , Evelyn

(b Toronto, 4 Apr. 1956).
Canadian dancer. She studied at the National Ballet School (1971–2) then at Royal Winnipeg Ballet School from 1973, making her debut with the company while still a student in 1974. Though initially having to combat her own insecurity as a dancer, she won a devoted public through her passionately emotional interpretations and unusually lyrical style, and was promoted soloist in 1978 and principal in 1979. She has danced both the classical and modern repertory, creating leading roles in Nebrada's The Firebird (1982) and Duse's Cinderella (Bavarian State Ballet, 1990), and has guested abroad with Dutch National Ballet (1982), Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet (1984), and Bavarian State Opera Ballet (from 1990). She was made Officer of the Order of Canada in 1983.

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Hart , John

(b London, 4 July 1921).
British dancer and director. He studied with Judith Espinosa and at the Royal Academy of Dancing, joining the Vic-Wells Ballet in 1938 where he was soon promoted to principal. He danced leading roles in many of the classics before he was 21 and created roles in, for example, de Valois's The Prospect Before Us (1940). After war service (1942–6) he returned to the company as principal dancer creating roles in Ashton's Sylvia (1952) and Homage to the Queen (1953). In 1955 he was appointed ballet master, becoming assistant director of the Royal Ballet (1962–70). He was then director of ballet at the US International University of Performing Arts in San Diego, California (1970–4), and also artistic director of PACT Ballet Johannesburg (1971–5) where he staged several Ashton ballets. Between 1975 and 1977 he worked as administrator of the Royal Ballet, then in 1980 was appointed artistic director, San Diego Ballet. During 1985 he was dance director of San Diego Opera then subsequently artistic director of Ballet West, Utah (1985–97). He has published two books of dance photographs including Ballet and Camera (London, 1956).

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Harvey , Cynthia

(b San Rafael, Calif., 17 May 1957).
US dancer. She studied at the Novato School of Ballet in California then at the National Ballet of Canada School, the San Francisco Ballet School, the School of American Ballet, and American Ballet Theatre School. In 1974 she joined ABT, becoming soloist in 1978 and principal (1982–6). With her strong, crisp technique and stylistic versatility she danced both the classical and the modern repertories, creating leading roles in McFall's Interludes (1983) and Baryshnikov's Cinderella (1984). In 1986 she moved to the Royal Ballet as a principal guest artist where she extended her range, performing in the classics and several Ashton ballets. She also created a role in Bintley's Still Life at the Penguin Café (1987). In 1988 she returned to ABT (while continuing to guest with the Royal until 1990) where she created a role in Tharp's Quartet (1988). She has also guested with Baryshnikov and Company (various seasons 1980–6), with Nureyev and Friends, Northern Ballet Theatre (1982), and Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet (various seasons 1987–90). She gave her last performance at a gala performance of Die Fledermaus with San Francisco Opera, but remained with ABT as coach.

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Haskell , Arnold Lionel

(b London, 19 July, 1903, d Bath, 14 Nov. 1980).
British ballet writer, educator, and enthusiast. He studied at Cambridge and in 1930 was one of the cofounders of the Camargo Society. He also helped in the founding of Sadler's-Wells Ballet School. In 1935 he became ballet critic for the Daily Telegraph, and subsequently for other newspapers. Between 1947 and 1965 he was director of the Sadler's Wells, later Royal Ballet School (overseeing its expansion to include an academic education), and from 1956 was a governor of the Royal Ballet. From 1947 to 1963 he edited Ballet Annual. He was best known for Ballet (1938) his popular introduction to dance appreciation, which helped break down many British prejudices against the art, but he wrote several other books, including Balletomania (London, 1934), Diaghileff (London, 1935, the first detailed biography), In His True Centre (London, 1951), and Balletomane at Large (London, 1972).

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Hassreiter , Joseph

(b Vienna, 30 Dec. 1845, d Vienna, 8 Feb. 1940).
Austrian dancer, choreographer, teacher, and ballet master. He began his formal training aged 9 and probably made his debut while still a child at the Kärntnertor Theater. In 1864 he was appointed to the Munich Court Theatre, becoming principal in 1866, then moved to Württemberg Court Theatre as principal (1868–9). In 1870 he joined the Vienna Court Opera Ballet as a soloist. He stayed with the company until 1920 having been subsequently promoted to ballet master, head of the school, and teacher of soloists. His first and most popular ballet, The Fairy Doll (1888), is still in the repertory of the State Opera but he created over 40 others including Rouge et noir (1894). He was admired as a craftsmanlike entertainer, though some critics complained of the slightness of his subject-matter.

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haut, en

(Fr., high up). Position of the arms where one or both are raised above the head.

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Hawkins , Erick

(b Trinidad, Col., 23 Apr. 1909, d New York, 23 Nov. 1994).
US dancer and choreographer. He studied at the School of American Ballet and with Kreutzberg, making his debut with American Ballet in 1935. He danced with the company for two years as well as performing with Ballet Caravan (1936–9). In 1938 he joined Martha Graham's company as her first male dancer, and remained there until 1951 creating roles in American Document (1938), Every Soul is a Circus (1939), Letter to the World (1940), Punch and Judy (1941), Deaths and Entrances (1943), Appalachian Spring (1944), Dark Meadow (1946), Cave of the Heart (1946), Night Journey (1947), and Diversion of Angels (1948). He married Graham in 1948 but they were separated in 1950 and divorced in 1954. He formed his own company and after creating some early dramatic works began evolving the abstract style for which he is best known. Influenced by Greek and oriental art his choreography stressed natural, unforced movement. Some critics remained unimpressed by what they saw as the naïvety of his style, others saw in it a kind of innocent sensuality. He worked in close collaboration with his wife, composer Lucia Dlugoszewski , who accompanied his dances using prepared instruments, and with sculptor Ralph Dorazio . He created many works including Here and Now with Watchers (1957), Early Floating (1962), Naked Leopard (1965), Angels of the Inmost Heaven (1971), Plains Daybreak (1983), Avanti (1984), New Moon (1989), and Many Thanks (1994). He taught his Normative Theory of Movement at his New York studio and gave his first London season in 1980. His company continued to perform after his death and in 1999 premiered two works choreographed by Dlugoszewski , Radical Ardent and Taking Time to be Vulnerable.

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hay or hey.

A country dance dating back to at least the 1520s, featuring a serpentine formation in which two lines of dancers thread through each other. This movement is featured in other dances, including the farandole.

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Hay , Deborah

(b New York, 18 Dec. 1941).
US dancer and choreographer. She studied at Henry St Playhouse and with Cunningham, performing with the companies of Limón and Cunningham until she became absorbed in the avant-garde dance collective, Judson Church. Her work here was influenced by the movement rituals of T'ai Chi and focused on the individual qualities of performers, leading on to works where she presented non-trained dancers in non-theatrical spaces like gyms and parks. Her pieces have included Victory 14 (1964), 20 Permutations of 2 Sets of 3 Equal parts in a Linear Order (1969), Deborah Hay with a Large Group Outdoors (1969), The Grand Dance (ongoing 1977–9), and The Genius of the Heart (1980). She has also created her own solo works including The Other Side of O (1998). She published Moving Through the Universe in Bare Feet—Ten Circle Dances for Everybody (together with Donna Jean Rogers , New York, 1974).

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Haydée , Marcia (née M. H. Salaverry Pereira de Silva ;

b Niteroi, 18 Apr. 1939).
Brazilian dancer and director. She studied in Rio de Janeiro with Vaslav Veltchek and in 1951 danced with the corps de ballet of Rio's Teatro Municipal before going to Sadler's Wells School for further training. She later studied with Egorova and Preobrajenska , joining the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas in 1957 then moving to Stuttgart Ballet in 1961 where she was promoted prima ballerina in 1962. Though not a brilliant technician she established herself as one of the great dance actresses of her generation and as well as performing most of the classic ballerina roles she created roles in many Cranko ballets including Romeo and Juliet (1962), Onegin (1965), The Taming of the Shrew (1969), Carmen (1971), and Initials R.B.M.E. (1972). She also created roles in MacMillan's Song of the Earth (1965), Miss Julie (1970), and Requiem (1977), in Tetley's Voluntaries (1973), and Neumeier's Hamlet: Connotations (1976), a range that encompassed both comedy and tragedy as well as pure dance. Her frequent partner was Richard Cragun and between them they helped establish Stuttgart as a world centre for dance. She also guested widely with, among others, National Ballet of Canada, American Ballet Theatre, and English National Ballet. In 1976 she was appointed artistic director of Stuttgart Ballet where she introduced ballets by guest choreographers such as Kylián and van Manen as well as encouraging choreographic talent from within the company and creating some works of her own. In 1993 she also took over direction of Santiago Ballet, finally retiring from both companies in 1995. In 1999 she created the role of Blanche in Jean Christoph Blavier's setting of Balzac's novel Le Lys dans la vallée, for Stuttgart Ballet, with Vladimir Malakhov dancing her young lover, Félix. She was awarded German Honour of Merit: First Prize in 1981.

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Hayden , Melissa (orig. Mildred Herman ;

b Toronto, 25 Apr. 1923).
Canadian-US dancer and teacher. She studied with B. Volkov , Vilzak , and Schollar and made her debut in 1945 at Radio City Music Hall before joining Ballet Theatre the same year. After a season touring with the Alicia Alonso ballet in 1949 she joined New York City Ballet as a soloist in 1950, becoming principal in 1955 after a brief return to ABT (1953–4). She danced with NYCB until 1973, apart from guest engagements with the Royal Ballet and the National Ballet of Canada in 1963. A bravura dancer, renowned for her considerable stamina and insouciant wit, she created roles in many ballets including Robbins's Age of Anxiety (1950) and The Pied Piper (1951), Ashton's Illuminations (1950), Bolender's The Miraculous Mandarin (1951), and Balanchine's Caracole (1952), Divertimento No. 15 (1956), Agon (1957), Stars and Stripes (1958), Liebeslieder Walzer (1960), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1962), Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet (1966) and Cortège hongrois, which was created for her as a farewell tribute in 1973. She also performed the ballerina role in Chaplin's film Limelight (1953). In 1973 she was appointed artist-in-residence at Skidmore College, New York; in 1974 she opened her own school in Saratoga, New York, and in 1976 was appointed artistic director of Pacific Northwest Dance in Seattle. In 1983 she was appointed to the faculty of the North Carolina School of the Arts and has since coached dancers for the Balanchine Foundation's Interpreters Archive. She wrote Off Stage and On (New York, 1963) and Dancer to Dancer (Garden City, NY, 1981) and was awarded the Handel Medallion of the City of New York in 1973.

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Haydn , Franz Joseph

(b Rohrau, probably 31 Mar. 1732, d Vienna, 31 May 1809).
Austrian composer. He wrote no ballet scores but many dance works have been set to his concert music including Viganò's Milan production of The Creatures of Prometheus (1813), Massine's Clock Symphony (Sadler's Wells Ballet, 1948), Balanchine's Trumpet Concerto (Sadler's Wells Ballet, 1950), Taras's Haydn Concerto (New York City Ballet, 1968), Tharp's As Time Goes By (Joffrey Ballet, 1973) and Push Comes to Shove (American Ballet Theatre, 1976), and Kylián's Symphony in D (Netherlands Dance Theatre, 1976, revised 1977).

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Hays , David

(b New York, 1930).
American designer who designed the sets for many New York City Ballet productions including Balanchine's Stars and Stripes (1958), Episodes (1959), Liebeslieder Walzer (1960), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1962), Bugaku (1963), and the 1966 version of Divertimento No. 15. In 1967 he changed careers to found the National Theatre of the Deaf, based in Washington.

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Heart of the Hills, The (orig. Russ. title Serdtse gor).

Ballet in three acts with choreography by Chabukiani , libretto by G. Leonidze and N. Volkov , design by Simon Virsaladze , and music by A. Balanchivadze (brother of Balanchine ). Premiered 28 June 1938 by the Kirov, Leningrad, with Chabukiani , Vecheslova , and Koren . This was Chabukiani's first work, and it closely conformed to the political demands of Soviet art in its portrayal of a peasant uprising in Georgia, led by the youthful Djardje in protest against heavy taxes imposed by their overlord. Using dance imagery rather than mime to present the drama, Chabukiani incorporated Georgian dance idiom with classical ballet. An earlier version, titled Sunny Youth, was shown at Tbilisi Theatre of Opera and Ballet in 1936.

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Heathcote , Stephen

(b Wagin, W. Australia, 16 Oct. 1964).
Australian dancer. He studied with Kira Boulsoff and Shelley Rae in Perth and at the Australian Ballet School, joining the company in 1983. Though not a conventionally classical technician he established himself as a strong partner, charismatic performer, and talented actor, and was promoted principal in 1987. He has been highly praised in Béjart's Song of a Wayfarer, MacMillan's Song of the Earth, and other modern works, creating roles in Tetley's Orpheus (1987), S. Welch's Of Blessed Memory (1990) and Corroboree (1995), and Kudelka's The Book of Alleged Dances (1999), among others. He has also danced most major classical roles and performed Albrecht with the Kirov Ballet in 1989. He danced for a season with American Ballet Theatre in 1992 and received the Order of Australia in 1991.

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Heaton , Anne

(b Rawalpindi, 19 Nov. 1930).
British dancer and teacher. She studied with Janet Cranmore in Birmingham then at Sadler's Wells School, making her debut in 1945 with Sadler's Wells Opera. In 1946 she joined Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet creating roles in Howard's Mardi Gras (1947) and Ashton's Valses nobles et sentimentales (1947) among others, then in 1948 she moved to Sadler's Wells Ballet at Covent Garden where she became a principal, excelling in Romantic ballets like Giselle but also creating roles in MacMillan's The Burrow (1958) and The Invitation (1960). She resigned in 1959 due to injury, although she danced as a guest until 1962. After retiring she taught at the Arts Educational School and also staged some ballets, including Giselle for Iranian National Ballet in 1971. She married John Field .

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Heeley , Desmond

(b 1932).
British designer. He began designing for the stage in 1947 and though he has been largely based in the US he has designed for ballet companies around the world, including Royal Ballet, English National Ballet, La Scala, Stuttgart, and Houston. His earliest ballet designs include MacMillan's Solitaire (Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet, 1956—though these were initially intended for another ballet, possibly The Angels) and Cranko's Prince of the Pagodas (Royal Ballet, 1957). He designed several productions for Bruhn, including Swan Lake (National Ballet of Canada, 1967) and La Sylphide (American Ballet Theatre, 1983), also for Hynd including Merry Widow (Australian Ballet, 1975) and Coppélia (English National Ballet, 1985). In 1998 he designed Stevenson's The Snow Maiden for Houston Ballet and American Ballet Theatre. He has also designed extensively for theatre, opera, Broadway musicals, and film.

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Heine , Heinrich

(b Düsseldorf, 13 Dec. 1797, d Paris, 17 Feb. 1856).
German poet and writer, whose story of the Wilis (contained in Geschichte der neuren schönen Literatur in Deutschland, 1833, French version De l'Allemagne, Paris, 1835) provided Gautier with the inspiration for his Giselle libretto (1841). Heine also wrote two of his own ballet librettos. Die Göttin Diana (1846) was offered to Lumley at Her Majesty's Theatre, while Der Doctor Faust (1847) was actually commissioned by Lumley . Neither project was realized, though some later Faust ballets made use of his libretto.

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Heinel , Anna Fredrike

(b Bayreuth, 4 Oct. 1753, d Paris, 17 Mar. 1808).
German dancer. She studied with Lépy and later with Noverre in Stuttgart but made her debut in 1767 at the Paris Opera. A dancer of both nobility and virtuosity (she is credited with inventing the pirouette à la seconde) she was dubbed ‘La Reine de la danse’. This aroused the jealousy of ballet master and dancer G. Vestris and in 1771 she left to become principal dancer at the King's Theatre, London. She performed there frequently until 1773 when she returned to the Paris Opera and became a leading interpreter of Noverre's tragic ballets, such as Jason et Medée, and appeared in the first Paris productions of Gluck's Orphée et Euridice (1774) and Iphigénie en Tauride (1778). She retired in 1782 and she and Vestris made up their quarrel. She gave birth to his son Adolphe in 1791 and in 1792 they were married.

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Helliwell , Rosemary

(b London, 28 July 1955).
British dancer and choreographer. She studied at the Doreen Bird School and the John Cranko Ballet School, becoming a dancer with Stuttgart Ballet (1976–83). In 1977 she was also appointed resident choreographer at Stuttgart, creating Mirage (mus. F. Martin , 1977), Concertino (mus. Janáek , 1977), and Hedda Gabler (mus. J. Skrowaczewski , 1981), among others. She has also been guest choreographer with many companies including National Ballet of Finland, and Hong Kong Ballet. In 1984 she was appointed professor of dance at the Akademie des Tanzes, Heidelberg-Mannheim, and in 1998 assistant director.

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Helpmann , (Sir) Robert

(b Mount Gambier, 9 Apr. 1909, d Sydney, 28 Sept. 1986).
Australian dancer, choreographer, director, and actor. He studied locally as a child then with Pavlova's company while it was touring Australia. After performing in musicals and revues he came to London in 1933 and was accepted into the VicWells (later Sadler's Wells) Ballet where he was promoted principal in 1934. In 1935 he danced with Weidman and in the revue Stop Press but otherwise remained with Sadler's Wells Ballet until 1950 (and as occasional guest artist thereafter). Although he lacked a powerful technique, his vivid dramatic talents, musicality, and stage charisma served to portray convincingly elegant classical princes as well as to create memorable interpretations of both comic and tragic contemporary roles. His celebrated partnership with Fonteyn played a major part in the development of Sadler's Wells Ballet and in the popularization of dance in Britain. He created many leading roles in, among others, de Valois's The Haunted Ballroom (1934), Checkmate (1937), The Prospect Before Us (1940), and Don Quixote (1950), and Ashton's Apparitions (1936), A Wedding Bouquet (1937), Dante Sonata (1940), Don Juan, and Cinderella (both 1948). He created his first workshop ballet, La Valse (mus. Ravel ) in 1939 for the Royal Academy of Dancing and his first professional ballet in 1942, Comus (mus Purcell-Lambert ) for Sadler's Wells Ballet. This was followed by Hamlet (mus. Tchaikovsky , 1942), Miracle in the Gorbals (mus. Bliss , 1944), and Adam Zero (mus. Bliss , 1946). Though his choreographic ideas were not original he had an instinct for inventive staging and narrative and created the leading roles in all these works. During this period he also worked occasionally as an actor and opera producer, appearing notably in the films The Red Shoes (1948) and Tales of Hoffmann (1951). In 1955 he went to Australia with the Old Vic Company, starring with Katharine Hepburn in The Merchant of Venice, Measure for Measure, and The Taming of the Shrew. In 1960 he collaborated with Nijinska on the de Cuevas production of Sleeping Beauty and in 1963 worked with Ashton on the Royal Ballet production of Swan Lake. In the same year he also choreographed Elektra (mus. Arnold ) for the Royal Ballet. In 1965 he was appointed joint director (with van Praagh ) of Australian Ballet, having choreographed a ballet for the company in 1964, The Display (mus. M. Williamson ). He subsequently created Yugen (mus. Y. Toyama , 1965), Sun Music (mus. P. Sculthorpe , 1968), and Perisynthyon (mus. Williamson , 1974) for the company. Between 1975 and 1976 he was sole director of Australian Ballet, during which time he produced R. Hynd's ballet The Merry Widow, which became the biggest hit in its repertoire. In 1973 he directed and performed the title role in Nureyev's film Don Quixote. Though he retired from Australian Ballet in 1976 he continued making occasional stage appearances until his death. He was knighted in 1968.

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Helsinki City Theatre Dance Company.

Finnish modern dance company. Founded in 1973, its major artistic growth began in 1982 when Jorma Uotinen took over as director and choreographer. He created sixteen works, the most famous of which, Kalevala (1985), toured Europe extensively. Between 1991 and 1996 it had various directors until Kenneth Kvarnstrom took over, creating new works such as no-no (1996). It first performed in Britain in 1997.

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Hendel , Henriette (née Johanne H. Rosine Schüler ;

b Döbeln, 13 Feb. 1772, d Köslin, 4 Mar. 1849).
German dancer, mime, and actress. The daughter of travelling players she was trained by ballet masters at various theatres. Though she began her career as an actress she increasingly specialized in performances of expressive mime and sculpted poses (rather in the manner of an 18th-century Isadora Duncan) taking her subjects from ancient mythology and Renaissance art. She toured Germany, Scandinavia, and Russia for over a decade, and Goethe and Schiller were among her admirers.

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Henie , Sonja

(b Oslo, 8 Apr. 1912; d en route to Oslo, 12 Oct. 1969).
Norwegian figure skater. She was advised to learn ballet by Pavlova and studied with Karsavina , beginning her skating training aged 5. In 1923 she was Norwegian champion, between 1927 and 1936 she held ten consecutive world champion titles, and between 1928 and 1936 she won three consecutive Olympic gold medals. Her skating style was strongly influenced by her ballet training and she performed an ice version of The Dying Swan. In 1938 she began to work in Hollywood, in, among others, the film Sun Valley Serenade (1941). She died of leukaemia on a plane flight to Oslo.

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Henry , Louis-Xavier-Stanislas

(b Versailles, 7 Mar. 1784, d Naples, 4 Nov. 1836).
French dancer and choreographer. He studied at the Paris Opera School with Deshayes , Gardel , and Coulon , making his debut with the company in 1803. A dancer admired for the nobility of his style he also strove to equal the new athleticism of Auguste Vestris and Duport. He began choreographing in 1805 with L'Amour à Cythère (mus. Gaveaux , Paris) and in 1807 went to Milan where he danced at La Scala, and, under the influence of Viganò's pantomime dramas, developed a highly successful choreographic career. He had equal success in Naples and Vienna, returning to France in 1816 to become ballet master at Théâtre de la Porte-St-Martin. He choreographed over 125 ballets, and was renowned for his heroic, tragic mode of Romanticism as well as for the unusually disciplined moves of his corps de ballet. His works included Otello (mus. Gallenberg , Naples, 1808), Hamlet (mus. Gallenberg , Théâtre de la Porte-St-Martin, 1816), La silfide (mus. Carlini , Milan, 1828), and William Tell (mus. Pugni , Rossini , and others, Milan, 1833). In 1835 he moved to Paris Opera as ballet master choreographing L'Île des pirates (mus. Gide , Carlini , and others) for Fanny Elssler . But his pantomimic style was not to French taste by this period and he returned to Naples.

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Henry Street Settlement Playhouse.

New York theatre which was originally founded as an actor's school in 1915 and was taken over by Nikolais's Dance Theater from 1948 to 1970, becoming a major platform for experimental dance.

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Henze , Hans Werner

(b Gutersloh, 1 July 1926).
German composer. A prolific writer for the theatre, fascinated by the challenge of creating new music for theatre, many of his works have featured such closely integrated vocal, dance, and mime elements that they can barely be put in a separate category from pure ballet scores. He wrote several of the latter, however, including Pas d'action (chor. V. Gsovsky , Munich, 1954, revised as Tancredi, chor. Nureyev , Vienna, 1966), Ondine (chor. Ashton , London, 1958), and Orpheus (chor. Forsythe , Stuttgart, 1979). Among the other ballets created to his scores are Fragmente (Cranko , 1968), Gemini (Tetley , 1973), Einhorn (Neumeier , 1985), and Labyrinth (M. Baldwin , Schwetzingen, 1997).

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Herczog , István

(b Budapest, 1943).
Hungarian-German dancer, choreographer, and director. He studied at the State Ballet Institute in Budapest, graduating in 1962, and between 1966 and 1991 he danced in various German companies including Stuttgart Ballet, Bavarian State Opera Ballet, and Düsseldorf Ballet. He created his first ballet, 6th Symphony, set to Shostakovich's score, in 1980, and between 1988 and 1991 he was ballet director and chief choreographer for Dortmund Opera, creating full-length versions of Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet and Delibes's Coppélia. In 1992 he was appointed director and chief choreographer of the Pécs Ballet in Hungary.

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Hering , Doris

(b New York, 11 Apr. 1920).
US dance writer and administrator. Between 1950 and 1970 she was associate editor and principal critic of Dance Magazine, thereafter becoming its critic-at-large as well as teaching dance history in several schools and universities. She was also active in development of the American Regional Ballet movement becoming Executive Director of the National Association for Regional Ballet. She is the author and editor of several books including 25 Years of American Dance (1950) and Dance in America (1985).

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Heritage Dance Theater.

Dance company which was formed at the N. Carolina School of the Arts in Apr. 1973 with the intention of presenting authentic but theatrically appropriate stagings of American folk dance. In Oct. 1974 its debut tour featured two programmes produced and choreographed by A. de Mille .

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Hermanas, Las.

Ballet in one act with choreography and libretto by MacMillan , design by Georgiadis , and music by F. Martin . Premiered 13 July 1963 by Stuttgart Ballet, Stuttgart, with Papendick , Haydée , Keil , and Barra . It is set to Martin's Concerto for Harpsichord and Small Orchestra and is based on Federico García Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba. Reproducing the claustrophobic atmosphere of Lorca's play, MacMillan's tautly expressive movement tells the story of five sisters raised in a repressive household. The eldest is engaged to be married but her fiancé is seduced by the youngest sister and the pair are betrayed by the jealous middle sister. As a result the fiancé is banished, the eldest sister is resigned to a lonely spinsterhood, and the youngest hangs herself in shame. It was revived for Western Theatre Ballet (1966), American Ballet Theatre (1967), Royal Ballet New Group (1971), and Australian Ballet (1979). Other versions of the same story include those by Ailey (Feast of Ashes, mus. Surinach , 1962), Sertic (Las apasionadas, mus. Kelemen , 1964), and Pomare (Las desenamoradas, mus. M. Coltrane , 1967).

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Herman Schmerman.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Forsythe , music by Thom Willems , and costumes by Gianni Versace . Premiered by New York City Ballet on 28 May 1992. A piece which deconstructs the formal hierarchies of classical ballet, particularly the pas de deux. It was staged by the Frankfurt Ballet on 26 Sept. in the same year and by the Royal Ballet in 1993.

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Hernandez , Amalia (b Mexico City).

Mexican dancer, choreographer, teacher, and ballet director. She studied with Sybine (from Pavlova's company), with Argentinita and with Waldeen and founded her own folk dance troupe in 1952. This developed into the state-subsidized Ballet Folklórico de México, resident at the Bellas Artes theatre, with its own school and two companies, one resident, one touring. She remained director until 1998 when she was succeeded by her daughter and grandson, Norma and Salvador Lopez .

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Herodiade.

Modern dance work in one act with choreography by Graham , music by Hindemith , set by Noguchi , and costumes by Edythe Gilfond . Premiered under the title Mirror Before Me on 28 Oct. 1944 at Library of Congress, Washington, DC, with Graham and O'Donnell . It is based on Mallarmé's poem and portrays Herodias, mother of Salome, as she looks into a mirror and, seeing images of her past and future life, struggles to come to terms with the prospect of age and death. Its New York premiere was on 15 May 1945 at the National Theater. Darrell choreographed a ballet on the same story, Herodias, for Scottish Theatre Ballet, 1970.

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Heroic Poem (The Geologists).

See under feminist ballets.

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Hérold , Louis-Joseph-Ferdinand

(b Paris, 28 Jan. 1791, d Paris, 19 Jan. 1833).
French composer. While working as repetiteur at the Paris Opera he composed several ballet scores, all of which were choreographed by Aumer , including La Somnambule (1827), a new version of La Fille mal gardée (1828), and La Belle au bois dormant (1829).

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Herrera , Paloma

(b Buenos Aires, 21 Dec. 1975).
Argentinian dancer. She studied with Olga Ferri and at Minsk Ballet School making her debut as Cupid in Don Quixote at the Teatro Colón. In 1991 she joined American Ballet Theatre, becoming soloist in 1993 and principal in 1995. Her rapid promotion in the company was evidence of an unusually precocious talent and she has gone on to dance both the classical and 20th-century repertories, creating several leading roles including Kudelka's Cruel World (1994). She frequently guests with the Teatro Colón.

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High School of Performing Arts.

Performing arts school. It was established in 1948 as part of New York's Metropolitan Vocational High School, becoming amalgamated with the High School of Music and Arts in 1961. Its dance department highlights modern dance training alongside academic studies and it has produced many leading US dancers. Its teachers have included G. Shurr , Joffrey , A Hutchinson , and Malinka . The school was showcased in the 1980 film Fame.

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Hightower , Rosella

(b Ardmore, Okla., 10 Jan. 1920).
US dancer, director, and teacher. She studied with Dorothy Perkins in Kansas City and with Fokine , Vilzak , and Vladimirov in New York. In 1938 she joined Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, then moved to Ballet Theatre as a soloist (1941–5). Between 1945 and 1946 she danced variously with Massine's Ballet Russe Highlights, de Basil's Original Ballet Russe, and the Markova-Dolin company, after which she danced with Nouveau Ballet de Monte Carlo (later the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas, 1947–62) where she became star ballerina and one of the most popular dancers in Europe. During this period she also guested with other companies (including with Bruhn and Nureyev ) and continued to do so until 1977. Her virtuoso technique gave her an unusually wide range, embracing both classical and contemporary repertories and she created roles in many works including Massine's Mam'zelle Angot (1943), Taras' Piège de lumière (1952), H. Lander's La Sylphide (Cuevas production, 1953), and Béjart's Variations (1969). In 1962 she founded the Centre de Danse Classique in Cannes which became a major centre for ballet in S. France, after which she was appointed director of the Nouveau Ballet Opera de Marseille (1969–72), then of Ballet de Nancy (1975–8). She was also guest teacher with several companies, most regularly Ballet of the 20th Century (where her daughter Dominique Robier was a dancer) and in 1976 founded her own company in Cannes. In 1981 she became the first American director of Paris Opera, where she was responsible for commissioning several experimental works, such as Dunn's Pulcinella (1981). She left in 1983 and was then ballet director of La Scala, Milan (1985–6). She continued to teach, also returning to the stage to dance in François Verret and Denise Luccioni's modern dance work L. et eux, la nuit (Festival de Chateauvallon, 1991). She was made Officier de la Légion d'honneur in 1988.

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Hijikata , Tatsumi

(b Akita, 9 Mar. 1928; d 21 Jan. 1986).
Japanese performer and choreographer who created the form butoh dance. He studied at the Ando Mitsuko Modern Dance Institute and joined Ando's company in 1953. In 1959 he created his first work Kinjiki (Forbidden Colours), based on the work of Genet. It is commonly regarded as the first example of butoh, although Hijikata did not coin the term ankoku butoh until 1961. His early works, influenced by the novelist Mishima, frequently centred on homoerotic sadism and subversive political imagery. In his middle period, termed Hijikata butoh, his works began to feature female as well as male performers and expanded to larger-scale productions whose imagery reflected the natural world and Japanese traditions. In his final period he began to incorporate elements from kabuki.

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Hilaire , Laurent

(b Paris, 8 Nov. 1962).
French dancer. He studied at Paris Opera Ballet School and graduated into the company in 1980, becoming étoile in 1985 (he was promoted by Nureyev , unusually without having first been named premier danseur). A tall dancer with a handsome, elegant technique, he is particularly suited to classical roles but he has also created roles in major new works including Forsythe's In the middle somewhat elevated (1987). A regular partner of Guillem, both while she was at the Opera and abroad, he has also guested with Alessandra Ferri in Italy, Kain in Canada, and Morishita in Vienna.

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Hill , Martha

(b E. Palestine, Ohio, c.1901, d New York, 19 Nov. 1995).
US dance educator and administrator. She studied at the Kellog School of Physical Education, Michigan, and later studied various techniques including Graham's, with whose company she performed (1929–31). Her commitment was to teaching rather than performance, however, and during her long career she taught at many institutions including the universities of Oregon and Columbia, Bennington College, and the Juilliard School where she was director of the dance department (1951–85). She also founded summer programmes at Bennington, Mills College, University of California, and Connecticut College. Her leadership in the field of education had a profound influence on the development of US dance, as did her contribution to many advisory panels. When she retired from the Juilliard she was named artistic director emerita.

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Hill , Robert

(b W. Babylon, NY, 5 Feb. 1961).
US dancer and choreographer. He began training aged 17 in Florida Hill and won a scholarship to the School of American Ballet. After a further year's study at the Philadelphia College of Performing Arts he made his debut with Atlantic Contemporary Ballet before joining American Ballet Theatre in 1982. He was appointed soloist in 1986 then performed with New York City Ballet (1989–90), Royal Ballet (1990–2), and with La Scala, Scottish Ballet, and San Francisco Ballet, returning to ABT as principal in 1994. He has danced both the classical and 20th-century repertories, though an injury which kept him off the stage (1992–4) has limited his range. He has created several roles including Morris's Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes (1988) and Kudelka's Cruel World (1994). He created his first ballet for ABT in 1999, Baroque Game (mus. Dmitry Polischuk ) and teaches for ABT and Ailey's company.

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Hilverding (van Wewen) , Franz (also Franz Hilferdin , Franz Hilferding , Franz Helwerding , Franz Helferting , etc.;

baptized Vienna, 17 Nov. 1710, d Vienna, 29 May 1768).
Austrian dancer, choreographer, ballet master, and teacher. He was born into a family of famous comedians and his father Johann Baptist H. was also a theatre director. He probably studied at the Imperial Court Dance School in Vienna and later with Michel Blondy in Paris (c.1734–6). From c.1737 he was a court dancer in Vienna and from c.1740 a choreographer, arranging dances, ballets, and pantomimes for court operas there. In 1742 he was appointed ballet master at the Kärntnertor Theater and from 1752 he also worked as ballet master for the Burgtheater, creating more than 30 ballets, including Le Turc généreux (mus. Rameau , 1758). In these he pioneered the principles of ballet d'action—integrating pantomime with dance, creating large-scale expressive effects with the corps de ballet and aiming for theatrical realism. One of his pupils, Angiolini, attacked Noverre for claiming these ideas as his own. In 1758 Hilverding went to Russia as ballet master and choreographer of the Imperial Theatres of St Petersburg and Moscow where he created many more works including La Victoire de Flore sur Borée (mus. Starzer , 1760). In 1764 he returned to Vienna and in 1766 took over the lease of Kärntnertor Theater in an attempt to revive Austrian ballet. He apparently died a bankrupt.

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Hindemith , Paul

(b Hanau, 16 Nov. 1895, d Frankfurt, 28 Dec. 1958).
German composer who wrote the scores for several ballets including Massine's Nobilissima visione (London, 1938), Graham's Herodiade (Washington, 1944), and Balanchine's The Four Temperaments (New York, 1946, concert premiere, 1940). He also wrote the music for mechanical organ for Schlemmer's Triadic Ballet (Donaueschingen, 1926.) His concert music has also been used for dance in Balanchine's Metamorphoses (New York, 1952), van Manen's Five Sketches (Five pieces for String Orchestra, Op. 44, The Hague, 1966), Harkarvy's Aswingto (Concert Music for String Orchestra and Woodwind, Op. 50, The Hague, 1969), Balanchine's Kammermusik No. 2 (New York, 1978), and van Manen's Opening (Amsterdam, 1986), among others.

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Hines , Gregory

(b New York, 14 Feb, 1946).
US tap dancer, singer, actor, and director. He started training when he was 3 with Henry LeTang and at 5 made his professional debut with his brother Maurice as The Hines Kids, appearing in nightclubs. In 1978 he appeared in the Broadway musical Eubie and went on to appear on television and in films such as The Cotton Club (1984), White Nights (1985), and Tap (1988). His close-to-the-floor rhythm work and his incorporation of Afro-Caribbean moves into tap have been credited with re-vitalizing a form which during the 1980s seemed in serious decline.

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Hinkson , Mary

(b Philadelphia, 16 Mar. 1930).
US dancer and teacher. She studied with Graham , Horst , Schwezoff , and others, joining Graham's company in 1952. Here she became a leading soloist creating roles in, among others, Seraphic Dialogue (1955), Acrobats of God (1960), and Circe (1963). She also guested with various companies, including Butler's and McKayle's (she created the female role in Rainbow 'Round my Shoulder, 1959). In 1951 she began teaching at Graham's school, subsequently teaching freelance and at the Juilliard School. In 1971 she became member of staff of the Cologne Summer Academy. She has been director of dance at Britain's National Choreographic Summer School and has worked for the John Butler Foundation, staging Butler's ballets.

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Hinton , Paula

(b Ilford, 1 June 1924, d Birkenhead, 5 Nov. 1996).
British dancer. She studied with H. Delamere-Wright in Liverpool, joining Ballet Rambert in 1944 where her exceptional dramatic gift was quickly recognized. She then danced with Gore (whom she married) and also with Ballets des Champs-Elysées, Original Ballet Russe, London Festival Ballet, and P. López . She was ballerina with Frankfurt Municipal Stages (1956–8), Edinburgh Festival Ballet, and Gore's London Ballet (1961) and Gulbenkian Ballet (1965–9), as well as guesting with Western Theatre Ballet (1965), Harkness Ballet (1970), and Northern Dance Theatre (1971–2 and 1976). She created roles in many of Gore's ballets, such as Antonia (1949). She was considered an exceptionally fine Giselle.

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hip-hop.

Hip-hop dance originated in New York among young Hispanic and African-American men during the late 1960s as part of the hip-hop culture of rap, scratch music, and graffiti art. The dance is always changing but essentially embraces the two styles of break dance and body popping. The former is an athletic solo form in which the performer enters the dance arena in a sideways motion then dives or breaks to the floor, spins around on his head, shoulders, or buttocks and ends with a freeze position. Body popping involves a series of fast, sharp actions that travel through the body in a robotic-looking alternation of move and freeze. The dance and its music became internationally current from the late 1970s and are often incorporated into theatre dance, by Doug Elkins , among others.

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Hiroshima (orig. Czech title A paráncs).

Ballet in five scenes with choreography by I. Eck , libretto by V. Vaut , and music by V. Bukový . Premiered 21 Dec. 1962 at Pécs with B. Veöreös and G. Stimácz . It portrays the emotional and moral struggle of the US pilot who dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima. It has been frequently performed in new productions in eastern Europe, such as Nmeek's at Prague National Theatre, 1964.

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Histoire du soldat.

See Soldier's Tale, The.

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Hitchins , Aubrey

(b Cheltenham, 1906, d New York, 16 Dec. 1969).
British dancer and teacher. He studied with Cecchetti , N. Legat , and Egorova and went on to partner Pavlova (1925–30). He then danced with Le Chauve Souris and with Nemchinova and Oboukhoff . In 1943 he founded his own company and from 1947 taught in New York.

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Hobson's Choice.

Ballet in three acts with choreography by Bintley , music by Paul Reade , and design by H. Griffen . Premiered 13 Feb. 1989 by Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet at Covent Garden, London, with Karen Donovon and Michael O'Hare . It is based on Harold Brighouse's play of the same title and dedicated to de Valois : For Madam—an ‘English Ballet’. Set in Salford, Lancashire, this comic satire on the English class system tells the story of Maggie, daughter of the wealthy but drunken boot-shop proprietor Hobson , and Will Mossop the lowly boot-hand whom she marries. Bintley's realistic evocation of Northern life is paralleled by the naturalistic detail of both design and score.

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Hodes , Linda (née L. Margolies ;

b New York, 3 June 1933).
US dancer, teacher, and choreographer. She began studying at Graham's school aged 9 and joined her company in 1953. Here she created roles in Seraphic Dialogue (1955), Clytemnestra (1958), Acrobats of God (1960), and Phaedra (1962) as well as dancing with P. Taylor and Tetley and on Broadway. In 1964 she taught Graham technique at Batsheva Dance Company, for which she choreographed The Act (mus. B. Page and B. Johnson , 1967) and of which she was co-artistic director (1972–5). She was then co-artistic director of the Martha Graham company (1979–91), director of the Paul Taylor School and of Taylor 2 (1992–8) and from 1998 began work editing the Taylor Foundation's Repertory Preservation Project. She was married to American dancer Stuart Hodes (b 1924) who performed with Graham (1947–58) and also danced on Broadway.

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Hodson , Millicent

(b Indianapolis, 31 July 1945).
US choreographer and dance reconstructionist. She studied literature at the universities of Indiana and California, Berkeley, and dance in California and New York, receiving her Ph.D. in 1985 in the history of dance and the visual arts. In 1987 the Joffrey Ballet premiered her reconstruction of Nijinsky's Sacre du printemps and with her collaborator Kenneth Archer she has subsequently reconstructed Nijinsky's Till Eulenspiegel (Paris, 1994), Jeux (Verona, 1996), and Börlin's Skating Rink (Zurich, 1996), among others. She has lectured widely in England and the US.

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Hoffmann , Ernst Theodor Amadeus

(b Konigsberg, 24 Jan. 1776, d Berlin, 25 June 1822).
German writer and composer whose stories have been the basis of several ballets, most famously Der Sandmann for Coppélia (chor. Saint-Léon , Paris, 1870) and Der Nussknacker und der Mäusekönig for The Nutcracker (chor. Ivanov , St Petersburg, 1892). Ashton and Massine choreographed dances for Powell's 1951 film based on the opera Tales of Hoffmann, and Béjart choreographed a dance version of the opera in 1961 for his Ballet of the 20th Century as did Darrell for Scottish Theatre Ballet in 1972.

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Holden , Stanley

(b London, 27 Jan. 1928).
British dancer and teacher. He studied at the Bush-Davies School and Sadler's Wells School, joining Sadler's Wells Ballet in 1944. In 1948, after military service he joined Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet where he created Pierrot in Cranko's Harlequin in April (1951). After a period teaching in S. Africa (1954–7) he returned to Touring Royal Ballet, becoming a soloist with the Royal Ballet (1958–60) and then principal (1960–9). An exuberant dancer, he was best known for character and comic roles primarily Widow Simone in Ashton's La Fille mal gardée which he created in 1960. In 1970 he became director of the Dance Academy of the Performing Arts Council of the Music Center in Los Angeles, and in 1972 opened his own school, Holden Dance Center. This closed in 1997, after which Holden taught ballet in Culver City.

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Holder , Geoffrey

(b Port-of-Spain, 1 Aug. 1930).
British-US dancer, choreographer, and designer. He studied traditional dances in the W. Indies and gave his first performances in the company of his brother Bosco. In 1953 he went to New York where he taught at the Dunham school and danced in various Broadway shows, at the Metropolitan Opera House, with John Butler's company, and with his own group. He choreographed, composed, and designed Prodigal Prince for Ailey's company in 1971, choreographed Dougla (1974) and Banda (1982) for Dance Theatre of Harlem and designed Taras's Firebird (1982) for that company. He also directed and designed The Wiz on Broadway (1975) and exhibited his own paintings. He married the dancer Carmen de Lavallade.

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Holger , Hilde

(b 1905, d 22 Sept. 2001).
Austrian dancer, choreographer, and teacher. She studied with Bodenwieser and in 1926 opened her School of Art, Movement, and Expression, developing her own style of expressionist movement. She was forced to leave Austria by the Nazis and moved to Bombay where she continued to perform and teach. In 1949 she left and settled in London where she has taught and directed ever since, including a seminal production for people with learning difficulties, Towards the Light (1969). Her pupils have included Lindsay Kemp.

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Holland.

See Netherlands.

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Holm , Hanya (née Johanna Eckert ;

b Worms, 3 Mar. 1893, d New York, 3 Nov. 1992).
German-US dancer, teacher, choreographer, and one of the formative influences of American modern dance. She studied at the Dalcroze School in Hellerau and joined Wigman in 1921 both as company dancer and as teacher in Wigman's school. She performed in the premieres of Wigman's Feier (1928) and Totenmal (1930) and in 1931 went to New York to open an American branch of the Wigman school. This evolved into her own Hanya Holm Studio which was one of the city's most important dance schools between 1936 and its closure in 1967, with Tetley and Nikolais among its pupils. In 1936 she also formed her own group with which she choreographed her epic work of social criticism. Trend (mus. Varèse , 1937), also Metropolitan Day (mus. G. Tucker , 1938) and Tragic Exodus (mus V. Fine , 1939). In 1941 she established her Center of the Dance in Colorado Springs at which she taught annual summer courses and further developed her method of teaching by creative exploration rather than set technique. Despite the strong political bias of her work she was a great humorist and populist, and created awardwinning choreography for the hit musicals Kiss Me, Kate (1948), My Fair Lady (1956), and Camelot (1960). In 1961 she was appointed head of the dance department of New York Musical Theater Academy. She continued teaching at various schools until 1985 and in the same year premiered a new work, Capers, for the Don Redlich Dance Company, which performs much of her work.

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Homage to the Queen.

Pièce d'occasion in one act for Elizabeth II's coronation with choreography by Ashton , music by M. Arnold , and design by Messel . Premiered 2 June 1953 by Sadler's Wells Ballet at Covent Garden, London, with Fonteyn , Somes , Nerina , Rassine , Elvin , Hart , Grey , and Field as the four couples portraying the four elements.

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Honegger , Arthur

(b Le Havre, 10 Mar. 1892, d Paris, 27 Nov. 1955).
Swiss composer who wrote the music for several ballets including Börlin's Les Mariés de la Tour Eiffel (together with the other members of ‘Les Six’, 1921) and Skating Rink (1922), Nijinska's Les Noces de l'amour et de Psyché (after Bach, 1938), Massine's Amphion (1934), Fokine's Semiramis (1934), Lifar's Cantique des cantiques (1938) and Chota Roustaveli (with Tcherepnin and Harsanyi , 1946), and Peretti's L'Appel de la montagne (1945). Other works using his music include T. Shawn's Pacific 231 (1933), Howard's Lady into Fox (1939), Neumeier's Von Unschuld und Erfahrung (1967), and van Manen's Brainstorm (1982).

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Hong Kong.

Under British rule, the region's modern and classical dance scene began to flourish in the late 1970s. The City Contemporary Dance Company in Kowloon was established under the direction of Willy Tsao (performing works by Tsao , Helen Lai, and others); and the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts Ensemble was founded in Wanchai under the artistic direction of Margaret Carlson. Both companies made a feature of showcasing Asian and Western dancers in repertory that fused Chinese and Western dance influences. The Hong Kong Ballet was founded in Happy Valley in 1979, under the direction of Garry Trinder and went on to perform the standard Western classical repertoire as well as new works by Trinder , Choo-San Goh , Dony Retier-Soffer , Bengt Jorgen , and Bintley . Stephen Jefferies was appointed director in 1995. After Hong Kong was restored to Chinese rule in 1997 artists feared that their activities might be censored in line with mainland Chinese cultural policy, and a new level of social and political concern became evident in the work of younger choreographers such as Helen Lai , Danny Yung (co-founder of Zuni Icosehedron), and Jacky Yu (founder of E-Side Dance Company). Rosalind Newman , who taught at the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts from 1989, founded her own company in 1999, Dance HK/NY. In 2000 the region hosted a European Union festival of modern dance.

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Hopi dance.

The Hopi people of N. Arizona believe that it is their duty to provide rain, and dance plays a major part in the ritual ceremonies by which they seek to bring this about. These ceremonial dances have become internationally celebrated for their rhythmic intricacy and complex orchestration of groups as well as their use of elaborate costumes and masks.

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Hopps , Stuart

(b London, 2 Dec. 1942).
British dancer, teacher, and choreographer. He studied at the London School of Contemporary Dance and with Cunningham , and danced with Hettie Loman's company (1962–5) then with M. Anthony in 1968 and M. Monk in 1969. He began to choreograph for Scottish Theatre Ballet in 1970 becoming founder director of its modern dance group, Movable Workshop (1974–5). He has taught in many colleges and worked extensively as a freelance choreographer in opera, theatre, and film as well as dance.

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hornpipe.

English step dance originally accompanied by a wooden hornpipe (now obsolete). In the mid-18th century it became widely associated with sailors and around the same time it changed from triple to duple time.

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Horosko , Marian

(b Cleveland, 4 Aug. 1927).
US dancer and writer. She studied at the Juilliard School and School of American Ballet and made her debut with Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo aged 12. She later danced with Metropolitan Ballet (1951–4) and with New York City Ballet (1954–62). She also performed in films and on Broadway. During the 1960s she was film curator of the Lincoln Center Dance Collection and from 1963 to 1980 worked as television and radio producer, writing and co-producing the Dance in America series (1971–4). She has written several books, including Martha Graham: Evolution of her Dance Theory and Training (1991) and Sleeping Beauty: The Ballet (1994).

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Horschelt , Friedrich

(b Cologne, 13 Apr. 1793, d Munich, 9 Dec. 1876).
German dancer, choreographer, and ballet master. Between 1815 and 1821 he was ballet master at the Theater an der Wien where his Children's Ballet (6–12-year-olds, possibly once including Fanny Elssler ) became so notorious for impropriety that it was disbanded by Imperial decree. He moved to Munich where he choreographed for many operas until 1848. He was a member of the famous Horschelt family, his father Franz , sisters Karoline and Barbara , and son August also being professional dancers.

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Horsman , Greg

(b Geelong, 29 Aug. 1963).
Australian dancer. He studied locally with Peter Dickinson , then at the Victoria College of the Arts, joining Australian Ballet in 1982. He was promoted to soloist in 1985 and principal in 1987. A powerful technician, projecting a quiet intelligence, he appeared in many leading classical and 20th-century roles as well as creating roles in Baynes's Catalyst (1990) and G. Murphy's The Nutcracker (1992), among others. He also guested with many other companies, including the Kirov Ballet (1989) and Royal Danish Ballet (1990), and from 1994 to 1998 was principal with English National Ballet, where roles he created included Deane's Alice in Wonderland (1995). He married the dancer Lisa Pavane .

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Horst , Louis

(b Kansas City, 12 Jan. 1884, d New York, 23 Jan. 1964).
US pianist, composer, teacher, writer, and formative influence on American modern dance. He studied in San Francisco and Vienna and between 1915 and 1925 was musical director for St Denis. In 1926 he began collaborating with Graham , becoming musical director of her company and also composing several scores for her, including Primitive Mysteries (1931), Frontier (1935), and El Penitente (1940). Until he left the company in 1948 he not only helped form Graham's musical taste but was her closest adviser on artistic and choreographic issues. He also taught dance composition at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theater in New York (1928–64) at the summer courses of Bennington College (1935–45), at Connecticut College Summer School (1948–63), and at Juilliard School (1958–63). In 1934 he founded the magazine Dance Observer which he edited until his death. He was author of Pre-Classic Dance Forms (1937) and Modern Dance Forms (1960). When in 1963 he was made doctor honoris causa of Wayne State University he was described as ‘the illustrious dean of American dance’.

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Horta , Rui

(b Lisbon, 20 Apr. 1957).
Portuguese-German dancer and choreographer. He studied with the Gulbenkian Ballet and in the US with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and on his return to Portugal directed Lisbon Dance Company, becoming founder director of the Frankfurt-based S.O.A.P. Dance Theatre in 1991. His works are driven as much by ideas as pure dance, for example Object Constant (1994) which offers a witty deconstruction of the conventions of post-modern performance. He has also choreographed works for several other companies, including Gulbenkian Ballet (1997, 1999), Cullberg Ballet (1998), and Netherlands Dance Theatre 2 (1999). Since leaving S.O.A.P he has continued to create works for a company of his own dancers based in Munich, including Zeitraum (1999).

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Horton , Lester

(b Indianapolis, 23 Jan. 1906, d Los Angeles, 2 Nov. 1953).
US dancer, choreographer, and teacher. He studied with Bolm in Chicago but his most formative influences were the Japanese dance actor Michio Ito and the dance of Native American Indians. In 1928 he choreographed the pageant The Song of Hiawatha and moved with the production to California, where he was based for most of his career. In 1934 he formed his own company, Lester Horton Dancers, with which he danced and for which he choreographed many works. Although based on the West Coast the company also appeared in New York and Jacob's Pillow. A neck injury forced him to retire from performing in 1944 but he continued to choreograph, and design, dances for his company and also for film and night-clubs. His distinctive dance style emphasized a powerful stillness in the torso from which radiated asymmetrical movements of the limbs. In 1948 he opened his own theatre in Los Angeles. His best-known work, The Beloved, has been performed by many companies including Ailey's and Dance Theatre of Harlem. Other works include Salome (percussion accompaniment, 1934), Conquest (mus. Lou Harrison , 1938), and Totem Incantation (mus. Judith Hamilton , 1948). He was an influential teacher, his pupils including de Lavallade , Lewitsky , Trisler , and Ailey .

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House , Christopher

(b Newfoundland, 30 May 1955).
Canadian dancer, choreographer, and director. He began training aged 21 in Ottawa and at York University, Toronto, and in 1979 he joined Toronto Dance Theatre. After creating two works for the company, including Schola Cantorum (mus. Satie , 1981) he was appointed resident choreographer, becoming director in 1994. His early style was formal and technically complex, although in works like Encarnado (mus. Viver , 1993) he has experimented with narrative. Later works include Vena Cava (mus. Robert Moran , 1998). He has also created works for Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, including Agitato (mus. Roger Sessions , 1992) and for the National Ballet of Canada such as Café Dances (mus. various, 1991).

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Houston Ballet.

US ballet company based in Houston, Texas. In 1955 the Houston Ballet Foundation was formed and established a ballet academy with T. Semenova as its director. Its pupils gave occasional performances and in 1967 it staged Giselle under the direction of Nina Popova. The production's success prompted the Foundation to establish a fully professional company with Popova as artistic director. The Houston Ballet gave its first performance in Autumn 1968 with sixteen dancers and five ballets in its repertoire. In 1975 Popova was succeeded by James Clouser but his taste proved too modern for the board and in 1976 he was replaced by Ben Stevenson. Stevenson staged many of his own full-length ballets including Cinderella, Peer Gynt, and The Snow Maiden as well presenting some 19th-century classics, such as P. Wright's production of Giselle. Other additions have included Ashton's Two Pigeons, Cranko's The Lady and the Fool, and Lynne's Café soiré. Kenneth MacMillan was the company's artistic associate (1989–92) and Christopher Bruce its resident choreographer since 1989. It now has nearly 60 dancers and maintains close links with the Houston Ballet Academy.

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Hoving , Lucas (orig. Lucas Hovinga ;

b Groningen, 5 Sept. 1912, d San Francisco, 5 Jan. 2000).
Dutch-US dancer, choreographer, and teacher. He studied with Georgi in Holland and Jooss at Dartington, performing with Ballets Jooss before moving to the US in the mid-1940s where he danced in the companies of Graham, Bettis, and Limón. With the last he created roles in Limón's Le Malinche (1949), The Moor's Pavane (1949), and Emperor Jones (1956), also in Humphrey's Night Spell (1951) and Ruins and Visions (1953). His performance as the Friend, or Iago, in The Moor's Pavane conveyed a malevolence which many think has never been surpassed. In the early 1960s he formed his own company for which he choreographed several works, notably Icarus (mus. Shin-Ichi Matsushita , 1963) which has been revived by Ailey and other companies. He taught at various institutions including Juilliard School, Essen Folkwang School, and Swedish State Dance School and was director of Rotterdam Dance Academy (1971–8). He continued to teach and to choreograph, including Pits and Thumbs (mus. Xenakis , Lucas Hoving Performance Group, 1984) and Rush Hour (Dance Company Reflex, Netherlands, 1990), and in 1984 founded the Dancelab in San Francisco which became the Lucas Hoving Performance Group in 1985. In 1984 he returned to the stage in an autobiographical solo created for him by Remy Charlip , Growing up in Public.

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Howard , Alan

(b Chicago, 7 Aug. 1930).
US dancer and teacher. He studied with E. McRae and in 1949 joined Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo where he remained until 1960, becoming premier danseur. He also danced with the Slavenska Ballet, New York City Ballet, and Radio City Music Hall. He founded the Pacific Ballet Academy in San Francisco which produced the Pacific Ballet and has choreographed several works for the company. He has been guest teacher with various companies and institutions.

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Howard , Andrée

(b London, 3 Oct. 1910, d London, 18 Mar. 1968).
British dancer, choreographer, and designer. She studied with Rambert , Egorova , Preobrajenska , Trefilova , and Kshessinska and was a founder member of Ballet Club in 1930. In 1933 she moved to de Basil's Ballets Russes but illness curtailed her dancing activities and in the same year she turned to choreography. Her first work, created for Ballet Club, was Our Lady's Juggler, a re-working of Susan Salaman's 1930 ballet of the same name set to music by Respighi . This was followed by others, including Mermaid (with Salaman , mus. Ravel , 1934), Cinderella (mus. Weber , 1935), Death and the Maiden (mus. Schubert , 1937), and Lady into Fox (mus. Honegger , 1939), all for Ballet Club (later Ballet Rambert). When in 1939 she was invited to New York for American Ballet Theatre's inaugural season, she staged and danced in the last two ballets. In 1940 she created La Fête étrange (mus. Fauré ) for London Ballet, which went into the repertory of Ballet Rambert and was later revived by the Royal Ballet (1957) and Scottish Theatre Ballet (1971). Its economical but intensely atmospheric creation of mood typified Howard's poetic gifts, also her ability to create drama through pure dance. As a freelance choreographer she created several more works for Ballet Rambert including Carnival of Animals (mus. Saint-Saëns , 1943) and The Sailor's Return (mus. Oldham , 1947) which was the first British two-act ballet. Other works include Twelfth Night (mus. Grieg , International Ballet, 1942), Assembly Ball (mus. Bizet , Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet, 1946), Mardi gras (mus. Salzedo , SWTB, 1946), Selina (mus. Rossini , SWTB, 1948), A Mirror for Witches (mus. ApIvor , Sadler's Wells Ballet, 1952), La Belle Dame sans merci (mus. A. Goehr , Edinburgh Festival Ballet, 1958), and Les Baricades mystérieuses (mus. Couperin , Turkish State Ballet, 1963). She designed many of her own ballets, also collaborating with Sophie Fedorovitch . In later years she concentrated on painting.

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Howard , Robin

(b London, 21 May, 1924, d 1989).
British dance benefactor and founder of London Contemporary Dance Theatre. After seeing Graham's company in London in 1954 he became an ardent enthusiast of her work and in 1963 arranged her London and Edinburgh seasons. In the same year he also set up a trust to fund British dancers travelling to New York to study her technique. In 1965 he arranged for Graham teachers to give classes in London and from that base he founded the London School of Contemporary Dance in 1966. In the same year he set up the Contemporary Ballet Trust (from 1970 the Contemporary Dance Trust) to further develop modern dance in Britain and in 1967 London Contemporary Dance Theatre gave its first performances. In 1969 he acquired The Place which became headquarters to both school and company and with which he retained close links until his death.

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Howes , Dulcie

(b Cape Province, 1910).
South African dancer, teacher, and pioneer of dance in S. Africa. She studied with Helen Webb and then moved to London where she studied ballet and mime with Craske and Karsavina and Spanish dancing with Elsa Brunelleschi . She toured with Pavlova's company and returned to S. Africa in 1930 where she founded the University of Cape Town School of Ballet in 1934. Its performing group became the University of Cape Town Ballet for which she choreographed many ballets. In 1965 it achieved fully professional status as the CAPAB Ballet (See Cape Town City Ballet). As teacher and director she nurtured many artists including Cranko, Poole, and Rodrigues. She retired from the company in 1969 and from the UCT School of Ballet in 1973.

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Hoyer , Dore

(b Dresden, 12 Dec. 1911, d Berlin, 31 Dec. 1967).
German dancer and choreographer. She studied at the Gret Palucca School and began choreographing and performing professional solo work in 1933. She was also a member of Wigman's company (1935–6) and performed at the Deutsche Tanzbühne (1940–1), the Theater des Volkes, in Dresden (1941–3), and the theatre at Graz (1943–4). She ran her own school in Dresden (1946–8) and directed the ballet company at Hamburg Staatsoper (1949–51), attempting, unsuccessfully to transform it into a modern dance ensemble. She continued to perform her own solo works until 1966, winning special acclaim in S. America during the 1950s.

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Hoyos , Cristina

(b Seville, 1946).
Spanish dancer. She made her debut aged 12 in the children's production ‘Galas Juveniles’ and began choreographing her own work. From the age of 16 she began specializing in flamenco and worked in various ‘tablaos’ (flamenco clubs). A dancer of fierce power and uncompromising personality she joined Gades's company in 1969 as his partner, creating the role of the Bride in Blood Wedding (1974). In 1975 she toured and danced in her own show, and with Gades formed the company which appeared in the film version of Blood Wedding (dir. Saura ). She also danced in Saura's film Carmen and had a special triumph as Candelas in his film El amor brujo (1986). She and Gades directed and danced in Ballet Antonio Gades con Cristina Hoyos (1983–8), then in 1989 she founded her own Ballet Cristina Hoyos. This tours internationally and is the first flamenco company to have performed at the Palais Garnier.

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Hübbe , Nikolaj

(b Copenhagen, 30 Oct. 1967).
Danish dancer. He studied at the Royal Danish School and later in Paris and the US joining the Royal Danish Ballet in 1986 where he was promoted soloist (principal) in 1988. A powerful dancer whose height did not compromise his swiftness he not only excelled in the Bournonville repertory but also in neoclassical ballets and in dramatic roles like Onegin, in which he was a memorably complex, compelling figure. In 1992 he moved to New York City Ballet where the completeness of his range was compared by some critics to the young Baryshnikov's .

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Humpbacked Horse, The (orig. Russ. title Konyok-gorbunok).

Ballet in four acts with choreography and libretto by Saint-Léon and music by Pugni . Premiered 15 Dec. 1864 at the Bolshoi Theatre, St Petersburg, with Marfa Muravieva and Nikolai Troitzky . It is based on the popular Russian fairy-tale by Pyotr Yershov and tells the story of Ivanushka who destroys the power of the wicked Khan and wins the hand of the Tsar-Maiden by accomplishing various spectacular feats with the help of the little Humpbacked Horse. It concludes with a grand divertissement celebrating all the different nations of Russia, as Saint-Léon, consciously trying to appeal to Russian taste, was eager to include (his version of) Russian national dance. In 1895 it was revived by Petipa at the Maryinsky Theatre, St Petersburg, with a new prologue and apotheosis and some additional dances. Gorsky choreographed two later versions in 1901 and 1914 and though little remained of the original it became established as a major national ballet and a popular vehicle for ballerinas. Radunsky choreographed his own version to a score by Shchedrin for the Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow, in 1960 and Belsky created his version to the same score for the Maly Theatre in Leningrad in 1963. The Radunsky—Shchedrin version was filmed in 1961 with Plisetskaya and Vasiliev .

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Humphrey , Doris

(b Oak Park, III., 17 Oct. 1895, d New York, 29 Dec. 1958).
US dancer, choreographer, teacher, and one of the major formative influences on US modern dance. She studied at the Francis W.Parker School in Chicago and in 1913 began teaching ballroom dance. In 1917 she attended the Denishawn school in Los Angeles and was taken into the company where she danced until 1928, when she left to found a school and company in New York with Weidman . Her own choreography was stripped bare of spectacle and virtuosity and was based on the principle of ‘dancing from the inside out’, i.e. devising movement specially to express specific emotional and physical states. While Graham's technique was based on the opposition of contraction and release, Humphrey's was based on the concepts of fall and recovery. She believed that dance existed in ‘the arc between two deaths’, i.e. between the two static positions of standing and lying prone. Drama and kinetic excitement occurred when the body moved off balance and grappled with the force of gravity. Unlike Graham, she did not choreograph primarily around her own personality but created group dances of complex, contrapuntal design. Some of these were abstract, such as Drama of Motion (no mus., 1930) though several of her early works were inspired by nature, including Water Study (no mus., 1928) and Life of the Bee (no mus. in first production, later addition of mus. by Hindemith , 1929), and the majority of her works had a dramatic element, such as The Shakers (mus. trad., 1931), which portrayed an early American religious community; the trilogy New Dance (New Dance, Theatre Piece, and With My Red Fires, mus. W . Riegger, 1935–6) which evoked a social utopia, and Passacaglia in C minor (mus. J. S. Bach , 1938) which celebrated the human spirit in dance of grand architectural design. In 1944 severe arthritis in the hip forced her to retire as a dancer but she continued to work as teacher, choreographer, and artistic director for Limón's dance company. Her works from this period include Lament for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías (mus. Lloyd , 1946), based on the poetry of Lorca; Day on Earth (mus. Copland , 1947), a semi-abstract, semi-dramatic portrayal of the cyclical nature of human joy and sorrow; Ritmo Jondo (mus. Surinach , 1953); Ruins and Visions (mus. Britten , 1953); and a rare mixedmedia work, Theatre Piece No. 2 (mus. Luening , 1956). In 1934 she joined the staff of Bennington School of Dance and she continued to teach there and at the Juilliard School until her death. Her last, unfinished work, Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 (mus. Bach ) was produced posthumously in 1959. She was author of The Art of Making Dances (New York, 1959) and ‘New Dance’ (Dance Perspectives, no. 25). Her work is still performed by dance companies around the world, licensed by the Dance Notation Bureau.

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Hungarian National Ballet (also known as Hungarian State Opera Ballet and Budapest Ballet).

Hungary's leading ballet company which performs in Budapest's State Opera House and also in the city's Erkel Theatre. Its origins date back to ballet performances held at the Often Court Theatre and the National Theatre, but in its current form it was established in 1884 with the opening of the State Opera House. At first it was subordinate to the opera company and its early, rather parochial style evolved via the influences of Hungarian folk dancing and Russian ballet. Demands for higher standards led to the engagement of the Italian ballet master Nicola Guerra . He not only raised the company's technical and artistic levels but also choreographed nineteen works for the company between 1902 and 1915, including Adventures of Love (mus. Mader , 1902), Hungarian Dance Suite (mus. Liszt and Szikla , 1907), Prometheus (mus. Beethoven , 1913), and Games of Amor (mus. Mozart , 1913). After Guerra the company declined (though the Polish choreographer Jan Cieplinski created a couple of notable ballets) until 1937 when Ferenc Nádasi was engaged as ballet master. Under his regime technical standards rose dramatically (among the dancers he trained were Melinda Ottrubay and Ernö Vashegyi) and he also established a school within the Opera. Just as important was the emergence of Gyula Harangozó as a major choreographer. Scene in the Czárdas (mus. J. Hubay and J. Kenessey , 1936) was his first ballet on a national theme and he became internationally renowned for the ballets he created to music by Bartók , such as The Miraculous Mandarin. (See under Harangozó for list of works.) After the Second World War a new generation of dancers emerged such as N. Kovács and I. Rab , and in 1948 Charrat mounted Stravinsky's Jeu de cartes. In 1950 the Ballet State Choreographic Institute was founded (from which the company still takes most of its pupils) and during the rest of the decade many Soviet ballet masters were brought into the company to teach the Russian repertory, including Messerer , Zakharov , Lavrovsky , and Chabukiani . At first native artists like Nádasi and Harangozó were pushed aside, but then were re-instated as their quality was acknowledged by the Soviet authorities. During the 1960s and 1970s a new generation of Hungarian choreographers emerged including Imre Eck and László Seregi . The latter created many works for the company during the 1970s, some like Spartacus in the Soviet mould, others like The Cedar Tree more distinctively individual. Antal Fodor also created works for the company, introducing neo-classical and modern influences into its style, and during the 1970s the repertory also opened up to include foreign works by, among others, Ashton, Béjart, Balanchine, and Ailey. Since the 1960s the 120-strong company has toured regularly in Europe. Seregi was artistic director from 1977, Gabor Keveházi from 1990, and Gyorgy Szakály from 1992. Under their influence a new generation of Hungarian choreographers has emerged, such as Lilla Partay who created Anna Karenina (mus. Tchaikovsky , 1991), and Péter László who choreographed Derby (mus. Gyorgy Vukán , 1989). Political changes of the early 1990s have affected the funding of the ballet which has sought to stage productions in co-operation with the Opera company and with private funds.

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Hungary.

Ballet was first performed in Hungary in the mid-18th century at the court of Prince Esterházy but the popularity it gained after visits by Noverre's Vienna dancers in 1772 and by Viganò in the 1790s was eclipsed during the early 19th century by pantomimes, Harlequinades, etc. During this period, however, Hungarian folk dance societies toured Europe with much success. In 1837 the National Theatre was opened in Pest, presenting its first ballet production, La Fille mal gardée (chor. János Kolosánszky , mus. Ferenc Kaczér ), in 1839. In 1846 Cerrito and Saint-Léon danced Ondine, Giselle was staged in 1847, and Grahn and Taglioni were among the ballerinas who danced there during the 1850s. The first and greatest Hungarian prima ballerina of the 19th century was Emilia Aranyváry (active 1852–9), but otherwise local ballet activity was mediocre, the resident company being headed by the lacklustre choreographer Frigyes Campilli who mounted versions of romantic ballets (incl. Esmeralda, 1856) between 1846 and 1886.
In 1884 the State Opera House was opened in Budapest with its own ballet company attached. This became the national ballet ensemble (see below) and as such dominated dance activity in Hungary. During the 20th century, though, other companies emerged. In 1946 the first professional provincial company was established in Szegad, performing a repertory largely borrowed from Budapest. During the 1950s it was directed by Zoltán Imre who choreographed much of the repertory and after Imre left Hungary it closed down. In 1986 it re-opened under the direction of impresario R. Bokor , who commissioned works from various guests (including Imre) and also staged older works such as Jooss's The Green Table. Imre returned as director in 1991 but left two years later due to financial constraints.
In 1960 Imre Eck founded the Ballet Sopianae at the National Theatre at Pécs, creating a repertory of youth-oriented political ballets. His was one of the first attempts at a modern style of choreography in Hungary, created largely without access to Western ideas. One of the company's young dancers, Sándor Tóth, emerged as a choreographic talent in What is under your hat? (mus. Jószef Kinczes , 1964), among others, and took over direction of the company in 1968 with Eck as artistic director. Their experimental approach was very popular and the company toured widely in Hungary as well as in Europe and America. It is now known as the Pécs Ballet and since 1992 has been directed by István Herczog .
The Györ Ballet, founded in 1979, is Hungary's only classical company to be financially independent of a theatre, though it performs extensively at the Kisafuldy. It was founded by Iván Markó , and its repertoire was dominated by his own full-length narrative works. Since Markó's departure it stages a diverse repertory of Hungarian and foreign work.
Though financial problems have hindered the development of a large independent modern dance scene there has been sufficient activity to justify the Hungarian Contemporary Dance Festival (founded in 1992). Among the best-known modern groups to emerge is Artus, which was founded by Gábor Goda in 1985 and which performs mixed-media works fusing poetry, dance and acrobatics, TranzDanz, founded by Péter Gerzson-Kovács in 1991, which combines jazz, folk dance, and text, and the Sarbo Company, founded in 1990, which is strongly influenced by de Keersmaeker and the Bozsik company led by Yvette Bozsik whose works, such as The Miraculous Mandarin (1995), draw on folk dance and the styles of Wigman and Bausch.
The Hungarian State Folk Ensemble was founded in 1949 under the direction of Miklós Rábai , as a combined choir, orchestra, and dance troupe. Originally it presented elaborate Soviet-style stagings of folk music and dance numbers, but from the 1980s, under the direction of Sándor Tímár , it began to present more authentic and more intimate stagings of folk material, drawing on older traditions. It has toured world-wide.

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Hurok , Solomon

(b Pogar, 9 Apr. 1888, d New York, 5 Mar. 1974).
Russian-US impresario. He emigrated to the US in 1906 and began presenting concerts for labour organizations and workers' groups. His prime interest was music but from 1916 he began presenting dance and among his outstanding clients were Pavlova , Duncan , Wigman , Argentinita , Graham , Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, Original Ballet Russe, Ballet Theatre, Sadler's Wells and Royal Ballet, Bolshoi Ballet, Kirov Ballet, National Ballet of Canada, and Stuttgart Ballet. He wrote Impresario (New York, 1947) and Solomon Hurok Presents (New York, 1955).

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Hus family.

Family of dancers who were widely active in Europe through the 18th and 19th centuries. Auguste H. (b 1735, d after 1781) was a dancer with Paris Opera (1756–60), had ballets staged at the Théâtre de la Foire, and was choreographer at the Comédie-Française (1759–60). He may also be the Jean Baptiste H. who danced and choreographed in Lyons and Turin for various seasons between 1761 and 1781. His adopted son was Eugene H. (orig. Pierre-Louis Stapleton , b Brussels, 1758, d Brussels, 1823) who danced in Lyons, Paris, and Bordeaux and became founder director of the ballet company at Brussels' Théâtre de la Monnaie in 1815. Auguste's brother Pierre H., also known as Pietro, was director of the ballet school and choreographer at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples. Pierre's son Auguste (1820–50) danced widely in Italy and Vienna and directed the ballet school at La Scala.

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Hutchinson , Ann

(b New York, 3 Nov. 1918).
US dancer and dance notator. She studied with Jooss and Leeder at Dartington (1936–9) then moved to New York where she continued her training with Graham , Limón , Tudor , and others. She appeared in modern dance concerts and on Broadway, then concentrated on research into dance notation, specializing in Labanotation and working closely with Laban when she returned to England in 1947. She was co-founder and president of the New York Dance Notation Bureau (1940–61) and co-founder of the International Council of Kinetography Laban in 1961. During her long career she has notated many major works and taught notation at New York School of Performing Arts, at Juilliard School and in London where she has lived since 1962. She is author of Labanotation (New York, 1954, revised edition, 1970) and in 1987 she started the Language of Dance series, which has published major new scores such as Nijinsky's ‘Faune’ Restored, and several books on notation and issues surrounding its practice. She is married to dance writer Ivor Guest.

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Hynd , Ronald (orig. Ronald Hens ;

b London, 22 Apr. 1931).
British dancer, choreographer, and ballet director. He studied with Rambert and danced with Ballet Rambert (1949–52) before moving to Sadler's Wells (later Royal Ballet, 1952–70). Although never a top-rank classical dancer he was a highly versatile performer and after being appointed soloist in 1954 created roles in many ballets, including Cranko's Prince of the Pagodas (1957) and Antigone (1960), and danced with Margot Fonteyn's World Tour (1963). He choreographed his first work in 1968, Stravinsky's Le Baiser de la fée for Dutch National Ballet (revived London Festival Ballet, 1974) and from 1970 to 1973 and 1984 to 1986 was ballet director for the Bavarian State Opera Ballet, Munich. Otherwise he has worked as a freelance choreographer with LFB (later English National Ballet) for various seasons between 1970 and 1993 as well as for Houston Ballet and others. A fluent choreographer with a light, popular touch, his ballets spring from a wide range of score and subjects, and include Dvoák Variations (mus Dvoák , LFB, 1970), Charlotte Brontë (mus. Young , Royal Ballet New Group, 1974), The Merry Widow (mus. Lehár , arr. Lanchbery , Australian Ballet, 1975), The Sanguine Fan (mus. Elgar ), and The Nutcracker (mus. Tchaikovsky ; both for LFB, 1976), Rosalinda (mus. J. Strauss , PACT Ballet, 1978, rev. LFB, 1979), Papillon (mus. Offenbach , Houston Ballet, 1979, rev. Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet, 1980), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (mus. Berlioz , arr. Lanchbery , Houston Ballet, 1988), Les Liaisons amoureuses (mus. Offenbach , arr. Davis , Northern Ballet Theatre, 1989), and The Sleeping Beauty (mus. Tchaikovsky , ENB, 1993). He married the former dancer Annette Page.

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I

Ibert , Jacques

(b Paris, 15 Aug. 1890, d Paris, 6 Feb. 1960).
French composer who wrote several scores for dance including Nijinska's Les Rencontres (Paris, 1925), R. Page's Gold Standard (Chicago, 1934), Fokine's Diane de Poitiers (Paris, 1934), Petit's Les Amours de Jupiter (Paris, 1934), and Lifar's Escales (Paris, 1948), and Le Chevalier errant (Paris, 1950). He also wrote the music for the Circus number in Gene Kelly's film Invitation to the Dance (1952). Various choreographers have set dances to his Divertissement, including W. Gore (in Street Games, New Ballet Co., 1952), M. Pink (London Festival Ballet, 1981), and M. Morris (in Lucky Charms 1994). P. Wright choreographed his Quintet for woodwind (Stuttgart, 1963).

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Icare.

Ballet in one act with choreography and rhythms by Lifar , instrumentation by G. Szyfer , and design by P. Larthes . Premiered 9 July 1935 at Paris Opera with Lifar . Lifar's retelling of the Icarus myth is essentially a solo danced against the choral movement of a group. It shows Icarus' attempts to fly and his tragic fall after he flies too close to the sun. Lifar's rhythm score (performed by a range of percussion instruments) was an attempt to free dance from the dictates of music. It was revived in 1962 with new designs by Picasso . Other dance treatments of the myth include L. Hoving (mus. Shin-Ichi Matsushita , 1963), V. Vasiliev (mus. S. Slonimsky , Bolshoi Ballet, 1971), and Arpino (in The Relativity of Icarus, mus. G. Samuel , New York, 1974).

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ice dancing.

The speed, rhythm, and fluency of skating are all qualities associated with dance, and dancing on ice, either solo or in couples, has a long social history (Samuel Pepys is recorded as dancing with Nell Gwyn on the Thames during the Great Frost of 1683). The modern form of ice dance, i.e. skating based on ballroom dances, was introduced in Vienna in 1868 by the US skater Jackson Haines , and for decades vied for prominence with the figure-based skating popular in Britain. Since the Second World War ice dance has been established world-wide as a professional sport and performance art, with the first World Championships being held in 1952. Competitions include compulsory dances, in which specific ballroom dances are performed with the dancers also tracing a set pattern on the ice, and original dances. These have incorporated an increasing range of elements from ballroom dance, disco, and classical dance. Ice dancers are judged on the same qualities of grace, line, co-ordination, and invention that are expected from floor-bound dancers, although in some competition events there can be a tension between the aesthetic content of the work and the need to display the appropriate range of skating techniques. It has been individual dancers rather than choreographers who have tended to advance the form most radically, for example the Russians Oleg and Lyudmila Protopopov who took the World Championships by storm in 1962 with their (then) startling use of classical adage and big Soviet-style lifts. In 1976 John Curry won the European, World, and Olympic titles with performances heavily based on the idiom of classical ballet. His choreography was a serious interpretation of the music and within the limits imposed by ice and skating boots he introduced a range of classical jumps, turns, batterie, and ports de bras. He was equally successful in the theatre. Tharp choreographed the performances he gave at Madison Square Garden, New York (Nov. 1976), and Darrell and MacMillan both choreographed solos for his Theatre of Skating which was premiered on 27 Dec. 1976 at Cambridge Theatre, London. In 1984 Torvill and Dean's Olympic winning duet Bolero (mus. Ravel ) took ice dance to new heights of dramatic expression, although some of Dean's innovations, such as guiding his partner by her leg or skate were deemed illegal in subsequent amateur competitions. Professional competitions which became popular during the 1980s allowed for much freer styles of choreography. During the 1990s ice dance versions of musicals became very popular, for example The Phantom of the Opera.
While ice dancing has been influenced by the theatre, dance choreographers have in turn exploited the poetry of ice dance for the stage, such as Ashton in Les Patineurs (1937), which mimics the swooping flight of skaters and their fluent turns as well as mining the comic potential for falls. In 1996 Christopher Dean choreographed Encounters for English National Ballet, a work which did not take skating as its subject, but which did draw choreographically on Dean's own ice dance style.

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Iceland.

Due to its relative geographical isolation, ballet did not arrive in the country until the 1930s when Asta Nordmann returned from study overseas to set up a school. Productions choreographed by herself and performed by her students were performed in Reykjavik. The National Theatre was opened in 1950 and a ballet school founded in 1952. Helgi Tomasson was trained there. The professional Icelandic Dance Company was founded by Alan Carter in 1973, with ten dancers trained in ballet, folk, and modern dance. In 1975 they staged Coppélia. Carter was succeeded in 1975 by Natalia Conus who introduced stylistic elements from the Bolshoi. Later choreographers to work with the company have included Yuri Chatal , Dolin , Jochen Ulrich , and Nanna Ólafsdóttir , who staged her own version of Daphnis and Chloe in 1985, the first full-length ballet by an Icelander.

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Ice Maiden, The (orig. Russ. title Ledyanaya deva).

Ballet in three acts with choreography by Lopukhov , music by Grieg (mostly from Peer Gynt, arr. Asafiev ), and design by Golovin . Premiered 27 Apr. 1927 by GATOB (later the Kirov) in Leningrad, with Mungalova and Gusev . It tells the story of an ice maiden, who, disguised as a beautiful woman, lures men to their deaths. Its style was considered seminal in its mix of classical ballet, authentic folk dance, and bold acrobatics. An earlier, less successful version, Solveig, was choreographed by P. N. Petrov using the same music and design (GATOB, 1922) and a later version (after Lopukhov) by Gusev (Novosibirsk, 1964).

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Idzikowski , Stanislas (also spelled Stanislas Idzikowsky ;

b Warsaw, 1894, d London, 12 Feb. 1977).
Polish-British dancer and teacher. He studied with Cecchetti and made his debut with London Empire Theatre Ballet in 1911 in the musical New York. In 1912 he danced with Pavlova's company, in 1913 with the Imperial Russian Ballet of T. and A. Kosloff , and in 1914 he joined Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. Though unusually short, he was a dazzling virtuoso with an extraordinary jump and took over many of Nijinsky's roles as well as creating roles in Massine's The Good-Humoured Ladies (1917), Les Contes russes (1917), La Boutique fantasque (1919), Le Tricorne (1919), and Pulcinella (1920), also in Balanchine's Jack in the Box (1926) and the Blue Bird in the 1921 production of The Sleeping Princess. He left the company in 1924 to dance with Lopokova at the Coliseum and with Comte de Beaumont's ‘Soirées de Paris’, then rejoined Diaghilev (1925–9). He directed his own company from 1929 to 1930 and was then guest artist with Vic-Wells Ballet (1933–4). From 1933 he also taught in London and was author (with C. W. Beaumont ) of A Manual of Classical Theatrical Dancing (London, 1922).

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Illuminations.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Ashton , music by Britten , and design by Beaton . Premiered 2 Mar. 1950 by New York City Ballet at City Center, New York, with Magallanes , Hayden , and LeClercq . It is set to Britten's Les Illuminations, itself a setting of poems by Rimbaud , and is constructed as a series of quasi-surreal dance-vignettes portraying aspects of the poet's life, loves, and imagination. It was commissioned by Balanchine and was Ashton's first ballet for a US company. It was revived for Joffrey Ballet (1980) and for Royal Ballet (1981). Other choreographers who have used the same music include T. Gsovsky (Berlin Opera Ballet, 1961), Norman Walker (Berlin Opera Ballet, 1969), and Alston (in Rumours, Visions, Richard Alston Dance Co., 1996).

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Imperial Ballets.

See Bolshoi Ballet and Kirov Ballet.

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Imperiale Accademia di Ballo.

The ballet school attached to La Scala di Milano. Founded by B. Ricci in 1812, it was reformed by Blasis when he became director in 1837 and became one of Europe's foremost schools, producing Grisi , Cerrito , Legnani , and Zucchi , among others. Cecchetti was also a pupil and was director from 1928 to 1933.

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Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing.

Society founded in 1904 to supervise teachers of ballroom and other types of dance from around the (then) British empire. It conducts its own examinations and issues diplomas to teachers (either Member or Fellow of ISTD) in over 40 countries world-wide. The Cecchetti Society was incorporated in 1924 and the Greek Dance Association in 1951, and it now has ten faculties each specializing in different forms of theatrical, recreational, and social dance.

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Imre , Zoltán

(b Jánoshalma, 1943, d Budapest, 30 June 1997).
Hungarian dancer, choreographer, and director. He studied at the Hungarian State Ballet Institute and danced with Szeged National Theatre (1961–8), choreographing his first work for the company, Composition (mus. Bach ), in 1966. He was then soloist with Tanzforum Köln (1971–4) after which he moved to Ballet Rambert where he was soloist, choreographer, and company assistant (1974–8). He choreographed two works for the company, including The Accident (mus. Imre and Crosby , 1977). In 1986 he returned as choreographer and artistic consultant to the newly reformed Szeged Ballet company creating Stabat Mater (mus. Pergolesi , 1988) and Dream About Kafka (1992), among other works. He was also artistic director of the company from 1990 to 1993.

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Inbal

(Heb., clapper of a bell). The National Ballet and Dance Theatre of Israel, founded by Sara Levi-Tanai in 1949. Its aim was originally to preserve Yemenite songs and dances, with The Yemenite Wedding as one of Levi-Tanai's most popular productions, but later elements from other folk traditions were incorporated. It made its London debut in 1957 and New York in 1958. In 1992 Levi-Tanai was retired from the company and replaced by Rena Sharett , then in 1994 by Margalit Oved . In 1996 the company's status was changed to that of a multicultural folk arts centre, which has subsequently presented reconstructions of Levi-Tanai works.

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Indes galantes, Les.

Opera ballet, originally performed with prologue, two entrées, and epilogue (its third entrée was added two days after the first performance and its fourth entrée added a year later), with choreography by M. Blondy (probably), music by Rameau , design by Servandoni , and libretto by Louis Fuzelier . Premiered 23 Aug. 1735 at Paris Opera. It tells four love stories, each from a different part of the world: ‘Le Turc généreux’, ‘Les Incas du Pérou’, ‘Les Fleurs’, and ‘Les Sauvages’. Sallé had a personal triumph in the third entrée (which she probably also choreographed) but though the work enjoyed a popular success it was dropped from the repertory in 1771. It was revived in 1952 in a spectacular production mounted by Maurice Lehmann . The prologue, ‘Le Palais d'Hébé’, was choreographed by Aveline with design by Dupont , and the subsequent entrées were ‘Le Turc généreux’ (chor. Aveline , des. Wakhevitch ), ‘Les Incas’ (chor. Lifar , des. Carzou ), ‘Les Fleurs’ (chor. H. Lander , des. Fost and Moulène), and ‘Les Sauvages’ (chor. Lifar , des. Chapelain-Midy ). It was premiered 18 June at Paris Opera with Vyroubova , Darsonval , Daydé, Lifar , Kalioujny , and Renault .

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India.

The classical dance forms of India and Pakistan evolved as vehicles for portraying the characters and stories of the gods. Shiva is known as the Lord of the Dance and according to Hindu legend created heaven and earth when he performed his Dance of Creation. Bharata's treatise the Natya Shastra was written c.200 BC–AD 300 and its guidelines on dance, drama, and music acquired the status of holy writ. The main dance forms are bharata natyam from S. India, kathakali from W. India, manipuri from NE India, kuchipudi from SE India, odissi from Orissa, and kathak from N. India and Pakistan. While these ancient dance forms were frequently degraded under colonial rule, the 20th century saw a major renaissance of standards in both teaching and performance. Pavlova learnt Indian dance from Uday Shankar and performed the duet Radha and Krishna with him in 1923, but the most influential performer in the West for many years was Ram Gopal . On his many tours from the late 1930s through to the 1970s he initiated a new international audience to the aesthetic of Indian dance and also performed with Markova . Today classical Indian dance is taught and performed in many countries and a new generation of artists has begun to evolve contemporary versions of classical forms. British-based Shobana Jeyasingh has brought aspects of Western modern dance to her choreographic idiom while Chandralekha has turned to martial arts and yoga for new influences. Among younger choreographers based in India there is wide experimentation with new music, a marked modernization of costume and stage manner, and a tendency to work with ensembles rather than soloists.

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Indonesia.

The diverse ethnic population of the nation is reflected in the rich variety of its traditional dance forms. These range from the stylized refinement of Javanese court dances to animal- and nature-inspired rituals. The best-known dance traditions originate from Bali and Central Java, and reflect Hindu/Buddhist influences from India. In Balinese dance forms, both theatrical and ceremonial, the dancer's stylized facial expressions and articulate gestures are reminiscent of Indian dance, although they adopt a more fixed posture of the body. In the many dance theatre forms, like topéng and barong, masks are a dominant feature. Literary sources for Balinese dance theatre draw on many aspects of S. and SE Asian tradition.
In Javanese court dances hand movements are unusually harmonious and delicate and the dancers' phrasing is extremely smooth, lacking stamping or percussive rhythms. Javanese dance theatre embraces many different genres, including wayang wong, which features the use of puppets, wayang topéng which uses masks, and langendria which is a form of dance opera.

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Indrani , Rehman

(b Madras, 19 Sept. 1930, d 5 Feb. 1999).
Indian dancer. She studied with her mother, Ragini Devi , and made her debut in Devi's company. Later in her career she developed her knowledge of less-well-known styles of Indian dance such as Odissi, and her international tours helped to win world-wide knowledge of and respect for the range of Indian dance.

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Inglesby , Mona (orig. Mona Kimberly ;

b London, 1918).
She studied with Rambert , Craske , and Egorova and danced with Ballet Club, Ballet Rambert (where she danced Papillon in Carnaval) and Dandré's Russian Ballet in 1939. In 1940 she founded her own International Ballet, which toured widely in the UK and Europe until it was disbanded in 1953. She was the company's director, choreographer, and principal ballerina, excelling in demi-caractère roles like Swanilda. Her own works included Endymion (mus. Moszkowski , 1941) and the choreography for Leslie French's production, Everyman (mus. R. Strauss , 1943). She retired in 1953.

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Initials R.B.M.E.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Cranko , music by Brahms , and design by Rose . Premiered 18 Jan. 1972 by Stuttgart Ballet, Stuttgart. This plotless setting of Brahms 2nd Piano Concerto is named after the four leading dancers at Stuttgart who danced its principal roles—Richard Cragun , Birgit Keil , Marcia Haydée , and Egon Madsen .

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Intermezzo.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Feld , music by Brahms , and design by Stanley Simmons . Premiered 29 June 1969 by American Ballet Company in Spoleto with Sarry , Lee , Stirling , Sowinski , Figueroa , and Coll . This romantic, plotless setting of Brahms's piano music Opp. 39, 117, No. 3 and 118, No. 3 is danced by three couples with the pianist as part of the action. It has been revived for National Ballet of Canada and American Ballet Theatre (both 1972) and Stuttgart Ballet (1975).

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International Ballet.

British ballet company. It was founded by M. Inglesby in 1940 and gave its first performance 19 May 1941 in Glasgow. It appeared in London every year and toured widely in the UK and Europe. Inglesby was chief choreographer, but the repertory also included ballets by Fokine (Les Sylphides and Carnaval), Howard , and Turner , as well as productions of classics like Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, and Coppélia in productions mounted by N. Sergeyev and based on the notations he took with him from St Petersburg. Turner, Shearer, Franca, and Arova were among its dancers. It closed in 1953.

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International Ballet Caravan.

See Roy , Alexander.

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International Course for Professional Choreographers and Composers.

Course established in 1979 as a successor to the National Choreographic Summer School, embracing international as well as British-based participants. It was held at the University of Surrey until 1990, and then at Bretton Hall, W. Yorkshire, and allowed composers and choreographers to collaborate over a two-week period. Course directors have included G. Tetley (1979), M. Cunningham and J. Cage (1981). It aims to run annually, with some exceptions.

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International Dance Council.

Institution founded in Paris in 1973 under the auspices of UNESCO as a forum for the exchange of ideas and developments in dance, and to protect the rights of choreographers.

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Interplay.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Robbins , music by M. Gould , and design by Carl Kent . Premiered 1 June 1945 as part of Billy Rose's Concert Varieties review at Ziegfeld Theatre, New York, with Kriza , Reed , Kidd , and Robbins . This setting of Gould's American Concertette was Robbins's second ballet. It is a celebration of carefree youth, and its four movements are titled Free Play, Horseplay, Byplay, and Teamplay. It was quickly taken into the repertory of Ballet Theatre, with new designs by Oliver Smith , and it has been revived for New York City Ballet (1952), Joffrey Ballet (1972), Royal Danish Ballet (1977), and San Francisco Ballet (1990), among others.

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In the Memory of.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Robbins and music by Berg . Premiered 13 June 1985 by New York City Ballet at New York State Theater. It is set to Berg's elegy to his daughter, and was choreographed after Balanchine's death. It contains the last major role created for Farrell.

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In the middle somewhat elevated.

Ballet in one act with choreography and design by Forsythe and music by Thom Willems . Premiered 30 May 1987 by Paris Opera, Paris, with Guillem and Hilaire . It is a virtuoso piece of plotless dance in which classical lines are flamboyantly distorted and classical decorum yields to a mood of aggressive cool. It was later performed as the centrepiece of a larger work, Impressing the Tsar, flanked by three surreal theatrical sections. In Potemkin's Signature (part 1) one area of the stage is covered by a giant chessboard chequered by miniature towers around which the dancers enact a quasihistorical pageant, while in Bongo Bongo Nageela (part 4) a group of schoolgirls, who appeared in part 1, return to dance around the corpse of Apollo. The full version was premiered by Frankfurt Ballet, Frankfurt , 1988 with music by Willems , Beethoven , Stuck , and Crossman-Hecht. The one-act version entered the repertory of the Royal Ballet in 1992.

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In the Night.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Robbins , music by Chopin , design by Joe Eula , and lighting by Thomas Skelton . Premiered 29 Jan. 1970 by New York City Ballet at State Theater, New York, with Mazzo , Verdy , McBride , Blum , Martins , and Moncion and pianist G. Boelzner . Robbins's setting of Chopin's piano nocturnes (Opp. 27, No. 1, 55, Nos. 1 and 2, and 9, No. 2) portrays the relationships of three couples, evoking moods that range from romantic serenity to agitation and aggression before the six dancers are united for a final ensemble. It is often considered as an extension to Dances at a Gathering, made a year before. It has been revived for Royal Ballet (1973), National Ballet of Cuba (1978), San Francisco Ballet (1985), Australian Ballet (1985), Houston Ballet (1986), and Paris Opera (1989).

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In the Upper Room.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Tharp , music by Glass , design by Norma Kamali , and lighting by Tipton . Premiered 28 Aug. 1986 at the Ravinia Festival, Illinois, with Tharp, Washington, and Bishton. It is one of Tharp's most popular works, contrasting the power and energy of modern dance with the speed and aerial dexterity of a more classical language. It has been revived by several companies including American Ballet Theatre (1989) and Birmingham Royal Ballet (1999).

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Intimate Letters.

Janáek's 2nd String Quartet, to which several choreographers have set works, including P. Smok (1968), H. King (Scottish Ballet, 1978), L. Seymour (Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet, 1978), Kylián (Royal Swedish Ballet, 1980), and Mark Baldwin (London, 1997).

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Invitation, The.

Ballet in one act with choreography and libretto by MacMillan , music by Matyas Seiber , and design by Georgiadis . Premiered 10 Nov. 1960 by the Touring Royal Ballet, New Theatre, Oxford, with Seymour , Gable , Heaton , and Doyle . It is inspired by B. Guido's The House of the Angel and Colette's Le Blé en herbe and with sometimes shocking realism portrays a young couple's sexual initiation by an older married couple, ending with the older man's rape of the girl. Its graphic style and stark emotional material represented a seminal departure from the decorative fantasies that then prevailed among ballet librettos. It has been revived for Royal Ballet (1962) and Berlin Opera Ballet (1966).

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Invitation to the Dance.

Ballet film by G. Kelly which was produced in 1952 but not released until 1956. Its three parts are titled ‘Circus’ (mus. Ibert , with Sombart , Kelly , and Youskevitch ), ‘Ring around the Rosy’ (mus. A. Previn , with Paltenghi , Dale , Youskevitch , Bessy , D. Adams , and Toumanova ), and ‘Sinbad the Sailor’ (mus. Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade adapted by R. Eden , a mix of cartoon and live dance with Kelly and D. Kasady ).

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Iran.

Western dance took root in Iran during the 1950s. In the early 1950s the American Nila Cram-Cook formed a small company which danced in Persian style but used Western music. In 1958 a ballet academy was founded by Nejad and Aida Ahmadzadeh at the request of the Minister for Culture. From this a company developed rapidly, with the aid of Dollar and de Valois who sent Ann Cock , M. Zolan , S. Vane , and Marion English to teach and stage ballet productions. In 1967/8 this was established as the Iranian National Ballet. The director, de Warren , left in 1971 to study the folk traditions of the country and, under the sponsorship of the Empress Farah , formed the Mahalli Dancers of Iran company which preserved and performed native Iranian dances. Both companies were dissolved after the revolution of 1979.

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Iranian National Ballet.

The resident dance company of Roudaki Hall Opera House in Teheran. It was founded 1967/8 and sponsored in part by the Iranian Ministry of Culture and Arts, under the artistic direction of Robert de Warren . It began with a dozen dancers and by 1978 had expanded to 46, one-third being Iranian. The repertory had works by Ailey and Cullberg as well as several classics. Heaton staged Giselle in 1970 and Coppélia in 1971 and Chabukiani mounted Swan Lake in 1970–1. De Warren left in 1971 and was succeeded by A. Ahmadzadeh and later by Ali Pourfarrokh . It was dissolved after the revolution of 1979.

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Ireland.

Ireland's most famous dance personality is Ninette de Valois , who spent most of her working life in England, but did form an eight-year collaboration with the Abbey Theatre (1926–34) in which she notably staged some plays by Yeats and also set up the short-lived Abbey School of Ballet. In 1945 Joan Denise Moriarty set up a ballet school in Cork, from which emerged the semi-professional Cork Ballet Company. It gave its first performance at the Cork Opera House in June 1947 and had annual seasons there, often with guest artists. During the 1960s there were two unsuccessful attempts to found permanent professional ballet companies but both failed due to lack of funds. In 1974 Moriarty founded the state-funded fully professional Irish Ballet Company, which became the Irish National Ballet in 1983. She created several works for it including The Playboy of the Western World (mus. Sean O'Riada , 1978). Domi Reiter-Stoffer was artistic adviser from 1974 to 1989 and created several works for the company including Lady of the Camellias (mus. Saint-Saëns , 1984). In 1986 Vourenjuuri-Robinson took over as director but in 1989 the Irish Arts Council withdrew funding from it, as well as from Dublin Contemporary Dance Theatre, and both companies folded. In 1997 Anne Maher founded Ballet Ireland in Dublin, to try to re-establish classical ballet in the city, while Cork City Ballet, under the direction of Alan Foley, performs a small repertory of classical excerpts and some modern ballets by Bigonzettti and others. There are several modern dance groups but John Scott's Irish Modern Dance Theatre (1991) and CoisCéim (1995) are among the few to have attained a high profile. The country's best-known dance activity is Irish step dance which acquired huge international popularity during the 1990s through the hit show Riverdance and its various stage spin-offs.

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Irving , Robert

(b Winchester, 28 Aug. 1913, d Winchester, 13 Sept. 1991).
British ballet conductor. He was musical director of Sadler's Wells and the Royal Ballet from 1949 to 1958 before moving to New York City Ballet. He was considered to be one of the world's finest modern ballet conductors, and also conducted for Graham's company.

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Isadora.

Ballet in two acts with choreography by MacMillan , libretto by Gillian Freeman , music by Richard Rodney Bennett , and design by B. Kay . Premiered 30 Apr. 1981 by the Royal Ballet, Covent Garden, London, with M. Park/Mary Miller , L. Connor , J. Hosking , D. Rencher , R. MacGibbon , and S. Jefferies . In this ballet based on the life of Isadora Duncan, the title role is divided between a dancer and an actress who speaks a text based on quotations from Duncan's memoirs. It is considered one of MacMillan's less successful full-length ballets and is rarely performed.

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Israel.

Ballet performances date back to the 1920s when Rina Nikova , a Russian émigrée dancer, founded her own company in Jerusalem and staged classically based works with biblical themes. During the 1930s settlers from central Europe like Gertrud Kraus and Tilla Rossler established some modern dance activity via various studios and solo performances and vigorously opposed the establishment of classical dance as being out of sympathy with the country's character. The 1930s also saw the origins of a folk dance movement, by Rivka Sturman , Gurit Kadman , and others, who drew on Arab and Druze steps as well as their own choreographic invention to create dances that symbolized the link between the new Jewish settlers and the land. The most successful use of indigenous dance forms was that of Sara Levi-Tanai who founded the Inbal Dance Theatre in 1949. At the beginning she fused modern ballet technique with the softer, grounded style of Yemenite dance but later drew on a wider range of folk traditions. After the late 1940s American modern dance became a major influence with the arrival of some US dancers in Israel and trips by Israeli dancers to study at New York's Juilliard School and with Graham . Kraus and Talley Beatty formed the short-lived Israel Ballet Theatre in 1951 and Anna Sokolow staged several works for the Lyrical Theatre (1962–4). Most of the latter's dancers joined the Batsheva Dance Company which was founded by Bethsabee de Rothschild in 1964, and was the first permanent professional modern dance company in Israel. Its style was grounded in Graham technique and it had works by Graham , Sokolow , Cranko , Tetley , Robbins , Cohan , Butler , and Morrice in its repertory. It has been sponsored by the State since 1974. Batsheva is currently run by Ohad Naharin whose choreography has a distinctive surreal theatricality. In 1968 Rothschild founded a second company, the Bat-Dor Dance Company, with Jeannette Ordman as its artistic director. Batsheva lost its right to perform the Graham repertoire after Graham died, though Bat-Dor has now been licensed to stage her works.
In 1967 the Classical Ballet Company, now the Israel Ballet, was formed by B. Yampolsky and Hillel Markman and other classical dance was encouraged by the introduction of the English RAD syllabus into dance teaching and the opening of the Russian-oriented Haifa dance centre in 1969 by Lisa Schubert . She also founded the Piccolo Ballet in 1975. In more recent years a number of small dance companies have emerged despite the disruptions caused to arts activity by ongoing hostilities with the Arab states. The Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company, based in Tel Aviv from the late 1960s, began as a repertory company but now largely performs work by its resident choreographer Rami Be'er (who was also appointed director in 1997), including the full-length work Black Angels made in 1992 to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain. In 1993 the company was the first Israeli group to dance in Beijing. Koldemema (Voice of Silence) was founded in 1975 by ex-Batsheva dancer and choreographer Moshe Efrat . In 1992 the performing duo Liat Dror and Nir Ben-Gal expanded to an ensemble and have established an international reputation with their European style of hard-edged risk-taking choreography. The dance scene has been lively and various enough to sustain the annual Karmiel Dance Festival, established in 1987.

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Israel Ballet, The.

Tel Aviv-based ballet company. It was founded as a small chamber group in 1967, under the direction of Berta Yampolsky and Hillel Markman , who had previously danced with Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. In 1973 it expanded dramatically with the incorporation of fifteen Jewish-American dancers and its 30-plus dancers now perform a repertoire which ranges from classic diver-tissements to Balanchine, Charrat, Spoerli, and work by Israeli choreographers such as Yampolsky and Domi Reiter-Stoffer . The company tours regularly abroad.

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Istomina , Avdotia

(b St Petersburg, 17 Jan. 1799, d St Petersburg, 8 July 1848).
Russian dancer. She studied with Didelot at the Imperial Theatre School, St Petersburg and made her debut as Galatée (a role she created) in his Acis and Galatea (1816). A dancer with an outstanding technique for her time, famed for her speed, elevation, and pirouettes, she was also a fine actress and created leading roles in several of Didelot's ballets, including Cora and Alonso (1820), Alcestis (1821), and The Prisoner of the Caucasus (1823). She was also renowned for her performances in Zéphire et Flore. Pushkin described her glowingly in the opening chapter of Eugene Onegin and also wrote the ballet libretto Les Deux Danseuses with her in mind. She also frequently appeared in vaudeville and drama, retiring from the stage in 1836. She died of cholera.

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Italy.

Considered to be the birthplace of ballet. From the early 15th century most Italian courts employed a dancing master and the first dance treatises were also published in Italy, including De arte saltandi et choreas ducendi by Domenico da Piacenza , c.1450–60. The lavish court entertainments choreographed by these dancing masters often became famous, such as Bergonzio di Botta's ‘dinner ballet’ staged at Tortona in 1489, and were the inspiration for the ballet de cour which subsequently flourished in France. This new form of spectacle overshadowed Italian activity (even though some of its most important artists were Italians working in France, such as Balthasar de Beaujoyeux who staged La Ballet comique de la reine in 1581). When ballet moved from the courts into the theatre, Milan emerged as the main centre with the opening of the Scala Theatre in 1778 and particularly with the engagement of Viganò as ballet master (from 1812 until his death). The Imperial Academy of Dancing was established in 1813 and when Blasis became director in 1837 it became one of the finest schools in the world, producing ballerinas of the stature of Cerrito , Fuoco , Ferraris , Rosati , and Legnani . During the 1830s and 1840s La Scala became one of the world centres of Romantic ballet. Cerrito , Elssler , Taglioni , and Grisi often appeared there; Luigi Henry's La silfide was seen in 1828 (four years earlier than Taglioni's in Paris); A. Cortesi choreographed a Giselle with new music by Bajetti in 1843; M. Taglioni staged her version of Perrot's Pas de quatre in 1846; and Perrot choreographed his Faust in 1848. But this activity was not confined to Milan. In Naples ballet performances dated back to 1737 with the opening of the Teatro San Carlo. Here the public was sufficiently enthusiastic to fight over rival dancers Beccari and Sabatini and during the first years of the 19th century were presented with over 40 new ballets created by Gaetano Gioia . Standards were raised by the opening of a ballet school attached to the San Carlo in 1812 under the direction of P. Hus . S. Taglioni was later director and was also an acclaimed choreographer, and Grisi began her career at the theatre in 1835. In Rome there was little significant ballet activity during the 18th century but during the Romantic period it, too, attracted visits from ballerinas like Cerrito , Grisi , Elssler , Taglioni , and Grahn , and in other cities like Venice, Turin, and Florence, visiting ballerinas and ballet masters worked for occasional seasons. During the second half of the century, however, ballet declined as it became overshadowed by opera. In Milan many well-known ballet masters were engaged at La Scala, including P. Taglioni and H. Monplaisir as were many star ballerinas such as Zucchi and Legnani , but the latter worked mostly abroad due to the lack of creative energy and enthusiasm left in Italy. Manzotti's spectacular productions, such as Excelsior (1881), revived some enthusiasm as did Brianza's appearance in her own production of The Sleeping Beauty, but these did not halt the decline. In Rome, too, there were brief revivals of interest with productions of Excelsior in 1883 and Saint-Léon's Coppélia in 1885, but there was no continuity of performance tradition and this trend continued throughout Italy into the 20th century. Diaghilev's Ballets Russes visited Rome in 1911 and 1917 but were not greatly appreciated and though Cecchetti was appointed director of the La Scala school he did not have any lasting influence. At La Scala Ballet there was a rapid turnover of ballet masters and choreographers but none stayed long enough to establish a clear identity—especially as the ballet (as in all Italian opera houses) had to serve opera productions. In Rome the ballet school of the Teatro dell'Opera was founded in 1928 and between 1934 and 1960 the company, under the alternating direction of R. Romanov and Milloss , staged several productions of the classics. Since then, however, ballet masters have lasted no longer than one or two seasons and at Naples and Florence (where recent directors have included Armitage and David Bombana ) activity is similarly sporadic. Italy has produced only a few internationally known choreographers, such as Massimo Moricone , Bigonzetti , and Virgilio Sieni . One of its most influential figures in recent years has been Fracci , via her own performances and also her attempts, with Menegatti and Gai , to run touring companies. Other major features of the Italian scene have been the international festivals such as Nervi-Genoa, Verona, Spoleto, and Castiglioncello which at various times have strongly promoted dance. Some small independent companies have succeeded in challenging the more stagnant opera house companies notably Aterballetto which is resident at Teatro Valli, Balletto di Toscana, and Milan Ballet (founded 1997), but modern dance has not flourished in comparison with other European countries. Small groups tend to come and go, finding little official support. The Olympic Dance Company formed in 1996, under the direction of Gillian Whittingham and including dancers Alessandro Molin and Gheorghe Iancu , has attempted an ambitious fusion of modern and classical repertory with works by Wayne Macgregor , C. Carlson , and M. Hodson .

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Ito , Michio

(b Tokyo, 13 Apr. 1892, d Tokyo, 6 Nov. 1961).
Japanese dancer and choreographer. He studied art in Europe and after seeing Nijinsky and Duncan perform in 1911, he went to Hellerau-Dresden to study with Dalcroze and later to London. He made his debut at the Coliseum in 1915 and in 1916 went to New York where he worked until 1929 after which he was in Los Angeles until 1942 and then in Tokyo. His musical, impressionistic works were described by him as dance poems, and early on in his career he collaborated with both W. B. Yeats and Ezra Pound .

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Ivanov , Lev

(b Moscow, 2 Mar. 1834, d St Petersburg, 11 Dec. 1901).
Russian dancer, ballet master, choreographer, and teacher. He studied in Moscow and then at the Imperial Theatre School, St Petersburg, making his debut with the Imperial Theatre while still a student in 1850 (he graduated in 1852). A hard-working dancer with a prodigious memory and unusual musicality, he was given leading parts from 1858 and finally promoted premier danseur in 1869, performing classical and character roles. He began teaching in 1858 at the lower school of the Imperial Theatre School, and was appointed regisseur in 1882, then second ballet master under Petipa in 1885. His first ballet was choreographed in 1885–a new version of Hertel's La Fille mal gardée–and this was followed by Tulip of Haarlem (mus. Schel , 1887) and various small pieces including the Polovtsian Dances for Borodin's opera Prince Igor (1890). (These so impressed Fokine that he incorporated them into his own later version.) In 1892 he choreographed The Nutcracker, taking over its detailed scenario from Petipa who had become ill. Though his handling of the ballet was controversial, the lyrical choreography for the Snowflakes prefigures his contribution to Swan Lake. A year later he choreographed The Magic Flute (mus. Drigo ) and Cinderella (with Petipa and Cecchetti , mus. Fitinhof-Schel ). In 1894 he choreographed Act II of Swan Lake for a Tchaikovsky memorial matinée and this was so successful that Petipa decided to stage the whole ballet (which had been produced in Moscow in 1877 and 1882 but then dropped). For the new 1895 version Ivanov choreographed the two lakeside acts (II and IV) which remain his greatest contribution to ballet, eloquently musical, and rich in compositional invention and dramatic imagery (though a few writers have, controversially, attempted to contest his authorship, attributing the entire ballet to Petipa). His other works included Awakening of Flora (mus. Drigo , 1894, chor. in collaboration with Petipa ), Acis and Galathea (mus. A. Kadletz , 1896), The Daughter of the Mikado (mus. Vrangel , 1897), and new versions of Perrot's Marcobomba and Saint-Léon's Graziella (both 1899). He died while collaborating with P. Gerdt on Delibes's Sylvia.

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Ivan the Terrible (orig. Russ. title Ivan Grozny).

Ballet in two acts with choreography by Grigorovich , music by Prokofiev (taken from Eisenstein's film of the same title, with excerpts from his 3rd Symphony and Alexander Nevsky, arr. by M. Chulaki ), and design by Simon Virsaladze . Premiered by the Bolshoi Ballet, Moscow 20 Feb. 1975 with Vladimirov , Bessmertnova , and B. Akimov . It is essentially a portrait of the controversial personality of Ivan IV and, via a series of danced tableaux, shows how Ivan sinks into sadistic cruelty after the poisoning of his beloved wife Anastasia. It has been revived by Paris Opera, 1976.

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Ives , Charles

(b Danbury, Conn., 20 Oct. 1874, d New York, 19 May 1954).
US composer. He wrote no ballet scores but his concert music has been used several times for dance, such as Balanchine's Ivesiana (New York City Ballet, 1954), H. Spoerli's Flowing Landscapes (Basle, 1975), and P. Martins's Calcium Light Night (Spokane, Washington, 1977).

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Ivesiana.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Balanchine , music by Ives , and lighting by Rosenthal . Premiered 14 Sept. 1954 by New York City Ballet at City Center, New York, with Reed , Moncion , Wilde , d'Amboise, Kent , Bolender , D. Adams , Bliss , and LeClercq . Its six original sections were titled ‘Central Park in the Dark’, ‘Hallowe'en’, ‘The Unanswered Question’, ‘Over the Pavements’, ‘In the Inn’, and ‘In the Night’. In a subsequent revision (premiered 16 Mar. 1961) Balanchine dropped the 2nd and 4th sections. It has been revived for Dutch National Ballet (1968) and Berlin Opera (1971).

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Ivo , Ismael

(b São Paulo). Afro-Brazilian dancer. He studied drama and dance in Brazil and performed there as a solo dancer, before being invited to New York by Ailey in 1983. Here he continued creating and performing solo works such as Phoenix (1985) and Delirium of a Childhood (mus. Mahler , 1989), in which the charismatic intensity, and sculptural power of his style brought him an international reputation. From the early 1990s he based his own group Compagnie Ismael Ivo in Stuttgart, presenting works like Othello (jointly chor. with Johann Kresnik , 1995).

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J

Jacobson , Leonid (also spelled Leonid Yakobson ;

b St Petersburg, 15 Jan. 1904, d Moscow, 17 Oct. 1975).
Soviet dancer, choreographer, and ballet master. He came to ballet late, beginning his studies at the age of 16 with evening classes at the Leningrad Ballet School. However, he progressed so quickly that he was soon transferred to day classes; he graduated in 1926 into the GATOB (later the Kirov). He specialized in character roles, although he also began to choreograph early on in his career. His first notable achievement was his collaboration with Kaplan , Vainonen , and Tchesnakov in the first production of Shostakovich's The Golden Age in 1930. His choreography frequently ran foul of the Soviet authorities, who were upset by his determination to be daring and innovative. He was once banned from working for six years. He continued to dance with the Kirov until 1970, although there were several large gaps while he worked elsewhere. He was with the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow from 1933 to 1942 as dancer and choreographer; he also worked as choreographer with the Isadora Duncan studio in Moscow in 1948. His major ballets include Shurale (mus. Yarullin , Kirov, 1950), Solveig (mus. Grieg , Maly Theatre, 1952), and Spartacus (Kirov, 1956), which was the first production to Khatchaturian's score. He created several ballets for the Kirov in the 1960s, including The Bedbug (1962), for which he chose a young Natalia Makarova in the lead, New Love (1963), and Land of Miracles (1967). He was also a popular concert artist, thanks to his skill at acrobatic dance, and created more than 100 concert pieces. It was Jacobson who made Vestris, the solo Baryshnikov danced when he won the International Ballet Competition in Moscow in 1969. One of Jacobson's miniatures was Rodin, with music by Debussy and inspired by Rodin sculptures at the Hermitage. In 1990 it entered the repertoire of San Francisco Ballet. He formed his own company, Choreographic Miniatures, in St Petersburg in 1970, although it appeared abroad as the Jacobson Ballet. After his death it became the State Ballet of Leningrad.

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Jacob's Pillow.

Home of the world-famous Jacob's Pillow Dance festival in Becket, Massachusetts. It was started by Ted Shawn who bought an 18th-century farm named Jacob's Pillow in 1930 and turned it into a summer theatre. Originally the residence of his Men Dancers company, it soon offered summer dance courses and rehearsal facilities. In 1933 it held its first public performance; in 1941 a festival was established there, the first dance festival in the USA. Shawn continued to direct the festival until his death in 1972. Its theatre is named after him. Among the works created there is Tudor's Pillar of Fire (1941). The name Jacob's Pillow refers to a large pillow-shaped boulder on the property.

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Jacobsson , Petter

(b Stockholm, 1963).
Swedish dancer, choreographer, and ballet director. He studied at the Royal Swedish Ballet School (1971–81) and at the Vaganova School in St Petersburg (1981–2). He danced with the Royal Swedish Ballet (1982–3), was soloist with London Festival Ballet (1983), and was principal dancer with Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet (later Birmingham Royal Ballet) from 1985 to 1990, although he continued to appear as a guest artist with the company until 1994. In 1991–2 he made his choreographic debut with Birmingham Royal Ballet when he created Someone. In 1994 he went to New York where he danced with Tharp among others. In 1999 he was appointed artistic director of the Royal Swedish Ballet. A list of his recent works includes La Verage (1996), Twinsoul (1997), The Secret Double (1998), Under the Surface (1999), and Paradise Regained (1999).

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Jaffe , Susan

(b Washington, DC, 22 May 1962).
US dancer. She studied at the Maryland School of Ballet, the School of American Ballet, and the American Ballet Theatre School. She danced with American Ballet Theatre II from 1978 and joined American Ballet Theatre in 1980, promoted to principal in 1983. She has devoted her entire career to ABT, where she dances all the leading ballerina roles in the repertoire, as well as contemporary works. She created roles in Tharp's Everlast (1989) and Dove's Serious Pleasures (1992). She has also appeared frequently as an international guest artist, and toured with Baryshnikov and Company. A dancer of great classical authority, she is especially admired for her performances in Swan Lake and Giselle.

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Jamaica National Dance Theater Company.

Company founded in 1962 at the time of Jamaica's independence from Great Britain. In 1967 Rex Nettleford , one of the company's founders, was appointed artistic director and principal choreographer. The company's style blends traditional Caribbean dance drama and ritual with contemporary modern dance and ballet. Works deal with social issues, religious themes, and folklore while abstract dance is also represented in the repertoire. The company, still under Nettleford's direction, tours internationally.

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Jamison , Judith

(b Philadelphia, 10 May 1943).
US dancer, choreographer, and company director. She studied at the Judimar School of Dance and at the Philadelphia Dance Academy, where she was discovered by Agnes de Mille . She later studied with Tudor and Maria Swoboda . She made her New York debut as a guest artist with American Ballet Theatre, dancing in de Mille's The Four Marys in 1965. Later in 1965 she joined the Alvin Ailey company and became one of its leading dancers. Although she occasionally performed with other companies (such as the Harkness Ballet), her career was devoted to the Ailey company and to Ailey himself. He choreographed the famous solo Cry for her in 1971, and thus established her international reputation. When Neumeier made Legend of Joseph in Vienna in 1977 he chose the statuesque Jamison as his female star. Béjart choreographed Le Spectre de la rose for her and Patrice Touron in 1979. In 1980 she left the Ailey company to work as a freelance dancer and choreographer. She starred in the Broadway musical Sophisticated Ladies in 1981 and briefly ran her own company, the Jamison Project. After Ailey's death in 1989 she was appointed artistic director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. She widened the company's repertoire by adding creations of her own and by bringing in works by Lar Lubovitch and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar among others. A list of her own choreography includes Divining (Ailey company, 1984), Just Call Me Dance (for Béjart's company, 1984), Time Out (for Washington Ballet, 1986), Time In (1986), Into the Life (1987), Tease (1988), Forgotten Time (1989), Rift (1991), Hymn (1993), Riverside (1995), and Sweet Release (1996).

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Janáek , Leo

(b Hukvaldy, 3 July 1854, d Ostrava, 12 Aug. 1928).
Czech composer. Although he wrote no music for the ballet, his concert music has been used by many choreographers. Tudor choreographed his First String Quartet for the Juilliard School in 1971; Lynn Seymour his Intimate Letters for Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet in 1968. Kylián has frequently used his music, including Intimate Letters for Swedish television in 1980, Glagolitic Mass for Netherlands Dance Theatre (1979), Sinfonietta for NDT (1978), and various piano pieces for Return to a Strange Land (Stuttgart Ballet 1975, revived Royal Ballet 1984).

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Janet Smith and Dancers.

British modern dance company. It was founded in 1976 with Janet Smith as choreographer and director and toured widely in the UK and abroad, presenting an unusually accessible modern repertory. Smith's works have included Another Man Drowning (mus. Christopher Benstead , 1982) and Chiaroscuro (mus. Ganberg and Russell , 1996). Guest choreographers have included R. North and D. Wagoner . The company was effectively disbanded when Smith was appointed director of Scottish Dance Theatre (formerly Dundee Rep. Dance Theatre) in 1997.

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Japan.

Traditional dance has flourished in Japan for centuries within the highly stylized forms of dance drama. Bugaku, which is a semi-religious dance, originated in the 7th century but until the latter half of the 20th century it was performed exclusively at the imperial court or in certain shrines. Kabuki, which developed at the end of the 16th century, was the first popular dance theatre for commoners. In its early days it was performed by female prostitutes and some of its manifestations were so immoral that the women were banned from performing it by the authorities. Male dancers then adopted the kabuki style, taking on the female roles themselves. Being an onnagata (female impersonator) became an honoured profession. Today kabuki is seen throughout the world. Western theatrical dance arrived in Japan in the 20th century. Visits by the Pavlova company, the Denishawn Dancers, and the Ruth Page company in the 1920s sparked public interest and by the 1930s ballet had taken hold. The first schools were established, out of which grew new classical companies, many of them based in Tokyo. Training, style, and repertoire were greatly influenced by the Soviet model. The most important of the Japanese companies was the Tokyo Ballet, founded in 1964. Today Japanese ballet audiences are among the most enthusiastic in the world. Companies like the Royal Ballet and the Kirov are regular visitors, and Western stars like Sylvie Guillem and Evelyn Hart are idolized there. In recent years Japanese-born dancers have found great success in the West. Tetsuya Kumakawa and Miyako Yoshida have led a whole new generation of fine Japanese classical dancers trained and performing abroad. Independent Japanese choreographers, such as Saburo Teshigawara , have been very active in the field of post-modern dance. Butoh, an expressionist dance form which originated in Japan in the 1950s, is seen around the world performed by Japanese companies.

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Jaques-Dalcroze , Émile

(b Vienna, 6 July 1865, d Geneva, 1 July 1950).
Swiss music teacher and theoretician. He was responsible for developing a system of training music students to understand rhythm by translating sounds into physical movements. It was a principle that could be applied to dance as well as to music and it had a significant influence on several early choreographers, Nijinsky among them. Jaques-Dalcroze called his system ‘rhythmic gymnastics’, although it is popularly known as eurythmics. He established his Institute for Applied Rhythm in Hellerau-Dresden in 1910, which trained several important modern dance pioneers in Germany, including Wigman and Georgi . After the First World War the school was moved to Vienna, where it was forced to close when the Nazis invaded Austria in 1938. Jaques-Dalcroze established another school in Geneva in 1915, where he taught until he died. Author of Rhythm, Music and Education (1921) and Eurythmics, Art and Education (1930).

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Jardin aux lilas (also Lilac Garden).

Ballet in one act with choreography and libretto by Tudor , music by Ernest Chausson , and designs by Hugh Stevenson (who also collaborated on the libretto). Premiered 26 Jan. 1936 by Ballet Rambert at the Mercury Theatre, London, with Maude Lloyd , Laing , Tudor , and van Praagh . Set to Chausson's Poème, it is the archetypal ‘psychological ballet’, a masterpiece of choreographic subtlety which reveals the secret romantic truths behind a quartet of Edwardian lovers. On the eve of her marriage of convenience to another man, Caroline encounters the man she really loves, along with the woman who, unknown to her, is her fiancé's discarded mistress. The ballet has been revived for many companies, including American Ballet Theatre (1940), New York City Ballet (1951), National Ballet of Canada (1953), Royal Ballet (1968), Royal Danish Ballet (1970), Les Grands Ballets Canadiens (1980), Royal Swedish Ballet (1985), Paris Opera Ballet (1985), National Ballet of Cuba (1986), and the Kirov Ballet (1991).

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Jazz Calendar.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Ashton , music by Richard Rodney Bennett , and designs by Derek Jarman . Premiered 9 Jan. 1968 by the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden with Derman , Park , Lorrayne , Grant , Sibley , Nureyev , Doyle , and Trounson . The ballet is based on the English children's rhyme ‘Monday's child is fair of face, | Tuesday's child is full of grace, | Wednesday's child is full of woe, | Thursday's child has far to go, | Friday's child is loving and giving, | Saturday's child works hard for his living. | And the child that is born on the Sabbath day | Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay.’ David Vaughan , in his definitive book Frederick Ashton and his Ballets, said: ‘The best thing about Jazz Calendar was certainly Derek Jarman's designs, which were truly original and effortlessly typified the spirit of “swinging London” in the late 1960s.’

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jazz dance.

Dance form developed by African-Americans in the US in the early part of the 20th century. It drew on African rhythms and techniques which isolated various parts of the body in movement. The name was first used during the First World War, and by the 1920s jazz had been taken up by white society. Its absorption into show business, through exposure in films, on television, and on Broadway, guaranteed it an enormous and enduring audience. One of the earliest instances of theatrical jazz dance was Balanchine's ballet Slaughter on Tenth Avenue, the danced climax to the Broadway musical On Your Toes (1936). Leading jazz choreographers included Katherine Dunham and Bob Fosse . The influence of jazz can also be seen on the ballet stage, especially in works by Robbins and Tharp .

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Jeanmaire , Renée (known as Zizi ;

b Paris, 29 Apr. 1924).
French dancer, singer, and music hall star. She studied at the Paris Opera School from 1933 and entered the company in 1939, where she remained until 1944. Although possessing a brilliant classical technique, she never fitted the ballerina mould and found her greatest success in the exuberant and glamorous choreography of Roland Petit , whom she married in 1954. Before joining forces with Petit she appeared at the Soirées de la Danse in Paris (1944), and danced with the Nouveau Ballet de Monte Carlo (1946), where she created principal roles in several ballets by Lifar , and with de Basil's Ballets Russes for its last London season in 1947. In 1948 she joined Petit's Ballets de Paris, creating leading roles in many of his ballets, including—famously—Carmen (1949), which transformed her overnight from classical dancer to long-legged, short-haired gamine. La Croqueuse de diamants (1950) revealed that she had a husky and attractive singing voice. Although she did create the role of Roxane in Petit's Cyrano de Bergerac in 1959, by the 1950s her career was focused on cabaret and film and it was in the world of showbiz that she achieved her greatest fame. She went to Hollywood to appear in the film Hans Christian Andersen (1951) with Danny Kaye ; she starred on Broadway in The Girl in Pink Tights (1953). She appeared in Petit's 1960 film, Black Tights. Her other film roles include Anything Goes (1956), Charmants Garçons (1957), and Folies-Bergère (1960), all of them choreographed by Petit . In 1970 she and Petit bought the Casino de Paris, where she starred in La Revue, which Petit choreographed and directed. A second revue, Zizi, je t'aime, followed in 1972. She made her comeback at the Paris Opera in Petit's Symphonie fantastique in 1975. In 1990 she created the role of Carabosse in her husband's Ballet de Marseilles staging of The Sleeping Beauty, a role she performed on pointe. In 1996 she returned to the stage for a show dedicated to the French singer Serge Gainsbourg . She was made Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur in 1974.

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Jefferies , Stephen

(b Reintelm, West Germany, 24 June 1951).
British dancer and ballet director. He studied at the Royal Ballet School (1967–9) and joined the Royal Ballet in 1969, performing with its touring company. In 1976 he left to spend one season as a principal dancer with the National Ballet of Canada, but returned to the Royal in 1977 as a principal dancer at Covent Garden. His career was marked by his exceptional interpretative skills and he was widely regarded as one of the finest dance-actors of his generation. He was particularly praised for his roles in the MacMillan repertoire, including both Mercutio and Romeo, Lescaut in Manon, and Crown Prince Rudolf in Mayerling. He created roles in MacMillan's Ballade (1972), The Poltroon (1972), Isadora (1981), and Different Drummer (1984); Bruce's Unfamiliar Playground (1974); Peter Wright's El amor brujo (1975); Tetley's Dances of Albion (1980); Bintley's Adieu (1980), Consort Lessons (1983), The Songs of Horus (1985), Still Life at the Penguin Café (1988), The Planets (1990), and Cyrano (title role, 1991); Corder's L'Invitation au voyage (1982); and Eagling's Frankenstein, the Modern Prometheus (1985). While in Canada he created the role of Morris in Kudelka's Washington Square (1977). He also appeared in Minoru Miki's opera An Actor's Revenge at the Old Vic in 1979 (he was the only performer who didn't sing) and in the Lloyd Webber musical Song and Dance at London's Palace Theatre in 1982. In 1995 he left the Royal Ballet to take up a post as director of the Hong Kong Ballet.

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Jenkins , Margaret

(b San Francisco, Calif., 1942).
US dancer and choreographer. She trained at the Juilliard School in New York, with Graham , Limón , and Tudor , and attended the University of California in Los Angeles, dancing with Al Huang . In 1965 she returned to New York and joined the Tharp company; also danced with Viola Farber , James Cunningham , and Gus Solomons jun. From 1964 to 1970 she taught at the Merce Cunningham Studio and helped to stage his works in Europe. She started choreographing in the late 1960s. In 1973 she founded her own San Francisco-based company, Margaret Jenkins Dance Company, for which she has choreographed 60 modern dance works. Her ballets are in the repertoire of the Cullberg Ballet and the Oakland Ballet. Her work tends to deal with social and political issues. In 1999 she returned to the stage, after an eight-year absence, in Breathe Normally.

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Jeppesen , Lis

(b Copenhagen, 5 Apr. 1956).
Danish dancer. She studied at the Royal Danish Ballet School from 1963, after having made her stage debut as a child actress in the Tivoli Festival in 1962. She first performed with the Royal Danish Ballet while still a student, taking the role of the White Girl in van Dantzig's Monument for a Dead Boy in 1973. She joined the company in 1974, becoming a principal dancer in 1980. From 1991 she danced character roles. She achieved her greatest recognition in the Bournonville ballets: she has danced all the leading female roles in the company's repertoire and is considered one of the finest Bournonville dancers of her day. But she also excelled in the great Romantic ballets. She created roles in Flindt's Dreamland (1974), Alston's Dances from the Kingdom of the Pagodas (1982), Patsalas's Das Lied von der Erde (1988), Andersen's Fête galante (1989), and Laerkesen's Manhattan Abstraction (1989). She won the Pavlova Prize in 1979.

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jeté

(Fr., thrown). A jump that takes off on one leg and lands on the other. The step can travel in any direction, forwards, backwards, and sideways, and has many manifestations, including a small, springing version (petit jeté) and a large leaping version (grand jeté).

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Jeu de cartes (also The Card Game).

Ballet in three ‘deals’ with choreography by Balanchine , libretto and music by Stravinsky , and designs by Irene Sharaff . Premiered 27 Apr. 1937 by the American Ballet at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, with Dollar . The characters in the ballet represent the cards in poker hands, while each scene represents a separate poker hand. It was the first collaboration between Stravinsky and Balanchine in the US. ‘Stravinsky and I attempted to show that the highest cards—the kings, queens and jacks—in reality have nothing on the other side. They are big people, but they can easily be beaten by small cards. Seemingly powerful figures, they are actually mere silhouettes,’ wrote Balanchine. The ballet was revived by the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo (New York, 1940) with Frederic Franklin as the joker. A different version using the Stravinsky score was choreographed by Janine Charrat in 1945 for the Ballets des Champs-Elysées in Paris with Babilée as the joker. Cranko also did a version for Stuttgart in 1965, which was revived for the Royal Ballet in 1966.

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Jeune Homme et la mort, Le.

Ballet in one act, with choreography by Petit , music by J. S. Bach , libretto and costumes by Cocteau , and sets by Georges Wakhevitch . Premiered 25 June 1946 by the Ballets des Champs-Elysées at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris with Babilée and Philippart . A young Parisian painter waits in his attic for the young woman he desperately desires. When she arrives she rejects him, and he eventually hangs himself. The woman then places a death-mask on his face and takes him away, out onto the neon-lit rooftops of Paris. The music, in stark contrast to the violence of the drama, is an orchestrated version of Bach's serene Passacaglia in C minor, performed without the Fugue. A very influential work in French post-war ballet, it was seen at the time as shockingly erotic. It also provided Babilée with his most famous role. Petit restaged it for American Ballet Theatre in 1951; ABT revived it for Baryshnikov in 1975. Petit also restaged it for the Paris Opera Ballet in 1990. Other stagings include Ballet National de Marseilles (1984), Berlin Opera Ballet (1985), and the Boston Ballet (1998).

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Jeux.

Ballet in one act with choreography and libretto by Nijinsky , music by Debussy , and designs by Bakst . Premiered 15 May 1913 by the Ballets Russes de Diaghilev at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris with Nijinsky , Karsavina , and Schollar . Nijinsky's second ballet for Diaghilev, it was the first in the company's repertoire to deal with a contemporary subject. The ballet, set to a commissioned score by Debussy , tells of the flirtatious relationships of two women and a young male tennis player who meet up in a garden. It is full of sexual ambiguity. Nijinsky wrote in his diary that ‘Jeux is the life of which Diaghilev dreamed. He wanted to have two boys as lovers. He often told me so, but I refused. In the ballet, the two girls represent the two boys and the young man is Diaghilev. I changed the characters as love between three men could not be represented on stage.’ Nijinsky's ‘experiment in stylized gesture’ was not a success and was dropped after just five performances. In 1996 it was reconstructed by Millicent Hodson and Kenneth Archer for Verona. Börlin made a version for the Ballets Suédois in 1920, Dollar for Ballet Theatre in 1950, Darrell for Western Theatre Ballet in 1963, Taras for New York City Ballet in 1966, Flindt for Paris Opera Ballet in 1973, and Van Schayk for Dutch National Ballet in 1977.

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Jeux d'enfants.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Massine , libretto by Kochno , music by Bizet , and designs by Joan Miró Premiered 14 Apr. 1932 by Colonel de Basil's Ballets Russes in Monte Carlo, with Riabouchinska , Toumanova , and Lichine . A girl playing with her toys at night in the nursery falls in love with one of them, the Traveller, when he comes to life. Balanchine did a version for New York City Ballet in 1955 which was revised in 1959, and a second production, as The Steadfast Tin Soldier, in 1975, while Petit did a version for Ballet National de Marseilles in 1974.

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Jewels.

Ballet in three parts with choreography by Balanchine , music by Fauré , Stravinsky , and Tchaikovsky , costumes by Barbara Karinska , sets by Peter Harvey , and lighting by R. Bates . Premiered 13 Apr. 1967 by New York City Ballet, at the State Theater in New York, with Verdy , Ludlow , Paul , Moncion , McBride , Villella , P. Neary , Farrell , and d'Amboise . Inspired by jewellery in the collection of Van Cleef and Arpels in New York, it is made up of three plotless works disguised as a full-length ballet. The first, ‘Emeralds’, is set to Fauré's Pelléas et Mélisande and Shylock; the second, ‘Rubies’, to Stravinsky's Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra; the third, ‘Diamonds’, to Tchaikovsky's 3rd Symphony (without the first movement). The ‘Rubies’ section was later taken into the repertoires of the Paris Opera Ballet (1974), Dutch National Ballet (1977), and the Royal Ballet (1989). The full-length ballet is also danced by the Kirov, the Paris Opera, and the National Ballet of Canada.

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Jeyasingh , Shobana

(b Madras, 26 Mar. 1957).
Indian-born British-based choreographer and company director. She studied at the University of Sussex in England, earning an MA in Renaissance studies. Trained as a dancer in bharata natyam, the classical dance of South Asia, in the 1980s she toured Britain as a solo bharata natyam performer. In 1989 she founded the Shobana Jeyasingh Dance Company. As one of the leading modern dance choreographers in Britain, she started experimenting early on with the bharata natyam style, re-imagining it for her all-female ensemble and extending its language far beyond conventional boundaries. She has collaborated with some of Britain's leading composers, including Michael Nyman , Glyn Perrin , and Graham Fitkin . A list of work for her own company includes Configurations (mus. Nyman , 1989), Correspondences (mus. Volans , 1990), Making of Maps (mus. Alistair McDonald , 1992), Romance…with Footnotes (mus. Glyn Perrin , Karaikudi Krishnamurthy , 1993), Duets with Automobiles (for video, mus. Orlando Gough , 1994), Raid (mus. Glyn Perrin , Haiyaraaja , 1995), Palimpsest (mus. Graham Fitkin , 1996), Memory and Other Props (mus. Alistair McDonald , 1998), and Fine Frenzy (mus. Django Bates , 1999).

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jig.

An old British folk dance. It may have derived from either the French gigue or the Italian giga. A fast solo dance, it is usually performed in 6/8 or 12/8 time and is characterized by its lively footwork.

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Joan of Arc.

Ballet in three acts with choreography by Bourmeister , libretto by V. Pletneva , music by N. Peiko , and designs by V. Ryndin . Premiered 29 Dec. 1957 by the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theatre in Moscow with Bovt and Kuzmin . The ballet tells the story of Joan of Arc. Other choreographers who have based ballets on her life include S. Viganò (Milan, 1821) and Martha Graham (Seraphic Dialogue, New York, 1955).

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Job.

A ‘masque for dancing’ in eight scenes, with choreography by de Valois , libretto by Geoffrey Keynes , music by Vaughan Williams , designs by Gwendolen Raverat , and wigs and masks by Hedley Briggs . Premiered 5 July 1931 by the Camargo Society at the Cambridge Theatre in London, with Dolin and Stanley Judson . The ballet, which relies more on mime than dance to illustrate its story and features many static tableaux, is based on William Blake's illustrations to The Book of Job. At the composer's request it was described as ‘a masque for dancing’, and it was Vaughan Williams himself who insisted that pointe work should not be used. It tells of Job's absolute belief in God and all the challenges that are set in his path to question that belief. Drawing inspiration as it did from Blake and Vaughan Williams , it was considered to be the first truly English ballet. It was revived for the Vic-Wells Ballet in 1931, for Sadler's Wells Ballet in 1948, for the Royal Ballet Touring Company in 1970, and for Birmingham Royal Ballet in 1993. Ted Shawn also choreographed a different version of the story in 1931 for the Denishawn Dancers in New York. In 1992 David Bintley choreographed a new version for the San Francisco Ballet.

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Joffrey , Robert (orig. Abdulla Jaffa Anver Bey Khan ;

b Seattle, 24 Dec. 1930, d New York, 25 Mar. 1988).
US dancer, choreographer, and ballet director. Founder of the Joffrey Ballet. The son of an Afghan father and Italian mother, he originally took up ballet in order to combat his childhood asthma, and continued his studies at the School of American Ballet. He also studied modern dance at the High School of the Performing Arts in New York, where he taught from 1950. He danced with Petit's Ballets de Paris (1949–50), and with May O'Donnell and Company (1951–3). Very early on he began to choreograph; his first ballets were for his own solo recital in Seattle in 1948. His first significant creation was Persephone (mus. R. Silverman ) which he made for a workshop programme in New York in 1952. He also staged pieces for Ballet Rambert in London (1955) and worked in musicals and operas. He formed his first company, Robert Joffrey Ballet Concert, in 1954; its first programme featured Pas de déesses (mus. J. Field ) and Le Bal masqué (mus. Poulenc ). Subsequent works included Harpsichord Concerto (mus. de Falla ) and Pierrot Lunaire (mus. Schoenberg ). In 1956 he founded the Robert Joffrey Theatre Ballet with Arpino , which in 1964 became the Harkness Ballet following a disagreement between Joffrey and his patron, Rebekah Harkness . In 1965 he started a new company which in 1966 became the City Center Joffrey Ballet, and in 1977 the Joffrey Ballet. For his own company he choreographed Gamelan (mus. Lou Harrison , 1963), which drew on Balinese movement, and Astarte (mus. Crome Syrcus , 1967), a multimedia rock ballet for the psychedelic generation (it caused such a furore that both Time and Life featured it on their covers). Other works included Remembrances (mus. Wagner , 1973) and Postcards (mus. Satie , 1980). As a company director he promoted the development of young American dancers and encouraged the creation of experimental American choreography, commissioning Ailey , Tetley , Tharp , Morris , Dean , and Forsythe . He also staged important revivals of 20th-century ballets, by Ashton (at one point the company had ten Ashton ballets in its repertoire), Balanchine , Cranko , Fokine , de Mille , Robbins , and Tudor , and was responsible for starting the Jooss and Massine revivals. He was particularly interested in the Diaghilev legacy; when he died he was planning an evening of ballets by Nijinsky and Nijinska . He founded the American Ballet Center, later the Joffrey Ballet School.

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Joffrey Ballet.

US ballet company founded in New York but now based in Chicago. It grew out of the Robert Joffrey Ballet Concert, which first performed at the New York YM-YWHA in 1954. A chamber ensemble, it drew its dancers from the American Ballet Center, which was directed by Joffrey and Gerald Arpino . In 1956 the company started to tour, initially as Robert Joffrey Theatre Ballet. In 1960 it became the Robert Joffrey Ballet. At that time the repertoire featured ballets by Joffrey and Arpino ; its mandate was to be specifically American. The commissioning policy was adventurous: the modern choreographer Alvin Ailey was invited to make a work for the company, a rare example of a ballet company turning to the world of modern dance. Ten years later the Joffrey was to invite Twyla Tharp to make her first work for a ballet company; the resulting commission, Deuce Coupe, was one of the biggest hits in its history. Rebekah Harkness was an important early benefactor, and among the developments she made possible was extensive foreign touring, including the company's first trip to the Soviet Union in 1963. But in 1964 she and Joffrey fell out, and most of the repertoire and the dancers (not to mention sets and costumes) were taken into the newly founded Harkness Ballet. Joffrey started all over again, building up a new company which made its debut in 1965 as the Robert Joffrey Ballet. Following a successful season at the New York City Center in 1966 it was invited to become the theatre's resident ballet company with Joffrey as artistic director and Arpino as chief choreographer. The 1960s and 1970s were a golden era for the company. Arpino's 1970 rock ballet Trinity was a big hit; while Joffrey revolutionized US dance history by his 1967 revival of Kurt Jooss's The Green Table, followed by revivals of Ashton's Façade, Cranko's Pineapple Poll, Fokine's Petrushka, and Massine's Le Tricorne, Le Beau Danube, and Parade. In 1973 Tharp made her second work, As Time Goes By, for the Joffrey. The company continued as City Center Joffrey Ballet until 1977. From 1977 it performed as the Joffrey Ballet, with a second home established in Los Angeles from 1982. In the 1980s ballets by Forsythe , Kylián , Kudelka , Morris , and Dean entered the repertoire. In 1987 Joffrey's most important piece of dance archaeology took place when he directed a revival of Nijinsky's 1913 ballet Le Sacre du printemps, reconstructed by Millicent Hodson and Kenneth Archer . Following Joffrey's death in 1988 Arpino took over. In 1990 he resigned after a disagreement with the board, taking his and Joffrey's ballets with him. The company quickly found it could not continue without Arpino and he was invited back. Although he brought new choreographers into the company, Arpino did not abandon Joffrey's historical acquisitions: in 1992 he took a revival of Massine's Les Présages into the repertoire. Also in 1992, with his eye firmly on the box office, Arpino commissioned four choreographers, Laura Dean , Charles Moulton , Margot Sappington , and Peter Pucci , to make a new populist work for the company. The resulting ballet, Billboards, set to music by the rock star Prince, earned the company millions but the sight of its dancers gyrating wildly in bikinis generated much damaging criticism. In 1995 the Joffrey, which had been dogged by financial crisis, left its New York home and relocated to Chicago. However, its rights to perform the Balanchine, Ashton, and Tharp works in its repertoire were lost in the administrative reshuffle.

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Johansson , Christian

(b Stockholm, 20 May 1817, d St Petersburg, 25 Dec. 1903).
Swedish dancer and teacher. Although Swedish, he spent most of his career in Russia. He studied at the Royal Swedish Ballet School from 1829 and with Bournonville in Copenhagen. In 1837 he was appointed premier danseur in Stockholm where he partnered M. Taglioni . In 1841, however, he went to St Petersburg where, after a successful debut in La Gitana, he was made premier danseur. He remained at the Imperial Theatres until 1869, creating roles in several ballets by Perrot . But it is as a teacher that he is best remembered. Upon his retirement from the stage he became chief teacher at the Imperial Theatre School, where his pupils included Kshessinska , Preobrajenska , P. Gerdt , Nikolai Legat , Vaganova , Pavlova , and Karsavina . He was one of the most important figures in the development of the Russian school of dancing. He is credited with introducing greater use of ballon (as per his Bournonville training), precision batterie, and a variety of virtuoso pirouettes, and it is said that he never repeated an enchaînement, so inventive was he as a teacher. He often accompanied his own classes playing a violin.

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Johns , Jasper

(b Augusta, Ga., 15 May 1930).
US painter and designer. One of the leading painters of the latter half of the 20th century, he collaborated with Merce Cunningham , and was artistic adviser to the Cunningham company. He worked with Cunningham on Suite de danses (a dance for television, costumes 1961), RainForest (uncredited, costumes 1968), Walkaround Time (set and costumes, 1968), Canfield (costumes, 1969), Second Hand (costumes, 1970), Landrover (costumes, 1972), TV ReRun (set and costumes, 1972), Un jour ou deux (set and costumes, Paris Opera Ballet, 1973), and Exchange (set and costumes, 1978).

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Johnson , Virginia

(b Washington, DC, 25 Jan. 1950).
US dancer. She studied at the Washington DC School of Ballet from 1953, a pupil of Mary Day , and later with Arthur Mitchell and Karel Shook in New York. In 1969 she joined Dance Theatre of Harlem, at a time when the fledgling company was still working in the basement of a church. She eventually became the company's leading ballerina, possibly the first black ballerina in history to be taken seriously as a classical dancer. A beautifully lyrical dancer, she created roles in many Mitchell ballets, including his Holberg Suite (1970), Tones (1970), Fun and Games (1970), Rhythmetron (1971), and Fête noire (1972); in Raines's Haiku (1973) and After Corinth (1975); in Fagan's Footprints Dressed in Red (1986); and in Tetley's Dialogues (1991). She also excelled as Lizzie Borden in de Mille's Fall River Legend and as Desdemona in Limón's The Moor's Pavane. In 1984 came her crowning achievement, when she created the title role in Mitchell's ground-breaking ‘Creole’ production of Giselle. She also made a lasting impression in Valerie Bettis's A Streetcar Named Desire. Tall and elegant, with long arms and legs, she made a particular speciality of the Balanchine repertoire, where her sleek performing style was seen to advantage in Agon, Concerto Barocco, Allegro Brillante, Serenade, Tchaikovsky Pas de deux, and The Four Temperaments. She also appeared as a guest artist with the Royal Ballet in 1992. She retired in 1997. Dancer and choreographer of the television film Ancient Voices of Children.

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Jones , Betty

(b Meadville, Pa., 1926).
US dancer and educator. She studied with Evelyn Blevins and at Jacob's Pillow with Ted Shawn and Alicia Markova in the 1940s; studied ballet with Maggie Black , Margaret Craske , and Tudor , and modern dance with Hanya Holm , Louis Horst , Humphrey , and Limón . She made her professional debut in a USO tour of the musical Oklahoma! in the South Pacific in 1945 and toured (1946–7) in de Mille's Bloomer Girl. She danced with José Limón's company from 1947 to 1972, where she created her most famous role, Desdemona in his The Moor's Pavane (1949), when she was just 22. She was considered the foremost proponent of the Limón style and created roles in many of his works. She founded her own company, Dances We Dance, with Fritz Ludin , in 1964. She has taught extensively in the US and Europe. In the 1970s she settled in Hawaii and has since travelled the world staging reconstructions of the Humphrey-Limón repertoire.

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Jones , Bill T.

(b Bunnell, Fla., 15 Feb. 1952).
US dancer, choreographer, and company director. He discovered dance while in college on a sports scholarship (State University of New York at Binghamton) and there met Arnie Zane , a photographer who was to become his partner and collaborator. Together they studied dance and became co-founders of American Dance Asylum, based in Binghamton, New York, in 1973. Jones was tall, black, and graceful, Zane was short, white, and pugnacious, and it was in their inherent contrast that the success of their performing partnership hinged. Early works included Monkey Run Road, Blauvelt Mountain (both 1979), and Valley Cottage (1980). In 1982 they formed Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. One of their biggest hits was Secret Pastures (1984), which had settings by the graffiti artist Keith Haring . In 1983 Jones was commissioned by Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater to make Fever Swamp; Jones and Zane collaborated on a second Ailey work, Ritual Ruckus (How to Walk an Elephant), in 1985. Following Zane's death from Aids in 1988, Jones (who openly admits to being HIV-positive, too) has continued to run the company and further enhance his reputation as a provocative and controversial choreographer. His work deals with such loaded subjects as homosexuality and racism. In 1994 his full length modern dance Still/Here, about people dealing with terminal illness, generated a heated debate in the dance world when the critic Arlene Croce branded it ‘victim art’. He has choreographed works for companies other than his own, including the Lyons Opera Ballet, the Berlin Opera Ballet, and the Boston Ballet. He was associate choreographer of the Lyons Opera Ballet (1994–6). He has also worked with opera companies. In 1990 he choreographed Tippett's New Year for the Houston Grand Opera and Glyndebourne Festival Opera; he conceived, co-directed, and choreographed Mother of Three Sons for the Munich Biennale, New York City Opera, and the Houston Grand Opera. As a stage director, he directed Derek Walcott's Dream on Monkey Mountain for the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis in 1994. A list of his other dances includes Soon (mus. Weill , Bessie Smith , 1988), D-Man in the Waters (mus. Mendelssohn , 1989), Last Supper at Uncle Tom's Cabin/The Promised Land (mus. Jules Hemphill , 1990), History of Collage Revisited (mus. Charles Amirkhanian and ‘Blue’ Gene Tyranny, 1990), Broken Wedding (mus. Klezmer Conservatory Band , 1992), Die Offnung (mus. John Oswald , 1992), Love Defined (mus. Daniel Johnston , 1992), Last Night on Earth (mus. Kurt Weill , Bessie Smith , 1992), War Between the States (mus. Ives , 1993), 24 Images per second (1995), Bill and Laurie: About Five Rounds (with Laurie Anderson , 1996), Sur la place (mus. Brel , 1996), We Set Out Early … Visibility Was Poor (mus. Stravinsky , Cage, Vasks, 1997), Out Someplace (mus. Fred Hersch , 1998), and How! Do! We! Do! (with the singer Jessye Norman , 1999). Author of autobiography, Last Night on Earth (New York, 1995). Author of the children's book Dance (with the photographer Susan Kuklin , 1998).

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Jones , Marilyn

(b Newcastle, NSW, Feb. 1940).
Australian dancer, choreographer, teacher, and ballet director. She studied with Lorraine Norton and van Praagh in Australia and at the Royal Ballet School in London (1956). In 1957 she danced briefly with the Royal Ballet; in 1958 she toured Australia with the Beth Dean company and with Robert Pomie's Ballet Français. She danced with the Borovansky Ballet as a soloist (1959–61) and in Europe with the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas as prima ballerina (1961–2). She returned to Australia in 1962 to join the newly founded Australian Ballet and spent the next ten years as the company's prima ballerina. After a two-year break, she returned to the Australian Ballet as resident principal (1974–8), adding Tatiana in Cranko's Onegin and Juliet in his Romeo and Juliet to her considerable repertoire. She produced Sylvia for Ballet Theatre of Queensland (1974). From 1979 to 1982 she was artistic director of the Australian Ballet. Following her retirement she taught and in 1990 founded the Australian Institute of Classical Dance with the aim of establishing an Australian dance syllabus. Mother of the choreographer Stanton Welch .

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Jong , Bettie De

(b Sumatra, Indonesia, 5 May 1933).
Dutch-US dancer, teacher, and ballet mistress. She studied with Max Dooyes , Jan Bronk , Graham , and Limón . She danced with several US modern dance companies, including those of Graham, Lang, Hoving, and Butler. In 1962 she joined the Paul Taylor Company, creating roles in many of his works. One of her most memorable roles was the automaton in Big Bertha in which her powerful, chilling presence defined the nightmarish horror of the work. In 1973 she became the company's ballet mistress. She also taught in London at the London Contemporary Dance School and the Rambert School. In his autobiography, Private Domain, Paul Taylor wrote of De Jong: ‘Picture a lovely reed dancing. It is impossible for my company and me to picture her not being with us. She is not only with us, but necessary.’

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Jooss , Kurt

(b Wasseralfingen, 12 Jan. 1901, d Heilbronn, 22 May 1979).
German dancer, choreographer, teacher, and ballet director. He attended the Stuttgart Academy of Music, where he studied dance with Laban ; in 1922–3 they worked together in Mannheim and Hamburg with Jooss dancing important roles in Laban's ballets and acting as his assistant. Jooss was appointed ballet master in Münster in 1924; he founded the Neue Tanzbühne with the Estonian dancer Aino Siimola (later his wife), Sigurd Leeder , and Hein Heckroth . Works he made for the new company included Ein persisches Märchen (mus. Egon Wellesz , 1924), Der Dämon (mus. Hindemith , 1925), and Die Brautfahrt (mus. Rameau and Couperin , 1925). In 1926–7, needing to further his training, he and Leeder went to Paris to study ballet with Lubov Egorova . In 1927 he was appointed director of the dance department at the Essen Folkwang School; out of this grew, a year later, the Folkwang Tanztheater. In 1930, when he was appointed ballet master of the Essen Municipal Theatre, his company became the Folkwang Tanzbühne. He created Le Bal (mus. Rieti , 1930), Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor (mus. Borodin , 1930), Coppélia (1931), Prodigal Son (mus. Prokofiev , 1931), Pulcinella (mus. Stravinsky 1932), and—his most famous work—The Green Table (mus. Cohen , 1932). It was Green Table, a scathing anti-war piece based on the medieval Dance of Death, which drew him to international attention when the work won first prize at the first choreographic competition organized by Rolf de Maré and Les Archives Internationales de la Danse in Paris. Here Jooss's synthesis of classical and modern dance was at its most theatrically effective. Two other important works were created at this time: Big City (mus. Tansman ) and Ball in Old Vienna (mus. Lanner , both 1932). In 1933, with the Nazis taking hold in Germany, Jooss and his company were forced to flee. They found a new home in Dartington, England, then in Cambridge. From their English base they toured the world as the Ballets Jooss. In 1947 the company was disbanded and Jooss went to Santiago de Chile. In 1949 he returned to Essen and re-established the Folkwang School and the Folkwang Tanztheater. The company was later disbanded due to lack of local government support, but the school continued. In 1962 he formed yet another company, Folkwang Tanzstudio, with Pina Bausch . He retired as head of the dance school in 1968. His daughter, Anna Markard, has supervised productions of The Green Table around the world. A list of Jooss's other ballets includes Drosselbart (mus. Mozart , 1929), Pavane (mus. Ravel , 1929), Petrushka (mus. Stravinsky , 1930), Seven Heroes (mus. Purcell-Cohen 1933), The Prodigal Son (mus. Cohen , 1933), Ballade (mus. J. Colman , 1935), The Mirror (mus. Cohen , 1935), Johann Strauss, Tonight (1935), Company at the Manor (mus. Beethoven-Cook , 1943), and Pandora (mus. R. Gerhard , 1944).

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Jordan , Stephanie

(b Karachi, Pakistan, 21 Jan. 1951).
British dance writer. She studied music at the Universities of Birmingham, and California, Los Angeles and danced with various teachers, including Alston. She has lectured in music and dance studies at several colleges and universities, and was appointed Research Professor in Dance at the University of Surrey, Roehampton in 2000. She is author of numerous articles and books including Striding Out: Aspects of Contemporary and New Dance in Britain (1992) and Moving Music: Dialogues with Music in 20th Century Ballet (2000).

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Joplin , Scott

(b Texarkana, Tex., 24 Nov. 1868, d New York, 1 Apr. 1917).
US ragtime pianist and composer. The resurgence of interest in ragtime music in the 1970s resulted in a number of ballets set to Joplin's music, the best known of which is MacMillan's Elite Syncopations (Royal Ballet, 1974). Other Joplin ballets include J. Waring's Eternity Bounce (1973), A. Cata's Ragtime (1973), G. Veredon's The Ragtime Dance Company (1974), and B. Moreland's Prodigal Son in Ragtime (London Festival Ballet, 1974).

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Joseph the Beautiful.

Ballet in two acts with choreography by Kasyan Goleizovsky , music by Sergei Vasilenko , and designs by Boris Erdman . Premiered 3 Mar. 1925, by the Bolshoi Ballet at the Experimental Theatre in Moscow with Lubov Bank , Vasily Efimov , and Aleksei Bulgakov . Joseph , a youth from Canaan, is abducted by his brothers who sell him to Egyptian slave traders. Once at the Pharaoh's court, Joseph finds himself the object of amorous advances from the Pharaoh's wife. When he resists her attempts at seduction, he is condemned to death. Because of its unbridled eroticism, its daringly innovative choreography (many of the movements were performed with the dancers lying down), and its revealing costumes, the ballet caused much controversy in Soviet Russia. Goleizovsky was locked into a lengthy struggle with the Bolshoi's management, who had demanded changes to both costumes and choreography. The choreographer remounted the ballet in Odessa and Kharkov in the following years but it was never again produced at the Bolshoi.

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jota.

A quick dance from northern Spain performed in 3/8 time. A dance for couples who play castanets, it is accompanied by someone who sings and plays the guitar. A notable theatrical example of the jota can be found in Massine's and de Falla's Three-Cornered Hat.

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jour ou deux, Un.

See Un jour ou deux.

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Jowitt , Deborah

(b Los Angeles, 8 Feb. 1934).
US dancer, choreographer, teacher, and dance writer. She studied with Graham , Limón , and at the American Ballet Center. She began to dance professionally in 1953, to show her own choreography in 1962, and to write a regular dance column for The Village Voice in 1967. In the 1960s she was one of the original members of New York's Dance Theater Workshop, where she presented her own choreography as well as performing in works by colleagues. Her articles on dance have appeared in numerous publications; some of these were collected in her Dance Beat (1977) and The Dance in Mind (1985). A third book, Time and the Dancing Image, won the de la Torre Bueno Prize (1988). In 1997 she edited Meredith Monk, published by Johns Hopkins University Press. A founding member of the Dance Critics' Association, she served at various times as its treasurer, newsletter editor, and co-chairman. In addition to lecturing and conducting workshops both in the US and abroad, she teaches and choreographs in the Dance Department of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.

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Joyce Theater.

Theater located in lower Manhattan which regularly programmes dance. It is one of the world's most important modern dance venues.

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Judas Tree, The.

Ballet in one act with choreography by MacMillan , music by Brian Elias , and designs by Jock McFadyen . Premiered 19 Mar. 1992 by the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden with Irek Mukhamedov , Viviana Durante , and Michael Nunn . A searing ballet about betrayal set on a modern building site, it was MacMillan's last work for Covent Garden. It won the Olivier Award in 1992, while the television version, directed by Ross MacGibbon , won the 1998 International Emmy Award for Performing Arts.

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Jude , Charles

(b Mytho, South Vietnam, 25 July 1953).
French dancer. He studied with A. Kalioujny and S. Peretti and at the Nice Conservatory (1968–72). In 1972 he joined the Paris Opera Ballet; he was promoted to danseur étoile in 1977. He danced all the leading male roles in the classical repertoire, as well as in ballets by Fokine , Nijinska , Lifar , Tudor , Robbins , Balanchine , and Grigorovich (Ivan the Terrible). He created leading roles in Nureyev's Raymonda (1983), Washington Square (1985), and Cinderella (1986), and in Neumeier's Magnificat (1987). He took part in the touring outfit, Nureyev and Friends (1980–92), and danced with the Royal Ballet, the Vienna Opera Ballet, La Scala, Milan, and the Royal Danish Ballet. In 1996 he was appointed artistic director of the Bordeaux Opera Ballet, where he continued to perform Romeo, probably his most successful role. He choreographed a new version of Nutcracker for Bordeaux in 1997. Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur (1996).

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Judgment of Paris, The.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Tudor , libretto and designs by Hugh Laing , and music by Kurt Weill . Premiered 15 June 1938 by the London Ballet at the Westminster Theatre, London, with Langfield , de Mille , Bidmead , Tudor, and Laing. The Greek myth of three goddesses competing for the golden apple is re-told in a modern setting with a heavy dose of satire. The action takes place in a sordid bar in Paris around 1900; the three goddesses are a trio of ageing prostitutes (Juno, Minerva, and Venus); and the judge (Paris in the original) is here turned into a hapless patron who is ultimately robbed once he falls into a drunken stupor. The ballet is set to Weill's Suite from The Threepenny Opera. Tudor re-staged it for Ballet Rambert in 1940 and for American Ballet Theatre (also 1940).

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Judson Dance Theater.

A ground-breaking collective of choreographers working in New York in the 1960s whose avant-garde work gave birth to the movement eventually known as post-modern dance. The first Judson performance was given on 6 July 1962 at Judson Memorial Church on Washington Square in New York's Greenwich Village. The choreographers were united in their rejection of traditional form and technique, of narrative and overt theatricality, although they chose different ways of expressing their radicalism. Founding members included Lucinda Childs , Yvonne Rainer , Steve Paxton , David Gordon , and Trisha Brown ; later came Twyla Tharp . One of the most important features of Judson Dance Theater was the collaboration of visual artists (such as Robert Rauschenberg ) and composers who also made choreography.

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Jugement de Pâris, Le.

Ballet divertissement in one act with choreography by Perrot , music by Pugni , and design by Charles Marshall . Premiered 23 July 1846 at Her Majesty's Theatre in London, with M. Taglioni , Grahn , Cerrito , and Saint-Léon . In an effort to capitalize on the huge success of the Pas de quatre (1845), Perrot staged this divertissement on a classical Greek theme, the centrepiece of which features three goddesses competing for the favours of the shepherd Paris (diplomatic to the end, he chooses none). Taglioni gave her farewell performance in this ballet on 21 Aug. 1847. Perrot re-staged it, as Le Soucis du maître de ballet, in St Petersburg in 1851.

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Juilliard School of Music, Dance Department.

One of the leading dance schools, established in 1952 at the Juilliard in New York. Teachers have included de Mille , Graham , Humphrey , Limón , Robbins , and Tudor . Since 1964 it has been based at Lincoln Center in New York.

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Jurriëns , Henny

(b Arnhem, 21 Feb. 1949, d 9 Apr. 1989).
Dutch dancer and ballet director. He studied with Winja Marova and later with Arova , Franchetti , Bon , and Kramar . From 1966 to 1970 he was a member of the Norwegian National Ballet. In 1970 he joined Dutch National Ballet, eventually becoming a principal, and created roles in many ballets by van Dantzig and van Manen . In 1988 he became artistic director of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, but the following year he and his wife, the dancer Judith James , lost their lives in an automobile accident.

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K

kabuki.

Japanese form of dance theatre dating back to the 16th century. Kabuki means song, dance, and acting, although the term originally meant shocking or strange, in reference to the form's unusual style, and it originated in shows given by O-Kuni , a dancer and lay priestess from the Izmumo region, and her all-female troupe. They were very popular in Kyoto where they performed a fusion of prayer dance, folk dance, comic mime, and erotic dance. This mix evolved into dance dramas whose populist style contrasted with the refined and aristocratic noh theatre. Part of their popularity derived from their overtly erotic content which led to a ban on women appearing in kabuki performances (from 1629) and on boys (from 1652). Adult male dancers thus took over the kabuki style, creating the profession of female impersonator or onnagata which became an honoured calling for which boys were trained from childhood. Kabuki evolved through four basic stages, its works originally taking their inspiration from historical sagas, then tending more towards dance, then concentrating on folk stories, and finally aiming for more contemporary narratives. In its classic form kabuki is an integrated mix of dance, gesture, music, costume, make-up, and vivid stage effects. Performances tend to be long by Western standards and slow moving, but are rich in imagery and emotion. Two famous works are Chushingura (The Forty-Seven Loyal Samurai), a historical tale of honour and revenge, and Sumidagawa (The Sumida River), the story of a mad woman's search for her lost son. Kabuki dance troupes (as distinct from kabuki theatre troupes) also now give independent performances, with both male and female artists taking part.

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Kain , Karen

(b Hamilton, Ont., 28 Mar. 1951).
Canadian dancer. She studied at the National Ballet of Canada School and joined the National Ballet of Canada in 1969. A versatile dancer whose powerful classical technique was linked with unusual dramatic intensity, she was appointed principal in 1970, dancing the classical and 20th-century repertories with equal success. Though she was guest artist with Ballet National de Marseilles for several seasons (1974–82) and also guested with many other companies, she was the first Canadian ballerina to make her international reputation without permanently leaving her native country. She created roles in many ballets including Petit's Nana (Paris Opera, 1976), and Tetley's Alice and La Ronde (both 1987). She frequently partnered Nureyev at home and abroad and has appeared several times on television. She was recipient of the Order of Canada in 1976. During her forties she relinquished most of the ballerina roles but continued to perform less-demanding roles, creating the lead in Kudelka's The Actress (1994). She retired in 1997.

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Kammermusik No. 2.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Balanchine , music by Hindemith , and costumes by Ben Benson . Premiered 26 Jan. 1978 by New York City Ballet at the State Theater, New York, with von Aroldingen , C. Neary , Luders , and Lavery . This setting of Hindemith's Op. 36, No. 1 for piano and twelve solo instruments suggests emotional and erotic undercurrents between its two principal couples and a chorus of eight men.

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Karalli , Vera (also Vera Coralli or Vera Koralli ;

b Moscow, 8 Aug. 1889, d Baden, nr. Vienna, 16 Nov. 1972).
Russian dancer. She studied with Gorsky at the Imperial Theatre School, Moscow, and joined the Bolshoi in 1906 where she was promoted ballerina in 1914. In 1909 and again between 1919 and 1920 she also danced with Diaghilev's company, performing in Pavillon d'Armide, Thamar, and Prince Igor. One of her most celebrated stage roles was Giselle. Though never a great technician, her charismatic stage presence and dramatic talent brought her considerable fame and she became one of Russia's first film stars. She was ballet mistress in Bucharest (1930–7) then had a studio in Paris (1938–41), after which she taught in Vienna.

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Karinska , Barbara (orig. Varvara Zhmoudska ;

b Kharkhov, 3 Oct. 1886, d New York, 18 Oct. 1983).
Russian-US designer and costume maker. She left Russia in 1928 and worked as a seamstress in Paris, executing designs by Dalí , Matisse , Beaton , and others. In 1930 she went to the US, working in Hollywood and in New York, then in 1949 designing her first ballet costumes for Balanchine's Bourrée fantasque. She became New York City Ballet's preeminent costume designer and maker, and, while her taste was not universally admired, some regarded her cutting skills and designs as exemplary, with Walter Terry calling her ‘ballet's most cherished sorceress’.

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Karsavina , Tamara

(b St Petersburg, 9 Mar. 1885, d Beaconsfield, 26 May 1978).
Russian-British dancer, the most famous of Diaghilev's ballerinas. She was the daughter of the Maryinsky dancer and teacher Platon Karsavin and studied at the Imperial Theatre School with Cecchetti , Gerdt , and Johansson , also with C. Beretta in Milan. In 1902 she graduated into the Maryinsky as soloist, becoming ballerina in 1909. Although she stayed with the company until 1918 she also danced extensively with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes from 1909, creating roles in many ballets including Fokine's Les Sylphides (1st version, 1908), Cléopâtre (1909), Carnaval and Firebird (both 1910), Spectre de la rose, Narcisse, and Petrushka (all 1911), Le Dieu bleu, Thamar, Papillon, and Daphnis and Chloe (all 1912), and Le Coq d'or (1914), Nijinsky's Jeux (1913), and Massine's Le Tricorne (1919) and Pulcinella (1920). A dancer revered not only for the versatility of her technique but for the poetic expression and intelligence of her interpretations, she was also renowned in classical ballerina roles. She left Russia in 1918 with her second husband, the British diplomat Henry J. Bruce , and settled in London. She continued to guest with Diaghilev's company for various seasons in London, Paris, and Monte Carlo (1919–29), then from 1930 to 1931 she danced with Ballet Rambert, helping to stage several ballets including several by Fokine . After retiring from the stage she remained a major influence on British ballet, acting as Vice-President of the Royal Academy of Dancing between 1946 and 1955, giving lecture-demonstrations in ballet mime and advising the Royal Ballet in the staging of various Diaghilev ballets as well as The Nutcracker, Giselle, and La Fille mal gardée. (She coached Fonteyn in several of her own former roles, and it is said other dancers might also have profited from her advice had she been consulted more frequently.) Her autobiography, Theatre Street, was published in London (1930) and her textbook Classical Ballet: The Flow of Movement in London (1962). The toasts for her ninetieth birthday were proposed by Ashton and John Gielgud .

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Kasatkina , Natalia

(b Moscow, 7 June 1934).
Soviet dancer and choreographer. She graduated from the Moscow Ballet School into the Bolshoi Ballet in 1954 where she became one of the company's leading character dancers. Later she began to choreograph with her husband V. Vasiliov , creating their first joint ballet Vanina Vanini (mus. Karetnikov ) in 1962. Other works by them include Heroic Poem (The Geologists) (mus. Karetnikov , 1964), Le Sacre du printemps (mus. Stravinsky , 1965, a version set in the second millennium BC), Preludes and Fugues (mus. Bach , 1968), and Romeo and Juliet (mus. Prokofiev , 1972). They also created The Creation of the World (mus. A. Petrov , 1971) for the Kirov. She and Vasiliov subsequently became directors of the Moscow Classical Ballet, an internationally touring company for which they have created many works.

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Kastl , Sonja

(b Zagreb, 14 July 1929).
Yugoslavian dancer, choreographer, and director. She studied with Froman , Preobrajenska , Skeaping , and others and joined Zagreb National Ballet in 1945, becoming prima ballerina and then, in 1965, ballet mistress. She choreographed numerous ballets, often in association with Nevanka Bidjin , in which she explored contemporary Yugoslavian music, including Symphony of a Dead Soldier (mus. Branimir Saka , 1959) and Symphony in D (mus. Luka Sorkoevi , 1965).

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kathak.

Dance from N. India and Pakistan. Its name comes from katha meaning story and it originates from the kathaks or storytellers who used to give religious and moral instruction in narrative form. Music, mime, and dance became important features of their technique and when this mingled with the decorative dance styles introduced by the Moguls (14th-17th centuries) kathak became a complex movement form capable of dealing with the themes of Hindu myth as well as more human stories. Subsequently its narrative content became highly refined (that which remained dealing primarily with the stories of Radha and Krishna) and dancers focused on music and rhythm. Kathak performers are noted for their virtuosic fast turns and stamping footwork, whose rhythms, exaggerated by ankle bells, develop into highly complex metrical sequences. Today's dancers may be pure classicists or, like British-based Nahid Siddiqui , develop the language into a more contemporary style of dance.

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kathakali.

Indian dance-drama form from Kerala in SW India. Its name derives from the same words as kathak (see above) but it is far more vividly theatrical in style. The stories in its repertory are taken from the ancient Indian epics Ramayana and Mahabharata as well as from folk tales. Its dancer-actors (who are traditionally male, due to the strenuousness of performances) employ vigorous, highly stylized gestures to reflect the words sung by the musicians standing behind them as well as to evoke the atmosphere and setting of each scene. Costumes and head-dresses are very elaborate and the make-up (which can take four hours to apply) reflects the nature of the various larger-than-life characters with different colours depicting good, evil, male, or female qualities. Performances often begin at dusk and may last for sixteen hours.

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Kay , Barry

(b Melbourne, 1932, d London, 16 Apr. 1985).
Australian designer. He emigrated to England in 1957 and in the same year designed Darrell's The Prisoners and Chiaroscuro. His other designs for ballet included Nureyev's Don Quixote (Vienna State Opera Ballet, 1966, and Australian Ballet, 1970) and MacMillan's Anastasia (Berlin, 1967, and Royal Ballet, 1971), Sleeping Beauty (1973), and Isadora (1981).

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Kay , Hershy

(b Philadelphia, 17 Nov. 1919, d Danbury, Conn., 2 Dec. 1981).
US composer. He wrote and arranged the music for several ballets including Balanchine's Western Symphony (1954), Who Cares? (orchestration of Gershwin, 1970), and Union Jack (1976), also Robbins's The Concert (arr. of Chopin, 1956).

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Kaye , Nora (orig. Nova Koreff ;

b New York, 17 Jan. 1920, d Santa Monica, Calif., 28 Feb. 1987).
US dancer and director. She studied at the Metropolitan Opera Ballet School with Fokine , Vilzak , and Schollar and at the School of American Ballet, making her debut in children's ballets at the Metropolitan Opera House. In 1935 she joined American Ballet and in 1939 became one of the founding dancers of Ballet Theatre (later American Ballet Theatre), having danced in several Broadway musicals. She was promoted to ballerina in 1942 and remained with the company until 1959 (except for a period with New York City Ballet, 1951–4), where she was renowned as its greatest dramatic artist. A dance-actress of sometimes shocking intensity she created many roles, most memorably those of Hagar in Tudor's Pillar of Fire (1942) and Lizzie Borden in de Mille's Fall River Legend (1948—though illness prevented her from dancing on the opening night). She also danced classic roles, such as Giselle. At NYCB she created roles in Robbins's The Cage (1951) and Tudor's La Gloire (1952), and on her return to ABT went on to create roles in MacMillan's Winter's Eve and H. Ross's Paean (both 1957), among others. She married Ross in 1959 and with him founded Ballet of Two Worlds in 1960. As its prima ballerina she created roles in several of Ross's ballets, including Rashomon Suite and The Dybbuk (both 1960/1). She retired from the stage in 1961 though she continued to work as a producer for some of Ross's films, such as The Turning Point (1977) and Dancers (1987). She was on ABT's board of directors from 1977 to 1983 and continued to advise the company until her death.

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Kchessinska , Mathilda.

See Kshessinska , Mathilda.

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Keeler , Ruby

(b Halifax, NS, 25 Aug. 1909, d Los Angeles, 28 Feb. 1993).
US dancer and actress. She studied with Helen Guest and later with Jack Blue , giving some of her earliest performances with the Eastside Sextette in 1920. After working in various clubs and on Broadway she became a star attraction of the Ziegfeld productions. In 1933 she also became a star in Hollywood when she appeared in Busby Berkeley's 42nd Street. She subsequently worked with Berkeley on many other films. During the mid-1960s there was a revival of interest in Berkeley's work and she appeared frequently with him at screenings of their films. In 1971 she made a triumphant return to the stage in his 1971 Broadway revival of No, No, Nanette. She was married to Al Jolson (1929–39).

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Keersmaeker , Anne Teresa de

(b Mechelen, 11 June 1960).
Belgian dancer, choreographer, and director. She studied for two years at the Mudra school where she created her first work Asch in 1980. After a year at the New York University's School of the Arts she returned to Belgium to complete the four-part duet Fase (mus. Reich ) and in 1983 launched her all-woman company Rosas in Rosas Danst Rosas (mus. de Mey and Vermeersch ). Her original influences were minimalists like L. Dean and Childs but in Bartók/Aantekeningen a more theatrically expressionist vein emerged, developed through text and film. In 1992 she became resident choreographer at the Monnaie Opera House with an expanded company of men and women. Here she has created works to a variety of music including Mozart arias (Un moto di gioia, 1992), Schoenberg (Verklärte Nacht, 1995), and Thierry de Mey (Amor constante más allá de la muerte, 1995). Peter Greenaway directed the film Rosas of her work in 1991.

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Kehlet , Niels

(b Copenhagen, 6 Sept. 1938).
Danish dancer. He studied at the Royal Danish Ballet School and graduated into the company in 1957 where he was promoted to soloist (principal) in 1961. A demi-caractère virtuoso, gifted with a strong classical technique, extrovert stage presence, and dramatic versatility, his wide repertory extended from James in La Sylphide to Mercutio in Neumeier's Romeo and Juliet, Franz in Coppélia, and Colas in Ashton's La Fille mal gardée. He also danced modern works creating roles in several ballets such as Flindt's The Three Musketeers (1965) and The Miraculous Mandarin (1967) and von Rosen's Don Juan (1967). He frequently guested abroad, with the Fracci-Menegatti-Gai company in Italy, for example, and made many television appearances. In 1991 he directed Stars and Soloists of the Royal Danish Ballet and since retiring from principal roles has worked as teacher and mime artist with the RDB.

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Keil , Birgit

(b Kowarschen, 22 Sept. 1944).
German dancer. She studied at the schools of both the Stuttgart Ballet and the Royal Ballet, joining Stuttgart Ballet in 1961. In 1964 she was promoted soloist and rapidly became one of its most renowned ballerinas. A tall, elegant, almost ethereal dancer with a pure classical technique she performed much of the standard ballerina repertory but also created roles in many new works, including MacMillan's Las Hermanas (1963), Song of the Earth (1965), Miss Julie (1970), and My Brother, My Sisters (1978); Cranko's Opus 1 (1965), Salade (1968), Orpheus (1970), and Initials R.B.M.E.; Tetley's Voluntaries (1973) and Greening (1975); Kylián's Return to the Strange Land (1974) and Forgotten Land (1981); and van Manen's Shaker Loops (1987). She guested with many companies around the world including American Ballet Theatre, Royal Ballet, and Paris Opera and appeared on television in MacMillan's The Seven Deadly Sins (1984), among others. She was recipient of the Order of Merit, First Class, of the German Federal Republic (1982).

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Kelly , Desmond

(b Penhalonga, S. Rhodesia, 13 Jan. 1942).
British dancer. He studied with Ruth French in London and joined London Festival Ballet in 1959 where he was appointed principal in 1963. After guesting with New Zealand Ballet, Washington National Ballet, and Zurich Ballet with his wife, dancer Denise LeComte , he joined Royal Ballet in 1970 as principal. Although not a virtuoso he was a fine partner and actor and created roles in several ballets, including Tetley's Field Figures (1970), J. Carter's Shukumei (1957), and MacMillan's Playground (1979). He was a favoured partner of Fonteyn and a renowned Albrecht . In 1976 he joined Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet where he became ballet master (1978) and assistant director (1990). He continues to perform some character roles.

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Kelly , Gene

(b Pittsburgh, 3 Aug. 1912, d Beverly Hills, Calif., 2 Feb. 1996).
US actor, dancer, choreographer, and film director. He studied dance as a child, and while still pursuing his academic education (at Pittsburgh University) was staging his own shows and running a dance school. In 1939 he went to New York where he performed in musicals, getting the leading role in Pal Joey in 1940, which was also filmed. His dance style was a mix of tap, soft shoe, ballet, modern, jazz, and folk, and was executed with an unusual gymnastic attack. He also possessed a strong cinematic personality and became involved in directing the films in which he performed (often in collaboration with Stanley Donen ), including On the Town (1949), An American in Paris (1951, with Vincente Minnelli ), and Singin' in the Rain (1952). In all these films Kelly sought new ways of integrating dance into film. However, his most ambitious ballet film, Invitation to the Dance (1952, released 1956), was his least successful. He created the ballet Pas de dieux (mus. Gershwin ) for Paris Opera in 1960 and was recipient of the Légion d'honneur in the same year.

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Kemp , Lindsay

(b Isle of Lewis, c.1939).
British mime, actor, dancer, and director. He studied at Bradford Art College and Rambert Ballet School and first performed at the Edinburgh Festival in 1964, appearing subsequently in cabaret, musicals, and film (including Ken Russell's Savage Messiah, 1972). In the early 1970s he produced David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust concerts and achieved his own first hit with Flowers in 1973, a mime, dance, and music spectacle based on Genet's writings in which Kemp played Divine, the first of his exotically larger-than-life creations. Later shows have included Salome (1977), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1979), and Cinderella (1995). Kemp has also created two works for Ballet Rambert, The Parade's Gone By (mus. Miranda , 1975) and Cruel Garden (with C. Bruce , mus. Miranda , 1977, revived English National Ballet, 1988). His work has always enjoyed greater popularity in Europe and Japan than in the UK, where Kemp's harshest critics dismiss his flamboyance and excess as indulgent. He is now based in Italy.

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Kemp , William.

Sixteenth-century British actor and dancer who was listed as ‘head master of Morrice dancers’ in Shakespeare's company. He was said to have danced from London to Norwich in 1599.

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Kent , Allegra

(b Santa Monica, Calif., 11 Aug. 1938).
US dancer and teacher. She studied with Bronislava and Irina Nijinska , with Carmelita Maracci , and at the School of American Ballet. In 1953 she joined New York City Ballet where she was promoted to principal in 1957. An exceptionally lyrical dancer, who projected an aura of poetic mystery on stage, she created roles in several Balanchine ballets, including ‘The Unanswered Question’ section of Ivesiana (1954), Agon (1957), Bugaku (1963), and Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet (1966). She also created roles in Robbins's Dances at a Gathering (1969) and Dumbarton Oaks (1972), as well as dancing in the Broadway musical Shinbone Alley (1957) and guesting occasionally abroad. After retiring in mid-1981 she worked as a freelance teacher and in 1990 was dancer and associate director with John Cliffords Ballet of Los Angeles. She continues to teach and to coach the Balanchine repertory and in 1997 published her autobiography Once a Dancer…

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Kent , Julie

(b Bethesda, Md., 11 July 1969).
US dancer. She trained at the Academy of the Maryland Youth Ballet and the School of American Ballet, joining American Ballet Theatre in 1985 as apprentice and becoming full-time member in 1986, soloist in 1990, and principal in 1993. She has danced leading roles in the classical and 20th-century repertories and created roles in several works, including Kudelka's Cruel World (1994) and Tharp's Known By Heart (1998). In 1987 she starred in the film Dancers (dir. H. Ross ).

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Kerensky , Oleg

(b London, 9 Jan. 1930, d New York, 9 July 1993).
British critic. He wrote for the Daily Mail (1957–71), New Statesman (1968–78), and International Herald Tribune (1971–8), contributed to Encyclopaedia Britannica (1974), and wrote Ballet Scene (London, 1970), Anna Pavlova (London, 1973), and The Guinness Guide to Ballet (London, 1981).

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Kermesse in Bruges, The (orig. Danish title Kermessen i Brugge).

Ballet in three acts with choreography and libretto by Bournonville , music by Paulli , sets by C. F. Christensen , and costumes by E. Lehmann . Premiered 4 Apr. 1851 by the Royal Danish Ballet in Copenhagen with J. Price . G. Brodersen , F. Hoppensach , and F. Hoppe . It is inspired by the bourgeois Flemish painting style of the 17th century and takes place at a Holy Fair in 17th-century Bruges, telling the fantastic story of three brothers who receive three magic gifts. One of the most amusing and popular of Bournonville's ballets, it is still in the repertory. Subsequent productions include Royal Swedish Ballet (staged S. Lund , 1858), Royal Danish Ballet (staged H. Lander and Borchsenius , 1943, and by H. Brenaa in two acts, 1979), and by Jan Maargaad and D. Bjørn , 2000, also stagings of the Act I pas de deux for New York City Ballet (S. Williams after Bournonville , 1977) and Bolshoi Ballet (J. Graff and K. Ralov after Bournonville, 1986), among others.

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Kersley , Leo

(b Watford, 1920).
British dancer and teacher. He studied with Idzikowski and Rambert and danced with Ballet Rambert (1936–9 and 1940–1). In 1941 he joined Sadler's Wells Ballet then danced with the Anglo-Polish Ballet (1942–3) and with Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet (1946–51). He taught in Europe and the US and in 1959 opened a school in Essex with his wife, Janet Sinclair . They were co-authors of A Dictionary of Ballet Terms (London, 1952).

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Kettentanz.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Arpino , music by J. Strauss and J. S. Mayer , and costumes by J. Eula . Premiered 20 Oct. 1971 by City Center Joffrey Ballet at City Center, New York, with R. Wright . This setting of various polkas, galops, and waltzes is an unbroken chain of dances for six couples, celebrating their virtuosity and energy. It has been revived by National Ballet of Canada.

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Khachaturian , Aram Ilyich

(b Tbilisi, 6 June 1903, d Moscow, 1 May 1978).
Soviet composer. He wrote the ballet music for Happiness (chor. I. Arbatov , Yerevan , 1939) which was rewritten to become the score for Gayané (chor. Anisomova , Kirov Ballet, 1942) and for Spartacus (many productions, including Jacobson, Kirov Ballet, 1956, and Grigorovich , Bolshoi Ballet, 1968).

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Khalfounie , Dominique

(b Paris, 23 June 1951).
French dancer. She studied at Paris Opera Ballet School and graduated into the company in 1967 where she was promoted to danseuse étoile in 1976. She created the leading role in MacMillan's Metaboles (1978) but resigned from the Opera in 1980 to perform with Ballet de Marseilles, and, subsequently, teach in its school.

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Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company.

See Israel.

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Kidd , Michael

(b Brooklyn, NY, 12 Aug. 1919).
US dancer, choreographer, and director. He studied at the School of American Ballet with Vilzak and Schollar and made his debut in the musical The Eternal Road (1937). He danced with American Ballet and Ballet Caravan (1937–40) then with Loring's Dance Players (1941–2) and with Ballet Theatre (1942–7) where he created a role in Robbins's Interplay (1945) and choreographed his own On Stage! (mus. Dello Joio , 1945). After giving up his career in ballet he became a highly successful choreographer for Broadway and Hollywood, creating the dance and musical numbers for, among others, Finian's Rainbow (1947), Guys and Dolls (1951), Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954), Destry Rides Again (1959), and Hello Dolly! (1969 film version). He also choreographed the television special Baryshnikov in Hollwood (1982).

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Kim Wha-suk

(b Kwangju, S. Korea, 2 Dec. 1949).
Korean dancer, choreographer, and director. She studied ballet at school and modern dance at Ewha Women's University, joining the Yook Wan-soon Dance Company (1969–76). In 1971 she co-founded her own company with Kim Bock-hee for which they co-choreographed many works, including For My Friend in the Sky (mus. Milhaud , 1984). In 1985 she also founded the SAPPHO Modern Dance Company, for which she created To You Revived in our Heart (mus. Mozart , 1996), among other works. She has taught at several universities and in 1989 founded the Korean Dance Education Society for which she has subsequently acted as president.

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kinesiology.

The study of human movement, from the point of view of both mechanical action and anatomical structure.

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Kinetic Molpai.

Modern dance work in eleven sections with choreography by Ted Shawn and music by Jess Meeker . Premiered 5 Oct. 1935 by Ted Shawn and his Men Dancers at Goshen, New York. Shawn's choreography is a paean to male power and energy, with each section self-explanatorily titled—‘Strife’, ‘Oppositions’, ‘Solvent’, ‘Dynamic Contrasts’, ‘Resilience’, ‘Successions’, ‘Unfolding and Folding’, ‘Dirge’, ‘Limbo’, ‘Surge’, and ‘Apotheosis’. It was revived by the Alvin Ailey City Center Dance Theater in 1972.

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Kinetographie.

Official name of Laban's system of dance notation, which is generally referred to in English as Labanotation.

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King , Harold

(b Durban, 13 May 1949).
South African dancer, choreographer, and director. He studied at University Ballet School in Cape Town and in 1968 joined CAPAB Ballet Company where he was promoted soloist. In 1970 he came to England and danced with Western Theatre Ballet, later Scottish Ballet. He mounted several seasons for National Ballet of Zimbabwe and worked as guest artist and teacher for CAPAB, then returned to England where he founded London City Ballet (later City Ballet of London) in 1978.

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King , Kenneth

(b Freeport, NY, 25 Aug. 1948).
US dancer and choreographer. He took up dance while studying philosophy at Antioch College and later trained with Cunningham and Forti . During the 1960s he performed with Meredith Monk . His own dances have typically combined rapid, repetitive movement with spoken monologues on scientific and philosophical issues, such as his solo Upper Atmospheric Disturbances (1995) and the duet (with Frances Alenikoff ) www//alenikoffking.com (1997).

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King's Theatre.

Built in the Haymarket, 1704–5, as London's principal ballet and opera theatre. When it burned down in 1789 a new theatre was built on the same site in 1793. Under the direction of Lumley it presented many of the great Romantic ballerinas. In 1837 its name changed to Her Majesty's Theatre. It features as the background in de Valois's ballet The Prospect Before Us.

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King's Volunteers on Amager, The.

See LifeGuards on Amager, The.

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Kirkland , Gelsey

(b Bethlehem, Pa., 29 Dec. 1952).
US dancer. She studied at the School of American Ballet and joined New York City Ballet in 1968 where her extraordinary gifts led to rapid promotion, as soloist in 1969 and principal in 1972. A dancer of rare speed, lightness, and strength, she was compared to a humming-bird by Balanchine who created his new production of Firebird for her in 1970, and in the same year Suite No. 3. Robbins created roles for her in The Goldberg Variations (1971), Scherzo fantastique (1972), and An Evening's Waltzes (1973) but she became unhappy with the lack of dramatic content in NYCB's repertory and left for American Ballet Theatre in 1974, often dancing with Baryshnikov and Nureyev . Here she created roles in Tudor's The Leaves are Fading and Neumeier's Hamlet: Connotations (both 1976) as well as dancing many of the classic ballerina roles. However, personal problems and illness frequently interrupted her career and she left the company for good in 1984. Though she guested to much acclaim with the Royal Ballet in 1980 and 1986 it was felt that she had not achieved her potential to become one of the truly great ballerinas of the century. Her own somewhat sensational account of her life appears in Dancing on my Grave: An Autobiography, written with her husband, Greg Lawrence (New York, 1986), and its sequel, The Shape of Love (New York, 1990).

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Kirov Ballet.

Russian ballet company based at the Maryinsky Theatre in St Petersburg. It dates back to court performances given by dancers trained at the Empress Anna Ivanovna's school which evolved into a professional company, the Imperial Ballet. This was based at the Bolshoi Theatre in St Petersburg (1783–1860) and then at the Maryinsky Theatre, although the company continued to perform at the Bolshoi Theatre until 1889. It also gave smaller-scale performances at the Theatre of the Hermitage and the Theatre of Tsarskoye Selo (now the Pushkin). After the October Revolution of 1917 the theatre's name was changed to State Maryinsky Theatre, then the State Academic Theatre for Opera and Ballet (Russian abbreviation, GATOB). In 1935 it became the Leningrad Theatre for Opera and Ballet named after Kirov (the head of the Leningrad Communist Party who was assassinated in 1934), while the company itself was commonly known as the Kirov Ballet. In 1991 the theatre reverted to its original name, the Maryinsky, with the company retaining the name Kirov for foreign touring.
Originally, ballet in Russia was a foreign import. The empress's school (founded 1738) was directed by the Frenchman Landé and early choreographers and teachers such as Hilverding and Angiolini brought with them European ballets and a European technical finesse. Even so, these soon became inflected with the freer style of Russian folk dance, and some early ballets were created on Russian themes, such as Angiolini's Semira (1772), based on a tragedy by Russian writer Sumarokov , and Valbergh's Russia's Triumph; or, The Russians in Paris (1814). Didelot , who was ballet master in St Petersburg from 1801 to 1811 and again from 1816, choreographed the first ballets based on Pushkin's work and he was also responsible for widespread reforms in the school and company. Under his influence the city became one of the leading centres of ballet, producing its own star dancers. Romanticism came into vogue when Taglioni danced La Sylphide in St Petersburg in 1837 and many of the other great Romantic ballerinas performed there during the 1840s and 1850s. Russian ballerinas, however, proved able to compete with them, including Elena Andreyanova who danced Giselle in 1842, and later Marie Bogdanova . Subsequent ballet masters, Perrot (1848–59) and Saint-Léon (1859–69) added their own distinctive works to the repertory. But it was Petipa who brought the St Petersburg ballet to its peak of artistic brilliance. He joined the company in 1847 as a solo dancer and was appointed chief ballet master in 1869. In a long succession of increasingly inventive and expressive works he not only extended the technical and dramatic range of the classical vocabulary but also evolved a far more sophisticated format than that of previous ballet spectacles. The Sleeping Beauty (1890) and Swan Lake (with Ivanov , 1895) were created in quasisymphonic form comparable to the great Tchaikovsky scores to which they were set, with individual dance numbers knitted into a coherent sweep of dance and mime. Petipa's ballets were also vehicles for the increasing virtuosity of the principal dancers, trained by gifted teachers like Christian Johansson and Enrico Cecchetti . They included Ekaterina Vazem , Evgenia Sokolova , Pavel Gerdt , and Nicolai Legat . At the beginning of the 20th century other outstanding classical dancers emerged, including Olga Preobrajenska , Mathilda Kshessinska , and Anna Pavlova but the vitality of 19th-century choreography was exhausted. The young choreographer Fokine was committed to replacing the old three-act ballets with dance of a new concentrated realism. But the Maryinsky Theatre was unsympathetic to his reforms and he chose to work for long periods with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in Europe as did many of the younger dancers, notably Vaslav Nijinsky and Tamara Karsavina . In 1917 the October Revolution produced a period of instability in the company and more dancers left, but during the 1920s GATOB became a platform for experimental work under the direction of Lopukhov . He and Balanchine (prior to the latter's 1924 departure to the West) staged Evenings of Young Ballet and many new ballets were shown. However, the company also remained committed to preserving its 19th-century traditions. During the 1930s Sovietstyle ballet theatre came to prominence with many seminal ballets in the genre created in the company, such as Vainonen's Flames of Paris (1932), Zakharov's Fountain of Bakhchisarai (1934), and the Lavrovsky production of Romeo and Juliet (1940). Galina Ulanova emerged as the company's outstanding ballerina at this time. Between 1941 and 1944 the company was evacuated to Molotov-Perm though some dancers remained in the besieged Leningrad to perform. After 1945 Moscow overtook St Petersburg as the official centre of Soviet ballet although some important works continued to be made at the Kirov, including Fenster's Taras Bulba (1955), Jacobson's Spartacus (1956), Grigorovich's The Stone Flower (1957) and A Legend of Love (1961), and Belsky's The Leningrad Symphony (1961). With Konstantin Sergeyev as company director and his wife Natalia Dudinskaya as leading dancer, the classical repertory was also strictly maintained. While the Bolshoi were known for their vigorous, dramatic energy the Kirov were renowned for their purity of line, their musicality, and their adherence to classical tradition. When the company began touring to the West after 1961 dancers like Natalia Makarova , Irina Kolpakova , Rudolf Nureyev , and Yuri Soloviev impressed audiences with their refined artistry. Contact with the West, however, revealed the artistic limitations of the Kirov's repertory and many dancers chose to defect, including Nureyev , Makarova , and, later, Baryshnikov . In 1977 Oleg Vinogradov took over direction of the company. He created many new ballets but also began to add Western work by Béjart, Balanchine , and Fokine , among others. Increased touring to the West after the late 1980s brought international fame to a new generation of Kirov dancers, notably Altynai Asylmuratova, Farukh Ruzimatov , and, later, Igor Zelensky . Vinogradov ceased to be effective director of the company in 1996 due to a series of political and financial scandals and the Kirov is now run by the director of the Maryinsky Theatre, Valery Gergiev , and by ballet director Makharbek Vaziev . Dogged by financial uncertainties it struggles to sustain the traditions for which it is famous while finding a new direction for its future, slowly adding works to its repertory, including ballets by Balanchine , Yevgeny Panfilov's Rite of Spring (1996), revivals of Petit's Carmen and Le Jeune Homme et la mort, and works by Alexei Ratmansky , including Le Baiser de la fée (1998). It remains legendary for the beauty and discipline of its corps de ballet, rooted in the training which dancers receive from the company school. Based in Theatre Street (Rossi Street) the school dates back to the 1738 school founded by the Empress Anna Ivanovna . It has been successively named the Imperial Theatre School, St Petersburg, the Petrograd State Ballet School, the Leningrad Ballet School, and from 1957, the Vaganova School.

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Kirsova , Helene (orig. Ellen Wittrup Hansen ;

b Denmark, c.1911, d London, 22 Feb. 1962).
Danish dancer, teacher, choreographer, and director. She studied with Staats at Paris Opera and danced with Le Ballet Franco Russe and Rubinstein's company before becoming a founding member of de Basil's Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo in 1932, where she was leading dancer until 1937. In 1940 she set up a dance school in Sydney and in 1941 a company which became known as the Kirsova Ballet and was Australia's first professional classical company. She staged several classics as well as choreographing her own works, including Faust (mus. H. Krips , 1941, based on Heine's libretto). The company disbanded in 1944 and she retired from teaching in 1947. She wrote Ballet in Moscow Today (London, 1956).

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Kirstein , Lincoln

(b Rochester, NY, 4 May 1907, d New York, 5 Jan. 1996).
US director, writer, and patron who helped direct the course of 20th-century American ballet. He was educated at Harvard University and his keen interest in ballet led him to use some of his personal wealth to bring Balanchine to America with the promise of his own company and school. In 1934 they co-founded (with E. M. M. Warburg ) the School of American Ballet of which Kirstein was president until 1989. In 1935 they co-founded the American Ballet and in 1936 Ballet Caravan which Kirstein directed until 1941. In 1946 he was co-founder and secretary of Ballet Society, becoming general director of its successor, New York City Ballet, from 1948 to 1989. He also founded the Dance Archives of New York's Museum of Modern Art in 1940, was founder and editor of the series Dance Index (New York, 1942–8), and the sponsor of Japanese theatre tours to the US, including the Grand Kabuki (1960). He was ghostwriter of part of Romola Nijinsky's biography of Nijinsky (1932–3) and was sole author of many other books including Dance (New York, 1935), Blast at Ballet, a Corrective for the American Audience (New York, 1938), Movement and Metaphor (New York, 1970), The New York City Ballet (New York, 1972), and Nijinsky Dancing (New York, 1975). In 1987 he was awarded the Handel Medallion.

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Kisselgoff , Anna

(b Paris, 12 Jan. 1938).
US dance writer. She studied ballet with V. Belova and J. Yazvinsky and was educated at Bryn Mawr College, the Sorbonne, and Columbia University. She has been dance critic and reporter for the New York Times since 1968 and its principal critic since 1977. She has taught at Yale and Barnard College and was appointed Knight of the Dannebrog (1986) and Chevalier des Arts et Letters (1990).

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Kistler , Darci

(b Riverside, Calif., 4 June 1964).
US dancer. She studied with Irina Kosmovska in Los Angeles and then at the School of American Ballet. In 1979 she won great acclaim for her dancing in the School's Workshop performance and was made an apprentice with New York City Ballet, becoming a full company member in 1980, soloist in 1981, and principal in 1983. Even as a teenager she performed with the assurance of a ballerina and her long, slender body, her ability to project both charm and poetic mystery, plus the grand scale of her dancing made many consider her the natural successor of Suzanne Farrell. Balanchine gave her major roles from the beginning and she has also created roles in several works such as Robbins's Gershwin Concerto (1982), and Martins's Histoire du soldat (1981), Echo (1989), and Sleeping Beauty (1991). Injury interrupted her career between 1983 and 1985 and again in 1998 and 1999, but she has toured with the company to Edinburgh and elsewhere and guested occasionally with the Princeton Ballet, among others. She has also appeared on US television. In 1991 she married dancer, choreographer, and director Peter Martins .

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Klamt , Jutta

(b Striegau, 23 Feb. 1890, d Aarau, Switzerland, 26 May 1970).
German dancer and teacher. She taught herself and made her debut in a recital in Berlin, 1919. After founding a school and later a company she became one of the key figures of German modern dance. Unlike Wigman and others she and her husband Gustav Vischer were willing to compromise their style to the aesthetic and political dogma of the Nazis.

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Kniaseff , Boris

(b St Petersburg, 1 July 1900, d Paris, 7 Oct. 1975).
Russian-French dancer, choreographer, and teacher. He studied with Mordkin and others in Moscow and with Sokolova in St Petersburg and made his debut at Voronezh Opera in 1916. In the same year he became dancer and ballet master at Kharkov Opera. In 1917 he went to Constantinople where in 1918 he created his first ballet and was dancer and ballet master at Sofia Opera (1919–20). After this he danced with many companies including his own Les Ballet Stylisés (1926–8) and Ballets Russes de Boris Kniaseff (1930). He created several ballets for both companies. In 1928 he was dancer and choreographer at Théâtre des Champs-Elysées where he partnered his then wife Spessivtseva, and from 1932 to 1934 he was dancer and ballet master at Paris's Opéra Comique. In 1937 he opened his studio in Paris where he taught many famous dancers including Chauviré. He also taught in Lausanne, Geneva, Rome, Athens, and Buenos Aires, using his famous ‘barre par terre’ system in which his pupils performed classical exercises lying on the floor.

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Kobborg , Johan

(b Odense 5 June 1972).
Danish dancer. He trained at Funen Ballet Academy then at the Royal Danish Ballet School, entering the company in 1989 and becoming principal in 1994. He is an admired performer of the Bournonville repertory, but also dances other 19th-century classics and the 20th-century repertory. He has guested with several companies including La Scala and Scottish Ballet, and joined the Royal Ballet (1999) where he created a role in Corder's Masquerade (1999).

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Kobler family.

Austro-German family of dancers who performed together as a ballet company. They toured around Europe from the mid-18th century to the beginning of the 19th (they appeared in Amsterdam in 1812 where they were billed at ‘Les Grotesques’) and only occasionally employed outsiders.

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Kochno , Boris

(b Moscow, 3 Jan. 1904, d Paris, 8 Dec. 1990).
Russian-French ballet librettist and dance writer. In 1920 he became Diaghilev's secretary and from the beginning advised him closely on many ballets. He also wrote several librettos including Les Fâcheux (1924), Zéphire et Flore (1925), La Chatte (1927), The Gods Go a-Begging (1928), and Prodigal Son (1929). After Diaghilev's death he became artistic adviser of Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo where he wrote librettos for Cotillon and Jeux d'enfants (both 1932) and then in 1933 was co-founder with Balanchine of Les Ballets 1933. From 1934 to 1937 he was back with the Monte Carlo company then in 1945 he wrote the libretto for Les Forains whose success led to the founding, with Petit, of Les Ballets des Champs-Elysées. He was co-director of the company until 1951 and his several librettos for Petit included Les Amours de Jupiter and Le Bal des blanchisseuses (both 1946). He was author of Le Ballet (Paris, 1954) and Diaghilev et Les Ballets Russes (Paris, 1970). Some of his librettos were published under the pen name Sobeka.

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Kodály , Zoltán

(b Kecskemét, 16 Dec. 1882, d Budapest, 6 Mar. 1967).
Hungarian composer. He wrote no ballet scores but his concert music has often been used for dance in, for example, Graham's Lamentations (New York, 1930), Limón's Missa Brevis in tempore belli (New York, 1958), and Eck's Peacock Variations (Ballet Sopianae, 1971).

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Koegler , Horst

(b Neuruppin, 22 Mar. 1927).
German dance writer. He was educated at Kiel University and Halle/Saale Academy of Theatre. Between 1957 and 1959 he was ballet critic of Die Welt, then moved to Stuttgart Zeitung, becoming music editor (1977–92) then continuing freelance. He has also been German correspondent of various magazines including Dance Magazine, Dance and Dancers, and Dance Now and editor of the German annual Ballett from 1965. His books include Ballet International (Berlin, 1960), Balanchine und das moderne Ballett (Velber, 1964), Reclams Ballettlexikon (Stuttgart, 1984), and Kleines Wörterbuch (Stuttgart, 1999). He also edited The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Ballet (London, 1977).

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Koesun , Ruth Ann

(b Chicago, 15 May 1928).
US dancer. She studied with Stone-Camryn and V. Swoboda and joined Ballet Theatre in 1946, becoming one of its principal dancers. She created roles in several ballets including de Mille's Fall River Legend (1948) and Nijinska's Schumann Concerto (1951) and retired in 1969.

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Kolosova , Evgenia

(b St Petersburg, 15 Dec. 1780, d St Petersburg, 30 Mar. 1869).
Russian dancer and teacher. She performed many children's roles in ballets and opera and was a favoured pupil of Valberg. She subsequently became a favourite of Didelot, creating roles in, among others, Raoul de Créquis (1819) and also directing the school during his absence (an exceptional status for a woman during that period). As a dancer she made an unusual dramatic impact in performance and she also appeared as an actress.

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Kolpakova , Irina

(b Leningrad, 22 May 1933).
Soviet dancer. She studied at Leningrad Ballet School with Vaganova and graduated into the Kirov Ballet in 1951. An exceptionally pure and lyrical classical dancer she soon became one of the company's leading ballerinas. Her particular lightness and elegance made her outstanding in Sleeping Beauty, Giselle, Raymonda, and The Nutcracker but she also performed in several modern ballets, creating roles in, among others, Grigorovich's The Stone Flower (1957) and Legend of Love (1961), Belsky's Coast of Hope (1959), Kasatkina and Vasiliov's Creation of the World (1971), and Vinogradov's The Fairy of the Rond Mountains (1980). She retired in 1987 becoming teacher and repetiteur with the company and in 1990 was appointed ballet mistress with American Ballet Theatre. She has appeared frequently on Russian television and was made People's Artist of the USSR in 1965 and Hero of Socialist Labour in 1983. She is married to Vladilen Semyonov , who was her frequent stage partner.

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Kolpin , Alexander

(b Copenhagen, 1 June 1965).
Danish dancer. He studied at the Royal Danish Ballet School and became apprentice to the company in 1981, becoming full member from 1985 and principal from 1988. A dancer whose clean-cut precision was balanced by bouyant energy, he excelled in Bournonville ballets but also danced a wide modern repertory, creating created roles in Flindt's Caroline Mathilde (1991), among others. He guested with several companies, including Australian Ballet, though injury forced him to take long absences from the stage and an early retirement. In 1991 he was appointed artistic director of the touring company Soloists and Principals of the RDB. He has also appeared as a television host.

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Komaki Ballet.

Japanese ballet company. It was founded by Masahide Komaki in 1946 as the Tokyo Ballet Company (a totally separate organization from today's Tokyo Ballet Company) and was the first Japanese company to perform Swan Lake. It toured widely in Japan with Momoko Tani and later Sakiko Hirose as ballerina until 1949.

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Komar , Chris

(b Milwaukee, 30 Oct. 1947, d New York, 17 Jul. 1996).
US dancer. He studied at the University of Wisconsin and in 1969 became a founder member of the Milwaukee Ballet Company. In 1971 he went to New York to study with Cunningham and joined his company in 1972. Here he created many roles and later took over several of Cunningham's own roles in, for example, Winterbranch and Signals. In 1973 he also became a teacher at the Merce Cunningham Studio and went on to stage numerous Cunningham works in Europe and America. In 1992 he became assistant artistic director of the company.

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Koner , Pauline

(b New York, 26 June 1912, d 8 Feb. 2001).
US dancer, choreographer, and teacher. She studied ballet with Fokine , Spanish dance with Cansino , and Oriental dance with Michio Ito . In 1926 she made her debut with Fokine's company and toured the US with Ito (1928–9). She gave her first solo recital in 1930 and toured extensively as a soloist until 1946 when she joined Limón's company. She later became principal dancer and stayed with the company until 1960 creating roles in Limón's The Moor's Pavane (1949) and Humphrey's Ruins and Visions (1953), among others. In 1947 she also founded her own company with which she toured internationally until 1963, also forming, from 1976 to 1982, the Pauline Koner Dance Consort. Her most famous solo was Farewell (1962), set to the last movement of Mahler's Song of the Earth. She also choreographed Poeme (1969) for Alvin Ailey City Center Dance Theater. She has lectured widely in America, Europe, and Japan, and restaged some of her most important works. In 1986 she was also appointed teacher at the Juilliard School and in 1989 she published her autobiography, Solitary Song (Duke Univ. Press). She was married to conductor Fritz Mahler.

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Konservatoriet.

See Conservatory, The, or A Proposal of Marriage Through a Newspaper.

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Korea.

The sophisticated traditional dances of Korea are distinguished from most other Asian dance forms by their predominantly triple, rather than duple, rhythms. They have taken their religious themes and imagery from Shamanism, Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism. They have also been influenced by the displays given by keesaengs, cultivated courtesans like Japanese geishas who specialized in exquisite, delicately nostalgic dance and poetry. In 1976 the Chang Mu Dance Company was founded in Seoul (S. Korea) performing traditionally based work by Korean choreographers. It now numbers around 80 dancers and tours widely in Asia and Russia. The Universal Ballet Company was founded in 1984, also in Seoul, in an attempt to marry elements from traditional dance with Western ballet. It became more Westernized after the appointment of Roy Tobias as artistic director in 1988 and has performed many of the standard classics as well as works by Tobias , Dollar , Fokine , and Balanchine . Bruce Steivel became director in 1995, creating his own versions of popular classics such as Cinderella and he was succeeded by Vinogradov in 1998. The company has toured to Europe and Japan and made its US debut in 1999. Modern dance activity has emanated largely from the Graham-based dance department at Ewha University, directed by Yook Wan-soon , and several companies have been founded by her pupils, including Kim Wha-suk and Kim Bock-hee .

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Korrigane, La.

Ballet in two acts with choreography by Mérante , libretto by François Coppé and Mérante , music by C. M. Widor , sets by Lavastre , Rubé , and Chaperon , and costumes by Lacoste . Premiered 1 Dec. 1880 at Paris Opera with Mauri , Sanlaville , and Mérante . It is set in 17th-century Brittany and tells the story of Yvonette who is bewitched by the Queen of the Korriganes. In the second act (reminiscent of Giselle) her lover Lilez comes to find her among the ghostly korriganes. The lovers dance together until the korriganes finally scatter at dawn. A hugely popular ballet, it received over 100 performances at the Opera.

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Kovak , Iztok

(b Trbovlje, 7 Aug. 1962).
Slovenian dancer and choreographer. He studied various dance forms including ballroom, jazz, classical, and modern dance in Slovenia and in workshops abroad, creating his award-winning solo, How I Caught a Falcon, in 1991. In 1993 he formed his group En Knap presenting mixed-media work often with artists and/or musicians among the dancers, such as Codes of Cobra (1997). Though based in Slovenia, the company's work has been produced in collaboration with various European producers and it tours widely.

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Kowroski , Maria

(b Michigan, 1976).
US dancer. She studied locally and at the School of American Ballet, joining New York City Ballet in 1995. An unusually tall, slender, and supple dancer with a huge extension and lyrical line, she was given principal roles even while a member of the corps de ballet. In 1999 she was officially promoted principal, and in the same year created a role in Blossom Got Kissed, Susan Stroman's contribution to the Ellington ballet Duke!

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Kozlov , Leonid and Kozlov , Valentina

(b 1947 and 1955 respectively).
Soviet dancers. Husband and wife were both soloists with the Bolshoi Ballet until they defected in Los Angeles during the company's 1979 US tour. They performed with various companies before joining New York City Ballet as principals in 1983. They are now divorced.

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krakowiak (also known in Fr. as cracovienne).

An energetic dance in 2/4 time from the Krakow district in Poland, either performed by couples or by larger numbers of dancers. Characterized by syncopated rhythms, stamping footwork, and clicked heels it was very popular in Romantic ballets, and was danced by Elssler in La Gypsy (1839).

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Krassovska , Nathalie (orig. Natasha Leslie ;

b Petrograd, 3 June 1919).
Soviet-US dancer and teacher. The daughter of Diaghilev dancer Lydia Krassovska, she studied in Russia then with Preobrajenska , Legat , and at the School of American Ballet. She danced with various companies including Les Ballets 1933, Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo (as ballerina 1936–50), and London Festival Ballet (1950–9). After retiring she taught in Dallas, Texas.

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Krassovska , Vera

(b Petrograd, 19 Aug. 1915, d St Petersburg, 15 Aug. 1999).
Soviet ballet critic and historian. She studied with Vaganova at the Leningrad Choreographic School and graduated into the Kirov in 1933. In 1941 she left and in the same year published her first press article, becoming a faculty member of the Leningrad Theatre Institute in 1951. Her many publications include detailed histories of Russian and Western ballet, as well as critical biographies including V. Chabukiani (1956), Nijinsky (1974), and Agrippina Iakovlevna Vaganova (1989).

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Kraus , Gertrud

(b Vienna, 6 May 1903, d Tel Aviv, 22 Nov. 1977).
Austrian-Israeli dancer, choreographer, and teacher. She studied at the Vienna State Academy and between 1928 and 1950 she performed recitals of her own expressionist choreography in Europe and Israel, both alone and with her group. In 1935 she founded the Gertrud Kraus Dance Company in Israel, and also ran her own school, based in Tel Aviv (1935–73). Many of the country's best-known dancers trained with her. In her later years she was also active as a painter and sculptor.

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Kresnik , Johann

(b Carinthia, 12 Dec. 1939).
Austrian dancer, choreographer, and director. He studied at the ballet school of Graz Theatre, and joined the company in 1959, moving to Bremen (1960) and then Cologne (1962). Here he continued his studies with Woizikowski and began to choreograph. From 1968 to 1979 he was ballet master at the Bremen theatre and created numerous works there mostly with powerful, anti-establishment messages, including PIGasUS (1970). From 1980 to 1989 he worked in Heidelberg, moving back to Bremen in 1989 and then relocating his company to Berlin in 1994. He also works as a director of drama productions and has worked with various companies freelance around Europe.

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Kreutzberg , Harald

(b Liberec (Reichenberg), 11 Dec. 1902, d Muri, Switzerland, 25 Apr. 1968).
German dancer, choreographer, and teacher. He studied with Wigman , joined Hanover Ballet in 1922 and Berlin State Opera (1924–1926), then from 1928 to 1931 gave recitals in America and Europe with Yvonne Georgi , his partner becoming Ruth Page in 1931. Renowned for his theatricality, humour, and use of stylised costumes and masks, he became the most famous male exponent of modern German dance of his generation. He remained in Germany under the Nazis and resumed international touring after the war, retiring in 1959. He opened his own school in Bern in 1955.

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Kriger , Viktorina (also Victoriana Krieger ;

b St Petersburg, 9 Apr. 1893, d Moscow, 23 Dec. 1978).
Russian/Soviet dancer, director, and writer. She studied at the Imperial Theatre School, Moscow with Tikhomirov and graduated into the Bolshoi Ballet in 1910. With her virtuoso technique and dramatic gifts she became one of Gorsky's leading ballerinas, outstanding in roles such as Swanilda and Kitri. In 1921 she danced with Pavlova's company but left when feelings of rivalry between the two women ran impossibly high, then in 1923 she danced with Mordkin in Moscow. In 1925 she rejoined the Bolshoi where she remained until 1948. At the same time she toured widely giving concert performances and in 1929 founded the Moscow Art Ballet which performed chamber versions of popular ballets. She attempted to employ Stanislavsky's teaching methods in her productions and in 1939 the company became part of the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Theatre. She created roles in several ballets including the stepmother in Zakharov's Cinderella (1945). In 1926 she began writing on ballet and was an active journalist until the end of her life. She was author of My Notes (Moscow, 1930) and director of Bolshoi Theatre Museum from 1955 to 1963. She was made Honoured Arts Worker of the Russian Federation in 1951.

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Kriza , John

(b Berwyn, Ill., 15 Jan. 1919, d Naples, Fla., 18 Aug. 1975).
US dancer who was the first US-born and trained principal male dancer of a major US company. He studied at the Stone-Camryn School and with Dolin and Tudor at the School of American Ballet. He danced with the Page-Stone Ballet (1939–40) then in 1940 became a founding member of Ballet Theatre (later American Ballet Theatre). With his casual, all-American image he became very popular and was soon promoted to principal. Though the title role of Loring's Billy the Kid was not made on him it became his own and he also famously created the role of the sentimental sailor in Robbins's Fancy Free (1944). Other created roles were in Robbins's Interplay (1945), Kidd's On Stage! (1945), and de Mille's Fall River Legend (1948). He guested with Ballet Caravan and New York City Ballet as well as dancing in several musicals. When he retired in 1966 he became assistant to the directors of ABT.

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Kröller , Heinrich

(b Munich, 25 July 1880, d Würzburg, 25 July 1930).
German dancer, choreographer, and ballet master. He studied at Munich Opera Ballet School and with Zambelli and Staats in Paris. He was soloist at Munich Court Opera Ballet in 1903, first soloist in 1906 and then principal dancer in Dresden from 1907. In 1917 he returned to Munich as ballet master, also working at Berlin State Opera as director, then at Vienna State Opera. He choreographed many ballets including the first German production of Strauss's Legend of Joseph (Berlin, 1921). He stopped dancing in 1925 but continued as ballet master in Munich where he made a large body of modern ballets as well as directing opera.

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Kronstam , Henning

(b Copenhagen, 29 June 1934, d Copenhagen, 28 May 1995).
Danish dancer, teacher, and artistic director. He studied at Royal Danish Ballet School and graduated into the company in 1952, becoming solo dancer (principal) in 1956. An outstanding romantic dancer with a brilliant technique, he performed many of the great Petipa and Bournonville roles but also created roles in Ashton's Romeo and Juliet (1955), Flindt's The Three Musketeers (1966), and von Rosen's Don Juan (1967) as well as winning acclaim as Balanchine's Apollo and as Iago in Limón's The Moor's Pavane. He guested widely abroad and in 1978 was appointed artistic director of the RDB while continuing to perform character roles. After resigning as director in 1985 he became ballet master with the company until 1993. He was appointed Knight of Dannebrog in 1964.

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Kshessinska , Mathilda (also Mathilda Kschessinskaya ;

b Ligova, 31 Aug. 1872, d Paris, 6 Dec. 1971).
Russian dancer and teacher. Daughter of the popular Polish character dancer Felix Krzesinski she studied at the Imperial Theatre School, St Petersburg with Ivanov , Johansson , and Cecchetti , graduating into the Maryinsky Theatre in 1890. She was appointed ballerina in 1892, prima ballerina in 1893, and prima ballerina assoluta in 1895 (the only ballerina other than Legnani to have been officially granted the title). Her meteoric rise was partly fuelled by her brilliant virtuosity—she was the first Russian ballerina to execute 32 fouettées—and also by her lively glamour. She danced the great Petipa ballerina roles, created roles in his Le Réveil de Flore (1894) and Les Saisons (1900), as well as creating Kitri in Gorsky's 1902 production of Don Quixote. Her career also owed much to her close links with the Royal family. She was mistress of the Tsarevich Nikolai (later Tsar Nikolai II), and then of the Grand Duke Andrei whom she married in 1921, and she wielded huge social influence from her St Petersburg palace. After 1904 she reduced her performances at the Maryinsky to those of guest ballerina and also performed at Paris Opera (1909) and with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes (1911–12). She left Russia for the Cote d'Azur in 1920 and in 1929 opened a school in Paris where her pupils included Eglevsky , Riabouchinska , Chauviré , and Fonteyn . Her last stage appearance was at a charity gala in London in 1936. She was author of Souvenirs de la Kschessinska (Paris, 1970); English version Dancing in St Petersburg (London, 1970).

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kuchipudi.

Traditional Indian dance-drama performed by male dancers of the brahman caste. It dates back to the 16th century, and originates from the village of the same name.

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Kudelka , James

(b Newmarket, Ont., 10 Sept. 1955).
Canadian dancer and choreographer. He studied at the National Ballet School and joined the National Ballet of Canada in 1972, becoming soloist in 1976 and principal in 1981. Though a gifted demi-caractère dancer his interest rapidly focused on choreography and in 1973 he created his first work for the company Sonata (mus. Franck ). Developing a succinctly expressive style that fused the full range of classical dance with influences from modern dance he created several more ballets including A Party (mus. Britten , 1976), Washington Square (mus. Baker , 1977), and Playhouse (mus. Shostakovich , 1980) and was then officially designated company choreographer (1980–2). In 1981 he joined Les Grands Ballets Canadiens as a principal dancer, becoming resident choreographer in 1984. He created many works for the company, including In paradisum (mus. Baker , 1983) and Diversion (mus. Britten , 1985), as well as choreographing for several other companies including Joffrey Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, and National Ballet of Canada for which he created Pastorale (1990) to Beethoven's 6th Symphony. Between 1990 and 1992 he worked freelance after which he was appointed artist in residence at National Ballet of Canada, creating Actress (1994), a new version of The Nutcracker (1995), and The Four Seasons (mus. Vivaldi , 1997). He continued to create works for other companies, including Le Baiser de la fée (mus. Stravinsky , 1996, for Birmingham Royal Ballet) and The Provincial Suite (mus. Milhaud , 1998, for Dancemakers). In 1996 he was appointed artistic director of National Ballet of Canada and in 1999 premiered a new staging of Swan Lake.

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Kuhn , Hans Peter

(b Kiel, 1952).
German sound artist and composer. As a specialist in sound environments and installations (frequently mixing found noise with music) he began his long collaboration with Robert Wilson in 1978. He has also worked closely with Laurie Booth creating the sound for Requiair (1992), Completely Birdland (for Rambert Dance Company, 1991), and Deepfield Line (for Dutch National Ballet, 1993), among others. He also worked with Dana Reitz on the Bessie-award-winning Suspect Terrain (1990).

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Kumakawa , Tetsuya

(b Hokkaido, 5 Mar. 1972).
Japanese-British dancer. He studied locally, then at the Royal Ballet School, graduating into the company in 1989 when he was also promoted soloist, becoming principal (1993–1998). A charismatic demi-caractère dancer capable of outstanding aerial virtuosity and extravagant pirouettes, he dances a wide repertory of classical and modern roles. He has been one of the few dancers permitted to dance the Baryshnikov role in Tharp's Push Comes to Shove and he has created roles in MacMillan's Prince of the Pagodas (1989) and Tharp's Mr Worldly Wise (1995), among others. In 1998 he left the Royal to lead his own company, K Ballet.

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Kun , Zsuzsa

(b Budapest, 9 Dec. 1934).
Hungarian dancer and teacher. She studied at Budapest State Opera Ballet School and in Moscow with Semenova , E. Gerdt , and Messerer . In 1949 she joined the Budapest State Opera Ballet becoming soloist (1952) and one of the company's most popular ballerinas until she retired in 1977. A highly musical and dramatic dancer, she performed both classical and Soviet ballerina roles as well as creating roles, in Eck's Le Sacre du printemps (1963) and the title role in Seregi's Sylvia (1972), among others. She guested widely, with the Bolshoi Ballet (various seasons, 1960–9) and with London Festival Ballet (various seasons 1961–5), and was then director of the Hungarian State Ballet Institute (1972–9), after which she taught. She has appeared on Hungarian television and was made Merited Artist of the Republic of Hungary in 1968.

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Kyasht , Lydia (also Lydia Kyaksht ;

b St Petersburg, 25 Mar. 1885, d London, 11 Jan. 1959).
Russian-British dancer and teacher. She studied at the St Petersburg Imperial Ballet School with Gerdt and graduated into the Maryinsky Theatre in 1902, becoming second dancer in 1905 and first dancer in 1908. She was also a soloist with the Bolshoi (1903–4) and performed in various concert recitals. She claimed to be the first to dance Fokine's Dying Swan in 1905. In 1908 she went to London where she succeeded Genée as prima ballerina at the Empire Theatre, performing there for several seasons until 1913. In 1912 she also danced with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes (and again in 1919), and made her New York debut in 1914. After returning to Russia to dance concert performances (1914–17) she settled in London and founded her own school (which moved to Cirencester in 1948) while also dancing in cabaret and the theatre. In 1939 she founded her own company, Ballet de la Jeunesse Anglaise, which toured England (1939) and Europe (1944) and in 1940 also ran the Lydia Kyasht Ballet. From 1953 she taught at the Legat School. She was author of Romantic Recollections (London, 1929) and was sister of Georgi Kyasht (1873–1936), a soloist at the Maryinsky Theatre and later ballet master at Buenos Aires, Vienna State Opera, and elsewhere.

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Kylián , Jií

(b Prague, 21 Mar. 1947).
Czech dancer, choreographer, and director. He studied at the Prague conservatory and at the Royal Ballet school, joining Stuttgart Ballet in 1968, where he became a soloist. In 1970 he choreographed the first of his many ballets for the company, Kommen und Gehen (mus. Bartók ), and was recognized by Cranko as a major new talent. In 1973 he made his first work for Netherlands Dance Theatre, Viewers (mus. Martin ), and in 1975 was appointed co-artistic director of NDT, becoming artistic director and choreographer in 1977. In 1995 he was named Officer in the Ordre van Oranje Nassau. In 1999 he resigned as director of NDT, succeeded by Marian Sarstädt , but retained his post as house choreographer and artistic adviser. From the outset his style fused the fleetness and precision of classical ballet with the weight and muscularity of modern dance, and early works like Symphony of Psalms (mus. Stravinsky , 1978) exemplified the special fluency of his movement. Movements unfurled in a seamless connection with the music, and individual dancers were knit into large eloquent groups or into the lyrically sculpted duets and pas de trois which characterize one of his best-known works, Return to the Strange Land (mus. Janáek , 1975). Though these works were not overtly narrative they encompassed a wide emotional range from the exuberance of Sinfonietta (mus. Janáek , 1978) to the darker emotions of Field Mass (mus. Martin , 1980) and Heart's Labyrinth 1 (mus. Schoenberg , Webern , Dvoák , 1984) or the athleticism of his Aboriginal-based Stamping Ground (mus. Chavez , 1983). In recent years his fluency has been deliberately disrupted by more angular movement and abrupt gestures, and he has introduced surreal theatrical elements to express complex ideas as in Bella Figura (mus. various, 1995). Though Kylián choreographs almost exclusively for NDT and its sister companies (NDT 2 and 3) his works have been taken into the repertories of many companies around the world. His other works include Transfigured Night (mus. Schoenberg , NDT 1975), Nuages (mus. Debussy , Stuttgart Ballet, 1976), Symphony in D (mus. Haydn , NDT, two-part version 1976, three-part version 1977, and four-part version 1981), November Steps (mus. Takemitsu , NDT, 1977), Rainbow Snake (mus. Norby , NDT, 1978), Dream Dances (mus. Berio , NDT, 1979), Forgotten Land (mus. Britten , Stuttgart Ballet, 1981), Les Noces (mus. Stravinsky , NDT, 1982), Dreamtime (mus. Takemitsu , NDT, 1983), L'Enfant et les sortilèges (mus. Ravel , NDT, 1984), Silent Cries (mus. Debussy , NDT, 1986), L'Histoire du Soldat (mus. Stravinsky , NDT, 1986), Hearts Labyrinth (new version, mus. Schoenberg , Webern , and Dvrák , NDT, 1987), No More Play (mus. Webern , NDT, 1988), Falling Angels (mus. Reich , 1989), Sweet Dreams (mus. Webern , NDT, 1990), Sarabande (mus. Bach , NDT, 1990), Un Ballo (mus. Ravel , NDT2, 1991), Petite Mort (mus. Mozart , NDT, 1991), Obscure Temptations (mus. Cage , NDT3, 1991), Whereabouts Unknown (mus. Part , Reich, Ives , and de Roo , NDT, 1993), Arcimboldo (mus. various, 1995, revised for NDT1, 2 and 3, 2000), Wings of Wax (mus. von Biber , Cage , Glass , and Bach , NDT, 1997), and Indigo Rose (mus. various, NDT2, 1999).

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L

Laast , Anthony van

(b Bognor Regis, 31 May 1951).
British dancer and choreographer. He studied at the London School of Contemporary Dance (1968–70) and performed with London Contemporary Dance Theatre (1971–80), after which he became one of the UK's leading choreographers for musical theatre. His many choreographic credits include Song and Dance (1981), Candide (1987), Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat (1991), and Jesus Christ Superstar (1998). He has choreographed for opera, including The Mikado (English National Opera, 1985) and in 1999 he choreographed and directed the ballroom dance spectacular Burn the Floor.

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Laban , Rudolf von (orig. R. L. de Varalja ;

b Pozsony (now Bratislava), 15 Dec. 1879, d Weybridge, 1 July 1958).
Hungarian dancer, choreographer, ballet master, and dance theorist. He studied painting, dancing, and acting in Paris and Munich and toured N. Africa with a revue troupe. Between 1907 and 1910 he performed in Germany and Austria and in 1910 founded a school in Munich, where Wigman was one of his pupils. After the First World War he taught in Nuremberg, Mannheim, and Stuttgart (where Jooss was one of his pupils) and in 1925 established an Institute of Choreography in Würzburg. He was then ballet director of the Berlin Staatsoper (1930–4), also staging large productions for amateur movement choirs around Germany. In 1938 he went to England and worked with Jooss at Dartington Hall, after which he founded the Art of Movement Studio with Lisa Ullmann in Manchester. Although not a choreographer of any lasting significance Laban became the leader of the pre-war Central European school of modern dance by virtue of his teaching and the theories by which he and his pupils analysed the laws of dynamics and expression in human movement. Most important was his development of a new system of dance notation, Kinetographie Laban which was first published in 1926 and later codified as Labanotation. In England he applied his theories to dance education and also to designing corrective exercises for factory workers. He wrote several books including Ein Leben für den Tanz (A Life for the Dance, Dresden 1935, London 1975), Modern Educational Dance (London, 1948), Principles of Dance and Movement Notation (London, 1956), and Choreutics (London, 1966).

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Laban Centre.

London-based college specializing in modern dance training, also providing degree courses for dance and related studies. It originated from Laban's Art of Movement Studio which was opened in Manchester in 1948, then moved to Adleston, Surrey, in 1953. In 1973, under the direction of Marion North, it moved to New Cross in London. It pioneered the first British BA Honours Degree in Dance Theatre (1976) and the first MA in Dance Studies (1980) and now offers several other degree courses. Its advanced performing company, Transitions, was set up in 1983.

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Labanotation.

The English-American term for Kinetographie Laban, Rudolf von Laban's system of dance notation. The Kinetographic Institute at the Essen Folkwang School and the Dance Notation Bureau in New York are the two main centres of study. Ann Hutchinson's Labanotation: The System of Analysing and Recording Movement (New York 1954, 1970) is the best-known English annotation.

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Labyrinth.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Massine , music by Schubert , and libretto and design by Dalí . Premiered 8 Oct. 1941 by Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo at Metropolitan Opera House, New York, with Eglevsky , Toumanova , and Franklin . This setting of Schubert's 7th Symphony portrays classicism as the thread of Ariadne, leading art through the confusing labyrinth of romanticism.

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Lacarra , Lucia

(b San Sebastian, 24 Mar. 1975).
Spanish dancer. She studied at the Victor Ullate School and made her debut with his company aged 15. In 1994 she moved to National Ballet of Marseilles as principal dancer, creating roles in Petit's Bolero (1997), among others. In 1997 she moved to San Francisco Ballet, where she created the title role in Tomasson's staging of Giselle (1999). She has guested with many other companies, including English National Ballet, La Scala, and Malakhov's Touring Company.

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Lac des cygnes.

See Swan Lake.

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Lacotte , Pierre

(b Chatou, 4 Apr. 1932).
French dancer, teacher, choreographer, and director. He studied at the Paris Opera School under Gustave Ricaux and others (1942–6), graduating into the Paris Opera where he created a major role in Lifar's Septuor (1950) and was promoted premier danseur in 1952. In 1955, ambitious to choreograph his own work, he founded the Ballet de la Tour Eiffel for which he created several ballets including Solstice (mus. Wayenberg , 1955). He toured widely with the company until 1960 (also dancing as principal at New York's Metropolitan Opera Ballet, 1956–7) and was then director of the Ballet National Jeunesses Musicales de France (1963–8) with his wife Ghislaine Thesmar as ballerina. He created many works for the company including Hamlet (mus. Walton , 1964) and La Voix (mus. Leveillée , 1965) and also worked as guest choreographer for Ballet Rambert in 1966, creating Intermede (mus. Vivaldi ) and other ballets. In 1972 he staged Taglioni's original La Sylphide for French television which was staged by the Paris Opera in the same year, followed by Coppélia, 1973. He has re-created many 19th-century ballets, based on research into original documentation, including Taglioni's Nathalie (Moscow Classical Ballet, 1980), Mazilier's Marco Spada (Rome Opera Ballet, 1981), and a new production of Perrot and Coralli's Giselle (Ballet National de Nancy, 1991, orig.staged for Ballet du Rhin, 1978)—though certain historians have contested their accuracy. Between 1985 and 1988 he was choreographer and associate director of Ballets de Monte Carlo creating L'Apprenti sorcier (mus. Dukas , 1985) and in 1991 he became artistic director of the Ballet de Nancy, reconstructing Taglioni's L'Ombre for the company in 1993.

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Lady and the Fool, The.

Ballet in one act with libretto and choreography by Cranko , music by Verdi (arr. Mackerras ), and design by Richard Beer . Premiered 25 Feb. 1954 at New Theatre, Oxford, by Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet with P. Miller , MacMillan , and Mosaval . It is set to a selection of music from Verdi's lesser-known operas and tells the gently sentimental tale of a society beauty, La Capricciosa, who rejects her aristocratic suitors in favour of two tramp figures, Moondog and Bootface. A revised version was performed by Sadler's Wells Ballet in 1955 and it has been revived for several companies including Stuttgart (1961), Berlin Opera Ballet (1965), Royal Danish Ballet (1971), and Houston Ballet (1978).

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Lady from the Sea, The.

Ballet in one act with libretto and choreography by Cullberg , music by K. Riisager , and designs by Kerstin Hedeby . Premiered 21 Apr. 1960 by American Ballet Theatre at Metropolitan Opera House, New York, with Serrano , Bruhn , and Tetley . It is based on Ibsen's play of the same title and tells the story of Ellida who lives with a husband she does not love, and longs for her real love, a sailor who has returned to the sea. It was revived for the Royal Swedish Ballet in 1961. An earlier version of the same story was choreographed by E. Leese for National Ballet of Canada (mus. S. Honigman , 1955).

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Lady into Fox.

Ballet in one act with libretto and choreography by A. Howard , music by Honegger (arr. Charles Lynch ), and design by Nadia Benois . Premiered 15 May 1939 at Mercury Theatre, London, by Ballet Rambert with Gilmour and Boyd . It is set to various orchestrated piano pieces by Honegger and, inspired by David Garnett's novel of the same title, it tells the story of an elegant woman who is really a vixen. Torn between her natural instincts and her love for her husband she finally escapes civilization to rejoin the wild. It was revived for Ballet Theatre in 1940.

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Lady of the Camellias (orig. Ger. title Die Kameliendame).

Ballet in three acts with libretto and choreography by Neumeier , music by Chopin , and design by J. Rose . Premiered 4 Nov. 1978 by the Stuttgart Ballet at Württembergisches Staatstheater with Haydée , Madsen , Keil , Cragun , and R. Anderson . It is set to original concert music by Chopin , including the complete 2nd Piano Concerto, the Romanze from the 1st Piano Concerto, and some individual piano pieces and is based on the novel La Dame aux camélias by Dumas fils (1848). Starting with the auction scene—performed almost like a scene in a play—the ballet then follows the plot of the novel closely except that it also integrates the characters of Manon Lescaut and des Grieux as mirror images of the main lovers. It was revived for Hamburg Ballet in 1980. Other choreographic treatments of Dumas's novel and play include F. Termanini's Rita Gauthier (mus. Verdi , Turin , 1857), Taras's Camille (mus. Schubert-Rieti , Orig. Ballet Russe, 1946), Tudor's Lady of the Camellias (mus. Verdi , New York City Ballet, 1951), Page's Camille (mus. Verdi , Chicago , 1957), T. Gsovsky's Die Kameliendame (mus. Sauguet , Berlin, 1957), Ashton's Marguerite and Armand (mus. Liszt , arr. Searle , Royal Ballet, 1963), Alberto Mendez's Nous nous verrons hier soir (mus. Sauguet , National Ballet of Cuba, 1971), J. Lefèbre's Dame aux camélias (mus. Verdi , Charleroi , 1980), and Domi Reiter-Stoffer's Lady of the Camellias (mus. Saint-Saëns , 1984).

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Laerkesen , Anna

(b Copenhagen, 2 Mar. 1942).
Danish dancer and choreographer. She studied at the Royal Danish Ballet School and made her debut as the first sylphide in La Sylphide with the Royal Danish Ballet while still a student. She graduated into the company in 1959, becoming soloist (principal) in 1964 and first soloist (ballerina) in 1966, her brilliant technique and sensitive interpretation of character inspiring comparison with the young Ulanova. She was best known for her performance of the title role of La Sylphide which she danced with many partners including Bruhn (1970) and Nureyev (1973) and as Odette-Odile. Illness curtailed her performing career from the mid-1970s but in 1988 she began choreographing her own ballets, including When I am in the Air (mus. Rachmaninov , 1988), Partita (mus. Bach , 1990), Polacca (mus. Chopin , 1992), and Kindertotenlieder (mus. Mahler , 1993), all for the Royal Danish Ballet.

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Lafontaine , Mlle de (also Mlle de La Fontaine ;

b c.1655, d Paris c.1738).
Often regarded as the first professional female dancer. She was born in France and little is known about her early life until she made her debut in 1681 at the Paris Opera in Lully's Le Triomphe de l'amour. She also created the leading roles in several other Lully ballets, including Phaéton (chor. Beauchamps , 1683) and Acis et Galatée (chor. Beauchamps , 1686). Much admired for her elegance, she was leading ballerina in at least eighteen ballets and operas between 1681 and 1693. She retired into a convent.

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La Fosse , Robert

(b Beaumont, Tex., 1960).
US dancer and choreographer. He studied at the Marsha Woody Academy and at Harkness House, joining American Ballet Theatre in 1977, and becoming principal in 1983. In 1985 he danced Romeo in MacMillan's staging of Romeo and Juliet for that company, and in 1986 moved to New York City Ballet, creating roles in Robbins's Quiet Lady and West Side Story Suite, Tharp's Octet and Septet, and Martins's A Fool for You and Tea Rose, among others. He also appeared for three months in the musical Jerome Robbins' Broadway. He guested with Twyla Tharp during 1992 and has directed the touring company, Stars of American Ballet. He choreographed his first ballet, a pas de deux Rappacini's Daughter, for Baryshnikov's temporary company in 1985. In 1988 he created Woodland Sketches for the American Music Festival and his subsequent works for NYCB include Danses de cour (mus. R. Strauss , 1994), Concerto in Five Movements (mus. Prokofiev , 1997), and a section of the Ellington ballet Duke! (1999). In 1996 he choreographed Stars & Stripes Forever for Les Ballets Trockaderos de Monte Carlo and in 1997 a Nutcracker for the Russian Ballet Theatre of Delaware. He has also choreographed for opera. He published his autobiography Nothing to Hide in 1987 and has made numerous appearances on television.

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Laine , Doris

(b Helsinki, 15 Feb. 1931).
Finnish dancer. She studied in Helsinki, Moscow, and with A. Northcote and joined the Finnish National Ballet in 1947, becoming prima ballerina in 1956. A frequent guest artist abroad, she was director of the Finnish National Ballet from 1984 to 1992 after which she became director of the Finnish arts council.

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Laing , Hugh (orig. Hugh Skinner ;

b Barbados, 6 June 1911, d New York, 11 May 1988).
British dancer. He studied with Craske and Rambert in London and with Preobrajenska in Paris, joining London Ballet Club (later Ballet Rambert) in 1932. Although he never became a brilliant technician his personal magnetism and dramatic talent made him one of the great dance actors of his generation and he created roles in many early Tudor ballets, such as Jardin aux lilas (1936) and Dark Elegies (1937), as well as dancing the title role in Nijinsky's L'Après-midid'un faune (1936). During 1937 he danced in recitals with de Mille and in 1938 performed with (Tudor's) London Ballet in which he created roles in Judgment of Paris, Gala Performance, and Soirée musicale (all 1938). In 1939 he left with Tudor for the US where he was principal dancer with Ballet Theatre (later American Ballet Theatre) between 1940 and 1950 and created roles in Fokine's Bluebeard (1941), Massine's Aleko (1942), and de Mille's Tally Ho (1944), and several more Tudor ballets including Pillar of Fire (1942), Romeo and Juliet and Dim Lustre (both 1943), Undertow (1945), and Nimbus (1950). In 1950 he moved to New York City Ballet where he created several more roles in, for example, Tudor's Lady of the Camellias (1951) and Balanchine's Bayou (1952). He also danced in Balanchine's Tyl Ulenspiegel and Prodigal Son in which he was much acclaimed. Between 1954 and 1956 he again danced with ABT, and appeared in musicals in London and on Broadway. He retired from the stage to become a commercial photographer, also assisting Tudor in many restagings of his ballets. He was married to dancer Diana Adams between 1947 and 1953.

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Lake , Molly

(b Cornwall, 3 June 1900, d London, 2 Oct. 1986).
British dancer and teacher. She studied with Astafieva and Cecchetti and danced in the companies of Pavlova and Markova-Dolin. In 1945 she co-founded the Embassy Ballet (subsequently Continental Ballet) with her husband, Travis Kemp , and M. Honer . In 1954 she was appointed director of the Ankara Conservatoire and remained there for twenty years, returning to London to teach at the London School of Contemporary Dance and at her own school.

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La La La Human Steps.

Montreal-based dance company, specializing in high-tech staging and in a style of fast, athletic dance which is choreographed by Édouard Lock and for many years was typified by the virtuoso performances of its leading female dancer, Louise Lecavalier . It emerged out of Lock's company Lock-Danseurs (formed 1980) and in 1981 won Canada's prestigious Jean A. Chalmers choreographic award for Oranges, followed by a Bessie for Human Sex in 1985. With New Demons (1987) the company established an international reputation which was furthered by a world-wide broadcast of their performance with rock superstar David Bowie in 1990 and by European concert appearances with Frank Zappa (1992). Later productions include 2 (mus. G. Bryars and others, 1995).

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Lambert , Constant

(b London, 23 Aug. 1905, d London, 21 Aug. 1951).
British conductor and composer who played a seminal role in the development of English ballet. He studied at the Royal College of Music and wrote his first ballet score, Romeo and Juliet, for Diaghilev (chor. Nijinska , 1926). In 1930 he became conductor of the Camargo Society and between 1931 and 1947 was music director of the Vic-Wells Ballet (becoming Sadler's Wells Ballet) where, with his commitment to the Diaghilevian ideal of unity between dance, music, and design, he exercised a major influence on the artistic as well as musical direction of the company. His close association with Ashton began with Pomona (1930), using the score he had originally written for Nijinska in 1927, and continued with three other original scores for Rio Grande (1932), Horoscope (1938), and Tiresias (1951). He also arranged the scores for several other Ashton ballets including Les Rendezvous (mus. Auber , 1933) and Les Patineurs (mus. Meyerbeer , 1937), as well as writing the libretto and selecting Liszt's music for Apparitions (1936). Other arrangements included those for de Valois's The Prospect Before Us (mus. W. Boyce , 1940) and Helpmann's Comus (mus. Purcell , 1942). During the war he played the piano for the company's performances and after resigning his post in 1947 was re-appointed music director of Sadler's Wells Ballet in 1948, conducting their first New York performance in 1949. He was author of Music Ho! A Study of Music in Decline (London, 1934). His wife Isabel designed Ashton's Tiresias and Madame Chrysanthème.

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Lambranzi , Gregorio.

Eighteenth-century Venetian choreographer and ballet master. His book Neue und Curieuse Theatralische Tantz-Schul (Nuremberg, 1716) contains written descriptions, drawings, and melodies for 50 contemporary dances including sarabande, bourrée, and rigaudon as well as military, sport, and trading dances. The English translation was published in 1928 (by F. Derra de Moroda ) and a facsimile edition by Dance Horizons (New York, 1972).

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Lamentation.

Modern dance work in one act with choreography and costume by Graham and music by Kodály . Premiered 8 Jan. 1930 at Maxine Elliott's Theater, New York, with Graham. It is set to Kodaly's Piano Piece, Op. 3, No. 2 and features a single dancer who remains seated throughout the work. Swathed in a tube of jersey material her swaying, keening movements are a distillation of profound grief. It became one of Graham's signature pieces and was filmed in 1943.

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La Meri (orig. Russell Meriwether Hughes ;

b Louisville, 13 May 1899, d San Antonio, Tex., 7 Jan. 1988).
US dancer, teacher, and writer. She studied various ethnic dance forms in the US and the Far East and performed them on extensive tours. In 1938 she founded the New York School of Natya with St Denis (later Ethnological Dance Center) and its performing ensemble Exotic Ballet. She taught widely and lectured on non-Western dance and wrote many books on dance, including Principles of the Dance Art (1933) and Gesture Language of the Hindu Dance (New York, 1941).

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Lamhut , Phyllis

(b New York, 14 Nov. 1933).
US dancer and choreographer. She studied with Nikolais and Lewis and became a leading dancer with Nikolais's company. She began creating her own works in 1950, which were performed in recitals at the Henry Street Playhouse, and subsequently by the Limón company. In 1970 she formed her own company for which she has choreographed several works, including Cleave (1991) and Deadly Sins (mus. Andy Teirstein , 1995).

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Lancaster , Sir Osbert

(b 1908, d London, 27 July 1986).
British painter, cartoonist, author, and ballet designer. He created the designs for Cranko's Pineapple Poll (1951) and Bonne-Bouche (1952), de Valois's Coppélia (1954), Ashton's La Fille mal gardée (1960), and Lander's Napoli (London Festival Ballet production, 1954). He was knighted in 1975.

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Lanchbery , John

(b London, 15 May 1923).
British conductor and composer. He was musical director of the Metropolitan Ballet (1947–9) and in 1951 joined Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet, becoming principal conductor of the Royal Ballet in 1960. Between 1972 and 1978 he was musical director of Australian Ballet, after which he moved to American Ballet Theatre (1978–80). He then worked freelance, as musical arranger and conductor for ballet companies world-wide. His musical arrangements include the scores for MacMillan's House of Birds (1955) and Mayerling (1978), Ashton's La Fille mal gardée (1960), The Dream (1964), and A Month in the Country (1976)—all for the Royal Ballet; Nureyev's Don Quixote (Australian Ballet, 1966) and La Bayadère (Paris Opera, 1991), P. Darrell's Tales of Hoffmann (Scottish Ballet, 1972), Hynd's The Merry Widow (Australian Ballet, 1975), and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Houston Ballet, 1988), and Stevenson's Dracula (Houston Ballet, 1997) and The Snow Maiden (Houston Ballet and American Ballet Theatre, 1998). He has composed the scores for several films, including Ross's The Turning Point (1977).

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Landé , Jean-Baptiste

(b date unknown, d St Petersburg, 26 Feb. 1748).
French dancer and ballet master. He danced in Paris, Dresden, and Stockholm where he was also royal dancing master (1721–7). In 1734 he went to St Petersburg to arrange a performance at a dancing school for young aristocrats. This was so successful it inspired the foundation of a much larger school in 1738 under his direction, which itself became the basis of the St Petersburg Imperial Ballet School.

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Lander , Harald (orig. Alfred Bernhardt Stevnsborg ;

b Copenhagen, 25 Feb. 1905, d Copenhagen, 14 Sept. 1971).
Danish-French dancer, choreographer, director, and teacher. He studied at the Royal Danish Ballet School under Beck from 1913, joining the company in 1923. Later he studied Russian folk dance in the USSR (1926–7) and then went to the US to study ballet with Fokine , Tarasoff , and Bolm (1927–9). In 1929 he returned to RDB as a solo dancer (principal) and created his first ballet, Gaucho (mus. Ressen ), for the company in 1931. Between 1932 and 1951 he was its artistic director (Royal Ballet Master) and oversaw a period of great creative vitality. He raised technical standards among the dancers, introduced new ballets from Europe, initiated the renaissance of the Bournonville repertoire and himself choreographed about 30 ballets, in a variety of styles. These included Football (mus. Poulenc , 1933), Bolero (mus. Ravel , 1934), The Little Mermaid (mus. Henriques , 1936), The Seven Deadly Sins (mus. Weill , 1936), The Sorcerer's Apprentice (mus. Dukas , 1940), and Étude (Czerny , arr. Riisager , 1948). After a disagreement with the directors of the Royal Theatre he moved to Paris in 1951 to become resident choreographer at the Paris Opera (taking French citizenship in 1956). Here he created Printemps à Vienne (mus. Schubert , 1954) and Concerto aux étoiles (mus. Bartók , 1956) and mounted revivals of Galeotti's The Whims of Cupid and the flowers act from Les Indes galantes. He also restaged Étude for the company as Études in 1952. He directed the Opera school (1956–7 and 1959–63) and also worked widely abroad staging his own works and mounting the ballets of Galeotti and Bournonville for companies including the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas, London Festival Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, and La Scala Milan. In 1962 he returned to Copenhagen to choreograph Les Victoires de l'amour (mus. Lully , 1962) and reinstate some of his old works. He was married to the dancers Margot Lander (1932–50), Toni Lander (1950–65), and then to Lise Lander . He was made Knight of the Dannebrog in 1951 and awarded the Medal of Honour of the City of Paris.

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Lander , Margot (née M. Florentz-Gerhardt ;

b Copenhagen, 2 Aug. 1910, d Copenhagen, 19 July 1961).
The most important Danish ballerina of the first half of the 20th century. She studied at the Royal Danish Ballet School from 1917 and joined the company in 1928, becoming solo dancer (principal) in 1933 and first solo dancer (prima ballerina) in 1942 (the first to be given the title in Denmark). Although not an outstanding virtuoso she had exceptional personality and grace, and created roles in many of Lander's ballets (she was married to Lander from 1932 to 1950), as well as dancing works from the Bournonville repertory. She was also much admired in Coppélia and Swan Lake. She retired in 1950.

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Lander , Toni (née T. Pihl Petersen ;

b Copenhagen, 19 July 1931, d Salt Lake City, 19 May 1985).
Danish dancer and teacher. She studied at Royal Danish Ballet School from 1939 and joined the company in 1948, becoming solo dancer (principal) in 1950. Her powerful technique and long, strong lines were given their perfect showcase in Lander's Études (which she inherited, after a few early performances, from Margot Lander ), and in 1950 she and Lander were married. In 1951 she moved with him to Paris where she continued her studies with Egorova and Preobrajenska . Between 1951 and 1952 she was guest ballerina with Original Ballet Russe and between 1951 and 1954 with Paris Opera Ballet. She also made regular appearances as principal with London Festival Ballet (1954–9), Ballet Théâtre Français (1958), and American Ballet Theatre (1961–71). In 1971 she returned to the Royal Danish Ballet as soloist and teacher, retiring from the stage in 1976. After divorce from Harald L. she married dancer Bruce Marks (1966). She was made Knight of the Dannebrog in 1957.

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ländler.

A turning couple dance from Austria in 3/4 or 3/8 time which was very popular during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It was a forerunner of the waltz.

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Lane , Maryon

(b Zululand, 15 Feb. 1931).
S. African dancer and teacher. She studied in Johannesburg and at Sadler's Wells School, joining Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet in 1947, becoming principal in 1948, then moved to the Royal Ballet as soloist (1955–68). A petite, musical dancer and gifted actress, she created roles in several MacMillan ballets including Laiderette (1954), Danses concertantes (1955), Noctambules (1956), and Diversions (1961). She also created roles in Ashton's Valses nobles et sentimentales (1947) and Ondine (1958) and Cranko's Prince of the Pagodas (1957). In 1966 she danced with Ballet Rambert and after retiring from the stage taught at the London Ballet Centre and at the Royal Ballet School. She was married to dancer David Blair .

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Lang , Pearl

(b Chicago, 29 May 1922).
US dancer, choreographer, and teacher. She studied with Graham , Horst , M. Stuart , and others and danced with Page in Chicago before joining Graham's company in 1941. As soloist (1942–52, and occasional guest after 1952) she created roles in Diversion of Angels (1948), Canticle for Innocent Comedians (1952), and Ardent Song (1954), and danced many other major roles, to which she brought a powerful lyricism and moral force. In 1952 she formed her own company for which she created many works including Rites (1953), Shirah (1960), and The Possessed (1975), as well as solos for herself including Moonsong and Birdsong (both 1952). She also appeared in several musicals and worked as a guest choreographer with various companies including Dutch National Ballet and Batsheva Dance Company. She has taught at many schools and universities.

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Lanner , Katti (orig. Katherina Lanner ;

b Vienna, 14 Sept. 1829, d London, 15 Nov. 1908).
Austrian dancer, choreographer, ballet mistress, and teacher; daughter of composer Joseph Lanner . She studied at the Vienna Court Opera School and made her debut in Angelica at the Kärntnertor Theater in 1845, where she continued to dance until 1856, appearing with Elssler and Cerrito . After the death of her father in 1856 she began travelling, making her debuts in Berlin, Munich, and Dresden, then touring Scandinavia and Russia. She was ballerina and ballet mistress at the State Theatre, Hamburg (1862–3), where, becoming the first woman to make a career as a regular choreographer, she created ten ballets. She then founded her own troupe, the Viennese Ballet Company, with which she danced in Europe and America (1869–72), and then, with a second troupe, the Kathi (sic) Lanner Choreographic Connection, she toured the US (1873–5). In 1876 she moved to London where she was ballet mistress at Her Majesty's Theatre (1877–81), choreographing divertissements for the Italian opera seasons, and then ballet mistress (1887–97) at the Empire Theatre. She turned this into London's most popular ballet venue, not only engaging Genée as ballerina in 1896 but also choreographing 34 ballets for the theatre. Her many works included The Sports of England (mus. Hervé , 1887), Cleopatra (mus. Hervé , 1889), Orfeo (mus. Wenzel , 1891), On Brighton Pier (mus. Ford , 1894), Faust (mus. Lutz , Ford , 1895), and Sir Roger de Coverley (mus. Carr , 1907). From 1876 she was also director and teacher of London's National Training School of Dancing and in her work here as well as in the theatre she was largely responsible for sustaining the English ballet scene during one of its least active periods.

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Lany , Jean-Barthélemy

(b Paris, 24 Mar. 1718, d Paris, 29 Mar. 1786).
French dancer, choreographer, and ballet master. He was son of the ballet master Jean Lany and became solo dancer at the Paris Opera in 1740. In 1743 he went to Berlin where he choreographed several ballets in which Noverre danced. In 1747 he returned to Paris Opera as dancer then ballet master, and choreographed the first productions of several Rameau operas including Platée and Zoroastre (both 1749) and Les Paladins (1760). Noverre wrote of the precision, musicality, and vivacity of Lany's dancing, but he was considered to lack originality as a choreographer. In 1773 and 1775 he worked in Turin and London, then became a teacher in Paris where his pupils included Gardel and Dauberval. He was brother of Louise-Madeleine Lany .

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Lany , Louise-Madeleine

(b Paris, 1733, d Paris, 1777).
French dancer, daughter of ballet master Jean Lany and sister of dancer and teacher Jean-Barthélemy Lany. She studied with her brother and made her debut at the Opéra Comique in 1743, appearing at the Paris Opera in 1747 where she remained until 1767 as one of its most brilliant virtuosos. She is said to have been the first female dancer to execute an entrechat six and huit. But although Noverre reckoned her ‘the leading dancer in the world’ by virtue of her ‘beauty, precision, and daring’ her reputation has since been eclipsed by Sallé's .

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Lapauri , Alexander

(b Moscow, 15 June 1926, d Moscow, 6 Aug. 1975).
Soviet dancer. He studied at Moscow's Bolshoi Ballet School and graduated in 1944 to become one of the Bolshoi's greatest character dancers. With his powerful presence and athletic technique he also excelled in virtuoso pas de deux with his wife Struchkova, such as Spring Waters. He was also a choreographer and teacher.

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Lapzeson , Noemi

(b Buenos Aires, 28 June 1940).
Argentinian dancer, teacher, and choreographer. She studied at the Juilliard School, Graham School, American Ballet Center, and with Nikolais. From 1959 she was a principal dancer with Graham's company, as well as appearing with other groups, including Cohan's from 1959, before becoming principal dancer with London Contemporary Dance Theatre (1967–72). She also choreographed some works, including One was the Other (in collaboration with R. North , 1972) and taught at the London School of Contemporary Dance, later working as freelance choreographer and teacher in the US, Israel, and Europe.

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Larionov , Mikhail

(b Tiraspol, 22 May 1881, d Fontenay-aux-Roses, 10 May 1964).
Russian painter and designer. He studied at the Moscow Institute of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture where in 1900 he met the artist Goncharova , whom he married. At Diaghilev's invitation he exhibited in the Union of Russian Artists section at the Salon d'Automne, Paris, in 1906 and then in 1914 settled in the city where he designed several Ballets Russes productions including Massine's Soleil de nuit (1915) and Nijinska's Renard (1922). His work was always based in popular Russian art though he was alert to contemporary trends and played a strong role in guiding Diaghilev's artistic taste.

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Larrieu , Daniel

(b Marseilles, 23 Nov. 1957).
French dancer and choreographer. He initially trained in horticulture, but became interested in dance and began performing in 1978 with Wes Howard's Quatuor de Danse, joining Régine Chopinot in 1982 and in the same year forming his own group, Astrakan. His piece, Un sucre ou deux (1982), based on a series of naturalistic gestures and accompanied by Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet, won the Bagnolet choreographic competition of that year. A choreographer with an ironic and surreal sense of humour, his most internationally famous work, Waterproof (1986, commissioned by the Centre National de Danse Contemporaine at Angers), was staged in a number of Olympic-sized swimming pools, with large video screens projecting underwater images to a collage of musical extracts. It was also filmed for television. Astrakan was based in Marne la Vallée (1990–2) and was re-named Compagnie Daniel Larrieu in 1993 when Larrieu was appointed director of the Centre Chorégraphique National de Tours. His later works for the company include Un geste ou deux (mus. various, 1995), Delta (mus. Scanner , Robin Rimbaud , 1996), and On était si tranquille (1998). He has also choreographed for several other companies, such as Attentat poétique for Paris Opera (1992) and for opera, including Salomé for Lyons Opera (1990).

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Larsen , Gerd

(b Oslo, 20 Feb. 1921).
Norwegian-British dancer. She studied with Craske and Tudor and made her debut with Tudor's London Ballet in 1938, where she created the role of the French ballerina in his Gala Performance (1938). She then danced with Ballet Rambert, International Ballet, and Sadler's Wells Ballet (from 1944), becoming soloist there in 1954. Though a graceful classical dancer, she became best known as one of the Royal Ballet's mimes, outstanding in roles like the mother in Giselle. She was a senior teacher with the company and was married to the dancer Harold Turner .

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Larsen , Niels Bjørn

(b Copenhagen, 5 Oct. 1913).
Danish dancer, choreographer, and ballet master. He studied at the Royal Danish Ballet School from 1920 and made his debut with the company in Coppélia when still a child. His official debut with RDB was in 1933 and after dancing various guest seasons with the Trudi Schoop Comic Ballet (1935–9) he was appointed solo dancer (principal) with RDB in 1942, becoming the company's most distinguished mime. During his performing career he created a huge variety of characters though he was most famous for his mysterious but touching Dr Coppelius . In 1940 he formed his own company with which he toured Scandinavia until 1946, then in 1951 he was appointed temporary artistic director of RDB, taking on the role officially between 1953 and 1956 and again between 1958 and 1965. He was also artistic director of Copenhagen's Tivoli Theatre (1956–80). From 1946 he taught at the RDB School and from 1947 taught with the company as well as choreographing extensively for ballet, opera, film, plays, and musicals, including Peter and the Wolf (mus. Prokofiev , RDB, 1960) and The Little Mermaid (mus. Henriques , Tivoli Theatre, 1977). His official farewell performance was as Madge in La Sylphide with RDB (1986) but he continued to work even into his eighties, teaching mime, performing character roles, and guesting with other companies. In 1995 he reconstructed Konservatoriet. He is father of the dancer Dinna Bjørn , and was made Knight of the Dannebrog.

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Last , Brenda

(b London, 17 Apr. 1938).
British dancer and ballet mistress. She studied with Volkova and at the Royal Ballet School and joined Western Theatre Ballet in 1957 creating roles in Darrell's A Wedding Present (1962), among others. In 1963 she joined the Touring Company of the Royal Ballet, becoming principal in 1965. A tiny, quick, extrovert dancer she created roles in several ballets including Ashton's Creatures of Prometheus (1970) and P. Wright's Arpège (1975). She was appointed ballet mistress of the Royal Ballet's New Group in 1974, while still dancing principal roles, notably Swanilda. She remained with Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet until 1977, then became director of Norwegian National Ballet (1977–80), after which she returned to teach in London.

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Latvia.

Ballet in Latvia dates back to 1921 when the first full-length ballet was performed in Riga. This was La Fille mal gardée, staged by N. Sergeyev from the Maryinsky Theatre at the National Opera House. In 1932 a ballet school was founded in Riga and the ballerina Alexandra Fedorova became a major force in the city teaching, choreographing, and staging many ballets from the Russian classical repertoire (1925–37). Her work was aided by a succession of guest ballet masters including Fokine (1929) and Tikhomirov (1933). During the post-war period Elena Tangiyeva-Birzniece was ballerina and chief choreographer in Riga, creating the first Latvian-Soviet ballet, Laima (mus. Anatole Lepin , 1947). Evgeny Changa also choreographed many works between 1950 and 1961, including a version of Spartacus in 1960. Contemporary ballets have been created by Irene Strode and Alexander Lembergs . There was also a ballet company at the Liepaja Opera House from the early 1920s to 1950 and a company is still active at the Riga Operetta Theatre. There is a flourishing folk dance scene headed by the company Daile, which was founded in 1968.

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Laubin , Reginald and Laubin , Gladys (née Tortoiseshell ;

b Paterson, NJ; Reginald Laubin, b Detroit).
US dancers, choreographers, and researchers. They lived on Native American Indian reservations for over twenty years, researching and giving concerts of indigenous dances. They published Indian Dances of North America (Oklahoma, 1975).

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Laurencia.

Ballet in three acts with choreography by Chabukiani , libretto by E. Mandelberg , music by A. Krein , and design by S. Virsaladze . Premiered 22 Mar. 1939 by the Kirov Theatre, Leningrad, with Dudinskaya and Chabukiani . It is based on the 17th century play Fuente ovejuna (The Sheep Well) by Lope de Vega and tells the story of a peasant uprising in a Castilian village, led by Laurencia and her fiancé, Frondoso, against the Commander who has tried to seduce Laurencia. Created at the height of Soviet demands for ‘choreodrama’, Chabukiani's fusion of Spanish folk and classical dance created vivid character and local colour. It was very popular and has been revived many times in Russia and E. Europe . The pas de six from Act I was staged by Nureyev for the Royal Ballet in 1965. Alexander Chekrygin's ballet on the same theme, Comedians (mus. Glière , Bolshoi, 1931), was later revised by Alexei Tchitchinadze as A Daughter of Castile and premiered at the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theatre, Moscow, in 1955.

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Lausanne , Prix de.

See competitions.

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Lauterer , Arch

(b 1904, d Oakland, Calif., 1957).
US set and lighting designer. He based his principles of design on Appia's writings, using light and architectural forms to create a fluid, uncluttered space for dance. He taught at Bennington College (1933–43) and collaborated with many choreographers, including Graham , Humphrey , Holm , and Weidman .

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Lavallade , Carmen de

(b Los Angeles, 6 Mar. 1931).
US dancer. She studied with Melissa Blake and C. Maracci and became a leading dancer with Horton's company in 1950. She was a celebrated beauty and also appeared in films, such as Carmen Jones (1954), and on Broadway. In 1956 she began working with J. Butler , creating roles in several of his ballets, including Carmina Burana (1959) and Portrait of Billy (1960). She also danced with the companies of Ailey , Tetley , McKayle , New York City Opera, and American Ballet Theatre. Her husband, Geoffrey Holder , choreographed several works for her including her trademark solos Three Songs for One (1963) and Come Sunday (1968). In 1970 she was appointed to the Yale Drama faculty to teach movement to actors, and also worked as an actress. She also continued to dance and to choreograph her own work, including productions at the Metropolitan Opera and also Bitter Sweet Love for the Ailey company in 2000. In 1999 she celebrated 50 years of her career in a performance with her regular stage partners, Gus Solomons jun. and Dudley Williams .

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Lavery , Sean

(b Harrisburg, Pa., 16 Aug. 1956).
US dancer. He studied with R. Thomas and B. Fallis and in 1972 joined San Francisco Ballet. In 1974 he moved to Frankfurt Ballet, danced as guest artist with U.S. Terpsichore in 1976, and in 1977 joined New York City Ballet where he was promoted principal dancer in 1978. He danced both the classic and the Balanchine repertories and created roles in several ballets including Martins's Symphony No. 1. (1981). After retiring from the stage he continued as ballet master with the company, also creating ballets, notably for Florida Ballet, such as Classical Symphony (mus. Prokofiev , 1998).

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Lavrovsky , Leonid

(b St Petersburg, 18 June 1905, d Paris, 27 Nov. 1967).
Soviet dancer, choreographer, director, and teacher. He studied at the Petrograd (later Leningrad) Ballet School, graduating into GATOB (later the Kirov) in 1922. He remained there until 1935, dancing principal roles as well as appearing with Evenings of Young Ballet (dir. Balanchine and V. Dmitriev ) with which he created a role in Lopukhov's Dance Symphony (1923). He began to teach in 1922 and created his first ballet for the Leningrad Ballet School in 1928. In 1934 he choreographed the full-length Fadetta (mus. from Delibes's Sylvia, later staged by the Maly Theatre, 1936, and by the Bolshoi Ballet, 1952) and in 1935 Katerina (mus. Rubinstein and Adam , later staged by the Kirov, 1936). In 1935 he was made director of the Maly Theatre and in 1938 director of the Kirov where he remained until 1944. His commitment to telling powerful stories, using an expanded classical vocabulary and stylized mime was exemplified in works like Prisoner of the Caucasus (mus. Asafiev , 1938) and Romeo and Juliet (mus. Prokofiev , 1940). Between 1942 and 1943 he worked at the Spendiarov Theatre in Yerevan then in 1944 he became chief choreographer at the Bolshoi Ballet, remaining there until 1956 and returning again from 1960 to 1964. Here his most important productions included stagings of Giselle (1944) and Raymonda (1945) and new ballets such as The Red Poppy (mus. Glière , 1949), The Legend of the Stone Flower (mus. Prokofiev , 1954), Paganini (mus. Rachmaninov , 1960), and Night City (set to Bartók's music for The Miraculous Mandarin, 1961), his later ballets showing a trend away from narrative to more abstract dance. He also mounted the definitive version of his Romeo and Juliet in 1946. Between 1959 and 1964 he also worked for Moscow's Ballet on Ice Company creating A Winter Fantasy (1959), among other works, and in 1964 he was appointed director of the Moscow Ballet School. He was also teacher at the Choreographer's Faculty of the Institute of Theatrical Art (1948–67), becoming professor in 1952. He was married to the dancer Yelena Chikvaidze and was father of the dancer Mikhail Lavrovsky . He was made People's Artist of the USSR in 1965.

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Lavrovsky , Mikhail

(b Tbilisi, 29 Oct. 1941).
Soviet-Georgian dancer, choreographer, and director. The son of Leonid Lavrovsky he studied at the Bolshoi Ballet School and graduated in 1961 into the Bolshoi Ballet. He became a principal, partnering such ballerinas as Bessmertnova and Semenyaka until leaving in 1988. After 1977 he was also guest principal dancer and guest choreographer for several seasons with Tbilisi Ballet, becoming its artistic director (1983–5). He has created several works for the company including Mziri (mus. Toradze , 1977), Porgy and Bess (mus. Gershwin , 1983), and The Dreamer (mus. Gershwin , 1989), as well as works for the Moscow Chamber Ballet, More Powerful than Gold and Death (mus. Wagner , 1996) and the Bolshoi, Fantasy on the Theme of Casanova (mus. Mozart , 1993). He has also choreographed for some Western companies, including Atlanta Ballet (1989) and Arizona Ballet (1987). He was made People's Artist of the USSR in 1976.

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Lawrence , Ashley

(b Hamilton, NZ, 5 June 1934, d Tokyo, 7 May 1990).
British conductor. He studied at the Royal College of Music and became conductor of Touring Royal Ballet Company (1962–6). In 1966 he moved to Berlin Opera Ballet as conductor then in 1970 to Stuttgart, rejoining the Royal Ballet in 1972, where he was music director from 1973 to 1987. He then worked as an international freelance, guesting with Paris Opera, Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet, and Royal New Zealand Ballet.

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Lawson , Joan

(b London, 1907).
British dancer, teacher, and writer. She studied with Margaret Morris and Astafieva and danced in opera, revues, and with the Nemchinova-Dolin company, going on to teach at the Royal Ballet School (1963–71). She has contributed to dance magazines as well as writing European Folk Dance (London, 1953), Dressing for Ballet (with P. Revitt , London, 1958), Classical Ballet, its Theory and Technique (London, 1960), and A History of Ballet and its Makers (London, 1964). In two important manuals, Teaching of Classical Ballet: Common Faults in Young Dancers (London, 1973) and Teaching Young Dancers: Muscular Coordination in Classical Ballet (New York, 1975), she outlined her anatomical approach to the teaching of ballet.

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Leaves are Fading, The.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Tudor , music by Dvoák , set by Ming Cho Lee , and costumes by P. Zipprodt . Premiered 17 July 1975 by American Ballet Theatre at New York State Theater, New York, with Tcherkassky , Kirkland , Tippet , C. Ward , and Kage . Set to a selection of Dvoák's music (including the String Quartets, Opp. 77 and 80), it is a series of wistful romantic duets for seven couples which seem to embody a woman's nostalgic memories. Unusually for Tudor, it is a near-plotless work.

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LeBlanc , Tina

(b Erie, Pa., 17 Oct. 1966).
US dancer. She trained locally and at the School of American Ballet, School of American Ballet Theatre, and School of Pennsylvania Ballet and danced with Central Pennsylvania Ballet (1975–82), Joffrey II, and Joffrey Ballet (1982–92) before joining San Francisco Ballet as principal in 1992 where she has created roles in such works as Bintley's The Dance House (1994) and Morris's Pacific (1995). A versatile dancer, her repertory ranges from Lise in Ashton's La Fille mal gardée to Taylor's Company B and Balanchine's Rubies.

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Leclair , André

(b Brussels, 29 Jan. 1930).
Belgian dancer, choreographer, and director. He studied with M. Querida and V. Gsovsky and in 1947 danced with Ballets des Champs-Elysées, becoming dancer with Théâtre de la Monnaie and subsequently Ballet of the 20th Century, where he created roles in Symphonie No. 9 (1966) and other ballets. In 1956 he created his first ballet and in 1966 was appointed ballet master of the Royal Opera Antwerp, becoming ballet director in 1968. In 1970 he was appointed chief choreographer of Ballet of Flanders. He has created over 50 works, characterized by virtuoso classical dance, most notably Ritus Paganus (mus. F. Glorieux , 1972).

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LeClercq , Tanaquil

(b Paris, 2 Oct. 1929, d New York, 31 Dec. 2000).
US dancer and teacher. She studied with Mordkin and at the School of American Ballet, making her debut at Jacob's Pillow Festival in 1945. She joined Ballet Society (later New York City Ballet) as a soloist in 1946 becoming principal dancer in 1948. With her sophisticated, stylish technique and sharp intelligence she excelled in a wide repertory, creating roles in over 25 of Balanchine's ballets including Four Temperaments (1946), Divertimento (1947), Bourrée fantasque (1949), La Valse (1951), Western Symphony, and Ivesiana (both 1954), as well as roles in Ashton's Illuminations (1950) and Robbins's Age of Anxiety (1950), Afternoon of a Faun (1953), and The Concert (1956). Her career was cut short when she contracted polio on tour in Copenhagen in 1956, though she has subsequently taught at Dance Theatre of Harlem (1974–82) and published two books, Mourka, the Autobiography of a Cat (New York, 1964) and Ballet Cookbook (New York, 1967). She was married to Balanchine (1952–69).

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Lee , Mary Ann

(b Philadelphia, July 1824 (some sources say 1823), d Philadelphia, 25 Jan. 1899).
US dancer and teacher, who was also the first US ballerina to gain local renown. She studied with Paul Hazard in Philadelphia and made her debut as a child actress c.1832. In 1837 she first appeared as a professional dancer in Philadelphia dancing in The Maid of Kashmir (an English version of La Bayadère), then became leading dancer at the Walnut Street Theatre, Philadelphia (1838–9). She made her New York debut in 1839, appearing in La Bayadère and The Sisters, and also danced some of Elssler's famous pieces which she learned from her partner James Sylvain , such as La Cachucha. In Boston in 1842 she danced the title role of Taglioni's La Sylphide in her own staging and in 1844 she went to study at Paris Opera with Coralli. On her return to the US she staged several major European ballets, including Giselle (Boston, 1946). She herself danced the title role, the first American to do so. She retired early in 1847, owing to illness, though she returned for occasional performances, and opened a school in Philadelphia in 1860.

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Leeder , Sigurd

(b Hamburg, 14 Aug. 1902, d Herisau, 20 June 1981).
German dancer, choreographer, ballet master, and teacher. His early interest in dance was developed by Sarah Norden , a student of Laban in Hamburg and in 1920 he made his debut at the Hamburger Kammerspiele, after which he founded his own group. In 1924 he joined Jooss's Neue Tanzbühne, moving with him to Essen in 1928 where they founded the Folkwang Tanz Theatre and co-directed the dance department of the Folkwang School. With Jooss he also emigrated to Dartington, England, in 1934 where they co-directed the Jooss-Leeder School and in 1935 the Jooss Ballet. They moved to Cambridge in 1940, with Leeder becoming ballet master of the company until 1947 and choreographing Sailor's Fancy (mus. Martin Penny ). After the company disbanded he opened his own school in London. Between 1955 and 1964 he was teaching in Santiago at the University of Chile, after which he moved his school to Herisau, Switzerland, where he remained until his death.

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Lefèbre , Jorge

(d Charleroi, 15 May 1990).
Cuban dancer, choreographer, and artistic director. He studied with the Alonsos in Havana and later with Dollar , Mattox , and others. After dancing with Katherine Dunham's company he joined Ballet of the 20th Century in 1963. He choreographed for various companies, including Ballet Royal de Wallonie (including Degas, mus. Bizet , 1989) and National Ballet of Cuba, and he was artistic director of Ballet Royal de Wallonie from 1980 until his death.

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Lefèvre , Brigitte

(b Moulins en Gilbert, 15 Nov. 1944).
French dancer, choreographer, and director. She studied at the Paris Opera Ballet School from the age of 8 and entered the company aged 16, but continued her studies in other areas of modern dance and jazz, creating her first work, Mikrokosmos (mus. Bartók ) for the Avignon Festival in 1970. In 1972 she left the POB to co-found the Théâtre du Silence with Jacques Garnier , which was based in La Rochelle (1974–85). Alongside their own work she and Garnier presented works by international choreographers, including Cunningham and Lubovitch . In 1985 she was appointed principal inspector of dance at the Ministry of Culture, in 1992 she became general administrator of the Paris Opera, and in 1995 artistic director of the Paris Opera Ballet.

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Legat , Nicolai

(b St Petersburg, 27 Dec. 1869, d London, 24 Jan. 1937).
Russian dancer, ballet master, choreographer, and teacher. He studied with his father Gustav and at the Imperial Theatre School with Gerdt, Johansson, and others. He made his debut while still a student and in 1888 graduated into the Maryinsky Theatre, becoming principal and favoured partner to ballerinas like Legnani , Pavlova , Kshessinska , and Trefilova . Although too stocky to be considered an ideal danseur noble he was a brilliant technician, dancing in over 70 ballets during his career and creating roles in Petipa's Kalkabrino (1891) and Ivanov's Nutcracker (1892), among others. In 1902 he became assistant ballet master at the Maryinsky with his brother, Sergei , becoming chief ballet master from 1910. Although he choreographed a few ballets (most famously The Fairy Doll, with his brother, mus. Bayer and others, 1903), he concentrated on teaching, taking over the Maryinsky's classe de perfection from Johansson in 1905. Among his pupils were Egorova , Preobrajenska , Vaganova , Karsavina , Fokine , Nijinsky , and Bolm . After a disagreement with the Maryinsky he left in 1914, teaching in various private schools, touring music halls in Paris and London with his wife Nadine Nicolayeva, and staging ballets for the popular theatre. In 1922 he left Russia for good, unable to find a place in the emerging Soviet ballet. He took over from Cecchetti as ballet master of Diaghilev's company (1925–6) then settled in London where he taught at his own studio. His pupils included Danilova , Lopokova , de Valois , Markova , Dolin , Eglevsky , and Fonteyn . After his death the school continued in his name, later moving to Sussex. He was also a clever caricaturist, publishing Russian Ballet in Caricature (St Petersburg, 1903, English edition, 1939).

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Legat , Sergei

(b St Petersburg, 27 Sep. 1875, d St Petersburg, 1 Nov. 1905).
Russian dancer; younger brother of Nicolai Legat. He studied at the Imperial Theatre School with Johansson and Gerdt , graduating in 1894 into the Maryinsky Theatre. Though six years his brother's junior he soon outshone him and by 1903 was appointed premier danseur. He also taught at the school (Nijinsky was one of his pupils) and worked as repetiteur at the Maryinsky Theatre. He committed suicide, apparently unbalanced by his unhappy relations with Maria Mariusovna Petipa (Petipa's daughter), his common-law wife, and by his anguish over the politics of the dancers' strike of 1905.

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Legend of Joseph (orig. Ger. title. Die Josephslegende; title of Paris first production La Légende de Joseph).

Ballet in one act with choreography by Fokine , libretto by H. G. Kessler and H. von Hofmannsthal , music by R. Strauss , set by J. M. Sert , and costumes by Bakst . Premiered 14 May 1914 by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes at the Paris Opera with Kousnetzova and Massine —the latter's debut performance with the company. It is set to Strauss's score of the same title and based on the biblical story in which Joseph virtuously rejects the lascivious advances of Potiphar's wife. However, its setting was updated to the court of a 16th-century Venetian doge and the ballet concluded with Potiphar's wife strangling herself with her rope of pearls. Later versions include Kröller (Berlin Staatsoper, 1921), Balanchine (Royal Danish Ballet, Copenhagen, 1931), Tudor (Teatro Colón, 1958), Neumeier (Vienna, 1977, the first purely dance version of the work), B. R. Beinert (Zurich), and Spoerli (Düsseldorf), both 1992.

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Legend of Judith.

Modern dance work in one act with choreography by Graham , music by Mordecai Seter , and design by Dani Karavan . Premiered 25 Oct. 1962 by the M. Graham Dance Company at Habima Theatre, Tel Aviv, with Graham , L. Hodes , Ross , and Yuriko . It is an intimate, psychological portrait of the biblical character, focusing on her memories, visions, and moral conflicts.

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Legend of Love (orig. Russ. title Legenda o liubvi).

Ballet in three acts with choreography by Grigorovich , libretto by Nazim Hikmet , music by Arif Melikov , and design by Simon Virsaladze . Premiered 23 Mar. 1961 by the Kirov, Leningrad, with Kolpakova , Moisseyeva , Gribov , and Gridin . It is based on a well-known Turkish play by N. Hikmet (of the same title) and explores the conflict between love and duty through the story of its heroine, Queen Mekhmene-Banu. She sacrifices her beauty to save the life of her sick sister Shirien , but regrets her action when Shirien falls in love with her own lover, the painter Ferkhad. On her orders, he sacrifices his love for Shirien to go and build a waterway through the Iron Mountain to bring water to his thirsty people. Unusually for its era, the work eschewed the mime-orientated narrative of much Soviet ballet, relying on pure dance to tell the story. It was re-staged for the Bolshoi (by Grigorovich ) in 1965 and has been frequently performed in E. Europe.

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Léger , Fernand

(b Argentan, 4 Feb. 1881, d Gifsur-Yvette, 17 Aug. 1955).
French painter and designer, best-known for the static monumental forms of his ‘machine aesthetic’. He created the designs for Börlin's Skating Rink and La Création du monde (both 1923), Lifar's David triomphant (1937), and Charrat's Léonard de Vinci (1952).

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Legnani , Pierina

(b Milan, 30 Sept. 1868, d Milan, 15 Nov. 1930).
Italian ballerina. She studied with Beretta in Milan and in 1890 appeared as prima ballerina at London's Alhambra Theatre in Casati's ballet Salandra. In 1892 she was appointed prima ballerina at La Scala then moved to St Petersburg in 1893 where she was prima ballerina at the Maryinsky Theatre until 1901. Here she created numerous roles for Petipa including the title role of Cinderella (1893), Odette-Odile in Swan Lake (1895), and the title roles in Raymonda (1898) and Camargo (1901). A dancer of unusual technical brilliance and refinement, her most celebrated feat was executing 32 fouetté turns without stopping, which she first performed in Aladdin at the Alhambra in 1892. She was appointed prima ballerina assoluta at the Maryinsky (the only official holder of this title apart from Kshessinska) and spurred Russian dancers to emulate her virtuosity. After retiring from the stage she lived in Italy and served on the examining board of La Scala Ballet School until four months before her death.

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Legris , Manuel

(b Paris, 19 Oct. 1964).
French dancer. He studied at the Paris Opera Ballet School and entered the company in 1980, where he was promoted étoile in 1986. A stylist of considerable wit and subtlety he has danced both the classical and modern repertories and created roles in several ballets, including France/Dance (Forsythe, 1983), Magnificat (Neumeier , 1987), and Sylvia (Neumeier , 1997).

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Leibovitz , Annie

(b Westbury, Conn., 2 Oct. 1949).
US photographer. She studied at San Francisco Art Institute and became a freelance professional photographer in 1970, working for the Rolling Stones and for Vanity Fair, among others. She has created distinctive, highly personalized images of many dancers and choreographers including Mark Morris , Baryshnikov , Merce Cunningham , and Bill T. Jones .

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Lemon , Ralph

(b Minnesota, 1953).
US dancer and choreographer. He studied at the University of Minnesota and with Nancy Hauser , dancing with her company (1977–9). He moved to New York and danced with various companies including Meredith Monk's (1979–81) and in 1981 presented his first concert of work. He founded his own company in 1985 for which he has choreographed many works including Persephone (mus. Davis , 1991). His works have also been performed by other companies including Alvin Ailey Repertory Ensemble (Folkdance, 1998) and Lyons Opera Ballet (My Tears Have Been My Meat Night and Day, 1994). In 1995 he disbanded his company to pursue multi-disciplinary projects—such as the ongoing trilogy Geography.

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Leningrad.

See St Petersburg.

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Leningrad Ballet School.

See under Kirov and Vaganova , Agrippina.

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Leningrad Symphony (orig. Russ. title Sedmaya simfoniya).

Ballet in one act with libretto and choreography by Belsky , music by Shostakovich , and design by Mikhail Gordon . Premiered 14 Apr. 1961 by the Kirov, Leningrad, with Sisova and Soloviev . It is set to the first movement of Shostakovich's 7th Symphony (‘Leningrad’), and portrays the city's heroic resistance to the German siege of 1942. There are other versions by Massine (Ballet Russe Highlights, New York, 1945) and L. Ogoun (Brno, 1962).

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leotard.

A close-fitting garment, like a bathing suit, with or without sleeves, made in supple stretch fabric. It was invented by the French acrobat Jules Leotard (1830–70) and is now commonly worn by dancers on stage and in rehearsal, as well as by sportsmen and women and keep-fit enthusiasts.

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Lepeshinskaya , Olga

(b Kiev, 28 Sept. 1916).
Soviet ballerina and teacher. She studied at the Moscow Ballet School and graduated into the Bolshoi in 1933 where she was ballerina until 1963. A model Soviet ballerina she was a joyful, impetuous dancer with a powerful, almost masculine, technique and a high flying jump. Celebrated in comedy roles like Lise in Gorsky's version of La Fille mal gardée (her debut role) and Kitri in Don Quixote, she also created roles in several ballets including Zakharov's Taras Bulba (1941), Cinderella (1945), and the Moscow version of Zakharov's The Bronze Horseman (1949). She made frequent international tours in a programme of concert pieces and taught widely after her retirement, also writing ballet reviews during the 1970s and 1980s. She was made People's Artist of the USSR in 1947.

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LePicq , Charles (also Charles Lepic , Charles Pick , or Charles Lepij ;

b Naples, 1744 (some sources say Strasbourg 1749), d St Petersburg, 1806).
French dancer and choreographer. He studied with Noverre in Stuttgart and danced with his company from 1761 becoming danseur sérieux in 1763. After 1764 he danced in many European cities with his wife, dancer Anna Binetti , and was celebrated for his elegant courtly style. He also staged Noverre's ballets and from 1770 choreographed his own. He was at Paris Opera (1776–81) but the jealous intrigues of Vestris and Gardel prompted him to leave, first for Naples, then in 1782 to London's Kings Theatre where he danced under Noverre, becoming ballet master himself in 1783. He then moved to St Petersburg where he was ballet master (1786–98) and married prima ballerina Gertruda Rossi . He staged ballets by Dauberval , Gardel , and Noverre there and also choreographed several of his own, including Bergère (1790), Didon abandonnée (1795), and Tancrède (1798). Throughout his career he remained a loyal supporter of Noverre, his works closely adhering to the latter's principles of ballet d'action.

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Le Riche , Nicolas

(b Sartrouville, 29 Jan. 1972).
French dancer. He studied at the Paris Opera Ballet School and graduated into the company in 1988, becoming étoile in 1993. He dances both the classical and modern repertories, and has created roles in Petit's Camera Obscura (1994), Le Guépard (with Ballet de Marseilles, 1995) and in Pas/parts (Forsythe , 2000).

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Leskova , Tatiana

(b Paris, 1922).
French-Brazilian dancer, choreographer, and ballet mistress. She studied with Egorova and others and made her debut at Paris Opera Comique in 1937. In 1938 she was with Ballet de la Jeunesse and then from 1939 was with Original Ballet Russe as a principal dancer. She left for Rio de Janeiro in 1945 and appeared with various companies before becoming ballet mistress, dancer, and choreographer with the city's Teatro Municipal in 1950. Here she created many works and re-staged the classics, becoming artistic director (with Jorge García ) in the late 1970s. She also founded her own school in the city. She subsequently worked as freelance ballet mistress, in 1989 reviving Massine's Les Présages for Paris Opera, and in 1994 for Joffrey Ballet.

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Leslie , Natasha.

See Krassovska , Nathalie.

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Lesson, The (orig. Dan. title Enetime; often under French title, La Leçon).

Television ballet in one act with choreography by Flindt , music by G. Delerue , and design by Daydé . Premiered on Danish television 16 Sept. 1963 with Flindt , Amiel , and T. Chelton . It is inspired by Ionesco's play of the same title but takes the original schoolroom scenario into the ballet studio. Here it shows a teacher becoming so crazily incensed by a female pupil's work that he kills her, the action suggesting that exactly the same scenario will be repeated the next day, with a different pupil. It was Flindt's first ballet and his most successful, receiving the Prix Italia and subsequently transferring to the stage. The first production was at Paris Opéra Comique, 6 Apr. 1964, with Flindt, Amiel, and L. Garden and it has since been revived by several companies, including Royal Danish Ballet (1964), Western Theatre Ballet (1967), City Center Joffrey Ballet (1968), and San Francisco Ballet (1998).

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Lester , Keith

(b Guildford, 9 Apr. 1904, d London, 8 June 1993).
British dancer, choreographer, and teacher. He studied with Dolin , Astafieva , N. Legat , and Fokine and made his debut in the latter's dances for Hassan in London, 1923. He danced in several concert tours, his partners including Kyasht (1924–6), Karsavina (1927–30), and Spessivtseva (1931). He also danced with various companies including Rubinstein's (Paris, 1934) and Markova-Dolin Ballet (1935–7) for which he also choreographed several works including David (mus. Jacobson , 1935) and Pas de quatre (mus. Pugni , 1936). In 1939 he danced with Tudor's London Ballet (also choreographing Pas de déesses to music by Pugni ). In 1940 he founded Arts Theatre Ballet with H. Turner for which he created several works including Sylvia (mus. Delibes , 1940). From 1945 to 1960 he worked at London's Windmill Theatre as principal dancer and choreographer, staging over 150 shows and created the Windmill's famous fan dances. He was appointed principal teacher of London's Royal Academy of Dancing in 1964 and was made Fellow of the RAD in 1975.

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Letter to the World.

Modern dance work in one act with choreography by Graham , music by H. Johnson , costumes by E. Gilford , and set by A. Lauterer . Premiered 11 Aug. 1940 by the Martha Graham Dance Company at Bennington College Theater, Vermont, with Graham , Dudley , Hawkins , and M. Cunningham . It is a psychological portrait of the poet Emily Dickinson , with extracts of her work spoken by an actress.

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Levasseur , André

(b Paris, 18 Aug. 1927).
French designer. Known for the elaborate but chic style of his costumes, he created the designs for Ashton's Birthday Offering (1956), La Péri (1957), La Valse (1958), and Raymonda pas de deux (1962), Balanchine's La Somnambule (Cuevas production, 1957) and Theme and Variations (American Ballet Theatre, 1958), Taras's Piège de lumière (New York City Ballet production, 1964), and Lazzini's Coppélia (1965).

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Levinson , André

(b St Petersburg, 1 Jan. 1887, d Paris, 3 Dec. 1933).
Russian critic and dance writer. While still a professor of Romance languages at St Petersburg University he was a vigorous writer of dance criticism, displaying in his articles a staunch defence of academic dance principles and attacking the reforms of Fokine and Diaghilev (though he became a champion of Isadora Duncan). In 1918 he left Russia for Paris where he taught at the Sorbonne and became one of the most influential critics in France. He published articles on a wide range of dance subjects and wrote many books including Ballet romantique (1919), L'Œuvre de Léon Bakst (1921), La Danse au théâtre (1924), La Vie de Noverre (1925), Paul Valéry, philosophe de la danse (1927), La Argentina, Anna Pavlova (both 1928), Marie Taglioni, La Danse d'aujourd'hui (both 1929), Les visages de la danse (1933), and Serge Lifar (1934).

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Levi-Tanai , Sara

(b Jerusalem, 1911).
Israeli dancer, choreographer, and ballet director. She taught herself and in 1949 founded the Inbal Dance Theatre, creating for it over 40 dances, including Story of Ruth (mus. Tuvia , 1961) and Jacob (mus. Mar-Haim , 1973).

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Lewitzky , Bella

(b Los Angeles, 13 Jan. 1916).
US dancer, choreographer, and teacher. She studied with Horton, and as a dancer in his company was a major influence on his evolving style, creating leading roles in his Sacre du printemps (1937) and Salome (1938). With Horton William Bowne and her husband Newell Reynolds she formed the Dance Theatre, but by 1951 left to form her own school, Dance Associates. In 1966 she founded the Bella Lewitzky Dance Company with which she not only performed but for which she created many works in a pure dance vein, including Kinaesonata (1970). As choreographer, performer, and teacher she became one of the major exponents of modern dance on the West Coast. The group disbanded in 1995 but Lewitzky remained an active force in dance.

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Liat Dror and Nir Ben-Gal Dance Company.

See Dror , Liat.

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Lichine , David (orig. David Lichtenstein ;

b Rostov-on-Don, 25 Oct. 1910, d Los Angeles, 26 June 1972).
Russian-US dancer, choreographer, and teacher. He studied with Egorova and Nijinska in Paris, making his debut there with Rubinstein's company in 1928 then going on to dance with Pavlova's company (1930), Nijinska's company, and Ballet de l'Opéra Russe à Paris (1931–2) and La Scala, Milan (1932). A versatile and engaging demicaractère dancer, he was appointed principal dancer with Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo in 1932, staying with the company until 1941 during its subsequent reincarnations as de Basil's Ballets Russes and Original Ballet Russe, and creating roles in many ballets, including Balanchine's Cotillon and Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (both 1932), Massine's Jeux d'enfants (1932), Choreartium and Les Présages (both 1933), and Union Pacific (1934). He began to choreograph his own works for the company in 1933, his many ballets including Francesca da Rimini (mus. Tchaikovsky , 1937), Prodigal Son (mus. Prokofiev , 1938), and his most popular work, Graduation Ball (mus. Strauss , arr. Dorati , 1940). In 1941 he joined Ballet Theatre with his second wife Riabouchinska where he also choreographed one ballet and completed Fokine's Helen of Troy (mus. Offenbach , 1942). He returned for various seasons to the Original Ballet Russe (1946–8) and in 1947 worked at the Teatro Colón as principal dancer and choreographer. In 1948 he was choreographer with Ballets des Champs-Elysées creating La Création which was, unusually for that era, danced in silence. He then settled in Los Angeles, where he choreographed for film and commercial theatre and also worked as a freelance choreographer in Europe creating numerous ballets for London Festival Ballet, La Scala, and Berlin Opera Ballet, among others. After 1959 he concentrated on directing (with his wife) the Los Angeles Ballet Theatre and its school.

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Lido , Serge (orig. Serge Lidoff ;

b Moscow, 28 Jan. 1906, d Paris, 6 Mar. 1984).
Russian-French photographer. Though based in Paris he gained an international reputation for his dance photos, which were published in magazines and also collected in book form, such as Danse (1947) and Les Étoiles de la danse dans le monde (1975).

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Liebeslieder Walzer.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Balanchine , music by Brahms , set by David Hays , and costumes by Karinska . Premiered 22 Nov. 1960 by New York City Ballet at New York's City Center with D. Adams , Hayden , Jillana , Verdy , B. Carter , Ludlow , Magallanes , and Watts . In this setting of Brahms waltzes (Opp. 52 and 65) for piano duet and four singers, Balanchine said he had meditated on the ‘changing aspects of love’. The musicians perform from the left-hand side of the stage on which four couples dance variations on the waltz. During the first half the dancers are in ballroom dress but for the second the women have changed into tutus and pointe shoes. The dancing, too, becomes more abstractly classical, thus, as Balanchine said, showing first ‘the real people that are dancing … then their souls’. It has been revived by Vienna State Opera Ballet (1977), Royal Ballet (1979), and Zurich Ballet (1981). In the NYCB revival of 1984 at the State Theater it had a new set by David Mitchell and was danced by Farrell , McBride , Saland , Nichols , Lavery , Cook , I. Andersen , and Duell . Other settings of the same music include M. Morris's New Love Song Waltzes (1982) and Love Song Waltzes (1989) and Alston's Waltzes in Disorder (1998).

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Lied von der Erde, Das.

See Song of the Earth.

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Liepa , Andris

(b Moscow, 6 Jan. 1962).
Soviet-Russian dancer; son of Maris Liepa . He studied at the Moscow Ballet School (1971–81) and graduated into the Bolshoi Ballet. His lyrical, handsome style made him a natural for classical roles and he was promoted soloist, then principal in 1983. In 1988 he and his partner Ananiashvili became the first Soviets to gain official permission to guest with an American company, dancing works from the Balanchine repertory with New York City Ballet. Later that year he was also given permission to dance with American Ballet Theatre where he remained until 1989. On his return he was appointed principal dancer with the Kirov, creating the title role in the second version of Vinogradov's Petrushka (1990), and he subsequently guested with Béjart in Lausanne, with Paris Opera, La Scala, Bolshoi, Kirov, and Ballet Theatre of the Kremlin Palace of Congresses, Moscow. He has also collaborated with Isabelle Fokine on restoring some of Fokine's ballets for the Russian stage. He was made Honoured Artist of the Russian Federation in 1986.

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Liepa , Maris

(b Riga, 27 July 1936, d Moscow, 26 Mar. 1989).
Soviet dancer. He studied at the Ballet Schools of Riga (1947–50) and Moscow (1953–5) and made his debut with Riga's Latvian Theatre of Opera and Ballet in 1955. In 1956 he moved to the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theatre in Moscow as soloist, then in 1960 was appointed principal dancer with the Bolshoi where he remained until 1977. A passionate and charismatic performer, his most memorable creations were Farkhad in the Moscow version of Legend of Love (1965), Crassus in Grigorovich's Spartacus (1968), and Vronsky in Anna Karenina (Plisetskaya and others, 1972). After much research he revived Fokine's Spectre de la rose for himself and Bessmertnova in 1967. Between 1963 and 1980 he taught at the Moscow Ballet School, in 1983 he was appointed choreographer at the Sofia Opera House in Bulgaria, and was finally artistic director of Moscow's Theatre of Contemporary Musical Drama (1987–9). His first wife was Maya Plisetskaya . He was made Honoured Artist of the USSR in 1976.

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Lifar , Serge

(b Kiev, 2 Apr. 1905, d Lausanne, 15 Dec. 1986).
Russian-French dancer, choreographer, director, and writer, who was largely responsible for the re-birth of 20th-century French ballet. He studied with Nijinska in Kiev (1921–3) and made his debut with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in 1923 while continuing studies with N. Legat , Cecchetti , and Vladimirov . With his strikingly exotic looks, dramatic versatility, and ruthless dedication to the art form he emerged as the outstanding European male dancer of his generation, becoming soloist (1924) and premier danseur (1925). He created roles in many of Diaghilev's ballets including Nijinska's Les Fâcheux and Le Train bleu (both 1924), Massine's Zéphire et Flore (1935) and Ode (1928), and Balanchine's La Chatte (1927), Apollon musagète (1928), and Prodigal Son (1929). His first piece of choreography was a new version of Stravinsky's Renard (1929). After Diaghilev's death he was invited to Paris Opera, initially as premier danseur and as choreographer of Creatures of Prometheus (mus. Beethoven , 1929), but subsequently becoming étoile, choreographer, and director. On the strength of his personal prestige and irresistible enthusiasm he was able to revive the near moribund company, improving technical standards (particularly among the men) and reviving the classics such as Giselle, in which he himself danced a memorable Albrecht. He also choreographed many ballets—mostly with himself in the leading male role. These tended to be narrative, with the exception of the popular abstract ballet, Suite en blanc (mus. Lalo , 1943), and, though classically based, covered a wide range of material both comic and tragic. They include Bacchus et Ariane (mus. Roussel , 1931), Salade (mus. Milhaud ) and Icare (mus. Szyfer ), both 1935, David triomphant (mus. Rieti ) and Alexander le grand (mus. Gaubert ), both 1937, Sylvia (mus. Delibes ), Le Chevalier et la damoiselle (mus. Gaubert ), Istar (mus. d'Indy ), and Bolero (mus. Ravel ), all 1941. Between 1938 and 1939 he was guest artist with Denham's Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. In 1944 he left Paris after accusations of collaboration with the Germans and formed Nouveau Ballet de Monte Carlo for which he choreographed several works including Aubade (mus. Bach ), La Péri (mus. Dukas ), and A Night on the Bare Mountain (mus. Mussorgsky ), all 1946. In 1947 he returned to Paris Opera where he remained until 1958, as choreographer, dancer, and director, creating, among others, Le Chevalier errant (mus. Ibert ) and Phèdre (mus. Auric ), both 1950, Blanche-Neige (mus. Yvain , 1951), Fourberies (mus. Rossini , 1952), and Romeo and Juliet (mus. Prokofiev , 1955). He guested with other companies and from 1958 worked entirely freelance with Netherlands Ballet, London Festival Ballet, and Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas, among others. Despite his prolific output, however, few of his works are regularly performed today. As well as creating ballets he founded the Paris Institut Chorégraphique in 1947 which became Université de la Danse in 1957, and he wrote over 25 books, including the controversial Traité de danse académique (Paris, 1949) and Traité de chorégraphie (Paris, 1952), defending the principles of classical dance; also Vestris, dieu de la danse (Paris, 1950) and his autobiography, Ma vie (1965, Eng. trans., New York, 1970).

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Lifeguards on Amager, The (orig. Dan. title Livjaegerne pa Amager, alternative English title The King's Volunteers on Amager).

Ballet in two acts with choreography by Bournonville and music by W. Holm . Premiered 19 Feb. 1871 by the Royal Danish Ballet in Copenhagen. It portrays the Kings Volunteers flirting with local peasant girls as they stand guard against the British navy. The principal character was based on the musician Édouard du Puy, a notorious rake.

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Life of the Bee.

Modern dance work in one act with choreography by Humphrey and music by Hindemith . Premiered 31 Mar. 1929 by the Humphrey-Weidman Group at the Guild Theater, New York. It depicts the birth and death of a queen bee, using a vocabulary of distorted movements and exaggerations of scale and speed. At its original performances it was accompanied by off-stage humming, later by Hindemith's Kammermusik No. 1. It was revived by Trisler for the Dans Co. in 1975.

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Light Fantastic.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Gore , music by Chabrier , and design by Rowell . Premiered 25 May 1953 by Walter Gore Ballet, at Festival Theatre, Malvern, with Gore, de Lutry , and Hinton . It portrays a group of romantically inclined young men, optimistically setting their sights on what they imagine to be women but which are actually large dolls suspended in space. It has been revived for several companies, including Scottish Theatre Ballet, 1970.

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Lightfoot , Paul

(b Kingsley, 31 Aug. 1966).
British dancer and choreographer. He studied at the Royal Ballet School and joined the Junior Group of Netherlands Dance Theatre (now NDT2) in 1985. In 1987 he joined NDT1 as dancer and in 1989 created his first professional work, The Bard of Avon, for NDT2. In 1992 he created his first work, Seconds, for NDT1. Other works include Solitaire (mus. Bach , 1994), which won the Lucas Hoving Prize, and Start to Finish (mus. Purcell , Tollet , Albinoni , Handel , and The Cranberries, 1996).

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Lilac Garden.

See Jardin aux lilas.

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Limón , José

(b Culiacán, 12 Jan. 1908, d Flemington, NJ, 2 Dec. 1972).
Mexican-US dancer, choreographer, and teacher. Though originally intending to be a painter he studied dance with Humphrey and Weidman and developed into a powerful performer, projecting a magnificent intensity. He danced with their company from 1930 to 1940, as well as appearing in Broadway musicals and touring with M. O'Donnell . In 1942 he married costume designer P. Lawrence and after serving in the Second World War he formed his own company (1946), with Humphrey as artistic director and himself, Kroner , Currier , B. Jones , and Hoving as soloists. Its repertory featured works by Humphrey and Limón himself including his most famous piece The Moor's Pavane (mus. Purcell , 1949). During the 1950s it expanded to present larger ensemble works. A choreographer of deep moral sensibility, Limón's other dances included The Traitor, based on Judas' betrayal of Christ (mus. G. Schuller , 1954), There is a Time, inspired by the great Ecclesiastes passage (mus. Dello Joio , 1956), Missa Brevis, portraying the survival of faith in Communist Europe (mus. Kodály , 1958), and The Unsung (1970), a work danced in silence, honouring Native American warriors. He taught at the Juilliard School and various colleges and after his death the company continued to function in New York with the aim of preserving his and Humphrey's work. Under the direction of Carla Maxwell (appointed 1978) the company is also committed to commissioning and staging new work. Some of Limón's dances have been revived by other companies, for example Missa Brevis by Ailey's company and The Moor's Pavane by American Ballet Theatre, National Ballet of Canada, Royal Swedish Ballet, and Nureyev and Friends (UK), among others.

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Linden , Anya (née Eltenton ;

b Manchester, 3 Jan. 1933).
British dancer. She studied with Koslov in Hollywood and at the Sadler's Wells School, joining Sadler's Wells Ballet in 1951. She was promoted to soloist in 1954 then principal in 1958 and created roles in several ballets, including MacMillan's Noctambules (1956) and Agon (1958) and Cranko's Prince of the Pagodas (1957). She retired in 1965 but as Lady Sainsbury became an influential force in British ballet. She was co-editor (with Crisp and Brinson ) of Ballet Rambert: 50 Years and On (London, 1981).

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lindyhop

American jazz couple dance, danced to Swing music. It first appeared at Harlem's Savoy Ballroom in the 1920s where black dancers embellished the choppy steps of the Charleston with increasingly flamboyant improvised moves—fast spins, cartwheels, throws, and jumps where the woman leaped with her legs straddling her partner's waist or shoulders. After it became popular with white dancers it was known as the jitterbug. It enjoyed a major revival in Britain and the US during the 1980s and 1990s, led by veteran performers such as Frank Manning and Norma Miller and companies such as the London-based Jiving Lindy Hoppers.

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Lin Hwai-min

(b Taiwan, 19 Feb. 1947).
Taiwanese choreographer and director. He studied Chinese opera movement in Taiwan, classical court dance in Japan and Korea and modern dance in New York, founding Cloud Gate Dance Theatre in 1973. His work, such as Songs of the Wanderers (1994), draws on Asian literary sources while his choreography blends traditional Eastern theatre styles with Western dance techniques. In 1983 he founded the dance department at Taiwan's National Institute of the Arts, and in 1996 he directed the opera Rashomon at Graz.

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Linke , Suzanne

(b Lüneburg, 19 June 1944).
German dancer and choreographer. She studied at the Mary Wigman Studio, Berlin (1964–7), and at the Folkwang School in Essen (1967–70), dancing with Folkwang Dance Studio (1970–3) and collaborating with P. Bausch and others. She then became choreographer with the Folkwang Dance Studio (1975–85), creating works such as Satie (1977) and Ballet of Woman (medieval music, 1981) and developing the contemporary expressionist style with which she has subsequently handled her distinctively political and autobiographical concerns. From 1985 she worked freelance, creating works on her own group, such as Affekte (Emotions, mus. Pierre Henry , 1990), as well as for other companies such as ?Tristan und Isolde? (mus. Ludger Brümmer , 1992) for Netherlands Dance Theatre. In 1994 she was appointed codirector (with Urs Dietrich) of the Bremer Tanztheater for which she has choreographed, among others, Hamletszenen (mus. Ronald Steckel , 1996), and in 1996 was also appointed artistic director of the Choreographic Centre NRW in Essen.

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Liszt , Ferenc (or Franz Liszt ;

b Raiding, 22 Oct. 1811, d Bayreuth, 31 July 1886).
Hungarian composer. He wrote no ballet scores but his concert music has frequently been used for dance by, among others, Fokine (Les Préludes, 1913, also chor. by St Denis in 1928), Nijinska (Hamlet, 1934), T. Gsovsky (Orphée, 1955, also chor. by Milloss , 1966), P. Darrell (Othello, the first movement of Faust Symphony, 1973), and A. Page (…now langorous, now wild … set to Hungarian Rhapsodies Nos. 6, 15, and 17, 1966). Arrangements of Liszt's music have been used for Nijinska's Le Bien-aimé (1928), Ashton's Mephisto Waltz (1934), Apparitions (1936), Dante Sonata (1940), and Marguerite and Armand (1963), for MacMillan's Mayerling (1978), and Stevenson's Dracula (1997), among others.

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Littlefield , Catherine

(b Philadelphia, 1905 (some sources say 1908), d Chicago, 19 Nov. 1951).
US dancer, choreographer, teacher, director, and pioneering force in American ballet. She studied with her mother, Caroline Littlefield , later with Albertieri in New York and with Staats and Egorova in Paris, making her debut on Broadway in 1921. From 1926 she appeared in local performances of the Grand Opera Company and in 1934 formed her own Catherine Littlefield Ballet Company, which two years later became the Philadelphia Ballet (the first ballet company of exclusively US dancers). Here she was dancer and choreographer, creating Barn Dance (trad. US music, 1937), and also staging the first US full-length production of Sleeping Beauty (1937). The company performed in Europe in 1937, and from 1939 until it was disbanded in 1942 (due to the war) was the resident ballet company of Chicago Civic Opera. During the 1940s she choreographed for Broadway musicals and made pioneering contributions to the artistry of ice dance, choreographing notably for Sonja Henje's revues (1942–8). She continued to teach, and her pupils included D. Krupska , Z. Solov , and E. Caton .

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Little Humpbacked Horse, The

See Humpbacked Horse, The.

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Little Stork, The (orig. Russ. title Aistynok, altemative English title The Baby Stork).

Ballet in three acts with choreography by Radunsky , Lev Pospekhin , and Popko , music by D. Klebanov , and design by R. Makarov , T. Diakova , and V. Zimin . Premiered 6 June 1937 at a graduation performance of the Bolshoi Ballet School at the Bolshoi Filial Theatre with Struchkova. It tells the story of a lost stork rescued by children whose good fortune is paralleled by that of a small black African boy who escapes oppression by finding shelter in the USSR. Other versions include Grigorovich's (Leningrad, 1948).

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Livry , Emma (orig. Emma-Marie Emarot ;

b Paris, 24 Sept. 1842, d Neuilly, 26 July 1863).
French dancer. She studied at the Paris Opera School and later with Taglioni, making her debut with the Paris Opera aged 16 in the title role of La Sylphide. She was appointed to premiere danseuse the same year. A dancer of an unusually light poetic quality, she created roles in only three works, including M. Taglioni's Le Papillon (1860), before the tragic accident which ended her life. During the dress rehearsal for La Muette de Portici in 1862 her dress was set alight by the theatre's gas lamps, and she died eight months later from the resulting burns.

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Lloyd , Gweneth

(b Eccles, 1901, d 1 Jan. 1993).
British-Canadian teacher and choreographer. She studied at the Ginner-Mawar Dance School in London and after moving to Canada founded (with B. Farrally ) the Winnipeg Ballet Club in 1938, which subsequently became the Royal Winnipeg Ballet and School. She choreographed many works for the company including the first all-Canadian ballet, Shadow on the Prairie, until she left it in 1958. She also established a school in Toronto in 1950.

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Lloyd , Margaret

(b South Braintree, Mass., 1887, d Brookline, Mass., 29 Feb. 1960).
US critic and writer. She wrote dance criticism for the Christian Science Monitor (1936–60) and was also author of the classic Borzoi Book of Modern Dance (1949).

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Lloyd , Maude

(b Cape Town, 16 Aug. 1908).
South African-British dancer and critic. She studied with H. Webb in Cape Town and with Rambert from 1927, becoming one of the first dancers in Rambert's company. A dancer of particular clarity and intelligence she became a leading dancer, inheriting many of Markova's roles and also creating leading roles in, among others, Tudor's Jardin aux lilas (1936) and Dark Elegies (1937). In 1938 she moved to Tudor's London Ballet as dancer (becoming co-director in 1939), creating one of the ballerina roles in Gala Performance (1938). She also danced briefly with the Markova-Dolin Ballet but in 1941, two years after marrying art critic Nigel Gosling, she retired from the stage. In 1951 she and Gosling began contributing joint ballet reviews to the magazine Ballet under the pseudonym Alexander Bland. In 1955 Bland became dance critic of the Observer and, until Gosling's death in 1982, published several books including The Nureyev Image (London, 1976) and A History of Ballet and Dance (London, 1976).

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Lock , Édouard

(b Casablanca, 3 Mar. 1954).
Canadian dancer and choreographer. He studied film at Concordia University and dance with Le Groupe Nouvelle Aire, which he subsequently joined. In 1979 he was invited by Les Grands Ballets Canadiens to choreograph a workshop production and in 1980 he formed his own company, Lock-Danseurs which became La La La Human Steps in 1985. His 1981 work, Orange, was awarded a Jean A. Chalmers award, and Human Sex (1985) a Bessie. Recent works for his own company include Étude (mus. Gavin Bryars , 1996) and Salt (mus. David Lang and My Bloody Valentine, 1998). His strenuously athletic movement language and his exploration of multi-media (video, song, text, rock music) have also made him a natural collaborator with rock stars like David Bowie and Frank Zappa .

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London.

The first London ballet performances were given by French and Italians during the 17th and 18th centuries, though two English men, John Weaver (dancer, choreographer, teacher, and writer) and John Rich (impresario and mime artist) were also influential personalities within the dance scene. Rich presented M. Sallé and her brother in London in 1725 and London's taste for ballet was further whetted by A. Vestris and Noverre performing highly successful seasons at the King's Theatre and Drury Lane, as well as by Didelot's work at the King's Theatre (1796–80). However, efforts to establish an English academy of dancing by the English ballet master James Harvey D'Egville were unsuccessful and the domination of foreigners continued with Blasis' appointment as ballet master at the King's Theatre (1830–40), M. Taglioni's debut in 1830, and Perrot's appointment as ballet master at Her Majesty's Theatre (1842–8) under the direction of B. Lumley . Here Perrot created Pas de quatre (1845) for Taglioni , Cerrito , Grisi , and Grahn and London became briefly one of the most active ballet centres in the world. After Lumley's resignation, however, ballet was allowed to slide at Her Majesty's and performances continued in the programmes of music halls, such as the Alhambra and Empire where K. Lanner and Genée were the dominant dance personalities. The arrival of Russian-based companies at the beginning of the 20th century and regular seasons by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes provided an important new stimulus to British ballet, and during the 1920s and 1930s London saw the establishment of seminal schools and companies by Rambert and de Valois , as well as the foundation of the Camargo Society and various short-lived companies like the Markova-Dolin company and Tudor's London Ballet. Between these, the first solid generation of English dancers and choreographers was nurtured. After the war de Valois's Sadler's Wells Ballet moved to Covent Garden, to become the Royal Ballet in 1956. In the late 1960s the foundation of the London Contemporary Dance School and Theatre, and Ballet Rambert's switch to a modern repertoire, opened up a new modern dance scene. With the founding of international festivals, such as London's Dance Umbrella in 1978, the proliferation of small and middle-scale companies, and the emergence of venues capable of programming a wide range of styles, London has become one of the most diverse and cosmopolitan dance cities in the world.

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London Ballet.

British ballet company founded by Walter Gore in 1961. With Hinton as its ballerina and a repertory consisting of Gore's ballets, including The Night and the Silence, Light Fantastic, Peepshow, and Rencontre, and selected classics, such as Giselle and Act II of Swan Lake, it gave its first performance on 28 July 1961 at Hindlesham Hall near Ipswich. It appeared at the Edinburgh Festival that year and toured extensively in Britain and abroad but ceased operations in 1963.

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London Ballet, The.

British ballet company formed by Antony Tudor and Agnes de Mille in 1938. It first performed under the name Dance Theatre at Oxford Playhouse, becoming the London Ballet in Dec. 1938 when it performed at its London base, Toynbee Hall. Its repertory consisted of works which Tudor had created for Ballet Rambert, such as Jardin aux lilas and Dark Elegies, plus new ballets, including Judgment of Paris, Soirée musicale, and Gala Performance. Among its dancers were P. Clayden , G. Larsen , M. Lloyd , van Praagh , and Laing . After Tudor and Laing went to New York, Lloyd and van Praagh became codirectors, expanding the repertory with Howard's La Fête étrange, among others. In June 1940 it was subsumed into Ballet Rambert.

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London City Ballet.

See King , Harold.

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London Contemporary Dance School.

Modern dance school founded by Robin Howard in 1966, the first European school authorized to teach the Graham technique. Based at The Place, N. London, it was directed by Robert Cohan and though its main teaching style was grounded in Graham it also offered classes in other techniques, including classical ballet, Cunningham, and Limón. Many of the first generation of British modern choreographers, including Richard Alston and Siobhan Davies , studied there. It has subsequently evolved a more formal curriculum which embraces dance history and criticism as well as performance and choreography. Veronica Lewis has been director since 1998.

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London Contemporary Dance Theatre.

British modern dance company. It made its debut as the Contemporary Dance Group in 1967, with students from London Contemporary Dance School, and gave its first full season as LCDT in 1969 at the Place Theatre. Under the direction of Robert Cohan its early repertory featured works by Graham , Ailey , Taylor , Sokolow , and increasingly Cohan himself, but American works were soon replaced by company choreography by, among others, Alston , R. North , and S. Davies (the last two becoming associate choreographers in 1974). As the company expanded (to about twenty dancers) it played a key role in developing a British audience for modern dance, touring extensively round the UK as well as abroad (its US debut was at the American Dance Festival, 1974). By the mid-1980s it began to lose its artistic edge and in 1989 Dan Wagoner took over as director. He introduced new European and American works (including his own) as well as choreography by company members, including Jonathan Lunn and Darshan Singh Bhuller , but as a more varied repertory company it failed to secure a new popular image. After a succession of short-term directorships it was scaled down to become the Richard Alston Dance Company in 1996.

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London Festival Ballet.

See English National Ballet.

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Lopatkina , Uliana

(b Kerch, 23 Oct. 1973).
Russian-Ukrainian dancer. She studied at the Vaganova Academy under Dudinskaya, and graduated into the Kirov in 1991, where she was rapidly promoted to principal. A dancer whose extreme pliancy and slenderness creates a style of apparently boneless fluidity, she is at her best in the Romantic roles such as Giselle and Odette. However, she also dances ballerina roles in the rest of the classical and Soviet repertory, and performs some of the modern repertory such as Symphony in C, In the Night, and Le Jeune Homme et la mort. She has toured with the Kirov throughout the world.

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López , Pilar

(b San Sebastian, 4 June 1912 (some sources say 1906)).
Spanish dancer, choreographer, and sister of legendary dancer La Argentinita . She studied with J. Castelão in Madrid and danced with her sister's company until La Argentinita's death in 1945. In 1946 she formed her own company, Ballet Español, which trained many of Spain's leading male dancers, including J. Greco , M. Vargas , and A. Gades who all subsequently formed their own companies. She herself was a dancer of great elegance, energy, and style, and also choreographed many works including Le Tricorne and El amor brujo (both to music by de Falla ) and a setting of Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez.

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Lopokova , Lydia (also Lydia Lopukhova ;

b St Petersburg, 21 Oct. 1891, d Seaford, 8 June 1981).
Russian-British dancer, sister of Andrei and Fyodor Lopukhov . She studied at the Imperial Theatre School with Fokine , making her debut when still a child and graduating in 1909 into the Maryinsky Theatre. In 1910 she joined Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and, apart from periods in the US and the UK where she danced variously with Volonine , Mordkin , Massine , Sokolova , de Valois , and Woizikowski , she remained with Diaghilev's company until it disbanded in 1929. A dancer of considerable charm and musicality, who displayed an infectious pleasure in performing, she was at her best in witty demicaractère roles. She created roles in Massine's Les Femmes de bonne humeur and Parade (both 1917) and Boutique fantasque (1919), and was also one of the Auroras in Diaghilev's production of The Sleeping Princess (1921). Having settled in London with her husband, the economist Maynard Keynes , she was a founder member of the Camargo Society creating the Tango in Ashton's Façade (1931) and dancing Swanilda in the Vic-Wells Ballet's production of Coppélia (1933). She also worked as an actress at various times between 1910 and 1916, 1923 and 1924, and during the 1930s, performing Olivia in Twelfth Night (1933) and Nora in A Doll's House (1934). With Keynes she founded the Cambridge Arts Theatre in 1935.

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Lopukhov , Fyodor (also Fedor Lopokov ;

b St Petersburg, 20 Oct. 1886, d Leningrad, 28 Jan. 1973).
Russian-Soviet dancer, choreographer, and teacher; brother of Andrei and Lydia Lopokova . He studied at the Imperial Theatre School, graduating in 1905 into the Maryinsky Theatre, where he became one of its greatest character dancers. He transferred to the Bolshoi (1909–10) and also danced abroad, with Sedova and Legat (various tours in 1907 and 1909) and with Pavlova (1910–11), but then remained largely in Leningrad where he maintained a more-or-less close association with the Maryinsky (later GATOB, and Kirov) until 1970. He created his first ballet in 1916 and was one of the first Soviet choreographers to experiment with contemporary themes in, for example, The Red Whirlwind (mus. V. Deshevov , GATOB, 1924), in which he mixed classical ballet with acrobatics. In 1921 he initiated Evenings of Young Ballet with Slonimsky and was director of the Kirov (1922–30, 1944–7, and 1955–8). He was director of the Bolshoi Ballet (1926 and 1935–6) and in 1930 he founded the ballet company of Leningrad's Maly Opera House, which he directed until 1935. His other ballets include the controversial Dance Symphony (mus. Beethoven , 1923, performed only once), versions of Stravinsky's Firebird (1921), Pulcinella (1926), and Renard (1927), The Ice Maiden (mus. Grieg , 1927), The Bolt (mus. Shostakovich , 1931), and Taras Bulba (mus. Soloviev-Sedoy , 1940), as well as Pictures from an Exhibition (mus. Mussorgsky , 1963, for Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Ballet). During his career he was also renowned for his productions of the classics for which he created several new variations in the style of Petipa, including the Lilac Fairy variation, but in his 1935 ballet The Bright Stream (mus. Shostakovich , Maly Theatre) he was accused by Pravda of formalism and fell into an official disgrace from which his career took several years to recover. He later exerted an important influence on Grigorovich's choreographic career, and was director of the choreographic faculty at Leningrad Conservatory (1962–73). He wrote several books, including Paths of Ballet (Berlin, 1925), Sixty Years in Ballet (Leningrad, 1966), and Choreographic Confessions (Moscow, 1972). Father of dancer Vladimir Lopukhov . His brother Andrei Lopukhov (1898–1947) was also a noted character dancer with the Maryinsky from 1916 to 1945.

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Loquasto , Santo

(b Wilkes-Barre, Pa., c.1944).
US costume designer. He studied at the Yale School of Drama and designed for regional theatre before moving to New York in 1971. He has subsequently proved his versatility, working in film, theatre, and dance, and creating costumes as well as sets. He has been a long-time collaborator with Twyla Tharp, designing Sue's Leg (1975), Push Comes to Shove (1976), The Catherine Wheel (1981), and Sextet (1992). He has also worked closely with James Kudelka , designing Alliances (1987), Spring Awakening (1994), The Nutcracker (1995), and Swan Lake (1999). Other designs include Robbins's The Four Seasons (1979), American Ballet Theatre's Cinderella (1983), and Morris's Motorcade (1990).

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Lorca , Federico García

(b Fuentevaqueros, 5 June 1898, d Viznar, 19 Aug. 1936).
Spanish poet and playwright. Many dance works have been inspired by his life and writings including Humphrey's Lament for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías (mus. N. Lloyd , 1947), Rodrigues's Blood Wedding (mus. ApIvor , 1953), Reita Soffer's Yerma (mus. G. Crumb ), Bruce's Ancient Voice of Children (mus. G. Crumb , also many other settings of the same score), and Bruce and L. Kemp's Cruel Garden (mus. C. Miranda , 1977). His 1936 play The House of Bernarda Alba has been most frequently used, in Ailey's Feast of Ashes (mus. Surinach , 1962) and MacMillan's Las Hermanas (mus. Martin , 1963), among others.

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Loring , Eugene (orig. LeRoy Kerpestein ;

b Milwaukee, c. 1911, d Kingston, NY, 30 Aug. 1982).
US dancer, choreographer, and teacher. He studied dance and acting locally, then at the School of American Ballet from 1933 with Balanchine , Vilzak , Schollar , and others. He made his professional debut in 1934 with Fokine's company and joined American Ballet in 1935 where he stayed until 1938, creating roles in Balanchine's Alma Mater and Card Game (both 1935). He also danced with Ballet Caravan (1936–8) where he began to choreograph, creating works of distinctively American theme and character like his popular cowboy ballet Billy the Kid (mus. Copland , 1938). He was then soloist with Ballet Theatre (1940–1) and in 1941 formed his own company, Dance Players, for which he was choreographer and principal dancer. During the 1940s he worked on Broadway as dancer and choreographer, then moved to Los Angeles where he opened his American School of Dance in 1948 and also choreographed several films, including Funny Face (in collaboration with Astaire, 1956) and Silk Stockings (1957). He went on to choreograph other ballets including Capital of the World (mus. Antheil , American Ballet Theatre, 1953) and musical productions. In 1965 he became chairman of the Dance Department at the University of California.

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Lorrayne , Vyvyan

(b Pretoria, 20 Apr. 1939).
S. African dancer. She studied with Salaman and Faith de Villiers , danced with Durban Civic Ballet, then studied further at the Royal Ballet School from 1956. In 1957 she joined Covent Garden Opera Ballet and then the Royal Ballet where she was appointed principal in 1967. A softly classical stylist, she created roles in several ballets including Ashton's Monotones (1965), Jazz Calendar and Enigma Variations (both 1968), Hynd's Charlotte Brontë (1974), P. Wright's Arpège and El amor brujo (both 1975), and Bintley's Meadow of Proverbs (1979). She retired in 1979.

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Losch , Tilly (orig. Ottilia Ethel Leopoldine ;

b Vienna, 15 Nov. c.1904, d New York, 24 Dec. 1975).
Austrian dancer, choreographer, actress, and painter. She studied at the Vienna Opera Ballet School and danced with the company (1921–8), creating her first major role in Kröller's Schlagobers (1924). During this period she also acted in plays at the Vienna Burg Theatre and choreographed and performed in Max Reinhardt's A Midsummer Night's Dream (Salzburg and New York, 1927). She then toured in recitals and revues before joining Les Ballets 1933, the company financed by her husband, Edward James . Here she created principal roles in Balanchine's Errante and The Seven Deadly Sins. The company disbanded after a year on her divorce from James, and she turned to film, appearing in exotic dancing acting roles. In 1940 she was guest artist with Ballet Theatre in 1940. From 1950 onwards she concentrated on painting.

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Loudières , Monique

(b Choisy le Roi, 15 Apr. 1956).
French dancer. She studied at the Paris Opera Ballet School, and graduated into the company in 1972, where she was appointed étoile (1982–96). An extremely versatile dancer she performed both the classical and modern ballerina roles, created roles in several works including Ailey's Precipice (1983), Nureyev's Washington Square (1985), and Larrieu's Attentat poétique (1992). After officially retiring from the stage she returned to create a role in Neumeier's Sylvia (1997) and to dance in Giselle in the 1998 homage to Yvette Chauviré.

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Louis , Murray

(b New York, 4 Nov. 1926).
US dancer, choreographer, and teacher He studied with Halprin and Nikolais, performing with the latter's company between 1948 and 1969 and also teaching at the Henry Street Playhouse school where Nikolais was director. In 1953 he began choreographing for an ad hoc group of dancers which became the Murray Louis Dance Group and which toured Europe for the first time in 1972. A dancer of unusual physical wit and sharp comic timing, his own works are frequently humorous in style. He has created over 50 works including Calligraph for Martyrs (1962, extended version for Berlin Opera Ballet, 1975), Junk Dances (1964), a three-act version of Scheherazade (mus. Rimsky-Korsakov plus jazz, rock, and electronic additions, 1975), Moment (mus. Ravel , 1975), Five Haikus (mus. Scriabin , 1979), Four Brubeck Pieces (mus. Brubeck , 1984), and The Disenchantment of Pierrot (mus. various, 1986). In 1989 he and Nikolais merged their two companies into Murray Louis Nikolais Dance, a company of which he became sole director in 1993 after Nikolais's death and for which he has created Alone (a solo tribute to Nikolais), Singers All (mus. Scott Killian , 1996), and Symphony (mus. Nikolais , 1996), among others. He has also taught widely, in workshops and masterclasses, produced the film series Dance as an Artform in 1972, and published two books of essays, Inside Dance (New York, 1980) and On Dance (Chicago, 1992).

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Loup, Le.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Petit , libretto by Anouilh and G. Neveux , music by Dutilleux , and design by Carzou . Premiered 17 May 1953 by Ballets de Paris at Théâtre de l'Empire, Paris, with Petit, Verdy, Sombert, and Reich. It tells the story of an engaged couple who encounter a magician and his half-tamed wolf. The bride-to-be falls in love with the wolf who attempts to be worthy of her by becoming more human. They go into the forest together but are hunted down and killed. It was revived for Royal Danish Ballet in 1967 and for Paris Opera in 1975. Several other versions of the story have been choreographed, by Walter and Keres , among others.

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Louther , William

(b New York, 22 Jan. 1942, d London, 7 May 1998).
US dancer, choreographer, and teacher. He studied at the High School of Performing Arts and at the Juilliard School with Tudor and Graham and danced in O'Donnell's company in 1958. He subsequently performed with the companies of Ailey , Graham , and McKayle as well as in Broadway musicals and on television. A superb technician, projecting a profound sincerity, he created roles in McKayle's District Storyville (1959), Graham's Circe (1964), and Archaic Hours (1969), and in the revised version of Ailey's Hermit Songs. In 1966 he was leading dancer in the revue Black New World, and in 1969 he joined London Contemporary Dance Theatre where he created roles in Cohan's Side Scene (1969) and Stages (1971). He has choreographed several works including Vesalii Icones (mus. Peter Maxwell Davies , 1970). Between 1972 and 1974 he was director of Batsheva Dance Company and between 1975 and 1976 director of Welsh Dance Theatre. He subsequently worked as freelance choreographer and teacher for opera and theatre as well as for dance, although his activities were curtailed by poor health.

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Løvenskjold , Herman

(b Holdenjernvärk, 30 July 1815, d Copenhagen, 5 Dec. 1870).
Norwegian-Danish composer. His most famous ballet score was for Bournonville's La Sylphide (1836) but he also composed the music for Bournonville's New Penelope (1847) and contributed to the score of his Fantasies (1838).

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Loves of Mars and Venus.

Ballet d'action in six scenes with libretto and choreography by J. Weaver and music by Symonds and Firbank . Premiered 2 Mar. 1717 at Drury Lane Theatre, London, with L. Dupré , Santlow , and Weaver . It re-told the mythological story of Vulcan trapping his wife Venus and her lover Mars in his net, and employed a range of unusually naturalistic gestures and facial expressions. It was an early but sophisticated attempt to explore the dramatic possibilities of dance, and was also one of the first instances of a ballet which aimed to convey a full-length story rather than functioning as a divertissement. Extracts were reconstructed by M. Skeaping for the Royal Ballet's Ballet for All (1969).

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Lubovitch , Lar

(b Chicago, 9 Apr. 1943).
US dancer and choreographer. He studied painting then turned to dance which he studied at the Juilliard School and with Sokolow , Danielian , and Graham . He made his debut in 1962 with P. Lang and also danced with the companies of Tetley and Butler as well as Manhattan Festival Ballet and Harkness Ballet (1967–9). He also worked as costume and lighting designer for Ailey and Falco and in 1968 began to choreograph, forming his own company in that year and subsequently also working as a guest choreographer for Bat-Dor Company, Gulbenkian Ballet, Dutch National Ballet, Ballet Rambert, and American Ballet Theatre. A prolific choreographer with a bold exuberant style of movement and a sure popular touch, his works include Whirligogs (mus. Berio , 1970), Considering the Lilies (mus. Bach , 1972), North Star (mus. Glass , 1978), Cavalcade (mus. S. Reich , 1981), and Othello (mus. Goldenthal , 1997). He has created works for many other companies including New York City Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, White Oak Dance Project, and Pacific Northwest Ballet and diversified his talents into other areas. In 1993 he choreographed a ballet for the Broadway production of Red Shoes which was subsequently taken into the repertory of ABT. He also choreographed the London production of Oklahoma! (1994), the Broadway revival of The King and I (1996), and the stage version of Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Berlin, 1999). Since the mid-1980s he has also created ice dances for several celebrated skaters, including John Curry and Paul Wylie .

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Lucifer.

Modern dance in one act with choreography by Graham , music by Halim El-Dabh , set by L. Locsin , and costumes by Halston . Premiered 19 June 1975 by the Martha Graham Dance Company, at Uris Theater, New York, with Nureyev and Fonteyn . The titular hero is presented as a prototype of the creative artist rather than as Satan.

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Lüders , Adam

(b Copenhagen, 16 Feb. 1950).
Danish dancer. He studied at Royal Danish Ballet School and joined the company in 1968. He was then principal dancer with London Festival Ballet (1973–5) and New York City Ballet (1975–94).

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Ludlow , Conrad

(b Hamilton, Mont., 1935).
US dancer. He studied at San Francisco Ballet School and joined the company in 1953 becoming principal in 1955. In 1957 he joined New York City Ballet where he became leading soloist (1961–73). He created roles in several Balanchine ballets including Liebeslieder Walzer and Tchaikovsky pas de deux (both 1960) and Jewels (1967). In 1973 he became artistic director of Oklahoma City Metropolitan Ballet.

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Luigi (orig. Eugene Louis Facciuto ;

b Steubenville, Ohio, 20 Mar. 1925).
US dancer and teacher. He studied with Bolm , Nijinska , Loring , and others and between 1949 and 1961 danced in theatres, films, night-clubs, and television productions, developing a distinctive jazz style in which the head was thrown back and the upper half of the body exaggeratedly stretched upwards. He began to teach in New York in 1955 where his classes dominated the jazz scene for the following decade.

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Lukom , Yelena

(b St Petersburg, 5 May 1891, d Leningrad, 27 Feb. 1968).
Russian-Soviet dancer and teacher. She studied at the Imperial Theatre School, graduating in 1909 into the Maryinsky Theatre where she was ballerina (1920–41), performing a large and varied repertory of classical and contemporary roles, of which her best known was the heroine of Lopukhov's The Red Poppy (1929). In 1910 she also danced with Diaghilev and between 1922 and 1923 she toured Europe with her partner, Boris Sharov. Between them they developed many of the athletic lifts and balances which became a staple of the Soviet pas de deux. Between 1953 and 1965 she was teacher of the classe de perfection and repetiteur with the Kirov. She wrote My Work in Ballet (Leningrad, 1940) and was made Honoured Artist of the Republic in 1925.

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Lully , Jean Baptiste (orig. Giovanni Battista Lulli ;

b Florence, 29 Nov. 1632, d Paris, 22 Mar. 1687).
Italian-French composer and dancer. He studied music as a child in Italy and came to France c.1644. In 1652 he was engaged at the court of Louis XIV as a violinist and dancer and danced alongside the King in several ballets, including Ballet de la nuit (1653), for which he also composed music. Becoming the King's favourite, he was appointed supervisor of the royal music in 1662 and director of the Académie Royale de Musique (1672–87). He was effectively in supreme control of the Opera and was unpopular with many of his contemporaries. He composed music for many ballets and divertissements including the first important comédie-ballet Le Mariage forcé (libr. Molière , chor. Beauchamps , 1664), also Le Bourgois gentilhomme (libr. Molière , chor. Beauchamps , 1670), Psyché (libr. Molière , Corneille , and Quinault , chor. Beauchamps , 1671), and Le Triomphe de l'amour (chor. Beauchamps and Pécourt , 1681). He was responsible for enlivening the rather slow stately dances of the ballet de cour and for introducing female dancers to the stage. He died from a gangrenous abscess on the foot, which developed after he struck himself with the long staff he used for conducting.

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Lumbye , Hans Christian

(b Copenhagen, 2 May 1810, d Copenhagen, 20 Mar. 1874).
Danish composer who wrote the music for many Bournonville ballets including Napoli (1842), Conservatory (1849), and The Lifeguards on Amager (1871).

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Lumley , Benjamin

(b 1811, d London 1875).
English theatre manager. He was financier then manager (1842–58) of Her Majesty's Theatre, London, and played a key role in the presentation of Romantic ballet in England. A great diplomat, his famous coup was successfully negotiating the order of appearance of the four ballerinas in Pas de quatre.

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Lynne , Gillian (orig. G. Pyrke ;

b Bromley, 1926).
British dancer, choreographer and director. She trained at The Royal Academy of Dancing and the Cone-Ripman School, also with Volkova , Preobrajenska and others, making her debut with Ballet Guild in 1943. She danced with Sadler's Wells Ballet between 1944 and 1951 then became principal dancer at the London Palladium. She became one of the finest modern stage dancers of her generation and appeared on television and in musicals before turning to choreography. A seminal influence on British jazz dance she choreographed the hit musical Cats (1981) and has also created several ballets including A Simple Man (for Northern Ballet Theatre, mus. C. Davis , 1987), The Brontës (for NBT, mus. Dominic Muldowney , 1995) and Journey (Bolshoi Ballet, 1998).

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Lyons Biennale.

Major international dance festival, established in 1984, hosted every two years by the French city of Lyons. Each festival focuses on a country or continent.

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Lyons Opera Ballet.

Ballet company based at Lyons's Théâtre de l'Opéra. It was founded in 1969 by Louis Erlo , with 30 to 40 dancers, and in 1984, under the new direction of François Adret , established its commitment to contemporary choreography. Its repertoire includes works by Petronio , Preljocaj , Childs , and Mats Ek . Maguy Marin was resident choreographer (1992–4), creating Coppélia and Cendrillon for the company, and Bill T. Jones succeeded her (1994–7). Yorgos Loukos was appointed director in 1991. The company has toured widely including to the US and Russia where in 1999 it appeared at the Bolshoi Theatre, the most radical ballet company ever to perform there.

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M

McBride , Patricia

(b Teaneck, NJ, 23 Aug. 1942).
US dancer. She studied with Ruth Vernon and at the School of American Ballet. She joined New York City Ballet in 1959, and was promoted to principal in 1961. A glamorous dancer capable of a wide range on stage, from the lyrically romantic to the dazzlingly vivacious, she was one of Balanchine's favourite ballerinas. He staged, with Alexandra Danilova , a production of Coppélia for McBride in 1974 in which she portrayed Swanilda. She created roles in the following Balanchine ballets: A Midsummer Night's Dream (1962), Tarantella (1964), Harlequinade (1965), Don Quixote (1965), Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet (1966), Rubies (1967), Who Cares? (1970), Divertimento from Le Baiser de la fée (1972), Concerto No. 2 (1973), The Steadfast Tin Soldier (1975), Pavane (1975), Union Jack (1976), Vienna Waltzes (1977), and Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (1979). For Jerome Robbins she created roles in Dances at a Gathering (1969), In the Night (1970), The Goldberg Variations (1971), The Dybbuk Variations (1974), The Four Seasons, and Opus 19 (both 1979). She enjoyed a particularly successful partnership with Edward Villella in the 1960s. She retired from performing in 1989, after 30 years with NYCB. She married the dancer Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux . In 1996 she was appointed associate director of the N. Carolina Dance Theater, with Bonnefoux as artistic director.

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McCabe , John

(b Huyton, 21 Apr. 1939).
British composer. He has written original scores for several ballets, including S. Hywel's The Teachings of Don Juan (Northern Dance Theatre, Manchester, 1973), Darrell's Mary, Queen of Scots (Scottish Ballet, Glasgow, 1976), and Bintley's Edward II (Stuttgart Ballet, 1995) and Arthur (Birmingham Royal Ballet, 2000). Several of his orchestral works, including the Second Symphony (1971) and the suite The Chagall Windows (1974), have been used by choreographers.

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McDonagh , Don

(b New York, 6 Feb. 1932).
US dance writer. Critic for the New York Times (1967–77), contributing editor of Dance Magazine, and author of The Rise and Fall and Rise of Modern Dance (New York, 1970), Martha Graham (New York, 1973), and The Complete Guide to Modern Dance (New York, 1976). Now adjunct associate professor of humanities, New York University.

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Macdonald , Brian

(b Montreal, 14 May 1928).
Canadian dancer, choreographer, and ballet director. He worked as a music critic (1949–51) while studying dance with Gerald Crevier and Elizabeth Leese in Montreal. He was one of the founding members of the National Ballet of Canada (1951–3), but after suffering an injury took up choreography. His first pieces were for television and variety shows, but he started working with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet in 1958, for whom he made many works over the years, including The Darkling (1958), Les Whoops-de-Doo (1959), Rose Latulippe (1966), The Shining People of Leonard Cohen (1970), and Ballet High (1970). He created Aimez-vous Bach? for the Banff School Festival Ballet (1962), Time Out of Mind for the Joffrey (1963), Prothalamion for Les Grands Ballets Canadiens (1961), and Variations on a Simple Theme (Diabelli Variations) for the Paris Opera (1974). He was artistic director of the Royal Swedish Ballet (1964–6), for whom he created While the Spider Slept (1965) and Skymning (1966). Also director of the Harkness Ballet (1967–8), for whom he made Firebird (1967), and the Batsheva Dance Company (1971–2), for whom he made Martha's Vineyard (1971). Other companies with his works in their repertoire include the Berlin Opera Ballet, the Royal Danish Ballet, London Festival Ballet, and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. He was artistic director of Les Grands Ballets Canadiens from 1974 to 1977; thereafter he was resident choreographer. For Les Grands he created Tam Ti Delam (1974), Romeo and Juliet (1975), Offrande (1976), Double Quartet and Fête Carignan (both 1978), and Adieu Robert Schumann (1979). For the National Ballet of Canada he created Newcomers (1980), about the pioneers who settled the country, and for the Gothenburg Ballet he choreographed Petrushka (1998), staging the familiar tale in a modern gangster-ridden Russia. He has also enjoyed particular success as a stage director for musicals, opera, and operetta, particularly at Canada's Stratford Festival where he became associate director in 1983. Among his most praised productions are The Mikado (which toured to both New York and London in the 1980s) and The Music Man (1996). He has also choreographed the half-time entertainment at Canadian football games. He was the first Canadian choreographer to achieve international acclaim, while his Rose Latulippe was Canada's first full-length ballet.

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McDonald , Elaine

(b Tadcaster, 2 May 1943).
British dancer. She studied with Olivia Morley , Louise Brown , and at the Royal Ballet School from 1959. She joined Gore's London Ballet in 1962 and Western Theatre Ballet (the precursor to Scottish Ballet) in 1964. As a principal dancer, and the first important ballerina in Scottish Ballet's history, she created roles in many Darrell ballets, including Sun Into Darkness (1966), Ephemeron (1968), Beauty and the Beast (1969), Herodias (1970), Tales of Hoffmann (1972), the title role in Mary Queen of Scots (1976), Five Rückert Songs (1978), and Cinderella (1979). She also created roles in Wright's Danse macabre (1968), Neumeier's Frontier (1969), and Moreland's Intimate Voices (1973). She was admired as a dramatic dancer and was especially noted for her interpretations of Giselle and Swan Lake. Artistic director of Scottish Ballet (1988–9).

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MacGibbon , Ross

(b Bromley, 29 Jan. 1955).
British dancer and film-maker. He danced with the Royal Ballet from 1973 to 1986, since when he has become an award-winning dance film-maker whose work is regularly seen on British television. His film of MacMillan's last ballet, The Judas Tree, won the 1998 International Emmy Award for Performing Arts. His other films include a BBC2 documentary about the Royal Opera House; Call Me Madam, a celebration of Ninette de Valois's centenary in 1998; and Matthew Hart's ballet Peter and the Wolf, broadcast on BBC1 in 1997. A director of Landseer Films, an independent television production company.

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McKayle , Donald

(b New York, 6 July 1930).
US dancer, choreographer, and teacher. He studied with Graham, Shook, and Primus and began dancing in 1948. He performed with many modern dance companies, including those of Mary Anthony , Graham , Sokolow , Cunningham , and Erdman , as well as the New Dance Group. He appeared on Broadway in House of Flowers (1954) and West Side Story (1957). He choreographed the Broadway productions of Golden Boy (1964), Tale of Two Cities (1967), Black New World (1967), Raisin (1973), Dr Jazz (1975), and Sophisticated Ladies (1981). He also had his own company (1951–69) for which he made Games (1951), a seminal work about racial prejudice later taken into the repertoire of the Harkness Ballet; Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder (1959), a piece about Southern black chain-gangs, taken into the Ailey repertoire; and District Storyville, set to New Orleans jazz (1962). Artistic director of Inner City Repertory Dance Company (1971–4). Resident choreographer and artistic mentor, José Limón Dance Company, from 1995. He has also made work for the Cleveland-San Jose Ballet and San Francisco Ballet (Gumbo Ya Ya, 1994).

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McKenzie , Kevin

(b Burlington, Vt., 29 Apr. 1954).
US dancer, choreographer, and ballet director. He studied at the Washington School of Ballet (1967–72) with Mary Day, and with Maggie Black in New York. He danced with the National Ballet of Washington (1972–4), with City Center Joffrey Ballet (1974–8), and with American Ballet Theatre (1979–89). He also performed as a guest artist with many companies around the world, including the Bolshoi, and was with Nureyev and Friends in 1988. Although a dancer of remarkable talent and tall, handsome build, he created remarkably few roles, among them the Young Man in MacMillan's Wild Boy (Washington, 1981). To some extent his career as a leading man was overshadowed by Baryshnikov , who arrived at ABT at the same time he did. However, McKenzie none the less mastered the repertoire of the danseur noble, and won critical acclaim for his Siegfried, Solor, and Albrecht, as well as his Romeo. He also excelled in the more darkly dramatic works of Antony Tudor . His stage partnership with Martine van Hamel in the Petipa ballets was often described as the perfect match. In 1990–1 he was artistic associate of Washington Ballet, and from 1984 was choreographer and associate artistic director of van Hamel's New Amsterdam Ballet. He became artistic director of American Ballet Theatre in 1992, where he is credited with revitalizing the company.

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Mackerras , (Sir) Charles

(b Schenectady, NY, 17 Nov. 1925).
Australian conductor. In his capacity as conductor of Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet, he arranged the music for two of Cranko's most famous ballets: Pineapple Poll (based on Sullivan, 1951) and The Lady and the Fool (Verdi, 1954). He also arranged the music for Walter Gore's Night and Silence (Bach, 1958). A noted opera conductor, he was music director of English National Opera (1970–8). He was knighted in 1979.

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MacLeary , Donald

(b Glasgow, 22 Aug. 1937).
British dancer and ballet master. He studied with Sheila Ross (1950–1) and at Sadler's Wells Ballet School, and joined Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet in 1954. He became a principal dancer with the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden in 1959 when Beriosova requested him as her regular partner (their Swan Lake was a particular success). He created roles in Cranko's The Angels (1957), Antigone (1959), and Brandenburg 2&4 (1966), and in MacMillan's Solitaire (1956), The Burrow (1958), Baiser de la fée (1960), Diversions (1961), Symphony (1963), Images of Love (1964), Checkpoint (1970), The Poltroon (1972), and Elite Syncopations (1974). He was ballet master of the Royal Ballet (1976–9) and repetiteur to principal dancers from 1984.

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MacMillan , Sir Kenneth

(b Dunfermline, 11 Dec. 1929, d London, 29 Oct. 1992).
British dancer, choreographer, and ballet director. One of the most important choreographers of the 20th century, and also one of the most daring and innovative in British ballet. His works frequently broke new ground in the rarefied world of classical ballet. He studied with Phyllis Adams in Great Yarmouth and at the Sadler's Wells Ballet School (from 1945). He joined Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet in 1946 and Sadler's Wells Ballet (later the Royal Ballet) in 1948 and returned to SWTB in 1952, by now suffering severe stage fright. He made his first choreography in 1953 and never looked back. His choreographic career with both the Royal Ballet companies spanned almost 50 years and resulted in the creation of some of the most important works of the latter half of the 20th century. His full-length ballets, including Romeo and Juliet, Manon, and Mayerling, revitalized the tradition of three-act opera house ballets, while his dark psychological explorations and his sexually explicit subject-matter took ballet out of the realm of fairy-tale. His works often dealt with violent and deviant behaviour, from The Invitation to The Judas Tree (both of which portrayed rape), while his protagonists were often outsiders and misfits, such as the depraved Crown Prince Rudolf in Mayerling. MacMillan was also capable of making works of haunting beauty, such as Gloria, which honours the dead of the First World War, and—occasionally—works of humour, like the ragtime romp Elite Syncopations. His ballets were responsible for introducing a young Lynn Seymour to the public; she remained his muse for many years. In 1989 he plucked Darcey Bussell from the corps de ballet and made her a star. He was appointed resident choreographer of the Royal Ballet in 1965; from 1966 to 1969 he was director of the Berlin Opera Ballet; and from 1970 to 1977 he was director of the Royal Ballet. Upon his retirement as director he was appointed principal choreographer at Covent Garden, a position he retained until his death. He also served as artistic associate for American Ballet Theatre (1984–9) and for Houston Ballet (1989–92). He choreographed many ballets for the Stuttgart company. He also worked as a theatre director; his productions included Ionesco's The Chairs and The Lesson (1982), Strindberg's Dance of Death (1983), and Tennessee Williams's Kingdom of the Earth (1984). He was knighted in 1983.
A list of his ballets includes Somnambulism (mus. S. Kenton , 1953), Danses concertantes (mus. Stravinsky , 1955), The House of Birds (mus. Mompou , arr. Lanchbery , 1955), Noctambules (mus. Searle , 1956), Solitaire (mus. M. Arnold , 1956), Journey (mus. Bartók , 1957), Winter's Eve (mus. Britten , 1957), The Burrow (mus. Martin , 1958), Agon (mus. Stravinsky , 1958), Le Baiser de la fée (mus. Stravinsky , 1960), The Invitation (mus. M. Seiber , 1960), Diversions (mus. Bliss , 1961), The Rite of Spring (mus. Stravinsky , 1962), Symphony (mus. Shostakovich , 1963), Las Hermanas (mus. Martin , 1963), Images of Love (mus. P. Tranchell , 1964), La Création du monde (mus. Milhaud , 1964), Romeo and Juliet (mus. Prokofiev , 1965), Song of the Earth (mus. Mahler , 1965), Valses nobles et sentimentales (mus. Ravel , 1966), Concerto (mus. Shostakovich , 1966), Anastasia (first version, mus. Martin , 1967), The Sphinx (mus. Milhaud , 1968), Swan Lake (1969), Miss Julie (mus. Panufnik , 1970), Checkpoint (mus. R. Gerhard , 1970), Anastasia (second version, full-length, mus. Tchaikovsky and Martin , 1971), Side Show (mus. Stravinsky , 1972), Pavane (mus. Fauré , 1973), The Sleeping Beauty (1973), The Seven Deadly Sins (mus. Weill , 1973), Manon (mus. Massenet , arr. Lucas , 1974), Elite Syncopations (mus. S. Joplin , 1974), The Four Seasons (mus. Verdi , 1975), Requiem (mus. Fauré , 1976), My Brother, My Sisters (mus. Schoenberg and Webern , 1978), Mayerling (mus. Liszt , arr. Lanchbery , 1978), La Fin du jour (mus. Ravel , 1979), Gloria (mus. Poulenc , 1980), Isadora (mus. R. R. Bennett , 1981), Wild Boy (mus. Cross , 1981), Orpheus (mus. Stravinsky , 1982), Valley of Shadows (mus. Martin , Tchaikovsky , 1983), Different Drummer (mus. Webern , 1984), The Prince of the Pagodas (mus. Britten , 1989), Winter Dreams (mus. Tchaikovsky , 1991), The Judas Tree (mus. Elias , 1992), and Carousel (National Theatre production, 1992).

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Madsen , Egon

(b Ringe, 24 Aug. 1942).
Danish dancer, teacher, and ballet director. Although born in Denmark he spent most of his career in Germany where he was one of a quartet of dancers who helped Cranko to build the Stuttgart Ballet into one of the world's finest companies. He studied with Thea Jolles , Birger Bartholin , and Edite Frandsen in Denmark (having been turned down by the Royal Danish Ballet School) before joining the Copenhagen Tivoli Theatre in 1958. In 1959 he danced with von Rosen's Scandinavian Ballet and in 1961 he was invited to Stuttgart by Cranko . Appointed soloist in 1962 and then principal, he created roles in many Cranko ballets, including Romeo and Juliet (new version, 1962, in which he played Paris), Jeu de cartes (The Joker, 1965), Onegin (Lensky, 1965), Pas de quatre, Nutcracker (both 1966), The Interrogation, Quatre images (both 1967), Taming of the Shrew (1969), Poème de l'extase, Brouillards (both 1970), Carmen (Don José, 1971), and Initials R.B.M.E. (1972), in which the E referred to Egon. For MacMillan he created roles in Song of the Earth (1965), The Sphinx (1968), and Concerto (1973). He also created roles in Tetley's Daphnis and Chloe (1975) and Neumeier's Lady of the Camellias (1978). He was artistic director of the Frankfurt Ballet (1981–4), the Royal Swedish Ballet (1984–6), and the Teatro Comunale, Florence (1986–8). In 1990 he rejoined the Stuttgart Ballet as ballet master; from 1991 to 1996 he was assistant artistic director. Now principal ballet master of the Leipzig Ballet.

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Magallanes , Nicholas

(b Camargo, Mexico, 27 Nov. 1922, d North Merrick, Long Island, NY, 1 May 1977).
Mexican-born US dancer. He studied at the School of American Ballet with Balanchine and started performing with Lincoln Kirstein's Ballet Caravan in 1941. He danced with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo (1943–6) before joining Ballet Society (later New York City Ballet) in 1946. For almost 30 years he was one of Balanchine's leading dancers, a performer whose softness of style often led choreographers to cast him as a poet. He created roles in Balanchine's Night Shadow (1946), Raymonda (1946), Symphony in C (new version of Le Palais de cristal, 1948), Orpheus (title role, 1948), La Valse (1951), Western Symphony (1954), Allegro brillante (1956), Square Dance (1957), Episodes (1959), Liebeslieder Walzer (1960), A Midsummer Night's Dream (Lysander, 1962), and Don Quixote (the Duke, 1965). He also created roles in Robbins's The Guests (1949), The Cage and The Pied Piper (both 1951), Ashton's Illuminations (he played the poet Arthur Rimbaud, 1950), and Butler's The Unicorn, the Gorgon and the Manticore (the Poet, 1957). He retired in 1973.

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Magic Flute, The.

Ballet in one act with choreography and libretto by Ivanov , music by Drigo . Premiered 22 Mar. 1893 at the Imperial Ballet School in St Petersburg. Despite its title, the ballet has nothing to do with Mozart's famous opera, either musically or narratively. Instead it tells the light-hearted story of the country girl Lise , who is in love with the poor peasant boy, Luc . Her mother, however, has other plans for Lise, urging her to marry the Marquis. Luc, meanwhile, is given a magic flute, an instrument that forces everyone in the village into a dancing frenzy. The hermit who gave it to him later reveals himself to be Oberon, just in time to save Luc from being condemned to death by the irate Marquis. The ballet was created for a school performance (the cast included Mikhail Fokine as Luc) but it was taken into the Maryinsky repertoire on 23 Apr. 1893. Pavlova later performed it with her company, taking the role of Lise herself. Peter Martins staged a new version in 1981 for the School of American Ballet, and re-staged it for New York City Ballet on 21 Jan. 1982 with Darci Kistler as Lise and Martins as Luc.

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Magri , Gennaro.

Italian choreographer and writer whose 1779 treatise, Trattato teoretico-prattico di ballo, is one of the most important publications about dance technique in the 18th century.

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Mahler , Gustav

(b Kalischt, 7 July 1860, d Vienna, 18 May 1911).
Austrian composer. Although he wrote no music specifically for the ballet, his compositions for the concert hall have often been used by choreographers. Famous examples include Tudor's Dark Elegies (Kindertotenlieder, 1937), MacMillan's Song of the Earth (1965), Béjart's Le Chant du compagnon errant (Song of a Wayfarer, 1971), and Neumeier's Third Symphony by Gustav Mahler (1975).

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maillot.

Dancers' tights. They take their name from a 19th-century costumier at the Paris Opera.

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Makarova , Natalia

(b Leningrad, 21 Nov. 1940).
Russian dancer, ballet producer, and actress. One of the pre-eminent ballerinas of the 20th century. She trained at the Leningrad Ballet School (the Vaganova Institute), graduating in 1959. She joined the Kirov Ballet, where she became one of its leading artists. In 1970, while on tour with the company in London, she defected to the West, where she forged a freelance career as one of the world's most famous ballerinas. She was a principal dancer with American Ballet Theatre and a principal guest artist with the Royal Ballet in London, and appeared with countless companies in Europe. A supremely gifted adagio dancer with a remarkably elastic technique, she was considered the foremost Odette of her day, while her Giselle was also highly praised. She danced all the ballerina parts, and created roles in ballets by most of the important choreographers of the 20th century, including Robbins's Other Dances (1976), Béjart's Mephisto Waltz (1979), the title dancing role in Le Rossignol for the Metropolitan Opera House in 1981 (with choreography by Ashton ), MacMillan's The Wild Boy (1981), and Petit's The Blue Angel (1985). She staged a full-length version of La Bayadère for American Ballet Theatre in 1980 which was later taken into the repertoire of the Royal Ballet, the Royal Swedish Ballet, and La Scala, Milan. She also staged Swan Lake for London Festival Ballet in 1984. She brought her own company to Broadway in 1980. She made her musical comedy debut in a revival of the Rodgers and Hart musical On Your Toes in New York in 1983 for which she won a Tony Award; the following year in London her performance, which had revealed her unexpected gift for comedy, earned an Olivier Award. In 1988 she was reunited with the Kirov when she danced with the company during its London season, partnered by Konstantin Zaklinsky in the Act II pas de deux from Swan Lake. In 1989 she went to Leningrad to appear with the Kirov again. She has frequently appeared on television, and conceived and presented the BBC television series Ballerina in 1987. Following her retirement as a dancer she pursued a career as an actress, appearing on stage in Britain. Gold medal, Varna, 1965; Merited Artist of the RSFSR; Anna Pavlova Prize, Paris, 1970; and author of A Dance Autobiography (New York, 1979).

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Makhalina , Yulia

(b Leningrad, 23 June 1968).
Russian dancer. She studied at the Leningrad Ballet School (the Vaganova), graduating in 1986. That same year she joined the Kirov, where she was promoted to principal in 1988. Heavily promoted by artistic director Oleg Vinogradov , she danced all the leading roles in the classical repertoire early in her career. She also danced works by Balanchine , Béjart , and Robbins . Gold medal, International Ballet Competition, Paris, 1990.

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Maly Ballet.

Russian dance company based at the Maly (Small) Theatre in St Petersburg. The theatre was founded in 1915, although it was almost twenty years before the first ballet performance took place: Lopukhov's Harlequinade on 6 June 1933. The Maly Ballet, despite playing second fiddle to the Kirov in St Petersburg, is one of the finest ensembles in Russia and is large by Western standards. It has always sought to forge an artistic identity which is completely distinct from the Kirov's; this has meant an emphasis on lyrical comedy and symphonic dance. In 1935 Lopukhov , who was the first artistic director, choreographed The Bright Stream, a ballet set to the music of Shostakovich which proved very popular with the public but caused the choreographer to fall out with the Soviet authorities who accused the ballet of formalism. (Lopukhov himself made a comeback during the Second World War when he returned to run the ballet company.) The influential Leonid Lavrovsky , who was ballet director from 1936 to 1938, got his start at the Maly: he staged Fadetta (Delibes's Sylvia, 1936), La Fille mal gardée (1937), and Asafiev's Prisoner of the Caucasus (1938). Boris Fenster , one of Lopukhov's pupils, was in charge from 1945 to 1965; his ballets included An Imaginary Fiancé (1946) and Youth (1949). In 1955 at the Maly Gusev staged a revival of Petipa's Le Corsaire, a ballet which had been virtually forgotten. Further revivals, especially Swan Lake (1958) and Giselle (1973), attempted to return the classics to their original state. Igor Belsky , who was chief choreographer from 1962 to 1973, undertook new productions of The Humpbacked Horse and Nutcracker, and choreographed the first versions of Shostakovich's Eleventh Symphony (1966) and Tchernov's Gadfly (1967). Prior to his taking over at the Kirov, Oleg Vinogradov was chief choreographer of the Maly (1973–7) and made one of his important early ballets there, Yaroslavna (mus. Tishenko , 1974). Vinogradov was succeeded by Nikolai Boyarchikov . In 1989 the Maly Theatre was renamed the Mussorgsky Theatre of Opera and Ballet.

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Mam'zelle Angot.

Ballet in one act with choreography and libretto by Massine , music by Lecocq (arr. Richard Mohaupt ), and designs by Mstislav Doboujinsky . Premiered 10 Oct. 1943 (as Mademoiselle Angot) by Ballet Theatre at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, with Massine, Nora Kaye, André Eglevsky , and Rosella Hightower . The ballet is based on Charles Lecocq's 1872 comic opera La Fille de Madame Angot. In it all the characters are in love with someone who loves someone else; in the end Mam'zelle Angot finds that she does indeed love the man who loves her. It was revived by Massine for Sadler's Wells Ballet in 1947, with new music arranged by Gordon Jacob and designs by André Derain , and a cast that included Fonteyn, Shearer, Grant, and Somes. Australian Ballet took it into its repertoire in 1971.

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Manchester , Phyllis Winnifred

(b London, 7 Dec. 1906. d Cincinnati, 18 May 1998).
British dance critic and writer. Ballet critic of Theatre World (1941–3) and secretary to Marie Rambert (1944–6). Author of Vic-Wells: A Ballet Progress (London, 1942) and The Rose and the Star (with Iris Morley, London, 1948). Co-editor (with A. Chujoy ) of the Dance Encyclopaedia, 1967 edition. She taught dance history at the University of Cincinnati for 24 years.

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Manen , Hans van

(b Amstelveen, 11 July 1932).
Dutch dancer, choreographer, and ballet director. One of Holland's leading choreographers. He studied with Sonia Gaskell , Françoise Adret , and Nora Kiss and danced with Gaskell's Ballet Recital (1951), Amsterdam Opera Ballet (1952–8), and Roland Petit's Ballets de Paris (1959) before becoming one of the original members of Netherlands Dance Theatre in 1960. During the next ten years he was one of the company's top choreographers, also its joint artistic director (first with Benjamin Harkavy , then with Glen Tetley ). He left in 1971 to pursue a freelance career. In 1973 he joined Dutch National Ballet as resident choreographer and ballet master (until 1987), and in 1988 he rejoined Netherlands Dance Theatre as resident choreographer. As a rule, his work avoids the use of narrative structure and dramatic incident, preferring instead to explore form and to pursue the idea that dance is about itself and the dancers. But if he has a consistent theme it is the complex and often conflicted relationship between men and women. A list of his works for Netherlands Dance Theatre includes Symphony in Three Movements (mus. Stravinsky , 1963), Essay in Silence (mus. Messiaen , 1965), Metaphors (mus. Daniel Lesur , 1965), Five Sketches (mus. Hindemith , 1966), Solo for Voice 1 (mus. Cage , 1968), Squares (mus. Satie , 1969), Situation (sound collage, 1970), Mutations (with Tetley, mus. Stockhausen , 1970), Grosse Fuge (mus. Beethoven , 1971), Opus Lemaître (mus. Bach , 1972), Septet Extra (mus. Saint-Saëns , 1973), Noble et sentimentale (mus. Ravel , 1975), Songs Without Words (mus. Mendelssohn , 1977), Black Cake (mus. various composers, 1989), Andante (mus. Mozart , 1991), and Fantasía (mus. Bach , 1993). For Dutch National Ballet he created Twilight (mus. Cage , 1972), Daphnis and Chloe, Suite No. 2 (mus. Ravel , 1972), Adagio Hammerklavier (mus. Beethoven , 1973), Sacre du printemps (mus. Stravinsky , 1974), Ebony Concerto (mus. Stravinsky , 1976), Five Tangos (mus. Piazzolla , 1977), Live (mus. Liszt , 1979), Klaviervariationen I (mus. Bach , Dallapiccola, 1980), Bits and Pieces (mus. Byrne , Eno , Mendelssohn , 1984), Opening (mus. Hindemith , 1986), Symphonieen der Nederlanden (mus. Andriessen , 1987), and Three Pieces for Het (mus. var., 1997). For the Royal Ballet he created Four Schumann Pieces (1975). He has also made works for the Scapino Ballet and Stuttgart. He is also a professional photographer who has enjoyed several prominent exhibitions. Knight of the Order of Oranje Nassau (1992).

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manipuri.

A style of dance which comes from the valley of Manipur in NE India. Folkloric and religious in origin, it is simple to perform and often involves the entire community. Its dramas are accompanied by dialogue and song, while its style is marked by softness and fluidity.

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Manning , Frank

(b Florida, 1914).
US dancer, choreographer, and company director. He studied jazz dance with Whitey White in New York and in the 1930s acted as artistic director of Whitey's Lindy Hoppers. He also worked in Hollywood films. After service in the Second World War, he formed a short-lived company called the Congaroos. In 1988, after decades away from professional dance, he spearheaded the lindyhop revival, thanks to two California dancers (Erin Stephens and Stephen Mitchell) who had sought him out from obscurity. The lindy revival gave Manning a new career as a choreographer. Among his shows were Broadway's Black and Blue (1989), for which he won a Tony Award. He conducts lindy workshops around the world.

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Manon.

Ballet in three acts with choreography and libretto by MacMillan , music by Massenet (arr. Leighton Lucas ), and designs by Georgiadis . Premiered 7 Mar. 1974 by the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden with Sibley , Dowell , Wall , Rencher , Mason , and Drew . The ballet is based on Abbé Prévost's L'Histoire du Chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut (1731), which also inspired operas by Massenet and Puccini and earlier ballets by Jean Aumer (at the Paris Opera in 1830) and Giovanni Golinelli (Vienna, 1852). The story of the ambitious and avaricious courtesan Manon provided MacMillan with one of his greatest successes, and one of the most enduring full-length ballets of the latter half of the 20th century. His treatment of Manon's doomed love for des Grieux, which begins in Regency Paris and ends in the swamps of Louisiana, is one of the most sensually charged of all ballets. The passion and danger of its central pas de deux have proved irresistible to audiences around the world and since its premiere at the Royal Opera House it has been taken into the repertoires of the Royal Swedish Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, the Houston Ballet, the National Ballet of Canada, American Ballet Theatre, and the Kirov.

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Manzotti , Luigi

(b Milan, 2 Feb. 1835, d Milan, 15 Mar. 1905).
Italian mime dancer and choreographer. He created his first ballet, La morte di Masaniello, in 1858, and went on to great success in both Rome and Milan. His productions were staged around the world, while he enjoyed considerable international fame. However, as Beaumont points out in his Complete Book of Ballets (London, 1952), ‘Manzotti's ballets were not ballets in the present understanding of the term, but a succession of related episodes expressed in mime, varied with simple but effective ensembles by dancers, and striking processions by well-drilled supers.’

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Marceau , Marcel

(b Strasbourg, 22 Mar. 1923).
French mime artist. He studied with Dullin and Decroux and made his debut as Harlequin in Jean-Louis Barrault's production of Baptiste in 1947. That same year he formed his own company which he has been taking around the world ever since. In 1997 he celebrated the 50th anniversary of his comic creation, Bip. Despite changes in fashion which have seen mime move on from the rather naïve style he represents, Marceau remains the most famous mime in the world today. In 1971 he collaborated with the Hamburg Ballet on a version of Candide.

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Maré , Rolf de

(b Stockholm, 9 May 1888; d Barcelona, 28 Apr. 1964).
Swedish art patron, impresario, and founder of the Ballets Suédois in Paris. Although the Ballets Suédois was shortlived as a company, surviving only five years, it was thanks to de Maré's directorship that so much innovation took place in choreography, design, and music. Like Diaghilev , and no doubt seeking to match his example, de Maré encouraged collaborations with avant-garde artists, such as Jean Cocteau, Bonnard, de Chirico, Léger, and the composers of Les Six. The repertoire (all of it choreographed by Jean Börlin ) reflected contemporary trends in art (such as Dadaism and Surrealism) and also reflected de Maré's own interest in primitive art (he had a notable collection). When the Ballets Suédois was disbanded in 1925, he turned his attention to other projects, including the establishment of Les Archives Internationales de la Danse with Pierre Tugal in Paris in 1931. He was also responsible for organizing several choreographic competitions. In 1950, when the archive was closed, de Maré's large collection of books, magazines, and souvenir programmes chronicling dance history was divided up between the museum of the Paris Opera and the Stockholm Dance Museum.

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Marguerite and Armand.

Ballet in one act with choreography and libretto by Ashton , music by Liszt (arr. Humphrey Searle ), and designs by Cecil Beaton . Premiered 12 Mar. 1963 by the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden, with Fonteyn, Nureyev, and Somes. Based on the famous 1848 novel by Alexandre Dumas fils, La Dame aux camélias (which also inspired Verdi's opera La traviata), it tells the story of the dying Marguerite Gautier in flashback through five pas de deux. This was Ashton's last full ballet for Fonteyn. She and Nureyev performed it frequently around the world. It was revived by the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden in 2000 with Sylvie Guillem inheriting the Fonteyn role.

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Mariés de la Tour Eiffel, Les.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Börlin , libretto by Cocteau , music by Auric , Milhaud , Tailleferre , Honegger , and Poulenc , set by Irène Lagut and costumes by J. Hugo . Premiered 18 June 1921 by the Ballets Suédois at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris with C. Ari , J. Figoni , and K. Vahlander . The ballet, a farce, is set on the first platform of the Eiffel Tower where a hunchbacked photographer tries to take pictures of a wedding party. Although L. Durey was not involved in the ballet, it is none the less considered to be a showpiece for the musical ideas of the group of composers known collectively as Les Six.

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Marin , Maguy

(b Toulouse, 2 June 1951).
French dancer, choreographer, and company director. One of the most significant figures in the French new wave. After studying dance in her native Toulouse she began performing with the Strasbourg Opera Ballet and moved to Brussels to continue her studies at Béjart's school, Mudra. She joined his Ballet of the 20th Century (1974–7) and choreographed Yu-ku-ri for that company in 1976. In 1978 she won first prize at the Bagnolet choreographic competition; also that year she founded her own company, which in 1984 was renamed Compagnie Maguy Marin (and is now resident in Créteil). She was resident choreographer, Lyons Opera Ballet (1991–4). In addition to making dances for her own company, Marin has choreographed pieces for the Paris Opera Ballet (Jaleo, 1983, for the experimental GRCOP, and 1988's Leçon de ténèbres for the main company). One of her biggest successes is Cinderella, which she staged for the Lyons Opera Ballet in 1985; it set the familiar fairytale in a doll's house. Her Coppélia, for Lyons in 1993, transferred the ballet to a depressed public housing estate. She also staged the Brecht/Weill The Seven Deadly Sins for Lyons in 1987. In 1988 she made her first work for the Dutch National Ballet. A list of her other works includes Contrastes (mus. Bartók , 1980), May B (mus. Schubert , Bryars , 1981, based on the writings of Samuel Beckett), Babel Babel (mus. Mahler , 1982), Calambre (mus. Rayon , 1985), Groosland (mus. Bach , 1989, in which a dozen padded dancers waddle onto the stage in a satire on the sylph-like bodies of ballet); Waterzooi (mus. Mariotte , 1993), and RamDam (mus. Denis Mariotte , 1995).

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Markó , Iván

(b Balassagyarmat, 29 Mar. 1947).
Hungarian dancer, choreographer, and company director. He studied dance at the State Ballet Institute in Budapest, graduating in 1967. He joined the Budapest Opera Ballet Company and from 1972 to 1979 danced with Béjart's Ballet of the 20th Century. In 1979 he returned to Hungary and founded the Györ Ballet, for whom he made many works. He left the company in 1991. In 1996 he founded the Budapest-based Hungarian Festival Ballet.

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Markova , (Dame) Alicia (orig. Lillian Alicia Marks ;

b London, 1 Dec. 1910).
British dancer, teacher, and ballet director. The first British prima ballerina and a key figure in the development of British dance. She studied with Astafieva (from 1921), Legat , Cecchetti , and Celli and as a child was nicknamed the ‘Miniature Pavlova’. At the age of only 14 she was recruited by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and danced with his company from 1925 to 1929, immediately being cast as a soloist because she was too small to join the corps de ballet. She created the title role in Balanchine's Le Chant du rossignol in 1925. When Diaghilev died she returned to London and had the good fortune to find herself at the centre of British ballet's formative years. She became the ballerina of the Camargo Society in 1931; danced with Ballet Rambert (1931–5) and the Vic-Wells Ballet (1932–5), years during which Ashton , Tudor , and de Valois all took advantage of her strong classical technique and unparalleled experience. She created roles in many of Ashton's early ballets, including La Péri (1931), Façade (1931), Foyer de danse (1932), Les Rendezvous (1933), and Mephisto Waltz (1934). For Tudor she created a role in Lysistrata (1932) and for de Valois roles in The Wise and Foolish Virgins (1933), Bar aux Folies-Bergère (1934), The Haunted Ballroom (1934), and The Rake's Progress (1935). She was the first British Giselle and also the first to dance Odette-Odile. In 1935 she formed the Markova-Dolin company with Anton Dolin (a colleague from her Diaghilev days), a travelling troupe which provided a vehicle for its two stars. Markova continued as its prima ballerina until 1938. She then went abroad, finding greater opportunities for a star of her standing in Europe and America. For the next three years she was ballerina of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo where she created roles in Massine's Seventh Symphony (1938), Capriccio espagnol (1939), Rouge et noir (1939), and Vienna 1814 (1940); and in Balanchine's Jeu de cartes (1940). From 1941 to 1945 she danced with American Ballet Theatre where in addition to performing the traditional ballerina roles she also created parts in Massine's Aleko (1942) and Tudor's Romeo and Juliet (1943, Juliet). In 1945 she reformed the Markova-Dolin company in the US which toured widely. In 1949 she and Dolin did a series of gala performances of ballet in Britain, out of which grew London Festival Ballet (later English National Ballet). She continued as prima ballerina until 1952. She guested with companies all over the world. She was most admired for her lightness and ethereality as a dancer and of her many roles she was most closely associated with Giselle—many considered her reading of it to be definitive. She retired from the stage in 1962 and from 1963 to 1969 was ballet director of the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. In later years she was a coach and teacher, as well as a stager of ballets. Author of Giselle and I (London, 1960) and Markova Remembers (London, 1986). Dame of the Order of the British Empire 1963.

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Markova-Dolin Ballet.

See Markova , Alicia.

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Marks , Bruce

(b New York, 31 Jan. 1937).
US dancer, choreographer, and ballet director. He studied at the High School of Performing Arts, the Juilliard School, and with Tudor and Craske . He began his career in 1956 with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet, becoming a soloist in 1958. He also danced with H. Ross in Spoleto in 1959. From 1961 to 1971 he was one of the premier dancers at American Ballet Theatre. He guested with the Royal Swedish Ballet, London Festival Ballet, and the Royal Danish Ballet, joining the latter as a principal dancer (1971–6). He choreographed several ballets including Dichterliebe (mus. Schumann , 1972) and Asylum (mus. C. Ruggles , 1974). From 1976 he was artistic co-director of Ballet West in Utah. From 1985 to 1997 he was artistic director of the Boston Ballet. He introduced modern dance works to the repertoire, developed new choreography, and secured new premises for the company. In 1985 he reconstructed Bournonville's 1855 ballet Tales of the Arabian Nights: The Story of Abdallah for Ballet West, and later staged it for the National Ballet of Canada (1997). He had discovered Bournonville's handwritten scenario for the forgotten ballet at Sotheby's in New York in 1971.

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Marseillaise, La.

Solo dance by Isadora Duncan . Premiered 9 Apr. 1915 at the Trocadero in Paris. She created it as an expression of French patriotism during the days of the First World War.

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Marshall , Susan

(b Pensacola, Fla., 17 Oct. 1958).
US dancer and choreographer. Coming from a background in gymnastics, she studied dance at the Juilliard School in New York (1976–8). She founded her own company in 1982 and has made more than 25 dance works with them since then. She has also made work for GRCOP (the experimental wing of Paris Opera Ballet), the Boston Ballet, the Frankfurt Ballet, and the Lyons Opera Ballet. A list of her works includes Ward (1983), Routine and Variations (1984), Arms (1984), Opening Gambits (1985), Arena (1986), Overture (1987), The Aerialist (1987), Kiss (1987), Interior with Seven Figures (1988), In Medias Res (1989), Contenders (1990), Standing Duet (1992), Untitled (Detail) (1992), Fields of View (1994), Central Figure (1994), Spectators at an Event (1994), Les Enfants Terribles (1996), a ‘dance-opera spectacle’ in collaboration with the composer Philip Glass , Run Toward the Noise (1998), The Most Dangerous Room in the House (1998), and The Descent Beckons (1999). Eschewing a highly developed technical language, her work is influenced both by the contact improvisation of Steve Paxton and by the post-modernism of Trisha Brown. Her more recent work has incorporated the use of text. Her first play, Walter's Finest Hour, premiered in New York in 1993.

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Marteau sans maître, Le.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Béjart , music by Boulez , sets by Joëlle Roustam , and costumes by Roger Bernard . Premiered 18 Jan. 1973 by the Ballet of the 20th Century at La Scala in Milan, with Poelvoorde and Donn . An abstract work for one woman, six men, and six ‘Black Persons’.

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Martin , John

(b Louisville, Ky., 2 June 1893, d Saratoga Springs, NY, 19 May 1985).
US ballet critic and dance writer. He was a pioneer in the field of dance criticism in America, the first dance critic to be appointed by a major newspaper, in his case the New York Times. From that position, which he held from 1927 to 1962, he became one of the most influential and enthusiastic champions of modern dance in America. His books include The Modern Dance (New York, 1933), Introduction to the Dance (New York, 1939), The Dance (New York, 1945) and World Book of Modern Ballet (New York, 1952).

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Martins , Peter

(b Copenhagen, 27 Oct. 1946).
Danish dancer, choreographer, and ballet director. Balanchine's successor at New York City Ballet. He studied at the Royal Danish Ballet School (1953–65) and joined the Royal Danish Ballet in 1965, appointed its youngest principal in 1967. After several seasons guesting in New York, he joined New York City Ballet as a principal in 1970, where he created roles in many Balanchine ballets, among them Violin Concerto (1972), Duo concertant (1972), Chaconne (1976), Union Jack (1976), Vienna Waltzes (1977), and Davidsbündlertänze (1980). He mastered the Balanchine repertoire, and for many was the greatest Apollo of his day, with his tall, powerful physique and blond good looks. He forged an outstanding partnership with Suzanne Farrell , for whom he choreographed Sophisticated Lady upon her retirement in 1988. For Robbins he created parts in In the Night (1970), The Goldberg Variations (1971) and Piano Concerto in G (1975). He created the leading role in Taras's Daphnis and Chloe (1975). Although he performed the 19th-century classics with other companies, he was never interested in pursuing a career as a danseur noble, preferring the modern repertoire. He made his debut as a choreographer in 1977, with Calcium Light Night (mus. Ives ) for his own company; in 1978 he began choreographing for New York City Ballet and has since choreographed more than 60 ballets, most of them for NYCB. Following Balanchine's death in 1983 he was appointed ballet master in chief of New York City Ballet, a post he shared with Robbins. In 1990, following Robbins's departure, Martins assumed sole directorship. A list of his works includes Eight Easy Pieces (mus. Stravinsky , 1980), The Magic Flute (mus. Drigo , 1981), A Schubertiad (mus. Schubert , 1984),Poulenc Sonata (mus. Poulenc , 1985),Eight More (mus. Stravinsky , 1985),Songs of Auvergne (1986),Ecstatic Orange (mus. Michael Torke , 1987),Les Gentilhommes (mus. Handel , 1987),Barber Violin Concerto (mus. Barber , 1988),Sophisticated Lady (mus. Ellington , 1988),Tea Rose (mus. Gershwin , 1988), The Chairman Dances (mus. John Adams , 1988), Fearful Symmetries(mus. Adams , 1990), Delight of the Muses (mus. Wuorinen , 1992),Jeu de cartes (mus. Stravinsky , 1992), and River of Light (mus. Charles Wuorinen , 1998). He also staged The Sleeping Beauty for New York City Ballet in 1991, trimming it to a two-act production. In 1996 he staged a new version of Swan Lake for the Royal Danish Ballet; in 1999 he staged Swan Lake for NYCB. He has also choreographed for musicals, including On Your Toes (1982), Song and Dance (1985), and Carousel (1986). He retired as a dancer in 1984. Author of the autobiography Far from Denmark (Boston, 1982). Knight of the Order of Dannebrog (1983). His son, Nilas Martins , joined New York City Ballet in 1986.

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Martin , Bohuslav

(b Policka, 8 Dec. 1890, d Liestal, Switzerland, 28 Aug. 1959).
Czech composer. He wrote the music for several ballets, including R. Remislawsky's Istar (Prague, 1924) and Who Is the Mightiest in the World? (Prague, 1972), Psota's The Riot (Brno, 1928), Joe Jencik's Spalicek (Prague, 1933), and Erick Hawkins's The Strangler (1948). Choreographers who have used his concert music for ballets include Tudor (Echoing of Trumpets, 1963), MacMillan (the one-act Anastasia, 1967), Tetley (Sphinx, 1979), Corder (Day into Night, 1980), and Kylián (Field Mass, 1980).

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Maryinsky Theatre Ballet.

See Kirov Ballet.

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Maslow , Sophie

(b New York, 22 Mar. 1911).
US dancer, teacher, and choreographer. She studied with Blanche Talmud and Graham , eventually joining the Graham company in 1931 and dancing with her for twelve years. She appeared in several of Graham's most important works, including American Document and Primitive Mysteries. She was also a member of the highly political New Dance Group (or New Dance League), in the mid-1930s. From 1942 to 1954 she performed with Jane Dudley and William Bales in the Dudley-Maslow-Bales Trio and choreographed many works for that company, including Folksay (1942), which used folk-songs by Woody Guthrie and a text by Carl Sandburg to evoke life in rural America, Champion (1948), The Village I Knew (1949), based on stories by Sholom Aleichem , and Manhattan Celebration (1954). She formed her own company, Sophie Maslow and Company, in New York in the mid-1950s. In 1975 she founded the Danscompany with Joyce Trisler . She also worked with a number of other outfits, including the Batsheva Dance Company in Israel for whom she re-staged The Village I Knew (1950). She was a founding member of the American Dance Festival at Connecticut College in 1948. Other works include Dust Bowl Ballads (1941), Raincheck or Rain Check (1958), Poem (1963), From the Book of Ruth (1964), Neither Rest Nor Harbor (1969), Touch the Earth (1973), Such Sweet Thunder (1975), The Decathlon Études (1976), and Woody Sez (1980). She continues to teach and choreograph in New York. In 1999 she and Donald McKayle reconstructed Champion for the José Limón company. Maslow's ballet, based on Ring Lardner's short story about a boxer who will do anything to get to the top, had not been seen on the stage since 1950.

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Mason , Monica

(b Johannesburg, 6 Sept. 1941).
South African-born British dancer. She studied with Ruth Inglestone , Nesta Brooking, and at the Royal Ballet School. She joined the Royal Ballet in 1958, still only 16, was appointed soloist in 1963 and principal in 1968. A particular favourite of MacMillan's , she was plucked from the corps de ballet to create the role of the Chosen Maiden in his 1962 Rite of Spring. She also created roles in his Manon (1974), Elite Syncopations (1974), The Four Seasons (1975), Rituals (1975), and Isadora (1981). A versatile and strong dancer with a vibrant personality, she also featured in Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, The Firebird, Enigma Variations, Bayadère, Cinderella, Mayerling, and Romeo and Juliet. She was appointed principal repetiteur of the Royal Ballet in 1984 and assistant director in 1991. In 1999 she returned to the stage to create the role of Mrs Grose in William Tuckett's The Turn of the Screw, performed by the Royal Ballet at Sadler's Wells.

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masque.

Theatrical presentations, usually performed by members of the nobility, which were popular at the English court in the 16th and 17th centuries. They were the English equivalent of the ballets de cour of France. Their origins were in traditional masked processions and mummings. Their subject-matter was allegorical or mythological, while music, mime, and singing featured along with the dance. The literary element was probably the most important component and among those who wrote texts for masques were Ben Jonson and John Milton . The architect Inigo Jones designed sets for various masques. Famous examples of the form include Jonson and Jones's Masque of Blackness (1605) and Masque of Beauty (1608). The form is rarely revived, although Leslie French staged a revival of Milton's masque Comus for International Ballet in 1946. Helpmann produced a mimed play based on the same Milton masque for Sadler's Wells Ballet in 1942. De Valois's 1931 Job, a ‘masque for dancing’, pays homage to the form.

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Mass for Our Time (orig. Fr. title Messe pour le temps présent).

Ceremony in nine episodes choreographed by Béjart in memory of the dancer Patrick Belda , who died in a car accident in 1967. Premiered 3 Aug. 1967 by the Ballet of the 20th Century at the Palais des Papes in Avignon, with L. Proença , Bortoluzzi , Donn , Lowski , Carrié, and Dobrievich . Designs by J. Roustan and R. Bernard ; the score comprised sound effects produced by Béjart and rock music composed by P. Henry . The text is derived from several sources, among them Buddha and Nietzsche's Also sprach Zarathustra. The nine episodes are called: ‘The Breath’, ‘The Body’, ‘The World’, ‘The Dance’, ‘The Couple’, ‘Mein Kampf’, ‘The Night’, ‘The Silence’, and ‘The Waiting’.

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Massine , Léonide

(b Moscow, 8 Aug. 1895, d Weseke bei Borken, Germany, 15 Mar. 1979).
Russian-US dancer, choreographer, ballet master, and teacher. One of the biggest stars of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, he became one of the most influential and controversial choreographers of the 20th century. He trained at the Bolshoi Ballet School in Moscow with Gorsky, graduating in 1912 and joining the Bolshoi Ballet. In 1914 he was recruited by Diaghilev to create the title role in Fokine's The Legend of Joseph. In 1915 he made his debut as a choreographer (with Le Soleil de nuit), encouraged by Diaghilev who was eager to discover a new talent following the departure of Fokine and Nijinsky . He continued his dance studies with Cecchetti and found great success as both a performer and a choreographer; he often danced the leading male roles in the ballets he choreographed. He was a superlative character dancer, one of the best the 20th century produced. For Diaghilev he made Les Femmes de bonne humeur (mus. Scarlatti , 1917), Parade (mus. Satie , 1917), La Boutique fantasque (mus. Rossini , arr. Respighi , 1919), Le Tricorne (mus. de Falla , 1919), Song of the Nightingale (mus. Stravinsky , 1920), Pulcinella (mus. Stravinsky , 1920), Le Sacre du printemps (mus. Stravinsky , 1920). He stayed with Diaghilev for seven years before leaving to tour independently, a period which saw the creation of Salade (mus. Milhaud , 1924), Mercure (mus. Satie , 1924), and Le Beau Danube (mus. J. Strauss , 1924), all staged for Étienne de Beaumont's Soirées de Paris. In 1925 he returned to the Ballets Russes as guest choreographer, where he made Zéphire et Flore (mus. V. Dukelsky , 1925), Les Matelots (mus. Auric , 1925), Le Pas d'acier (mus. Prokofiev , 1927), and Ode (mus. Nabakov , 1928). He was solo dancer and ballet master of the Roxy Theatre in New York (1928–30), and revived Sacre du printemps with Martha Graham in the leading role in 1930 in Philadelphia. He also worked with Ida Rubinstein's company, for which he made David (mus. Sauguet , 1928) and Amphion (mus. Honegger , 1931). In 1932 he joined the Blum and de Basil Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, becoming its ballet master in 1933. For them he choreographed Jeux d'enfants (mus. Bizet , 1932), Choreartium (mus. Brahms's 4th Symphony, 1933), Les Présages (mus. Tchaikovsky's 5th Symphony, 1933), and Symphonie fantastique (mus. Berlioz , 1936). When de Basil and Blum fell out, Massine went with Blum's breakaway Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, where he was artistic director (1938–42). For this company he made Gaîté parisienne (mus. Offenbach-Rosenthal , 1938), Seventh Symphony (mus. Beethoven , 1938), Nobilissima visione (mus. Hindemith , 1938), Capriccio espagnol (with La Argentinita , mus. Rimsky-Korsakov , 1939), Rouge et noir (mus. Shostakovich's 1st Symphony, 1939), Bacchanale (mus. Wagner , 1939), and Labyrinth (mus. Schubert's 7th Symphony, 1941). In 1942 he joined American Ballet Theatre, making Aleko (mus. Tchaikovsky , 1942) and Mademoiselle Angot (mus. Lecocq , 1943). Massine worked with many companies and also toured with his own troupe, Ballet Russe Highlights (1945–6), which premiered Leningrad Symphony (mus. Shostakovich ) in New York in 1945. In 1947 he returned to Europe. A list of his ballets between 1947 and 1960 includes Clock Symphony (mus. Haydn , Sadler's Wells Ballet, 1948), Le Peintre et son modèle (mus. Auric , Ballets des Champs-Elysées, 1949), Harold in Italy (mus. Berlioz , Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, 1954), Donald of the Burthens (mus. I. Whyte , Sadler's Wells Ballet, 1951), Laudes Evangeli (mus. Bucchi , Perugia , 1952), Mario and the Magician (mus. F. Mannino , La Scala, Milan, 1954), Don Juan (mus. Gluck , La Scala, Milan, 1959), and Fantasmi al Grand Hotel (mus. Chailly , La Scala, Milan, 1960). In 1960 he set up the Ballet Europeo for the Nervi Festival in Genoa and choreographed Le Bal des voleurs (mus. Auric , 1960) and the full-length La commedia umana (mus. ancient, 1960). As a choreographer he is probably most remembered for his comic ballets (starting with Les Femmes de bonne humeur), which encouraged audiences to laugh out loud at the ballet, something they had not previously been encouraged to do. But, more importantly, it was his pioneering symphonic ballets (Choreartium, Présages) that opened up new possibilities for choreographers, showing that music written for the concert hall could be used most effectively for what was in essence abstract dance. He travelled the world reviving his ballets for countless companies. He was interested in a wide variety of dance styles, including that of the Native Americans. He was also involved in films, most famously choreographing and acting in The Red Shoes (1948); he also choreographed Powell and Pressburger's The Tales of Hoffmann (1951). In 1923 he opened his own school in London—one of his students was Ashton. He also taught choreography at the Royal Ballet School in 1969. Author of My Life in Ballet (London, 1968) and Massine on Choreography (London, 1976), a dense textbook that revealed his love of theorizing.

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Massine , Lorca (orig. Leonide Massine ;

b New York, 25 July 1944).
US dancer and choreographer. Son of Léonide Massine . He studied with his father and V. Gsovsky and made his debut at the Nervi Festival in 1960. He created the role of Puck in Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream at Aldeburgh in 1960. He subsequently appeared as an actor on the Paris stage, and worked as a choreographer. With his sister Tatiana he formed the European Ballet, which toured (1964–7). From 1968 to 1970 he was a soloist and choreographer with the Ballet of the 20th Century; one of his ballets was Tenth Symphony (mus. Mahler , 1968). From 1971 to 1973 he was a soloist at New York City Ballet, where he made Four Last Songs (mus. R. Strauss , 1971) and Ode (mus. Stravinsky , 1972). Other ballets include Ondine (mus. Henze , Hamburg , 1972), Fête dansée (mus. Theodorakis , company of A. Beranger , 1973), and Esoteric Satie (Milan, 1978). He has also worked on reconstructions of his father's ballets.

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Matisse , Henri

(b Le Cateau-Cambrésis, 31 Dec. 1869, d Nice, 3 Nov. 1954).
French painter and stage designer. He designed two ballets for Massine: The Song of the Nightingale (1920) and Rouge et noir (1939). His interest in dance can also be seen in his monumental painting La Danse.

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Matsuyama Ballet.

Japanese ballet company based in Tokyo. A family-run enterprise, it was founded in 1948 by the ballerina Mikiko Matsuyama . Her husband, Masao Shimizu , was director, while she became artistic director. Today their son Tetsutaro Shimizu is director and chief choreographer, while his wife Yoko Morishita was the company's prima ballerina. The company has always toured internationally, including five tours to China; it made its US debut in 1991. In the early days its repertoire featured works with highly political overtones, such as the 1958 revolutionary ballet The White-Haired Girl (especially popular with the Communist Chinese government). Another popular offering was Gion Festival (Gion Matsuri), a work choreographed by Taneo Ishida which dealt with an uprising against the ruler of Kyoto in medieval Japan. However, the company now dances a more traditional repertoire, blending 19th-century classics such as Giselle and Swan Lake with works by 20th-century choreographers such as Balanchine . Shimizu has also sought to incorporate elements of Japanese culture into the ballet, most notably in 1987 with his Mandala, a love story between a young Catholic girl and a young Buddhist artist, which was staged at the Edinburgh Festival in 1988. Mikiko Matsuyama retired from the stage in 1978 but continued as artistic director. The company has an associated school.

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Matteo (orig. M. Marcellus Vittucci ;

b Utica, NY, 2 May 1919).
US dancer, teacher, choreographer, and director. A leading authority on ethnic dance. He studied at Cornell University in New York, Ethnologic Dance Center, Springfield College, and with various ethnic dance specialists. From 1946 to 1950 he danced with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet before setting off as a concert artist performing ethnic dances and lecturing on the subject. He established the Indo-American Dance Company with Carola Goya in 1967, which subsequently developed into the Indo-American Performing Arts Center of New York in 1970. It is now called the Foundation for Ethnic Dance, Inc., which he continues to direct.

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Maximova , Ekaterina

(b Moscow, 1 Feb. 1939).
Soviet dancer. She studied at the Bolshoi Ballet School, a pupil of Elisaveta Gerdt, and graduated into the company in 1958 as a soloist. She enjoyed almost immediate success when she created the role of Katerina in Grigorovich's Moscow staging of The Stone Flower in 1959. Giselle quickly followed (with Maximova the youngest person to dance the role at the Bolshoi at the time), as did Kitri, another triumph. She was particularly associated with the ballets of Grigorovich, creating Masha in his 1966 staging of Nutcracker, Phrygia in his Spartacus (1968) and Aurora in his Sleeping Beauty (1973). She also created roles in several ballets by her husband, the Bolshoi dancer Vladimir Vasiliev, both in Russia and in the West. A very versatile dancer, she had a brilliant technique and a strikingly pliable body. Although she continued to dance with the Bolshoi for 30 years (she retired in 1989), she frequently appeared as a guest artist abroad, with Béjart's Ballet of the 20th Century in 1978, Petit's Ballet du Marseilles (1987), English National Ballet (then London Festival Ballet, 1989), the Australian Ballet, and National Ballet of Canada in 1990. She has also appeared in many films, including Galatea (1978), Old Tango (1979), Gigolo and Gigoletta (1980, directed by her husband), La traviata (1982, directed by Zeffirelli ), Fouetté (1986, directed by Vasiliev ), Gappiniana (1987), and Volodia and Katia (1989). In 1982 she began teaching at the Choreography Department of the Lunacharsky Theatre Technicum. She retired from dancing in 1994 and became ballet mistress and repetiteur, first with the Kremlin Ballet and later with the Bolshoi Ballet. She won the Gold Medal, Varna, 1964. People's Artist, USSR. Anna Pavlova Prize, Paris 1969.

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May , Pamela

(b San Fernando, Trinidad, 30 May 1917).
British dancer and teacher. She studied with Freda Grant in London, Olga Preobrajenska , and Lubov Egorova in Paris, and de Valois at the Sadler's Wells Ballet School from 1933. She made her debut at the Vic-Wells Ballet in 1934 and quickly became a leading dancer. In 1952 she was promoted to ballerina. Along with Fonteyn, she was one of the key performers in early British ballet. She created roles in de Valois's Checkmate (1937), The Prospect Before Us (1940), Orpheus and Eurydice (1941), and Don Quixote (1950), in Ashton's Les Patineurs (1937), A Wedding Bouquet (1937), Horoscope (1938), Dante Sonata (1940), The Wanderer (1941), Symphonic Variations (1946), and Cinderella (1948). A dancer of enormous versatility, she performed virtually all the leading roles in the classical repertoire, yet also made her mark in supporting roles like the Lilac Fairy and Myrtha. In later years, having given up the ballerina parts, she found new professional life in acting roles. She taught at the Royal Ballet School (1954–77).

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Mayerling.

Ballet in three acts with prologue and epilogue, with choreography by MacMillan , libretto by Gillian Freeman , music by Liszt (arranged and orchestrated by Lanchbery ), and designs by Georgiadis . Premiered 14 Feb. 1978 by the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden with Wall, Seymour , Wendy Ellis , Parkinson , Park , Connor , Somes , and Graham Fletcher. MacMillan's ballet is based on the true story of the Crown Prince Rudolf , the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne who took part in a double suicide with his mistress at the royal hunting lodge of Mayerling in 1889. Rudolf , and indeed the 17-year-old Baroness Mary Vetsera , his mistress, are ideal MacMillan protagonists: flawed characters whose immorality and uncompromising behaviour place them outside the bounds of acceptable society. Rudolf is portrayed as a depraved drug addict, a man riddled with venereal disease, who enters into a liaison with the reckless and socially ambitious young Mary. The court around them is poisoned by corruption and hypocrisy. MacMillan tells Rudolf's story through a series of extraordinary pas de deux for him and the women in his life, moments of raw emotion which veer wildly from desire to hate. Along with MacMillan's Manon and Romeo and Juliet, it has remained a favourite of the Covent Garden repertoire.

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Maywood , Augusta

(b New York, 1825, d Lemberg, Austria-Hungary, now Lviv, Ukraine, 3 Nov. 1876).
US dancer. The first American ballerina to achieve international fame, and one of the leading names in 19th-century Italian ballet. She studied with Paul Hazard in Philadelphia from 1836 and made her debut there in Le Dieu et la bayadère in 1837. But her career in America was short-lived. The following year she travelled to Paris where she studied with Mazilier and Coralli and appeared as a guest ballerina with the Paris Opera in La Tarentule (1839). She never appeared on stage in America again. She married the dancer Charles Mabille and travelled with him to Lisbon. After their divorce, she stayed in Vienna where she danced with the Kärntnertor Theatre (1845–7). In 1848 she went to La Scala, where she studied with Blasis and danced many of the ballerina roles, including Perrot's Faust and Cortesi's La silfide. From 1850 to 1858 she toured Italy with her own company, one of the first dancers to have her own touring ensemble. She was especially admired for her dancing in Giselle, Faust, and La Esmeralda. She created the title role in Filippo Termanini's Rita Gauthier in 1856. She returned to Vienna in 1858 where she opened a school. She retired to Lake Como in 1873.

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Mazilier , Joseph (orig. Giulio Mazarini ;

b Marseilles, 13 Mar. 1797 (some sources 1801), d Paris, 19 May 1868).
French dancer, choreographer, and ballet master. Author of many important ballets of the Romantic era and the first James in La Sylphide. He made his debut in Bordeaux and from 1822 appeared at the Paris Théâtre de la Porte-St-Martin, where he created roles in many ballets by Coralli . In 1830 he joined the Paris Opera, where he became a leading character dancer. He created roles in F. Taglioni's La Sylphide (James , 1832) and La Fille du Danube (1836), Coralli's Le Diable boîteux (1836) and La Tarentule (1839), and Guerra's Les Mohicans (1837). But although he was an important dancer, it was his life as a ballet master and choreographer that ensures his place in dance history. From 1839 to 1851 he was ballet master of the Paris Opera, where he made more than two dozen works. He spent a year with the Imperial Theatres in St Petersburg (1851–2) but returned to the Paris Opera in 1853 as premier maître de ballet. He retired in 1860, although he came out of retirement in 1867 to revive Le Corsaire. A list of his works includes La Gypsy (mus. F. Benoist and T. Marliani , 1839), Le Diable amoureux (mus. Benoist and H. Réber , 1840), Lady Henriette, ou la servante de Greenwich (mus. Flotow , Burgmüller , and Deldevez , 1844), Le Diable à quatre (mus. Adam , 1845), Paquita (mus. Deldevez , 1846), Griseldis, ou les cinq sens (mus. Adam , 1848), Vert-vert (mus. Deldevez and J. B. Tobeque (or Tolbeque ), 1851), Jovita, ou les boucaniers (mus. T. Labarre , 1853), Le Corsaire (mus. Adam , 1856), and Marco Spada, ou la fille du bandit (mus. Auber , 1857).

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mazurka.

A Polish national dance for couples in 3/4 or 6/8 time. It was first recorded in the 16th century; in the late 19th century it was introduced as a ballroom dance throughout Europe. The dance features stamping of the feet and clicking of the heels. There are many famous examples of a mazurka occurring in classical ballet, including Swan Lake and Coppélia.

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Mazzo , Kay

(b Chicago, 17 Jan. 1946).
US dancer. She studied with Bernardene Hayes and at the School of American Ballet (from 1959). She made her debut with Robbins's Ballets USA in 1961, appearing in his Afternoon of a Faun in Paris. The following year she joined New York City Ballet, becoming a soloist in 1965 and a principal in 1969. When Suzanne Farrell left NYCB in 1969, Mazzo, who bore a strong resemblance to her, inherited many of her roles. She was a dancer of great beauty and accomplishment, who also possessed an appealing vulnerability. She created roles in several Balanchine ballets, including Suite No. 3 (1970), Violin Concerto, Duo concertant (both 1972), Union Jack (1976), Vienna Waltzes (1977), and Davidsbündlertänze (1980). She also created roles in Robbins's Dances at a Gathering (1969) and In the Night (1970). Following her retirement from the company she taught at the School of American Ballet (from 1983).

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Medea.

Ballet in one act with choreography and libretto by Cullberg , music by Bartók (arranged by H. Sandberg ), and designs by Alvar Grandstrom . Premiered 31 Oct. 1950 at the Riksteatern, Gaevle, Sweden, with Lagerborg , Béjart , and Inga Noring . The ballet, set to music from Bartók's Mikrokosmos, tells of Medea's revenge against Jason, the husband who deserted her. It was revived for the Royal Swedish Ballet in 1953 and for New York City Ballet in 1958. There have been other dance treatments of the Medea story, from Noverre's Médée et Jason (Stuttgart, 1763) to Graham's Cave of the Heart (New York, 1947).

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Meditation from Thaïs.

Pas de deux with choreography by Ashton , music by Massenet . Premiered 21 Mar. 1971 at the Gala in aid of Friends of Fatherless Families, Adelphi Theatre, London, with Sibley and Dowell . A romantic and dreamy duet. It was revived for the Royal Ballet in 1991. Pavlova had a version of it in her repertoire.

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Meehan , John

(b Brisbane, 1 May 1950).
Australian dancer and ballet director. He studied at the Australian Ballet School and joined the Australian Ballet in 1970, promoted to soloist in 1972 and principal in 1974. He created roles in Tetley's Gemini (1973), Helpmann's Perisynthion (1974), Butler's Night Encounter (1975), and Hynd's Merry Widow (1975). He danced with American Ballet Theatre from 1977 to 1980, returning in 1985. He was a guest artist with the National Ballet of Canada and New York City Ballet. Artistic director Royal Winnipeg Ballet (1989–93). He later became director of American Ballet Theatre's junior company.

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Mendelssohn-Bartholdy , Felix

(b Hamburg, 3 Feb. 1809, d Leipzig, 4 Nov. 1847).
German composer. Although he wrote no music specifically for the ballet, his music for the concert hall has on occasion been used for ballet. His incidental music to A Midsummer Night's Dream has inspired many choreographers, including Petipa (1876), Fokine (1906), Balanchine (1962), and—most famously—Ashton in The Dream (1964).

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Mérante , Louis

(b Paris, 23 July (some sources say 27 July) 1828, d Courbevoie, 17 July 1887).
French dancer, choreographer, and ballet master. He joined the Paris Opera in 1848, as an understudy to Lucien Petipa , and went on to become one of the finest premiers danseurs of his day and a favourite partner to several ballerinas. Between 1853 and 1866 he created roles in many ballets, including Mazilier's Marco Spada, L. Petipa's Sacountala, M. Taglioni's Le Papillon, and Saint-Léon's Diavolina and La Source. He was appointed ballet master in 1869 and made his first ballet, Gretna Green (mus. E. Guiraud ), for the Paris Opera in 1873. He also choreographed Delibes's Sylvia (1876) and Messager's Les Deux Pigeons (1886). Just five years before his death he created a leading role in L. Petipa's Namouna (1882).

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Mercure.

Tableaux in three scenes, with choreography and libretto by Massine , music by Satie , and designs by Picasso . Premiered 15 June 1924, at the Soirées de Paris, Théâtre de la Cigale. The ballet is a character study of Mercury, the messenger of the gods. Picasso's striking Cubist decor is generally deemed to have been more successful than the Massine choreography. Diaghilev took it into his company in 1927, although it was rarely performed.

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Mercury Theatre.

A mid-19th-century church hall in Notting Hill Gate in W. London bought by Ashley Dukes and his wife Marie Rambert in 1927. They converted it into a small theatre and ballet school. In 1931 the theatre opened with a performance by the Ballet Club. Early works by Tudor and Ashton were given their premieres here. It continued as a theatre until 1955.

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Merry Widow, The.

Ballet in three acts with choreography by Hynd , scenario and staging by Helpmann , music by Lehár , arr. Lanchbery , and designs by Desmond Heeley . Premiered 13 Nov. 1975 by the Australian Ballet at the Palais in Melbourne, with M. Rowe , J. Meehan , L. Aldous , and K. Coe . The ballet, based on Lehár's 1905 operetta about the rich young widow Hanna Glawari , was later taken into the repertoires of the National Ballet of Canada and American Ballet Theatre.

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Messel , Oliver

(b Cuckfield, 13 Jan. 1905, d Bridgetown, Barbados, 13 July 1978).
British painter and stage designer. He studied art at the Slade School in London. He designed for opera and ballet throughout the 1930s and 1940s, at Sadler's Wells, Covent Garden, and Glyndebourne. He designed Lichine's Francesca da Rimini (de Basil's Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, 1937), Helpmann's Comus (Sadler's Wells Ballet, 1942), and—most importantly—the Sergeyev—Ashton—de Valois 1946 Sadler's Wells Ballet staging of Sleeping Beauty, which re-opened the Royal Opera House after the Second World War. His last ballet was Ashton's Homage to the Queen (1953). His style was both spectacular and lyrically nostalgic, with a strong period feel. He also worked as a designer on several films, including The Scarlet Pimpernel (1935), Romeo and Juliet (1936), The Thief of Baghdad (1940), The Winslow Boy (1948), and Suddenly Last Summer (1960). Author of Stage Designs and Costumes (London, 1934).

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Messerer , Asaf

(b Vilnius, 19 Nov. 1903, d Moscow, 7 Mar. 1992).
Soviet dancer, ballet master, and teacher. He studied privately with Mordkin , then with Gorsky at the Bolshoi Ballet School in Moscow from 1919. He graduated in 1921, joining the Bolshoi Ballet. For the next 30 years he was one of the company's most important principal dancers, an athletic and virile performer. He retired in 1954. Although he choreographed several ballets, including Ballet Class and the gala favourite Spring Waters, it is as a teacher that he made a greater contribution. He began teaching in 1923 at the Bolshoi, directing the Class of Perfection from 1942 or 1943, the ballet class for top professional dancers. He also frequently taught abroad. He was guest ballet master of the Ballet of the 20th Century (1961–2). Author of Classes in Classical Ballet (Moscow, 1967; English language version, New York, 1975) and Dance, Thought and Times (1979). Uncle of Maya Plisetskaya ; brother of the Bolshoi ballerina Sulamith Messerer . Merited Artist of the USSR (1933), Stalin Prize (1941, 1947), and People's Artist of the USSR (1976).

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Messiaen , Olivier

(b Avignon, 10 Dec. 1908, d Paris, 28 Apr. 1992).
French composer. Although he wrote no music specifically for dance, and claimed to disapprove of choreographers who used his concert music, there have been several works using a Messiaen score. Among them are van Dyk's Turangalila (Hamburg, 1960), Petit's Turangalîla (Paris, 1968), van Manen's Essay in Silence (Netherlands Dance Theatre, 1965), Tetley's Chronochromie (Jacob's Pillow, 1967), and Cranko's Oiseaux exotiques (Stuttgart, 1967).

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Metropolitan Ballet.

A short-lived London-based dance company founded by Cecilia Blatch and Leon Hepner which performed from 1947 to 1949 in Britain and abroad. Its ballet masters included Victor Gsovsky , Nicholas Beriozoff , and Celia Franca . Dancers included Svetlana Beriosova and Erik Bruhn . Its repertoire featured both classics and ballets from the Diaghilev repertoire. Choreographers included Celia Franca , Gsovsky , Andrée Howard , Frank Staff , and John Taras .

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Metropolitan Opera Ballet.

The resident dance company of the Metropolitan Opera in New York. The company is based at Lincoln Center.

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Metropolitan Opera House.

New York's main opera house. It opened in 1883 in mid-town Manhattan and closed in 1966, when it moved uptown to a new building at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. American Ballet Theatre performs its New York seasons here, as do large visiting companies.

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Mexico.

See Ballet Folklórico de Mexico.

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Meyer , Laverne

(b Guelph, Ont., 1 Feb. 1935).
Canadian dancer, choreographer, and ballet director. He studied with Graham , and at both the Rambert School and at Sadler's Wells School. From 1957 to 1968 he danced with Western Theatre Ballet (now Scottish Ballet), becoming ballet master and associate artistic director in 1964. In 1969 he founded Northern Dance Theatre in Manchester (later Northern Ballet Theatre). He resigned in 1975 and took up teaching. A list of his ballets includes The Web (mus. Webern , 1962), Schubert Variations (1972), Cinderella (mus. Robert Stewart , 1973), and Aladdin (mus. E. Tomlinson , 1974).

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Meyerbeer , Giacomo

(b Tasdorf, 5 Sept. 1791, d Paris, 2 May 1864).
German composer. He wrote the music for Lauchery's ballet, The Fisher and the Milkmaid (Berlin, 1810). The music for Ashton's Les Patineurs (1937) derives from the ballet divertissements of his operas Le Prophète and Étoile du nord.

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Mezentseva , Galina

(b Stavropol, 8 Nov. 1952).
Soviet dancer. She studied at the Leningrad Ballet School (the Vaganova), graduating into the Kirov Ballet in 1970. For twenty years she was one of the Kirov's leading dancers. Her fragility on stage made her especially suited to the Romantic repertoire, while Giselle was a favourite role. She left the Kirov in 1990 and appeared as a guest artist with Scottish Ballet; she has also toured the US as star of the St Petersburg Ballet. Gold medal (Japan, 1980). People's Artist of the Russian Federation, 1983.

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Miami City Ballet.

US dance company based in Florida. It was founded in 1986 with Edward Villella as founding artistic director. Villella, a former New York City Ballet principal, turned the Florida company into the foremost regional showcase for the Balanchine repertoire.

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Midsummer Night's Dream, A.

Ballet in two acts with choreography by Balanchine , music by Mendelssohn , sets and lighting by David Hays , and costumes by Barbara Karinska . Premiered 17 Jan. 1962 by New York City Ballet at City Center, New York, with Mitchell , Hayden , and Villella . The ballet, Balanchine's first original full-length work, is based on Shakespeare's play and uses Mendelssohn's incidental music. It was filmed in 1967. It was later taken into the repertoire of Pacific Northwest Ballet (1985). Other ballets on the same subject include those by Petipa (1876), Fokine (1906), Ashton (The Dream, 1964), Neumeier (Hamburg, 1977), and Cohan (Scottish Ballet, 1993).

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Milhaud , Darius

(b Aix-en-Provence, 4 Sept. 1892, d Geneva, 22 June 1974).
French composer. He wrote many ballet scores, starting with Cocteau's Le Bœuf sur le toit (1920), which was originally staged as a pantomime for acrobats and clowns. For Les Ballets Suédois he wrote the music for three works by Börlin: L'Homme et son désir (1921), Les Mariés de la Tour Eiffel (with Honegger , Auric , Poulenc , and Tailleferre , 1921), and La Création du monde (1923). He also wrote the music for Massine's Salade (1924), Nijinska's Le Train bleu (1924), Balanchine's Les Songes (1933), Graham's Imagined Wing (1944), Page's The Bells (1946), Charrat's 'Adame miroir (1948) and Petit's La Rose des vents (1958). Other ballets using Milhaud's music include Béjart's Concerto pour percussion et orchestre (1957), MacMillan's The Sphinx (1968), and Bintley's Meadow of Proverbs (1979).

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Mille , Agnes de

(b New York, 18 Sept. 1905 (some sources 1906 or 1909), d New York, 7 Oct. 1993).
US dancer, choreographer, director, and writer. A pioneer of dance in America who helped to develop the genre of American-themed ballets and who changed the face of the Broadway musical. Born the niece of Hollywood film director Cecil B. De Mille , she was educated at the University of Southern California and studied dance with Kosloff in Los Angeles and Rambert in London (from 1932). She also studied with Tudor and Sokolova. She toured America and Europe as a solo dancer from 1928. She made her debut as a professional choreographer staging dances for Morley's revival of The Black Crook in 1929. In 1932 she moved to Europe where she toured as a solo artist before joining the Rambert company where she created roles in several Tudor ballets, including Dark Elegies (1937) and Gallant Assembly (1937). She was associated with Tudor's first company, Dance Theatre (later becoming London Ballet), where she created the role of Venus in his The Judgment of Paris (1938). In 1938 she returned to America where she became resident choreographer of Ballet Theatre (later American Ballet Theatre). Her first important ballet was Black Ritual (using the Milhaud score for La Création du monde) for ABT in 1940. She also worked with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo (1942) and the Jooss Ballet (1942), and briefly toured with her own short-lived company, the Agnes de Mille Dance Theatre (1953–4). Subsequent ballets included Drums Sound in Hackensack (mus. Cohen , Jooss Ballet, 1941); Three Virgins and a Devil (mus. Respighi , ABT, 1941); Rodeo (mus. Copland , Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, 1942), in which she created the role of the Cowgirl, Fall River Legend (mus. Gould , ABT, 1948), about the axe-murderer Lizzie Borden , The Harvest According (mus. V. Thomson , ABT, 1952), The Rib of Eve (mus. Gould , ABT, 1956), The Wind in the Mountains (mus. Rosenthal , ABT, 1965), The Four Marys (mus. T. Rittman , ABT, 1965), The Rehearsal (mus. Gould , Royal Winnipeg Ballet, 1965), A Rose for Miss Emily (mus. Hovhaness , ABT, 1970), Summer (mus. Schubert , Boston Ballet, 1975), Texas Fourth (mus. Traditional, ABT, 1976), The Informer (mus. Celtic , ABT 1988). She choreographed many Broadway productions, among them Oklahoma! (1943), which was the first musical to use dance as a means of advancing the plot and developing character, as well as being the first to require its dancers to be trained in ballet and modern dance. Subsequent Broadway productions she worked on included One Touch of Venus (1943), Bloomer Girl (1944), Carousel (1945), Brigadoon (1947), Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1949), Paint Your Wagon (1951), and 110 in the Shade (1963). She also worked as a Broadway director (Cole Porter's Out of This World, 1950), and in film and television. She founded the Heritage Dance Theatre, based at the N. Carolina School of the Arts (1973–5). She was also a noted writer whose books included Dance to the Piper (London, 1951, Boston, 1952), And Promenade Home (Boston, 1956), To a Young Dancer (Boston, 1962), The Book of the Dance (New York, 1963), Lizzie Borden: A Dance of Death (Boston, 1968), Speak To Me, Dance With Me (Boston, 1973), Where the Wings Grow (New York, 1978), America Dances (New York, 1981), Reprieve (1981), and Martha, the Life and Work of Martha Graham (New York, 1991).

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Milloss , Aurelio (orig. A. M. de Miholy ;

b Ozora, Hungary, 12 May 1906, d Rome, 21 Sept. 1988).
Hungarian-Italian dancer, choreographer and ballet director. He studied with Smeraldi , Nicola Guerra , Anton Romanowsky , Laban , V. Gsovsky , and Cecchetti . In 1928 he joined the Berlin State Opera, also appearing in recital performances as a solo artist. He became ballet master in Hagen, Duisburg, Breslau, Augsburg, and Düsseldorf. Ballet master of the Hungarian State Opera House in Budapest (1936–8). Ballet director of the Rome Opera (1938–45, again 1966–9). Ballet director of La Scala, Milan (1946–50), in Cologne (1960–3), of Vienna State Opera (1963–6 and again 1971–4). He worked extensively in Italy as a visiting choreographer and also in South America. He choreographed more than 170 ballets, although few survived in the repertoire. Among his works are La follia di Orlando (Milan, 1947), Le Portrait de Don Quichotte (Ballets des Champs-Elysées, 1947), and Marsyas (Venice, 1948). He is best remembered for having championed the work of many living Italian designers and composers, and for promoting dance as an artform in a country where it was often viewed merely as divertissement.

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mime.

The art of telling a story or describing an emotion without the use of words. Action and feeling are expressed through gesture and movement, the meaning of which is usually very clear. Ballet has its own specific language of mime with a set vocabulary for familiar narrative components: the declaration of love, the desire to marry, the description of female beauty, etc. Several ballets have highly developed mime sequences, most notably Giselle, Swan Lake, and Sleeping Beauty. Although the use of mime was prevalent in 19th-century ballet productions, and indeed was in some cases more important than the dance, contemporary stagings have tended to strip away gesture in the belief that audiences find it old-fashioned. Away from the ballet stage, mime forms the basis of much modern visual theatre, thanks to the influence of such 20th-century mime artists as Marcel Marceau and Jacques Lecoq .

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Minkus , Léon (orig. Aloisius Ludwig ;

b Vienna, 23 Mar. (some sources say 28 Mar.) 1826, d Vienna, 7 Dec. 1917).
Austrian-Russian composer. One of the most important composers in 19th-century Russian ballet; he wrote the scores for more than a dozen Petipa ballets, including Don Quixote and La Bayadère. Although he was Austrian by birth, he spent virtually his entire career in Russia. He first appeared in St Petersburg as first violin and conductor of a private serf orchestra belonging to Prince Nikolai Yusupov (1853–6). He was subsequently hired as a violinist and then a conductor at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. From 1869 to 1886 he was official ballet composer of the Maryinsky Theatre (succeeding Pugni) in St Petersburg, where he worked in close association with Petipa. For Petipa he wrote the following scores: Don Quixote (1869), La Camargo (1872), Le Papillon (1874), Les Brigands (1875), La Bayadère (1877), Roxana or the Beauty from Montenegro (1878), The Daughter of the Snow (1879), Zoraya, or The Lady Moor in Spain (1881), Night and Day (1883), The Magic Pill (1886), and Kalkabrino (1891). He also wrote some additional music for Paquita (1881). For Saint-Léon he wrote the score for La Source (with Delibes, 1866). His music is noted for its dance quality, even if his Austrian love of the waltz is sometimes wildly inappropriate to his subject-matter (gypsies and Indian temple dancers, for instance).

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minuet.

The name derives from the French pas menu, or small step. It was probably originally a peasant dance from the Poitou region of France before becoming fashionable as a court dance under Louis XIV. Its popularity among the aristocracy spread far outside France. A dance in triple time, it is highly dignified and leisurely in execution with many curtseys and deep bows.

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Miracle in the Gorbals.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Helpmann, libretto by Michael Bentall , music by Bliss , and designs by Burra . Premiered 26 Oct. 1944 by Sadler's Wells Ballet at the Princess Theatre in London, with Helpmann , Clayden , Shearer , and Rassine . A dance-drama about Christ being re-born in 20th-century society, in this case the slums of Glasgow, with his Passion and death providing the context for a modern morality play. In the ballet, Christ is known as the Stranger, the role danced by Helpmann .

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Miraculous Mandarin, The.

‘A pantomime in one act’ with libretto by Menyhért Lengyel , music by Bartók , and direction and design by Hans Strobach . Premiered 28 Nov. 1926 at the Municipal Theatre in Cologne with Wilma Aug , and Ernst Zeiller . A melodramatic tale of three gangsters and a prostitute who steal from her clients. When she encounters a wealthy Chinese mandarin they try to rob and kill him, but discover that he cannot be killed unless the prostitute satisfies his obsessive sexual desire. The Lord Mayor of Cologne, Konrad Adenauer, banned the original production on moral grounds and it was almost twenty years before the work gained widespread acceptance in the repertoire. Many choreographers have been attracted to its lurid narrative, including Milloss (La Scala Milan, 1942), Harangozó (Budapest, 1945), Bolender (New York City Ballet, 1951), Rodrigues (Sadler's Wells Ballet, 1956), Erika Hanka (Vienna, 1957), Lavrovsky (Bolshoi Ballet, 1961), Flindt (Copenhagen, 1967), Petit (La Scala, Milan, 1980), Pistoni (Milan, 1986), and Ben Stevenson (Houston Ballet, 1986). It was one of the most often produced ballets of the 20th century.

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Miró , Joán

(b Montroig, 20 Apr. 1893, d Mallorca, 25 Dec. 1984).
Spanish painter and designer. He did the designs for Nijinska and Balanchine's Roméo et Juliette (with M. Ernst , 1926) and for Massine's Jeux d'enfants (1932).

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Mirror Walkers, The.

Ballet in one act with choreography and libretto by Peter Wright , and music by Tchaikovsky . Premiered 27 Apr. 1963 by the Stuttgart Ballet, with Cardus , Barra , Cragun , and Haydée . In it two dancers pass through the mirror of a ballet studio into an ideal dream world. It is set to Tchaikovsky's 1st Suite for Orchestra in D major.

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Miskovitch , Milorad

(b Voljevo, 26 Mar. 1928).
Yugoslavian-French dancer and teacher. He studied in Belgrade with Kirsanova , and in Paris with Kniaseff and Preobrajenska . He made his debut as a dancer at the Belgrade State Opera House in 1945. In 1947 he danced with the Ballets des Champs-Elysées, the International Ballet, and de Basil's Original Ballet Russe. He also danced with de Cuevas's Grand Ballet de Monte Carlo (1948) and Petit's Ballets de Paris (1949). After appearing with the Ballets Janine Charrat and with London Festival Ballet (1952), touring with Markova (1954) and Colette Marchand (1955), he founded his own company in 1956, Les Ballets 1956 de Miskovitch , which continued to tour for ten years. He joined Massine's Ballet Europeo in 1960 and Page's Chicago Opera Ballet in 1961. He was a frequent guest artist around Europe. He created roles in Béjart's Haut voltage (1956), Howard's La Belle Dame sans merci (1958), Massine's Commedia umana (1960), and Page's Die Fledermaus (1961). His own choreography includes Beethoven's Creatures of Prometheus (Genoa, 1970); in 1974 he staged an important production of Giselle for Carla Fracci at the Arena di Verona. President of the International Dance Council of UNESCO (1989–99).

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Missa Brevis.

Ballet in eleven parts with choreography by Limón , music by Kodály , and designs by Ming Cho Lee . Premiered 11 Apr. 1958 by the Limón company at the Juilliard Dance Theater in New York, with Limón , Currier , and B. Jones . The ballet, set to Kodály's Missa Brevis in tempore belli, tells of a man's desperate struggle for survival in the midst of chaos. It was taken into the Alvin Ailey repertoire in 1973.

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Miss Julie.

Ballet in one act with choreography and libretto by Birgit Cullberg , music by Ture Rangström , and designs by Allan Fridericia . Premiered 1 Mar. 1950 at the Riksteatern in Västeras, Sweden, with Elsa Marianne von Rosen , Julius Mengarelli , and Cullberg . Based on Strindberg's famous play about sex and class, the ballet tells the story of the aristocratic Miss Julie who seduces the family butler and has to pay for her indiscretion with her life. One of Cullberg's greatest successes, it has been revived for many companies, including the Royal Swedish Ballet (1950), American Ballet Theatre (1958), Royal Danish Ballet (1958), Berlin Opera Ballet (1979), Ballet of La Scala Milan (1980), Northern Ballet Theatre (1987), and Tani Ballet, Tokyo (1989). MacMillan choreographed a different ballet based on the same plot: Fräulein Julie, with music by Panufnik , premiered in Stuttgart in 1970 with Haydée, F. Frey , Keil , and Clauss .

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Mr Worldly Wise.

Ballet in three acts with choreography by Twyla Tharp , music by Rossini , and designs by Santo Loquasto . Premiered 9 Dec. 1995 by the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden with Mukhamedov , Bussell , and Kumakawa . A ‘theme’ ballet loosely based on the life of Rossini.

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Mitchell , Arthur

(b New York, 27 Mar. 1934).
US dancer, choreographer, and ballet director. He studied at the High School of the Performing Arts in New York and at the School of American Ballet. He performed on Broadway and with the Donald McKayle and John Butler modern dance troupes before joining New York City Ballet in 1955. He was one of the company's most popular soloists and earned his place in the record books as the first black dancer to reach the level of principal in an American ballet company. During his fifteen years with NYCB he created many roles in Balanchine ballets, including Allegro brillante (1956), Agon (1957), A Midsummer Night's Dream (Puck, 1962), Trois valses romantiques (1967), Metastaseis and Pithoprakta (1968), and Slaughter on Tenth Avenue (1968). He also created roles in Taras's Ebony Concerto (1960) and Butler's The Unicorn, the Gorgon and the Manticore (1957). In 1966 he became artistic director of the new National Ballet of Brazil. In 1969 he founded (with Karel Shook) the Dance Theatre of Harlem to give black dancers a chance to perform classical ballet. He has choreographed many works for it, including Holberg Suite, Rhythmetron, Fête noire, and Manifestations, and led the company on many foreign tours. In 1996 he was awarded the US National Medal of Arts. In 1999 he celebrated his 30th anniversary as Dance Theatre of Harlem's director.

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modern dance.

A term widely used in America and Britain to denote theatrical dance which is not based on the academic school of classical ballet. Through early 20th-century practitioners such as Isadora Duncan , Ruth St Denis , Martha Graham , and Doris Humphrey , modern dance developed in opposition to classical ballet, rejecting the latter's structural formality and sometimes thematic frivolity. Modern dance pioneers eschewed the rigid hierarchy of ballet in favour of a freer movement style—favouring bare feet over pointe shoes, for example. People like Graham and Humphrey developed their own methods of teaching the new technique required for their choreography. Early subject-matter was often political or psychological (Graham in particular was influenced by Jungian psychology in her dances). In the 1950s Cunningham took the form one step further by stripping dance of its literary and narrative context altogether, as well as isolating it from its musical accompaniment. By the end of the 20th century, the barriers between ballet and modern dance were less pronounced as dancers and choreographers worked increasingly in both styles.

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Moiseyev , Igor

(b Kiev, 21 Jan. 1906).
Soviet dancer, choreographer, and company director. Founder of the Soviet Union's first professional folk dance troupe. He studied privately with Vera Mosolova in Moscow from 1919 and at the Bolshoi Ballet School (1921–4), where he was a pupil of Alexander Gorsky . He danced with the Bolshoi from 1924 to 1939, although early on in his career he fell foul of the authorities when he helped to organize a protest by young dancers against the stifling of creativity at the Bolshoi Theatre. He choreographed several works for the Bolshoi, including The Footballer (mus. V. Oransky , 1930), Salammbô (mus. A. Arends , 1932), Three Fat Men (mus. Oransky , 1935), and Spartacus (mus. Khatchaturian , 1958). In 1936 he was appointed director of the choreographic section of the Moscow Theatre for Folk Art, out of which emerged the Soviet Union's first folk dance ensemble in 1937. The group, known abroad as the Moiseyev Dance Company, still travels widely and has enjoyed successful seasons in London and New York. The company made its Paris debut in 1955, its London debut in 1957, and its US debut in 1958. Moiseyev has choreographed many folk dance productions for the company, including Pictures from the Past, The Partisans, Tsam, and Regions of the World, always aiming to set traditional folk dances within a professional theatrical context. In 1967 he formed the Classical Ballet Company, a touring outfit which specialized in one-act ballets and divertissements.

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Molière (stage name of Jean Baptiste Poquelin ;

b Paris, Jan. 1622, d Paris, 17 Feb. 1673).
French actor, playwright, and ballet librettist. A dancer himself, Molière wrote the libretto for Beauchamps's Les Fâcheux (1661), which inaugurated the genre of the comédie-ballet. He collaborated with Lully on the comédie-ballets L'Amour médecin (1665), Monsieur de Pourceaugnac (1669), and Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (1670). He wrote the libretto for Lully's Le Mariage forcé (1664) and collaborated with Lully and Beauchamps on Les Festes de l'Amour et de Bacchus (1672). He died while performing in his own ballet, Le Malade imaginaire.

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Momix.

Modern dance company founded in 1980 by Moses Pendleton , co-founder of Pilobolus, and Alison Chase. It takes its name from a brand of cattle feed. Its members, known as ‘dancer-illusionists’, perform works which combine gymnastics, acrobatics, modern dance, circus, and visual theatre with imaginative lighting and props. The company frequently tours.

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Monahan , James

(b Arrah, India, 1912, d London, 23 Nov. 1985).
British dance critic. Educated at Oxford University. He was dance critic of the Guardian newspaper for more than 25 years (from 1935), writing under the name of James Kennedy . He was director of the Royal Ballet School (1978–83). Author of Fonteyn: A Study of the Ballerina in her Setting (London, 1958) and The Nature of Ballet (1976).

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Moncion , Francisco

(b La Vega, Dominican Republic, 6 July 1918, d Woodstock, NY, 1 Apr. 1995).
US dancer, choreographer, and painter. He studied at the School of American Ballet with Balanchine in New York (from 1938) and made his debut with the New Opera Company in 1942. He was a soloist with the Marquis de Cuevas's Ballet International and created the title role in Edward Caton's Sebastian and Massine's Mad Tristan (both 1944). In 1946 he joined Ballet Society (later New York City Ballet), where he remained for almost 40 years. He created roles in Balanchine's Four Temperaments (1946), Divertimento (1947), Symphony in C (1948), Orpheus (the Dark Angel, 1948), Firebird (1949), La Valse (1951), Ivesiana (1954), Episodes (1959), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1962), Don Quixote (1965), Jewels (‘Emeralds’, 1967). He also created roles in Ashton's Picnic at Tintagel (1952), and Robbins's The Guests (1949), Jinx (1949), Age of Anxiety (1950), Afternoon of a Faun (1953), and In the Night (1970). He also staged several works for NYCB, including Pastorale (mus. Turner , 1957) and Les Biches (mus. Poulenc , 1960). He retired in 1985.

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Monk , Meredith

(b New York, 20 Nov. 1942).
US dancer, choreographer, composer, film-maker, and performance artist. She made her debut as a performer in New York in 1964 after graduating from Sarah Lawrence College. Originally one of the leading voices on the American avant-garde scene, her interest in an interdisciplinary approach to performance often led her away from dance into theatre and opera. Her productions are frequently set outdoors or in novel performing spaces. Vessel (1971) was set in three different locations, the first part in Monk's loft, the second at the Performing Garage and the third in a car park. Juice (1969) started at the Guggenheim Museum and worked its way back to Monk's loft. In 1968 she formed a company called The House; in 1978 she added the Meredith Monk Vocal Ensemble. She has made many recordings and films, including Book of Days (1989). A list of her stage productions includes Me (1963), Blueprint (1967), Title: Title (1969), Needle-Brain Lloyd and the System's Kid (1970), Education of the Girlchild (1973), Quarry (1976), Recent Ruins (1979), Specimen Days (1981), The Games (1983), Book of Days (mus. Monk , 1985), Three Heavens and Hells (mus. Monk , 1992), American Archaeology No. 1: Roosevelt Island (mus. Monk , 1994), The Politics of Quiet (mus. Monk , 1996), and Magic Frequencies (Munich, 1998). She wrote the opera Atlas in 1991, which uses almost no text, only vocal sounds. In 1996 she was commissioned to create a Celebration Service, a non-sectarian worship service, for the Union Theological Seminary in New York.

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Monotones.

Ballet in one act with choreography and costumes by Ashton , and music by Satie . Premiered 24 Mar. 1965 by the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden with Lorrayne , Dowell , and Mead . Originally an abstract pas de trois set to Satie's Trois gymnopédies, it was such a success that Ashton added a second half (set to Satie's Trois gnossiennes) which was premiered 25 Apr. 1966 with Sibley , Georgina Parkinson , and Brian Shaw . The two parts are usually performed together as Monotones I and II (with Monotones II being the original pas de trois). Monotones II is for two men and one woman in white, while Monotones I is for one man and two women in green. The work, a fine piece of classical adagio writing, has been taken into the repertoires of the Joffrey Ballet (1974), the Australian Ballet (1975), and the San Francisco Ballet (1981).

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Montessu , Pauline (née Paul;

b Marseilles, 4 June 1805, d Amiens, 1 Aug. 1877).
French dancer. She studied with her brother Antoine Paul and made her debut in Lyons in 1813. In 1820 she joined the Paris Opera where she earned her place in the history books by dancing Lise in the first production of La Fille mal gardée to use the Hérold score (1828). She also created the title role in Aumer's Manon Lescaut in 1830.

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Monteux , Pierre

(b Paris, 4 Apr. 1875, d Hancock, Me., 1 July 1964).
French conductor. He was chief conductor of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes from 1911 to 1914 and continued to guest with the company until 1917. Although he had no experience as a ballet conductor when he was first hired by Diaghilev , he conducted the first production of Stravinsky's Petrushka (1911) and went on to conduct the premieres of Sacre du printemps (1913) and Le Rossignol (1914), Ravel's Daphnis and Chloe (1912), and Debussy's Jeux (1913).

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Montez , Lola (orig. Marie Dolores Eliza Rosanna Gilbert ;

b Limerick, 1818, d New York, 16 Jan. 1861).
Irish dancer. Although she made her living as a dancer, she made her reputation as an adventuress, and was the subject of scandals from Europe to Australia. Her dancing credentials were based on lessons she took in Seville. From there she toured Europe as a Spanish dancer, gathering lovers in her wake. She became the mistress of Ludwig I in Munich in 1846, an affair which eventually led to the King's abdication in 1848. There were further scandals in Paris, London, and Sydney before she finally settled in New York, where she spent the rest of her life. Her colourful story has inspired several novels, plays, and films while her character has appeared in several ballets, including Massine's Bacchanale (1939), Caton's Lola Montez (1946), and J. Carter's The Life and Death of Lola Montez (1954).

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Month in the Country, A.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Ashton , music by Chopin (arr. Lanchbery ), and designs by Julia Trevelyan Oman . Premiered 12 Feb. 1976 by the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden, with Seymour , Dowell , Grant , Rencher , Denise Nunn , and Sleep . Ashton based his ballet on Turgenev's play which tells of a love triangle between the mature Natalia Petrovna, her young ward Vera, and the handsome tutor Beliaev. Ashton's ballet, which gave Lynn Seymour one of the finest roles of her career, is a subtle and moving portrait of an older woman hopelessly attracted to a younger man.

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Monument for a Dead Boy.

Ballet in one act with choreography and libretto by van Dantzig , music by Jan Boerman , designs by van Schayk . Premiered 19 June 1965, by Dutch National Ballet, at the Stadsschouwburg in Amsterdam, with van Schayk and José Lainez . Using flashback and a non-linear narrative, the ballet tells the story of a repressed homosexual boy who is ultimately destroyed by his desires. At the time the subject-matter was controversially frank: not only did it portray homosexual love on stage, it also portrayed heterosexual love as brutal, even violent. This is the ballet which brought Rudi van Dantzig to international attention. It was revived for the Harkness Ballet in 1969, American Ballet Theatre in 1973, the Royal Danish Ballet, and Berlin Opera Ballet in 1976. Later famous interpreters of the boy included Nureyev who performed it with Dutch National Ballet in 1968.

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Moon Reindeer.

Ballet in one act with choreography and libretto by Cullberg , music by K. Riisager , designs by P. Falk . Premiered 22 Nov. 1957 by the Royal Danish Ballet in Copenhagen with Vangsaae, Kronstam, and Bjornsson. A Lapp girl is transformed into a white reindeer who lures young men to their deaths, until one of them breaks the magic spell and the girl is restored to human form. It was revived for the Royal Swedish Ballet in 1959 and for American Ballet Theatre in 1962.

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Moore , Lillian

(b Chase City, Va., 20 Sept. 1911, d New York, 28 July 1967).
US dancer, teacher, and dance writer. She studied with Balanchine , Vladimiroff , and Weidman . She joined the Metropolitan Opera Ballet at the age of 16. She performed with the American Ballet (1935–8) and with many other companies until 1954, and became the first US dancer to perform behind the Iron Curtain when she appeared in Budapest in 1948. Following her retirement in 1954 she took up teaching and was mostly associated with Joffrey's American Ballet Center (1958–67). She became one of America's leading dance historians. Author of Artists of the Dance (New York, 1938), Bournonville and Ballet Technique (with E. Bruhn , London, 1961) and Images of the Dance (New York, 1965). She was also editor of The Memoirs of Marius Petipa (London, 1958).

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Moor's Pavane, The.

Modern dance in one act with choreography by Limón , music by Purcell , and costumes by Pauline Lawrence . Premiered 17 Aug. 1949 by the José Limón Dance Company at Connecticut College in New London, Connecticut, with Limón , Betty Jones , Lucas Hoving , and Pauline Koner . Subtitled ‘Variations on the Theme of Othello’. A highly formalized work which takes its stylistic cue from the music, it tells the Shakespearian story of Othello and Desdemona using only four dancers. Considered to be Limón's signature work, it was taken into the repertoire of many companies, including American Ballet Theatre, the Paris Opera Ballet, the Joffrey Ballet, the Royal Danish Ballet, the Royal Swedish Ballet, and the National Ballet of Canada.

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Mordkin , Mikhail

(b Moscow, 21 Dec. 1880, d Millbrook, NJ, 15 July 1944).
Russian-US dancer, choreographer, teacher, and ballet director. He trained at the Bolshoi Ballet School in Moscow, graduating in 1899. Upon graduation he joined the Bolshoi Ballet as a soloist, and was appointed assistant ballet master five years later. He created the role of Matoh in Gorsky's Salammbo 1910, the Fisherman in Gorsky's Love is Quick (1913), Sonnewald in Gorsky's Schubertiana (1913), and Petronius in Gorsky's Eunice and Petronius (1915). He was part of Diaghilev's 1909 Paris season before taking up touring with Pavlova (who finally fell out with him over his demand for equal billing as her partner). By 1911 he had set up his own touring outfit, the All-Star Imperial Russian Ballet, which he took to America and for whom he staged a Swan Lake. In 1912 he returned to the Bolshoi as a principal dancer (until 1918), where he created the role of Khan in Gorsky's 1914 staging of The Humpbacked Horse. He continued to work throughout Russia staging ballets, particularly in Tbilisi, until he left in 1924. After time spent in Lithuania, he eventually settled in America in 1924 where he became a pioneer in the development of the country's ballet culture. In 1926 he founded the Mordkin Russian Ballet, but it was not a success. When his company disbanded, he worked as a teacher and freelance choreographer for opera. In 1937 he was able to revive his company using students from his New York school, including Lucia Chase (others included Katharine Hepburn and Judy Garland ). This short-lived troupe was the precursor to Ballet Theatre (later American Ballet Theatre), the latter having lured away Mordkin's dancers following a power struggle between himself and Richard Pleasant in 1939. He continued to teach in New York until his death. His ballets include The Goldfish (mus. N. Tcherepnin , 1937), Trepak (mus. A. Tcherepnin , 1937), Voices of Spring (mus. Strauss , 1938), and Dionysus (mus. Glazunov , 1938). He also staged Giselle, The Sleeping Beauty, and La Fille mal gardée for the Mordkin Ballet.

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Moreland , Barry

(b Melbourne, 1943).
Australian dancer and choreographer. He studied at the Australian Ballet School and joined the Australian Ballet in 1962. He continued his studies at the London School of Contemporary Dance and performed with London Contemporary Dance Theatre, for whom he made several works. From 1971 to 1975 he was resident choreographer of London Festival Ballet. In 1983 he was appointed artistic director of the West Australian Ballet in Perth, for whom he has made many works including Hamlet and Medea, along with stagings of The Nutcracker and A Midsummer Night's Dream. A list of his other works includes Nocturnal Dances (mus. P. M. Davies , 1970), Summer Games (mus. S. Barber , 1970), Kontakion (medieval music, 1972), all for LCDT; Summer Solstice (mus. J. Field , 1972), Dark Voyage (mus. Satie , 1973), In Nomine (mus. Davies , 1973), Prodigal Son (mus. Scott Joplin , 1974), all for London Festival Ballet; Sacred Space (mus. Bach , Australian Ballet, 1974); Infinite Pages (mus. Vivaldi , New London Ballet, 1973); Dancing Space (mus. Mozart , London Festival Ballet, 1975); Journey to Avalon (mus. P. M. Davies , London Festival Ballet, 1980).

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Moreton , Ursula

(b Southsea, 13 Mar. 1903; d London, 24 June 1973).
British dancer and teacher. She studied with Cecchetti and made her debut in the London production of The Truth about the Russian Dancers, a 1920 play starring Karsavina. In 1921 she appeared in the Diaghilev staging of The Sleeping Princess and also danced with Massine's company. Her teaching career began in 1926 when she was engaged by de Valois . In 1931 she was appointed ballet mistress of the Vic-Wells Ballet, and was assistant director of Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet from 1946 to 1952. From 1952 to 1968 she was director of the Royal Ballet School.

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Morishita , Yoko

(b Hiroshima, 7 Dec. 1948).
Japanese dancer. The first Japanese ballerina to achieve international acclaim. She studied with Michiko Suwa and Akiko Tachibana in Tokyo and later with Mikiko Matsuyama . She also studied with Igor Schwezoff in Tokyo, with Marika Besobrasova in Monaco in 1975 and with Alexandra Danilova in New York. In 1971 she joined the Matsuyama Ballet Company in Tokyo as a principal, eventually becoming prima ballerina. She made her debut as Odette-Odile with the Matsuyama Ballet in 1975; her first Giselle followed in 1977. She appeared as a guest artist with many companies around the world, including American Ballet Theatre, the Paris Opera, and the Stuttgart Ballet. She danced the leading role in Béjart's new work, Light, in 1982 in Brussels, as well as taking part in the Margot Fonteyn World Tour in 1978 and 1979. She was frequently partnered by Nureyev on concert tours and danced Kitri in his production of Don Quixote for the Nureyev Festival in London in 1980. She created the role of Moe in Shimizu's Mandala which the Matsuyama Ballet brought to the Edinburgh Festival in 1988. Gold Medal, Varna, 1974. She married the choreographer Tetsutaro Shimizu.

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Morrice , Norman

(b Agua Dulce, Mexico, 10 Sept. 1931).
British dancer, choreographer, and ballet director. He studied first in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, then at the Rambert School (from 1952), and later with Graham in New York. He joined Ballet Rambert in 1953 and became a principal dancer, taking up choreography in 1958 and eventually becoming Rambert's principal choreographer in 1962. In 1966, when the company rewrote itself into a modern dance outfit, he was named associate director, responsible for carrying out Rambert's new policy and thus becoming one of the most important figures in the development of contemporary dance in Britain in the 1960s. Full-length classical ballets were dropped from the repertoire; new work was promoted and Tetley was invited to work with the company. Morrice was joint director of Rambert (1970–4). He resigned to pursue a career as a choreographer, working with Rambert and the Batsheva company in Israel. His work reflected his interest in contemporary themes told in a contemporary style. In 1977 he was appointed director of the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden, where he remained until 1986. For the Royal he staged new productions of Swan Lake (1979) and Giselle (1980). He invited Richard Alston to make his first ballet, Midsummer, for the Royal in 1983. From 1987 he was director of choreographic studies at the Royal Ballet School. A list of his works includes Two Brothers (mus. Dohnányi , 1958), Hazana (mus. Surinach , 1959), A Place in the Desert (mus. Surinach , 1961), Conflicts (mus. Bloch , 1962), The Travellers (mus. Salzedo , 1963), Side Show (mus. Hindemith , 1966), Hazard (mus. Salzedo , 1967), Rehearsal (mus. Poulenc , 1968), Them and Us (mus. Xenakis , 1968), Blind-Sight (mus. Bob Downes, 1969), The Empty Suit (mus. Salzedo , 1970), That is the Show (mus. Berio , 1971), Spindrift (mus. J. Lewis , 1974), Trek (mus. Lester , 1975), Fragments from a Distant Past (mus. Janáek , Winnipeg Contemporary Dancers, 1976), and Seven Songs (Australian Dance Theatre, 1977).

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Morris , Margaret

(b London, 1891, d Glasgow, 29 Feb. 1980).
British dancer and teacher. She studied with John d'Auban and Raymond Duncan . She developed her own system of dancing based on free-style movement and taught it at her London school from 1910. She promoted her system through a performing group and through publications of the Margaret Morris Movement, which she founded in 1925. Like Laban, she devised her own system of notation. She was responsible for starting several companies in Scotland between 1947 and 1960, but all of them were short-lived. Author of Margaret Morris Dancing (1925), Notation of Movement (1928), and My Life in Movement (1969).

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Morris , Mark

(b Seattle, 29 Aug. 1956).
US dancer, choreographer, and company director. He studied flamenco with Verla Flowers and ballet with Perry Brunson in Seattle; also studied flamenco in Madrid. While still a teenager he joined a semi-professional Balkan dance troupe, the Koleda Folk Ensemble, whose communal style exerted a large influence on his later choreography. From 1976 he studied ballet with Maggie Black in New York. He danced with several companies in New York, including those of Eliot Feld , Lar Lubovitch , Hannah Kahn , and Laura Dean . In 1980 he founded his own New York-based troupe, the Mark Morris Dance Group, which is today one of the world's leading contemporary dance ensembles. In 1988 his troupe became the resident company at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels, with Morris appointed the Monnaie's ballet director, a post previously held by Béjart . During the next three years, using the generous resources of Belgium's national opera house, Morris produced work which confirmed his reputation; L'Allegro, il penseroso ed il moderato is considered to be one of the most significant modern dance works of the 1980s. In 1991 the company returned to America. Morris has worked as a guest choreographer with several ballet companies, including the Joffrey Ballet (Esteemed Guests, mus. C. P. E. Bach , 1986), American Ballet Theatre (Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes, mus. Virgil Thomson , 1988), Gong, mus. McPhee , 2000, Paris Opera Ballet (Ein Herz, mus. J. S. Bach , 1990), the Boston Ballet (Mort subite, mus. Poulenc , 1986), Les Grands Ballets Canadiens (Paukenschlag, mus. Haydn , 1992, and Quincunx, mus. Donizetti , 1995); and San Francisco Ballet (Maelstrom, mus. Beethoven , 1994, Pacific, mus. Harrison , 1995, and Sandpaper Ballet, mus. Leroy Anderson , 1999). An intensely musical choreographer, he has an enormous range, utilizing everything from the simple everyday movements of folk dance to the sophisticated articulation and pointe work of classical dance. He also made a point of treating men and women as equals in choreographic terms. He is capable of indulging his love of kitsch just as effectively as his love of formal structure, while he can veer from the primal power of a work like Grand Duo to the unabashed sentimentality of a work like New Love Song Waltzes, or the ecstasy of Gloria. And his irreverence can be wonderfully extravagant, as in The Hard Nut, his 1991 Brussels staging of The Nutcracker. Although he has a particular fondness for music of the Baroque period, he is equally comfortable with 20th-century popular music. As a dancer, possessed of a large and bulky frame, he exhibits a surprising grace, while his performance style combines innocence with sophistication. In 1990 he teamed up with Baryshnikov to co-found the White Oak Dance Project. He received the MacArthur Foundation Award, the so-called Genius Award , in 1991. A list of works for his own company includes Castor and Pollux (mus. Partch , 1980), Ten Suggestions (mus. Tcherepnin , 1981), Gloria (mus. Vivaldi , 1981), New Love Song Waltzes (mus. Brahms , 1982), Celestial Greetings (mus. popular Thai, 1983), Dogtown (mus. Yoko Ono , 1983), O Rangasayee (mus. Tyagaraja , 1984), Slugfest (no music, 1984), One Charming Night (mus. Purcell , 1985), Mythologies (mus. Garfein , 1986), Stabat Mater (mus. Pergolesi , 1986), Strict Songs (mus. Harrison , 1987), Scarlatti Solos (mus. Scarlatti , 1987), Offertorium (mus. Schubert , 1988), L'Allegro, il penseroso ed il moderato (mus. Handel , 1988), Dido and Aeneas (mus. Purcell , 1989), Love Song Waltzes (mus. Brahms , 1989), Wonderland (mus. Schoenberg , 1989), Behemoth (no mus., 1990), Going Away Party (mus. Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys, 1990), The Hard Nut (mus. Tchaikovsky , 1991), Beautiful Day (mus. Georg-Melchior Hoffmann , but attrib. Bach, 1992), Bedtime (mus. Schubert , 1992), Three Preludes (mus. Gershwin , 1992), Grand Duo (mus. Harrison , 1993), Mosaic and United (mus. Cowell , 1993), The Office (mus. Dvoák , 1994), Somebody's Coming to See Me Tonight (mus. Stephen Foster , 1995), World Power (mus. Harrison , 1995), I Don't Want To Love (mus. Monteverdi , 1996), Rhymes With Silver (mus. Harrison , 1997), Dancing Honeymoon (mus. various, 1998), and The Argument (mus. Schumann , 1999). For White Oak he choreographed Motorcade (mus. Saint-Saëns , 1990), A Lake (mus. Haydn , 1991), and Three Russian Preludes (mus. Shostakovich , 1995). He has also worked with the American composer John Adams , choreographing his operas Nixon in China (Houston Grand Opera, 1987) and The Death of Klinghoffer (Brussels, 1991). He also choreographed and directed Gluck's Orpheus and Euridice (1996) and Rameau's Platée (Royal Opera, 1997). In 1997 he made his Broadway debut, directing and choreographing the Paul Simon musical Capeman.

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morris dance.

English ceremonial folk dance which first appeared in England in the 15th century. Its origins are unknown, although it may have derived from the moresca, a dance found in Burgundy in the early 1400s. Traditionally danced by men wearing bells tied to their legs, it is composed of intricate steps and is usually performed in 2/4 time, although it can also be danced in 3/4 time. The dancers are made up to represent particular characters, such as Fool or Maid Marian , and a cardboard horse is also a regular feature. Some of the elements of morris dancing were used by Ashton in La Fille mal gardée.

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Moscow.

The Russian city has been one of the world's ballet capitals for almost two centuries. It is home to the Bolshoi Ballet, founded in the late 18th century and based at the Bolshoi Theatre. This is the city where Petipa's Don Quixote was first performed, also the site, in 1877, of the notorious first production of Reisinger's and Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. The other major company is the Stanislavsky Ballet which is based at Moscow's second opera house. During the 20th century, under the Communists, ballet in Moscow was well supported by the state and it was here that the heroic Soviet style flourished. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, small independent companies, such as Moscow City Ballet and Moscow Classical Ballet, began to proliferate. Since 1969 the city has hosted an International Ballet Competition which takes place every four years.

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Moscow Ballet School.

The school of the Bolshoi Ballet. It was founded in 1773 by the Italian dancing master Filippo Beccari and originally took its students from the Moscow Orphanage. In 1806 the school came under control of the Russian Imperial Theatres. Teachers in the early 19th century included I. Valberkh , A. Glushkovsky , and F. Hullin-Sor . In the 1860s the school moved to a new location on Neglinnaya Street. Although standards continued to improve through the 1800s, the Moscow school was always overshadowed by its great rival in St Petersburg. In the 1930s teachers from St Petersburg began working in Moscow, among them Gerdt, Kozhukhova, and Gusev. In 1967 the school opened a new building, the largest ballet school in the world, with 20 studios and its own theatre. Also known as the Moscow Choreographic School and the Bolshoi Ballet School.

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Moscow City Ballet.

International touring company based in Moscow. It was founded by Victor Smirnov-Golovanov , a former dancer with the Bolshoi Ballet, in 1988 and tours with a repertoire of 19th-century Russian classics.

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Mottram , Simon

(b Woodford, 3 July 1937).
British dancer and ballet director. He studied at the Rambert School and joined Ballet Rambert in 1954. Two years later he moved to the Royal Ballet's touring company and was appointed a soloist in 1959. He danced with London Festival Ballet, the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas, Western Theatre Ballet (1962–5, 1966–8), the Royal Swedish Ballet, Netherlands Dance Theatre (1968–70), Northern Dance Theatre (1971–2), and New London Ballet (1973–5). He was ballet master of Netherlands Dance Theatre (1975–9) and artistic director of the Royal Swedish Ballet (1993–5).

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Mounsey , Yvonne

(b Pretoria, 1919).
South African dancer. She studied with Schwezoff in London, Preobrajenska and Egorova in Paris, and at the School of American Ballet in New York. She joined Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in 1939 and later danced with de Basil's Original Ballet Russe (1940–1). She also had a company of her own in South Africa in the late 1940s. She joined New York City Ballet in 1949 and was named a soloist in 1950. She created roles in Robbins's The Cage (1951) and The Concert (1956), Ashton's Picnic at Tintagel (1952), and Balanchine's Nutcracker (1954). She was particularly praised for her performance as the Siren in Balanchine's Prodigal Son. She retired from NYCB in 1958 and returned to South Africa where she helped to launch the Johannesburg City Ballet. In the 1960s she settled in Los Angeles, where she taught for more than three decades at her own school.

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Moves.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Robbins . Premiered 3 July 1959 by Ballets USA at Spoleto. Robbins described it as ‘a ballet in silence about relationships … between people—man and woman, one and another, the individual and the group’. It was revived for City Center Joffrey Ballet in 1969 and for Netherlands Dance Theatre in 1973.

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Moving Being.

British company formed in 1968 by the choreographer and producer Geoff Moore. It brought together dancers, actors, designers, and film-makers. Their stated aim was ‘to create a context for the development of a theatre language capable of expressing a range of ideas not accessible to existing forms of dance, theatre or event’. In 1972 the company moved to Cardiff's Chapter House arts centre, although it disbanded shortly thereafter. Moore scripted, designed, choreographed, and produced many productions for Moving Being.

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Mozart , Wolfgang Amadeus

(b Salzburg, 27 Jan. 1756, d Vienna, 5 Dec. 1791).
Austrian composer. He wrote the music for Noverre's Les Petits Riens (Paris, 1778) and wrote many dances and sets of dances. His concert music, however, has been used by several choreographers, including Balanchine (Symphonie concertante, Divertimento No. 15), Arpino (Secret Places), van Manen (Quintet), and Kylián (Six Dances, Petite mort).

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Mozartiana.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Balanchine , music by Tchaikovsky , and designs by Bérard . Premiered 7 June 1933, by Les Ballets 1933 at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris with Toumanova and Jasinsky. An exuberant plotless ballet set to Tchaikovsky's 4th Suite for Orchestra, it was the choreographer's first major Tchaikovsky ballet. Toumanova was 14 when he made it for her. Balanchine staged a new version for New York City Ballet in 1981, with Farrell and Ib Anderson , and new costumes by Rouben Ter-Arutunian that heightened Balanchine's memento mori theme. It was his last major work before his death.

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mudra.

A gesture found in Hindu dancing, described by Lama Anagarika in Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism as a ‘bodily gesture, especially of hands, which accent the ritual act and the mantric word, as well as the inner attitude which is emphasised and expressed by this gesture’. Béjart chose Mudra as the name for his school in Brussels.

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Mukhamedov , Irek

(b Kazan, 8 Mar. 1960).
Russian dancer. He studied at the Moscow Ballet School, a pupil of Alexander Prokofiev (1970–8). Upon graduation he joined the Classical Ballet Company, the troupe which Moiseyev had founded in 1967 (originally named the Young Ballet) as a touring outfit. He spent three years with the company, during which he took part in several world tours. It was with this company that he first danced Romeo, a role that was to become one of his most acclaimed. After winning the Grand Prix at the Moscow International Ballet Competition in 1981, he was invited to join the Bolshoi in 1981 as a principal. There he quickly established himself as Grigorovich's favourite male dancer, his athletic and heroic style being perfectly suited to the choreographer's theatrical vision. He starred in Grigorovich's Spartacus, Ivan the Terrible, and Romeo and Juliet and in 1984 created the role of Boris in Grigorovich's The Golden Age. His foreign tours with the Bolshoi earned him international adulation, and he was widely regarded as the most exciting and powerful male dancer of his day. In 1989 he was invited to the Paris Opera to dance the role of the Prince in Nureyev's staging of The Sleeping Beauty. In 1990 he left Russia to join the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden, where his roles included Solor and Romeo. He found a mentor in the choreographer Kenneth MacMillan , who helped to develop the dancer's dramatic range and refine his powerhouse style. MacMillan created Winter Dreams for Mukhamedov (partnering Bussell) in 1991 and The Judas Tree for him in 1992. In addition, Mukhamedov inherited the leading male roles in MacMillan's Manon (1991) and Mayerling (1992). A stocky and muscular dancer, he was never ideally suited to the prince roles but he has none the less distinguished himself in a wide range of repertoire. He created leading roles in Tharp's Mr Worldly Wise, Ashley Page's Fearful Symmetries, now languorous, now wild, and Cheating, Lying, Stealing, and in William Tuckett's The Turn of the Screw and The Crucible. With Arc Dance Company he created the title roles in Othello (1994) and The Return of Don Juan (1999). In 1998 he left the Royal Ballet, although he continued to appear as a guest artist. In 1992 he founded Irek Mukhamedov and Company, which has toured intermittently.

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Muller , Jennifer

(b Yonkers, NY, 16 Oct. 1944).
US dancer and choreographer. She studied at the Juilliard School, and with Limón, Graham, Tudor, Craske, Horst, and Sokolow. She danced with the Limón Dance Company (1963–71) and with Louis Falco's company (1968–74). She formed her own company, Jennifer Muller and the Works, in 1974. For Netherlands Dance Theatre she made An American Beauty Rose (1974) and Strangers (1975). A list of her works includes Tub (1973), Speeds (1974), Beach (1976), Darkness and Light (1986), HUMAN/NATURE: A Response to the Longhouse Gardens (1993), The Waiting Room (1993), and Point of View: A Case of Persimmons and Picasso (1994).

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Munich Ballet.

See Bavarian State Ballet.

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Murphy , Graeme

(b Melbourne, 2 Nov. 1950).
Australian dancer, choreographer, and company director. He studied at the Australian Ballet School (1966–8); later studies at the Joffrey School in New York. He danced with Australian Ballet, Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet, and Félix Blaska's company in France. He choreographed his first work, Ecco le diavole, in 1971. In 1975 he returned to Australia as a freelance choreographer. In 1976 he was appointed artistic director of the Dance Company of New South Wales (later renamed the Sydney Dance Company) for which he has choreographed more than 40 works. He created his first full-length work, Poppy (about the life of Jean Cocteau), for the company in 1978, and has since created more than twenty full-evening works. For the Australian Ballet he created Beyond Twelve (1980), Gallery (1987), and The Nutcracker (1992). For the Australian Opera he directed Metamorphosis (1985), Turandot (1990), Salome (1993), and The Trojans (1994). A list of his danceworks includes Daphnis and Chloe (1980), After Venice (mus. Messiaen , 1984), Boxes (1985), Kraanerg (1988), Soft Bruising (1990), Piano Sonata (1992), Synergy with Synergy (1992), The Protecting Veil (1993), Beauty and the Beast (1993), Berlin (1995), Free Radicals (1997), Salome (1998), and Air and Other Invisible Forces (1999). In 1996 he created Embodied for Mikhail Baryshnikov's White Oak Dance Project.

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Murray , Arthur and Murray , Kathryn.

One of America's most famous ballroom dancing couples, they helped to popularize ballroom dancing through a network of studios which provided dance instruction. Arthur Murray (b New York, 1895, d Honolulu, 1991) trained with Irene and Vernon Castle and in the 1920s began to sell dancing lessons via mail, by sending out footprint diagrams designed to teach students the steps of the popular social dances. The venture was so successful that he sold millions of lessons by mail. He is credited with creating many of the standard steps still used today in the foxtrot and the rumba. In the 1930s he began to franchise studios of dance instruction and for the next 30 years oversaw their proliferation. He and Kathryn, who died in 1999 at the age of 92, also presented a long-running television series in the 1950s which promoted ballroom dancing. Today there are more than 200 Arthur Murray studios in the US.

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musette

(Fr., bagpipe). Dance performed in 2/4, 3/4, or even 6/8 time and related to the gavotte. So named because it is danced to a bass drone like a bagpipe, it was popular at the courts of Louis XIV and XV.

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Mussorgsky , Modest

(b Karevo, 21 Mar. 1839, d St Petersburg, 28 Mar. 1881).
Russian composer. Although he wrote no ballet music, his Night on the Bare Mountain has attracted several choreographers (Gorsky in 1918, Nijinska in 1924, Lichine in 1943), while Pictures at an Exhibition has been turned into ballets by Nijinska (1944), Hanka (Vienna, 1947), Lopukhov (Moscow, 1963), and Neumeier (Frankfurt, 1972).

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Mutations.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Tetley , film choreography by van Manen , music by Stockhausen , set by Baylis , and costumes by Emmy van Leersum and Gijs Bakker . Film realization was by J. P. Vroom , lighting by J. B. Read . Premiered 3 July 1970 by Netherlands Dance Theatre at the Circus Theatre in Scheveningen, with J. Meyer , Flier , Sarstädt , Lemaitre , and A. Licher . The piece incorporates film and live dance.

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My Brother, My Sisters.

Ballet in one act with choreography by MacMillan , music by Schoenberg and Webern, designs by Y. Sonnabend . Premiered 21 May 1978 by the Stuttgart Ballet with Cragun, Keil, Montagnon, and Reid Anderson. The ballet shows the disturbing and even murderous relationships between a brother and his five sisters, who live in a dangerous fantasy world. The ballet also features a mysterious figure known as He who haunts the background. MacMillan revived it for the Royal Ballet in 1980.

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Mythical Hunters.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Tetley , music by Oedoen Partos , costumes by Anthony Binstead . Premiered 25 Nov. 1965 in Ohel-Shem by the Batsheva Dance Company. In the ballet, the hunter becomes the hunted. It was revived for Netherlands Dance Theatre (1968), Stuttgart Ballet (1972), and was filmed by German television with Tetley's own company (1969).

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N

Nabokov , Nicolas or Nicolai Nabokov

(b Lubcha nr. Minsk, 17 Apr. 1903, d New York, 6 Apr. 1978).
Russian-US composer. He studied music in Russia and Germany and during the Second World War worked for the US State Department. He wrote the music for Massine's ballet-oratorio Ode (1928), which was produced by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. He also wrote the music for Massine's Union Pacific (1934) and Balanchine's Don Quixote (1965). Author of Old Friends and New Music (Boston, 1951).

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Nádasi , Ferenc

(b Budapest, 16 Oct. 1893, d Budapest, 20 Feb. 1966).
Hungarian dancer, choreographer, teacher, and ballet master. Born illegitimate and raised as a foster child, he discovered ballet through his godmother who worked as a cleaning woman for the ballet master Jakab Holczer . Holczer took him on board as student and virtual stepson. Nádasi also studied with Henrietta Spinzi and Nicholas Guerra in Hungary and later with Cecchetti in St Petersburg. In 1910 he toured Russia while still a student with a group organized by Holczer . From 1913 to 1921 he was a dancer with the Budapest State Opera Ballet, and became the first male soloist ever engaged by the company. After leaving the opera house, he embarked on more than a decade of European touring, performing classical ballet as part of a variety bill with his wife, Marcelle Vuillet-Baum . In 1936 he returned to the Budapest State Opera and became ballet master and eventually artistic director there (1959–61). He was the first director of the Budapest State Ballet Institute (from 1950) and was responsible for training an entire generation of leading Hungarian dancers. He was also head of a group of teachers who produced Method of Classic Dance (1963), one of the standard works of classical ballet training. His works for the Hungarian State Opera Ballet include Sylvia (1943), Le Spectre de la rose (1948), and The Birthday of the Infanta (1959). Merited Artist of the Republic and Order of Merit, first class.

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Nagrin , Daniel

(b New York, 22 May 1917).
US dancer and choreographer. He studied modern dance with Helen Tamiris , Anna Sokolow , and Martha Graham . He also studied acting. After service in the US Air Force, he danced in various Broadway musicals including Up in Central Park (1945), Annie Get Your Gun (1946), Touch and Go (1949), and Plain and Fancy (1954). He achieved fame as a solo artist, performing his own choreography, and for 25 years he collaborated with Tamiris , who was his wife (they divorced in 1964). In 1960 they formed the Tamiris-Nagrin Dance Company. He later directed the improvisational dance company Workgroup. He retired from performing in 1981 and continues to teach and choreograph. Professor of dance at Arizona State University (1982–92). Author of How to Dance Forever (1988), Dance and the Specific Image: Improvisation (1994), and The Six Questions: Acting Technique for Dance Performance (1998).

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Nagy , Ivan

(b Debrecen, 28 Apr. 1943).
Hungarian dancer and ballet director. He studied at the Budapest State Ballet Institute and joined the Budapest State Opera in 1960, the Washington National Ballet in 1965, and New York City Ballet in 1968. From 1968 to 1978 he was a principal dancer with American Ballet Theatre. He created leading roles in Smuin's Gartenfest (1968) and Eternal Idol (1969), in Nahat's Brahms Quintet (1969), and Ailey's The River (1970). A gifted danseur noble, and an outstanding Albrecht, he was a favourite partner of many ballerinas, including Fonteyn and Makarova. After retiring as a dancer, he served as artistic director of the Santiago Ballet (1982–9), Cincinnati Ballet, and English National Ballet (1990–3). In 1995 he returned to the Santiago Ballet as director.

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Naharin , Ohad

(b Israel, 22 June 1952).
Israeli dancer, choreographer, musician, and company director. He studied dance as an apprentice with the Batsheva Dance Company. Further studies in New York at the Juilliard School and at the Graham school. He danced with Graham , with Béjart's Ballet of the 20th Century in Brussels, and with Bat-Dor in Israel. He performed with his own small troupe in New York (from 1980) and worked as a freelance choreographer in Israel and abroad. In 1990 he became artistic director of Batsheva Dance Company. One of his first successes there was Kyr, a full-length work for which he also composed the music with the Tractor's Revenge, an Israeli rock group. Another popular work is the full-length Anaphase (1993). His dances are in the repertoires of many companies, including Netherlands Dance Theatre, Sydney Dance Company, Bavarian State Ballet, Lyons Opera Ballet, Cullberg Ballet, Frankfurt Ballet, and Rambert Dance Company. His Axioma 7 (mus. Bach ) was created for the Geneva Ballet in 1991 and was subsequently taken into the Rambert repertoire (1994).

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Nahat , Dennis

(b Detroit, 20 Feb. 1946).
US dancer, choreographer, and director. He studied at the Juilliard School, at the American Ballet Center, and at the School of American Ballet. He made his debut with the Joffrey Ballet in 1965, and from 1968 to 1971 was with American Ballet Theatre. In 1969 he began to choreograph. His ballets include Brahms Quintet (1969), Mendelssohn Symphony (Italian Symphony, 1971), and Some Times (mus. Claus Ogerman , 1972). In 1976 he and Ian Horvath founded the Cleveland Ballet (later the Cleveland-San Jose Ballet). He has had a long association with the company, first as resident choreographer and then, from 1984, as artistic director. He has staged versions of The Nutcracker, Romeo and Juliet, Giselle, Coppélia, and A Midsummer Night's Dream, and among his original creations for Cleveland is Celebrations and Ode, set to Beethoven's 7th Symphony and the final movement of his 9th. In 1993 he and Robert Barnett , artistic director of the Atlanta Ballet, presented both companies in a successful version of Swan Lake that used Nahat's choreography.

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Namouna.

Ballet in two acts with choreography by Lucien Petipa , libretto by Petipa and Charles Nuitter , music by É. Lalo , sets by Rubé , Chaperon , and J. B. Lavastre , and costumes by Eugène Lacoste . Premiered 6 Mar. 1882 at the Paris Opera with Rita Sangalli , Mérante , and Pluque . The ballet, which is set in the 17th century on the island of Corfu, tells the story of Lord Adriani who loses everything, including Namouna, his favourite slave-girl, in a bet with Count Ottavio. Peter Wright staged a new version for the Stuttgart Ballet in 1967.

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Napoli, or The Fisherman and His Bride.

Ballet in three acts with choreography and libretto by Bournonville , music by H. S. Paulli , E. Helsted , N. W. Gade , and H. Lumbye , and design by C. F. Christensen . Premiered 29 Mar. 1842 by the Royal Danish Ballet in Copenhagen with Bournonville, Caroline Fjeldsted, and Füssel. One of the most popular of all Danish ballets, it tells the story of Teresina, bride-to-be of the Neapolitan fisherman Gennaro. She is swept overboard in a storm, is saved by a sea-sprite named Golfo and spirited away to a blue grotto on the Island of Capri where Golfo turns her into a naiad. There Gennaro tracks her down and breaks the spell; the exuberant third act celebrates their wedding. It is usually only the third act, with its lively divertissements mainly credited to Hans Beck, which is now performed. However, the full-length ballet is still in the repertoire of the Royal Danish Ballet. Peter Schaufuss staged a full-length production for the National Ballet of Canada in 1981 and for English National Ballet in 1989. Its first full production by a British company was P. Gnatt's staging for Scottish Ballet in 1978. The divertissement from the last act was in the repertoire of the Royal Ballet (1962), staged by Bruhn , and American Ballet Theatre (1974), staged by H. Brenaa .

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National Ballet of Canada.

Canada's leading ballet company, it was founded in Toronto in 1951 and modelled on the Sadler's Wells Ballet. Its founder director was Celia Franca , who had been a dancer with the British company and had been recommended to the Canadians by Ninette de Valois . Its early allegiance was to the classics, a grounding it never forgot even as it widened its repertoire to embrace the newest ideas in classical dance. Ashton , Tudor , de Valois , Howard , Cranko , and MacMillan were choreographers represented at the beginning; later came Balanchine , Bruhn , Petit , Peter Wright , Nureyev , Neumeier , Tetley , and—most significantly today—the Canadian James Kudelka , who became artistic director in 1996. There have always been full-length stagings of the classics, from Franca's Nutcracker (1964) to Bruhn's controversial Swan Lake (1966), to Cranko's staple, Romeo and Juliet, to Nureyev's bank-busting Sleeping Beauty (1972), which drew on his memories of the Kirov's staging. In recent years Kudelka has added a new Nutcracker (1995) and a new Swan Lake (1999) to the repertoire. The company visited London for the first time in 1972; it has regular seasons in New York. Following Franca's resignation in 1974, the company was led by Alexander Grant (1976–83) from the Royal Ballet, who brought the company even closer to the Covent Garden model and introduced many Ashton ballets into the repertoire. He was succeeded in 1983 by Erik Bruhn , who brought modern dance influences into the company's style and repertoire, and emphasized the creation of new work, including ballets from Tetley. Bruhn's untimely death three years later was a serious blow to the company. Subsequent directors included Reid Anderson (1989–96). Most of the company's dancers were trained at the National Ballet School, founded by Franca and Betty Oliphant in 1959. The company has been home to several outstanding ballerinas, including Veronica Tennant and, most famously, Karen Kain .

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National Ballet of Cuba.

Company based in Havana and founded by Alicia Alonso and Fernando Alonso with Alberto Alonso as chief choreographer. The company gave its first performances as the Ballet Alicia Alonso in 1948; it was then Cuba's first professional ballet company. It took the title Ballet de Cuba in 1955 and National Ballet of Cuba in 1959 following the revolution (which also led to its being granted a healthy state subsidy by the Castro regime). Since then Cuban dancers have won international acclaim for their brilliant technique and appealing stage personalities. Alicia Alonso , from the first the company's prima ballerina, has continued to run the company since its inception. The repertoire is wide, embracing all the 19th-century Russian and French classics, as well as 20th-century works by Balanchine , Tudor , Robbins , Béjart , and Forsythe . Alonso herself has also contributed many ballets to the repertoire, and home-grown choreographers have made work that reflects the company's Cuban identity. The company made its US debut in 1978, and its British debut at the 1979 Edinburgh Festival. Its most successful production is Giselle, staged by Alicia Alonso (who danced the title role for many years) and taken around the world with enormous success. The company's official school was established in 1959.

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National Ballet of Mexico.

See Bravo , Guillermina.

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National Ballet of Spain.

In 1978 the Spanish Ministry of Culture asked Antonio Gades to form a national dance company (Ballet Nacional Español), Spain's first. In 1979 Victor Ullate was invited to form the classically based Ballet Nacional Clásico. In 1983 María de Avila assumed responsibility for both companies; in 1986 she stepped down. From 1987 to 1990 the classical ballet company was run by Maya Plisetskaya ; in 1990 it was renamed Compañía Nacional de Danza and Nacho Duato was appointed director. He has moved the repertoire away from its classical ballet roots and into contemporary dance. Ballet Nacional Español, meanwhile, continues to focus on the traditional Spanish dance heritage.

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National Choreographic Summer School.

See International Course for Professional Choreographers and Composers.

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national dance.

See character dance.

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National Dance Company of Ghana.

Company founded in 1961 at the Dance Department of the University of Ghana under the direction of Albert Opoku . Its aim was to preserve and develop black African dance.

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Nationale Ballet, Het.

See Dutch National Ballet.

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Nault , Fernand

(b Montreal, 27 Dec. 1921).
Canadian dancer, choreographer, ballet master, and teacher. He studied with Maurice Lacasse-Morenoff and Elizabeth Leese , and with Craske , Volkova , and Preobrajenska . He was with Ballet Theatre (later American Ballet Theatre) from 1944 to 1965, first as a dancer and then as ballet master and co-director of the school (1958). In 1965 he joined Les Grands Ballets Canadiens in his native Montreal as co-artistic director and chief choreographer, and was largely influential in establishing the company's international reputation (and keeping it afloat at the box office). He resigned as co-artistic director in 1974, while remaining as resident choreographer. His ballets include La Fille mal gardée (Joffrey Ballet, 1960), Carmina Burana (mus. Orff , Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, 1966, revived 1993), Symphony of Psalms (mus. Stravinsky , 1970), and Tommy (mus. The Who, 1970), a phenomenally successful rock ballet for Les Grands Ballets. A list of his other works for Montreal includes Hip and Straight (1967), Cérémonie (1972), Incohérence (1976), Liberté tempérée (1976), La Scouine (1977), Aurkhi (1978), and Les Sept Péchés capitaux (1978). Artistic director Colorado Ballet (1981–2). Currently choreographer emeritus of Les Grands Ballets Canadiens. Knight of the Ordre National, Quebec (1990).

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Neary , Patricia

(b Miami, 27 Oct. 1942).
US dancer, ballet mistress, and director. She studied with Georges Milenoff , at the National Ballet School of Canada, and at the School of American Ballet. In 1960 she joined New York City Ballet, where her exceptional height and attacking speed as a dancer were ideal for the Balanchine style. In 1962 she was appointed a soloist, but although she performed almost all the ballerina roles in the Balanchine repertoire, he created only two roles for her, in Raymonda Variations (1961) and Jewels (1967). In 1968 she left New York City Ballet, embarking on a peripatetic career in Europe as ballet mistress, director, and prolific stager of Balanchine ballets. A tireless ambassador for his work, she has mounted more than twenty of his ballets in numerous productions worldwide. She was ballet mistress of the Berlin Opera Ballet (1971–3), director of Geneva Ballet (1973–8) and Zurich Ballet (1978–85), and ballet director of La Scala in Milan (1986–7). She was also artistic director of Ballet British Columbia (1989–90), for whom she choreographed Variations concertantes (mus. Ginastera , 1990). Since 1988 she has worked for the Balanchine Trust.

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Nebrada , Vicente

(b Caracas, 31 Mar. 1932).
Venezuelan dancer, choreographer, and ballet director. He studied with teachers in Venezuela and the US and performed with the Ballets de Paris, the Robert Joffrey Ballet, and the Harkness Ballet. It was with the last that he achieved his greatest success, first as ballet master and then as resident choreographer. His ballets include Percussions for Six (or Percussion for Six Men), Schubert Variations, and Gemini. In 1977 he was appointed artistic director and resident choreographer of Ballet Internacional de Caracas, and brought many dancers from the defunct Harkness company with him. He also invited US and Canadian choreographers such as Alvin Ailey , Brian Macdonald , and Margo Sappington to work with the Caracas company. In the mid-1980s he became artistic director of the Ballet Nacional de Caracas Teresa Carreño, for whom he staged many works, including The Firebird (1984), Doble Corchea, and Inez de Castro, as well as productions of Romeo and Juliet, Coppélia, Don Quixote, Swan Lake, and Cinderella.

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Nederlands Dans Theater.

See Netherlands Dance Theatre.

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Negri , Cesare

(b Milan, c.1536 or 1535, d after 1604).
Italian dancer, dance master, and dance theorist. From c.1554 he taught dance in Milan; many of his students went on to become dancing masters to royal households across Europe. As a performer, he appeared in masques and royal festivities. From 1569 he also choreographed mascarades and intermedios for royal courts, elaborate allegorical works with enormous casts. He was one of the first to write about dance. His major work was Le gratie d'amore, di Cesare Negri Milanese, detto il Trombone, which was published in Milan in 1602 and reissued two years later as Nuove inventioni di balli. It was reprinted in New York in 1969. The largest dance manual published in the 16th century, it included detailed information on technique, choreography, and historical observation.

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Nemchinova , Vera

(b Moscow, 26 Aug. 1899, d New York 22 July 1984).
Russian dancer and teacher. She studied privately with Lydia Nelidova in Moscow from 1911 and with Elizabeth Anderson from 1914. Later she studied with both Nikolai Legat and Enrico Cecchetti . In 1915 she was recruited to join the corps de ballet of Diaghilev's company, and remained with the Ballets Russes until 1926. In 1921 she was named principal dancer and in her final years with Diaghilev she was his prima ballerina assoluta. She created roles in Massine's Boutique fantasque (1919), Pulcinella (1920), and Les Matelots (1925), and in Nijinska's Les Biches (1924), a memorable role as the girl in blue. Her career after leaving Diaghilev was peripatetic. She danced with the Cochran Revue in London, with the Mordkin Ballet on its US tour, with the Lithuanian State Opera Ballet at Kaunas (1931–5), and with Blum's Ballets de Monte Carlo (from 1936), where she created a leading role in Fokine's 1936 L'Épreuve d'amour. She also danced with the Markova-Dolin Ballet, with de Basil's Original Ballet Russe and, after moving to New York in 1941, with Ballet Theatre. She was founder, with Anton Dolin , of the Nemchinova-Dolin Ballet in 1927, and created leading roles in Dolin's The Nightingale and the Rose and Rhapsody in Blue. She was also founder and ballerina of Ballets Russes de Vera Nemchinova (1928–30), for which Balanchine created Aubade (1930) with Nemchinova in the role of Diana. She toured S. America and guested in Latvia. For almost 40 years she taught in New York at her own studio.

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neo-classical.

A style of 20th-century classical ballet exemplified by the works of Balanchine . It draws on the advanced technique of 19th-century Russian Imperial dance but strips it of its detailed narrative and heavy theatrical setting. What is left is the dance itself, sophisticated but sleekly modern, retaining the pointe shoe aesthetic but eschewing the well-upholstered drama and mime of the full-length story ballet.

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Nerina , Nadia

(b Cape Town, 21 Oct. 1927).
South African dancer. She studied in South Africa with Eileen Keegan , Dorothy McNair , and H. Grinter . In 1945 she went to London where she studied at both the Rambert School and the Sadler's Wells Ballet School. She joined Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet in 1946, becoming a soloist with Sadler's Wells Ballet (later the Royal Ballet) in 1947 and principal in 1952. She created leading roles in Howard's Mardi gras (1946), Ashton's Cinderella (1948), Homage to the Queen (1953), Variations on a Theme by Purcell (1955), Birthday Offering (1956), and La Fille mal gardée (Lise, 1960), in MacMillan's Noctambules (1956), Helpmann's Elektra (1963), and Darrell's Home (Western Theatre Ballet, 1965). She toured extensively with Alexis Rassine in the 1950s and in 1960 she appeared as a guest artist at the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow and at the Kirov in Leningrad. A virtuoso soubrette dancer noted for her light, springy jumps, strong feet, and sunny disposition, she was a favourite of Ashton's . She retired in 1969. For many years she was patron of the London-based Cecchetti Society.

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Netherlands.

The development of theatrical dance in the Netherlands has historically centred on Amsterdam. The first ballet performances took place there in 1642 and 1645 (Ballet of the Five Senses). The first Amsterdam-based choreographer of note was Pietro Nieri whose most famous ballet was Peasant Life (1762). In the 19th century romantic ballet took hold through the choreographer Piet Grieve , whose most important work was The Golden Magic Rose or Harlequin Freed from Slavery (1819). Andries Voitus van Hamme (1828–68) made 115 three-act ballets for his own company of 60 dancers; his son, Anton , was also an active choreographer (1871–87). But after 1890 ballet found itself reduced to a role as an appendix to the opera and there was little in the way of local creativity. There were visiting stars, however, including Fuller, Duncan, and Pavlova, although home-grown modern dancers found a much smaller audience. In 1941 the Ballet of the Amsterdam Stadsschouwburg became an influential organization in the development of dance in the country. After the Second World War companies like the Scapino Ballet and the Netherlands Opera Ballet and the Ballet der Lage Landen (the latter two united in 1959 as the Amsterdam Ballet) began to put the country on the ballet map. In 1954 Sonia Gaskell established the Netherlands Ballet, out of which eventually emerged Dutch National Ballet in 1961. Only two years earlier, a group of breakaway dancers had left her company to found the Netherlands Dance Theatre in The Hague. Today the most important companies in the country are Dutch National Ballet, Netherlands Dance Theatre, and the Scapino Ballet.

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Netherlands Dance Theatre.

One of the most successful dance companies in the world, it was founded in 1959 by a group of breakaway dancers from Sonia Gaskell's Netherlands Ballet. They based their new company in The Hague, where it remains today, housed in well-equipped purpose-built facilities. In 1960 Hans van Manen became the company's coartistic director (with Benjamin Harkarvy ) and chief choreographer. From the beginning the company eschewed the classics and the hierarchy of classical ballet and built up an impressive repertoire of experimental Dutch work with a modern dance slant. Seeking to embrace the new ideas in dance which were sweeping America, the company became the first in Europe to give its members classes in modern dance technique. American modern dance choreographers such as Butler , Sokolow , and Tetley worked with NDT and heavily influenced its style. Important works of the 1960s and early 1970s include Butler's Carmina Burana, Tetley's Pierrot lunaire, Mythical Hunters, Circles, Embrace Tiger and Return to Mountain, van Manen's Symphony in Three Movements, Five Sketches, and Grosse Fuge. When Harkarvy, one of NDT's founders, resigned as co-artistic director in 1969, van Manen and Tetley assumed joint direction. Van Manen left in 1970 (although he returned in 1988 as resident choreographer) and the company fell into a creative doldrums, but it was revitalized by the arrival in 1975 of the Czech choreographer Jií Kylián . As artistic director he not only rewrote the repertoire in his own image, he also led the company to unprecedented international success. Kylián's works for NDT number about 50 and include Transfigured Night (1975), Symphony in D (1976), Symphony of Psalms (1978), Sinfonietta (1978), Glagolitic Mass (1979), Field Mass (1980), Forgotten Land (1981), Falling Angels (1989), Petite mort (1991), and Bella Figura (1995). So successful was Kylián's leadership that he was able to create two smaller offshoot companies:NDT2, for junior dancers, and NDT3, for dancers of retirement age. In 1995 Kylián celebrated his twenty years with NDT by staging Arcimboldo, which brought together all three NDT companies. In 1999 he stepped down as artistic director and was succeeded by Marian Sarstädt .

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Neumeier , John

(b Milwaukee, 24 Feb. 1942).
US dancer, choreographer, and ballet director. He studied ballet with Sheila Reilly in Milwaukee, with Bentley Stone and Walter Camryn in Chicago (1957–62), with Vera Volkova in Copenhagen, and at the Royal Ballet School in London (1962–3). He also studied modern dance with Sybil Shearer in Chicago from 1957. Although he danced briefly with the Shearer company in Chicago (1960–2), he has spent virtually his entire career in Germany. He danced with the Stuttgart Ballet (1963–9), where he began to choreograph, and was named director of the Frankfurt Ballet (1969–73) when he was only 27 years old. In 1973 he became director of the Hamburg Ballet, a position he has held ever since. As chief choreographer and artistic director he has made Hamburg the second most important centre for ballet in Germany, second only to Stuttgart. In 1978 he became director of the newly founded Hamburg Ballet School. He has created numerous ballets for Hamburg showing a wide range of styles, from traditional narrative to dance that deals with philosophical and theological concerns. He has choreographed extensively for other companies, including the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, the Royal Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, the National Ballet of Canada, the Paris Opera Ballet, the Vienna State Opera Ballet, the Royal Danish Ballet, and the Stuttgart Ballet. A list of his works includes Separate Journeys (mus. Barber , 1968), Rondo (1970), Romeo and Juliet, The Nutcracker (both 1971), Baiser de la fée (mus. Stravinsky , 1972), Daphnis and Chloe (mus. Ravel , 1972), Don Juan (mus. Gluck , 1972), Le Sacre (mus. Stravinsky , 1972), Gustav Mahler's Third Symphony (1975), Hamlet: Connotations (mus. Copland , 1976), Swan Lake (1976), Gustav Mahler's Fourth Symphony (Royal Ballet, 1977), Legend of Joseph (mus. Strauss , Vienna , 1977), A Midsummer Night's Dream (mus. Mendelssohn and Ligeti , 1977), Lady of the Camellias (mus. Chopin , Stuttgart Ballet, 1978), Don Quixote (mus. 1979), Age of Anxiety (mus. Bernstein , 1979), St Matthew Passion (mus. Bach , 1981), A Streetcar Named Desire (mus. Prokofiev and Schnittke , Stuttgart, 1983), Sixth Symphony of Gustav Mahler (1984), Othello (mus. Pärt , Schnittke , Vasconcelos , and others, 1985), Amleth (Hamlet, mus. Tippett , Royal Danish Ballet, 1985), Shall We Dance? (mus. Gershwin , 1986), Magnificat (mus. Bach , 1987), Peer Gynt (mus. Schnittke , 1989), Medea (Bartók , Schnittke , Bach , Galasso , and others, 1990), Requiem (mus. Mozart , 1991), A Cinderella Story (mus. Prokofiev , 1992), Now and Then (mus. Ravel , National Ballet of Canada, 1992), Serenade (mus. Bernstein , 1993), Zwischenräume, or Mahler's Ninth Symphony (1994), Ondine (mus. Henze , 1994), and Sylvia (Paris Opera Ballet, 1997).

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New Dance.

Modern dance in one act with choreography by Humphrey and Weidman , music by Wallingford Riegger , and costumes by Pauline Lawrence . Premiered 3 Aug. 1935, at Bennington School of the Dance, with Humphrey and Weidman . According to the choreographer herself, the piece ‘represents the world as it should be, where each person has a clear and harmonious relationship to his fellow beings’. Third part of a trilogy, the other two pieces being Theatre Piece and With My Red Fires. It was filmed in 1972.

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New Dance Group.

A company and school founded in 1932 in New York City by six students from the Wigman School who wanted to make ‘dance a viable weapon for the struggles of the working class’. It offered classes at reduced fees in an effort to spread the cause of modern dance throughout the US. By the late 1930s associated schools had been opened in several cities. Its performing group became part of the Workers Dance League (later the New Dance League) which was actively involved in left-wing politics. Choreographers involved with the company included Sophie Maslow , Jean Erdman , Charles Weidman , José Limón , William Bales , Donald McKayle , and Talley Beatty . The Dudley-Maslow-Bales trio helped to make the New Dance Group known across America. Jane Dudley was the organization's first president, remaining in the post until the mid-1960s. Today its primary purpose is educational.

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New Love Song Waltzes.

Modern dance in one act with choreography by Mark Morris , music by Brahms . Premiered 4 Nov. 1982 by the Mark Morris Dance Group at the Bessie Schönberg Theater, Dance Theater Workshop in New York. Set to the Brahms song-cycle Neue Liebeslieder, its subject is love in its widest and most communal sense. It remains one of Morris's most popular works.

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New York City Ballet.

US ballet company based in New York. It was founded by Lincoln Kirstein and George Balanchine and grew out of their previous enterprises, the American Ballet, Ballet Caravan, and Ballet Society. It took its present name in 1948 upon becoming the resident ballet company of the New York City Center for Music and Drama. Its opening programme was Concerto Barocco, Orpheus, and Symphony in C; its first box office triumph was Firebird, with the extraordinary Maria Tallchief , who went on to become America's first internationally famous ballerina. With Kirstein as general manager, Balanchine as artistic director, and Jerome Robbins as co-director (he joined in 1949), NYCB rapidly established itself as one of the world's leading ballet companies. It began touring abroad in 1950 and its brilliant and exhaustive Balanchine repertoire became the envy of directors everywhere. NYCB came to embody a new American style of dance: virtuosity in the strict classical tradition of Balanchine's Russian heritage married to a speedy and attacking demeanour more reflective of modern American life. Neo-classicism reached its apogee in the definitive abstract works Balanchine created for NYCB. In 1964 the company moved to the New York State Theater at Lincoln Center, a 3,000-seat theatre designed to Balanchine's specifications. It is still housed there today. In 1972 came the company's most ambitious undertaking, the Stravinsky Festival, for which 21 new ballets were choreographed to his music. Balanchine continued to run the company (with Robbins as co-ballet master and creator of many important works) until his death in 1983, at which point Peter Martins and Robbins took over direction. Robbins soon left the position, however, leaving Martins in sole charge. While continuing to maintain the Balanchine works as the company's backbone, Martins has added ballets of his own, as well as opening up the repertoire to outside choreographers such as Forsythe , Stroman , and Tharp . The company's associated school, the School of American Ballet, which was founded in 1933, is one of the world's leading training organizations.

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New Zealand Ballet Company.

See Royal New Zealand Ballet.

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Nichols , Kyra

(b Berkeley, Calif., 2 July 1958).
US dancer. She studied with her mother Sally Streets, who had danced with New York City Ballet in the 1950s, and then with Alan Howard and at the School of American Ballet (from 1972). She joined New York City Ballet in 1974, becoming a principal in 1979. She has spent her entire career with New York City Ballet, where she is greatly admired as one of the most classical of the company's ballerinas. Although she dances a wide range of Balanchine roles, the choreographer created nothing for her, although he did revise his Firebird for her in 1980. She created roles in many Robbins ballets, including The Four Seasons (1979), Rondo (1980), Piano Pieces (1981), I'm Old Fashioned (1983), Antique Epigraphs (1984), and Eight Lines (1985). She also created roles in Brahms/Handel (choreographed in 1984 by Robbins and Tharp ), in Martins's Suite from Histoire du soldat (1981), A Schubertiad (1984), Poulenc Sonata (1985), Tanzspiel (1988), Beethoven Romance (1989), and A Musical Offering (1991). She was the Lilac Fairy in Martins's 1991 staging of The Sleeping Beauty. She also created a principal role in Forsythe's Herman Schmerman (1992).

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Night Journey.

Modern dance in one act with choreography by Graham , music by William Schuman , and set by Noguchi . Premiered 3 May 1947 by the Martha Graham Group at Cambridge High and Latin School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, with Graham, Hawkins , and Mark Ryder . Graham's version of the Oedipus myth features Queen Jocasta as the protagonist. An early programme note describes it thus: ‘The action of dance turns upon that instant of her death when she relives her destiny, sees with double insight the triumphal entry of Oedipus, their meeting, courtship, marriage, their years of intimacy which were darkly crossed by the blind seer Tiresias until at last the truth burst from him.’

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Night Shadow (also La Somnambule and La sonnambula).

Ballet in one act with choreography by Balanchine , libretto and music by Vittorio Rieti (after Bellini), and designs by Dorothea Tanning . Premiered 27 Feb. 1946 by the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo at City Center in New York with Danilova , Magallanes , Maria Tallchief , and Michel Katcharoff . A 19th-century gothic romance, the ballet revolves around a poet and a sleepwalker who meet in the garden of a stately home during a masked ball. Their meeting leads to jealous intrigue and the poet's eventual murder. Some of the music is taken from Bellini's opera of the same name but the plot is entirely different. The ballet was revived many times, with stagings for Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas (1948), Royal Danish Ballet (1955), New York City Ballet (1960), Ballet Rambert (1961), London Festival Ballet (1967), and American Ballet Theatre (1981). One of Balanchine's rare excursions into the world of dramatic ballet.

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Nijinska , Bronislava

(b Minsk, 8 Jan. 1891, d Pacific Palisades, Calif., 21 Feb. 1972).
Russian dancer, choreographer, ballet mistress, and teacher. The daughter of Polish dancers Eleonora Bereda and Foma Nijinsky , and the younger sister of Vaslav Nijinsky . She studied with Cecchetti and at the St Petersburg Imperial Theatre School (1900–8), graduating into the company at the Maryinsky Theatre, where she spent the next three years. In 1909 she went to Paris with Diaghilev , and again in 1910, a member of the Ballets Russes corps de ballet. When Nijinsky was dismissed from the Maryinsky in 1911, she resigned and joined Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. She created roles in Fokine's Carnaval (1910) and Petrushka (1911) and was one of the original Nymphs in Nijinsky's L'Après-midi d'un faune (1912). She returned to Russia during the First World War (after her brother had again been dismissed, this time by Diaghilev ), where she danced at the Petrograd Private Opera Theatre and choreographed her first ballets. In 1916 she moved to Kiev, where she danced at the opera house and taught (one of her students was Lifar). In 1921 she left Russia and rejoined Diaghilev , back on board as a producer and choreographer for his London production of The Sleeping Princess, for which she staged several dances. The next few years with Diaghilev saw several important creations from Nijinska, including Le Renard (mus. Stravinsky , 1922), Les Noces (mus. Stravinsky , 1923), Les Biches (mus. Poulenc , 1924), Les Fâcheux (mus. Auric , 1924), and Le Train bleu (mus. Milhaud , 1924). After a disagreement with Diaghilev , she resigned in 1925, taking a chamber group of dancers on tour in England and working as a freelance choreographer for the Paris Opera, the Buenos Aires Teatro Colón, and the Ida Rubinstein company. It was for the last that she made Le Baiser de la fée (mus. Stravinsky , 1928), Bolero (mus. Ravel , 1928), and La Valse (mus. Ravel , 1929). In 1932 she founded her own company, Ballets Nijinska, Théâtre de la Danse, for which she choreographed Variations (mus. Beethoven , 1932) and Hamlet (mus. Liszt , 1934), with herself in the title role. In 1935 she staged the dance sequences in Max Reinhardt's Hollywood film of A Midsummer Night's Dream. In 1935 she also created Les Cent Baisers (mus. d'Erlanger ) for de Basil's Ballets Russes, the first Nijinska ballet to be shown in the US. In 1937 she served as artistic director of the short-lived Polish Ballet for whom she made five ballets, including Chopin Concerto, Palester's Le Chant de la terre, and Kondracki's La Légende de Cracovie. In 1941 she opened a school in Los Angeles, which became her base, although she continued to stage ballets for companies elsewhere. Her productions included La Fille mal gardée (mus. Hertel , Ballet Theatre, 1940), The Snow Maiden (mus. Glazunov , Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, 1942), Brahms Variations, and Pictures at an Exhibition (mus. Mussorgsky , Ballet International, 1944). After 1945 she worked as ballet mistress for the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas, for whom she mounted The Sleeping Beauty in 1960. Despite her substantial output of ballets, she was in danger of being forgotten as a choreographer when Ashton invited her to Covent Garden to revive Les Biches for the Royal Ballet in 1964 and Les Noces two years later. The success of these stagings confirmed Nijinska as one of the most important dancemakers of the 20th century, a stunning modernist whose daring and energy gave the world some of the most powerful and stylish ballets ever written. Author of Bronislava Nijinska: Early Memoirs (New York, 1981).

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Nijinsky, clown de Dieu.

Ballet in two parts with choreography by Béjart , music by Pierre Henry and Tchaikovsky , costumes by Joëlle Roustan and Roger Bernard , set and lighting by R. Bernard . Premiered 8 Oct. 1971 by the Ballet of the 20th Century at Forest National in Brussels, with Donn, Bortoluzzi, Lommel, Lanner, Mejia, Van Hoecke, Farrell, Albrecht, and Ullate. Using quotations from Nijinsky's diary, the ballet presents the picture of a young man's search for truth, love, and God. There are references to Nijinsky's four most famous roles: in Spectre de la rose, Scheherazade, Petrushka, and L'Après-midi d'un faune, characters from which appear in the ballet as companions to Nijinsky . The title is inspired by a quotation from Nijinsky's diary: ‘I will introduce myself as a clown … to make myself better understood.’

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Nijinsky , Vaslav

(b Kiev, 12 Mar. 1889, d London, 8 Apr. 1950).
Russian dancer and choreographer. The most famous dancer of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and one of the towering figures of 20th-century ballet. He was the son of the Polish dancers Eleonora Bereda and Foma Nijinsky , and the brother of the choreographer Bronislava Nijinska . He studied at the Imperial Theatre School in St Petersburg (1898–1907), a student of Nikolai and Sergei Legat, and joined the Maryinsky Theatre upon graduation. Immediately successful, he partnered the company's top ballerinas—Kschessinska, Preobrajenska, and Karsavina—in his first season. There he was befriended by Diaghilev , who saw in the young dancer not only a potential lover but also someone to star in his Paris seasons of the Ballets Russes. Nijinsky enjoyed enormous public acclaim in Paris in Fokine's ballets. He created roles in his Cléopâtre, Les Sylphides, Scheherazade, Spectre de la rose, Narcisse, Petrushka, Le Dieu bleu, and Daphnis and Chloe. Audiences went wild for his amazing virtuosity (he could execute entrechats huit and was even known to do an entrechat dix), his exceptional elevation, and his exotic stage charisma. His versatility was impressive: he could be savagely sexual as the Golden Slave in Scheherazade, or dreamily romantic as the spirit in Spectre de la rose. In 1911 he was forced to leave the Maryinsky following a scandal over his costume for Giselle (a scandal some claimed was masterminded by Diaghilev ). Now free to devote his energies to Diaghilev full-time, Nijinsky became not only the main attraction of the Ballets Russes, but also its choreographer, at Diaghilev's urging. The resulting ballets were among the most controversial in the entire history of ballet: L'Après-midi d'un faune (1912), Jeux (1913), and Le Sacre du printemps (1913). His choreography was a revolutionary break with tradition; like Fokine, his movements were moulded to reflect the different scenarios. In L'Après-midi d'un faune, steps were seen in profile like Greek friezes; in Le Sacre du printemps, the language of the body was turned in on itself, the dance was flat-footed and convulsive. The brazen modernity of his ballets, and the overt eroticism of Faune, provoked strong reactions from his audiences, but his notoriety was short-lived. While on tour in South America in 1913 Nijinsky married the Hungarian dancer Romola de Pulszky, an act which so infuriated Diaghilev that he immediately sacked Nijinsky. The break between the young dancer and his older impresario-lover marked the beginning of Nijinsky's decline into mental illness. He did attempt to launch a company of his own in 1914 but it failed after just two weeks at the Palace Theatre in London. When the First World War broke out he was in Budapest where he was interned as a Russian. In 1916 Diaghilev secured his release and Nijinsky joined the Ballets Russes for a North American tour, for which he choreographed Till Eulenspiegel. But signs of schizophrenia were already becoming evident. After several subsequent tours with the Ballets Russes, he moved to Switzerland in 1918 and entered a sanatorium in 1919. His last public performance was given on 19 Jan. 1919 in a St Moritz hotel ballroom; it was a solo recital called Marriage with God. The rest of his life was spent in and out of mental hospitals as his family travelled around Europe. He never danced again, although during his long confinement he worked on a system of dance notation. In 1947 his family moved to London, where he died of renal failure. He was buried in Montmartre cemetery. He was one of the greatest artists ballet has ever produced, a dancer of exceptional ability and magnetism. As a choreographer his contribution has recently been re-evaluated and he is now considered one of the forerunners of 20th-century modernism. Herbert Ross made a film about his life in 1980, while Béjart choreographed a ballet about him (see Nijinsky, clown de Dieu). The Diaries of Vaslav Nijinsky, written over a six-week period in 1919, were published in English in 1936 in a version heavily edited by Romola Nijinsky . In 1999 the unexpurgated version, edited by Joan Acocella , was published as The Diary of Vaslav Nijinsky.

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Nikitina , Alice

(b St Petersburg, c.1904 (some sources say 1909), d Monte Carlo, June 1978).
Russian dancer, teacher, and opera singer. She studied at the Imperial Theatre School in St Petersburg with Preobrajenska but left Russia after the October Revolution and never graduated. She made her professional debut in Ljubljana, Yugoslavia, in 1920, then performed with Boris Romanov's Romantic Ballet in Berlin (from 1921). In 1923 she joined Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, becoming a ballerina. She created roles in Massine's Zéphyr et Flore (Flore, 1925), Balanchine's Apollon musagète (Terpsichore, 1928) and Le Bal (The Lady, 1929). After Diaghilev's death she danced in the London Cochran revues and with Anatole Vilzak in recitals in Brussels and Paris. In 1933 she danced with Ballets Serge Lifar in London and appeared with de Basil's Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo at Covent Garden in 1937, where she created the role of the Queen in Lichine's Le Lion amoureux. After retiring as a dancer she turned to singing and began a new career as a coloratura soprano in Italy in 1938. Eleven years later she opened a ballet school in Paris. Author of Nikitina by Herself (London, 1959).

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Nikolais , Alwin

(b Southington, Conn., 26 Nov. 1910, d New York, 8 May 1993).
US dancer, choreographer, composer, designer, teacher, and director. He had an unconventional background for a dancer, working first as an organist for silent films and then as a puppet master. He studied dance with Truda Kaschmann and Hanya Holm , later with Graham , Humphrey , Weidman , and Horst . His first full-length work was Eight Column Line (mus. E. Kenek ), which had its debut in Connecticut in 1940. He became Holm's assistant after doing his military service during the Second World War. In 1948 he was appointed director of New York's Henry Street Playhouse, a centre for experimental theatre, where he remained until 1970. It was here he met Murray Louis , who was to become a lifelong collaborator. From the Henry Street Playhouse, having extensively reorganized both the school and the company (later renamed the Nikolais Dance Theater), Nikolais developed his idea of total dance theatre, in which dance is but one element in an integrated spectacle which eschews narrative and depersonalizes dancers (treating them rather like puppets). Indeed, they were often unrecognizable, thanks to the altering effects of costumes, props, and lighting, and they were often compared to aliens from outer space, or even to organisms under a microscope. Nikolais acted as his own designer and composer—most of his productions featured music written by himself—and he even painted his own slide projections. One of his most important works was Masks, Props, and Mobiles (1953), which used costumes that hid the dancers' bodies. At one point, the dancers were concealed in large bags which were then stretched into different shapes by the choreography. The idea, said Nikolais, was to help the dancer ‘identify with things other than himself’. He retired from performing in 1953 to devote himself to choreography, costume design, and lighting. In 1963 he was one of the first artists to use the newly invented Moog synthesizer. The Nikolais Dance Theater first toured Europe in 1965. The company's 1968 Paris debut was such a success that ten years later Nikolais was invited by the French government to form the Centre National de Danse Contemporaine at Angers. He created two works for the Paris Opera Ballet: Schema (1980) and Arc-en-ciel (1987). In 1989 his company merged with that of Murray Louis to form Murray Louis and Nikolais Dance. A list of his works includes Tensile Involvement (1953), Noumenon (1953), Kaleidoscope (1953), Prism (1956), Totem (1959), Allegory (1959), Imago (1963), Vaudeville of the Elements (1965), Sanctum (1964), Somniloquy (1967), Triptych (1967), Tent (1968), Echo (1969), Structures (1970), Scenario (1971), Grotto (1973), Tryad and Styx (1976), Gallery (1978), The Mechanical Organ (1980), Persons and Structures (1984), Video Games (for the 1984 Olympics), Contact (1985), Crucible (1985), and Aurora (1992). US National Medal of Arts (1987).

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Nine Sinatra Songs.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Tharp , costumes by Oscar de la Renta , and lighting by Jennifer Tipton . Premiered 14 Oct. 1982 by the Twyla Tharp company at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Vancouver. The ballet, which is set to recordings made by Frank Sinatra , features seven couples who each represent a different stage in the male-female love affair. Tharp herself described it in her autobiography as ‘a long string of gorgeous, romantic duets’. The piece was performed extensively by American Ballet Theatre under the title Sinatra Suite, featuring only one couple.

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Ninth Symphony.

Ballet in four movements with choreography by Béjart , music by Beethoven , lighting by T. Skelton . Premiered 28 Oct. 1964 by the Ballet of the 20th Century at the Cirque Royal, Brussels, with Höfgen, Pinet, Sifnios, Bortoluzzi, Bari, Lefèbre, and Casado. The ballet, set to Beethoven's 9th Symphony, realizes in dance the emotions contained in the massive four-movement concert work. Béjart described it thus: ‘The dance simply accompanies the composer on his slow path, leading from anger to joy, from darkness to light.’ The ballet is preceded by a prologue of texts taken from Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy. One of Béjart's most successful works.

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Nobili , Lila de

(b Lugano, 3 Sept. 1916).
Italian painter and designer. She designed several ballets, including Milloss's Mario e il mago (Milan, 1956), Babilée's Sable (Ballets Jean Babilée, Paris, 1956), and—most famously—Ashton's Ondine (Royal Ballet, London, 1958). She also designed the costumes for Peter Wright's 1968 Royal Ballet staging of Sleeping Beauty.

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Noblet , Lise

(b Paris, 24 Nov. 1801, d Paris, Sept. 1852).
French dancer. She studied at the Paris Opera Ballet School and joined the Paris Opera Ballet in 1816, becoming a soloist. She was introduced to London audiences through her appearances as a guest artist at the King's Theatre (1821–4). She created roles in Aumer's new staging of Dauberval's Le Page inconstant (1823) and La Fille mal gardée (1829); in Aumer's La Belle au bois dormant (1829) and Manon Lescaut (1830). She also created roles in F. Taglioni's La Sylphide (Effie, 1832), La Révolte au serail (1833), and La Fille du Danube (1836).

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Noces, Les.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Nijinska , libretto (song text) and music by Stravinsky , and designs by Goncharova . Premiered 13 June 1923 by the Ballets Russes de Diaghilev at the Théâtre de la Gaîté-Lyrique in Paris, with Felia Doubrovska , Nikolai Semenov , Lubov Tchernicheva , and Leon Woizikowski . The ballet shows a Russian wedding in four scenes: ‘The Blessing of the Bride’, ‘The Blessing of the Bridegroom’, ‘The Bride's Departure from her Parents' House’, and ‘The Wedding Feast’. Although it recreates the peasant ritual of Holy Russia, the ballet was, as the choreographer herself disclosed, strongly influenced by the rise of the proletariat which she had recently witnessed in Soviet Russia. One of Nijinska's most successful works, it was revived many times, including for de Basil's Ballets Russes (1936), Royal Ballet (1966), Stuttgart Ballet (1974), and Paris Opera (1976). Béjart also choreographed a version for the Ballet of the 20th Century in Salzburg in 1962; so did Robbins for American Ballet Theatre in 1965, Lar Lubovitch for his own company in 1976 and Jií Kylián for Netherlands Dance Theatre as Svadebka (the work's original Russian title) in 1982. With the eloquent primitivism of its choreography and the overwhelming power of its corps de ballet, Nijinska's Les Noces is without doubt one of the greatest works of the 20th century.

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Noguchi , Isamu

(b Los Angeles, 17 Nov. 1904, d New York, 30 Dec. 1988).
Japanese-US sculptor and set designer. He designed the sets for numerous Martha Graham works, with Graham incorporating his design elements into her choreography. They collaborated on Frontier (1935), Chronicle (1936), El Penitente (1940), Appalachian Spring (1944), Herodiade (1944), Dark Meadow (1946), Cave of the Heart (1946), Errand into the Maze (1947), Night Journey (1947), Diversion of Angels (1948), Judith (1950), Seraphic Dialogue (1955), Embattled Garden (1958), Clytemnestra (1958), Acrobats of God (1960), Alcestis (1960), Phaedra (1962), Circe (1963), and Cortege of Eagles (1967). He also designed Page's The Bells (1946), Cunningham's The Seasons (1947), and Balanchine's Orpheus (1948). Arguably the leading designer of 20th-century modern dance.

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Noir et blanc.

See Suite en blanc.

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North , Robert

(b Charleston, SC, 1 June 1945).
US dancer, choreographer, and company director. He studied at the Central School of Art in London in 1963 but turned to dance, studying with Kathleen Crofton , at the Royal Ballet School (1965–7) and at the London School of Contemporary Dance (1966). Later studies with Graham and Cunningham in the US. He was a founding member of London Contemporary Dance Theatre in 1967 and then joined Graham's company briefly before returning to LCDT in 1969. He began to choreograph for London Festival Ballet Workshop in 1967. In 1974 he created his most popular work, Troy Game, for LCDT; a humorous parody of masculinity, it has since entered the repertoire of several companies including Scottish Ballet. In 1975 he was appointed associate choreographer of LCDT. He worked as a guest choreographer for Ballet Rambert, Stuttgart Ballet and the Royal Danish Ballet, among others. He also worked on stage shows, including the 1975 London revue Carte blanche and the rock musical Pilgrim, seen at the Edinburgh Festival that same year. He has also worked in opera, film, theatre, and television. He taught contemporary dance at the Royal Ballet School (1979–81), was co-artistic director of LCDT in 1981 and in 1975 was appointed associate choreographer of Ballet Rambert. From 1981 to 1986 he was artistic director of Ballet Rambert. He was ballet director at the Teatro Regio in Turin (1990–1). Artistic director of the Gothenburg Ballet in Sweden (1991–6); ballet director in Verona (1997–9). He was appointed artistic director of Scottish Ballet in 1999. A list of his works includes Troy Game (mus. B. Downes , LCDT, 1974), Still Life (mus. Downes , LCDT, 1975), David and Goliath (with Wayne Sleep , mus. C. Davis , LCDT, 1975), Dreams and Silences (mus. Brahms , LCDT, 1978), Death and the Maiden (mus. Schubert , LCDT, 1980), Lonely Town, Lonely Street (mus. Withers , Janet Smith and Dancers , 1980), Songs and Dances (mus. Schubert , LCDT, 1981), Pribaoutki (mus. Stravinsky , Rambert , 1982), Colour Moves (mus. Benstead , Rambert , 1983), Entre dos aguas (mus. Paco de Lucia, Rambert , 1984), Dances to Copland (Batsheva Dance Company, 1985), Einsame Reise (mus. Schubert , Stuttgart, 1985), Der Schlaf der Vernunft (mus. Shostakovich , Stuttgart, 1986), Elvira Madigan (mus. Benstead , Shostakovich , Sibelius , and Nielsen , Royal Danish Ballet, 1987), Romeo and Juliet (mus. Prokofiev , Geneva Ballet, 1990), Carmina Burana (mus. Orff , Gothenburg Ballet, 1990), Living in America (mus. Copland , Gothenburg , 1991), A Stranger I Came (mus. Schubert , English National Ballet, 1992), The Snowman (mus. Howard Blake , 1993), Offenbach in the Underworld (mus. Offenbach , Stravinsky , Geneva Ballet, 1995), Eva (mus. Blake , Gothenburg , 1996), The Cradle Will Rock (mus. Benstead , 1996), and Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (mus. Shostakovich , 1997).

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Northern Ballet Theatre.

British dance company founded in 1969 in Manchester, but now based in Leeds in Yorkshire. Originally named Northern Dance Theatre, it was started by the Canadian choreographer Laverne Meyer to tour smaller theatres with a repertoire of new choreography by Meyer and others. He resigned in 1975 and Robert de Warren took over. He made fundamental changes to the company, by hiring more dancers, adding more full-length ballets to the repertoire (including several of his own) and emphasizing its classical basis. At this point the name was changed. In 1987 the company underwent another dramatic rewrite when Christopher Gable took over as artistic director. He gradually moved the repertoire away from the classics and introduced original full-length productions, such as A Christmas Carol, The Brontës, Dracula, and Hunchback of Notre Dame, that brought dance and theatre ever closer together. Following Gable's death in 1998, the Italian choreographer Stefano Giannetti was appointed artistic director.

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Norway.

See Norwegian National Ballet.

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Norwegian National Ballet.

Oslo-based ballet company, Norway's only classical ballet company. The company's origins date from 1945 when a group called the Ny Norsk Ballett (the New Norwegian Ballet) was founded by Gerd Kjølaas and Louise Browne . In 1958 it became the nucleus of the newly formed, publicly subsidized company based at the National Opera House in Oslo. The first production was Coppélia. The British dancer and teacher Joan Harris was an influential early director (1961–5). She added a corps de ballet, produced the classics, and introduced English ballets to the repertoire and the RAD teaching syllabus to the associated school. Other directors included Brian Macdonald , Sonia Arova (1966–71), Anne Borg (1971–7, 1983–8), Brenda Last (1977–80), and Dinna Bjørn (from 1990). The company made its first visit to the US in 1974. The repertoire is classically based, and includes works by Balanchine , Tetley , Cranko , Ashton , Flindt , van Manen , Kylián , and Ek. The company adopted the name Norwegian National Ballet in 1993.

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notation.

Dance notation is the system of recording movement through writing it down in figures and symbols. There have been many different kinds of notation through the centuries. The most prevalent today are Benesh notation and Labanotation.

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Notre-Dame de Paris.

Ballet in two acts with choreography and libretto by Petit , music by Maurice Jarre , sets by René Allio , and costumes by Yves St Laurent . Premiered 11 Dec. 1965 by the Paris Opera Ballet with Motte , Petit , Atanassoff , and Bonnefoux . Based on Victor Hugo's 1831 novel of the same name, Petit's ballet is centred on Quasimodo, the hunchbacked bellringer of the famous Parisian cathedral. Petit himself danced the role at the ballet's premiere. It was his first work for the Paris Opera since leaving twenty years earlier. It was revived for the Marseilles Ballet in 1974 and for the Kirov Ballet in 1978.

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Notre Faust.

See Faust ballets.

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Nouveau Ballet de Monte Carlo.

Ballet company founded in 1942, using dancers who had fled the Paris Opera Ballet in advance of German troops. Its first director was Marcel Sablon . The repertoire included Diaghilev ballets, along with new works. In 1944 it was disbanded but was re-formed in 1946 by the impresario Eugene Grünberg . Lifar , who was artistic director, created several works for the company, including La Péri (mus. Dukas ), Salomé (mus. R. Strauss ), Nautéos (mus. J. Leleu ), Dramma per musica (mus. Bach ), and Chota Roustaveli (mus. Honegger ). An impressive line-up of dancers included Chauviré , Charrat , Jeanmaire , Skouratoff , and Tcherina , although most of them left with Lifar when he returned to the Paris Opera in 1947. The Marquis de Cuevas bought the company following Lifar's departure and re-named it Grand Ballet de Monte Carlo.

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Noverre , Jean-Georges

(b Paris, 29 Apr. 1727, d St-Germain-en-Laye, 19 Oct. 1810).
French dancer, choreographer, ballet master, and dance theorist. Although his works (he choreographed more than 150) have not been performed for more than 200 years, he remains one of the most influential names in the history of ballet. He was a radical reformer who rejected dance's traditional role as a decorative divertissement in opera and saw in ballet the potential for real drama that told stories and expressed emotions. He is generally credited with the development of the ballet d'action. In the 20th century Fokine and Jooss would cite him as their model. Noverre studied with Marcel and Louis Dupré and made his debut at the Paris Opéra Comique in 1743. The next ten years were spent travelling as a dancer (although his was an undistinguished career) and as a ballet master—Berlin, Dresden, Strasbourg, Marseilles, and Lyons. In 1754 he returned to the Paris Opéra Comique as ballet master. There he staged the famous Les Fêtes chinoises (1754), La Fontaine de Jouvence (1754), and Les Réjouissances flamandes (1755). At the invitation of Garrick , who believed Noverre to be the Shakespeare of the dance, he mounted Fêtes chinoises at the Drury Lane Theatre in London in 1755. He remained in London for two years but was forced to keep a low profile when anti-French riots broke out. It was about this time that he wrote Lettres sur la danse et sur les ballets, published in Lyons and Stuttgart in 1760. It was one of the most influential books ever written about dance. It was revised in 1803 in St Petersburg and translated into English by Cyril Beaumont in London in 1930. Working in Lyons from 1757 to 1760 he put his theories about the ballet d'action into practice with such works as Les Caprices de Galathée and La Toilette de Vénus. In Stuttgart, where he worked as ballet master until 1766, he created some of his most important works: Admète et Alceste (1761), La Mort d'Hercule (1762), Psyché et l'Amour (1762), Médée et Jason (1763), Orpheus and Eurydice (1763), Hypermestra (1764), The Feast of Hymen (1766), and The Rape of Proserpine (1766). From 1767 to 1774 he worked in Vienna, staging almost 50 ballets at the Burg Theatre and the Kärntnertor Theater. Among them were Alceste (1767), Les Petits Riens (mus. Aspelmayr , 1768), Der gerächte Agamemnon (1771), Roger et Bradamante (1771), Vénus et Adonis(1773), Apelles et Campaspe (1773), Adèle de Ponthieu (1773), and Les Horaces et les Curiaces (1774). From 1774 to 1776 he worked in Milan, where his public debate with Angiolini about the principles of the ballet d'action brought him to international attention. In 1776, following the intervention of his old friend Marie Antoinette , he became ballet master of the Paris Opera, where he remained until 1781. It was a period fraught with tension, thanks to the political intrigue of his rivals Gardel and Dauberval and his own much-criticized output as a choreographer. Ballets he made included Annette et Lubin (1778), Les Petits Riens (1778), and Les Fêtes de Gamache (1780). After retiring on a pension, he worked at the King's Theatre in London, forming a company that included Pierre Gardel and Antoine Bournonville , and, later, Auguste Vestris . Noverre worked on and off in London for a dozen years. Ballets of this period included Apollo et les Muses (1782), Les Offrandes à l'amour (1787), Les Fêtes provençales (1789), Pas de trois et de quatre (set to God Save the King) (1793), Iphigénie en Aulide (1793), Adelaide ou la Bergère des Alpes (1794). His last ballet was probably Marriage of Peleus and Thetis, a court spectacle devised for the wedding of the Prince and Princess of Wales in 1795. He eventually retired to St-Germain-en-Laye where he died. His Lettres sur les art des imitateurs en général et sur la danse en particulier was published in Paris in 1807.

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Nureyev , Rudolf

(b on a train journey between Lake Baikal and Irkutsk in Siberia, 17 Mar. 1938, d Paris, 6 Jan. 1993).
Russian dancer, choreographer, and ballet director. One of the true superstars of 20th-century dance: so widespread was his fame that even those who knew nothing about dance in the 1960s had heard of Nureyev. His early training was in folk dance and ballet in Ufa; he began studying at the Leningrad Choreographic School (the Kirov school) when he was 17. There he trained under Aleksandr Pushkin for the next three years. He joined the Kirov Ballet as a soloist in 1958 but his stay there was short-lived. On 16 June 1961, while the Kirov was on its debut visit to Paris, he was involved in a dramatic stand-off at Le Bourget Airport between his KGB minders and French police during which he appealed for political asylum. From then on his home was in the West and an exceptional career was launched. As the first dancer to defect from the Soviet Union he was also an instant celebrity, a dancer who made front-page news around the world. His first performances were with the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas. At Fonteyn's invitation, he danced at a Royal Academy of Dancing gala in London, and shortly thereafter he became Fonteyn's principal partner. He was a regular guest artist with the Royal Ballet (1962–77) but made countless appearances with companies all over the world. His sexual charisma, panther-like grace, and blazing dramatic presence electrified audiences and inspired a new generation of male dancers. His partnership with the much-older Fonteyn was legendary: she the cool English rose, he the hot-blooded Tartar who seemed to melt her every reserve. His repertoire was enormous, including all the classics and the modern standards, and he created roles in numerous works, including Ashton's Marguerite and Armand (1963) and Jazz Calendar (1968), MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet (1965, inheriting the role from Christopher Gable , on whom it was made) and Sideshow (1972), Petit's Paradise Lost (1967), L'estasi (1968), and Pelléas et Mélisande (1969), van Dantzig's The Ropes of Time (1970), Blown in a Gentle Wind (1975), and Ulysses (1979), Béjart's Song of a Wayfarer (1971), Tetley's Laborintus (1972) and Tristan (1974), Graham's Lucifer (1975) and The Scarlet Letter (1975), Balanchine's Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (1979), Taylor's Big Bertha (television production, 1970), and Flindt's The Overcoat (1989) and Death in Venice (1991). He also staged works for various companies, including the Vienna State Opera Ballet, Australian Ballet, London Festival Ballet, Ballet of La Scala, Milan, National Ballet of Canada, Royal Swedish Ballet, Dutch National Ballet, and Ballet of the 20th Century, and toured extensively with several of them. He was the first major ballet star to work regularly with leading modern dance choreographers and he performed with both the Martha Graham and Paul Taylor companies. In 1989, at the age of 51, he made a historic return visit to the Kirov, performing at the Maryinsky Theatre. He appeared in many films, including An Evening with the Royal Ballet (1963), Romeo and Juliet (1966), Le Jeune Homme et la mort (1966), I am a Dancer (1972), and Don Quixote (1972). He played the title role in Ken Russell's 1977 film Valentino. He also made numerous television appearances which helped to popularize dance. He was director, principal dancer, and choreographer of Nureyev and Friends, which ran on Broadway (1974–5). He starred as the King of Siam in the US tour of The King and I in 1989. He was artistic director of the Paris Opera Ballet from 1983 to 1989. He gave the company a new look by promoting junior dancers (including Sylvie Guillem ), acquiring ballets by Cunningham , Robbins , and Paul Taylor , and commissioning original works from Maguy Marin , William Forsythe , and Karole Armitage . In the last years of his life he took up conducting. He died of an Aids-related illness at the age of 54. A list of his works as choreographer includes Tancredi (mus. Henze , Vienna State Opera Ballet, 1966), Romeo and Juliet (mus. Prokofiev , London Festival Ballet, 1977), Manfred (mus. Tchaikovsky , Paris Opera Ballet, 1979), The Tempest (mus. Tchaikovsky , Royal Ballet, 1982), Bach Suite (mus. Bach , Paris Opera Ballet, 1984), Washington Square (mus. Ives , Paris Opera Ballet, 1985), and Cendrillon (mus. Prokofiev , Paris Opera Ballet, 1986). His stagings of the classics include La Bayadère (Kingdom of the Shades scene, Royal Ballet, 1963), Raymonda (Royal Ballet Touring Company, 1964; American Ballet Theatre, 1975), Swan Lake (Vienna, 1964), Don Quixote (Vienna, 1966), Sleeping Beauty (National Ballet of Canada, 1972; London Festival Ballet, 1975), Nutcracker (Royal Swedish Ballet, 1967, also Royal Ballet 1968), and La Bayadère (mus. Minkus , Paris Opera Ballet, 1992). Author of Nureyev, an Autobiography with Pictures (London, 1962).

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Nutcracker, The.

Ballet in two acts with choreography by Ivanov , libretto by Petipa , music by Tchaikovsky , and designs by M. I. Botcharov , K. Ivanov , and I. Vsevolojsky . Premiered 18 Dec. 1892 at the Maryinsky Theatre in St Petersburg with Antonietta Dell'Era (Sugar Plum Fairy), Pavel Gerdt (Prince Coqueluche), Sergei Legat (Nutcracker), and Stanislava Belinskaya (Clara). Designed to be part of a double bill with Tchaikovsky's opera Iolanta, it has instead become the quintessential Christmas ballet for children, and as such is probably the most performed ballet in the world. It is based on a story by E. T. A. Hoffmann , Der Nussknacker und der Mäusekönig. A young girl, usually called Clara or Masha, is given a nutcracker doll for Christmas. She falls asleep and dreams that she saves the doll's life in a battle with the Mouse King. The nutcracker is then transformed into a handsome prince who whisks her away to the Kingdom of Sweets, where the Sugar Plum Fairy stages a grand divertissement with them as honoured guests. Originally this was to have been Petipa's ballet, but ill health forced him to bow out, leaving his assistant Ivanov to choreograph it. Little of the Ivanov choreography has survived (the grand pas de deux in Act II is his) and the ballet has been open to much re-interpretation by modern choreographers who have sought greater psychological depths and sexual truth in the tale of Clara's coming of age. For a ballet which has become so ubiquitous throughout the world, it is hard to believe that it gained widespread popularity only after the Second World War. The first staging in London took place in 1934 when Sergeyev mounted it for Vic-Wells Ballet. W. Christensen undertook the first full-length American staging for the San Francisco Ballet in 1944. Balanchine staged it for New York City Ballet in 1954, Vainonen for the Kirov in 1934, and Grigorovich for the Bolshoi in 1966. Cranko did a Nutcracker for Stuttgart in 1966, Nureyev did one for the Royal Swedish Ballet in 1967, Flindt for the Royal Danish Ballet in 1971, Neumeier for Frankfurt Ballet in 1971, and Baryshnikov for American Ballet Theatre in 1976. Virtually every large-scale ballet company in the world has its own version. Two leading modern dance choreographers have staged iconoclastic versions: Mark Morris's The Hard Nut (Mark Morris Dance Group, Brussels, 1991) and Matthew Bourne's Nutcracker (Adventures in Motion Pictures, 1992). The ballet remains in the Kirov's repertoire.

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Nyman , Michael

(b London, 1944).
British composer. In the 1980s and 1990s his music became increasingly popular with choreographers. Among the works set to his music are Ashley Page's A Broken Set of Rules (1984), Shobana Jeyasingh's Configurations (1989), Christopher Bruce's Meeting Point (1995) and Quicksilver (1996), and Doug Varone's Sleeping with Giants (1999).

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O

Oboukhoff , Anatole (also Anatole Obukhov ;

b St Petersburg, 15 Jan. 1896, d New York, 25 Feb. 1962).
Russian dancer and teacher. He studied at the Imperial Ballet School in St Petersburg and graduated in 1913. He joined the Maryinsky Theatre and was promoted to premier danseur in 1917. A fine danseur noble, he partnered Anna Pavlova on her final Russian tour in 1914. In 1920 he left the Soviet Union, dancing first with the Romanian Opera Ballet in Bucharest (1920–2) then with Boris Romanov's Russian Romantic Ballet (1922–5). He and his wife Vera Nemchinova danced together in the Latvian Opera Ballet in Riga (1930), at the Ballet de l'Opéra Russe à Paris (1931), at the Lithuanian Opera Ballet in Kaunas (1931–5), with de Basil's Ballets Russes (1935–6), with René Blum's Ballets de Monte Carlo (1936–7), the Markova-Dolin Ballet (1937) and de Basil's Original Ballet Russe (1930–40). From 1941 until his death he taught at the School of American Ballet in New York. In 1944 he staged the pas de deux from Petipa's Don Quixote for Ballet Theatre (with Toumanova and Dolin), the first time it had entered the repertoire of a Western company.

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O'Brien , John

(b Hopetown, Australia, 29 Aug. 1933).
British dancer, teacher, and bookseller. He studied with Xenia Borovansky , at the Royal Ballet School, and with Goncharov , Preobrajenska , and Rousanne . He joined Sadler's Wells Opera Ballet in 1957 and was principal dancer with Ballet Rambert (1957–66). He also taught at the Rambert company and worked as a guest teacher abroad. He founded Ballet Bookshop in London's Cecil Court in 1964; in 1974 it became Dance Books, co-directed by O'Brien and David Leonard .

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Ocean.

Modern dance with choreography by Cunningham , music by David Tudor and Andrew Culver , costumes and lighting by Marsha Skinner . Premiered 18 May 1994 by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company at the Cirque Royal in Brussels. It runs 90 minutes, uses 112 musicians who sit in a circle around the audience, and is performed on a round stage with the audience seated on all sides; the choreography is designed to have no front, back, or side perspective. The piece, conceived by Cunningham and John Cage before the latter's death, is considered to be Cunningham's grandest creation.

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Ode.

Ballet-oratorio in two acts with choreography by Massine , libretto by Kochno , music by Nabokov , designs by Pavel Tchelitchev (sets and costumes) and Pierre Charbonnier (projections). Premiered 6 June 1928 by the Ballets Russes de Diaghilev at the Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt in Paris, with Irina Beliankina and Serge Lifar . The ballet was based on a hymn by the 18th-century Russian court poet Lomonosov which was dedicated to Empress Elizabeth , who ruled Russia from 1741 to 1762. It shows a student's destructive effect on the harmony of nature, represented by a statue which comes to life. The ballet made use of the latest technology, including neon lights and film projections. But despite its revolutionary stage effects, Ode never achieved great popularity and it was quickly dropped from the repertoire.

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Odette-Odile.

Odette is the innocent Swan Queen heroine of Swan Lake; Odile is the malevolent temptress who impersonates Odette in order to deceive Prince Siegfried . In most productions the two contrasting roles are danced by the same ballerina.

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O'Donnell , May

(b Sacramento, Calif., 1909).
US dancer, choreographer, and teacher. She studied with Estelle Reed and Hanya Holm and danced in the Martha Graham company (1932–8, 1944–53). She created roles in Graham's Appalachian Spring (1944), Herodiade (1944), Dark Meadow (1946), and Cave of the Heart (1946). She founded the San Francisco Dance Theatre with Gertrude Shurr and Ray Green in 1939; she danced with the Limón company (1941–3). From 1949 she had her own company, based in New York. She also taught at her own school and at the School of Performing Arts, as well as at London Contemporary Dance Theatre. Her works include Suspension (1943), Dance Sonata No. 1 (1952), Dance Concerto (1954), Dance Sonata No. 2 (1956), Pursuit of Happiness (1977), and Homage to Shiva (1980). Suspension was reconstructed by the Cleveland Ballet Dancing Wheels in 1999 to celebrate O'Donnell's 90th birthday.

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Odysseus ballets.

The decade-long wanderings of the legendary king of Ithaca have inspired many ballets, dating as far back as Hilverding's Ulisses und Circe (Vienna, c.1740). The 19th century saw G. Gioia's Il ritorno d'Ulisse (Naples, 1804) and Milon's Le Retour d'Ulysse (Paris, 1807). In the 20th century notable ballets based on the story included Hanka's Homerische Sinfonie (mus. T. Berger , Vienna, 1950), Gruber's Neue Odyssee (mus. V. Bruns , East Berlin State Opera, 1957), Murray Louis's Odyssey (mus. I. Fiedel , New York, 1960), and van Dantzig's Ulysses (mus. Haubenstock-Ramati , Vienna, 1979).

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Offenbach , Jacques

(b Cologne, 20 June 1819, d Paris, 5 Oct. 1880).
German-French composer. He wrote the music for M. Taglioni's ballet Le Papillon (Paris, 1860). His theatre music has often been used for ballet purposes: by M. Rosenthal for Masssine's Gaîté parisienne (1938), by Dorati for Fokine's Bluebeard (1941), by George Crumb for Tudor's Offenbach in the Underworld (1955), and by L. Aubert for Cranko's La Belle Hélène (1955). Lanchbery arranged Offenbach's opera Tales of Hoffmann for Peter Darrell's full-length ballet Tales of Hoffmann (Scottish Ballet, 1972).

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Offenbach in the Underworld.

Ballet in one act with choreography and libretto by Tudor , music by Offenbach (arranged by George Crumb ), and designs by K. Ambrose . Premiered 17 Jan. 1955 by the National Ballet of Canada at the Palace Theatre in St Catherine's, Ontario, with Lois Smith , David Adams , and Earl Kraul . In a fashionable café in the 1870s customers flirt with each other: an operetta star, a grand duke, a starving artist, a handsome officer, and a debutante. Tudor said of this ballet: ‘There isn't an ending, only a closing time.’ It had earlier been staged for the Philadelphia Ballet Company in 1954, but the 1955 version for the National Ballet of Canada was considered definitive. It was revived for American Ballet Theatre in 1956 and for City Center Joffrey Ballet in 1975.

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Ohno , Kazuo

(b Hakodate, Hokkaido, 27 Oct. 1906).
Japanese dancer and choreographer. He worked as a high school physical education teacher in Yokohama for 46 years and took up dance studies in the 1930s, beginning with Mary Wigman's Neue Tanz. He gave his first solo recital in 1949. In the 1960s he developed butoh in collaboration with the dancer Tatsumi Hijikata (1926–86). Many of Ohno's early creations were interpretations of Western literary works. In 1977, at the age of 71, he presented his most famous butoh work, Admiring La Argentina, in which he transformed himself into the legendary Spanish dancer. He went on to become one of the leading exponents of butoh in the world. His works include My Mother (1981), Water Lilies (1987), and The Wolf (1994). He founded his own school in 1977. He published his autobiography in Japan in 1990.

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Oiseau de feu, L'.

See Firebird.

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Oklahoma!

Stage musical with music by Richard Rodgers , lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, and choreography by Agnes de Mille , first performed on Broadway in 1943. It revolutionized the American musical by being the first to truly integrate dance into the storytelling. It ran for 2,212 performances in its original New York run, while the London production at Drury Lane lasted for 1,543 performances. In 1998 it was revived by Britain's National Theatre with new choreography by Susan Stroman . The plot concerns cowboys and farmers in the American West.

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Oliphant , Betty

(b London, 1918).
British-Canadian dancer, teacher, and ballet mistress. She studied classical ballet with Karsavina and Novikov , and stage dancing with Zelia Raye and Joan Davis . She choreographed and performed in musicals in London. In 1949 she opened a school in Toronto; in 1951 she was appointed ballet mistress of the newly formed National Ballet of Canada. In 1959 she became director of the National Ballet School and under her leadership the school developed into one of the world's foremost training institutions. She retired in 1989. She also served as associate artistic director of the National Ballet (1969–75). She published her autobiography, Miss O: My Life in Dance, in 1997.

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Ombre, L'.

Ballet in three acts with choreography and libretto by Filippo Taglioni , music by L. Wilhelm Maurer , sets by Fedorov , Serkov , Shenian , and Roller , and costumes by Mathieu . Premiered 10 Dec. 1839 at the Bolshoi Theatre in St Petersburg with M. Taglioni , and A. Guerra . The title refers to the ghost of a murdered woman who returns to dance with her grieving lover. It was revived in a two-act version at Her Majesty's Theatre in London in 1840.

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Ondine.

Ballet in three acts with choreography and libretto by Ashton , music by Hans Werner Henze , and designs by Lila de Nobili . Premiered 27 Oct. 1958 by the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden, with Fonteyn , Somes , Farron , and A. Grant . Ashton based his libretto on the novel by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué . It tells of a water-nymph who falls in love with a mortal, with dire consequences for both. Ashton's fourth three-act ballet, it was the first to have a commissioned score, composed according to the choreographer's libretto. It also marked the culmination of Ashton's creative partnership with Fonteyn; many consider it to be her greatest created role. The role of Ondine had in an earlier century been associated with Fanny Cerrito , who appeared in Perrot's 1843 version. Her famous pas de l'ombre (shadow dance), in which Ondine sees her shadow for the first time, was taken up by Ashton in his version more than a century later. Henze's score was also choreographed by Alan Carter for Bavarian State Opera Ballet in Munich (1959), by Tatjana Gsovsky for Berlin Ballet (1959), by Nicholas Beriozoff for Zurich State Opera Ballet (1965) and by Imre Eck for Hungarian State Opera Ballet in Budapest (1969). Earlier versions included stagings by Louis Henry (mus. Gyrowetz , Vienna, 1825), Paul Taglioni (mus. H. Schmidt , Berlin, 1836), and Jules Perrot (mus. Pugni , London, 1843), whose Ondine, ou, La Naïade, was later staged by Petipa for St Petersburg in 1874 as The Naïad and the Fisherman. In a 1903 restaging at the Maryinsky (Shiryaev after Petipa, Perrot) Anna Pavlova danced Ondine.

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One Charming Night.

Modern dance in one act with choreography and libretto by Mark Morris , music by Henry Purcell . Premiered 7 Dec. 1985 by the Mark Morris Dance Group at the Bessie Schönberg Theater, Dance Theater Workshop, New York, by Mark Morris and Teri Weksler . A ‘romantic’ pas de deux in which a vampire in a business suit seduces a little girl. It is one of the choreographer's rare excursions into male-female passion.

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Onegin.

Ballet in three acts with choreography and libretto by Cranko , music by Tchaikovsky (arranged by K. H. Stolze ), and designs by Jürgen Rose . Premiered 13 Apr. 1965 by the Stuttgart Ballet in Stuttgart, with Barra , Haydée , Cardus , and Madsen . The ballet takes its plot from Pushkin's famous verse-novel about the humiliation and regret of love, Eugene Onegin. However, it does not use any of Tchaikovsky's music from his opera of the same name (the board of directors at the Stuttgart Ballet being opposed to the idea). It was revived for Munich State Opera Ballet (1972), Royal Swedish Ballet (1976), Australian Ballet (1976), London Festival Ballet (1983), and Royal Danish Ballet (1991).

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On Your Toes.

American musical comedy with music by Richard Rodgers , lyrics by Lorenz Hart . First Broadway production was 11 Apr. 1936. It was the first Broadway musical to feature a ballet (in this case the climax): Slaughter on Tenth Avenue, choreographed by Balanchine and danced by Tamara Geva . It was the first of four Rodgers and Hart shows choreographed by Balanchine and introduced the term choreographer to Broadway programme credits.

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opera and ballet.

Ever since opera began in Italy at the end of the 16th century, ballet has played its part. From the beginning it had a role as provider of festive dances (Monteverdi's La favola d'Orfeo, 1607, for example), but by the time of Handel dance was perceived as a conveyor of drama. Act II of Handel's Ariodante (1735) used a danced finale to illustrate the struggle between good and evil which plagues the heroine. Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice (Vienna, 1762), in particular, saw dance as inherent to the narrative: the Dance of the Furies and the Dance of the Blessed Spirits help to illustrate Orfeo's dilemma. By the 19th century, however, Italian opera had by and large turned its back on ballet, although France, thanks to Lully and Rameau , continued to look to dance as an essential ingredient in opera. By the mid-19th century, every French grand opera featured a formal ballet scene and non-French composers were incorporating them into their French work. Even Richard Wagner felt obliged to include one in his opera Rienzi (1842) and before his Tannhäuser could open in Paris in 1861 he had to add a full-scale ballet. There are notable ballet sequences in Meyerbeer's Robert le diable (1831) and Les Huguenots (1836), in Donizetti's La Favorite (1840), and in Verdi's Les Vêpres siciliennes (1855) and Don Carlos (1867). Verdi added a ballet to II trovatore and Otello for their Paris premieres. Ballet has also been prominent in Russian opera, from Glinka to Prokofiev, with major dance sequences in Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov and Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin. In the 20th century works such as Michael Tippett's Midsummer Marriage (London, 1955) and Britten's Death in Venice (Aldeburgh Festival, 1973) drew on the long tradition of dance in opera. In more recent years choreographers such as Mark Morris , Trisha Brown , and Pina Bausch have directed operas.

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opéra-ballet.

A form of lyric theatre in which singing and dancing were presented as equal partners in lavish and spectacular stagings, which were often thin on dramatic content. It was popular in France in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Early examples included Lully's Triomphe de l'amour (1681) and Le Temple de la paix (1685), although the form really came into its own with the works of André Campra , whose productions included L'Europe galante (Paris, 1697), Les Fêtes vénitiennes (Paris 1710), and Les Amours de Vénus et de Mars (1712). J. P. Rameau took the form to its apogee with Les Indes galantes (1735), Les Fêtes d'Hébé (1739), Le temple de la gloire (1745), Platée (1745), and La Guirlande (Paris, 1751). In the 19th century F. Taglioni choreographed several opéra-ballets. In 1997 Mark Morris choreographed a version of Platée for the Royal Opera.

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Orbs.

Modern dance in six parts with choreography by Paul Taylor , music by Beethoven , and designs by A. Katz . First New York production was 26 Dec. 1966, by the Paul Taylor Company at ANTA Theater, New York, with De Jong , C. Adams , Wagoner , and Taylor . An hour-long work about the solar system, the seasons and ‘Man in general’, it is set to movements from Beethoven's last three string quartets. Taylor himself danced the role of Sun. First performed on tour in Europe on 4 July 1966 at the Royal Theatre in The Hague, it received its US premiere on 8 Nov. 1966 at the Harper Theater in Chicago. It was Taylor's first full-length work.

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Orchésographie, L'.

The title of a book by Thoinot Arbeau , written in 1588. Dealing with the history of dance and describing various dances of the time, it is the most important surviving work on 16th-century dance. It was translated into English by Cyril Beaumont (London, 1925).

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Ordman , Jeannette

(b Germiston, S. Africa, 8 Nov. 1935).
British dancer, teacher, and ballet director. She studied with R. Berman , M. Sturman , Northcote , and Ward . She began her career with Johannesburg Festival Ballet, and later danced with Sadler's Wells Opera Ballet in London. In 1965 she went to Israel to teach. In 1968 she co-founded Bat-Dor Dance Company (with Baroness Batsheva de Rothschild) and still served as the company's artistic director three decades later.

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Orff , Carl

(b Munich, 10 July 1895, d Munich, 29 Mar. 1982).
German composer. He wrote no ballet music, although his theatre works often used an element of dance. His great triptych, in particular—Carmina Burana, Catulli Carmina, and Trionfo di Afrodite—has attracted many choreographers. Gsovsky choreographed the last two, in 1943 and 1953 respectively, while Carmina Burana has been turned into a ballet by Inge Hertling (1937), Erika Hanka (1942), Mary Wigman (1943), Heinz Rosen (1959), John Butler (1959), Fernand Nault (1962), David Bintley (1995), and Damian Woetzel (1997).

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Original Ballet Russe.

See Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo.

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Orpheus.

1 Ballet in one act with choreography by Balanchine , music by Stravinsky , and designs by Noguchi . Premiered 28 Apr. 1948 by Ballet Society at City Center in New York, with Nicholas Magallanes , Maria Tallchief , and Francisco Moncion . The ballet is a contemporary retelling of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth. ‘We saw it as the eternal domestic tragedy of an artist and his wife, with love himself a male angelic embodiment,’ wrote Balanchine. Other ballets using the same music include those by Milloss (Venice, 1948), Lichine (Paris, 1948), Tatjana Gsovsky (Frankfurt, 1961), Cranko (Stuttgart, 1970), van Dantzig (Amsterdam, 1974), MacMillan (London, 1982), and Tetley (Melbourne, 1987).

2 Ballet in six scenes with choreography by Forsythe , libretto by E. Bond , music by Henze , sets by Axel Manthey , and costumes by Joachim Herzog . Premiered 17 Mar. 1979 by the Stuttgart Ballet in Stuttgart, with Cragun , Keil , R. Anderson , M. Witham , and O. Neubert . A full-length ballet which uses the story of Orpheus to show how art and artists have transformed the human race into a utopian society that has no need of gods. Elsewhere, the Orpheus myth has provided countless choreographers with subject-matter for a ballet, among them H. Schütz (Dresden, 1638), Hilverding (Vienna, 1752), Noverre (Stuttgart, 1763), Isadora Duncan (Munich, 1902), Laban (mus. Gluck , 1927), de Valois (mus. Gluck , London, 1941), Petit (Paris, 1944), Charrat (mus. R. Lupi , Venice, 1951), and Béjart (mus. P. Henry , Liège , 1958). Balanchine choreographed and staged a complete version of Gluck's opera Orpheus and Eurydice at the Metropolitan Opera in 1936, while Trisha Brown directed a production of Monteverdi's L'Orfeo for the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels in 1998, and Mark Morris directed and choreographed Gluck's Orpheus in 1996.
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Orr , Terry

(b Berkeley, Calif., 12 Mar. 1943).
US dancer and company director. He studied at the San Francisco Ballet School and joined San Francisco Ballet in 1959. In 1965 he joined American Ballet Theatre where he remained for three decades, first as a principal dancer (from 1972) and then as ballet master (from 1978). He was acclaimed for his performances in de Mille's Rodeo and Loring's Billy the Kid. He was appointed artistic director of Pittsburgh Ballet Theater in 1997. Married to the former ABT ballerina Marianna Tcherkassky .

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Osipenko , Alla

(b Leningrad, 16 June 1932).
Soviet dancer and teacher. She studied at the Leningrad Ballet School, graduating in 1950. She danced with the Kirov Ballet from 1950 to 1971, where she created roles in Grigorovich's The Stone Flower (Mistress of the Copper Mountain, 1957), Belsky's Coast of Hope (Beloved, 1959), and Chabukiani's Kirov staging of Othello (Desdemona, 1960). After leaving the Kirov (following a falling out with the management), the former prima ballerina joined L. Jacobson's Choreographic Miniatures company (1971–3), Leningrad Concert Organization (1973–7), and Theatre of Contemporary Ballet (directed by Boris Eifman , 1977–82), where she created the role of Nastasia in Eifman's The Idiot. From 1966 she taught at the Vaganova School; she now teaches in Europe and North America. Pavlova Prize (Paris, 1956). People's Artist of the Soviet Union (1960). Also appeared as an actress in the films The Voice (directed by Averbach , 1981) and Sorrowful Sympathy (directed by Sokurov , 1986).

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Othello.

Ballet in four acts with choreography and libretto by Chabukiani , music by Aleksey Machavariani , and designs by Simon Virsaladze . Premiered 29 Nov. 1957 (some sources 27 Dec. 1957) at the Paliashvili Theatre of Opera and Ballet in Tbilisi, Georgia, with Chabukiani (Othello) and Vera Zignadze (Desdemona). Chabukiani re-staged it for the Kirov in 1960 with himself in the title role and Alla Osipenko as Desdemona. Many choreographers have turned Shakespeare's play into dance, including Salvatore Viganò (Milan, 1818), José Limón (as The Moor's Pavane, mus. Purcell , New London, Conn., 1949), Erica Hanka (Vienna, 1955), Serge Lifar (Monte Carlo, 1960), Jacques d'Amboise (New York, 1967), Peter Darrell (Trieste, 1971), John Butler (Ballet du Rhin, 1972), Kim Brandstrup , who staged a British version for Irek Mukhamedov (1994), and Lar Lubovitch 1997.

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Other Dances.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Robbins , music by Chopin , and costumes by Santo Loquasto . Premiered 9 May 1976 at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York by Makarova and Baryshnikov , at a gala for Lincoln Center's Library of the Performing Arts. Danced to four mazurkas and a waltz, it is a playful but tricky duet for two virtuoso dancers. It was later taken into the repertoire of New York City Ballet and the Royal Ballet (1989), where it was danced by Sylvie Guillem and Laurent Hilaire .

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Overcoat, The.

Ballet with choreography by Flindt , music by Shostakovich . Premiered June 1989 at the Maggio Musicale in Florence. Flemming Flindt created the ballet for an ageing Nureyev, specially tailoring it to make the most of the dancer's dramatic gifts. The ballet is based on Gogol's story.

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P

Pacific Northwest Ballet.

Seattle-based ballet company founded in 1972, one of the largest regional ballet companies in America. From 1977 it was directed by Kent Stowell and Francia Russell , who celebrated the 20th anniversary of their directorship by staging ten world premieres. The company, which performs at the Seattle Center Opera House, has a repertoire encompassing the traditional 19th-century ballets, along with works by Stowell , Balanchine , Tudor , Tetley , Taylor , Kevin O'Day , and Forsythe . The company has an associated school.

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PACT Ballet.

South African ballet company formed in 1963 at the behest of the S. African government. It incorporated the old Johannesburg City Ballet, and took its name from its sponsoring body, the Performing Arts Council of the Transvaal (PACT). Its first performance featured the French ballerina Yvette Chauviré in Giselle. Artistic directors included Faith de Villiers, Lorna Haupt , and Dawn Weller . In 1981 the company moved to Pretoria, although it continued to have regular seasons in Johannesburg. In 1998 it became the State Ballet of Pretoria, with Weller as artistic director.

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Paeper , Veronica

(b Port Shepstone, Natal, 9 Apr. 1944).
South African dancer, choreographer, and company director. She studied with Dulcie Howes at the University of Cape Town Ballet School. She was a principal dancer with three S. African companies, including CAPAB, the PACT Ballet, and the Orange Free State Ballet. She began choreographing in 1972 with John the Baptist (mus. Ernest Bloch ) for CAPAB Ballet; shortly thereafter she was appointed resident choreographer. In 1991 she became director of CAPAB (later Cape Town City Ballet). In 1994 she led her company on an international tour, the first time a S. African ballet company had toured abroad. She has created more than 40 ballets, including more than a dozen full-length works, among them Orpheus in the Underworld (mus. Offenbach , 1982), A Christmas Carol (mus. various, 1982), Hamlet (mus. Peter Klatzow , 1992) and Sylvia in Hollywood (mus. Allan Stephenson , 1993).

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Paganini.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Fokine , libretto by Rachmaninov and Fokine , music by Rachmaninov , and designs by Soudeikine . Premiered 30 June 1939 by Colonel de Basil's Ballets Russes at Covent Garden with Dmitri Rostov , Baronova , and Riabouchinska . Set to Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, it was a collaboration between composer and choreographer. The ballet is a psychological study of the tormented musical genius Paganini, who, wrote Rachmaninov, sold ‘his soul to a dark spirit for perfection in art’. Lavrovsky used the same music for a ballet based on a different libretto for the Bolshoi in 1962, while Ashton used it for his showpiece Rhapsody in 1980.

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Page , Ashley

(b Rochester, 9 Aug. 1956).
British dancer and choreographer. He trained at the Makinnon School of Dancing in Gillingham, Kent, and at the Royal Ballet School (1968–75). He danced briefly with the Royal Ballet's Ballet for All troupe before joining the Royal Ballet in 1976. In 1984 he was promoted to principal. He danced a wide variety of roles, especially in the modern repertoire, and was acclaimed for his performance in Robbins's Afternoon of a Faun. He created roles in Neumeier's Beginning (1977), MacMillan's Gloriana (1977), Gloria (1980), Isadora (1981), Orpheus (1982), Valley of Shadows (1983), and The Prince of the Pagodas (1989), Nureyev's The Tempest (1982), Corder's L'Invitation au voyage (1982), Tetley's Dances of Albion (1980), Alston's Midsummer (1983), Ashton's Rhapsody (1980), and Bintley's The Sons of Horus (1985), The Planets (1990), and Cyrano (1991). Although a fine dancer with a magnetic stage personality, it is as a choreographer of one-act ballets that Page has made his greatest mark with the Royal Ballet. His style is rigorously classical, although thrown far out of its normal context—and off its traditional axis. His subject-matter favours abstraction over narrative, although there is always more than a hint of character in even his most abstract works. He started choreographing in 1982 and made his first work for the Royal Ballet in 1984. A list of his works for the Royal includes Waiting, Running, Running (mus. Bartók , 1984), A Broken Set of Rules (mus. Nyman , 1984), Pursuit (mus. Colin Matthews , 1987), Piano (mus. Beethoven , 1989), Bloodlines (mus. Bruce Gilbert , 1990), Renard (mus. Stravinsky , 1994), the award-winning Fearful Symmetries (mus. John Adams , 1994), Ebony Concerto (mus. Stravinsky , 1995), Sleeping with Audrey (mus. Orlando Gough , 1996), Now languorous, now wild … (mus. Liszt , 1996), Two-Part Invention (mus. Prokofiev and Robert Moran , 1996), Room of Cooks (mus. Gough , 1997), Cheating, lying, stealing (mus. David Lang and Michael Gordon , 1998), and When We Stop Talking (mus. Gough , 1998). For Rambert Dance Company he choreographed Carmen Arcadiae (mus. Birtwistle , 1986), Soldat (mus. Stravinsky , 1988), and Currulao (mus. Gough , 1990). He has also choreographed works for Dance Umbrella, Dutch National Ballet, and Istanbul State Ballet. Recipient of the first Frederick Ashton Choreographic Award for Royal Ballet Choreographic Group, 1982. First Frederick Ashton Memorial Commission for Rambert Dance Company, 1990.

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Page , Ruth

(b Indianapolis, 22 Mar. 1899, d Chicago, 7 Apr. 1991).
US dancer, choreographer and company director. Studied with Bolm (from 1917) and Cecchetti (1920), also modern dance with Harald Kreutzberg . She had a peripatetic career as a dancer, which began in 1917 in New York. She toured South America with Pavlova (1918–19), danced in Bolm's Birthday of the Infanta in Chicago in 1919, was a principal dancer with Bolm's Ballet Intime (1920–2) on its US tour, and was a key figure in Bolm's Allied Arts Ballet in Chicago (1924–7), creating roles in many Bolm ballets. She also danced with Irving Berlin's Music Box Revue in New York and on tour (1922–4), briefly with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes (1925), and with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet in New York (1927). She created the role of Terpsichore in Bolm's original production of Stravinsky's Apollon musagète (Washington, 1928). She was an indefatigable traveller, touring America with solo recitals extensively in the 1930s. She also toured with Kreutzberg (1933–4). She was most closely associated with the city of Chicago, where she spent the bulk of her career. She was prima ballerina and ballet mistress at Chicago Summer Opera (1929–33). One of her first ballets was La Guillablesse (mus. William Grant Still , 1933), which featured Page as the only white dancer in a company of 50 black dancers led by Katherine Dunham . She was prima ballerina and ballet mistress of the Chicago Civic Opera (1934–6, 1941–2). Her first important ballets were: Hear Ye! Hear Ye! (mus. Copland , Chicago Opera Ballet, 1934), which was set in a night-club and in a court-room during a murder trial; An American Pattern (with Bentley Stone, mus. Moross , 1937), an early foray into feminism; and Frankie and Johnny (with Stone, mus. Jerome Moross , 1938), based on the famous tavern ballad. In 1938 she formed the Page-Stone Ballet Company with Stone, which toured extensively. She choreographed Revanche (mus. Verdi ) for Ballets des Champs-Elysées (1951) and Vilia (Lehár's The Merry Widow, 1953) for London Festival Ballet. She was choreographer and director of ballet at Chicago Lyric Opera (1954–69), where the ballet company became known as Ruth Page's Chicago Opera Ballet (from 1966 it was known as Ruth Page's International Ballet). She is best known for her ballet adaptations of operas, including Susanna and the Barber (Rossini's Barber of Seville, Chicago Opera Ballet, 1956), Camille (Verdi's La traviata, 1957), Die Fledermaus (mus. J. Strauss , 1958), Carmen (staged in 1939 as Guns and Castanets; staged again in 1959 as Carmen, and in 1972 as Carmen and José for Dance Theatre of Harlem), Pygmalion (Suppé's Die schöne Galathée, 1963), and Bullets and Bonbons (O. Straus's The Chocolate Soldier, 1965). Other important works include The Bells (mus. Milhaud , Chicago, 1946), Mephistophela (mus. Berlioz , Boito , and Gounod , 1963), Carmina Burana (mus. Orff , 1966), and Alice in the Garden (mus. I. van Grove , Jacob's Pillow , 1970), which was re-staged as the full-length Alice in Wonderland: Alice through the Looking Glass in the 1977–8 season of the Chicago Ballet. Founding artistic director of the short-lived Chicago Ballet (1972–8).

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Palais Garnier.

The Paris theatre which is home to Paris Opera Ballet. It was opened in 1875 and was extensively refurbished in the 1990s. It is named after the architect who designed it.

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Panov , Valery

(b Vitebsk, 12 Mar. 1938).
Russian-Israeli dancer and choreographer. He studied at the Vilnius Ballet School, the Moscow Ballet School, and the Leningrad Ballet School, graduating in 1957. He danced with the Maly Ballet in Leningrad (1957–64), where he created roles in Lopukhov's Ballad of Love (1959), in Davitashvili's Daphnis and Chloe (1960) and Bolero (1960), and in Boyarsky's Petrushka (1961), Orpheus (title role, 1962), and The Lady and the Hooligan (1962). In 1964 he joined the Kirov, where he remained until 1972. There he created roles in Jacobson's Land of Miracles (1967), Vinogradov's Gorianka (1968), Sergeyev's Hamlet (title role, 1970), and Kasatkina's and Vasiliov's Creation of the World (1971). Although one of the greatest virtuoso dancers in Russia, and an acclaimed dance-actor, it is for political reasons that Panov came to international attention when, in 1972, he and his wife, the Kirov ballerina Galina Ragozina, applied for an exit visa to Israel. He was expelled from the Kirov (along with his wife), imprisoned briefly and forbidden from taking class for two years. His plight became an international cause célèbre and many in the West (including Laurence Olivier) appealed to the authorities on his behalf. Finally, in 1974, the Panovs were allowed to leave Russia. They settled in Israel, although they made frequent guest appearances abroad as a couple. In Israel they danced with Batsheva Dance Company and Bat-Dor Company (1974–7). Panov was guest choreographer and principal dancer with the Berlin Opera Ballet between 1977 and 1983. There he choreographed several ballets, including Cinderella (mus. Prokofiev , 1977), Sacre du printemps (mus. Stravinsky , 1978), The Idiot (mus. Shostakovich , 1979), and War and Peace (mus. Tchaikovsky , 1980). He also staged Heart of the Mountain (mus. Kozhlayev ) for the San Francisco Ballet (1976), Scheherazade and Petrushka for Vienna State Opera Ballet (1981), The Three Sisters (mus. Rachmaninov ) for the Royal Swedish Ballet (1983), and Hamlet (mus. Shostakovich ) for the Norwegian National Ballet (1984). Artistic director of the Royal Ballet of Flanders (1984–6), for whom he staged Romeo and Juliet (mus. Prokofiev , 1984) and Moves (mus. Glorieux , 1986). In 1988 he created Cléopâtre for the Istanbul Devlet Ballet, using a cast of 200. From 1991 he was ballet director of the State Opera in Bonn, where he created Dreyfus—J'accuse (mus. Schnittke , 1994). In 1992 he took the Bonn Ballet to Moscow. Author of autobiography To Dance (New York, 1978). Lenin Prize (1969).

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pantomime

(Gk., all-imitating). Commonly refers to theatrical shows that impart action without the use of words or song. In Britain, however, the term more specifically refers to a form of Christmas comic entertainment, dating from the early 18th century, which incorporates music, dance, and mime in productions that feature set characters (often fairy-tale ones) and set lines (which the audience shout).

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Papillon, Le.

Ballet in two acts with choreography by Marie Taglioni , libretto by de Saint-Georges , music by Offenbach , set by Martin , Despléchin , Nolau , Rubé , Cambon , and Thierry, and costumes by Albert . Premiered 26 Nov. 1860 at the Paris Opera, with Livry and Mérante. A beautiful young woman, Farfalla , is transformed into a butterfly by the bad Fairy Hamza. In the end, after many plot complications, Farfalla is reunited with her lover, the Prince Djalma . It was Marie Taglioni's only ballet and Offenbach's only ballet score. Emma Livry , who triumphed in the title role, died three years after its premiere when her tutu caught fire during a rehearsal, causing her to suffer terrible burns. She was just 20. Elsa-Marianne von Rosen used the Offenbach score for her ballet Utopia, for the Gothenburg Ballet in 1974. Pierre Lacotte staged Le Papillon, ‘after Taglioni’, for the Paris Opera in 1976. Ronald Hynd choreographed a version for Houston Ballet in 1979, which was revived for Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet in 1980.

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Papillons, Les.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Fokine , music by Schumann (arr. Tcherepnin ), set by Doboujinsky , and costumes by Bakst . Premiered 10 Mar. 1913, at the Maryinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, with Karsavina and Fokine. Pierrot encounters a group of young women in a park and imagines they are butterflies. Fokine re-staged it for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes on 16 Apr. 1914 in Monte Carlo.

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Paquita.

Ballet in two acts with choreography by Mazilier , libretto by Paul Foucher and Mazilier , music by Edouard Deldevez , sets by Philastre , Cambon , Diéterle , Séchan , and Despléchin , and costumes by Lormier and H. de B. d'Orschwiller . Premiered 1 Apr. 1846 at the Paris Opera with Carlotta Grisi and Lucien Petipa . Set in a Spain under Napoleonic rule, the ballet tells of Paquita, a Spanish gypsy, who saves the life of a French officer named Lucien . In the end, once it is revealed that she is of noble birth, Paquita and Lucien are able to marry. Marius Petipa produced the ballet for St Petersburg in 1847 as his debut production, and in 1881 he asked Minkus to provide new music for a Pas de trois and a Grand Pas. Today, Paquita is best known through these two dances alone. Balanchine later staged two versions of the Pas de trois, the first for the Cuevas company in 1948 and the second for New York City Ballet in 1951. By 1910 only the third act of Paquita was being performed by the Kirov. In 1957 Konstantin Boyarsky revived the Grand Pas at the Maly Theatre in Leningrad and this became the standard all over the Soviet Union. In 1978 a divertissement from Paquita which incorporated all of Petipa's 1881 choreography to Minkus's music entered the Kirov repertoire. Elsewhere, Danilova staged a one-act version for Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in 1949, while the Grand Pas was the first piece Nureyev danced with Fonteyn , at the RAD Gala in 1964. American Ballet Theatre and English National Ballet have the Grand Pas in their repertoires. In 2001 Lacotte staged a full-length reconstruction for the Paris Opera Ballet.

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Parade.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Massine , libretto by Cocteau , music by Satie , and designs by Picasso . Premiered 18 May 1917 by the Ballets Russes de Diaghilev at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, with Lopokova , Massine , Woizikowski , and Zvereff . In the ballet a group of music hall artists, desperate to attract an audience into their show, perform in the street outside their theatre. For a work that was so rarely performed, Parade had an enormous influence, hailed in its day as a perfect marriage of painting, dance, scenario, and music. Picasso's flamboyant sets and costumes, which dominate the ballet, are the most important example of Cubist art ever seen in the theatre. Satie's collage score, which counts a typewriter and sirens among its sounds, was strikingly original. Parade was revived for the Ballet of the 20th Century (1964), the City Center Joffrey Ballet (1973), London Festival Ballet (1974), and Zurich Ballet (1981).

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Paradise Lost.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Petit , libretto by Jean Cau , music by Constant , and designs by Martial Raysse . Premiered 23 Feb. 1967 by the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden, with Fonteyn and Nureyev. A modern retelling of the story of Adam and Eve. It was also staged at the Paris Opera in 1967.

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Paris Opera Ballet.

French ballet company based in Paris, and the oldest national ballet company in the world. It has its origins in the Académie Royale de Danse, which was founded by Louis XIV in 1661 to improve dance instruction for court entertainments, and the Académie d'Opéra (later the Académie Royale de Musique), a performing organization founded in 1669. Pierre Beauchamps was the first ballet master. In 1672 he and Lully inaugurated a new form of opera which included dance. The first professional ballerina was Mlle de La Fontaine (1665–1738), who danced in the premiere of Triomphe de l'Amour in 1681. The associated school, today known as the Paris Opera Ballet School, was opened in 1713. In the mid-18th century, the operas of Rameau helped to set higher standards for the dancers, later (from 1774) Gluck's operas continued the process. A key period was the directorship of Noverre (1776–81), who staged the first production of Mozart's Les Petits Riens in 1778. Noverre's successors were M. Gardel (1781–7) and Pierre Gardel (1787–1829), whose choreography included La Marseillaise and Offrande à liberté. The premiere of F. Taglioni's La Sylphide (which starred his daughter Marie in the title role) in 1832 was a landmark event for it brought Romantic ballet to the world, although the Ballet of the Nuns in Meyerbeer's opera Robert le diable had introduced Romanticism the previous year. Coralli and Perrot's Giselle, with Carlotta Grisi , followed in 1841, another major event in the history of dance. Ballet masters of the mid-19th century included Saint-Léon , Mazilier , and L. Petipa . Saint-Léon's Coppélia was premiered in 1870; it went on to become one of the most popular ballets in the Paris repertoire. At this point in the company's history male dancers had been virtually banished, with female dancers taking over male roles en travestie. The Paris Opera moved to the Palais Garnier in 1875, where it remains today. Mérante's Sylvia (1876), L. Petipa's Namouna (1882), and Mérante's Les Deux Pigeons (1886) were the final successes of the 19th century. By the start of the 20th century, the company had been in serious decline for many years, with the ballet reduced to divertissements in operas. The Paris seasons of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes dominated the city's dance culture from 1910, while in the 1920s Les Ballets Suédois proved another enticing option for the city's dance audiences. It was only when Lifar was appointed ballet master and principal dancer in 1930 that the company began to emerge from its doldrums. He made the company stronger and more disciplined, added more than 100 ballets to the repertoire, and established a more regular performing pattern. He also got rid of abonnés from the foyer; abonnés were season ticket holders who were allowed to meet with the ballerinas, giving rise to suggestions of immoral relationships. After the Second World War, however, the rise of independent companies, like those of Petit, Charrat, and Béjart, with their adventurous new work, meant that the Paris Opera was stagnating once again. Lifar resigned in 1958. Directors who followed him included George Skibine , Violette Verdy , Rosella Hightower, Rudolf Nureyev , Patrick Dupond , and Brigitte Lefèvre (from 1995), and today Paris Opera Ballet is again one of the world's leading companies. It boasts some outstanding dancers, equally at home in both the modern and classical repertoires. Twentieth century choreographers represented in the repertoire include Balanchine , Robbins , Béjart , Petit , Forsythe , Neumeier , Kylián , Ek , Tharp , MacMillan , Taylor , Graham , and Preljocaj . The affiliated Groupe de Récherche Chorégraphique de l'Opéra de Paris (GRCOP), the forum for experimental new work, was founded in 1981 and was active throughout the 1980s.

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Park , (Dame) Merle

(b Salisbury, Rhodesia, 8 Oct. 1937).
British dancer and teacher. She studied with Betty Lamb in Rhodesia, at the Elmhurst School in England (from 1951), and at the Royal Ballet School (from 1954). She joined Sadler's Wells Ballet (now the Royal Ballet) in 1954, promoted to principal in 1959. A brilliant technician and a glamorous personality on stage, Park danced all the ballerina roles in the classical repertoire, and was particularly acclaimed for her Aurora. She made frequent guest appearances abroad with Nureyev as her partner. She created roles in Tudor's Shadowplay (1967), Ashton's Jazz Calendar (1968) and The Walk to the Paradise Garden (1972), Nureyev's London Nutcracker (Clara, 1968), MacMillan's Elite Syncopations (1974), Mayerling (1978), La Fin du jour (1979), and Isadora (title role, 1981), and Bintley's Adieu (1980). Director of the Royal Ballet School (1983–98). Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, 1986.

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Parkinson , Georgina

(b Brighton, 20 Aug. 1938).
British dancer and ballet mistress. She studied at the Royal Ballet School (then called Sadler's Wells Ballet School) and joined the Royal Ballet in 1957. She was promoted to principal in 1962. She created roles in MacMillan's Symphony (1963), Ashton's Monotones II (1966) and Enigma Variations (1968), and Cranko's Daphnis and Chloe (Chloe, Stuttgart, 1962). She left the Royal Ballet in 1978, becoming ballet mistress of American Ballet Theatre.

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Parry , Jann

(b Salisbury, Rhodesia, 12 Feb. 1942).
British dance critic. She was educated in Johannesburg, at the University of Cape Town, and at Cambridge University. Producer BBC Radio World Service (1970–89). Dance critic of the Listener (1981) and of the Spectator (1982), since 1983 she has been dance critic of the Observer.

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Parsons , David

(b Rockford, Ill., 29 Oct. 1959).
US dancer, choreographer, and company director. Studied modern dance with Cliff Kirwin and Paul Chambers and at the Ailey School (1977). Danced with Missouri Dance Theater (1972–6), with Momix (1982–7) and, most importantly, with the Paul Taylor company (1978–87), where, tall and strong like Taylor himself, he created roles in several Taylor works. He appeared as a guest artist with White Oak Dance Project (1992), Berlin Opera Ballet (1982), and New York City Ballet (1988–91). He founded the Parsons Dance Company in 1987 in New York. He has made more than 40 works; his choreographic style is marked by athleticism and daring. Among his creations are Caught (1982), The Envelope (1986), Elysian Fields (1988), Ring Around the Rosie (mus. Richard Peaslee , 1993), The Almighty (1996), Anthem (1998), Instinct (1998), and Fill the Woods With Light (1998). He made Walk This Way (1986) for American Ballet Theatre, Inner Rhythm (1987) and Linton (1988) for Batsheva, The Need (1990) for the National Ballet of Canada, Hairy Night on Bald Mountain (1991) for Ballet Chicago, Touch (1996) for New York City Ballet, and Closure (1996) for Repertory Dance Theater in Salt Lake City.

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Pärt , Arvo

(b Paide, 1935).
Estonian composer. In the 1980s and 1990s his music became increasingly popular with choreographers. Ballets set to his concert music include Mats Ek's Solo For Two (1996), Kylián's Whereabouts Unknown (1994), and van Manen's Déjà vu (1995).

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pas

(Fr., step). The word has many meanings in classical ballet, according to which kind of descriptive phrase is used with it. See pas d'action; pas de basque; pas de bourrée; pas de chat; pas de deux.

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Pas d'acier, Le.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Massine , libretto and designs by G. Yakulov , and music by Prokofiev . Premiered 7 June 1927 by the Ballets Russes de Diaghilev , at the Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt in Paris, with Tchernicheva , Danilova , Massine , Lifar , and Woizikowski . The ballet shows scenes of daily Soviet life and features machines dancing in a factory. It was heavily influenced by Soviet Constructivist art.

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pas d'action.

In classical ballet an ensemble dance composed of set elements, including entrée, adagio, variation, and coda. It includes both soloists and the corps de ballet. It often denotes a dramatic scene in ballet. A good example is in La Bayadère, when Solor is forced to dance with Gamzatti in a public display of loyalty and affection.

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pas de basque.

In classical ballet, a complex step of three beats. It consists of transferences of weight and a change of direction. The feet remain in contact with the floor throughout.

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pas de bourrée.

In classical ballet, it most commonly refers to a linking movement in which quick, small steps are executed close to the ground. It can travel in any direction and involves a transfer of weight. There are many varieties.

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pas de chat.

A light, springing step which travels in a sideways direction, taking off from one foot and landing on the other. It is meant to mimic the movement of a cat.

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pas de deux.

A dance for two, a duet. In classical ballet there are also pas de trois, pas de quatre, and pas de six, for three, four, and six dancers respectively. The classical pas de deux follows a traditional pattern: an entrée and adagio for the ballerina and her cavalier, a variation for the male dancer, a variation for the female dancer, and a final coda which reunites the partners. A classical pas de trois is usually for one male and two female dancers and follows the traditional pattern of the pas de deux.

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Pas de dix.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Balanchine , music by Glazunov , costumes by E. Francés . Premiered 9 Nov. 1955 by New York City Ballet at City Center, New York, with Maria Tallchief and Eglevsky . A ballet for one ballerina, her partner, and a small ensemble, it is set to music from the last act of Raymonda.

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Pas de quatre.

Ballet divertissement with choreography and libretto by Perrot , and music by Pugni . Premiered 12 July 1845 at Her Majesty's Theatre in London, with Taglioni , Grisi , Cerrito , and Grahn . A plotless ballet in full Romantic style, it was created at a time when the ballerina was supreme, and it brought together the four greatest ballerinas of the day, lured into the project by the clever manager of Her Majesty's Theatre, Benjamin Lumley . Perrot tailored his choreography to suit each of the rival ballerinas in turn, playing up to their individual strengths. Evocative lithographs of the time reveal how the celebrated quartet looked as a group, but since Perrot failed to notate his choreography, attempts to re-create it are based on pure conjecture. The ballet was later reconstructed by Keith Lester for the Markova-Dolin Ballet in 1936 and by Dolin for Ballet Theatre in 1941 (a staging which was later taken into the repertoire of the Kirov).

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passacaglia (Sp. pasacalle, passing through a street).

It originally described a band of musicians who marched through the street, playing marches. Later, it referred to a Spanish dance in 3/4 time which was performed at the court of Louis XIV in the ballets of Lully.

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Passacaglia in C minor.

Modern dance in one act with choreography by Humphrey , music by Bach , set by Arch Lauterer , and costumes by P. Lawrence . Premiered 5 Aug. 1938 by the Humphrey-Weidman Dance Company at the Armory in Bennington, Vermont, with Humphrey and Weidman . A work for twelve company members and eleven apprentices, it was described by Humphrey as ‘an abstraction with dramatic overtones…inspired by the need for love, tolerance and nobility’.

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passepied

(Fr., pass feet). Originally a dance for sailors, it became a popular court dance during the reign of Louis XIV and featured in several ballets. A dance in 3/8 or 6/8 time, it was accompanied by singing or bagpipes.

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Path of Thunder, The.

Ballet in three acts with choreography by Konstantin Sergeyev , libretto by Slonimsky , music by Kara Karayev , and designs by V. Dorer . Premiered 31 Dec. 1957 by the Kirov Ballet in St Petersburg with Sergeyev and Dudinskaya. It was inspired by a novel by the S. African writer Peter Abrahams . The Ballet tells the tale of a forbidden love affair between a black teacher and a white girl. The two are trapped in the Veldt and killed by her landowner father. It was revived for the Bolshoi Ballet in 1959. Many other versions have been staged throughout the Soviet Union.

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Patineurs, Les.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Ashton , music by Meyerbeer (arr. Lambert ), and designs by William Chappell . Premiered 16 Feb. 1937 by the Vic-Wells Ballet at Sadler's Wells Theatre in London, with H. Turner , May , Brae , Mary Honer , Elizabeth Miller , Fonteyn , and Helpmann . The amusing diversions of a party of ice skaters are presented in virtuosic choreography. The music comes from Meyerbeer's opera Le Prophète (in which there was a divertissement featuring a skater's ballet) and L'Étoile du Nord. The ballet has been frequently revived in Britain while Ballet Theatre in New York staged a production in 1946, Royal Winnipeg Ballet did a version in 1966, Australian Ballet in 1970, and the Joffrey Ballet in 1977.

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Patsalas , Constantin

(b Thessaloniki, 1 Aug. 1943, d Toronto, 19 May 1989).
Greek-Canadian dancer and choreographer. He studied at the Essen Folkwang School, joining Düsseldorf Ballet in 1969 and the National Ballet of Canada in 1972. In Toronto he was appointed first soloist in 1979 and company choreographer in 1980. Winner first Boston Ballet Choreographic Showcase 1979 with Piano Concerto (mus. Ginastera ). A list of his works includes Inventions (mus. Miloslav Kabelac , 1974), Black Angels (mus. G. Crumb , 1976), The Rite of Spring (mus. Stravinsky , 1978), and Nataraja (mus. Charpentier , 1981).

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Paul , Annette av

(b Stockholm, 1944).
Swedish dancer. She studied at the Royal Swedish Ballet School and joined the Royal Swedish Ballet in 1961. She created the role of Katerina in Grigorovich's Stockholm staging of The Stone Flower (1962); also roles in Tudor's Echoing of Trumpets (1963) and Macdonald's While the Spider Slept (1965). She also created a role in Macdonald's Rose La Tulippe, made for the Royal Winnipeg Ballet in 1966. Principal dancer of the Royal Swedish Ballet until 1972, and then with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, where her husband, Brian Macdonald , was artistic director. She retired from dancing in 1984. Artistic director of Ballet British Columbia (1985–7).

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Paulli , Holger Simon

(b Copenhagen, 22 Feb. 1810, d Copenhagen, 23 Dec. 1891).
Danish conductor and composer. He wrote many ballet scores for Bournonville, including Napoli (with Helsted , Gade , and Lumbye , 1842), Konservatoriet (1849), Kermesse in Bruges (1851), and Flower Festival at Genzano (with Helsted, 1858).

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pavane.

A formal court dance in duple time, popular in Italy, France, and Spain during the 16th and 17th centuries. Its name possibly derived from pavone (It.) or pavón (Sp.), which mean peacock, since the women sweep their trains much like a peacock sweeps its tail. The dance is sedate and dignified in style.

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Pavane , Lisa

(b New S. Wales, 30 Sept. 1961).
Australian dancer. She studied at Tessa Mounder Ballet School (1965–77) and at the Australian Ballet School (from 1977). She joined the Australian Ballet in 1981, becoming a soloist in 1983 and a principal in 1986. She created roles in Murphy's Gallery (1987), Baynes's Ballade (1988), and Catalyst (1990). A strong dancer with great stamina, she excelled in the classical repertoire and, while in Australia, in the full-length Cranko ballets as well. Together with her husband, fellow dancer Greg Horsman , she joined English National Ballet in 1994. There she created the title role in Corder's Cinderella (1996) and the Queen of Hearts in Deane's Alice in Wonderland (1995). She also appeared as a guest artist with Boston Ballet, Kirov Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet. She retired due to injury in 1999.

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Pavillon d'Armide, Le.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Fokine , libretto and designs by Benois , and music by N. Tcherepnin . Premiered 25 Nov. 1907 at the Maryinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, with Pavlova , Gerdt , and Nijinsky . Based on a story by Gautier , the ballet tells of the Vicomte de Beaugency who seeks refuge in a mysterious castle during a storm. There, in the pavilion where he spends the night, he is transfixed by a tapestry of Armide and dreams that he falls in love with her. In the morning he returns to his senses, only to discover that he is left holding Armide's scarf in his hand. Fokine originally created the work for the St Petersburg Imperial Ballet Academy graduation performance in 1907 and expanded it for the Maryinsky company. Diaghilev presented it on his first night at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris on 19 May 1909 (with Karalli , Nijinsky , and Mordkin ), to great success.

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Pavlova , Anna

(b St Petersburg, 12 Feb. 1881, d The Hague, 23 Jan. 1931).
Russian dancer. The legendary ballerina of the 20th century. She trained at the Imperial Ballet School in St Petersburg from 1891, studying with Vazem , Gerdt , and Petipa . She graduated in 1899 and joined the Maryinsky Theatre, becoming ballerina in 1905 and prima ballerina in 1906, while still continuing her studies with Cecchetti in St Petersburg. Petipa was her champion: he cast her as Nikiya in his La Bayadère when she was still a coryphée in 1902. He followed that by casting her as Giselle the following year. In 1907 she created Fokine's Dying Swan, a brief but bewitching solo which was to become her most famous role. She created parts in Petipa's Les Saisons (1900), Harlequinade (1900), and The Magic Mirror (1903), Ivanov and Gerdt's Sylvia (1901), N. and S. Legat's The Fairy Doll (1903), Fokine's The Vine (1906), Pavillon d'Armide (Armide, 1907), Chopiniana (1907), Eunice (1907), and Egyptian Nights (1908). In 1908, dissatisfied with life at the Maryinsky, she began to tour abroad; she finally left the St Petersburg company in 1913. In 1909 she danced with Diaghilev's troupe in Paris; her final appearance with Diaghilev was in 1911 in London (she preferred the classical repertoire to Diaghilev's revolutionary modernist ballets). She danced in Berlin in 1909, New York and London in 1910. In 1911 she bought a house in London (Ivy House in Golders Green) and from there put together her own company which toured extensively, including to places which had never seen ballet before. Europe, N. and S. America, the Far East: Pavlova maintained her hectic touring schedule until 1929. She was the company's prima ballerina and her partners on tour included Mordkin , Novikov , Volinine , and Vladimiroff . It was through Pavlova's exhaustive touring that classical ballet gained a new international following. Her repertoire encompassed abbreviated versions of the classics, along with ballets by Fokine and Clustine and solos she choreographed herself. She created roles in Mordkin's The Legend of Aziade (1910) and Bacchanale (1910), Zaylich's Amarilla (1912), Fokine's The Three Palms (1913) and Les Préludes (1913), Clustine's La Péri (1917), Noir et blanc (1917), and The Romances of a Mummy (1924), and Romanov's The Champions (1928). Works she choreographed included Le Papillon (mus. Minkus , 1910), La Rose mourante (mus. Drigo , 1910), Blue Danube (mus. Strauss , 1911), Snowflakes (Tchaikovsky, 1911), The Magic Flute (mus. Drigo , 1913), Dragonfly (mus. Kreisler , 1915), California Poppy (mus. Tchaikovsky , 1916), Christmas (mus. Tchaikovsky , 1916), Autumn Leaves (mus. Chopin , 1919), and Masquerade (mus. Wurmser , 1926). An extraordinarily poetic dancer whose delicacy and grace transfixed audiences, she was the most famous ballerina in the world, and her performances inspired a whole new generation of dancers and choreographers (including Ashton , who saw her in Lima in 1917 while still a schoolboy). She gave her last performance in London in 1930 and died of pneumonia at the age of 50. She appeared in several films, including The Dumb Girl of Portici, a silent film made in Hollywood in 1915. In 1956 a film was released, entitled The Immortal Swan, which featured footage shot in the 1920s of Pavlova in The Dying Swan, Fairy Doll, Oriental Dance, Rose mourante, California Poppy, and Colombine. From 1912 she taught at her home in London.

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Paxton , Steve

(b Phoenix, Ariz., 21 Jan. 1939).
US dancer and choreographer. Pioneer of Contact Improvisation. He trained as a gymnast and then studied modern dance with Cunningham and Robert Dunn in New York (from 1958). He joined José Limón's company for a year (1959) and was with Cunningham's company (1961–4). He also worked with Yvonne Rainer , Robert Rauschenberg , Lucinda Childs , and Trisha Brown . He was in the first performance of Rainer's ground-breaking Trio A in 1966. He was one of the founder-members of the Judson Dance Theater in 1962, and a founding member of the improvisational Grand Union in 1970. Like his Judson colleagues, his choreography eschewed an advanced dance technique, and he incorporated everyday movements into his vocabulary. His 1967 work Satisfyin' Lover, for example, had performers simply walking across the floor. His 1971 work Collaboration with Wintersoldier had two upside-down performers watching a film made by Vietnam veterans who opposed the war. In the early 1970s his work led him to develop Contact Improvisation, a system of improvised movement based on ‘the communication between two moving bodies and their combined relationship to the physical laws that govern their motion: gravity, momentum, friction and inertia’. The technique, based on trust between dancers, uses a performer's own weight as the fulcrum for movement which closely involves another. Contact Improvisation has been absorbed into much of contemporary dance. In the 1980s Paxton performed less frequently, usually as a soloist and in highly improvised works. A list of his other creations includes Proxy (1962), Transit (1962), Afternoon (1963), Rialto (1964), Flat (1964), Jag Ville Gorna Telefonera (1964), Physical Things (1966), Backwater: Twosome (1977), Suspect Terrain (with Laurie Booth , Dana Reitz , and Polly Motley ; mus. Hans-Peter Kuhn , 1989), Some English Suites (mus. Bach , 1993), Long and Dream (with Trisha Brown , 1994), Excavations Continued (1996), and Ash (1997). He still teaches workshops in Contact Improvisation.

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Pécourt , Guillaume-Louis (also Guillaume-Louis Pécour;

b Paris 10 Aug. 1653, d Paris, 12 Apr. 1729).
French dancer, choreographer, and dance master. He studied in Paris with Beauchamps and made his debut as a dancer at the Court Theatre, Tuileries, in 1671. His official debut at the Paris Opera came in 1674, probably in the opera Cadmus et Hermione. He became a leading dancer in the Paris Opera, while performing frequently for the court at Saint-Germain-en-Laye and Chantilly. He created many roles in works by Lully (who composed) and Beauchamps (who choreographed), including Le Triomphe de l'amour (1681), Le Temple de la paix (1685), and Armide (1686). He was also dancing master to the King's pages from 1680 to 1692. In 1687 he succeeded Beauchamps as official composer of the King's ballets at L'Académie Royale de Musique (as the Paris Opera was called), and continued to create new ballets until his death. He retired from dancing in 1703. He choreographed ballets in many operas, including those of Campra, Colasse or Collasse, Desmaret or Desmarets, Destouches, Bertin, and Lully . He choreographed Campra's first opéra-ballet, L'Europe galante (1697), his Le Carnaval de Venise (1699), Hésione (1700), Tancrède (1702), and Les Fêtes vénitiennes (1710). Several of his dances survive in Feuillet's 1700 book about notation, Chorégraphie, and his 1704 Recueil de danses; they are the most important examples of the baroque dance style. He also choreographed ballroom dances and was a leading teacher.

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Peer Gynt.

Ballet in three acts with choreography by Orlikowsky , libretto by Eugen Wigeliew , music by Grieg , designs by Lec Bothas , and costumes by S. Schröck . Premiered 30 Oct. 1956 in Basle, with D. Christensen , M. Parnitzki , H. Sommerkamp , and Deege . The ballet is based on Ibsen's play. It was revived for London Festival Ballet in 1963. Other versions, also using Grieg's score, include those by G. Tregubov (Lvov, 1955) and Tomaszewski's for the Cramér Ballet in 1972. Kim Brandstrup choreographed a British touring version for Arc Dance Company in 1991.

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Pelléas et Mélisande ballets.

Maeterlinck's 1893 play has inspired several dance adaptations, including those by T. Gsovsky (mus. M. Baumann , Berlin, 1954), Walter (mus. Schoenberg , Wuppertal , 1955), Petit (mus. Schoenberg , Royal Ballet, 1969), and Menegatti and Gai (mus. Sibelius , La Scala, 1972).

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penché.

To bend forward. In an arabesque penché, one of the most striking poses in classical ballet, the ballerina balances on one leg on pointe, while the other leg is lifted behind the body to full height and the torso is bent towards the floor.

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Pendleton , Moses

(b Lyndonville, Vt., 28 Mar. 1949).
US dancer, choreographer, and company director. Studied dance with Alison Chase . He co-founded Pilobolus Dance Theater in 1971 (with Jonathan Wolken ) in his senior year at Dartmouth College and stayed with the company as a full-time member until 1980, after which he continued to choreograph sporadically for them. In 1980 he founded Momix Dance Theater. A master of illusionist theatre, he choreographs dance sculptures that bring together acrobatics, gymnastics, mime, props, and film. His creations are marked by their sense of fun and their love of fantasy. He choreographed the closing ceremonies of the Lake Placid Winter Olympics in 1980 and in 1979 he choreographed Intégrale Erik Satie for the Paris Opera Ballet. His other works include Passion (1991), Baseball (1994), and Sputnik (1997). He has also worked extensively in opera.

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Penitente, El.

Modern dance in one act with choreography by Graham , music by Horst , set by Arch Lauterer , and costumes by E. Gilfond . Premiered 11 Aug. 1940 by the Martha Graham company at Bennington College Theater in Bennington, Vermont, with Graham, Hawkins, and Cunningham. In a Native American community in the US Southwest, a primitive morality play is acted out by three strolling players. Graham appeared as the Virgin, Magdalen, and the Madonna, Hawkins was the Penitent, and Cunningham was Christ. In later years Pearl Lang took over Graham's part. The work was later redesigned by Noguchi . It was revived for London Contemporary Dance Theatre in 1969.

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Penney , Jennifer

(b Vancouver, 5 Apr. 1946).
Canadian-British dancer. She studied with Gweneth Lloyd and Betty Farrally in British Columbia and at the Royal Ballet School in London (1962–3). She joined the Royal Ballet in 1963, becoming a principal in 1970. She created roles in MacMillan's Seven Deadly Sins (1973), Elite Syncopations (1974), Four Seasons (1975), La Fin du jour (1979), Gloria (1980), and Orpheus (1982), van Manen's Four Schumann Pieces (1975), and Neumeier's Fourth Symphony (1977). A dancer of exquisite proportions and extraordinary fluidity, she danced all the ballerina roles in the classical repertoire, although she achieved her greatest success in the modern repertoire. She was the ideal MacMillan heroine—sensually brazen and physically fearless on stage—and she shone as Manon, Mary Vetsera, and Juliet. With Antoinette Sibley having been taken ill during the rehearsal period, much of the choreography for Manon was created on Penney. When she performed the role during the Royal Ballet's tour to the Soviet Union in 1987 Yuri Grigorovich , director of the Bolshoi Ballet, hailed her as ‘the best ballerina from England that I have seen since Margot Fonteyn's visit over twenty years ago’. She was also a gifted comedienne whose flirtatious and mischievous personality was seen to best advantage in Robbins's The Concert. She retired from Covent Garden in 1988 and returned to her native British Columbia.

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Pennsylvania Ballet.

Ballet company based in Philadelphia which was founded in 1963 by Barbara Weisberger . The repertoire included many ballets by Balanchine , along with works by Butler , Comelin , Dollar , Smuin , Moncion , Harkarvy , and van Manen . Directors have included Weisberger, Benjamin Harkarvy , Robert Weiss (1982–90), and Christopher d'Amboise .

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Percival , John

(b Walthamstow, 16 Mar. 1927).
British dance critic and writer. He was educated at Oxford University and was co-editor (with Clive Barnes ) of the Oxford Ballet Club magazine Arabesque (1950). From 1950 he contributed to Dance and Dancers magazine; from 1981 he was its editor. He was dance critic of The Times in London from 1965 to 1994. One of Britain's most senior and influential dance critics. Author of Antony Tudor (Dance Perspectives, no. 17, 1963), Modern Ballet (1970, new edition, 1980), The World of Diaghilev (1971, new edition, 1979), Experimental Dance (1971), Nureyev: Aspects of the Dancer (1975, new edition, 1979), The Facts about a Ballet Company (1979), Theatre in My Blood, a biography of John Cranko (London, 1983), Men Dancing (with Alexander Bland , 1984), and The World of Nureyev (1996).

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Peretti , Serge

(b Venice, 28 Jan. 1910, d Paris, 20 Aug. 1997).
Italian dancer and teacher. He studied at the Paris Opera Ballet School (from 1922) and made his debut with the Paris Opera Ballet while still a student in 1923. He was made a premier danseur at the age of 20 and in 1931 became the first dancer to be granted the title of étoile. He created roles in Lifar's Creatures of Prometheus (1929), L'Orchestre en liberté (1931), Bacchus et Ariane (1931), Jeunesse (1933), Salade (1935), Oriane et le Prince d'Amour (1938), Aeneas (1938), La Princesse au jardin (1941), Bolero (1941), Le Chevalier et la demoiselle (1941), Les Animaux modèles (1942), and Joan de Zarissa (1942). He also created roles in most of the ballets created by Léo Staats , Nicola Guerra , and Aveline . He was appointed provisional ballet master (1945–6) following Lifar's departure from the Paris Opera and choreographed L'Appel de la montagne (mus. Honegger , 1945). In 1946 he went on a tour of S. America with young dancers from the Opera. In 1948 he opened his own school, as well as teaching at the Paris Opera school. Among his pupils were Babilée, Petit , Golovine , Jeanmaire , and Chauviré . From 1963 to 1970 he was professeur de danse at the Paris Opera, in charge of the étoiles. Considered a superb danseur noble, he was also recognized as a gifted painter.

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Péri, La.

Ballet in two acts with choreography by Coralli , libretto by Gautier and Coralli , music by Burgmüller , sets by Séchan , Despléchin , Diéterle , Philastre , and Cambon , and costumes by Lormier and d'Orschwiller . Premiered 17 July 1843 by the Paris Opera Ballet with Grisi , L. Petipa , and Coralli . An Oriental fantasy, it tells of the poet Sultan Achmet who, in an opium-induced dream, meets and falls in love with the Queen of the Fairies. Gautier and Coralli had collaborated previously on Giselle and were here revisiting the theme of love between a mortal and a spirit. La Péri quickly proved popular and stagings spread around Europe. It was premiered in London in Sept. 1843, in St Petersburg and Vienna in 1844. There have been many subsequent stagings, using music by Dukas: Clustine (Paris, 1912), Staats (Paris, 1921), Ashton (Ballet Club, London, 1931, Royal Ballet, 1956), Lifar (Nouveau Ballet de Monte Carlo, 1946), and Darrell (London Festival Ballet, 1973).

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Perrot , Jules Joseph

(b Lyons, 18 Aug. 1810, d Paramé, 24 Aug. 1892 (some sources 18 Aug. 1892)).
French dancer, choreographer, and ballet master. One of the most important choreographers of the Romantic era. He studied in Lyons (from 1819), and later with Auguste Vestris . His early career as a dancer was spent in two Parisian Boulevard theatres: Théâtre de la Gaîté (1823–5) and Théâtre de la Porte-St-Martin (1826–9). In 1830 he was appointed first soloist at London's King Theatre and made his debut at the Paris Opera (in the opera Le Rossignol by Lebrun ) the same year. There he quickly became Taglioni's favourite partner, although he left the Opera three years later, the result of a contract dispute. In later years, despite his success as a choreographer in London and St Petersburg, Paris continued to snub him: the Paris Opera produced only one of his ballets, La Filleule des fées. He appeared in London and Naples (1834), where he met Carlotta Grisi , who was to become his partner and lover (they had a daughter, born 1837). He performed in Munich and Vienna (1836), Milan (1838), and Lyons (1840). He created roles in Coralli's Léocadie (1828) and L'Orgie (1831), F. Taglioni's Robert le diable (1831), La Révolte au sérail (1833), Sire Huon (1833), and Mazilia (1835), Deshayes's Zéphir berger (1835), and in countless ballets choreographed by himself. As a dancer he had great strength and stamina, but also unusual grace. Gautier wrote that Perrot possessed ‘the perfect legs of a Greek statue, somewhat feminine in their roundness’. The first major ballet he choreographed was Le Nymphe et le papillon for the Vienna Kärntnertor Theater in 1836. He choreographed all of Grisi's solos for Giselle at the Paris Opera in 1841 and partnered her as Albrecht in the ballet's London premiere in 1842. He was ballet master at Her Majesty's Theatre in London (1843–8), probably his most important years as a choreographer. He was choreographer at La Scala, Milan, in 1848 and ballet master at St Petersburg (1851–8). He also worked in Berlin, Brussels, Lyons, and Warsaw. As a choreographer, his overwhelming achievement was the integration of dance into the drama, so that stories could be told through the movement itself and not just through mime. A list of his works includes Alma ou la Fille de feu (with Deshayes , mus. Costa , London, 1842), L'Aurore (mus. Pugni , 1843), Ondine (mus. Pugni , 1843), La Esmeralda (mus. Pugni , London, 1844), Eoline ou la Dryade (mus. Pugni , London, 1845), Pas de quatre (mus. Pugni , London, 1845), Caterina ou la fille du bandit (mus. Pugni , 1846), Le Jugement de Pâris (mus. Pugni , London, 1846), Les Quatre Saisons (mus. Pugni , 1848), Lalla Rookh, or The Rose of Lahore (mus. Félicien David and Pugni , 1846), Les Eléments (mus. Bajetti , 1847), Faust (mus. Penizza , Costa , and Bajetti , La Scala, Milan, 1848), La Filleule de fées (mus. Adam and Saint-Julien , Paris, 1849), Le Angustie or Les Tribulations d'un maître de ballet (mus. Pugni , St Petersburg, 1851), La Guerre des femmes (mus. Pugni , St Petersburg, 1852), Gazelda ou les tziganes (mus. Pugni , St Petersburg, 1853), Markobomba (mus. Pugni , St Petersburg, 1854), and Armida (mus. Pugni , St Petersburg, 1855). He was married to the Russian ballerina Capitoline Samovskaya.

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Peter and the Wolf.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Bolm , music (and text) by Prokofiev , and designs by Lucinda Ballard . Premiered 13 Jan. 1940 by Ballet Theatre, in Radio City Center Theater, New York, with Loring , Dollar , V. Essen , K. Conrad , and Stroganova . Peter , despite having been warned not to do so by his grandfather, enlists the aid of his animal friends in catching the wicked Wolf and taking it to the zoo. Later versions include those by F. Staff for Ballet Rambert (1940), G. Blank (Berlin, 1954), A. Varlamov for the Bolshoi Ballet (1959), P. Belda for Ballet of the 20th Century (1966), and Matthew Hart for the Royal Ballet School (1995), later taken into the Royal Ballet repertoire.

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Petipa , Lucien

(b Marseilles, 22 Dec. 1815, d Versailles, 7 July 1898).
French dancer, choreographer and ballet master. Son of the dancer Jean Antoine Petipa , brother of Marius Petipa . He studied with his father and danced for him in Brussels and Bordeaux. In 1839 he moved to Paris, where he made his debut in 1840 partnering Elssler in La Sylphide. He created the role of Albrecht in Giselle with Grisi (1841), and was Grisi's regular partner. A fine danseur noble, he created leading roles in Coralli's La Péri (1843) and Eucharis (1844), Mazilier's Le Diable à quatre (1845), Paquita (1846), Jovita, ou les Boucaniers (1853), Les Elfes (1856), and Marco Spada (1857), Mabille's Griseldis (1849), Perrot's La Filleule des fées (1849), and Cerrito's Gemma (1854). As a choreographer, his first important ballet was Sakountala (mus. E. Reyer , 1858). He was ballet master of the Paris Opera (1860–8), during which time he created Graziosa (mus. T. Labarre , 1861) and Le Roi d'Yvetot (mus. T. Labarre , 1865). He also collaborated in several important opera premieres, including Rossini's Sémiramis (1860), Wagner's Tannhäuser (1861), and Verdi's Don Carlos (1867). He retired early from the stage, the result of injury in a hunting accident. From 1880 he was professor of pantomime at the Paris Opera.

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Petipa , Maria Mariusovna

(b St Petersburg, 29 Oct. 1857, d Paris, 1930).
Russian dancer. Daughter of Marius Petipa . She made her debut in the title role of The Blue Dahlia in 1875 and became an acclaimed character dancer. Her most important created role was the Lilac Fairy in her father's Sleeping Beauty (1890).

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Petipa , Maria Sergeyevna

(b 1836, d Novocherkassk, 1882).
Russian dancer. Wife of Marius Petipa , mother of Maria Mariusovna Petipa . She studied at the Imperial Theatre School in St Petersburg, graduating in 1854. That same year she married Marius Petipa and created many roles in his ballets. However, her career suffered a marked decline following her divorce in 1869. She enjoyed her greatest success as a dancer in en travestie roles.

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Petipa , Marius

(b Marseilles, 11 Mar. 1818, d Gurzuf, Crimea, 14 July 1910).
French-Russian dancer, choreographer, and ballet master. Arguably the single most influential choreographer in the history of classical ballet. Son of Jean Antoine Petipa , brother of Lucien Petipa , husband of Maria Sergeyevna Petipa , father of Maria Mariusovna Petipa . He studied with his father in Brussels and later with A. Vestris . Although he danced in several European cities in the 1830s, and made a number of inconsequential ballets, it was not until he reached St Petersburg in 1847 that his legendary career really began. It was in Russia that he created Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty, the two greatest examples of 19th-century classical ballet. He collaborated with Tchaikovsky on the creation of The Nutcracker, although he had to withdraw from the production because of illness, leaving his assistant Ivanov to choreograph it. It was through Petipa's efforts that the Russian Imperial ballet became pre-eminent in the world in the latter part of the 19th century, far outstripping its European counterparts. He brought with him the superior technique of the French and Italian schools and married it to the grandeur and nobility of Tsarist Russia. It is in the works of Petipa that the form and structure of classical ballet reached their apogee. Today, despite the artistic revolutions of the 20th century which turned his ideals upside down, Petipa remains classical ballet's defining choreographer. Yet his early career was not particularly auspicious. He made his debut in Brussels in 1831 dancing with his father's company in Pierre Gardel's Dansomanie. He performed with the same company in Bordeaux (from 1834) and was a principal dancer (1838) in Nantes, where he choreographed his first ballets: Le droit du Seigneur, La Petite Bohémienne, and La Noce à Nantes. In 1839 he toured North America with his father's company (although the tour did not go well). He danced in Paris at the Comédie-Française and was a principal dancer in Bordeaux, dancing Giselle, La Fille mal gardée, and La Péri. In Bordeaux he made several more ballets, including La Jolie Bordelaise, La Vendange, L'Intrigue amoureuse, and Le Langage des fleurs. From 1843 to 1846 he toured Spain and studied Spanish dance in Madrid. The ballets he made at this time had a Spanish flavour: Carmen et son toréro, La Perle de Séville, L'Aventure d'une fille de Madrid, and La Fleur de Grenade. As a dancer in St Petersburg (from 1847) he enjoyed great success in Giselle, Paquita, La Péri, Esmeralda, and Le Corsaire and often danced with Elssler . He created roles in Perrot's The War of the Women (1852), Gazelda (1853), Marcobomba (1854), Armida (1855), and La Débutante (1857). He was widely admired as a character dancer, and perhaps less so as a classical dancer. In 1850 he added new choreography to the Wilis scene in Giselle (completely re-staging the ballet in 1884); and then worked as Perrot's assistant. In 1855 he created his first important ballet for Russia: The Star of Granada (mus. various). He was appointed ballet master in 1862, the same year of his first major success, La Fille du Pharaon (mus. Pugni ); in 1869 he was appointed chief ballet master in St Petersburg. He went on to choreograph about 50 ballets for the Imperial Theatres in St Petersburg and Moscow, including Don Quixote and La Bayadère, along with influential re-stagings of the French repertoire: Paquita (1881), Coppélia (1884), Giselle (1884), Esmeralda (1886), La Sylphide (1892), and Le Corsaire (1858, 1868, and 1899, completely new version). Indeed, it is his versions of the French classics which still form the basis of productions all over the world today. A list of his ballets includes: for Moscow, Don Quixote (mus. Minkus , 1869); for St Petersburg, La Somnambule (mus. Bellini , 1859), The Blue Dahlia (mus. Pugni , 1860), Faust (mus. Panica , Pugni , 1867), King Candaule (mus. Pugni , 1868), La Camargo (mus. Minkus , 1872), Le Papillon (mus. Minkus , 1874), La Bayadère (mus. Minkus , 1877), Roxanna, or The Beauty of Montenegro (mus. Minkus , 1878), Ariadne (mus. Gerber , 1878), The Daughter of the Snows (mus. Minkus , 1879), Zoraya (mus. Minkus , 1881), Pygmalion (mus. Trubetskoy , 1883), The Tulip of Haarlem (with Ivanov, mus. Fitinhof-Schel , 1887), The Talisman (mus. Drigo , 1889), The Sleeping Beauty (mus. Tchaikovsky , 1890), Kalkabrino (mus. Minkus , 1891), Cinderella (with Cecchetti and Ivanov, mus. Fitinhof-Schel , 1893), The Awakening of Flora (mus. Drigo , 1894), Swan Lake (with Ivanov, mus. Tchaikovsky , 1895), Bluebeard (mus. Schenk , 1896), Raymonda (mus. Glazunov , 1898), The Seasons (mus. Glazunov , 1900), Les Millions d'Arlequin (mus. Drigo , 1900), and The Magic Mirror (mus. Koreshenko , 1903). He retired in 1903. His memoirs were published in St Petersburg in 1906; an English translation, Russian Ballet Master: The Memoirs of Marius Petipa, was published in London in 1958. The Diaries of Marius Petipa (translated by Lynn Garafola ) were published in Pennington, New Jersey, in 1992.

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Petit , Roland

(b Villemomble, 13 Jan. 1924).
French dancer, choreographer, and ballet director. He studied with Lifar and at the Paris Opera Ballet School from 1934, and entered the Paris Opera Ballet in 1940. Only four years later, however, he left to strike out on his own. He danced in the Vendredis de la Danse at the Théâtre Sarah-Bernhardt in 1944 (in works he choreographed himself) and the following year was one of the founders (with Boris Kochno and Christian Bérard) of the Ballets des Champs-Elysées, which featured Petit in the role of leading dancer and chief choreographer. Three years later he formed the Ballets de Paris, where again he was the star attraction. Petit took both companies on extensive tours, in France and abroad. His 1949 London staging of Carmen brought him to international attention. Ballets de Paris was eventually disbanded, but it was periodically brought back to life in order to present Petit's newest choreography. A product of the rigorous classical school, he was none the less a consummate showman who was just as happy working in revues, films, and television. From 1970 to 1975 he owned and directed the Casino de Paris, staging revues which starred his wife, Zizi Jeanmaire . For a few months in 1970 he was dance director of the Paris Opera Ballet. In 1972 he finally settled, becoming director and chief choreographer of the newly founded Ballet National de Marseilles, where he remained for the next 25 years. One of the most prolific and fashionable of 20th-century French choreographers, Petit always favoured glamour and style in his creations which were often sexually brazen and theatrically vibrant. His Carmen (which starred himself and his wife), so sexually explicit in its day, was a landmark in French ballet, while his 1946 work, Le Jeune Homme et la mort, in which a young man hangs himself, was no less shocking for a different reason. At Marseilles he concentrated on making full-length ballets, although none of them have entered the international repertoire. A list of the ballets he made for his own companies includes Les Forains (mus. Sauguet , 1945), Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe (mus. Lanner , Tcherepnin , 1945), Le Jeune Homme et la mort (mus. Bach , 1946), Le Bal des blanchisseuses (mus. V. Duke , 1946), Les Demoiselles de la nuit (mus. Françaix , 1948), Carmen (mus. Bizet , 1949), La Croqueuse de diamants (mus. Damase , 1950), Le Loup (mus. Dutilleux , 1953), Deuil en 24 heures (mus. M. Thiriet , 1953), La Chambre (mus. Auric , 1955), Cyrano de Bergerac (mus. Constant , 1959, Petit's first full-length ballet), Les Chants de Maldoror (mus. M. Jarre , 1962), Pink Floyd Ballet (mus. Pink Floyd , 1972), La Rose malade (mus. Mahler , 1973), La Dame de pique (mus. Tchaikovsky , 1978), La Chauve-souris (mus. J. Strauss , 1979), and Les Contes d'Hoffmann (mus. Offenbach , 1982). For the Paris Opera he made the full-length Notre-Dame de Paris (mus. M. Jarre , 1965, with himself as Quasimodo), Turangalila (mus. Messiaen , 1968), Shéhérazade (mus. Ravel , 1974), La Symphonie fantastique (mus. Berlioz , 1975), La Nuit transfigurée (mus. Schoenberg , 1976), Nana (mus. Constant , 1976), Le Fantôme de l'Opéra (mus. Landowski , 1980), Passacaille (mus. Webern , 1994), Rythme de Valses (mus. Johann Strauss II, 1994), Camera Obscura (mus. Schoenberg , 1994), Le Guépard (The Leopard, 1995), and Clavigo (mus. Gabriel Yared , 1999). In 1990 he staged his own Sleeping Beauty, with Jeanmaire as Carabosse. For Sadler's Wells Ballet he made Ballabile (mus. Chabrier , 1950); for the Royal Ballet he made Paradise Lost (mus. Constant , 1967, with Fonteyn and Nureyev) and Pelléas et Mélisande (mus. Schoenberg , 1969). For the National Ballet of Canada he created Kraanerg (mus. Xenakis , 1969) and for Berlin Opera Ballet he created Blue Angel (mus. Constant, 1985). He provided the choreography for several Hollywood films including Hans Christian Andersen (1952), Daddy Long Legs (1955), Glass Slipper (1954), and Anything Goes (1956). The 1960 film Black Tights (Les Collants noirs) featured shortened versions of four of Petit's ballets. Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur, 1974.

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petits rats.

Affectionate term by which children of the Paris Opera Ballet School are known.

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Petits Riens, Les.

Ballet divertissement in three scenes with choreography and libretto by Noverre , music by Mozart . Premiered 11 June 1778 at the Paris Opera, with Guimard , A. Vestris , Dauberval . The original libretto is lost, although it is known that the ballet featured Cupid, a game of blind man's buff, and a trio of shepherdesses, one of whom is disguised as a man. It was Mozart's only full-length score for dance, although his name did not appear on the original programme (and he was never paid for it). In 1872 Mozart's manuscript was found in the library of the Paris Opera. Since then it has been rechoreographed by Ashton (Suites de danses, 1927, Nymphs and Shepherds, Ballet Rambert, 1928, expanded as Dances from Les Petits Riens, 1930), de Valois (1928 and 1931), and Bintley (Royal Ballet School, 1991).

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Petronio , Stephen

(b Newark, NJ, 20 Mar. 1956).
US dancer, choreographer, and company director. He started studying dance while at college in Massachusetts. He trained with Steve Paxton in Contact Improvisation and danced with Trisha Brown (1979–86), the first male dancer in her company. He founded his own company in 1984. From 1990 to 1992 he collaborated with the British choreographer Michael Clark; in 1991 they co-choreographed Stravinsky's Rite of Spring as Wrong Wrong. His own choreography is marked by its speed and energy, use of aggressive tension, homoerotic sensibility, and often provocative costuming. A list of his works includes No. 3 (1985), Walk-In (1986), Simulacrum Reels (1987), Simulacrum Court (Frankfurt Ballet, 1987/8), AnAmnesia (1988), MiddleSex Gorge (mus. Wire , 1990), Full Half Wrong (1992), Lareigne (1995), Drawn That Way (1996), ReBourne (1997), Not Garden (1997), and Strange Attractions (mus. Nyman , 1999).

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Petrouchka.

See Petrushka.

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Petrov , Nicolas

(b Novi Sad, 13 Dec. 1933).
Yugoslavian dancer, choreographer, and company director. He studied at the Novi Sad Theatre Academy, at the Belgrade State Ballet Academy, and later in Paris and London. He danced with the National Popular Theatre in Novi Sad (1946–51) and the Belgrade National Popular Theatre (1951–4). In 1954 he went to France, where he danced with Charrat's company; he also danced with Massine's Ballet Europeo di Nervi. From 1967 to 1969 he was ballet master of the Pittsburgh Playhouse School of Dance; in 1969 he became founding artistic director of Pittsburgh Ballet Theater. He choreographed many ballets for the company, including the first American full-length staging of Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet. He left the company in 1977.

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Petrushka.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Fokine , libretto by Benois and Stravinsky , music by Stravinsky , and designs by Benois . Premiered 13 June 1911 by the Ballets Russes de Diaghilev at Théâtre du Chatelet in Paris, with Nijinsky , Karsavina , Orloff , and Cecchetti . The story, a Russian version of commedia dell'arte's Harlequin, unfolds during Butterweek Fair (Russia's answer to Mardi Gras ) in St Petersburg in 1830. In Admiralty Square three puppets in a puppet theatre come to life: Petrushka, the Ballerina, and the Moor. Petrushka falls in love with the Ballerina, but she loves the Moor, who eventually kills Petrushka in a jealous rage. It was one of the greatest successes of the Diaghilev company. There have been many revivals of Fokine's ballet, including Fokine's for Ballet Theatre in 1942, Serge Lifar's and Nicholas Zvereff's staging for the Paris Opera Ballet in 1948, Beriozoff's for London Festival Ballet in 1950, Grigoriev's and Tchernicheva's for the Royal Ballet in 1957, Boyarsky's for the Maly Theatre Ballet in Leningrad in 1961, and Léonide Massine , Yurek Lazowski , and Tatiana Massine's for the Joffrey Ballet in 1970. Other choreographers have created entirely new versions, including Jooss (Essen, 1930), T. Gsovsky (Berlin, 1946), Béjart (Brussels, 1977), Neumeier (Hamburg, 1982), Vinogradov (Scottish Ballet, 1989), and Macdonald (Gothenburg Ballet, 1998).

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Pharaoh's Daughter (Fr. title La Fille du Pharaon).

Full-length ballet with choreography by Petipa , libretto by Petipa and Vernoy de Saint-Georges , music by Pugni , sets by A. Roller and G. Wagner , and costumes by Kelwer and Stolyakov . Premiered at the Bolshoi Theatre in St Petersburg, 30 Jan. 1862, with Rosati , Goltz , Petipa , and Ivanov . Set in Egypt, and inspired by tales of Egyptian mummies, the story tells of Lord Wilson and his servant who seek refuge from a storm inside a pyramid. They smoke opium and in their dreams are visited by Aspicia , the Pharaoh's daughter, who rises from her sarcophagus and comes to life, drawing them into her tale of lovers on the run. An example of ballet à grand spectacle, it lasted four hours and featured a cast of 400. Petipa's first truly successful ballet, it resulted in his appointment as second ballet master in St Petersburg. Gorsky revived it for the Bolshoi in Moscow in 1905. It has since disappeared from the repertoire.

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Phèdre.

Ballet, described as a ‘tragedy in choreography’, with choreography by Lifar , libretto and designs by Cocteau , and music by Auric . Premiered 14 June 1950 by the Paris Opera Ballet, Paris, with Toumanova , Lifar , and Darsonval . A dance retelling of the Greek legend of Theseus' wife, who fell violently in love with her stepson Hippolytus and committed suicide when that love was not reciprocated. Cocteau based his libretto on the version of the story by Racine , not Euripides. There have been other ballet treatments of the Phaedra legend, including those by Angiolini (Milan, 1788 or 1789), Didelot (St Petersburg, 1825), Graham (mus. R. Starer , New York, 1962), Cullberg (for Swedish television, as I Am Not You, 1966), and Flindt (Dallas, 1987).

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Picasso , Pablo

(b Malaga, 25 Oct. 1881, d Mougins, France, 8 Apr. 1973).
Spanish painter and set designer. He designed six ballets for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, although one (Nijinska's Trepar) was not produced. He collaborated closely with Massine and Cocteau on Parade (1917), not only creating bold new Cubist designs but also influencing the ballet's scenario. He worked with Massine again on Le Tricorne (1919) and Pulcinella (1920) for Diaghilev , and also designed Massine's Mercure (1924), created for Comte Étienne de Beaumont's Soirées de Paris. Picasso was part of Diaghilev's circle: he sketched the dancers in rehearsal and in 1918 he married one of them, Olga Kokhlova . He also designed the drop curtain for Nijinska's Ballets Russes production of Le Train bleu in 1924, which was an enlargement of one of his paintings; and did the backdrop for Petit's Le Rendezvous in 1945. For Lifar he designed L'Après-midi d'un faune (1960) and Icare (1962).

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Picnic at Tintagel.

Ballet in one act with choreography and libretto by Ashton , music by Bax , and designs by Beaton . Premiered 28 Feb. 1952 by New York City Ballet at City Center in New York, with Diana Adams , Moncion , and d'Amboise . The ballet tells the story of Tristan and Isolde in flashback, set in the Cornish castle of Tintagel. In 1916 a party of tourists visit the castle and there among the ancient stones find themselves swept up in the legend of the famous tragic lovers. The music is Bax's The Garden of Fand.

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Pictures.

Modern dance in one act with choreography by Cunningham , music by David Behrman , scenery and costumes by Mark Lancaster . Premiered 6 Mar. 1984 by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company at City Center, New York. A full-company work, it remained in the repertoire for seven years and was performed more than 200 times.

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Pierrot lunaire.

Modern dance in one act with choreography by Tetley , music by Schoenberg , and designs by Rouben TerArutunian . Premiered 5 May 1962 by the Glen Tetley Company at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York with Tetley , Linda Hodes , and Robert Powell . The story involves three characters from commedia dell'arte—Pierrot, Columbine, and Brighella—and uses them to illustrate the vulnerability of innocence. At ballet's end, Pierrot has been robbed of everything he owns, yet he is still able to forgive those who have cheated him. Tetley's first major work, it fused contemporary and classical techniques. It has been revived for several companies, including Netherlands Dance Theatre (1962), Ballet Rambert (1967), Royal Danish Ballet (1968), Bavarian State Opera Ballet (1972), and the Stuttgart Ballet (1975). Prior to Tetley's hugely successful staging, there had been earlier attempts to choreograph Schoenberg's 1912 song-cycle, which was set to 21 poems by Albert Giraud . Massine expressed an interest in 1922 but was stopped by the composer, who was not happy with the choreographer's plan to replace the vocal line with instrumentation. Then in 1958 Cranko's efforts to stage a production of it for the short-lived Edinburgh International Ballet were frustrated by the Schoenberg estate. Joffrey choreographed a version for his own company in 1955, although that version is now lost.

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Pillar of Fire.

Ballet in one act with choreography and libretto by Tudor , music by Schoenberg , designs by Jo Mielziner . Premiered 8 Apr. 1942 by Ballet Theatre at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, with Kaye , Chase , Annabelle Lyon , Tudor , and Laing . The music is Schoenberg's Transfigured Night, which was inspired by a poem by Richard Dehmel . The ballet, too, is inspired by the poem. In a small town in New England, the sexually repressed Hagar gives herself to a sadistic stranger (the Man Opposite) in the mistaken belief that her beloved is in love with her younger sister. Hagar then has to confess to her lover, who forgives her. One of Tudor's greatest works, it is a landmark in the genre of psychological ballet. It was revived for the Royal Swedish Ballet (1962), the Vienna State Opera Ballet (1969), Australian Ballet (1969), and Birmingham Royal Ballet (1995). Kylián choreographed a different version for Netherlands Dance Theatre in 1975 and Petit did his own version for the Paris Opera Ballet in 1976 using the Schoenberg score.

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Pilobolus Dance Theater.

US modern dance company founded in 1971 by Moses Pendleton and Jonathan Wolken , fellow students at Dartmouth College. The company took its name from a phototropic fungus found in New England. Later members included Lee Harris , Michael Tracy , Robby Barnett , Martha Clarke , and Alison Chase . It operates as a kind of dance collective in which the dancers are jointly responsible for the company's productions. Their form of sculptural dance theatre combines acrobatics, gymnastics, pantomime, and modern dance with striking visual effects and distinctive optical illusions. In 1977 the company, which is based in Washington, Connecticut, enjoyed a successful Broadway run. Artistic directors in 1997 included Barnett , Chase , Tracy , and Wolken .

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Pineapple Poll.

Ballet in one act with choreography and libretto by Cranko , music by Arthur Sullivan (arr. Charles Mackerras ), and designs by Osbert Lancaster . Premiered 13 Mar. 1951 by Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet, Sadler's Wells Theatre, London, with Elaine Fifield , David Poole , and David Blair . A comic ballet set on the docks of Portsmouth, it tells of the love triangle between Captain Belaye , a handsome naval officer, Poll, the pretty trinket-seller who chases after him by disguising herself as a sailor, and Jasper , the Pierrotesque character whose love for Poll is unrequited. Based on W. S. Gilbert's Bab Ballad, The Bumboat Woman's Story. Cranko later re-staged and revised it for the Royal Ballet in 1959 with Park, Holden, and Blair. It was also revived for Australian Ballet (1966), City Center Joffrey Ballet (1970), Stuttgart Ballet (1974), and the National Ballet of Canada.

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Piper , John

(b Epsom, 13 Dec. 1903, d 27 June 1992).
British painter and designer. He designed Ashton's The Quest (1943), de Valois's Job (1948 Covent Garden revival), and Cranko's Sea Change (1949), Harlequin in April (1951), The Shadow (1953), and the sets for his Prince of the Pagodas (1957).

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piqué.

In classical ballet, a step which is taken directly on to pointe, without first bending the knee.

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pirouette.

In classical ballet, a turn or series of turns travelling 360 degrees on one leg. The non-supporting leg is usually bent with the foot touching the knee of the turning leg. Multiple pirouettes are often executed by ballerinas on pointe.

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place, sur.

Remaining on the spot.

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Place, The.

Central London home of London Contemporary Dance School and the now-defunct London Contemporary Dance Theatre. The Place Theatre is London's foremost venue for small-scale independent dance.

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Planets, The.

Several choreographers have used Holst's 1915 orchestral suite, including Kreutzberg (Berlin State Opera, 1931), Tudor (Mars, Venus, Mercury, and Neptune, Ballet Rambert, 1934), Walter (Vienna State Opera, 1961), and Bintley (Royal Ballet, 1990).

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Platel , Élisabeth

(b Paris, 10 Apr. 1959).
French dancer. From 1971 she studied at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, graduating in 1975 with first prize. She spent a year furthering her studies (1975–6) in the ‘pre ballet corps’ at the Paris Opera Ballet, before joining the company fully in 1976. Promoted to étoile in 1981. An outstanding ballerina, blessed with beautiful feet, high extensions, and a purity of style that marked her out as one of the finest exemplars of the French school, she danced all the leading roles in the classical repertoire. She created roles in Childs's Premier orage (1984), Nureyev's Swan Lake (1984), van Dantzig's Sans armes citoyens! (1987), Neumeier's Magnificat (1987) and Sylvia (1997), and Armitage's Les Anges ternis (1987). She has appeared as a guest with many companies around the world, including the Royal Ballet, Royal Danish Ballet and the Bolshoi Ballet. She appeared in the 1987 BBC Television series Ballerina and in the 1982 French film Le Spectre de la danse. She retired from the Paris Opera Ballet in 1999, and continues to guest with other companies.

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Pleasant , Richard

(b Denver, Colo., 1906, d New York, 5 July 1961).
US ballet director and artists' agent. After training as an architect, he worked in Hollywood as an artists' agent. In 1937 he went to New York as manager of the newly re-established Mordkin Ballet. Two years later he founded Ballet Theatre with Lucia Chase , a ballerina with the Mordkin company. Their new company, later American Ballet Theatre, gave its first performance in 1940, but Pleasant resigned as director after only its second season, leaving Chase in control.

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plié

(Fr., bent). Bending of the knee. In classical ballet the term most commonly refers to a slow bending of both legs, knees turned out to the side at a right angle to the front of the body, heels on the floor. It is the fundamental movement of the daily ballet class, used to warm the muscles and tendons during exercises at the barre before proceeding into the centre of the studio.

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Plisetskaya , Maya

(b Moscow, 20 Nov. 1925).
Russian dancer, choreographer, ballet director, and actress. Niece of both Asaf Messerer and the Bolshoi ballerina Sulamith Messerer , and cousin of the designer Boris Messerer . She studied at the Bolshoi Ballet School (from 1932), with Elisaveta Gerdt , graduating in 1943 and joining the Bolshoi Ballet as a soloist. Later trained with Asaf Messerer . Her exceptional technique ensured immediate success and she enjoyed early promotion at the Bolshoi, becoming a ballerina in 1945. A powerful dancer with remarkable fluidity to her physical phrasing, she brought a robust theatricality and passion to her roles, the antithesis of the ethereal Romantic ballerina. She danced all the leading ballerina roles, foremost among them Odette-Odile and Kitri. She went on her first US tour with the Bolshoi in 1959; in 1962, when Galina Ulanova retired, she became prima ballerina of the Bolshoi. Her long career with the Moscow company was frequently marked by her open rebellion against the management and she sought new challenges abroad as an international guest artist, most notably with the Paris Opera Ballet, Ballet National de Marseilles, and Ballet of the 20th Century in Brussels. She created leading roles in Lavrovsky's Stone Flower (1954), Moiseyev's Spartacus (1958), Grigorovich's Moscow version of The Stone Flower (1959), Aurora in Grigorovich's staging of The Sleeping Beauty (1963), Grigorovich's Moscow version of The Legend of Love (1965), the title role in Alberto Alonso's Carmen Suite (1967), Petit's La Rose malade (Paris, 1973), Béjart's Isadora (Monte Carlo, 1976) and his Moscow staging of Leda (1979), Granero's Maria Estuardo (Madrid, 1988), and Lopez's El Renedero (Buenos Aires, 1990). She started choreographing in 1972; her first ballet was Anna Karenina (with N. Ryzhenko and V. Smirnov-Golovanov ), set to a score by her husband, Rodion Shchedrin , and starring herself in the title role, which was staged at the Bolshoi. She also created The Seagull (mus. Shchedrin , Bolshoi Ballet, 1980) and Lady with a Lapdog (mus. Shchedrin , Bolshoi Ballet, 1985). She starred in the 1961 film of The Humpbacked Horse, and also appeared as a straight actress in several films, including the Soviet version of Anna Karenina (1968). Her own ballet of the same name was filmed in 1974. She was ballet director of the Rome Opera (1983–4), and artistic director of Ballet del Teatro Lirico Nacional in Madrid (1987–90). In 1988 an Hommage à Plisetskaya was staged in Boston. In 1996 she danced The Dying Swan, her signature role, at a gala in her honour in St Petersburg. Lenin Prize, 1964.

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Poème de l'extase.

Ballet in two parts with choreography and libretto by Cranko , music by Scriabin and Fortner , and designs by Rose . Premiered 24 Mar. 1970 by the Stuttgart Ballet, with Fonteyn , Madsen , Stripling , Berg , Clauss , and Cragun . A famous diva is flattered by the attentions of a young man, a guest at her party. However, after looking back at her former romantic liaisons and deciding that her life has already been fulfilled, she rejects his advances. The ballet was inspired by Colette's novel La Naissance du jour and took its visual cue from the paintings of Gustav Klimt . It was revived for Fonteyn with the Royal Ballet in 1972. Petit used the same music for his L'estasi (Milan, 1968).

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pointe

(Fr., point). In ballet, dancing on the tip of the toe, in specially designed pointe shoes that have been stiffened with glue and which allow the ballerina to balance her entire body weight on a tiny flat surface. In classical ballet pirouettes are executed on pointe, as are arabesques. Pointe work is traditionally restricted to female dancers, although some modern choreographers have put men ‘sur les pointes’ to comic effect (Bottom in Ashton's The Dream, for example). It is impossible to say for certain who was the first ballerina to dance on pointe, but both the French dancer Geneviève Gosselin and the Russian Avdotia Istomina are known to have danced on pointe before 1820. In the 1830s Marie Taglioni transformed pointe work from a mere technical trick into the perfect vehicle for expressing the ethereality of Romantic ballet. In the early 20th century the supremacy of the pointe shoe in ballet was challenged by choreographers such as Fokine , who was one of the first to abandon it in his ballets. Demi-pointe, or half point, means balancing on the ball of the foot. It is more often used in modern dance.

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Points in Space.

Video dance with choreography by Cunningham , direction by Elliot Caplan and Cunningham , music by Cage , sets by William Anastasi , and costumes by Dove Bradshaw . It was performed by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company and video-taped at BBC Television Centre in London in May 1986. First broadcast on BBC Television on 18 July 1987. The title is taken from Albert Einstein's assertion ‘There are no fixed points in space.’ Cunningham made the work, for the full company, especially for the camera, taking into account the multiple points of view afforded by the medium. He later produced it for the stage at City Center, New York, 10 Mar. 1987. The Paris Opera Ballet took it into the repertoire in 1990.

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Poland.

Ballet in Poland dates from the 16th century when it featured as a court entertainment. The first Polish company was founded in 1785, although it was short-lived, owing to the breakup of the country in 1794. Warsaw, which fell to Russia, became a centre of ballet activity. The French choreographers Louis Thierry (1818–23) and Maurice Pion (1825–43) worked here. Thierry (with Julia Mierzynska ) created Cracow Wedding in 1823, the oldest Polish ballet still in the repertoire. F. Taglioni , who worked as director in Warsaw (1843–53), built up the repertoire and created works for the company. In the 1850s and 1860s, when Roman Turczynowicz was in charge, the company was prominent on the European dance scene and stars of the dance world, such as Grisi and Blasis, came to work in Warsaw. By the end of the 19th century, the company was heavily under the influence of the Russian ballet. Russian ballets were featured in the repertoire and Russian dancers (Pavlova and Karsavina among them) came to guest. From 1902 to 1905 Cecchetti was director of the company, and some of the dancers he taught later joined the Diaghilev company (Woizikowski and Idzikowski). In 1920 ballet began to spread outside Warsaw, with the opening of a new centre in Poznán, attached to the Grand Theatre. Between the First and Second World Wars modern dance began to take hold, under the influence of Duncan , Jaques-Dalcroze , and Wigman , whose methods were taught in private schools. In 1937 the Polish Ballet was founded to promote Polish ballet abroad. It was financed by the government and engaged Bronislava Nijinska as choreographer; the company toured throughout Europe but was disbanded in 1939 due to the outbreak of war. After the Second World War, which resulted in so much devastation to the companies and the theatres, ballet in the country had to rebuild, as did the Warsaw Grand Theatre which reopened in 1965. Companies sprang up in regional opera houses, although ballet faced a major restructuring following the end of Communist rule in 1989. In 1973 the independent Polish Dance Theatre was founded in Poznán by Conrad Drzewiecki ; it remains the most important company in the country.

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Polish Ballet.

Short-lived touring ballet company based in Poland in the 1930s. It was set up in 1937 to showcase Polish ballets abroad. Its first artistic director was Bronislava Nijinska , who created five new ballets which were premiered by the company at the Paris Exposition Internationale in 1937 (at the Théâtre Mogador). In these works Nijinska merged Polish national dance forms with classical and modernist ballet. The Polish Ballet won the Grand Prix and Nijinska won the Grand Prix for choreography. The company toured Europe, including London and Poland, under Nijinska's direction. In 1939 the Polish Ballet, directed by Nijinska's successor Woizikowski , was disbanded at the outbreak of the Second World War.

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polka.

Dance originating in Bohemia in the early 19th century. It is performed in quick duple time, and takes the form of step, step, step, hop. It was popular in European ball-rooms and found its way onto the ballet stage in the 1840s when Maria and Eugene Coralli danced a polka at the Paris Opera.

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polonaise.

Polish national dance executed in 3/4 time. A solemn and processional dance, it was performed when August the Strong was crowned king of Poland in 1697.

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Polovtsian Dances.

See Prince Igor.

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Ponomarev , Vladimir

(b St Petersburg, 22 July 1892, d Budapest, 21 Mar. 1951).
Russian dancer, choreographer, and teacher. He studied at the Imperial Theatre School in St Petersburg and graduated in 1910, joining the Maryinsky Theatre. In 1911–12 he danced with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. In 1912 he became a principal dancer with the Maryinsky, and stayed with it through its various in carnations (first as GATOB, then as the Kirov) until 1951. He created the role of Prince Adam in The Fountain of Bakhchisarai (1934) and Montague in Lavrovsky's Romeo and Juliet (1940). Along with Lopukhov and Leontiev , he choreographed The Red Poppy (1929) for the Kirov. In 1941 he staged La Bayadère (with Chabukiani), Don Quixote, and Giselle for the Kirov. He was instrumental in ensuring the survival of the 19th-century repertoire. In 1913 he began teaching at the ballet school in St Petersburg and became one of the top Soviet teachers of his day. His students included Gusev , K. Sergeyev , Chabukiani , Lavrovsky , and Zakharov . From 1944 to 1951 he was chief repetiteur at the Kirov, coaching dancers such as Ulanova, Grigorovich , and Jacobson . He was also assistant artistic director of the Kirov Ballet (1935–8), and acting artistic director (1941–4). He was artistic director of the Maly Theatre Ballet, Leningrad (1938–9). He also frequently taught abroad, especially in Budapest, where he died.

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Pontois , Noëlla

(b Vendôme, 24 Dec. 1943).
French dancer. She studied at the Paris Opera Ballet School and joined the Paris Opera Ballet in 1961. In 1966 she became a principal, and in 1968 an étoile. For the next 25 years she was the company's prima ballerina. Although she created roles in a number of contemporary ballets, she is best remembered for her outstanding interpretations of the 19th-century classical repertoire, to which she brought great refinement and authority, not to mention a thrilling facility for extended balances on pointe. She created roles in Petit's Adage et variations (1965), Extase (1968), and Mouvances (1976), Descombey's Jazz Suite (1966) and Zyklus (1966), Flindt's Jeux (1973), Alonso's Pas de quatre (1973), Robbins's Scherzo fantastique (1974), Macdonald's Variations Diabelli (1974), and Pendleton's Pulcinella (Nancy, 1984). She appeared as a guest ballerina abroad, with companies such as London Festival Ballet and American Ballet Theatre. She retired from the Opera in 1983. In 1988 she began teaching at the Paris Opera Ballet School. Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur (1984).

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Poole , David

(b Cape Town, 17 Sept. 1925, d Cape Town, 27 Aug. 1991).
South African dancer and ballet director. He trained with Dulcie Howes at the University of Cape Town Ballet School and then at Sadler's Wells Ballet School in London. In 1947 he joined Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet, becoming a principal in 1948; in 1955 he transferred to the Sadler's Wells Ballet (later Royal Ballet) at Covent Garden. He created roles in Cranko's Sea Change (1949), Beauty and the Beast (1949), Pineapple Poll (1951), and The Lady and the Fool (1954), Rodrigues's Blood Wedding (1953), and MacMillan's Danses concertantes (1955) and House of Birds (1955). In 1956 he left the Royal Ballet, dancing with Ballet Rambert and Edinburgh International Ballet before returning to South Africa in 1959 to teach. In 1963 he became ballet master of CAPAB Ballet (now Cape Town City Ballet) and in 1967 he succeeded Dulcie Howes as artistic director; he created original works for the repertoire and added new productions of the classics, as well as raising the levels of performance and training. He retired in 1990.

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Popova , Nina

(b Novorossisk, 20 Oct. 1922).
Russian-US dancer, teacher, and ballet director. She studied with T. Wassilieff , Preobrajenska , Egorova , and Vilzak and began her career dancing with Ballet de la Jeunesse in 1938. She danced with the Original Ballet Russe (1940–1), Ballet Theatre (1941–3), and Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo (1943–5). After working in American television and on Broadway, she became head of the ballet department at the New York High School of Performing Arts (1954–67). She was founder and artistic director of the Houston Ballet (1968–75).

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port de bras

(Fr., carriage of the arms). In classical ballet there are various set positions of the arms, from en bas (in which the arms form an oval shape in front of the body about mid-thigh) to en haut (in which the arms form an oval above the head just slightly in front of the body).

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Portugal.

As it did elsewhere in Europe, ballet in Portugal grew out of performances at court for the Portuguese kings. In the 16th century an element of drama was injected into these court entertainments. However, the development of dance was severely restricted by decades of Spanish rule in the late 16th and early 17th century; dance was restricted to Jesuit theatrical performances. Guest artists from Vienna and Paris brought dance to Lisbon in the 1730s and 1740s but after the earthquake of 1755 cultural life was severely hampered. In 1793 a new Royal Opera House opened in Lisbon with a performance of an allegorical ballet, La Felicita lusitana, a form much admired in Lisbon at the time. The storylines were often based on real-life events and sometimes featured real people on stage, such as soldiers. The Romantic ballet was slow to take hold, despite seasons staged by Saint-Léon (1854–6). Even Diaghilev found it difficult when his company was forced to spend 1917–18 in Lisbon because of the First World War. Dance continued to stagnate well into the 20th century, when politics made it difficult to pursue new initiatives in the arts. It was not until the Gulbenkian Foundation established its own ballet company in Lisbon in 1965 that theatrical dance really took off. Today the independent dance scene is active with choreographers like Olga Roriz running their own companies. The Gulbenkian Ballet concentrates on contemporary choreography, while the Companhia Nacional de Bailado is more traditionally orientated.

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posé.

In ballet, stepping onto the full or half point with a straight knee. The transfer of weight can be done in any direction.

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post-modern.

A somewhat vague term, first used by Yvonne Rainer in the early 1960s, that encompasses all kinds of experimental dance beginning in the 1960s and continuing throughout the 1990s. Its more spartan and intellectual approach to dance-making was typified by the Judson Dance Theater in New York, which in the early 1960s provided a forum for people like Rainer , Steve Paxton , and Trisha Brown to develop radical new ideas which rejected conventional attitudes about choreography—i.e. that it had to be theatrical in presentation and performed by highly trained dancers. Instead, these choreographers were more interested in structure than in spectacle, more interested in virtue than in virtuosity. The emphasis was on minimal movement and a vocabulary of everyday steps that could be performed by anyone, trained dancer or untrained novice. As Twyla Tharp described in her autobiography Push Comes to Shove, ‘At the Judson you could only walk and run—if you danced, you had sold out.’ The term post-modern came into common dance usage in the 1970s.

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Poulenc , Francis

(b Paris, 7 Jan. 1899, d Paris, 30 Jan. 1963).
French composer. He was a member of the avant-garde composers' group Les Six, who together wrote the music for Börlin's Les Mariés de la Tour Eiffel, a surrealist ballet performed by Les Ballets Suédois in 1921. He also wrote the music for Nijinska's Les Biches (1924) and Aubade (1929) and for Lifar's Les Animaux modèles (1942). Poulenc's orchestral writing has also been used for dance purposes, including his Concerto in G minor for Organ, Strings, and Timpani, which Tetley took for Voluntaries (1973), and his Gloria, which MacMillan used for his 1980 ballet of the same name.

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Pourfarrokh , Ali

(b Kermanshah, 27 Nov. 1938).
Iranian dancer, ballet master, and ballet director. He studied at the Tehran Dance Academy and at the Metropolitan Opera Ballet School in New York, the School of American Ballet, and at the Graham school. He danced with American Ballet Theatre (1959–63), then with Metropolitan Opera Ballet, Harkness Ballet, Frankfurt Ballet, and Joffrey Ballet. He was associate director and ballet master of the Alvin Ailey company (1972–6), and artistic director of the Iranian National Ballet (1976–9). Artistic director of the Alberta Ballet (1988–98).

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Powell , Robert

(b Hawaii, 1941, d New York, 24 Oct. 1977).
US dancer. He studied at the High School of Performing Arts in New York and began dancing with the Martha Graham company in 1958, eventually becoming a soloist. He created roles in Graham's Acrobats of God (1960), Secular Games (1962), Circe (1963), Plain of Prayer (1968), A Time of Snow (1968), and The Archaic Hours (1968). He also danced with Glen Tetley , creating the role of Brighella in Tetley's Pierrot Lunaire (1962), and with Paul Taylor , José Limón, Louis Falco , Alvin Ailey , and London Contemporary Dance Theatre, where he created a leading role in Robert Cohan's Cell (1969). He was also associate director of the Graham company. A highly expressive modern dancer.

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Praagh , (Dame) Peggy van

(b London, 1 Sept. 1910, d Melbourne, 15 Jan. 1990).
British dancer, teacher, and ballet director. She studied with Aimée Phipps , Margaret Craske , Sokolova , Volkova , Karsavina , and de Mille . She made her debut dancing with Anton Dolin's company in London in 1929, performing balletic interludes in revues at the Coliseum. She danced with Ballet Rambert (1933–8) and then with Antony Tudor's London Ballet (1938). She created roles in many of Tudor's important early works: Jardin aux lilas (1936), Dark Elegies (1937), Soirée musicale (1938), and Gala Performance (1938). She was joint director, with Maude Lloyd , of the London Ballet (1939–40). In 1941 she became a principal dancer with Sadler's Wells Ballet and in 1946 she became ballet mistress of Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet, the company left behind at the Wells when what became the Royal Ballet moved to Covent Garden. She was assistant director of Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet (1951–5), a time of great creative excitement for the company. She also worked as a ballet producer for BBC Television (1949–58). In 1958 she directed the Edinburgh International Ballet; in 1959–60 she was artistic director of the Borovansky Ballet in Australia. In 1962 she was invited to become the first artistic director of the newly formed Australian Ballet, where she remained until 1974, having built up the company's repertoire and standards of performance (she returned to the company 1978–9). She was also a freelance ballet producer and teacher, both at the Royal Ballet School and the Australian Ballet School (1975–82), and was one of the world's leading teachers of the Cecchetti method. Author of How I Became a Ballet Dancer (London, 1954) and, with Peter Brinson , The Choreographic Art (London, 1963). DBE 1970.

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Prague Ballet.

Company founded in the city in 1964 by the choreographers Ogoun and Smok and the critic Vladimir Vasut . It gave its first performance on 23 Apr. 1965 at the Prague Theatre of Nusle. A chamber-sized group, it showcased contemporary Czech choreography, especially ballets by Ogoun and Smok . After a brief period of inactivity when it disbanded in 1970, it was reformed as Prague Chamber Ballet. It has frequently toured abroad.

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Prague National Theatre Ballet.

Ballet company attached to the National Theatre in Prague. Founded in 1883, it remains the oldest ensemble in the Czech Republic.

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Preljocaj , Angelin

(b Sucy-en-Brie, 9 Jan. 1957).
French dancer, choreographer, and company director. Studied modern dance with Karine Waehner and Cunningham . Danced with various companies, including those of Quentin Rouiller , Viola Farber , and Dominique Bagouet (1982–4). In 1984 he founded his own group, Preljocaj Company. He was guest choreographer with the Lyons Opera Ballet (1990) and the Paris Opera Ballet (1994). In 1993 he founded the Ballet Preljocaj at Chateauvallon; in 1996 his company moved to Aix-en-Provence. Some of his most successful work as a choreographer has been in paying homage to ballet classics of the early 20th century. His versions of Les Noces (1989), Parade (Paris Opera, 1993), and Spectre de la rose (Paris Opera, 1993) were much acclaimed. A list of his other works includes Black Market (1985), To Our Heroes (1986), Romeo and Juliet (1990, Lyons), Bitter America (1990), The World Skin (1992), The Park (Le Parc, Paris Opera Ballet, 1994), Annunciation (Paris Opera Ballet, 1996), Firebird (Munich, 1995), Casanova (Paris Opera, 1998), and Personne n'épouse les Méduses (Ballet Preljocaj, 1999). In 1997 he created La Stravaganza for the 50th anniversary of New York City Ballet. In 1999 he was appointed artistic adviser to the Berlin Opera Ballet. Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur (1998).

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premier danseur.

In classical ballet, a senior principal male dancer.

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Preobrajenska , Olga

(b St Petersburg, 2 Feb. 1871, d Saint-Mandé, France, 27 Dec. 1962).
Russian-French dancer and teacher. She studied at the Imperial Theatre School in St Petersburg from 1879, where her teachers included Petipa and Ivanov . Later she trained with Cecchetti in St Petersburg. She graduated in 1889 to join the Maryinsky Theatre. She was promoted to soloist in 1896 and prima ballerina in 1990. During her two decades at the Maryinsky she danced all the leading ballerina roles, although she was particularly noted for her Coppélia, Raymonda, Sleeping Beauty, Fille mal gardée, and Don Quixote. She created roles in Petipa's Bluebeard (1896), Harlequinade (1900), and Les Saisons (1900), in Ivanov and Gerdt's Sylvia (1901), N. and S. Legat's The Fairy Doll (1903), and in Fokine's The Night of Terpsichore (1908), Egyptian Nights (1908), and his second version of Chopiniana (1908). From 1895 she began to make guest appearances abroad, in Paris, London, even S. America. Short, stocky and even ‘plain-looking’ as one critic described her, she was also completely charming on stage and was admired for her strong, precise technique and her versatility as a performer. In 1914 she began teaching in St Petersburg, where her students included Danilova and Vaganova . In 1921 she left the Soviet Union and took her teaching career to Milan, London, Buenos Aires, and Berlin, before eventually settling in Paris in 1923. For almost 40 years she was one of the most famous teachers in Paris, working from her studio at the Salle Wacker, and her students included Baronova , Toumanova , and Youskevitch . She retired in 1960.

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Présages, Les.

Ballet in four movements with choreography and libretto by Massine , music by Tchaikovsky , and designs by André Masson . Premiered 13 Apr. 1933 by Colonel de Basil's Ballets Russes, in Monte Carlo, with Verchinina , Baronova , Riabouchinska , Lichine , and Woizikowski . The ballet is set to Tchaikovsky's 5th Symphony and has as its theme man's struggle with fate. The four parts are called: ‘Action’, ‘Passion’, ‘Frivolity’, and ‘War’ (or ‘Fate’). It was revived by Tatiana Leskova for the Paris Opera Ballet in 1989 and for the Joffrey Ballet in 1992. It was Massine's first symphonic ballet, part of a ground-breaking series that also included Choreartium, Symphonie fantastique, La Septième Symphonie, and Rouge et noir.

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Prévost , Françoise

(b Paris, c.1680 or 1681, d Paris, 13 Sept. 1741).
French dancer. She made her official debut at the Paris Opera in 1699 in Lully's Atys. For three decades she was the reigning French prima ballerina and, indeed, was one of the first ballerinas since women had only recently been introduced to the stage (her predecessors were La Fontaine and Subligny ). She also choreographed her own dances. Her most famous work was Les Caractères de la danse (mus. Rebel , 1715), in which she danced and mimed the parts of eleven different lovers, both male and female. She also taught in Paris, where her pupils included Marie Camargo and Marie Sallé , who went on to become famous rivals. She retired from the Opera in 1730.

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Price family.

A Danish theatrical family started by an English circus rider and pantomime artist, James Price (1761–1805), who settled in Copenhagen. The family produced dancers, mime artists, actors, circus performers, and music hall artists up until the beginning of the 20th century. Juliette Price (1831–1906), his granddaughter, was a leading Danish ballerina and a great favourite of Bournonville, who often cast her in his ballets. She was also the first Danish Giselle . Her brother, Waldemar Price (1836–1908), joined the Royal Danish Ballet in 1857 and became the leading premier danseur of his day. Their cousin, Julius Price (1833–93), made his career as a dancer in Vienna, where he was the first solo dancer of the Vienna Court Opera (1855–93) and notched up almost 2,500 performances. Ellen Price (1878–1968), the great-niece of Juliette and Waldemar , was a soloist with the Royal Danish Ballet (1903–12), and created the title role in Beck's The Little Mermaid (1909).

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prima ballerina

(It., first dancer). In classical ballet, the female dancer who occupies the top position among dancers in a company. There is only one higher title, that of prima ballerina assoluta, which is very rarely given. The Royal Ballet bestowed this latter title on Margot Fonteyn in 1979, when she was 60.

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Primitive Mysteries.

Modern dance in three sections with choreography, libretto, and costumes by Graham , and music by Horst . Premiered 2 Feb. 1931 by the Martha Graham company at the Craig Theater in New York. Graham's first major group work, it featured twelve women and Graham herself as the central figure through whom the Christ story is re-enacted. She based her ideas for a religious ritual on the Christian Native Americans in the US Southwest. The work's three sections were ‘Hymn to the Virgin’, ‘Crucifixus’, and ‘Hosannah’. One of Graham's signature works, its bold religious statement was unprecedented in modern dance at the time.

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Primus , Pearl

(b Port of Spain, Trinidad, 29 Nov. 1919, d New Rochelle, NY, 29 Oct. 1994).
US dancer, choreographer, teacher, and anthropologist. She studied medicine and biology at Hunter College in New York; later obtained a Ph.D. in anthropology from New York University (1978). She studied dance on a scholarship to the New Dance Group (1941). She gave her first solo recital in 1943 and launched her own company in 1944. She devoted herself to research into West Indian, African, and other native dance forms, in partnership with her husband, Percival Borde; she believed in dance as a means of fostering cultural understanding. She made several trips to Africa to further her research and established the African-Caribbean-American Institute of Dance in New York in 1963. In 1978 she founded the Pearl Primus Dance Language Institute in New Rochelle. She also taught at New York's Hunter College. She choreographed African Ceremonial (1944) for her own company and re-staged The Wedding for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (1974). Other works include Fanga (1949), inspired by a Liberian ritual dance, and Strange Fruit (1943), which dealt with lynching of blacks in the Deep South. She also choreographed Broadway musicals and the dances in O'Neill's play The Emperor Jones (1947).

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Prince Igor.

Opera by Borodin , which includes the famous Polovtsian Dances, often performed on their own as a ballet. In the opera these dances are staged by Khan Konchak to entertain his prisoners, Prince Igor and his son Vladimir. When the opera was first produced on 4 Nov. 1890 at the Maryinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, the dances were choreographed by Ivanov . When Diaghilev presented his first Paris season in 1909, Fokine rechoreographed the Polovtsian Dances; it was the first ballet made for Diaghilev's opening season. With the rousing energy of the mass choreography, rooted in Tartar folk dance, and the colourful new designs from Nicholas Roerich , the work was a huge success (first performed 19 May 1909 at the Théâtre du Châtelet, with Fedorova , Smirnova , and Bolm ). Fokine's version has been frequently revived, including Grigoriev's production for the Royal Ballet in 1965 which featured a real-life Tartar, Rudolf Nureyev . Other revivals include the Royal Danish Ballet (1925), Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires (1931), Blum's Ballets de Monte Carlo (1936), Paris Opera Ballet (1949), and London Festival Ballet (1951).

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Prince of the Pagodas, The.

Ballet in three acts with choreography and libretto by Cranko , music by Britten , sets by John Piper , and costumes by Desmond Heeley . Premiered 1 Jan. 1957 by the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden, with Beriosova , Farron , Blair , and Leslie Edwards . A fairy-tale, which could be described as King Lear meets Beauty and the Beast, it tells of the Emperor of the Middle Kingdom and his two rival daughters, one good and one evil. Princess Rose, the good one, is banished and forced to undergo a journey through air, fire and water. In the Kingdom of the Pagodas she meets a Green Salamander who turns into a handsome prince. He then helps her and her father to regain the kingdom, which has fallen into the hands of her evil sister, Princess Epine . The music, by Benjamin Britten , was the first full-length ballet score by a British composer in the 20th century. Cranko revived it for Milan (1957) and Stuttgart (1960). Vinogradov staged a new version for the Kirov as The Enchanted Prince (1972). In 1989 Kenneth MacMillan choreographed a new version for the Royal Ballet using the Britten score. The ballet, which featured designs by Nicholas Georgiadis , was premiered on 7 Dec. 1989 with Bussell , Cope , Dowell , and Fiona Chadwick .

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Prisoner of the Caucasus, The.

There have been several ballets based on Pushkin's poem, including one by Didelot (mus. Cavos ), which was first performed 27 Jan. 1823, at the Bolshoi Theatre in St Petersburg with Istomina and Goltz . A hundred years later it was staged by Lavrovsky (mus. Asafiev , designs Khodasevich), in a production premiered on 14 Apr. 1938 at the Maly Theatre in Leningrad. On 4 Dec. 1951 Skibine did a one-act version (mus. Khachaturian from Gayané) for the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas at the Théâtre de l'Empire in Paris, with Skibine and Marjorie Tallchief .

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Prodigal Son, The (orig. Fr. title Le Fils prodigue).

Ballet in one act with choreography by Balanchine , libretto by Kochno , music by Prokofiev , designs by Rouault . Premiered 21 May 1929 by the Ballets Russes de Diaghilev at the Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt in Paris, with Lifar , Doubrovska , Fedorov , Woizikowski , and Dolin. A dance re-telling of the biblical parable, it provides an intensely dramatic central role for a male dancer. It was the last ballet Balanchine made for the Diaghilev company. It was revived for several companies including New York City Ballet (1950, with Jerome Robbins and Maria Tallchief ), the Royal Danish Ballet (1968, with Flemming Flindt and Anna Laerkesen ), the Royal Ballet (1973, with Rudolf Nureyev and Deanne Bergsma ), Paris Opera (1973), American Ballet Theatre (1980, with Baryshnikov ), and Les Grands Ballets Canadiens (1989). Other choreographers, including Jooss (Essen, 1931), Milloss (Düsseldorf, 1934), and Lichine (Original Ballet Russe, Sydney, 1938), have created different versions using the Prokofiev score. Barry Moreland staged a ragtime version of The Prodigal Son, set to music by Scott Joplin , for London Festival Ballet in 1974, and Ivo Cramér staged a folklore version of The Prodigal Son (mus. H. Alfvén ) for the Royal Swedish Ballet in 1957.

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Prokofiev , Sergei or Serge Prokofiev

(b Sontsovka, Ukraine, 5 May 1891, d Moscow, 5 Mar. 1953).
Ukrainian-Soviet composer. He wrote much ballet music, including the full-length Romeo and Juliet (first production 1938, Brno, chor. Psota ) and Cinderella (chor. Zahkarov , Bolshoi Ballet, Moscow, 1945), two of the best-known ballet scores in the world. His first ballet, Ala and Lolly, was written in 1914, a commission from Diaghilev , although it was never performed (it had to wait until 1927 when Terpis staged it at the Berlin State Opera). A list of his ballets includes Chout (Ballet Russes de Diaghilev , Paris, 1921, choreography by Slavinsky and Larionov ), Trapeze (chor. Romanov , Russian Romantic Ballet, Berlin, 1925), Le Pas d'acier (Ballets Russes de Diaghilev , Paris, 1927, chor. Massine ), The Prodigal Son (Ballets Russes de Diaghilev , Paris, 1929, chor. Balanchine ), Sur le Borsythène (Paris Opera, 1932, chor. Lifar ), and The Stone Flower (Bolshoi Ballet, Moscow, 1954, chor. Lavrovsky ). His concert music has also been used by many choreographers; examples include Tudor's Gala Performance (London Ballet, 1938), Bolm's Peter and the Wolf (Ballet Theatre, New York, 1940), MacMillan's Triad (Royal Ballet, 1972), Robbins's Opus 19 (New York City Ballet, 1979), Grigorovich's Ivan the Terrible (Bolshoi Ballet, Moscow, 1975), and Kudelka's The Heart of the Matter (1986) and Désir (1991). He and Stravinsky are the two most important ballet composers of the 20th century.

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Prokovsky , André

(b Paris, 13 Jan. 1939).
French dancer, choreographer, and ballet director. He studied with Lubov Egorova , Nora Kiss , Serge Peretti , and Nicholas Zvereff . He made his debut in 1954 with the Comédie-Française in Molière's Les Amants magnifiques, and then danced with the companies of Charrat (1954), Babilée (1954), and Petit (1956) before starting a lengthy association with London Festival Ballet (1957–60, 1966–73). He also danced with Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas (1960–2) and New York City Ballet (1963–6). Noted as a bravura dancer, he formed an acclaimed partnership with Galina Samsova while at London Festival Ballet. He created roles in Dolin's Variations for Four (1957), d'Amboises's The Chase (1963) and Irish Fantasy (1964), Balanchine's Pas de deux and Divertissement (1965) and Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet (1966), J. Carter's The Unknown Island (1969), Hynd's Dvóak Variations (1970), and Darrell's Othello (title role, 1971). In 1972 he and Galina Samsova (then his wife) started a company which later became New London Ballet. It disbanded in 1977, although it was briefly revived in 1979. For his own company he choreographed Scarlatti and Friends (mus. Scarlatti , 1972), Bagatelles, Opus 126 (mus. Beethoven , 1972), Vespri (mus. Verdi , 1973), Piano Quartet No. 1 (mus. Beethoven , 1974), Folk Songs (mus. Berio , 1974), Elégie (mus. Fauré , 1975), Commedia I (mus. R. R. Bennett , 1975), Königsmark (mus. Tchaikovsky , 1979). He created the full-length Anna Karenina (mus. Tchaikovsky ) for Australian Ballet in 1979 and followed that with The Three Musketeers (mus. Verdi , Woolfenden ) for the same company in 1980. For PACT Ballet in South Africa he made The Seven Deadly Sins (mus. Weill , 1975); for CAPAB Ballet in South Africa he made Zhivago (mus. Rimsky-Korsakov , Borodin ) in 1983. For London Festival Ballet he made The Storm (mus. Shostakovich , 1981), Verdi Variations (mus. Verdi , 1981), and That Certain Feeling (mus. Gershwin , 1984). For Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet he made Vocalise Opus 34 (mus. Rachmaninov , 1984). For Northern Ballet Theatre in Manchester he staged The Nutcracker (1981), Brahms Love Songs (mus. Brahms , 1983), and Swan Lake (1986). For London City Ballet he staged Romeo and Juliet (mus. Berlioz , arr. Salzedo , 1985) and La traviata (mus. Verdi , arr. Woolfenden , 1989). He was artistic director of Rome Opera Ballet (1977–8). From 1979 he has worked as a freelance choreographer.

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promenade.

In classical ballet, a slow supported turn on one foot, usually with the body held in a arabesque or attitude position. The male dancer holds the hand of the ballerina (who is on pointe) and either slowly walks around her or turns her around.

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Promenade.

Ballet in one act with choreography and libretto by de Valois , music by Haydn (arranged by E. Evans and G. Jacob ), and designs by Stevenson . Premiered 25 Oct. 1943 by Sadler's Wells Ballet at the King's Theatre in Edinburgh, with G. Hamilton , P. Clayden , Fonteyn , and Paltenghi . A suite of dances linked by a single character—an elderly butterfly collector.

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Prospect Before Us, The.

Ballet in one act with choreography and libretto by de Valois , music by William Boyce (arr. Lambert ), and designs by Roger Furse . Premiered 4 July 1940 by Vic-Wells Ballet, at Sadler's Wells Theatre, London, with Helpmann , C. Newman , and May . A comedy set in Georgian London, it tells of two rival theatre managers (at the King's Theatre and the Pantheon) who fight over a troupe of dancers which includes Didelot , Noverre , and Vestris . The ballet takes its title from an engraving by T. Rowlandson . It was revived by Birmingham Royal Ballet in 1998 to celebrate Dame Ninette de Valois's 100th birthday.

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Pugni , Cesare

(b Genoa, 31 May 1802, d St Petersburg, 26 Jan. 1870).
Italian composer. It is believed he wrote more than 300 ballets, making him probably the most prolific ballet composer who ever lived. He wrote his first ballet for La Scala, Milan, in 1823: Il castello di Kenilworth (chor. Gaetano Gioja ). In 1832 he was appointed director of music at La Scala, although he left precipitately two years later (disgraced, some said, by his gambling habits). He worked in Paris for several years and in 1843 got the job of ballet composer at Her Majesty's Theatre in London where for the next seven years he worked with the choreographers Perrot , Saint-Léon , and Paul Taglioni . In 1851 he was appointed official ballet composer in St Petersburg (probably on Perrot's recommendation). He was a hard working journeyman composer who wrote ballet music to order, but he also had a severe drinking problem which left him frequently in debt. Saint-Léon records that at one point in 1869 Pugni was so broke the dancers of the Imperial Ballet took up a collection to help him feed his large family. His most important collaborations were with Perrot , Saint-Léon , and Petipa . For Perrot he wrote Ondine (London, 1843), La Esmeralda (1844), La Vivandière (1944), Éoline ou la dryade (London, 1845), Pas de quatre (London, 1845), Lalla Rookh, or The Rose of Lahore (London, 1846), Le Jugement de Pâris (London, 1846), Catarina ou la Fille du bandit (London, 1846), The Naiad and the Fisherman (St Petersburg, 1851), Gazelda (St Petersburg, 1853), and Faust (St Petersburg, 1854). For Saint-Léon he wrote La Fille de marbre (Paris, 1847) and The Humpbacked Horse (St Petersburg, 1864). For Petipa he wrote The Blue Dahlia (1860), La Fille du Pharaon (St Petersburg, 1862), The Beauty of Lebanon (1863), and Le Roi Candaule (St Petersburg, 1868).

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Pulcinella.

Ballet in one act with choreography and libretto by Massine , music by Stravinsky , and designs by Picasso . Premiered 15 May 1920 by the Ballets Russes de Diaghilev at the Paris Opera, with Massine , Karsavina , Tchernicheva , Nemchinova , Idzikowski , Zvereff , and Cecchetti . A commedia dell'arte ballet, the libretto is based on the Neapolitan play The Four Pulcinellas. The unscrupulous Neapolitan lover Pulcinella is involved in a series of amorous adventures with two women, Rosetta and Prudenza , even though he has a mistress, Pimpinella. Jealous rivals appear to kill him, only to discover that his death has been a hoax. In the end, the various sets of lovers are happily reunited. Stravinsky based his score on fragments of unfinished music by the 18th-century Italian composer Pergolesi . Massine revised the ballet for a revival at La Scala, Milan, in 1971 (later revived for the City Center Joffrey Ballet in 1974). Other choreographic treatments of the ballet include those by Lopukhov (Leningrad, 1926), Jooss (Essen, 1932), Woizikowski (London, 1935), Béjart (Liège, 1957), Smuin (American Ballet Theatre, 1968), Balanchine and Robbins (New York City Ballet, 1972), Douglas Dunn (Paris Opera, 1980), Tetley (London Festival Ballet, 1984), and Alston (Ballet Rambert, 1987).

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Purcell , Henry

(b London, 1659, d London, 21 Nov. 1695).
British composer. He wrote operas, music for plays and masques, most of them choreographed by John Priest . They include Dido and Aeneas (1689), The Prophetess or The History of Dioclesian (1690), King Arthur or The British Worthy (1691), The Fairy Queen (1692), and The Indian Queen (1695). In the 20th century many ballets were choreographed to his music, including Ashton's Dances for The Fairy Queen (Ballet Rambert, 1927), de Valois's The Birthday of Oberon (Vic-Wells Ballet, 1933), Tudor's Suite of Airs (Ballet Rambert, 1937), Helpmann's Comus (Sadler's Wells Ballet, 1942), and José Limón's The Moor's Pavane (1949). A new staging of The Fairy Queen, with choreography by Ashton , was the first post war opera production at Covent Garden in 1946. In 1989 in Brussels Mark Morris famously choreographed a sexually explicit Dido and Aeneas in which he played the role of Dido, Queen of Carthage. Morris also set his One Charming Night, in which a vampire seduces a little girl, to four songs by Purcell .

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Push Comes To Shove.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Tharp , music by Haydn and Joseph Lamb (arr. David Bourne ), and costumes by Santo Loquasto . Premiered 9 Jan. 1976 by American Ballet Theatre at the Uris Theater in New York, with Baryshnikov , Tcherkassky , van Hamel , Clark Tippet , and Christopher Aponte . Considered a milestone in 20th-century ballet, it married Tharp's slick modern wit and jazzy sensibility to the high-brow sophistication of classical dance. It was made for the virtuosic talents of Mikhail Baryshnikov , who had recently defected from the Soviet Union, and it cleverly transformed him from upright ballet hero into bowler-hatted womanizing rogue. The score was a blend of ragtime and Haydn. It was revived for the Paris Opera Ballet in 1989 and for the Royal Ballet in 1997.

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Pushkin , Aleksandr

(b Mikulino, 7 Sept. 1907, d Leningrad, 20 Mar. 1970).
Soviet dancer and teacher. His early training was with Nikolai Legat . He studied at the Leningrad Ballet School, a pupil of Alexander Shiryaev , Nikolai Ivanovsky , Alexander Monakhov , and Vladimir Ponomarev . He graduated in 1925 into the Leningrad company, dancing with the GATOB (later the Kirov) from 1925 to 1953. He created roles in Vainonen's The Flames of Paris (1932) and Zakharov's Lost Illusions (1936). He began teaching in 1932, and when he retired he took over the school's Class of Perfection. As a teacher he achieved legendary status, counting among his pupils at the Leningrad school Grigorovich, Nureyev, Panov, and Baryshnikov.

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Pushkin ballets.

Works by the Russian writer Aleksandr Pushkin (1799–1837) have provided the inspiration for many ballets, especially in Russia. A list includes Glushkovsky's Ruslan and Lyudmila (Moscow, 1821), Didelot's The Prisoner of the Caucasus (St Petersburg, 1823), Saint-Léon's The Goldfish (St Petersburg, 1867), F. Nijinsky's A Victim of Jealousy (Kiev, 1892), Lavrovsky's The Prisoner of the Caucasus (Leningrad, 1938), Boyarchikov's The Queen of Spades (1969), and Zakharov's The Fountain of Bakhchisarai (Leningrad, 1934), The Aristocratic Peasant Girl (Moscow, 1946), and The Bronze Horseman (Leningrad, 1949). The most famous example of a Pushkin ballet outside Russia is Cranko's Onegin (Stuttgart, 1965). Other Western examples include Massine's Aleko (New York, 1942), Skibine's Le Prisonnier du Caucase (Paris, 1951), Lifar's La Dame de pique (Monte Carlo, 1960), and Petit's La Dame de pique (1977).

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Pygmalion ballets.

The story of a statue brought to life by the goddess Aphrodite has inspired a number of ballets, including those by Sallé (London, 1734), J. P. Rameau (an opera-ballet, Paris, 1748), Hilverding (St Petersburg, 1763), Angiolini (Vienna, 1776), Dauberval (London, 1784), Milon (Paris, 1800), Therese Elssler (Berlin, 1835), A. Howard (London, 1946), and V. Gsovsky (London, 1947).

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Q

quadrille.

A French ballroom dance for four couples which was very popular at the court of Napoleon I and which found its way into Britain in the early 19th century. The term also refers to the square formations of couples in the American Square Dance and to the position of corps de ballet dancers within the hierarchy of the Paris Opera (first and second quadrilles, two of the lowest ranks in the company).

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quaternaria.

A 15th-century dance, very basic and consisting of just two steps which are reprised after the feet are beaten together.

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Quatre Saisons, Les.

Ballet divertissement in one act with choreography and libretto by Perrot and music by Pugni . Premiered 13 June 1848 at Her Majesty's Theatre in London, with Fanny Cerrito (Spring), Carlotta Grisi (Summer), Carolina Rosati (Autumn), and Marie Taglioni the younger (Winter). It was the fourth in the series of divertissements created by Perrot for Her Majesty's Theatre, the previous three being Pas de quatre, Le Jugement de Pâris, and Les Éléments. Like them, Les Quatre Saisons was a dancing contest between star ballerinas, whose on-stage rivalry was often matched by similar competition backstage.

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Quinault , Philippe

(b Paris, 1635, d Paris, 26 Nov. 1688).
French poet and librettist. He was associated with the Paris Opera for 24 years. He wrote the libretto for the ballet opera Les Fêtes de l'amour et de Bacchus in 1672, which marked the beginning of a fourteen-year collaboration with Lully. Other ballet librettos he wrote included Le Triomphe de l'amour (1681) and Le Temple de la paix (1685).

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R

Rábai , Miklós

(b Békécscaba, 18 Apr. 1921, d Budapest, 18 Aug. 1974).
Hungarian choreographer. From 1945 he started to collect and arrange folk dances for his pupils on an amateur basis, and in 1949 he became founding choreographer of the Hungarian State Folk Dance Ensemble, for which he produced work for the next 25 years.

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Rachmaninov , Sergei

(b Semyonovo, Starorussky, 1 Apr. 1873, d Beverly Hills, Calif., 29 Mar. 1943).
Russian-US composer. He wrote no ballet scores but some of his concert music has been used for dance, most frequently Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, by, among others, Fokine (Covent Garden Russian Ballet, London, 1939), Lavrovsky (Bolshoi Ballet, Moscow, 1960), and Ashton (Royal Ballet, London, 1980).

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Radice , Attilia

(b Taranto, 8 Jan. 1914, d Capranica, 14 Sept. 1980).
Italian dancer and teacher. She studied at the La Scala Ballet School with A. Gini and Cecchetti and made her debut in the company in 1932 in Massine's Belkis. An elegant but intensely expressive dancer, she was rapidly promoted to prima ballerina and in 1935 joined Rome Opera Ballet as prima ballerina assoluta. She danced there until 1957, creating roles in many works by Milloss , including Bolero and The Miraculous Mandarin, then became director of ROB's school, passing on her close knowledge of Cecchetti's method.

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Radio City Music Hall.

New York theatre which opened as a vaudeville house but went on to present films, grand-scale musicals, dance events, ice shows, etc. It opened 27 Dec. 1932, with an auditorium seating 6,000 and one of the largest stages in the world. Martha Graham appeared in the first night programme, and the precision dance group the Rockettes remained a renowned feature. It was closed for several months during 1999 for refurbishment, restoring the clean lines of its (now listed) 1930s' design.

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Radunsky , Alexander

(b Moscow, 3 Aug. 1912, d 27 Aug. 1982).
Soviet dancer, choreographer, and teacher. Born into a family of circus clowns, his talent for mime was quickly noticed when he was studying at the Moscow Ballet School. He graduated into the Bolshoi Ballet in 1930, becoming one of its most expressive and witty character artists. At a period when the repertoire was dominated by dramatic works his gifts were greatly in demand, for example as Juliet's father in Lavrovsky's Romeo and Juliet. He also choreographed several ballets including The Little Stork (chor. with Popko and Pospekhin , mus. Klebanov , 1937) and The Little Humpbacked Horse (mus. Shchedrin , 1960). He retired from dancing in 1962 and became chief choreographer of the Red Army Song and Dance Ensemble until 1965. He was made Merited Artist of the Russian Federation in 1958.

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Rainer , Yvonne

(b San Francisco, Calif., 24 Nov. 1934).
US dancer and choreographer. She studied with Graham , Cunningham , and Halprin and danced with several companies including James Waring's . In 1962 she was a founder member of the Judson Dance Theatre which gave a platform to alternative dance performances. She became an influential member of New York's minimalist school and in 1965 published the notorious manifesto which opened with the call ‘NO to spectacle, no to virtuosity no to transformations and magic and make believe’. Her own work included Trio A (1966), part of a longer work called The Mind is a Muscle, which was composed out of basic pedestrian movements like walks and somersaults, presenting the basic mechanics of the body rather than technical display. In the early 1970s her works became more political, and she became increasingly interested in narrative. In 1972 she made the film Lives of Performers and in 1974 abandoned her career in dance to become a full-time film-maker.

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RainForest.

Modern dance work in one act with choreography by Cunningham , music by David Tudor , and design by Andy Warhol . Premiered 9 Mar. 1968 by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company at Upton Auditorium, Buffalo, New York, with Cunningham , C. Brown , Dilley , and Solomons . Warhol's ‘set’ for this work is a number of helium-filled balloons that are allowed to bob freely around the stage.

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Rainoldi , Paolo

(b Milan, 18 Apr. 1781 or 1784, d Prague, 1 Jan. 1853).
Italian dancer, choreographer, and ballet master. He studied with Francesco Sedini after which he danced with F. Taglioni and S. Gallet in Vienna. He was renowned for his parody of Duport in Flore et Zéphire. He later taught in Prague (1840–6) and his own account of his experiences in the dancing profession is preserved in Vienna's Municipal Library.

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Rake's Progress, The.

Ballet in one act with choreography by de Valois , music and libretto by Gavin Gordon , and design by Rex Whistler . Premiered 20 May 1935 by the Vic-Wells Ballet at Sadler's Wells Theatre, London, with Gore and Markova. Its six scenes are closely based on the series of Hogarth paintings (hung in London's Sir John Soane's Museum) which depict the moral downfall of the feckless hero. It is regarded as the first ‘English’ ballet to be choreographed in the 20th century, not only because of its subject and the nationality of its collaborators but also because of its vividly delineated, almost literary, character studies. It has frequently been revived by both Sadler's Wells Ballet and the Royal Ballet; also by Munich State Opera Ballet (1956), Ballet of Flanders (1972), and Zurich Ballet (1976).

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Ralov , Børge (orig. Børge Petersen ;

b Copenhagen, 1908, d Copenhagen, 17 Dec. 1981).
Danish dancer, teacher, and choreographer. He studied at the Royal Danish Ballet School and graduated into the Royal Danish Ballet in 1927, becoming soloist (principal) 1933, and first soloist (1942–57). He was Margot Lander's frequent partner and was specially admired in Petrushka and Napoli. He became an instructor with the RDB in 1934 and later teacher at the RDB School and also choreographed several ballets, such as Widow in the Mirror (mus. B. Christensen , 1934), most of which starred his wife, Kirsten Ralov.

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Ralov , Kirsten (née Gnatt ;

b Baden, Austria, 26 Mar. 1922, d Copenhagen, 30 May 1999).
Danish dancer and director. She studied at the Royal Danish Ballet School making her stage debut as a child in 1933 and joining the Royal Danish Ballet in 1940. A vivacious, musical dancer, she was one of the finest exponents of the Bournonville style of her era. After retiring from the stage in 1962 she travelled the world producing Bournonville ballets and was associate director of the RDB (1978–88). She also created several ballets, including The Door (mus. Bentzon , for RDB, 1962). She was married to the dancer Borge Ralov and then to the dancer Fredbjørn Bjørnsson . In 1953 she was made Knight of Dannebrog (elevated to First Grade in 1978) and in 1981 she was accepted into the Icelandic Order of the Falcon. She wrote The Bournonville School (1978).

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Rambert , (Dame) Marie (orig. Cyvia Rambam , then Miriam Ramberg ;

b Warsaw, 20 Feb. 1888, d London, 12 June 1982).
Polish-British dancer, teacher, and ballet director, founder of the first British ballet company. After being inspired by a performance of Isadora Duncan she began working with Raymond Duncan in Paris and taking basic ballet classes. In 1910 she studied with Jaques-Dalcroze in Geneva and worked as his assistant until 1912 when Diaghilev engaged her to assist Nijinsky and his dancers with the complex rhythms of Stravinsky's score for Rite of Spring (1913). She stayed with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes for a season as dancer in the corps and studying with Cecchetti, before moving to London in 1914 where she studied further with Astafieva , and gave dance recitals. In 1918 she married the dramatist Ashley Dukes and in 1920 opened her own ballet school. From this emerged the small performing group, Marie Rambert Dancers, in 1926, which became Ballet Club in 1931 and Ballet Rambert in 1935. An inspired talent spotter and legendary bully, Rambert nurtured many of Britain's most important choreographers, including Ashton , Tudor , Howard , Staff , Gore , Morrice , and Cranko . Her school also produced many renowned dancers such as Argyle , Gould , Lloyd , Franca , Gilmour , Aldous , and Turner . Though her company was often run on a shoestring its productions always reflected her wit, taste, and sharp instinct for trends. She published her autobiography, Quicksilver, in London in 1972 and was made Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur in 1957 and DBE in 1962.

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Rambert Dance Company.

Britain's oldest dance company, founded by Marie Rambert . It grew out of performances given by the London ballet school which she opened in 1920. From 1931 the troupe was based at London's Mercury Theatre, under the name Ballet Club; from 1935 it was known as the Ballet Rambert, giving joint performances with the London Ballet at the Arts Theatre Club (1940–1). In 1943 it was reorganized as a national touring company with public funding. Early choreographers and works included Frederick Ashton , who created A Tragedy of Fashion (1926), Capriol Suite (1930), and Façade (1931) for the company; Antony Tudor who created Jardin aux lilas (1936) and Dark Elegies (1937); Andrée Howard who created Lady into Fox (1939); Walter Gore who created Simple Symphony (1944); and Frank Staff who created Peter and the Wolf and Enigma Variations (1940). The company's leading dancers included Pearl Argyle , Diana Gould , Maude Lloyd , Hugh Laing , and Harold Turner . Alicia Markova was ballerina at the Ballet Club for four years.
After the war the company staged its first full-length classic, Giselle (1946), and during the 1950s, in response to changes in public taste, it was increasingly forced to tour small-scale productions of 19th-century ballets rather than new work. In 1966 under the direction of Norman Morrice , the company abandoned its classical roots and became a small-scale modern dance troupe, eventually altering its name in 1987 to Rambert Dance Company to reflect its change of style. Since then Rambert has produced many important new choreographers and works. In the 1960s it reflected the Graham-based aesthetic of choreographers like Glen Tetley who mounted several ballets including Ricercare and Pierrot lunaire on the company as well as making new works including Embrace Tiger and Return to Mountain (1968). Under the direction of Robert North (1981–6), works by Merce Cunningham and Paul Taylor were added to the company's increasingly eclectic repertoire. Richard Alston , resident choreographer with the company from 1984, consolidated the Cunningham influence when he became artistic director in 1986 as well as contributing many important works of his own, such as Wildlife (1984). Christopher Bruce , who had been dancer and later associate choreographer with Rambert (1963–84), and whose early works for the company included Ghost Dances (1981), became its new artistic director in 1994, relaunching an expanded company with a repertoire of international neo-classical and modern works, such as Kylián's Petite mort, and his own, including Four Seasons (1998) and God's Plenty (1999). The official school, which was founded in 1920 became the Ballet Rambert School, based at the Mercury Theatre. Rambert Academy, which was set up in conjunction with London Institute of Higher Education in 1979, merged with Rambert School in 1982.

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Rameau , Jean-Philippe

(b Dijon, baptized 25 Sept. 1683, d Paris, 12 Sept. 1764).
French composer who wrote many opera ballets at a time when professional dancers were beginning to take over from courtly amateurs. Working in the new ‘style galant’ which was replacing the more formal baroque style of Lully, his music used bold harmonies, strong rhythms, and orchestral colour to animate both the choreography and the plot, and thus helped to lay the foundations of modern ballet. His works include Les Indes galantes (1734), Castor et Pollux (1737), and Platée (1745). Many were choreographed by Cahusac and by Sallé .

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Rameau , Pierre

(b Cirea, 1674, d Nanterre, 26 Jan. 1748).
French dancer, ballet master, and theorist, whose books are a crucial source of our knowledge of 18th-century dance. He danced at the Lyons Opera (1703–5) and possibly at the Paris Opera (c.1710–13) and was dancing master to the pages of the Queen of Spain. He was later dancing master in the house of Louise Élisabeth de Montpensier (second dowager Queen of Spain). In 1725 he published Le Maître à danser in Paris which became the standard dance handbook of the age, including detailed descriptions of the floor patterns, steps, and structure of many social dances as well as their style of execution. These, invaluably, flesh out the rather basic dance notations which have survived from the period, written in the Beauchamps/Feuillet system. Six months later he published his own modification of that system in Abrégé de la nouvelle méthode de l'art d'écrire ou de tracer toutes sortes de danses de ville, though this book had much less public success. An English edition of The Dancing Master was translated and published by C. W. Beaumont (London, 1931).

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Randazzo , Peter

(b New York, 2 Jan. 1942).
US-Canadian dancer, choreographer, and director. He studied at the Graham school and danced with her company from 1960 to 1967, also guesting with other companies, including Limón and American Dance Theatre. In 1967 he created his first work, for the New Dance Group of Canada, and in 1968 he cofounded, with David Earle and Patricia Beatty , the Toronto Dance Theatre. A charismatic performer, he also created many works for the company, developing a highly physical, technically complex style that pushed its dancers to their limits. From the late 1980s he began to distance himself from Toronto Dance Theatre to pursue a freelance career.

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Rao , Shanta

(b Mangalore, 1930).
Indian dancer. She studied kathakali with Ravunni Menon , mohini attam with Shri Pannikar , and dasi attam with Minakshisundaram Pillai . Her wide stylistic range and powerful dance personality helped revive interest in classical dance in her native India while her world-wide tours attracted international interest. Her innovative approach to both movement and presentation has caused some controversy within the Indian dance world.

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raqs sharqi (or Eastern dance).

The dominant solo dance form of Egypt. Rooted in pre-Islamic times it has always been taught within the family and performed on celebratory occasions but in the 10th- and 11th-century Islamic courts and 18th-century Ottoman courts it took on a more refined classical style. Characterized by sinuous, rhythmic hip movements and undulating arms, its debased form, belly dancing, has been popular in cabarets from the 19th century onwards. Since the mid-1970s there has been an international revival of interest in the traditional forms among both professional and amateur dancers.

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Rassine , Alexis (orig. Alexis Rays ;

b Kaunas, 26 July 1919, d Crawley, 25 July 1992).
Lithuanian-British dancer. He moved to Cape Town aged 10 and studied there with Helen Webb , moving to Paris aged 17 to study with Preobrajenska and others. He made his debut in the revue Bal Tabarin. In 1939 he moved to London where he danced with various companies including the Anglo-Polish Ballet (1940) and Sadler's Wells Ballet (1942–55). Performing as a danseur noble when most British male dancers were on war service he created roles in several works including Helpmann's Hamlet (1942) and Miracle in the Gorbals (1944), Ashton's The Quest (1943) and Homage to the Queen (1953), and de Valois's Don Quixote (1950). He was a frequent partner of Nerina and toured S. Africa with her in 1952 and 1955. He also danced briefly for Gore's London Ballet. In 1976 he opened his own school.

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Rauschenberg , Robert

(b Port Arthur, Tex., 22 Oct. 1925).
US painter and designer. In his interest in multi-media and assemblage he shares an aesthetic similar to Cunningham and he has created many designs for the latter's works, including Antic Meet, Summerspace (both 1958), and Winterbranch (1964). He has also worked with Paul Taylor on Three Epitaphs (1956) and Tracer (1962), among others, and with Trisha Brown on Set and Reset (1983) and Astral Convertible (1989).

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Ravel , Maurice

(b Ciboure, 7 Mar. 1875, d Paris, 28 Dec. 1937).
French composer. He wrote several ballet scores, whose inventive orchestration, sensuous melodies, and metrical flexibility offer rich challenges to choreographers. His first was Ma Mère l'oye (expanded from an original piano piece) which was choreographed by Staats for the Théâtre des Arts, Paris, 1912. In the same year he completed Daphnis and Chloe (chor. Fokine for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, Paris 1912). Later scores were La Valse (commissioned by Diaghilev in 1920, chor. Nijinska , Monte Carlo, 1929) and Boléro (chor. Nijinska , Rubinstein Company, Paris, 1928). He also contributed to the score L'Éventail de Jeanne (Paris, 1928). His lyric fantasy L'Enfant et les sortilèges (libr. Colette , 1925) was first choreographed by Balanchine and subsequently by Charrat (1964) and Kylián (1984), among others. Later versions of Daphnis and Chloe include Ashton (1951), Cranko (1962), and Tetley (1975); other versions of La Valse include Fokine (1935), Gsovsky (1951), Balanchine (1951), and Ashton (1958), and other versions of Bolero include Fokine (1935), Lifar (1941),Béjart (1961), and Lavrovsky (1964). Other concert music which has been used for dance includes Pavane pour une infante défunte (chor. Bolm , 1928, Ashton , 1933, Lifar , 1944, R. North , 1967, and Christopher Wheeldon , 1996, among others); Valses nobles et sentimentales (chor. Ashton , 1947, MacMillan , 1966, and van Manen , 1975); the Piano Concerto in G (chor. Robbins , 1975, and MacMillan, as Fin du jour, 1979); and the Introduction and Allegro for Harp (chor. Robbins , 1975, and M. Baldwin , as Samples, 1995), His Shéhérazade is occasionally used (as distinct from the more popular Rimsky-Korsakov score). Cranko set his Beauty and the Beast (1949) to Ravel's Mother Goose suite. In 1975 New York City Ballet presented three programmes of ballets to his music in an ‘Hommage à Ravel’ and in Dec. 1998 Lyons Opera Ballet premiered three new works to his music, Meryl Tankard's Bolero, Lionel Hoche's Origami de la chair (Le Tombeau de Couperin), and Alessio Silvestrin's Perspective depuis les ruines (Concerto en sol).

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Rayet , Jacqueline

(b Paris, 26 June 1932).
French dancer. She studied at the Paris Opera Ballet School and joined the company in 1946, becoming étoile in 1961. She created roles in several ballets including Lifar's Blanche-neige (1951), van Dyk's Romeo and Juliet (1961), Béjart's Webern Opus V (1965), and Petit's Turangalîla (1968). During the early 1960s she was a frequent guest ballerina with Hamburg State Opera. After retiring from the stage she worked as teacher and ballet mistress, most notably with Ballet of the 20th Century. In 1986 she was appointed professor at the Conservatoire National Supérior de Paris.

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Raymonda.

Ballet in three acts with choreography by Petipa , libretto by Petipa and Lydia Pashkova , music by Glazunov , sets by O. Allegri , K. Ivanov , and P. Lambin , and costumes by E. Ofizerova and I. Kaffi . Premiered 19 Jan. 1898 at the Maryinsky Theatre with Legnani , S. Legat , and Gerdt . The ballet is set in the time of the Crusades and tells the story of Raymonda, a beautiful noblewoman who is engaged to marry the Crusader Jean de Brienne. During her lover's absence the wicked Saracen knight Abderakhman attempts to abduct her, but she is saved by the intervention of a protecting spirit, the White Lady, whereupon Brienne returns to slay his rival. The lovers' joyful marriage is celebrated by a lavish Hungarian divertissement. The ballet's slender storyline (which has been whittled down even further during the decades) is little more than a vehicle for Petipa's choreographic invention and for the ballerina's technique (displayed in several exquisite variations). It is regarded as Petipa's last true masterpiece and has been constantly revived in Russia. It was kept unchanged in the Kirov repertoire until 1938 when Vainonen staged a new version with a revised libretto by himself and Slominsky. In 1948 Sergeyev staged a version which reverted to a close approximation of Petipa. The Bolshoi danced their first production in 1900 and in 1908 showed a brand-new version by Gorsky . Lavrovsky staged a later revival (1945) with much of Petipa's choreography restored. In the West, Petipa's ballet has appeared in many different forms. The Grand Pas hongrois (Act III) formed part of an evening of divertissements danced by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in Paris (1909) and Pavlova presented a two-act version of the ballet staged by Ivan Clustine in New York (1914). The complete ballet was danced in Nicholas Zvereff's staging for the National Opera Ballet of Lithuania in London (1935) while the first US production was a shortened re-creation of Petipa's work by Danilova and Balanchine for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo (New York, 1946). Nureyev staged a complete version in 1964 for the Royal Ballet Touring Company at the Spoleto Festival although only Act III remained in the permanent repertoire. Nureyev subsequently re-staged the complete production for Australian Ballet (1965), Zurich Opera Ballet (1972), and for American Ballet Theatre (1975). Berlin Opera Ballet also staged the complete ballet in a production by T. Gsovsky (Acts I and II) and Beriozoff (Act III). Balanchine choreographed his own ballet, Pas de dix, to the music from the Grand Pas hongrois (1955), later developed into Cortège hongrois (1973), and also Raymonda Variations (to other extracts from Glazunov's score) in 1961.

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Read , John B.

British lighting designer. He has worked for many dance companies including the Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Scottish Ballet, English National Ballet, Netherlands Dance Theatre, Dutch National Ballet, Rambert Dance Company, and London Contemporary Dance Theatre. He is currently lighting consultant to the Royal Ballet and has been very influential in Britain in establishing lighting as an integral part of dance presentation.

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Reade , Paul

(b Lancashire, 1943, d 7 June 1997).
British composer. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music then worked as repetiteur with English National Opera. He wrote the score for several ballets including Bintley's Hobson's Choice (1989) and Far from the Madding Crowd (1996).

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Red Detachment of Women.

The first Chinese ‘Revolutionary Model Ballet’ with choreography by Li Cheng-xiang , Jiang Zuhui , and Wung Xi-xian , music by Wu Zu-qiang and Du Ming-xin , and design by Ma Yun-hong . Premiered in Peking (now Beijing) 1 Oct. 1964 by the China Ballet Troupe (later the Central Ballet of China) with Bai Shu-xiang and Liu Qing-tang . The plot is taken from the opera of the same name and is set during the civil war of 1927–37. It tells the story of a peasant girl, Wu Qing-hua , who lives on Hainan Island in S. China and is liberated from her tyrant master by the leader of the Red Army which is stationed on the island. She joins the Red Detachment of Women and becomes a heroic fighter, finally taking over the position of commander. The ballet was choreographed at the height of the Cultural Revolution and its mix of Western ballet, folk and classical Chinese dance, and contemporary political message made it a model for new Chinese ballet, encouraging a huge popular interest in dance. It was filmed in 1970 and revived for the Matsuyama Ballet (Tokyo) in 1973. Performances of the entire ballet were banned in China during the backlash against the Cultural Revolution, but it regained favour in the late 1990s.

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Red Flower, The.

See Red Poppy, The.

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Red Poppy, The (orig. Russ. title Krasny mak).

Ballet in three acts with choreography by Lev Lashchilin and Tikhomirov , libretto and design by Mikhail Kurilko , and music by Reinhold Glière . Premiered 14 June 1927 by the Bolshoi Ballet, Moscow, with Geltser and Tikhomirov . It is an early example of Socialist Realism, created to fulfil State demands for populist and politically correct art. Set in China of the 1920s it tells the story of a dancer, Tao Hoa , who is exploited by a vicious manager and falls in love with the captain of a Soviet ship. She intercepts the bullet with which her manager tries to kill her lover and the red poppy which she gives to a little Chinese girl as she dies becomes a symbol of liberation—both for the Chinese people and their Soviet comrades. The ballet's attempted fusion of revolutionary good intentions, vernacular dance, and old-fashioned classical ballet prompted the critic Tcherepnin to mock ‘You don't make a statue of a Red Army officer out of whipped cream’. However, it has been frequently revived in the USSR (after 1957 under the title The Red Flower, to avoid suggestions of opium). New versions include Lopukhov (GATOB, 1929), Zakharov (Kirov Ballet) and Lavrovsky (Bolshoi, both 1949). A shortened version was choreographed by Schwezoff for Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in 1943.

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Red Shoes, The.

Film by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger which created a huge popular interest in ballet around the world when it was first shown in 1948. It stars Moira Shearer (then dancer with the Royal Ballet) and is a dramatic portrait of the backstage life and loves of a ballet company (roughly modelled on Diaghilev's Ballets Russes). The extended ballet sequence which forms part of the film is based on Hans Christian Andersen's tale ‘The Red Shoes’ and was choreographed by Robert Helpmann . The 1993 Broadway musical based on the film was a flop, although the ballet sequence, choreographed by Lar Lubovitch , was taken into the repertoire of American Ballet Theatre.

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Red Whirlwind, The (orig. Russ. title Krasny vikhr).

Ballet in two ‘Processes’ with choreography by Lopukhov , music by V. Deshenov , and design by K. Tshupiatov . Premiered 29 Oct. 1924 by GATOB, Leningrad, with Victor Semenov and Gerdt . Its fusion of speech, song, acrobatics, and dance was conceived as an allegory of the events of the October Revolution. It was attacked as an example of Proletkult (Proletarian Culture) and only performed twice.

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Reed , Janet

(b Tolo, Oreg., 15 Sept. 1916, d Seattle, 28 Feb. 2000).
US dancer. She studied with W. Christensen , Balanchine , and Tudor and danced with Christensen's ballet company before joining San Francisco Opera Ballet (later San Francisco Ballet) in 1937. She was subsequently appointed principal, and danced Odile in the first American full-length production of Swan Lake (1940). In 1942 she performed with Eugene Loring's Dance Players and between 1943 and 1946 was ballerina with Ballet Theatre (later American Ballet Theatre), creating roles in Robbins's Fancy Free (1944) and Interplay (1945). After a brief stint on Broadway she was principal dancer with New York City Ballet from 1949 to 1960 (with periods of semi-retirement). A versatile dance actress, she created roles in Balanchine's Bourrée fantasque (1949) and Western Symphony (1954), Robbins's Pied Piper (1951) and Ballade (1952), and in the 1953 revival of Lew Christensen's Filling Station, among others. She was ballet mistress of NYCB (1959–64) and continued to teach after retirement.

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reel.

Old British dance in 2/4 or 6/8 time, performed by two or more couples. It spread from Britain to many of its colonies and to parts of Scandinavia, and for a time it was the most common dance in these areas. It was first documented in the 17th century but dates back earlier.

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Reich , Steve

(b New York, 1936).
US minimalist composer whose rhythmically repetitive and distinctively scored works have frequently been used for dance, including Laura Dean's Drumming (1975), de Keersmaeker's Fase (1982), Eliot Feld's Grand Canyon (1984), Lucinda Child's Cascade (1984), and Siobhan Davies's Different Trains (1990).

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Reinhart , Charles Lawrence

(b Summit, NJ, 5 Dec. 1930).
US writer and director. He has written on dance for many newspapers and magazines, as well as directing the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, American Dance Festival and (with Stephanie Reinhart ) dance programming at Washington D.C.'s Kennedy Center.

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Reinholm , Gert (orig. Gert Schmidt ;

b Chemnitz, 20 Dec. 1926).
German dancer, teacher, and director. He studied at the Berlin Staatsoper Ballet School and with T. Gsovsky , and made his debut in 1942 with the Berlin Staatsoper, becoming soloist (1946). He was principal dancer at the Buenos Aires Teatro Colón (1951–3) after which he returned to Berlin as soloist with the Municipal Opera Ballet (later Berlin Opera Ballet). In 1955 he formed the Berlin Ballet with T. Gsovsky and frequently toured with the company until the mid-1960s. A dancer of considerable sensitivity and classical style, he created roles in many ballets by Gsovsky including Hamlet (1953), The Moor of Venice (1956), and Tristan (1965). In 1961 he was appointed director of the newly expanded Berlin Opera Ballet bringing in many outside dancers and choreographers to broaden the company's range. He remained there as MacMillan's administrator after the latter became director in 1966 and again directed the company from 1972 to 1990. In 1967 he established his own school, the Berlin Ballet Academy where he continued to teach. He was awarded the Cross of Merit of the German Federal Republic in 1987.

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Reinking , Ann

(b Seattle, c.1951).
US dancer, choreographer, and director. She studied ballet locally, at San Francisco Ballet School and with Joffrey, making her debut with the corps de ballet at Radio City Music Hall. She then worked as a dancer, singer, and actress on Broadway (excelling in the choreography of Fosse). She appeared in the original run of Chicago and in television and film, including All that Jazz (1979). In the late 1980s she began to choreograph, starring in and choreographing the Broadway revival of Chicago (1996), for which she won a Tony Award for Best Choreography, and co-directing and co-choreographing Fosse (1999). She has also choreographed works for Joffrey Ballet of Chicago, Connecticut Ballet Theatre, Pacific Northwest Ballet, and Ballet Hispanico (Ritmo y ruido). In the 1990s she also became director of the Broadway Theatre Project, training young people in musical theatre skills.

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Reisinger , Julius Wenzel

(b Prague, 14 Dec. 1828, d Berlin, 1892).
Austrian choreographer who created the first, short-lived Swan Lake to Tchaikovsky's score (Moscow, 1877). His first major professional engagement was ballet master at Leipzig (1864–72) after which he was invited to Moscow in 1871 as a guest to choreograph Cinderella or The Magic Slipper (mus. Wilhelm Mühldörfer ). He was ballet master at the Bolshoi Theatre (1873–8) during which time he staged several ballets by P. Taglioni . After leaving he returned to Prague where he was ballet master at the National Theatre for the 1883/4 season.

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Reiter-Soffer , Domy

(b Tel Aviv, 24 Oct. 1950).
Israeli dancer, choreographer, and designer. He studied with Frandsen, de Vos, Sokolow, and others and in 1959 joined Israeli Opera Ballet. He danced in Ireland (1962–4), moving to London in 1964 to dance with London Dance Theatre and act at the Royal Court. He danced with Western and Scottish Theatre Ballets (1966–70) and in 1974 he was made artistic adviser of the Irish National Ballet Company, where he remained until 1989. His works include Women (mus. Boulez , Irish National Ballet, 1974), Journey (mus. Tangerine Dream , Bat-Dor Company 1977), Equus (mus. Wilfred Josephs , Maryland Ballet, 1980, revived Dance Theatre of Harlem, 1981, Australian Ballet, 1984, and others), Lady of the Camellias (mus. Saint-Saëns , Irish National Ballet, 1984), The Emperor and the Nightingale (mus. Richard Tsang , Hong Kong Ballet, 1998), and Beauty and the Beast (mus. Man-yee Lam , Hong Kong Ballet, 1999). He has also directed several plays, choreographed for opera and television, and created the designs for over 30 dance and theatre productions.

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Reitz , Dana

(b Rochester, NY, 19 Oct. 1948).
US dancer and choreographer. She trained in both Eastern and Western dance styles, studied with Cunningham and danced briefly with Twyla Tharp and Laura Dean . She also appeared in Robert Wilson's production of Philip Glass's opera, Einstein on the Beach (1976). She has since worked primarily as a solo improviser, her subtle but vivid movements playing with precise, often unexpected shifts of weight and tempo. Her style is hypnotic in flow, and wittily idiosyncratic in gesture. She occasionally works with larger ensembles and in 1993 collaborated with dancer Sara Rudner and lighting designer Jennifer Tipton on the duet Necessary Weather. She has also worked closely with Baryshnikov , creating the solo Unspoken Territory for him in 1994 and performing the duet Meeting Place with him in 1996.

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Relâche.

Dadaist dance event, defined in full as an instantaneous ballet in two acts, a cinematographic entr'acte and a queue de chien, with choreography by Börlin , music by Satie , libretto and design by Picabia , and film by René Clair . Premiered 4 Dec. 1924 by Les Ballets Suédois at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées with Bonsdorff , Börlin , and K. Smith . The title of this Dadaist ballet means ‘cancelled performance’, and at its premiere it achieved its desired aim—to scandalize the bourgeois press. Its cast features a fireman and nine men in their underwear, the choreography contains no recognizable classical dance; the design consists of rows of headlamps which brighten and dim, and the music features the sound of motor cars. Among the work's apparently random sequence of events is a tableau of two artists (originally Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp ) playing chess, and a mock funeral (of Börlin) which turns into a chase when the hearse runs away. Between the acts Clair's film Entr'acte is screened—the first to be used in a ballet. It was revived by Moses Pendleton for Joffrey Ballet in 1980.

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relevé

(Fr., lifted). A rise from flat foot to half or full point, which may be executed smoothly or with a slight spring.

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Renard, Le (orig. Russ. title Baika).

Dance theatre work in one act with text and music by Stravinsky , choreography by Nijinska , and design by Larionov . Premiered 18 May 1922 by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes at the Paris Opera with Nijinska , Idzikowski , Javinsky , and Federov , Ansermet conducting. This farmyard fable for the stage is based on Russian tales about a fox, cock, cat, and goat. Later productions include Lifar (Ballets Russes, 1929), Balanchine (Ballet Society, 1947), Béjart (Paris Opera, 1965), and A. Page (Royal Ballet, 1994).

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Renault , Michel

(b Paris, 15 Dec. 1927, d Paris, 29 Jan. 1993).
French dancer and teacher. He studied at the Paris Opera Ballet School and joined the Paris Opera Ballet in 1944 becoming the company's youngest ever étoile in 1946. A dancer of enormous strength, suppleness, and verve he was also an expressive dance actor. He created roles in many ballets including Balanchine's Palais de cristal, later Symphony in C (1947), Lifar's Nautéos (1954) and Romeo and Juliet (1955), and Cranko's La Belle Hélène (1955). In 1957 he toured Russia to great acclaim—the first major French dance personality to be invited there since Petipa. He left the Opera in 1959 and worked as a freelance choreographer for musicals, revues, and television, teaching at the POB School (1982–90). His many awards include Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur (1975) and Prix Renaissance Descartes, Paris (1991).

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Rencher , Derek

(b Birmingham, 6 June 1932).
British dancer. He studied at the London Royal College of Art and with various teachers including Goncharov and Schwezoff. In 1952 he joined Sadler's Wells Ballet becoming principal of the Royal Ballet in 1969 and subsequently principal character artist until 1996 when he became a guest artist with the company. He created roles in many works including Ashton's The Dream (1964), Enigma Variations (1968), and A Month in the Country (1976), MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet (1965), Anastasia (1971 version), and Manon (1974), and Tudor's Shadowplay (1967). He also designed several ballets.

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Rendezvous, Le.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Petit , libretto by Prévost , music by J. Kosma , photos by Brassaï , and a backdrop by Picasso . Premiered in 1945 by Ballets des Champs-Elysées at Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt, Paris, with Petit and Babilée . It is a stylish evocation of Parisian street life.

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Rendezvous, Les.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Ashton , music by Auber (from the opera L'Enfant prodigue, arr. Lambert ), and design by Chappell . Premiered 5 Dec. 1933 by Vic-Wells Ballet at Sadler's Wells Theatre, London, with Markova , Idzikowski , de Valois , S. Judson , and Helpmann . This witty, lighthearted series of divertissements shows a group of young men and women meeting in a park and its technical brio, musicality, and above all its expression of dance for dance's sake marked a significant stage in the evolution of Ashton's personal classical style. It has undergone several revisions (the last c.1947) and has been revived for several companies including National Ballet of Canada (1956) and American Ballet Theatre (1980). It was filmed for the BBC in 1962 and revived by the Royal Ballet in 2000 with new designs by Antony Ward .

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renversé

(Fr., overturned). A bending of the body, performed during a turning step. It creates the dizzying illusion that the dancer is momentarily off balance.

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Requiem.

Ballet in one act with choreography by MacMillan , music by Fauré , and design by Yolanda Sonnabend . Premiered 28 Nov. 1976 by the Stuttgart Ballet with Haydée , Keil , Cragun , Madsen , and Andersen . This setting of Fauré's 1886/7 score is dedicated to the memory of Cranko and employs a large cast of dancers to explore the music's subtle delineations of sorrow. It was re-staged by MacMillan for the Royal Ballet in 1983. Russillo and Casado also choreographed Fauré's score in the same year.

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Requiem Canticles.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Robbins , music by Stravinsky , and lighting by R. Bates . Premiered 25 June 1972 by New York City Ballet at the State Theater, New York, with M. Ashley , S. Hendl , B. Wells , and R. Maiorano . This abstract setting of Stravinsky's 1966 score was later revived for the Royal Ballet (1972) and Munich State Opera Ballet (1974). Balanchine also choreographed a ballet to the same score in 1968, dedicating one performance to the memory of Martin Luther King.

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Return to the Strange Land.

Ballet in one act with choreography and design by Kylián and music by Janáek . Premiered 17 May 1975 by Stuttgart Ballet, Stuttgart. It originated as a pas de trois, created for the Stuttgart Ballet in 1974 soon after Cranko's death. The ‘Strange Land’ of the title embodies the idea of the place we come from and where we return after death. Its expanded version featured a lyrical series of duets and trios displaying the inventive, sculptural plastique which has become Kylián's hallmark. It is one of Kylián's most popular works and has been revived for many companies including the Royal Ballet (1984) and Joffrey Ballet.

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Revelations.

Modern dance work in one act with choreography by Ailey , a score based on traditional black religious music (spirituals, Holy blues, etc.) arr. Howard Roberts , and design by Ves Harper . Premiered 31 Jan. 1960 by the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater at the YM-YWHA, New York. It charts man's spiritual journey from baptism through religious despair to joyous salvation in a dance language that is boldly physical and theatrical. It has become the signature work of Alvin Ailey's American Dance Theater and was performed at the company's 40th anniversary celebrations in 1998 with Judith Jamison making her conducting debut.

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révérence

(Fr., curtsey). The formal bow or curtsey, performed by dancers at the end of a class or performance.

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Rhapsody.

Ballet in one act with choreography and set by Ashton , music by Rachmaninov , and costumes by William Chappell . Premiered 4 Aug. 1980 by the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden, London, with Baryshnikov and Collier . This setting of Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini for Piano and Orchestra was choreographed as a showcase for the virtuosity of its principal dancers and was dedicated to the Queen Mother. It was revived by the Royal in 1995 with new designs by Patrick Caulfield . Earlier ballets to the same score include Fokine's for de Basil's Ballets Russes, London (1939), and Lavrovsky's for the Bolshoi Ballet (1960).

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Rhodes , Lawrence

(b Mount Hope, W. Va., 24 Nov. 1939).
US dancer and director. He studied at the Ballet Russe School and in 1958 joined Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. Between 1960 and 1964 he danced with the Robert Joffrey Ballet where his strong technique and dramatic presence were showcased in ballets such as Arpino's Incubus and Macdonald's Time Out of Mind (1962). Between 1964 and 1970 he was principal dancer with Harkness Ballet becoming its artistic director in 1968. In 1970 he joined the Dutch National Ballet, creating the lead role in van Dantzig's On the Way, and in 1972 he joined the Pennsylvania Ballet where he remained until 1976, apart from a year spent with the Feld Ballet (1974–5) and extended guest appearances in Italy with Carla Fracci . In 1981 he was appointed Chairman of New York University School of Dance and in 1989 he became artistic director of Les Grands Ballets Canadiens. He left in 1999 and was succeeded by Gradimir Pankov .

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Riabouchinska , Tatiana

(b Moscow, 23 May 1917, d 24 Aug. 2000).
Russian-US dancer and teacher. She studied in Paris with Volinine and Kshessinska and made her debut in the La Chauve-souris revue in 1931. In 1932 she joined the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo where she was one of its three ‘baby ballerinas’ and stayed with the company until 1941, creating roles in several ballets including Balanchine's La Concurrence (1932), Massine's Jeux d'enfants (1932), Les Présages, and Choreartium (1933), Lichine's Graduation Ball (1940), and Fokine's Cendrillon (1938) and Paganini (1939). Celebrated for her gaiety, lightness, and speed she was also capable of a touching lyricism and a rare imaginative involvement in her roles. Other dancers found it difficult to recreate her roles, so intensely had she made them her own. She was guest dancer with Ballet Theatre in 1942 and then with many other companies including Ballets des Champs-Elysées and London Festival Ballet. She also performed in musical comedies such as The Waltz King (chor. Lichine , 1943), and with Lichine (whom she married in 1943) founded a dance academy in Beverly Hills in 1953 as well as several short-lived ballet companies in Los Angeles, which they ran together until his death in 1972. After retiring from the stage she turned to teaching at the dance academy in Beverly Hills founded by herself and her husband.

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Ricercare.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Tetley , music by M. Seter , and design by Ter-Arutunian . Premiered 15 Jan. 1966 by American Ballet Theatre at New York's State Theater, with Hinkson and S. Douglas . It is a duet for a man and woman who play out their emotional and erotic tensions on and around Ter-Arutunian's huge curved sculpture. It has been revived for Ballet Rambert (1967) and Royal Swedish Ballet (1970).

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Rich , John J. S.

(b c.1691/2, d Hillingdon, 26 Nov. 1761).
British mime and impresario. He was a highly successful author, producer, and actor of Harlequinades who was also responsible for bringing artists like Sallé and Noverre over to England. He inherited the patent of the Lincoln's Inn Theatre from his father in 1714 and staged his first pantomime there in 1716. In 1728 he produced Gay's highly popular Beggar's Opera, the money from which enabled him to build Covent Garden in 1732.

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Richardson , Philip J. S.

(b Winthorpe, 17 Mar. 1875, d London, 17 Feb. 1963).
British writer and editor. He transformed Dancing Times into a substantial dance magazine when he became its editor in 1910, remaining editor and critic until 1957, campaigning vigorously in the magazine's early years for the establishment of a national ballet. In 1920 he was cofounder of the Royal Academy of Dancing (initially called the Association of Operatic Dancing in Great Britain), and in 1930 founded the Camargo Society with Haskell. He also established the Official Board of Ballroom Dancing and the International Council of Ballroom Dancing as well as organizing many charity dance performances including the Sunshine Matinées. His written works include A History of English Ballroom Dancing (1948) and Social Dances of the 19th Century (1960), and he also built up an extensive collection of rare dance books.

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Riegger , Wallingford

(b Albany, Ga., 29 Apr. 1885, d New York, 2 Apr. 1961).
US composer who wrote the music for several dance works including Humphrey's New Dance (1935), Theatre Piece and With My Red Fires (both 1936), and Graham's Chronicle (1936).

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Riga.

See Latvia.

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rigaudon.

A couple dance in lively duple time, dating from 15th-century Provence and named after a dancing master from Marseilles. It became popular at the court of Louis XIV from the 1670s and spread to most of the courts of Europe. Couples dance side by side without holding hands, executing at certain moments the distinctive, springing step, the pas de rigaudon.

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Riley , Richie

(b Jamaica, 10 Jan. 1910, d 8 Apr. 1997).
Jamaican-British dancer and artist. He studied in Kingston then came to London for further training with Astafieva. In 1946 he founded Les Ballets Nègres, a company specializing in Afro-Caribbean dance dramas. It toured Europe with much success but disbanded in 1953 due to lack of funding. Riley went on to study art at the Slade. His life and work were reflected in the BBC documentary Ballet Black (1982).

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Rimsky-Korsakov , Nicolai

(b Tikhvin, 18 Mar. 1844, d Lubensk, 21 June 1908).
Russian composer. He wrote no ballet music but some of his scores have been used for dance, most famously Scheherazade (chor. Fokine , 1910).

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Rio Grande.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Ashton , music by Lambert , and design by Burra . Premiered 29 Nov. 1931 by the Camargo Society at the Savoy Theatre, London, with Lopokova, Gore, Markova, and Chappell. It is set in a Southern port and its action (described by Beaumont as ‘an orgy of sailors and their doxies’) is loosely based on Sacheverell Sitwell's poem of the same title. It was revived for the Vic-Wells Ballet in 1935, when Fonteyn was cast as the Creole Girl, her first significant role.

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Rioja , Pilar

(b Torreón, Coahuila, 13 Sept. 1932).
Spanish dancer. She studied Spanish dance with her parents and ballet locally and in 1947 she began dancing on the stage and in taverns. She made her debut in Spain in 1950, then returned to Mexico City where she became a celebrated performer in clubs and theatres. She continued her training in both Mexico and Spain, becoming one of the world's pre-eminent Spanish dancers, known particularly for the authenticity of her flamenco style.

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Rite of Spring, The (Fr. title Le Sacre du printemps; orig. Russ. title Vesna svyashchennaya).

Ballet in one act with choreography by Nijinsky , music by Stravinsky , and design by Roerich . Premiered 29 May 1913 by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes at Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Paris, with Maria Piltz , and Monteux conducting. At its controversial opening night Nijinsky's choreography was considered almost as shocking as the churning rhythms and clamorous orchestration of Stravinsky's score. The ballet depicts a primitive Russian tribe sacrificing a virgin maiden to the arrival of spring and its choreography is a deliberate inversion of classicism, the dancers adopting a pigeon-toed stance, their movements heavy and constrained. Apart from the Chosen One, they move in groups, their movements uniform and ritualized. It is now regarded as a seminal moment in modernism, but it was dropped after seven performances. Many choreographers have since attempted the same score. Massine's 1920 version for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes used the original Roerich design, with Sokolova as the Chosen One. His 1930 restaging in Philadelphia featured Graham in that role. Other versions include Wigman (Municipal Opera Berlin, 1957), Béjart (Brussels, 1959), MacMillan (Royal Ballet, London, 1962), Neumeier (Frankfurt, 1972), Tetley (Munich State Opera Ballet, 1974), van Manen (Dutch National Ballet, 1974), Bausch (Wuppertal, 1975), Graham (M. Graham Dance Company, 1984), and Stanton Welch , with Stephen Page (Australian Ballet with Bangarra, 1998). Molissa Fenley created a solo to Stravinsky's score in 1988, as did Javier de Frutos (The Palace does not Forgive) in 1994, and Michael Clark spliced it with rock music (including the Sex Pistols) for his work Mmm (1992). The score also accompanies the story of prehistoric evolution in Disney's Fantasia. The four-handed piano version of the music has been used by Taylor (1980), Alston (1981), and Petronio (1992). The original ballet with Nijnsky's choreography and Roerich's designs was reconstructed by Hodson and Archer for the Joffrey Ballet (1987).

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Rituals.

Ballet in one act with choreography by MacMillan , music by Bartók , and design by Sonneband . Premiered 11 Dec. 1975 by the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden, London, with Drew, Eagling, S. Beagley , Derman , Rencher , Seymour , and Mason . This setting of Bartók's Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion is inspired by the highly ritualized nature of Japanese ceremonial life.

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Rivera , Chita

(b Washington, DC, 23 Jan. 1933).
US dancer and actress. She studied at the School of American Ballet and made her debut in the touring production of Call Me Madam in 1950. She appeared on Broadway in Guys and Dolls (1952) but came to fame in the created role of Anita in West Side Story (chor. Robbins , 1957). She went on to perform leading roles in Sweet Charity (1966), Chicago (1975), and Kiss of the Spider Woman (1993).

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Riverdance.

Popular dance and music spectacle based on Irish step dance and also featuring Spanish, Russian, folk, and tap. It began as a brief entertainment to fill the interval of the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest but was then expanded, first into an hour-long video and then into a two-hour stage show, Riverdance: The Show. Produced by Moya Doherty , directed by John McColgan , with music by Bill Whelan , design by Mary Morrow (later by Robert Ballagh ), and most of the original choreography by Michael Flatley , it was premiered 9 Feb. 1995 at The Point, Dublin, with Flatley and Jean Butler . It went on to a record-breaking London run at Labatt's Apollo, Hammersmith, and a world tour. Riverdance: The New Show, featuring additional material was filmed live on 11 Nov. 1996 at Radio City Music Hall, New York.

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rivoltade

(It., turn over). A turning step in which the dancer (usually male) gives the impression that he is jumping over his leg.

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Robbins , Jerome (orig. Jerome Rabinowitz ;

b New York, 11 Oct. 1918, d 29 July 1998).
US dancer, choreographer, and director, considered by many to be the greatest American-born classical choreographer. He studied with Loring , Tudor , and others, also Spanish dance with Helene Veola , Oriental dance with Nimura , and modern dance with Alice Bentley and his sister Sonya Robbins . He also studied acting with Elia Kazan , making his debut as an actor in 1937 and as a dancer at the Dance Center of Felia Sorel and Gluck-Sandor. Between 1938 and 1940 he danced in Broadway musicals and in 1940 joined Ballet Theatre (later American Ballet Theatre), becoming soloist (1941–4). He created roles in several ballets including Fokine's Bluebeard (1941), Lichine's Helen of Troy (1942), and Tudor's Romeo and Juliet (1943). His first major choreographic work (for Ballet Theatre) was the phenomenally successful Fancy Free (mus. Bernstein , 1944) about three impudent sailors on shore leave which, with Bernstein, he adapted into the musical On the Town (1944). This work forged the style which was to characterize much of his most popular work, a fusion of classical and modern dance combined with jazz and vernacular moves, often in the creation of sharp and witty contemporary characters. It was followed by Interplay (mus. Gould , 1945) and Facsimile (mus. Bernstein , 1946), both for Ballet Theatre, and the musicals Billion Dollar Baby (1946), High Button Shoes (1947), and Look Ma I'm Dancing (1948). In 1949 he joined New York City Ballet and as associate director (until 1959) created nine works for the company including The Age of Anxiety (mus. Bernstein , 1950), The Cage (mus. Stravinsky , 1951), Afternoon of a Faun (mus. Debussy , 1953), and The Concert (mus. Chopin , 1956). His version of Faun is a poetic but cynical study of the ballet world as two dancers reveal how much more attracted they are by their images in the mirror than by each other. The Concert, one of the first of several ballets he made to Chopin's music, is a comic masterpiece which engages with the surreal fantasies of a group of people as they listen to the music and also depicts a hapless ensemble of female dancers who cannot get the hang of dancing in unison. Robbins himself danced infrequently with New York City Ballet, though he did make memorable appearances in the title roles of Balanchine's Prodigal Son and Tyl Ulenspiegel (a role he created). He continued to choreograph for musicals, including Peter Pan (1954), which he also adapted and directed, West Side Story (1957, film version 1961), which he also conceived and directed, and Gypsy (1959). In 1958 he formed his own company, Ballets: USA, for the Spoleto Festival; for it he choreographed New York Export: Opus Jazz (mus. R. Prince ) and Moves (no mus., 1959). The company was disbanded and then re-formed for the 1961 Spoleto Festival to perform Events (mus. R. Prince ).
During the 1960s he choreographed Funny Girl (1964) and Fiddler on the Roof (1964) as well as directing various plays including Brecht's Mother Courage. In 1965 he choreographed Stravinsky's Les Noces for ABT and in 1969 returned to NYCB as ballet master, becoming ballet master in chief (with Peter Martins ) in 1983 after Balanchine's death. He choreographed many more works for the company including Dances at a Gathering (mus. Chopin , 1969), The Goldberg Variations (mus. Bach , 1971), Watermill (mus. Teiji Ito , 1972), Requiem Canticles (mus. Strafinsky , 1972), Opus 19: The Dreamer (mus. Prokofiev , 1979), Glass Pieces (mus. Glass , 1983), and Ives Songs (mus. Ives , 1988). Robbins's work became increasingly less reliant on narrative but embraced a wide range of styles and moods, from the tenderly romantic Dances at a Gathering, in which ten young dancers unite in a mood of charmed transcendence, to the brilliant deconstruction of classical technique in Goldberg Variations; the use of Eastern stillness in Watermill, in which an older man (orig. Edward Villella ) looks back over his past, and the luminous structural clarity of Glass Pieces. Together with the Balanchine œuvre these works defined the style of NYCB for many years, and Robbins was reluctant to allow other companies to perform his work. NYCB staged a Robbins Festival in 1990, after which he retired. His many awards included the Handel Medallion of the City of New York (1976). After his death, his personal dance archive was donated to the Dance Collection of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, which was renamed in his honour.
Other works include Summer Day (pas de deux, mus. Prokofiev , Ballet Theatre, New York, 1947), The Guests (mus. Blitzstein , NYCB, New York, 1949), The Pied Piper (mus. Copland , NYCB, New York, 1951), In the Night (mus. Chopin , NYCB, New York, 1970), Firebird (with Balanchine , mus. Stravinsky , NYCB, New York, 1970), Dumbarton Oaks (mus. Stravinsky , NYCB, New York, 1972), Pulcinella (with Balanchine, mus. Stravinsky , NYCB, New York, 1972), Requiem Canticles (mus. Stravinsky , NYCB, New York, 1972), Dybbuk (later called The Dybbuk Variations and, after 1980, Suite of Dances; mus. Bernstein , NYCB, New York, 1974), Concerto in G (later titled In G major; mus. Ravel , NYCB, New York, 1975), Other Dances (mus. Chopin , Gala for the Library of Performing Arts, New York, 1976), The Four Seasons (mus. Verdi , NYCB, New York, 1979), Piano Pieces (mus. Tchaikovsky , NYCB, New York, 1981), Allegro con grazia (mus. Tchaikovsky , NYCB, New York, 1981), Gershwin Concerto (mus. Gershwin , NYCB, New York, 1982), I'm Old Fashioned (mus. Gould after Kern , NYCB, New York 1983), Antique Epigraphs (mus. Debussy , NYCB, New York, 1984), Brahms/Handel (with Twyla Tharp ; mus. Brahms , NYCB, New York, 1984), In Memory of … (mus. Berg , NYCB, New York, 1985), and West Side Story Suite (dances from the 1957 musical, mus. Bernstein , NYCB, 1995).

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Robert le diable (Eng. title Robert the Devil).

Opera by Meyerbeer whose first staging featured F. Taglioni's ‘Ballet of the Nuns’, a dance which is considered to mark the beginning of the Romantic ballet movement. Premiered 21 Nov. 1831 at the Paris Opera, the role of the ghostly Abbess Helena being danced by M. Taglioni . The opera's libretto (by Scribe) tells the story of an evil man who seeks a talisman to help him win the hand of a princess. Arriving at the cloister of Sainte-Rosalie, he encounters the ghosts of nuns who have violated their vows. Their dance of wanton sensuousness shocked and enthralled the first audiences: Hans Christian Andersen recorded his own impressions of ‘vaprous images’ whose ‘shrouds fall to the ground’ so that they ‘stand in all their voluptuous nakedness’ and dance a ‘bacchanal’.

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Robinson , Bill (known as ‘Bojangles ’;

b Richmond, Va., 1878, d New York, 25 Nov. 1949).
US tap dancer, who revolutionized the technique by dancing high up on his toes and so introducing an exceptional precision and lightness. From 1898 he danced in various venues in New York (restaurants, vaudeville theatres) as well as touring abroad. He became widely known through his appearances in the revue Blackbird (1928), going on to dance in leading theatres and clubs around the US. He appeared in several films and was featured in The Hot Mikado (1939).

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Rock ballets.

Choreographers were quick to pick up on the rock music phenomenon which dominated youth culture from the 1960s. Some chose to reflect the lives and views of the new teenagers, such as Darrell in Mods and Rockers (mus. The Beatles, 1963) or Arpino in the anti-Vietnam Trinity (mus. Ralph Holdridge , 1970) or Nault in Tommy (mus. The Who, 1970). Other choreographers exploited the rhythmic drive and energy of rock music to try and re-invigorate the classical vocabulary (and attract a new young audience to ballet). It has since become commonplace for choreographers of all backgrounds to use the music of popular culture, such as Rooster, C. Bruce's semi-nostalgic, semi-mocking portrayal of 1960s' youth (mus. early Rolling Stones, 1991), Michael Clark's frequent use of confrontational punk music such as the Sex Pistols, and the Fall, and the most famous rock ballet of recent years, the Joffrey Ballet's full-length Billboards (1993), set to songs by the artist formerly known as Prince, which broke company box office records.

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Rockettes.

Female precision dance group which has appeared at New York's Radio City Music Hall since 1932. It was established by Russell Market in 1925 in Missouri, and based on the British troupe the Tiller Girls. There are now over 175 Rockettes who are divided between individual routines, in which they step and kick in strict unison.

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Rodeo.

Ballet in one act with choreography by de Mille , music by Copland , sets by O. Smith , and costumes by K. Love .Premiered 16 Oct. 1942 by Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo at New York's Metropolitan Opera House with de Mille, F. Franklin , Kasimir Kokitch , and Milada Mladova . It is subtitled The Courting at Burnt Ranch and tells the story of a cowgirl on a Texas ranch whose feminine charms are ignored by the cowboys—until she dresses up for a ball and proves that she is a real woman. It was one of the first all-American ballets, also the first to introduce square dancing to ballet, and it became de Mille's most popular work, leading to her commission to choreograph Oklahoma! It was revived for Ballet Theatre (1950), Joffrey Ballet (1976), and San Francisco Ballet (1989), among others.

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Rodrigues , Alfred

(b Cape Town, 18 Aug. 1921).
British dancer and choreographer. He studied with C. Robinson in Cape Town and came to London in 1946 where he studied with Volkova and danced in the musical Song of Norway. A year later he joined Sadler's Wells Ballet, becoming soloist in 1949 and ballet master (1953–4). He choreographed his first ballet in 1938, going on to create, among others, Blood Wedding (mus. ApIvor , Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet, 1953), The Miraculous Mandarin (mus. Bartók , Royal Ballet, 1956), Romeo and Juliet (mus. Prokofiev , La Scala, 1955), Vivaldi Concerto (Royal Danish Ballet, 1960), and Le Sacre du printemps for Warsaw Grand Opera. He also choreographed for several musicals. He married the dancer Julia Farron .

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Roerich , Nicholas

(b St Petersburg, 27 Sept. 1874, d Kulu, India, 13 Sept. 1947).
Russian scholar, mystic, painter, and designer. He studied prehistoric culture around the world and his main association with ballet was his designs for Fokine's Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor (1909) and Nijinsky's Rite of Spring (1913), both for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes.

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Rogers , Ginger

(b Independence, Mo., 16 July 1911, d Rancho Mirage, Calif., 25 Apr. 1995).
US dancer and actress. She was famous for her long partnership with Fred Astaire of which it was said ‘he gave her class, she gave him sex appeal’. Though her technique was less brilliant than Astaire's, she was a pliant, extrovert partner who perfectly complemented his personality and style. Their first film together was Flying Down to Rio (1933) and was followed by a string of hits including The Gay Divorcee (1934), Top Hat (1935), Shall We Dance? (1937), and The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939). After the partnership split up she performed as a straight actress, though she also appeared in the musicals Hello Dolly! and Mame.

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Rojo , Tamara

(b Montreal, 17 May 1974).
Spanish dancer. She studied at the Royal Conservatory, Madrid, and danced with the Ballet Comunidad de Madrid (1991–6). In 1997 she joined English National Ballet where she was rapidly promoted to principal. A dancer of fluid and expressive technique, she created the role of Juliet in Derek Deane's 1998 production of Romeo and Juliet. She joined the Royal Ballet in 2000.

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Romania.

The Lyrical Company of the Bucharest National Theatre was founded in 1877, and its corps de ballet established in 1898. The company became state-supported in 1921 and under ballet master A. Romanowski presented stagings of the Ballets Russes and early Soviet repertories. After the Second World War many new state-subsidized schools and companies were established, with close links to the USSR, though some native Romanian choreographers also emerged, such as Vasily Marcu . The school in Bucharest has produced several major dancers, including Ileana Iliescu , Elena Dacian , and Alexa Mezincescu . Since 1993 the Romanian Opera of Bucharest Ballet Company has been run by Iliescu and Mihai Babuska and has toured widely in Europe. Other important activity has occurred within the Experimental Studios of Dance founded 1968, and the Classical and Contemporary Ballet Ensemble (orig. called Fantasio Theatre) which was founded in 1979 by Danovschi . Smaller modern dance groups, including the Contemp, Orion Ballet and more recently Marginalii and Studio DCM, have helped create a public eager for new and experimental work.

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Romanov , Boris

(b St Petersburg, 22 Mar. 1891, d New York, 30 Jan. 1957).
Russian-US dancer, choreographer, and director. He studied at St Petersburg Imperial Ballet School, graduating in 1909 into the Maryinsky Theatre where he excelled in character roles. He also danced various seasons with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes (1909–14), and choreographed La Tragédie de Salomé (mus. F. Schmitt , 1913) and Le Rossignol (mus. Stravinsky , 1914) for that company. Between 1914 and 1917 he was choreographer for the Imperial Theatres and became director of the Maryinsky Theatre in 1917. He created many opera divertissements there as well as choreographing some avant-garde ballets with his wife Yelena Smirnova for the Litni Miniature Theatre. In 1921 he left Russia, founding the Russian Romantic Ballet in Berlin with Elsa Kruger . It toured Europe with a repertoire of his own works as well as a critically acclaimed staging of Giselle. After the company disbanded in 1926 he was choreographer at La Scala, Milan, and for some subsequent seasons and in 1927 he was ballet master of Pavlova's company. He was chief choreographer at the Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires (1928–34), after which he worked in Italy (1934–8). In 1938 he was appointed ballet master of New York Metropolitan Opera House where he remained until 1942, returning again (1945 to 1950). He also worked as guest choreographer for several ballet companies. He was much influenced by Fokine , but during his later career he abandoned the questing, modernist spirit of his earlier works for a more conventional style.

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Romantic ballet.

A style of ballet which was extremely popular in Europe during the 1830s and 1840s, and which paralleled the vogue for exotic, escapist fantasy which dominated Romanticism in all the other arts. Its origins are frequently located in France and dated from F. Taglioni's ‘Ballet of the Nuns’ from Act II of Meyerbeer's opera Robert le diable (1831). A major element of Romantic ballet was a fascination with the supernatural. The plots of many ballets were dominated by spirit women—sylphs, wilis, and ghosts—who enslaved the hearts and senses of mortal men and made it impossible for them to live happily in the real world. Women dancers were dressed in diaphanous white frocks with little wings at their waist, and were bathed in the mysterious poetic light created by newly developed gas lighting in theatres. They danced in a style more fluid and ethereal than 18th-century dancers and were especially prized for their ballon as they tried to create the illusion of flight. Sometimes this was literally achieved through the use of flying harnesses and wires, but more significantly it was achieved by the new technique of dancing on pointe. Though female dancers did not yet wear the solidly blocked pointe shoes of the later 19th century—their slippers were stiffened only by lines of darning—ballerinas like M. Taglioni succeeded, by means of considerable muscular effort and control, to rise and dance on the tips of their toes, looking to audiences as if they were hovering just above the stage. A group of St Petersburg balletomanes are said to have celebrated their devotion to Taglioni's art by cooking and eating a pair of her shoes. The great surviving works of the period are La Sylphide (F. Taglioni , 1832) and Giselle (Perrot and Coralli , 1841). The second dominant element in Romanticism was a fascination with the exotic, which was figured through gypsy or oriental heroines and the use of folk or national dances from ‘foreign’ cultures (such as Spain, the Middle East, and Scotland). Such dances were considered highly expressive both of character and of exotic local colour, though in some countries, such as Italy, indigenous dances were featured in ballets whose plots reflected that region's surge of nationalist feeling. Male dancers were frequently relegated to the role of porteur in Romantic ballets with much less scope for dramatic or technical display, though in Italy and in Denmark their virtuosity was still prized. The general decline of male dancing in much of Europe, however, may have influenced the short life-span of Romanticism, as ballets were so weighted towards the feminine and the febrile. Although the era saw ballet develop into a truly international art, with European ballerinas travelling to Russia and the Americas, and individual works being staged by companies around the world, it lasted only two decades. In the main European centres it then degenerated into formulaic spectacle, and fashionable audiences drifted away from ballet to opera.

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Romeo and Juliet.

Shakespeare's tragedy has inspired dozens of choreographers since the first recorded ballet stagings by E. Luzzi (Venice, 1785) and Galeotti (mus. Claus Schall , Royal Danish Ballet, 1811). The most important 20th-century productions have been set to Prokofiev's three-act ballet score (libretto by Lavrovsky , Prokofiev , and Sergei Radlov ), whose rich sonorities and narrative detail provide an unusually powerful dramatic structure. Closely following Shakespeare's plot the libretto emphasizes the clash between the two warring families and their final reconciliation over the lovers' tomb. The first choreographed version was by Psota , and was premiered 30 Dec. 1938 at Brno, Czechoslovakia, with Psota and Zora Semberová , but it was in Lavrovsky's stagings that the work achieved widespread popularity. With design by P. Williams it was premiered 11 Jan. 1940 by the Kirov, Leningrad, with Ulanova and Sergeyev , and was revived in 1946 for the Bolshoi in Moscow. Its realistic portrayal of character and emotion, its vivid contrast between the clashing swordplay of public violence and the tender pas de deux of private love, made it a landmark in Soviet ballet. When the ballet was shown in London ten years later, audiences were enthralled, and many choreographers were inspired to rework it though London had in fact seen Froman's Romeo and Juliet for the Zagreb Ballet in 1955. The most popular Western versions have been Cranko's and MacMillan's . The former was designed by Benois and premiered 26 July 1958 by La Scala Ballet, in Venice, with Pistoni and Fracci . The better-known revised version, with designs by Jürgen Rose , was premiered 2 Dec. 1962 by the Stuttgart Ballet with Barra and Haydée . This has been revived by many companies, including National Ballet of Canada (1964), Australian Ballet (1974), and Paris Opera (1983). MacMillan's version, with designs by Georgiadis , was premiered 9 Feb. 1965 by the Royal Ballet, London, with Nureyev and Fonteyn. This version places a wilful, passionate Juliet at the centre of the action, battling against the violence and social restrictions which threaten her. It has been revived for Royal Swedish Ballet (1969), American Ballet Theatre (1985), and others. Frederick Ashton created a more lyrical interpretation for the Royal Danish Ballet in 1955 (before the Russian version had been seen in the West) and this was revived for London Festival Ballet in 1985; Rudi van Dantzig choreographed two versions for the Dutch National Ballet, in 1967 and 1974, and Rudolf Nureyev's was made for the London Festival Ballet in 1977; Tiit Harm choreographed a version in 1990, Preljocaj for Lyons Opera Ballet, 1991, Corder for Norwegian National Ballet, 1992, and Maillot for Les Ballets de Monte Carlo, 1998. Later Soviet productions include Vinogradov's (Novosibirsk, 1967) and Boyarchikov's (Perm, 1972). Other versions include Nijinska and Balanchine's (mus. Lambert , Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, 1926); various settings of Tchaikovsky's Fantasy Overture including Bartholin's , T. Gsovsky's , and Lifar's ; and various settings of Berlioz's Dramatic Symphony, including Skibine's (Grand Ballet du Cuevas, 1955) and Béjart's (Ballet of the 20th Century, 1966). In 1943 Antony Tudor created a one-act version of the ballet to music by Delius which was a meditation on the story of the star-crossed lovers rather than a straightforward narrative. Ever since Galina Ulanova transfixed audiences with her poignant, musical portrait of adolescent love the role of Juliet has been coveted by ballerinas. Famous interpretations include Margot Fonteyn , Lynn Seymour , Carla Fracci , and Marcia Haydée .

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Róna , Viktor

(b Budapest, 17 Aug. 1936, d Budapest, 15 Jan. 1994).
Hungarian dancer and ballet master. He studied at Budapest State Ballet Institute and in Leningrad (1959) with Pushkin. In 1950 he joined Budapest State Opera Ballet (becoming principal in 1957) where he danced all the major classical and character roles of their repertoire. An elegant technician, he was also a versatile dance actor, creating leading roles in several works including Harangozó's The Miraculous Mandarin (1956), Charrat's Tu auras nom… Tristan (1963), Eck's Ondine (1969), and Seregi's Sylvia (1972). He guested widely abroad and, as an exemplary partner, danced with several leading ballerinas including Fonteyn and Samsova in 1962, Daydé in 1965, and Orosz in 1965 and 1966. He was also ballet master with Norwegian National Ballet (1974–80), Paris Opera Ballet (1980–3), and La Scala, Milan (1983–8), where he also served for a year as deputy director. He appeared as a dancer and actor in several films. He was honoured as Outstanding Artist of the Hungarian National Republic in 1975.

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rond de jambe

(Fr., circle of the leg). A movement in classical ballet in which one leg moves in a straight line away from the body before defining a semi-circular motion. It can be performed either on the floor (à terre) or with the leg in the air (en l'air).

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Ronde, La.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Tetley , music by Erich Korngold , and design by John Macfarlane . Premiered 6 Nov. 1987 at the O'Keefe Centre, Toronto, by the National Ballet of Canada with Ronda Nychka , Alleyne , Glasco , Harrington , Sabina Alleman , Peter Ottmann , Kim Lightheart , Owen Montague , Kain , and Augustyn . It is based on Schnitzler's play, Reigen (1896–7), which anatomizes the cynicism of fin de siècle morality by depicting a sexual merry-go-round in which various characters (each representing a different rank of Viennese society) seduce each other. Tetley's choreography is itself a series of interlocking pas de deux, graphic in their erotic content, which begin and end with a prostitute. It has been revived for several companies, including the Royal Ballet (1993).

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Roof Piece.

Outdoor dance event choreographed by Trisha Brown during 1973 in which fifteen dancers were stationed on various rooftops in Manhattan, signalling movements to each other. The audience watched from another roof.

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Rooms.

Modern dance work in one act with choreography by Sokolow and music by K. Hopkins . Premiered 24 Feb. 1955 at the YM-YWHA, New York, with Seckler , E. Beck , and McKayle . Sokolow's classic study of alienation is divided into nine sections which deal with a group of city dwellers, each locked in their own neurosis, and expressing their frustrations and fantasies in angularly expressive gesture. It has been revived for several companies, including Netherlands Dance Theatre, Alvin Ailey Dance Theater, and the Joffrey Ballet.

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Rooster.

Modern dance work in one act with choreography by C. Bruce , music by the Rolling Stones, and costumes by M. Bruce . Premiered 10 Oct. 1991 by Ballet de Grande Théâtre de Genève, Geneva. In this setting of early Stones' songs, the movement mimics the preening and posturing of the 1960s in a manner that is both a nostalgic recall and a mocking exposure of a past era's sexual games. It has been revived for London Contemporary Dance Theatre and Rambert Dance Company.

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Roriz , Olga.

Portuguese choreographer. She studied at the National Theatre of San Carlos and National School of Lisbon and in 1976 became one of the leading dancers with Ballet Gulbenkian. She created her first works in the company's workshops in 1982 and went on to develop a style rooted in classical technique but also possessing the driving physicality typical of late-20th-century modern dance. Her works include The Seven Dances of Salome (mus. A. Emiliano , English National Ballet, 1993), one of several ballets created for an all-male cast. In 1993 she was appointed artistic director of the Lisbon Dance Company.

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Rosario (née Florencia Pérez Podilla ;

b Seville, 11 Nov. 1918).
Spanish dancer. She studied with Realito and made her debut with her cousin Antonio in 1928. They became the most renowned Spanish dance partnership of their generation and toured all around the world. She danced briefly with Iglesias (1953–4) and performed again with Antonio during his 1964 seasons in London and New York. She also assembled various ensembles of her own with which she performed and for which she created several works including Capriccio espagnol (mus. Rimsky-Korsakov ) and Café de Burrero (Andalusian folk music).

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Rosas.

Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker's dance company, formed in 1983. It was originally a group of four women, later expanding to include both sexes, and since 1992 has been company in residence at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels. Rosas Danst Rosas was also the title of the first work de Keersmaeker created for the group, which, with music by T. de Mey and P. Vermeersch , was premiered 6 May 1983 at the Kaaitheater Festival.

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Rosati , Carolina (née Galletti ;

b Bologna, 13 Dec., 1826, d Cannes, May 1905).
Italian dancer. She studied with Blasis and made her debut aged 7. In 1841 she was engaged as prima ballerina at the Teatro di Apollo in Rome also performing in Trieste and Parma in 1843 and dancing with her husband Francesco Rosati at La Scala, Milan, in 1846. A plump, vivacious, and graceful dancer, renowned for the precision of her pointe work, she was most admired for her expressive mime. She was ballerina at Her Majesty's Theatre, London (1847–9), succeeding Grahn in Perrot's Pas de quatre and also creating roles in several other Perrot ballets, including Les Quatres Saisons (1848), as well as works by P. Taglioni , such as Fiorita (1848) and La prima ballerina (1849). She returned to London several times during the 1850s and between 1853 and 1859 also danced at the Paris Opera where she was apparently the highest paid dancer up to that time. She created roles in several Mazilier ballets including Le Corsaire (1856) and Marco Spada (1857); however, professional jealousy of her rival, Amalia Ferraris, caused her to break her contract and she left to dance at the Bolshoi Theatre, St Petersburg (1859–62), where she created leading roles in several works including Petipa's La Fille du Pharaon (1862) before retiring to France.

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Rose , Jürgen

(b Bernburg, 25 Aug. 1937).
German theatre designer. He was invited to design Cranko's Stuttgart production of Romeo and Juliet in 1962 and went on to design many other Cranko ballets including Swan Lake (1963), Onegin (1965), and the Stuttgart production of The Merry Widow (1971). He also designed many other works including Tudor's Giselle (Berlin Opera Ballet, 1963), Franca's Nutcracker (National Ballet of Canada, 1964), MacMillan's Concerto (Berlin Opera Ballet, 1966), Neumeier's Baiser de la fée (Frankfurt, 1972), Romeo and Juliet (Royal Danish Ballet, 1974), Sleeping Beauty (Hamburg, 1978), and Lady of the Camellias (Stuttgart, 1978).

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Rose Adagio.

The centrepiece of Petipa's The Sleeping Beauty, in which Princess Aurora is presented to her four suitors in Act I. With its thrilling balances and its emphasis on regally perfect presentation (Aurora has to balance unsupported on one leg and on pointe between taking each of her Princes' hands), it presents a challenge to the ballerina matched only (in theatrical lore) by the 32 fouettée turns of Swan Lake.

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Rosen , Elsa-Marianne von

(b Stockholm, 21 Apr. 1924).
Swedish dancer, choreographer, teacher, and ballet director. She studied with various teachers and at the Royal Danish Ballet School, making her debut in independent dance recitals. She was a soloist at the Oscarteatern, Stockholm, between 1947 and 1950 and also danced with Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in 1948. A dancer of wide-ranging style, she was a charmingly girlish Aurora as well as an interpreter of complex psychological characters (she created the title roles in Cullberg's Miss Julie (1950) and Medea (1951). She was principal with the Royal Swedish Ballet (1951–9) where she danced some of the standard ballerina roles as well as creating roles in several ballets including Skeaping's Cupid Out of his Humour (1956). In 1960 she and her husband, the Danish ballet critic, designer, and director Allan Fridericia (1921–91), founded the Scandinavian Ballet which featured a number of Rosen's own ballets as well as her stagings of Bournonville works, such as La Sylphide (1960), which she revived for several other companies including Ballet Rambert (1960), Washington Ballet (1969), and Kirov Ballet (1975). During the 1960s she also worked around the world as a freelance ballerina, choreographer, and, with Fridericia, producer of Bournonville. Her own works from this period include Teenagers (mus. Bach , Scandinavian Ballet, Kalmar, 1961), Jenny von Westphalen (mus. Bentzon , Scandinavian Ballet, Århus , 1965), Don Juan (mus. Gluck , Royal Danish Ballet, Copenhagen, 1967), and Romeo and Juliet (mus. Prokofiev , Gothenburg Ballet, Gothenburg, 1972). She was appointed director of the Gothenburg Ballet (1970–6), and subsequently of the Malmö Ballet (1980–7), after which she continued to stage productions of Bournonville around the world, including Napoli (Act III) for Berlin Opera Ballet (1987) and The Lay of Thrym for Royal Danish Ballet, Copenhagen (1990), as well as teaching at her own school in Copenhagen. She was recipient of the Carina Ari Medal in 1962.

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Rosenthal , Jean

(b New York, 16 Mar. 1912, d New York, 1 May 1969).
US lighting designer. A pioneer in the techniques of theatre lighting, she worked with Ballet Society and New York City Ballet (1946–57), the Martha Graham Dance Company (1958–65), and Robbins's Ballets: USA (1959–60). Her lighting designs had a choreographic quality, not only creating the impression of sculptural depth but also responding expressively to music. Robbins dedicated Dances at a Gathering to her memory.

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Ross , Bertram

(b Brooklyn, NY, 13 Nov. 1920).
US dancer and teacher. He entered art school but then left to study dance with Graham , joining her company in 1953. A tall, passionate, ‘granite visaged’ performer, he created leading roles in many of her works including Seraphic Dialogue (1955), Clytemnestra (1958), Acrobats of God (1960), Phaedra (1962), A Time of Snow (1968), and The Archaic Hours (1969). He taught at the Graham School for many years and presented his first evening of choreography in 1965. He left Graham in 1974, after which he continued teaching and choreographing, as well as taking up a singing career.

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Ross , Herbert

(b Brooklyn, NY, 13 May 1926).
US dancer, choreographer, and director who directed the films The Turning Point (1977) and Nijinsky (1980). He started training in his midteens with Platova and Humphrey and danced on Broadway, creating his first dances for the New York Choreographers Workshop, including Caprichos (mus. Bartók , 1950). He went on to choreograph several musicals including Wonderful Town (1958) and Finian's Rainbow (1960), as well as dances for the film Carmen Jones (1954). He also choreographed ballets for American Ballet Theatre, including The Maids (mus. Milhaud , 1957), and for the Spoleto Festival of 1959 such as Serenade for Seven Dancers (mus. Bernstein ). In 1960 he founded Ballet of Two Worlds with his wife Nora Kaye , which performed at Spoleto and toured Germany with new works including the full-length ballet The Dybbuk (mus. R. Starer ). After the company disbanded he concentrated on musicals and films, directing over 25 of the latter.

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Rossini , Gioacchino

(b Pesaro, 29 Feb. 1792, d Passy, 13 Nov. 1868).
Italian composer. He wrote no full-length ballet scores though his operas, such as Moïse (chor. Gardel , 1827) and Guillaume Tell (chor. Auber , 1829), featured significant ballet divertissements. Some of his arias were interpolated into 19th-century ballet scores, such as the Hérold version of La Fille mal gardée (1828), and many of his operatic and concert scores have been arranged for dance, including Massine's La Boutique fantasque (1919), Howard's Selina (1948), Darrell's Cinderella (1979), and Tharp's Mr Worldly Wise (Royal Ballet, 1995, a ballet loosely based on Rossini's own character). Several works have been set to Britten's two suites of Rossini melodies, Soirées musicales and Matinées musicales.

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Rothschild , Bethsabee de (Batsheva de Rothschild )

(b London, 1914, d Tel Aviv, 20 Apr. 1999).
Israeli-US dance promoter and director. She studied at the Sorbonne and Columbia University and after studying dance with Graham began sponsoring her company's performances and tours. In 1958 she moved to Israel where she founded the Tel Aviv-based Batsheva Dance Company in 1964, the Bat-Dor Dance Studios in 1967, and the Bat-Dor Dance Company in 1968.

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Rotterdam Dancegroup.

Dutch modern dance company. It was founded in 1975 by Kathy Gosschalk as Werkcentrum Dans, acquiring its present name in 1988. As a repertory company it has featured works not only by Gosschalk , but by many other choreographers including van Schayk , Cunningham , David Gordon , Randy Warshaw , Amanda Miller , Javier De Frutos , and resident choreographer Ton Simons . It tours the Netherlands and widely in Europe.

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Rowe , Marilyn (also known as Marilyn Rowe Maver ;

b Sydney, 20 Aug. 1946).
Australian dancer and director. She studied at the newly founded Australian Ballet School in 1964, then joined the company, becoming principal in 1969. She danced many of the standard classical and 20th-century roles and created roles in Prokovsky's Anna Karenina (1974) and Hynd's The Merry Widow (1975), among others. In 1978 she danced with the Bolshoi in Don Quixote with Kelvin Coe . In 1982 she was acting director of Australian Ballet, becoming deputy director in 1983. Between 1984 and 1986, and in 1990, she was artistic director of the touring Dancers Company, attached to the AB School, where she was appointed director in 1999.

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Roy , Alexander (orig. Udo Badstübner ;

b Magdeburg, 16 Oct. 1935).
German-British dancer, choreographer, and director. He studied with Gsovsky and others and made his debut in Leipzig in 1951 before going on to dance with several companies including E. Berlin Comic Opera (1954–7), American Festival Ballet (1960), Teatro del Balletto (1962), and Netherlands Dance Theatre (1963). In 1965 he founded International Ballet Caravan with his wife, Christine Gallea , for which he has choreographed many works including Magic Flute, Beauty and the Beast, and La Ronde. In 1976 it was renamed the Alexander Roy London Ballet Theatre and continued to tour extensively around the world. It was disbanded in 1994 but re-launched in 1998 with Roy's ballet Alice—Dreams and Wonderland (mus. Arnold and Ligeti ).

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Royal Academy of Dance (RAD known prior to 2001 as Royal Academy of Dancing).

British ballet examination board. It was founded on 31 Dec. 1920 by Philip Richardson in conjunction with an eminent group of dancers and teachers including Adeline Genée and Édouard Espinosa . It was originally known as the Association of Operatic Dancing in Great Britain and its aim was to monitor standards of classical ballet training. In 1936 it was granted its royal charter, becoming the Royal Academy of Dancing, and it developed into the world's largest examining and training body, holding examinations for all standards of ballet throughout the world. It began running a teacher-training course in 1947 and since 1954 it has also presented the annual Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Award for services to British ballet, with recipients including de Valois , Karsavina , Rambert , Dolin , Helpmann , van Praagh , Haskell , and Grey . Its first president was Genée , who was succeeded by Fonteyn (from 1954) and Antoinette Sibley (from 1991). In 1993 it forged an academic partnership with Durham University and in 1997 it was amalgamated with the Benesh Institute, allowing it to offer a wide range of diplomas and degree courses for notators and teachers.

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Royal Ballet, The.

Britain's national ballet company. It grew from Ninette de Valois's Academy of Choregraphic (sic) Art, founded 1926, which performed occasional ballets for opera and drama productions at London's Old Vic Theatre. In 1931 de Valois moved her school into the newly re-opened Sadler's Wells Theatre and established a small company of dancers. This gave its first performance on 5 May 1931 (at the Old Vic) showing several short de Valois ballets including Les Petits Riens, Danse sacrée et profane, Hommage aux Belles Viennoise, and also Dolin's Spanish Dance. Dolin appeared as guest artist along with de Valois , Moreton, and others. The first performance at Sadler's Wells Theatre was on 15 May 1931 and by the autumn the Vic-Wells ballet, as it had become, was giving fortnightly performances. By 1935 the company was based solely at Sadler's Wells. Ashton joined in 1933 as choreographer and dancer (he created Regatta as guest choreographer in 1931) and the many works he created for the company over the next decades were—in combination with de Valois's ballets—to have a marked influence on the company's developing style, its classical purity, and expressive lyricism. Between 1932 and 1935 the company's ballerina was Markova with Helpmann joining in 1933. Fonteyn performed her first important role in Ashton's Rio Grande in 1935 and other important dancers during the pre-war years were May , Brae , Honer , Turner , Gore , Chappell , and Somes . De Valois was committed to establishing a strong classical base to the repertoire and the company staged its first classic production in 1932, with Act II of Swan Lake. In 1933 Lopokova was a guest star in Coppélia and in 1934 full-length versions of Swan Lake, Giselle, and Nutcracker were presented in stagings by Sergeyev . Among the company's most important new works were de Valois's The Rake's Progress (1935) and Checkmate (1937) and Ashton's Baiser de la fée (1935), Apparitions (1935), and Les Patineurs (1937). In 1937 the company performed in Paris, its first season abroad, and in 1939 danced its first production of The Sleeping Princess (later called Sleeping Beauty), the ballet which was to become its signature work. During the war it toured widely around the country, often accompanied only by two pianos, as well as giving London seasons in the New Theatre and Prince's Theatre. During a 1940 visit to Holland it was almost trapped there by the German invasion. Though many of its male dancers were absent on war service it continued to stage some new ballets, such as Helpmann's Comus (1941), Hamlet (1942), and Miracle in the Gorbals (1944). From 1941 it became generally known as Sadler's Wells Ballet. After the war it took up residence at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, opening with a lavish new production of Sleeping Beauty on 20 Feb. 1946. This marked its coming-of-age as a world-class classical company. Internationally renowned choreographers like Massine , Balanchine , and Petit began staging works for the company, such as Le Tricorne (1947), Ballet Imperial (1950), and Ballabile (1950) respectively, and the company was greeted with huge acclaim when it first performed in New York in 1949. Ashton also entered the mature phase of his career, creating the luminous masterpiece Symphonic Variations in 1946, his first full-length ballet, Cinderella, in 1948, and possibly his most popular comedy ballet, La Fille mal gardée, in 1960. A new generation of dancers emerged including Grey , Shearer , Elvin , and Field and in 1946 the Sadler's Wells Opera Ballet was established to nurture young dancers and new choreographers.
This smaller sister company had a complicated existence. It was conceived as a touring company but was based at Sadler's Wells Theatre and changed its name to Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet in 1947. During its first decade it gave significant opportunities to dancers such as Nerina , Beriosova , Blair , and MacLeary and choreographers such as Cranko and MacMillan who created their first ballets for the company: Pineapple Poll (Cranko , 1951) and Danses concertantes and Solitaire (MacMillan , 1955 and 1956). There was frequent exchange of dancers and repertoire between the two companies. In 1957 Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet left its base at the Wells and was renamed the Royal Ballet Touring Company, also briefly known as the Royal Ballet Touring Section. It was under the direction of Field , with Doreen Wells as principal dancer. In 1970, during a major reconstruction of the Royal Ballet, the touring section was disbanded and briefly replaced by the Royal Ballet New Group, a small group of dancers taken from the main company, who toured small-scale experimental ballets under the direction of Peter Wright . (This was in addition to the Ballet for All group which had been founded in 1964 under the direction of Peter Brinson to perform small-scale, educational tours.) In 1976 the touring company was named Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet and, still under Wright's direction, was re-established as a permanent company of about 50 dancers, based at Sadler's Wells Theatre but with extensive touring commitments. In 1990 it was re-located to the Birmingham Hippodrome where it became known as the Birmingham Royal Ballet, with David Bintley taking over direction from Wright in 1995. In 1997 it became financially as well as administratively independent from the main company.
Both companies had received the royal charter in 1956, from which point the main company was known simply as the Royal Ballet. In 1963 de Valois resigned as director and was succeeded by Ashton with MacMillan as chief choreographer. His reign is often regarded as the company's golden age with Ashton producing ballets like The Dream (1964), MacMillan choreographing Romeo and Juliet (1965), and major revivals being added to the repertoire like Nijinska's Les Noces (1966) and Balanchine's Serenade (1964). Nureyev had joined the company as a permanent guest in 1962 and his world-famous partnership with Fonteyn headed a roster of powerful new talent, including Seymour , Sibley , Dowell , Mason , Park , Penney , Collier , Wall , and Coleman . MacMillan took over direction in 1970 with Field and then Wright as associate directors, during which time he created several major ballets, including Manon (1974), as well as presenting works from an international range of choreographers, such as Tetley , Robbins , and van Manen . Norman Morrice took over direction (1977–86), succeeded by Anthony Dowell (1986–2001). During all these changes the company's basic commitment to the 19th-century classical repertoire remained unaltered. Under Dowell there were new productions of Swan Lake (1987) and Sleeping Beauty (1994), both with controversially untraditional designs but both with carefully authenticated choreographic texts. Dowell also acquired Makarova's full-length staging of La Bayadère in 1989 and Baryshnikov's full-length Don Quixote in 1993 and revived several Ashton ballets, including Daphnis and Chloe (1994), Ondine (1988), and Illuminations (1996). During the 1990s MacMillan returned to create several new works for the company, a new full-length Prince of the Pagodas (1989) as well as shorter works like The Judas Tree (1992). There were many new works commissioned from younger British choreographers such as Bintley , A. Page , and William Tuckett as well as new works by Forsythe and Tharp . With technical standards rising after a slump in the 1980s the company boasted a strong line-up of principals, headed by Bussell , with Cope , Kumakawa , Durante , and Wildor . This was bolstered by international stars Mukhamedov (who left the Bolshoi to join the company in 1990) and Guillem (who became a permanent guest in 1989). When the Opera House closed for rebuilding in July 1997 the company toured extensively both at home and abroad. Ross Stretton was appointed artistic director in 2001.

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Royal Ballet of Flanders, The.

Antwerpbased ballet company. It was formed by Jeanne Brabants who opened her own school in Antwerp in 1941 and for many years taught and choreographed for a variety of companies in Belgium and Holland, teaching also at the ballet school of Flemish Opera. It was here that the Flanders Ballet was finally established in 1969 under her direction. Funded by the state, its function was to present ballet to the Northern Flemish-speaking region of Belgium (the Ballet Royal de Wallonie serving the French-speaking area). Its repertoire was eclectic with ballets from many international choreographers as well as works by Brabants and André Leclair, the company's then resident choreographer. In 1976 it was granted the royal charter and around this time began to tour widely, visiting the US in 1978, London in 1980, and China in 1980. In 1984 Brabants was succeeded by Valery Panov who orientated the repertoire towards full-length dramatic ballets, staging his own Three Sisters, The Idiot, Romeo and Juliet, and Cinderella. In 1987 he was succeeded by Robert Denvers who introduced a more classical base, acquiring Nureyev's staging of Don Quixote and Flindt's staging of La Sylphide as well as several works from the Balanchine repertory. In 1999 Denvers mounted a new production of Sleeping Beauty. Many new works by Béjart and younger choreographers, such as Christopher d'Amboise , Marc Bogaerts , M. Wainrot , and resident choreographer Danny Rousseel , have also been performed. The company, which numbers around 50 dancers, has produced several internationally ranked dancers including Koen Onzia . In 1998 it acquired its own theatre in Antwerp, the Theater 't Eilandje.

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Royal Ballet School, The.

Originating as de Valois's London Academy of Choregraphic (sic) Art (founded 1926), it became the Sadler's Wells School in 1931. In 1947 it moved to Baron's Court in W. London and under the direction of Haskell it was expanded to include academic studies. In 1955 the Lower School was established at Richmond's White Lodge, for boarding-and day-pupils aged 11–16, offering secondary school education and ballet training. The Upper School remained at Baron's Court, offering full-time academic and dance studies to pupils over 16 as well as a teacher-training course. M. Wood succeeded Haskell as director in 1966 followed by J. Monahan in 1978, Merle Park in 1983, and Gailene Stock in 1998. Students gain stage experience from annual school performances at Covent Garden as well as participation in company performances. The school still provides both Royal Ballet companies with the majority of their dancers.

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Royal Danish Ballet.

Denmark's national ballet company. Records of court ballets performed at Copenhagen date back to the second half of the 16th century. During the first half of the 18th century dance became popular at the Lille Grønnengade Theatre (built 1722), and a ballet company was established at the Royal Theatre at Kongens Nytorv (opened in 1748 as a stage for music, drama, and dance). This company was directed by various French and Italian ballet masters but did not particularly flourish until Galeotti's long reign. Between 1775 and 1811 he expanded the number of dancers as well as staging many popular ballets, although only one, The Whims of Cupid (1786), is still performed today. The school was founded in 1777. Antoine Bournonville came to Copenhagen in 1816 but under his charge the ballet declined, until his son August Bournonville took over direction of both company and school. His reign (1829–77) became a Golden Age, during which he radically overhauled the system of ballet education as well as choreographing around 50 works for the company. Several of these still survive, including La Sylphide (1836), Napoli (1842), Konservatoriet (1849), and A Folk Tale (1854). With their lively mix of classical and vernacular dance and their dramatic naturalism his works revived the somewhat moribund art of ballet, and in particular encouraged a new virtuosity in male dancers. His pupils Hans Beck and Valborg Borchsenius attempted to maintain his heritage but provided no new inspiration for the company. During the late 1920s and early 1930s both Balanchine and Fokine worked with the company but it was not until Harald Lander took over as director (1932–51) that it regained its vigour. Lander staged many Bournonville ballets and other 19th-century classics, as well as commissioning new works by Danish choreographers and creating several of his own ballets, most notably Études (1948). The company became internationally renowned, revealing the riches of the hitherto little-known Bournonville repertoire on its many trips abroad. After Lander left for Paris there was a succession of directors and a period of instability followed. However, the school continued (under Volkova ) to sustain Denmark's fine dance tradition. Notable dancers during this century have included M. Lander , B. and K. Ralov , M. Vangsaae , F. Schaufuss , N. B. Larsen , T. Lander , E. Bruhn , P. Martins , P. Schaufuss , I. Andersen , A. Laerkesen , V. Flindt , J. Eliasen , Lis Jeppesen , L. Riggins , and J. Kobborg . During the 1950s and 1960s many guest choreographers, including Balanchine , Robbins , Ashton , Petit , and MacMillan , worked with the company and in 1966 Flindt was appointed director. He worked to restore the balance between the 19th-century classics (Bournonville , Petipa , etc.) and 20th-century dance works, both established and newly created. He added several of his own works to the repertory as well as those with a modern dance element, by P. Taylor and Tetley , among others. He was succeeded by Henning Kronstam in 1978 then by Frank Andersen in 1985. P. Schaufuss took over the company in 1994, also taking charge of the school and creating the full-length ballet Hamlet, but he left after two years to be replaced by Maina Gielgud (1997–9) and in 1999 by Aage Thordal-Christensen .

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Royal New Zealand Ballet.

New Zealand's national ballet company. Prior to its establishment there was little ballet activity. A small group called New Zealand Ballet Inc. toured the country in 1953, and in 1957 a series of performances was given by a group of dancers including Russell Kerr , R. Jackson , S. Neil , and W. Trevor (recently returned from London). In 1961 the New Zealand Ballet Company was founded in Wellington under the direction of Kerr and with some funding from the NZ Arts Council. Guest stars such as Beriosova , Burr , and Comelin appeared with the company and in 1967 Yurek Shabelevsky was appointed ballet master. The company presented Swan Lake at the 1971 Auckland Festival and also Coppélia in 1971 (both staged by Bryan Ashbridge ). A National School of Ballet was established in Wellington in 1967 and in 1984 the company was awarded its royal charter. In 1992 financial crisis nearly closed it down but under the direction of Ashley Killar it became notable for its original repertoire, with many new ballets created by its own choreographers such as Killar , Kerr , and Eric Langvet . Matz Skoog became director in 1996.

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Royal Swedish Ballet.

Sweden's national ballet company. The first Swedish court ballet dates from 1638 and was arranged by the French ballet master Antoine de Beaulieu , but the present company dates back to 1773 when Gustav III (dubbed the ‘Theatre King’) founded the Swedish opera with its small ballet company of 24 dancers. Directed by Louis Gallodier , this rapidly expanded to 72 dancers, with the company's official school also being founded in 1773. With Antoine Bournonville and Marcadet as choreographers, the company flourished but after this the nation's most important native talent, such as Didelot , M. Taglioni , and C. Johansson made their careers abroad and the company failed to build on its initial successes. During the mid-19th century it enjoyed another period of vitality under the ballet master Anders Selinder , who created ballets around folkloric material, and also with the presence of August Bournonville who worked in Stockholm as a guest. After this the company declined again, only recovering its vitality when Mikhail Fokine and Vera Fokina worked there in 1913 and staged several of the former's ballets. Though Fokine returned several times this peak was not sustained and many of the company's best and youngest dancers left to work with the Paris-based Ballets Suédois (1920–5). Under a succession of different ballet masters the RSB increasingly lost its public to modern dance. A new generation of Swedish choreographers, such as Cullberg and Cramér had found their inspiration in artists like Wigman and Jooss and thus chose to establish their own small companies rather than working with RSB. However, the company regained its reputation in the 1950s with Tudor's appointment as director (1949–50, 1962–3) followed by Skeaping (1953–62). Both concentrated on improving the classical repertoire, with Skeaping staging Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, and Coppélia and nurturing a generation of ballerinas, notably Elsa-Marianne von Rosen . Many contemporary ballets, such as Cullberg's Miss Julie and Medea and Cramér's The Prodigal Son, were also acquired along with works by Massine , Balanchine , and Tudor who created Echoing of Trumpets for the company in 1963. More recently ballets by Robbins , Tetley , MacMillan , Nureyev , Cranko , and Kylián have been added to its increasingly rich repertory. Skeaping also began the reconstruction of historical ballets (beginning with the 1649 Cupid out of his Humour (1956)) which are performed at the 18th-century court theatre at Drottningholm. Recent directors have included Brian Macdonald (1964–6), Bruhn (1967–71), Cramér (1975–80), Gunilla Roempke (1980–4), Simon Mottram (1993–6), F. Andersen (1995–9), and Petter Jacobsson (from 1999) and significant additions to the repertory have included MacMillan's Mayerling as well as new work by Mats Ek , Par Isberg , and other Swedish choreographers. Principal dancers have included Anneli Alhanko , Yvonne Brosset , Niklas Ek , Istvan Kisch , Kerstin Lidström , Madeleine Onne , Per Arthur Segerstrom , and Anna Valev . In 1998, as part of the company's 225th anniversary year, four reconstructed works from the Ballets Suédois repertory were staged.

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Royal Winnipeg Ballet.

The oldest of Canada's major ballet companies. It began in 1938 as the Winnipeg Ballet Club, founded by Gweneth Lloyd and Betty Farrally and gave its first semi-professional performances as the Winnipeg Ballet in 1939. It became fully professional in 1949 and was the first company to be granted a (British) royal charter in 1955. The company performed mostly populist works choreographed by Lloyd , such as Shadow in the Prairie (1952), but few of these survived a fire in 1954, and the company entered a period of some confusion until Arnold Spohr was appointed director (1958–88). Under him, a new generation of Canadian choreographers emerged, creating works with a popular local appeal, including Brian Macdonald's The Shining People of Leonard Cohen (1970) and Norbert Vesak's The Ecstasy of Rita Joe (1971), about a Canadian native's doomed experience of the big city. Ballets were also acquired from, among others, Neumeier , Araiz , V. Nebrada , and de Mille . In 1970 Spohr founded a school which led to great improvements in the company's classical dancing and produced Evelyn Hart who won the Gold Medal at Varna in 1980. With a ballerina in the company he was able to stage classic ballets like Giselle (1982) and Swan Lake (1987). Spohr was succeeded by Henny Jurriëns (1988–9), John Meehan (1989–93), William Whitener (1993–5), and André Lewis (1995). The company's versatile mix has been retained with new populist works such as Jacques Lemay's Anne of Green Gables (1989), acquisitions of ballets by Balanchine , van Manen , Kylián , and Tharp , Meehan's new staging of Sleeping Beauty (1993), and works by the company's resident choreographer, Mark Godden (appointed 1990). Its economic size (28 dancers) allows the company to tour widely both in Canada and abroad.

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Ruanne , Patricia

(b Leeds, 3 June 1945).
British dancer. She studied at the Royal Ballet School and joined the Royal Ballet in 1962 where she became principal in 1969. Much of her work was with the touring company and she created roles in many works, but in 1973 she joined London Festival Ballet in order to dance classic roles, such as Aurora in Nureyev's staging of Sleeping Beauty. She also created several leading roles including Hynd's The Sanguine Fan (1976). She was ballet mistress at LFB (1983–5) then at Paris Opera (1986–96), after which she worked freelance until becoming acting director at La Scala (1999–2000).

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Rubinstein , Ida

(b Kharkov, or possibly St Petersburg, 1885, d Vence, France, 20 Sept. 1960).
Russian dancer, actress, and director. Born into a wealthy family she was able to study music, dance, and acting with private teachers including Fokine who also choreographed for her the ‘Dance of the Seven Veils’ which she performed in her own production of Salomé (mus. Glazunov , 1908). Though this was privately performed it still created a scandal as Rubinstein removed most of her veils. In 1909 she joined Diaghilev's Ballets Russes where, on the strength of her personal beauty rather than her dance technique, she created the title role in Fokine's Cléopâtre (1909) and Zobéide in his Scheherazade (1910). In 1911 she left Diaghilev to form her own company for which she commissioned several lavish productions including Le Martyre de Saint-Sébastien (mus. Debussy , text d'Annunzio, chor. Fokine , des. Bakst , 1911). After the First World War she appeared in various plays and danced in Staat's Istar at the Paris Opera, 1924. Between 1928 and 1929 she directed her own ballet company (with Nijinska as choreographer) in Paris. It was revived in 1931 and in 1934 and during its run she created leading roles in several specially commissioned works, such as Nijinska's Bolero (mus. Ravel ) and Le Baiser de la fée (mus. Stravinsky ), both choreographed in 1928, Massine's David (mus. Sauguet , 1928), Amphion (mus. Honegger , 1931), and Diane de Poitiers (libr. de Gramont , chor. Fokine , mus. Ibert , 1934). One of the few female ballet directors of her era, her commissioning record was impressive, including librettos by Valéry and Gide , and designs by Benois as well as original scores for most of her repertoire. She also possessed a fine stable of dancers including Vilzak and Schollar , Ashton , Lichine , and Krassovska . In 1935 she disbanded the company leaving several of her last commissions to the Paris Opera. Her final stage appearances were in the Claudel-Honegger play Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher, in Basle, 1938, and Paris, 1939. Though often dismissed as a dilettante because of her great wealth, she did possess an extraordinary stage charisma and was one of the most powerful women in the theatre of her day.

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Rudner , Sara

(b Brooklyn, NY, 16 Feb. 1944).
US dancer and choreographer. She studied with Sanasardo and performed with his company after which she worked with various groups until she became principal dancer with Tharp's company in 1966. An exceptionally intelligent dancer, combining speed and vitality with a great refinement of style, she created roles in most of Tharp's work for the next twenty years. She also performed solo and with small ensembles, choreographing her own work, and has appeared in duets with Dana Reitz , for example in Necessary Weather (1993).

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Rudra Béjart Ballet Lausanne.

See under Béjart .

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Ruses d'amour (also called The Trial of Damis).

Ballet in one act with choreography by Petipa and music by Glazunov . Premiered 29 Jan. 1900 at the Hermitage Theatre, St Petersburg, with Legnani and Gerdt . It tells the story of a duchess's daughter, Isabella, who disguises herself as a servant to test whether her fiancé, the Marquis Damis, loves her for herself rather than for her title.

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Russell , Francia

(b Los Angeles). US dancer and director. She studied with Doubrovska , Volkova , Joffrey , and Balanchine , joining New York City Ballet in 1956 where she became soloist in 1959 and ballet mistress in 1964. During the 1970s she was guest ballet mistress with several European ballet companies until she was appointed co-artistic director (with Kent Stowell ) of the Frankfurt Ballet in 1975. In 1977 they moved to Pacific Northwest Ballet as directors (Russell also directing the company school), and since then she has been responsible for staging the company's Balanchine repertory. She has staged his ballets for companies throughout the world, including the Shanghai Ballet (1987) and the Kirov (1988–9), the first time Balanchine's ballets were staged in Russia.

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Russia and the USSR.

Russian ballet has its roots in a school founded by the Empress Anna Ivanovna in 1738 for the teaching of ballet to selected servants' children. Under the direction of Jean-Baptiste Landé , this produced a small company which during the subsequent decade performed in entertainments staged in the royal palaces of both St Petersburg and Moscow. After Landé's death ballet productions were staged by the impresario Giovanni Locatelli in an old opera house in St Petersburg, and under continuing royal patronage the art form flourished. Many guest ballet masters were invited to the city to stage their ballets, such as Hilverding and Angiolini, and though most principal dancers were foreign a new generation of Russian talent was also emerging. The young ballerina Nastasia Parfentyevna Birilova (1778–1804) was outstanding and in 1794 the first Russian ballet master Ivan Valberkh was appointed to direct the St Petersburg School and oversee the company which now performed at the city's Bolshoi Theatre. Outside St Petersburg developments were more limited. In Moscow a dance school was attached to the city's orphanage in 1773 under the direction of the Italian ballet master Filippo Beccari and in 1776 a company of 24 dancers began giving stage performances in the Znamensky Theatre. Elsewhere, many landowners funded their own troupes of serf dancers, performing folk and ballet.
Russia finally became a major centre of ballet when Didelot came to work in St Petersburg (1801–11 and 1816–34). During his reign he dramatically raised the standards of both the Imperial Company and its school as well as bringing important new works into the repertory. He was succeeded by Alexis Blache from France and Antoine Titus from Berlin and it was under Titus that M. Taglioni was invited to give her debut performance in St Petersburg, dancing La Sylphide on 6 Sept. 1837. She caused a sensation, and her continuing guest appearances over the next five years served to rekindle public enthusiasm. She also inspired a new generation of Russian dancers such as Andreyanova , although many foreigners continued to guest in the city, e.g. Grahn in 1843 and Elssler in 1848. Between 1851 and 1859 Perrot worked in St Petersburg, staging many of his ballets there and was succeeded by Saint-Léon (1859–69) who created his popular hit The Humpbacked Horse in 1864 and promoted the career of the Russian ballerina Marfa Muraieva . It was under Petipa , however, that Russian ballet entered its golden age, developing its own distinctive style (a fusion of French elegance, Italian virtuosity, and Russian flamboyance) and its own major repertory. He had arrived in 1847 as a dancer (his father, Jean Petipa , was a teacher at the Imperial School) and after his appointment as ballet master began to create a body of about 50 ballets for the St Petersburg and Moscow companies, including Don Quixote (1869), La Bayadère (1877), Sleeping Beauty (1890), Swan Lake (1895, with Ivanov), and Raymonda (1898). The great Tchaikovsky ballets were commissioned by Vsevolozhsky who was director of the Imperial Theatres from 1881 to 1899. Dancing many of the leading roles were celebrated Russian dancers such as Kshessinska and Preobrajenska who now rivalled popular guest virtuosos like Legnani and Cecchetti . At the beginning of Petipa's reign performances were given at the Bolshoi Theatre, later they alternated between there and the Maryinsky Theatre (built 1860) which from 1889 became the sole venue for grand ballet.
The successes of the St Petersburg Ballet overshadowed developments in Moscow where the Imperial company moved from the Petrovsky Theatre (under the management of Englishman Michael Maddox ) to the rebuilt Bolshoi Petrovsky Theatre and thence to the replacement Bolshoi (built 1856). Its less elevated standards were typified by the failure of its own premiere of Swan Lake (chor. Reisinger , 1877) compared to the success of the Petipa-Ivanov version at St Petersburg. Yet it developed its own distinctive style, more theatrically colourful than the classical St Petersburg ballet, and evident in, for example, Petipa's staging of Don Quixote for the company in 1869. During the early 20th century Gorsky intensified the dramatic realism of Moscow's productions, both in his revisions of Petipa's ballets and in his own works, which particularly showcased the exceptional expressive talents of Geltser .
During this dramatic invigoration of the Moscow company the St Petersburg Ballet lost much of its own creative momentum. Petipa had been forced to retire in 1903 and though young choreographers—notably Fokine — were eager to present their own new ballets, the conservatism of both directorate and public stifled new creativity. The extraordinary generation of dance talent that came out of the school in the first decade of the century—Pavlova, Karsavina, Nijinsky. etc.—found little to excite them in the repertoire, and not surprisingly many seized the radical opportunities offered them by Diaghilev and his Ballets Russes.
Until 1917 Russian ballet was under the Tsar's patronage but after the Revolution it was taken over by the State. Initially a new generation of choreographers, such as Lopukhov and Goleizovsky , pursued avant-garde principles in their vision of a new Soviet ballet but by 1932 Socialist Realism had become established as the official style demanding realistic stagings and politically correct themes. Ballet education was centralized (and given State encouragement) under the supervision of Vaganova whose methods became official teaching practice throughout the USSR. It was also official policy to establish an opera house— with its own ballet and opera companies—in major towns and cities throughout the Republics, such as Novosibirsk. Some were more successful than others, but none rivalled the major companies in Moscow (renamed the Bolshoi) and Leningrad (renamed GATOB, then the Kirov). During the 1930s the latter was pre-eminent, premiering Vainonen's Flames of Paris (1932), Zakharov's Fountain of Bakhchisarai (1934), and Lavrovsky's Romeo and Juliet (1940), but the Bolshoi's premiere of Zakharov's Cinderella (1945) marked a shift over to Moscow and the leading Soviet ballerina Ulanova was transferred from the Kirov to the Bolshoi. However, when both companies started to tour abroad after the late 1950s Western audiences were astonished by the strength and expressiveness of their dancers, and Soviet ballet as a whole started to enjoy immense international prestige.
On these tours, however, Soviet dancers saw how varied ballet and modern dance had become in the West. Some were so frustrated at their company's artistic isolation, and lack of creative freedom that they chose to leave the USSR. Nureyev was the first famous dancer to defect, and was followed by Makarova and Baryshnikov . The West benefited greatly from the arrival of these dancers, not only their inspirational example as performers but also the traditions they brought with them. All three staged Petipa ballets which were previously little known in the West. After these defections Russian companies became much more cautious about touring, although when Grigorovich was appointed artistic director of the Bolshoi in 1964 the company enjoyed an injection of artistic vigour. He created a repertoire of colourful epic ballets, including Spartacus and Ivan the Terrible, which were danced by a succession of great male stars like Vasiliev , Liepa , and Mukhamedov . By the late 1980s, however, Grigorovich had ceased producing new work and the repertory had became moribund. Mukhamedov's public departure to London was one among many blows to its prestige. Under the direction of Vinogradov the Kirov attempted to introduce new works into its repertoire, such as those of Béjart and Balanchine, but its reputation continued to rest largely on its performance of the classics and the reputation of a new generation of dancers including Asylmuratova who still seemed to embody the purity of the Kirov traditions.
During the 1980s and 1990s increasing numbers of Western companies visited Russia, including many modern dance groups such as Trisha Brown and the Rambert Dance Company, but a native Russian modern dance culture has been slow to get established. Kinetic Theatre, founded by Sasha Pepelyaev in 1994, was one of the first dance groups to try to break the monopoly of the classical tradition, along with Provincial Dances, founded by Tatyana Baganova . Other new companies include Saira Blanche, directed by Oleg Soulimenko , the Chelyabinsk Theatre of Modern Dance, the Dance Theatre Elta (from Elets), and the Nota Bene company from Moscow. Several of these were featured during the First European Festival of Contemporary Dance, held in Moscow in 1999. Some of the smaller ballet companies have attempted to develop contemporary repertories, including Maly Ballet under choreographer Nikolai Boyarchikov , the Stanislavsky Ballet, Eifman's Leningrad Theatre of Contemporary Ballet, the recently formed Russian Ballet of the 21st Century, the Graphical Ballet, the Evgeny Panfilov Ballet (Perm), and St Petersburg's All-Men Ballet under Valery Mikhailovsky (a Russian version of Les Ballets Trockaderos de Monte Carlo). Like the larger companies, their artistic aspirations have been affected by Russia's sweeping economic and political reforms. Under the new democracy, state funding for the arts has dramatically declined. Many companies both large and small now have to tour for much of the year to finance themselves and this makes it harder for them to develop new repertoires and artistic policies. The situation was exacerbated in the mid-1990s by the loss of powerful directors, Grigorovich leaving the Bolshoi in 1995 and Vinogradov the Kirov in 1997, though both have since been replaced by major figures (Vladmir Vasiliev at the Bolshoi, with Alexei Fadeyechev as ballet director and V. Gergiev at the Kirov with Vaziev as ballet director). Russian ballet is still regarded as the keeper of 19th-century traditions and is revered as such by the West, but its future at the end of the 20th century was still very uncertain.

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Ruzimatov , Farukh

(b Tashkent, 26 June 1963).
Russian-Uzbek dancer. He studied at the Leningrad (Vaganova) Ballet School under Gennady Selyutsky and in 1981 graduated into the Kirov Ballet where he rapidly became a soloist. A powerful but unusually fluid dancer with a flamboyantly arched line, he performed his first principal role in 1984 as Basil in Don Quixote, going on to create roles in new ballets as well, including Ali in Vinogradov's new production of Le Corsaire (1987). When the Kirov toured to the West in the late 1980s he was one its major attractions, evidence along with his partner Asylmuratova that the company was still producing extraordinary stars. In 1990 he became a guest principal with American Ballet Theatre but returned to the Kirov later that year as principal dancer.

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Rykine , Roman

(b Ufa, 11 Oct. 1974).
Russian dancer. He studied at the Ufa Choreographic School and danced with Ufa Theatre Ballet (1992–4) and various companies, including English National Ballet (1994–6) and Hungarian National Ballet, before joining San Francisco Ballet as principal in 1996. He dances both classical and modern repertories and has created the role of Colas in Grigorovich's La Fille mal gardée (1994) and the principal role in Tomasson's Silver Ladders (1998).

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Ryom , Heidi

(b Copenhagen, 26 Aug. 1955).
Danish dancer. She studied at the Royal Danish Ballet School graduating into the company in 1974 where she became solo dancer (principal) in 1982. Initially regarded as a soubrette, with her petite build and speed, she matured into a poetically expressive performer, dancing most of the principal roles in the Bournonville repertoire as well as modern works by, among others, Ailey , Balanchine , and Béjart , and creating a role in Neumeier's Birthday Dances (1990). In 1988 she formed a partnership with Julio Bocca and they guested together around the world.

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S

Sachs , Curt

(b Berlin, 29 June 1881, d New York, 5 Feb. 1959).
German-US musicologist and author of the classic World History of the Dance (1937), first published in German as Eine Weltgeschichte des Tanzes (Berlin, 1933).

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Sacre du printemps, Le.

See Rite of Spring, The.

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Saddler , Donald

(b Van Nuys, Calif., 24 June 1920).
US dancer and choreographer. He studied with Maracci , Dolin , and Tudor and danced with Ballet Theatre (1939–43 and 1946–7). He is best known for choreographing musicals, such as Bernstein's Wonderful Town (1953) and No, No, Nanette (1971), but he was also assistant and later associate director of the Harkness Ballet (1964–9). In 2001 he returned to the stage in the revival of Follies, the musical.

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Sadler's Wells Ballet and Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet.

See Royal Ballet.

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Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet.

See Birmingham Royal Ballet.

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St Denis , Ruth (originally Ruth Dennis ;

b Somerville, NJ, 20 Jan. 1879, d Hollywood, Calif., 21 July 1968).
US dancer, teacher, and choreographer who is considered one of the pioneering influences in American modern dance. She began her dance career in the music hall having studied mime, social dance, and recitation with her mother, but was inspired to create her own oriental-style dance productions in 1904 after seeing a cigarette advertisement depicting the Egyptian goddess Isis. The ethnic authenticity of these works was always dubious; her first ‘Hindu ballet’, Radha (1906), was set to music from Delibes's Lakmé, and her style mixed ‘exotic influences’ like snaking arm movements and mobile hips with popular dance steps and gymnastics. But she was highly successful in both the US and Europe, where she toured for three years. In 1909 she created Egypta for a major US tour and the Japanese ballet O-Mika (1913). St Denis aspired to a profound moral seriousness in her work. She once described herself as a ‘rhythmic and impersonal instrument of spiritual revelation’, and many of her works centred on the drama of spiritual awakening or the beauty of the inner life. Her choreography was also an attempt to make an exact translation of music into dance. Yet this never prevented her from being an extremely adroit entertainer, using drapes, jewellery, and lighting to create gorgeously memorable stage pictures as well as to flatter her own highly flexible body. In 1914 Ted Shawn became her partner and in 1915 they set up the Denishawn Dance School in Los Angeles where they trained dancers for their company. Humphrey , Weidman , and Graham all began their careers at Denishawn. Major productions included A Dance Pageant of Egypt, Greece and India (mus. W. Myrowitz , Horst , and A. Nevins , 1916) and their 1918 staging of Gluck's Orpheus and Eurydice. Denishawn was disbanded after her separation from Shawn in 1931 but she went on to found the Society of Spiritual Arts and the New York School of Natya with La Meri in 1938. She continued giving recitals and demonstration performances until she was 87. In 1932 she published a volume of poetry, Lotus Light, and in 1939 her autobiography, An Unfinished Life. There are several films about her work, including Ruth St Denis and Ted Shawn (NBC, 1958) and the 1941 film Radha, which was edited in 1973. There has been much recent interest in reconstructing her dances.

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Saint-Léon , Arthur

(b Paris, 17 Sept. 1821, d Paris, 2 Sept. 1870).
French dancer, choreographer, ballet master, and teacher. He studied with his father, a ballet master, in Tuscany and Stuttgart and made his stage debut as a violinist in 1834 and as a dancer in Munich in 1835. He subsequently danced all around Europe, including Milan (1842) and London (various seasons, 1843–8). In Rome (1843) he choreographed his first ballet, Vivandiera ed il postiglione (mus. E. Rolland ), which starred Cerrito . He married her in 1845 and they toured extensively together. In 1847 he created La Fille de marbre (mus. Pugni , after Costa) for her debut at Paris Opera and after its success he remained in Paris becoming teacher of the classe de perfectionnement and choreographer in 1851 and also mounting many ballets and divertissements including La Violon du diable (mus. Pugni , 1849) in which he himself played the violin. He separated from Cerrito in 1851 and left the Opera a year later. He worked as choreographer in Paris (Théâtre Lyrique) and Lisbon and in 1859 became Perrot's successor as ballet master of the St Petersburg Imperial Theatres where he staged many of his earlier works and created several new ones, including The Humpbacked Horse (mus. Pugni , 1864). Between 1863 and 1870 he also worked as ballet master at Paris Opera where he revived La Fille mal gardée in 1866 and in the same year choreographed La Source (mus. Delibes and Minkus ). In 1869 he left Russia for good and in 1870 choreographed his last and most successful ballet, Coppélia (mus. Delibes ).
He was acclaimed as a prodigiously talented dancer, with unusually high elevation and control though he was sometimes criticized for indulging in acrobatic display. He was also considered a virtuoso on the violin and composed over 70 pieces of music, including scores for his own ballets, such as Saltarello (Lisbon, 1855). His choreography reflected his accomplishment in both fields. Though some of the librettos he used were thin or derivative, the ballets themselves were filled with brilliant, highly musical choreography, usually with passages of folk and national dance colourfully adapted for ballet. He also invented his own pinfigure system of dance notation which he published in 1852 as La Sténochorégraphie ou Art d'écrire promptement la danse. This was part of his endeavour to strengthen dance training, improve performance standards, and so halt the decline in ballet's popularity. The exercises and sequences he recorded give a clear indication of the advanced point to which dance technique had developed by the mid-19th century, though, ironically, he recorded none of his major works for posterity.

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St Petersburg.

See also Kirov and Russia. The birthplace of Russian ballet. The Empress Anna Ivanovna founded a school in 1738 under the direction of Landé and from this developed the Imperial company which performed in St Petersburg and also Moscow. After Landé's death in 1748, ballets were staged by G. Locatelli in an old opera house near the Summer Garden in St Petersburg and the company grew in strength under the influence of visiting ballet masters like Hilverding and Angiolini as well as native ballet masters like Valberkh . Under Didelot (1801–11 and 1816–34) it achieved impressive standards, giving its performances at the Bolshoi Theatre, while the city itself became a leading centre of Romantic ballet. Many ballerinas visited, including Taglioni (first perf. 1837), Grahn (first perf. 1834), and Elssler (first perf. 1848). Perrot was ballet master with the company (1851–8), followed by Saint-Léon (1859–69). In 1860 the Maryinsky Theatre was built in the city and performances alternated between it and the Bolshoi until 1889 when the former became the sole stage for grand ballet. Under Petipa (ballet master 1862–1903) the Imperial Ballet at St Petersburg reached a magnificent peak, with a succession of spectacular works, including La Bayadère (1877), Sleeping Beauty (1890), and Swan Lake (1895), and a generation of virtuoso ballerinas, such as Kshessinska and Preobrajenska , who had been inspired by guest stars like Legnani and Zucchi . After Petipa was forced to retire, the next generation, including Pavlova , Karsavina , and Nijinsky , were left with few new challenges. The reforming vision of Fokine was spurned by the conservative theatre management and much of the new talent left to join Diaghilev. After the 1917 revolution, choreographers like Lopukhov and Goleizovsky experimented with new forms and ideas and in 1932 Socialist Realism was introduced as the new mould for Soviet ballet. However, the classics did remain in the repertory of the Maryinsky company (renamed the Kirov) and rigorous training under Vaganova ensured that high standards remained. A succession of major new ballets, including Zakharov's Fountain of Bakhchisarai (1932) and Lavrovsky's Romeo and Juliet (1940), maintained Leningrad's dominance but in 1945 there was a shift of emphasis to Moscow, marked by the country's most renowned ballerina, Ulanova , being transferred to the Bolshoi. During the 1960s and 1970s dissatisfaction with the Kirov's rigid artistic and political policies caused a number of famous defections by leading dancers, including Nureyev , Makarova , and Baryshnikov . Under the direction of Vinogradov some Western ballets were acquired, by Petit , Balanchine , and Béjart , among others, but though the new political climate of the 1990s freed the company to experiment with Western influences it also created financial problems. Cuts in state funding meant that the Kirov had to undertake extensive foreign touring to remain solvent, and there was little money to finance new productions. The Maly Theatre of Opera and Ballet, founded in 1915, gave its first full ballet performance in 1933, with Lopukhov's Harlequinade. It subsequently became a centre for new choreography with works by Fenster , Belsky , Boyarchikov , and Vinogradov but during the 1990s it, too, had to sacrifice some new creation to the financial requirement of foreign touring. In 1977 another focus for new work was established with the founding of the Leningrad Theatre of Contemporary Ballet, under the direction of choreographer Eifman . Though he developed his own style of modern ballet, there has been little development of Western-influenced modern dance, largely because of the financial and political problems of establishing small independent groups. A rare exception has been the All-Men Ballet under Valery Mikhailovsky which is a Russian equivalent of Les Ballets Trockaderos de Monte Carlo.

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Saisons, Les (orig. Russ. title Vremena goda).

Ballet in one act, with choreography by Petipa , music by Glazunov , and design by P. Lambin and I. Ponomariov . Premiered 20 Feb. 1900 at St Petersburg's Hermitage Theatre, with Pavlova, Preobrajenska, Kshessinska, and Legat. It is essentially a grand divertissement, which depicts each of the four seasons and concludes with an apotheosis of the stars. Later versions include Legat (1907), A. Varlamov (Bolshoi Ballet, 1959), and Cranko (Stuttgart, 1962). Pavlova's company often danced the Bacchanale section and Ashton used part of the music for his Birthday Offering (1956). See also Four Seasons, The.

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Sakharoff , Alexander (orig. Alexander Zuckermann ;

b Mariupol, 26 May 1886, d Siena, 25 Sept. 1963).
Russian dancer and teacher. He studied in Munich and made his debut there in 1910. In 1911 he married Clothilde von Derp and with her developed a highly idiosyncratic style of mime and dance which subsequently had some influence on Massine.

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Salade.

Commedia dell'arte ballet in one act with choreography by Massine , text by Albert Flamand , music by Milhaud , and design by Braque . Premiered 17 May 1924 at Comte Étienne de Beaumont's Soirées de Paris, Théâtre de la Cigale, Paris, with Massine and Eleanora Manna. Later versions include Lifar (Paris Opera, 1935), Darrell (Western Theatre Ballet, 1961), and Milloss (Vienna State Opera, 1963).

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Salammbô.

Ballet in five acts with choreography and libretto by Gorsky , music by A. Arends , and design by K. Korovin . Premiered 10 Oct. 1910 by the Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow, with Geltser and Mordkin. It is based on Flaubert's novel of the same name and tells the story of Matoh's love for Salammbô, the Princess of Carthage who is sacrificing herself to save her city. This was one of Gorsky's most seminal attempts at dramatic realism.

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Sallé , Marie

(b 1707, d Paris 27 July 1756).
French dancer and choreographer who was considered one of the most expressive performers of her time. She was born into a family of travelling actors and from an early age was taught the art of dramatization in dance. Aged 9 she appeared with her brother in London in the pantomimes of John Rich (giving 100 performances between 1716 and 1717) and two years later made her debut in Paris, performing regularly at the Foire Saint-Laurent and Foire Saint-Germain. She studied in Paris with Prévost (herself a gifted dance actress) and when she made her debut at the Paris Opera in 1727 she was rapidly established as a rival to Camargo, her own delicate grace and expressive mime contrasting with the latter's technical brilliance. She continued to dance regularly in London, where in 1734 she created a sensation with her first choreographed ballet, Pygmalion (premiered 14 Feb.). This may have been influenced by the work of John Weaver and by the art of dance-actress Hester Santlow, and was also a forerunner of Noverre's ballet d'action. Sallé herself performed Galatea, the statue who comes to life in answer to its maker's prayers, and impressed audiences not only with the eloquence of her dancing but also with her dress. In keeping with her subject she abandoned the ballerina's standard costume of voluminous skirts and panniers and appeared instead with her hair loose, wearing nothing but sandals and a simple muslin tunic. While still in London she worked with Handel who composed for her the ballet music Terpsichore as prologue to his opera Il Pastor Fido (1934) and divertissements in his operas Oreste (1734), Ariodante and Alcina (both 1735). In the suite of dances which she created for the latter she appeared as Cupid, in male dress. The audience booed and she never danced in a London theatre again. In Paris she was very successful in Molière and Lully's comédie-ballets and also worked closely with Rameau. She choreographed and danced roles in several of his works, such as Les Indes galantes (1735), Castor et Pollux (1737), and Dardanus (1739). But Paris was not so receptive to Sallé's choreography and, chafing under the conventions of the Opera's regime, she retired in 1740. After five years' seclusion she returned to choreograph several more dances including those for Rameau's Platée (1745) and to make successful appearances at court, dancing her last performance in 1753 at Fontainebleau. During her career she was partnered by many great dancers including Louis Dupré and Gaetano Vestris ; her portrait was painted by Nicolas Lancret and Maurice-Quentin de la Tour , and Voltaire, Pope and Gay all wrote poems about her. Noverre , whose own reforming attempts at realism were partly inspired by her, said ‘she replaced showiness by simple, touching graces; free from affectation, her features were refined, expressive and intelligent. It was not by means of leaps and jumps that she stirred the heart.’

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Salome.

Ballet in two acts with choreography and libretto by Flindt , music by P. M. Davies , and design by Daydé . Premiered 10 Nov. 1978 at Circus Theatre, Copenhagen, with a specially assembled company including F. and V. Flindt , Eliasen , and L. Rhodes . It is based on the biblical story in which King Herod's daughter asks for the head of John the Baptist as reward for her dancing, but concludes with an apotheosis in which the heroine and John meet as lovers in an afterlife. Other versions of the story include Fuller (mus. F. Schmitt , Paris, 1907), Gorsky (mus. R. Strauss , Moscow, 1921), Lifar (mus. R. Strauss , Monte Carlo, 1946), Cullberg (mus. H. Rosenberg , Stockholm, 1964), Darrell (mus. Hindemith , Scottish Theatre Ballet, 1970), L. Kemp (mus. various, New York, 1975), M. Morris (mus. R. Strauss , Seattle, 1986, performed by the singer Josephine Barstow ), and G. Murphy (mus. various, Sydney Dance Company, 1999).

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salsa.

General term, referring to a variety of Latin American couple dances and their music, e.g. the guajira, charanga, and montuna from Cuba and the currulao from Colombia. It was coined for the purpose of marketing Latin American music. The dances and their music achieved international popularity during the 1980s and 1990s. Cuban salsa is characterized by fluid turns, Colombian is more static but specializes in more intricate footwork.

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saltarello.

A lively jumping dance in 3/4 or 6/8 time, quite similar to the tarantella which dates back to 14th-century Rome. It features in Perrot's Caterina ou la fille du bandit (1846).

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Salzedo , Leonard

(b London, 24 Sept. 1921; d Leighton Buzzard, 6 May 2000).
British violinist, composer, and conductor. He was music director of Ballet Rambert (1966–72), principal conductor of Scottish Theatre Ballet (1972–4), and conductor of New London Ballet in 1974. He composed the scores for eight ballets, including Howard's The Fugitive (1944) and Mardi Gras (1946), J. Carter's The Witch Boy (1956), and Morrice's Hazard (1967).

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samba.

Generic form of Brazilian music and dance, including group, couple, and solo dances in 2/4 time with a syncopated accompaniment.

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Samsova , Galina (orig. Galina Samtsova ;

b Stalingrad, 17 Mar. 1937).
Soviet-Canadian dancer and ballet director. She studied at the Kiev Ballet School and in 1956 graduated into the Kiev Ballet where she became a soloist. In 1960 she married the Canadian Alexander Ursuliak and moved to Canada where she joined the National Ballet of Canada in 1961. She was soon appointed principal and in 1963 she created the title role in Orlikowsky's Cinderella at the Paris International Festival of Dance where she won a gold medal. From 1964 to 1973 she was ballerina with London Festival Ballet. Though she shone in virtuoso roles like the pas de deux from Le Corsaire, she was essentially a lyrical, romantic ballerina, and a renowned Giselle. Her combined dramatic and technical gifts made her popular with choreographers and she created roles in many ballets, including Hynd's Dvoák Variations (1970) and Valses nobles et sentimentales (1975); Darrell's Othello (1971), La Péri (1971), and Chéri (1980), and Prokovsky's Vespri (1973) and The Seven Deadly Sins (1975). She married Prokovsky in 1972 (they divorced in 1981) and a year later founded the New London Ballet with him, with which she toured extensively until 1977. She performed as an international guest artist (1977–9) and was then principal dancer and teacher with Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet (1979–90), where she staged the Grand Pas from Paquita (1980). In 1990 she was appointed guest artistic director of Scottish Ballet, becoming artistic director (1991–7) and staging Raymonda Act III (1990) and Swan Lake (1995).

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Sanasardo , Paul

(b Chicago, 15 Sept. 1928).
US dancer, teacher, and choreographer. He studied with Tudor, Graham, and others, making his debut with the Erika Thimey Dance Theater in 1952. He performed with Sokolow in 1955, creating a role in Rooms, and with P. Lang in 1957 and 1964. He also appeared on Broadway and with New York City Opera. In 1957 he founded the Paul Sanasardo-Donya Feuer Dance Company and a year later his own school, the Studio for Dance (later named Modern Dance Artists Inc.). He choreographed many works, including Cyclometry (1971). He was also artistic director of Batsheva Dance Company (1977–81). After disbanding his company in 1986 he continued to teach and choreograph, including The Seven Last Words (mus. Kancheli , 1994). His works have remained in the repertory of several companies, including Ailey's.

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Sand , Inge (orig. Inge Sand Sørensen ;

b Copenhagen, 6 July 1928; d Copenhagen, 9 Feb. 1974).
Danish dancer, choreographer, and ballet director who helped to bring the Bournonville style to international prominence. She studied at the Royal Danish Ballet School and joined the Royal Danish Ballet in 1947 where she was appointed soloist (i.e. principal) in 1950. She was essentially a soubrette—her greatest role was Swanilda—and her dancing was admired for its lightness and wit though she brought a powerful dramatic intensity to works such as Béjart's Sonate à trois (1965). From 1951 to 1952 she was an international guest artist, appearing, for example, with Original Ballet Russe, and during the 1950s and 1960s she directed touring ensembles of RDB dancers which brought the then little-known Bournonville technique and Danish dance to a world-wide audience. In 1965 she directed a season of new choreography at Copenhagen's New Theatre and in 1966 was appointed assistant director (to Flindt) of RDB. From 1971 until her death she was manager of the company's tours.

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San Diego Ballet Company.

Classical company founded in 1961 by Richard Carter . A small concert ensemble, it originally worked in close collaboration with San Francisco Ballet. In 1969 Jillana became artistic director and she continued as guest artist and artistic adviser when Sonia Arova and Thor Sutowski became directors in 1971. Arova staged several classics for the company which grew to 40 dancers and new works were choreographed by Sutowski . It was disbanded in 1980 but revived in 1984 to merge with Hartford Ballet.

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San Franciso Ballet.

US ballet company. It was founded in 1933 as San Francisco Opera Ballet, together with an affiliated school, and at first performed primarily in opera, its few ballet productions choreographed by its ballet master, Bolm . When Serge Oukrainsky succeeded Bolm in 1937 the company became more independent and after its premier danseur Willam Christensen took over direction a year later the company began to present full-length classics. Christensen choreographed the first US full-length production of Coppélia in 1939, followed by its first complete Swan Lake (1940) and Nutcracker (1944). Harold Christensen joined the company as dancer and director of the school and in 1942 the two brothers bought both school and company from the Opera board, renaming them San Francisco Ballet and San Francisco Ballet School. In 1951 the third brother, Lew Christensen , joined as co-director, becoming sole director of the company in 1952. He established links with New York City Ballet and acquired many Balanchine works. The company began foreign touring in 1957 (making its British debut in Edinburgh, 1981) but during the 1960s it was weakened by the departure of many dancers to New York. In 1973 Michael Smuin joined as co-director. He brought a new theatrical style to the repertory, including his own versions of Cinderella, The Tempest, and Romeo and Juliet. He was sole director in 1984 but was then succeeded by Helgi Tomasson who re-invigorated the company's classical base and re-established its international reputation. He expanded the number of dancers, acquired new Balanchine works, re-staged some of the classics, and added new works by himself, Mark Morris, Bintley, Kudelka, Forsythe, and others to the repertory.

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Sangalli , Rita

(b Milan, 1850, d Carpesino d'Arcellasco, 3 Nov. 1909).
Italian dancer. She made her debut in 1865 at La Scala in P. Taglioni's Flik and Flok and toured widely in Italy, Austria, and England. In 1866 she went to America, making her debut in the New York production of The Black Crook. Later, at the Paris Opera, she created the ballerina roles in Mérante's Sylvia (1876) and Yedda (1879). She was considered one of the beauties of her time. In 1875 she wrote the preface for a book about dance technqiue, Terpsichore.

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Sanguine Fan, The.

Ballet score in one act composed by Elgar in 1917. It was originally produced as a mime play at London's Chelsea Palace in aid of war charities and the first ballet production under the title L'Éventail was choreographed by Hynd in 1976. With design by Docherty it was premiered 6 July by London Festival Ballet at Théatre de l'Opéra de Monte Carlo with P. Clark , von Loggenburg , Asensio , and Ruanne . It is a comedy of manners, whose plot centres on a lost fan. The English title was restored for later performances.

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Sankai Juku (Studio of the Mountain and Sea).

Japanese butoh company, founded by Ushio Amagatsu in 1975. It began as a series of workshops and gave its first full-scale performance in 1978 with Kinkan Shonen or The Kumquat Seed. Though its productions bear some hallmarks of classic butoh (near-naked bodies daubed with white rice flour, slow movements which evoke extreme spiritual and physical states), it is less confrontational than original butoh works and more focused on the creation of spectacular imagery. State-of-the-art lighting and stage machinery combine to create zen-like stage pictures, such as a constant trickle of sand from ceiling to floor that marks the stream of time passing, while jazz or rock music accompanies the often risk-taking stunts of the five male dancers. It is nominally based in Japan but tours internationally.

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Sankovskaya , Ekaterina

(b. Moscow, 1816; d Moscow, 28 Aug. 1878).
Russian dancer who became the most admired ballerina in Moscow of her time. She studied at the Moscow Bolshoi Ballet School and graduated in 1836, going on to dance the title role in the Moscow premiere of La Sylphide on the same day that Taglioni danced the role for the first time in St Petersburg (6 Sept. 1837). She was renowned for her impassioned performances of tragic roles such as Giselle and Esmeralda. After retiring in 1854 she taught ballroom dance in private houses. One of her pupils was the theatre director Stanislavsky.

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Sansom , Bruce

(b Berkshire, 8 Sept. 1963).
British dancer. He studied at the Royal Ballet School and joined the company in 1982 where he was promoted principal (1987). A lyrical dancer with a classical purity of line, he has been compared to Dowell and has danced several of the latter's roles in The Dream and Manon, among others. He has also danced the standard classic roles and his created roles include Bintley's Galanteries (1986) and Cyrano (1991), MacMillan's Prince of the Pagodas (1989), A. Page's Pursuit (1987), and Tuckett's Turn of the Screw (1999).

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Santiago Ballet.

See also Chile. Chilean ballet company founded by Vadim Sulima and Nina Gritsova , and originating in the ballet school founded in 1949. In 1960 both school and company were reorganized by Ottavio Cintolesi and under the later direction of Nagy (1982–9 and 1995– ) its standards were raised to a high international level and its repertory balanced between classical ballets and new works by Chilean choreographers such as Hilda Riveros . During Marcia Haydée's brief tenure (1993–5) many European choreographers were also added to its repertory (including MacMillan , Béjart , and Cranko ). Its first US appearance was in 1986 and it now tours widely.

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Santlow , Hestor

(b c.1690, d 15, 21, or 31 Jan. 1773).
British dancer and actress. She gave her debut performance as a dancer in London's Drury Lane Theatre in 1706 and as an actress in Congreve's Love for Love in the same theatre in 1709 and went on to become the leading interpreter of Weaver's seminal dramatic ballets. She created the roles of Venus in Loves of Mars and Venus (1717) and Helen in The Judgement of Paris (1733), enthralling the public with the eloquent realism of her performances. She also appeared in the ballets and masques of John Thurmond . Her dancing was praised by James Thomson for its ‘melting lascivious motions, airs and postures’.

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Sappington , Margot

(b Baytown, Tex., 30 July 1947).
US dancer and choreographer. She studied with C. Hill , Matt Mattox , and at the American Ballet Centre and danced in musicals. She choreographed Oh Calcutta! in 1969 and her subsequent works include Weewis (mus. S. Walden , City Center Joffrey Ballet, 1971), Juice (mus. Kamen , Netherlands Dance Theatre, 1975), and the ‘Slide’ section in Billboards (mus. Prince , Joffrey Ballet, 1993).

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sarabande.

Dance in triple time with the accent on the second beat. Originally a some-what erotic dance with a Spanish influence, it was danced in both S. America and Spain during the 16th century. It developed a more dignified form when it became popular in Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries.

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Sarabhai , Mrinalini

(b Madras, 11 May 1928).
Indian dancer. She trained in kathakali, Greek and Javanese dance, and Russian ballet and made her debut in Madras in 1939. She subsequently performed world-wide with Ram Gopal and with her own company and in 1949 formed the Darpana Academy of Dance and Drama in Ahmadabad, her daughter Mallika Sarabhai becoming co-director in 1989 and widening its scope to include film and media studies. In 1955 she was also appointed director of the Sangit Natak Academy. She is author of This Alone is True (1952) and Creations (1986).

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Sardanapal.

Ballet in four acts with choreography by P. Taglioni and music by Paul Hertel . Premiered 24 Apr. 1865 at the Berlin Royal Opera House. Its plot is a colourful telling of the life of the famous king of Assyria and the ballet was so popular that it was selected as the opening production of the newly built Vienna Court Opera in 1869.

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Satie , Erik Alfred Leslie

(b Honfleur, 17 May 1866, d Paris, 1 July 1925).
French composer whose melodic simplicity and witty experimentation with popular song and dance forms made him one of the seminal influences in 20th-century music. He wrote scores for several ballets including Massine's Parade (Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, 1917) and Mercure (de Beaumont's Soirées de Paris, 1924) and Börlin's Dadaist ballet Relâche (Les Ballets Suédois, 1924). During the latter Satie rode around the stage in a tiny car, lifting his hat to the audience. The serene and limpid Trois gymnopédies has been used by many choreographers, often in the orchestral arrangement by Debussy and Roland-Manuel , for example by Ashton in Monotones (1965) with the later addition of Trois gnossiennes (1966), and van Manen in Squares (1969). Satie's music has been used by Cunningham several times, in Idyllic Song (1944), Septet (1953), and Nocturnes (1956), for example, and by Mark Morris in Bijoux (1983), The Death of Socrates (1983), and Pas de poisson (1986).

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Sauguet , Henri (orig. Jean-Pierre Poupard ;

b Bordeaux, 18 May 1901, d Paris, 22 June 1989).
French composer who wrote the scores for over two dozen ballets, including Balanchine's La Chatte (1927), Lifar's La Nuit (1930), Petit's Paul et Virginie (1943) and Les Forains (1945), and Taras's Cordelia (1952). Although Sauget lacked the experimental vigour of some of his modernist contemporaries he was admired for his ability to evoke character and atmosphere in his score, and for his expressive, danceable melodies.

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saut

(Fr., leap). A jump that takes off from two feet and lands in the same position.

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Savignano , Luciana

(b Milan, 30 Nov. 1943).
Italian dancer. She trained at the ballet school of La Scala and joined the company in 1961, creating works in several ballets by Pistoni , including The Miraculous Mandarin (1968). Her exotic, somewhat mysterious qualities were captured in the solo ‘La Luna’ which Béjart created for her in the ballet Héliogabale ou l'anarchiste couronné in 1976. During the 1980s she gave a series of solo recitals, performing pieces by Petit and Béjart , among others, and also appearing as guest star with La Scala and principal with the ballet company at the Teatro Nuovo Torino.

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Scala Ballet, La.

Italian ballet company which was established as the official dancing company of the Teatro alla Scala in Milan when it opened in 1778. Angiolini created many ballets for it but it reached its peak of activity during the first half of the 19th century when it became one of the great centres for Romantic ballet. Many of Europe's leading ballerinas appeared as guest artists including Cerrito , Elssler , Taglioni , and Grisi, and most of the important works of the repertoire were staged there, either in their original or in re-worked versions. Salvatore Vigano staged many of his own ballets at La Scala including his 1813 re-working of Creatures of Prometheus and his 1818 Othello. Antonio Cortesi staged his version of La Sylphide in 1841 with Cerrito, and a Giselle in 1843 with new music by Bajetti . Perrot produced and danced in his own Esmeralda with Elssler . The school at La Scala, originally called the Imperial Academy of Dance, was founded in 1813 and after Blasis was appointed director in 1837 became one of the most important training centres in Europe, its pupils including Cerrito and Legnani . But during the second half of the century ballet declined into formulaic spectacle and La Scala's repertoire was dominated by the large theatrical works of Manzotti , such as Excelsior (1881) and Amor (1886). Opera, particularly the works of Verdi , took precedence over ballet at the theatre and several of the great Italian ballerinas, like Legnani and Zucchi, left to advance their careers in Russia. In 1925 Cecchetti was brought in to try to improve ballet's status at the theatre but failed, and when Diaghilev's company visited the theatre in 1927 it had little success. Since then there has been a succession of short-term ballet masters, such as Aurelio Milloss , whose attempts to revive the company's status and build a solid repertoire have never had more than temporary effect due to the continuing dominance of opera. Carla Fracci , a pupil of the school, did bring some renown to the Scala Ballet after her much-admired performance in H. Lander's La Sylphide in 1962, and in 1966 Nureyev staged his first production of The Sleeping Beauty for the company with himself and Fracci in the leading roles. She led the company for many years and during the late 1960s and 1970s Nureyev continued to make regular guest appearances, also partnering Liliana Cosi who left the company in the early 1970s due to the limited opportunities it offered her. The company's 20th-century repertory has been expanded with works by Cranko , Balanchine , P. Taylor , de Warren , B. Stevenson , Cullberg , and Massimo Moricone , although it has not established a distinctive identity. Recent directors have included Robert de Warren and Elisabetta Terabust , with Fracci appointed to the post in 2000. In 1999 the company offices and school moved into new premises, on Via Campo Lodigiano, the latter being under the direction of Anna Maria Prina (appointed 1974).

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Scandinavian Ballet, The.

Ballet company formed by E. M. von Rosen and her husband A. Fridericia . It was funded by both Sweden and Denmark, and opened in Vaxjö, Sweden, in Feb. 1960, touring Scandinavia and Germany until it folded in late 1961. Its repertory featured some Bournonville ballets and works by Rosen and Cramér .

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Scapino Ballet.

The Netherlands' oldest ballet company, founded in 1945 in Amsterdam by Hans (Johanna) Snoek to provide performances for children. Although it still tours schools and youth centres, the company now also performs a wide-ranging adult repertoire. Snoek retired in 1970 and in 1988 the company moved from its Amsterdam base to Rotterdam. When Ed Wubbe was appointed director in 1992 the company was renamed Scapino Rotterdam, and he introduced a more abrasive edge with works like Kathleen (1992), a West Side Story of the 1990s, and his version of Le Sacre du printemps (1996).

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Scarlatti , Domenico

(b Naples, 26 Oct. 1685, d Madrid, 23 July 1757).
Italian composer. He wrote no ballet scores but his music has often been used for dance, including Massine for Les Femmes de bonne humeur (arr. Tommasini , 1917), Cranko for The Taming of the Shrew (arr. Stolze , 1969), Prokovsky for Scarlatti and Friends (1973), P. Martins for S (1979), Mark Morris for Lies (performed under various alternative titles, 1987), and S. Davies for The Art of Touch (with additional mus. Matteo Fargion , 1995).

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Scènes de ballet.

Ballet in one act choreographed to Stravinsky's score of the same title. The definitive version was choreographed by Ashton with designs by A. Beaurepaire and was premiered 11 Feb. 1948 by Sadler's Wells Ballet at the Royal Opera House, London, with Fonteyn and Somes. Ashton described his ballet as ‘just an exercise in pure dancing’; in fact it is one of his finest works, its complex geometries of movement wittily evoking the grandeur of 19th-century classicism. Stravinsky's score was originally composed for a divertissement in Billy Rose's revue The Seven Lively Arts, and he himself specified that it should have a cast of two soloists and a corps of four men and twelve women. Dolin choreographed and danced in it (with Markova) at its first performance, 7 Dec. 1944, at the Ziegfeld Theater, New York. This production did not use the entire score; Ashton's was the first to do so. Later versions include G. Blank (Berlin Opera Ballet, 1952), Cranko (Stuttgart Ballet, 1962), and Taras (New York City Ballet, 1972). The Ashton version has been revived by Berlin Opera Ballet (1968) and Dutch National Ballet (1992), among others.

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Schall , Claus

(b Copenhagen, 28 Apr. 1757, d Copenhagen, 9 Aug. 1835).
Danish composer, dancer, and violinist. He became a dancer with the Royal Danish Ballet in 1772, and in 1775 conductor of ballet music and repetiteur. In 1795 he was made composer for the ballet and in 1818 music director of the Opera. He composed many ballet scores, mostly for Galeotti, including Laurette (1785), Lagetha (1801), Romeo and Juliet (1811), and Macbeth (1816).

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Schandorff , Silja

(b 10 Feb. 1969).
Danish dancer. She studied at the Royal Danish Ballet School and became an apprentice with the company in 1985, full company member in 1987, and principal dancer in 1992. Her wide repertory includes the standard classical and Bournonville roles as well as new works by Flindt , Ib Andersen , and Anna Laerkesen , among others.

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Schanne , Margrethe

(b Copenhagen, 21 Nov. 1921).
Danish dancer who became the foremost interpreter of the Romantic repertoire of her time. She studied at the Royal Danish Ballet School with H. Lander and later in London and Paris with Kniaseff and Egorova . She danced with RDB from 1940 to 1966, becoming soloist (principal) in 1943 and was much admired for her evanescent grace in La Sylphide (which she danced over 100 times) and for her poetic Giselle. She guested with Petit's Ballets des Champs-Elysées in 1947 and Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas in 1956, and during the 1950s and 1960s she toured extensively in the US, S. Africa, and Europe. In 1966 she left the stage to become a teacher of dance and physical education until she retired in 1986. She was made a Knight of Dannebrog in 1953 and in 1957 became the first Danish dancer to appear on a postage stamp.

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Schaufuss , Frank

(b Copenhagen, 13 Dec. 1921, d Copenhagen, 10 Oct. 1997).
Danish dancer, choreographer, and teacher. He studied at the Royal Danish Ballet School and with Bartholin and after dancing with the N. B. Larsen Ballet he entered the Royal Danish Ballet in 1941 where he remained until 1970. He was appointed soloist (principal) in 1949, performing a wide range of roles including Mercutio in Ashton's Romeo and Juliet (1955), and was ballet master (1956–8). He also guested abroad, with, for example, the de Cuevas Ballet and National Ballet of Canada. After retiring he founded the Danish Ballet Academy with his wife, Mona Vangsaae, in 1970. From this emerged the Danish Ballet Theatre which he directed until it closed in 1974. He and Vangsaae were the parents of Peter Schaufuss. His last stage appearances in England were as Escalus in his son's 1985 revival of Ashton's Romeo and Juliet.

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Schaufuss , Peter

(b Copenhagen, 26 Apr. 1949).
Danish dancer, choreographer, and director. Son of Frank Schaufuss and Mona Vangsaae ; studied at the Royal Danish Ballet School with S. Williams and H. Brenaa and joined the RDB in 1965. Partly because of his family connections with the company, he chose to establish himself as an international performer, dancing with National Ballet of Canada (1967–8 and 1977–83), London Festival Ballet (1970–4), and New York City Ballet (1974–7) as well as making numerous guest appearances. He was an ardent partner with a powerful virtuoso technique which allowed him to encompass the demands of the Bournonville and Petipa repertoires as well as Balanchine and Petit . From 1984 to 1990 he was artistic director of London Festival Ballet, during which time it became English National Ballet. He introduced radical new works into the repertoire (including a ballet by Michael Clark ) as well as staging productions of Bournonville's La Sylphide (1979) and Napoli (1989), and a new version of The Nutcracker (1986) which emphasized connections between the Hoffmann tale and Tchaikovsky's personal life. He also oversaw the reconstruction of Ashton's Romeo and Juliet. In 1990 he was appointed director of the Berlin Opera Ballet where he continued to commission experimental work, by Bill T. Jones and Stephen Petronio , among others, and staged new productions of Giselle (1991), Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty (both 1992). In 1994 he was appointed director of the Royal Danish Ballet for which he choreographed a new production of Hamlet (1996). In 1997 he founded the Peter Schaufuss Ballet, based in the theatre of Holstebro, Denmark, for which he radically re-choreographed the three Tchaikovsky classics and also created The King (mus. Wagner and Elvis Presley , 1999).

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Schayk , Toer van

(b Amsterdam, 28 Sept. 1936).
Dutch dancer, choreographer, and stage designer. He studied with Gaskell and danced with her company (1955–9) before working as a painter and sculptor. He returned to dance in 1965 to perform the lead in van Dantzig's Monument for a Dead Boy for Dutch National Ballet, a role created to exploit his unusually direct, expressive talent. He also designed the set and costumes for the ballet and went on to design and dance in many other van Dantzig works. He choreographed his own first work in 1971, Past Imperfect, set to music by Ligeti for DNB. His works, nearly all made for this company, tend to deal with strong political and moral issues though with a vein of ironic humour. His style has a distinctively angular sculptural quality. He has also re-worked two Nijinsky ballets, Jeux (1977) and Faun (1978). Later works include Still Life with White Square (mus. Schoenberg , 1992). Several of these have been mounted on other companies, including Seventh Symphony (1986, revived Royal Winnipeg Ballet, 1997).

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Scheherazade (often spelled Schéhérazade).

Ballet in one act with choreography by Fokine , libretto by Benois , music by Rimsky-Korsakov (the symphonic suite Scheherazade minus its 3rd part), and design by Bakst . Premiered 4 June 1910 by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes at Paris Opera, with Ida Rubinstein , Cecchetti , and Nijinsky . It is based on the first story from A Thousand and One Nights in which the women of the Shah's harem persuade the Chief Eunuch to admit the male slaves to their quarters while their master is absent. In the orgy that follows the Shah returns to discover his favourite concubine Zobeide consorting with the beautiful Golden Slave. The latter is killed and Zobeide is forced to stab herself. Bakst's designs with their revealing oriental costumes and voluptuous palette of colours were considered almost as daring as the graphic eroticism of the dancing and mime. It has been revived by many companies including London Festival Ballet in Beriozoff's 1952 staging, and the Kirov in A. Liepa and I. Fokine's 1993 staging, although its exoticism and sexuality seem, inevitably, rather tame to modern audiences. Other new versions include V. Panov's for Vienna State Opera Ballet (1981). Ravel also composed a Shéhérazade which has been choreographed by, among others, G. Murphy (Sydney Dance Company, 1979) and Petit (1974).

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Schilling , Tom

(b Esperstedt, 23 Jan. 1928).
German dancer, choreographer, and dance director. He studied at Dessau Opera Ballet School and also with Hoyer while he was dancing in Dresden (1945) and with Wigman while dancing at Leipzig Ballet (1946–52). In 1953 he became ballet master at the German National Theatre in Weimar, where he began to create his first works. In 1956 he was appointed director of Dresden Ballet where he remained until 1964, becoming artistic director of the ballet at Komische Opera in E. Berlin from 1965. He choreographed the first German production of Asafiev's Fountain of Bakhchisarai (Weimar, 1959), and his large output also included Abraxas (1957), Cinderella (mus. Prokofiev , 1968), Romeo and Juliet (mus. Prokofiev , 1972), Ondine (mus. Henze , 1970), La Mer (mus. Debussy , 1968), and A New Midsummer Night's Dream (mus. Katzer , 1981), all for E Berlin. His works typically relocated the language and scenarios of classical ballet into contemporary settings. He was also a guest choreographer for Western companies including Grand Ballet Classique de France, Norwegian National Ballet, and Vienna State Opera Ballet.

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Schlemmer , Oskar

(b Stuttgart, 4 Sept. 1888, d Baden-Baden, 13 Apr. 1943).
German choreographer and designer who pioneered the concept of abstract dance in Central Europe. In 1921 he joined the faculty of Weimar's Bauhaus school where he developed his Triadic Ballet (Stuttgart, 1922). In a work which aimed to explore the relationship between figure, movement and space, uncluttered by character or plot, he disguised the dancers' humanity by using repetitive, mechanical movements and costumes which resembled models or abstract sculptures. Between 1925 and 1929 he directed the Theatre Workshop of the Bauhaus in Dessau, creating more of his ‘architectonic dances’, such as Space Dance, Hoop Dance, and Gesture Dance. He also designed dance productions for other companies including Dresden and Breslau. Since 1982 his Bauhaus dances have been researched and re-created by New York dancer and movement therapist Debra McCall.

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Schneitzhoeffer , Jean

(b Toulouse, c.13 Oct. 1785, d Paris, 4 Oct. 1852).
French composer. He was chorus master at the Paris Opera (1823–40) and he wrote the scores for several ballets, most famously La Sylphide (1832).

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Schoenberg , Arnold

(b Vienna, 13 Sept. 1874, d Los Angeles, 13 July 1951).
Austrian composer. He wrote only one ballet score, ‘The Dance Around the Golden Calf’ which features in his opera Moses and Aaron, but much of his concert music has been adapted for dance. Transfigured Night has been used by several choreographers including Tudor (in Pillar of Fire, New York, 1942), Kylián (The Hague, 1975), Petit (Paris, 1976), and de Keersmaeker (Rotterdam, 1997); Pelléas and Mélisande has been used by Petit (Royal Ballet, 1969); and Pierrot lunaire by Tetley (New York, 1962) and Joffrey (New York, 1965). Balanchine used Schoenberg's adaptation of Brahms's Piano Quartet in his Brahms—Schoenberg Quartet (1966) and Morris used Schoenberg's Accompaniment Music for a Motion Picture, Op. 34, and Five Orchestral Pieces, Op. 16, for Wonderland (Brussels, 1989).

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Schollar , Ludmila (also Ludmila Shollar ;

b St Petersburg, 15 Mar. 1888, d San Francisco, 10 July 1978).
Russian-US dancer and teacher. She studied at the Imperial Ballet School with Fokine and graduated into the Maryinsky in 1906 where she danced until 1914. In 1909 her delicate beauty and musical technique brought her to the attention of Diaghilev and she danced several seasons with his company until 1914. She created the roles of Estrella in Fokine's Carnaval (1910), Street Dancer in his Petrushka (1911), and Papillon in his Les Papillons (1914), as well as one of the women tennis players in Nijinsky's Jeux (1913). During the war she nursed with the Red Cross then in 1917 returned to Russia where she danced with the Maryinsky and GATOB. In 1921 she married dancer Anatole Vilzak and they both returned to Diaghilev's company (1921–5). She was dismissed for sympathizing with striking dancers, and she and Vilzak went to dance at the Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires (1926–7). She subsequently danced in the companies of Rubinstein and Nijinska and also in the Karsavina-Vilzak Company. In 1936 she and Vilzak settled in America and between 1940 and 1946 ran their own ballet school in New York. She also taught at the School of American Ballet from 1936, Ballet Theatre School (1951–3), Washington School of Ballet (1963–5), and at the San Francisco Ballet School from 1965.

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Scholz , Uwe

(b Darmstadt, 1958).
German dancer, choreographer, and director. He studied at the Stuttgart School and briefly at the School of American Ballet before returning to dance in the Stuttgart Ballet. He began choreographing in the 1980s, including The Creation (mus. Haydn , 1984), and after directing the Zurich Ballet (1986–91) he was appointed artistic director of Leipzig Ballet. He is a prolific choreographer, having created over 90 ballets, and his works are in the repertory of many companies, including Stuttgart, Leipzig, Zurich, Royal Winnipeg Ballet, La Scala, and Netherlands Dance Theatre. He takes his inspiration from a wide range of music, saying that he aims to reflect the ‘landscape of the soul’ of each composer. His recent works range from Amerika (mus. various US composers, 1994) to a setting of Mozart's ‘Great’ Mass, K. 427 (1998).

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Schönberg , Bessie

(b Hanover, 27 Dec. 1906, d New York, 14 May 1997).
German-US dancer and teacher. She studied eurythmics in Dresden, modern dance with Martha Hill in Oregon, and with Graham in New York. She danced with Graham's company (1929–32) but was forced to retire from the stage because of a knee injury. From 1933 she became one of the US's most celebrated teachers of modern dance composition, and in 1984 Dance Theater Workshop named its annual New York Dance and Performance Awards, the Bessies, after her.

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Schooling , Elizabeth

(b London, 27 Apr. 1915, d 22 June 1998).
British dancer and teacher. She studied with Rambert and joined her company in 1930 where she remained, apart from a few brief absences, until 1948. A versatile dancer, she created roles in many works by Ashton , Tudor , Gore , Howard , and Staff (her first husband). She also danced in Nijinsky's L'Après-midi d'un faune, a ballet which she staged for many companies including Paris Opera. After retiring from the stage she taught at her own school in Devon.

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School of American Ballet.

The official school of New York City Ballet. It was founded in Hartford in 1933 by Balanchine , Kirstein , Dimitriev , and Warburg and in 1934 moved to New York. It is now housed in the Juilliard School building of Lincoln Center. Its distinguished international staff of teachers has included Danilova, Doubrovska, Eglevsky, and S. Williams .

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schottische.

A German couple dance in 2/4 time that became very popular during the mid-19th century.

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Schubert , Franz

(b Liechtenthal, 31 Jan. 1797, d Vienna, 19 Nov. 1828).
Austrian composer. He wrote no ballet scores but his concert music has often been used for dance. Rosamunde has been used by, among others, Leontiev (Vienna State Opera, 1928), Adama (Hanover, 1968), and Catá (Geneva, 1968); The Unfinished Symphony by Isadora Duncan (Paris, 1927); The Wanderer Fantasy by Balanchine (in Errante, Les Ballets 1933) and by Ashton (in The Wanderer, Sadler's Wells Ballet, 1941); Death and the Maiden by A. Howard (1st movement only; Ballet Rambert, 1937), by R. North (Ballet Rambert, 1984), and Marin (May B, Angers, 1991); 7th Symphony by Massine (in Labyrinth, Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, 1941); 2nd Symphony by H. Lander (in Printemps à Vienne, Paris, 1954); the Trio in B major by van Manen (in Grand Trio, Vienna, 1978); and the songs Wiegenlied, Ständchen, and Erlkönig by Mark Morris in Bedtime (1992). Kudelka used an arrangement of his music in Mixed Program (Toronto, 1991).

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Schuman , William

(b New York, 4 Aug. 1910, d New York, 15 Feb. 1992).
US composer. He was president of the Juilliard School (1945–62) and invited Martha Hill to head a radical new dance department there; from 1962 to 1968 he was president of the Lincoln Center. He wrote the scores for Tudor's Undertow (1945) and for Graham's Night Journey (1947), Voyage and Judith (both 1950), and Witch of Endor (1965).

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Schumann , Robert

(b Zwickau, 8 June 1810, d Endenich, 29 July 1856).
German composer. He wrote no ballet scores but his concert music has frequently been used for dance. Arrangements of various scores were used by Fokine (in Le Carnaval, Berlin, 1910), and in Les Papillons (St Petersburg, 1913); the Piano Concerto in A minor by Nijinska (in Schumann Concerto, New York, 1951); Dichterliebe by Marks (Copenhagen, 1973); the String Quartet No. 3 by van Manen (in Four Schumann Pieces, Royal Ballet, 1975); Davidsbündlertänze by Balanchine (New York City Ballet, 1980); and Fünf Stücke im Volkston by Morris in the Argument (1999). His music has also been used by Kudelka in Dreams of Harmony (San Francisco Ballet, 1987) and Divertissement Schumann (Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, 1989).

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Schwarz , Solange

(b Paris, 12 Nov. 1910).
French dancer; daughter of the famous Paris ballet teacher Jean Schwarz . She studied at the Paris Opera Ballet School and joined the company in 1930. In 1932 she was made étoile of the Opéra Comique and after returning to the Opera in 1937 she was promoted étoile in 1940. With her petite, blonde looks, and precise, brilliant style, she became a favourite Swanilda, the role which she danced for her farewell performance at the Opera in 1957. She also created roles in several ballets by Lifar (who was her frequent partner), such as Entre deux rondes (1940) in which she took the role of Degas's little dancer, Le Chevalier et la damoiselle (1941), and Sylvia (1941). After the war she and Lifar left the Opera. She was ballerina with Ballets des Champs-Elysées; returned to the Opéra Comique (1949–51), then guested with Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas and Bejart's Ballet de l'Étoile de Paris. After retiring in 1957 she taught at the Paris Conservatoire for twenty years.

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Schwezoff , Igor

(b St Petersburg, 1904, d New York, 28 Oct. 1982).
Soviet-US dancer, choreographer, and teacher. He started training aged 16 and entered the Leningrad Choreographic School at 20. During his studies he also performed with a provincial touring operetta company which was to set the tone for his later peripatetic career. He toured the Ukraine (1926–8) as a dancer with the New Academic Theatre, and in 1928 was appointed first dancer and choreographer of the Kiev opera house. He also danced with the Propaganda Studio Opera which brought Socialist art to the provinces. In 1930 he left to dance in revues in China then moved to Buenos Aires where he was principal dancer at the Teatro Colón, under the direction of Nijinska . With her he moved to Paris and then to the Netherlands, where he opened a school in The Hague which evolved into his own company, Ballet Igor Schwezoff (1934–6). He danced and choreographed in Monte Carlo (1936–7) then opened a school in London, after which he was a soloist with de Basil's Original Ballet Russe (1939–41). In 1941 he moved to New York where he became choreographer of the New Opera Company. After military service he divided his time between New York and Rio de Janeiro, where he was director, dancer, and choreographer of Teatro Municipal and where he choreographed his ballet Concertanto dansante (mus. Saint-Saëns , 1945). In New York in 1943 he staged the first US production of The Red Poppy (1927) for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. In 1946 he was choreographer for New York City Center Opera, and in 1947 became founder director of Ballet da Juventude in Rio de Janeiro. He opened a school in New York in 1949 and a company in 1953. He taught at the Ballet Theatre School in New York (1956–62) and then with many other institutions. He published his autobiography, Borzoi, in 1935.

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Scotch Symphony.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Balanchine , music by Mendelssohn , set by H. Armistead , and costumes by Karinska and D. Ffolkes . Premiered 11 Nov. 1952 by New York City Ballet at City Center, New York, with Maria Tallchief, Eglevsky, Wilde, Hobi, and Maule. In this setting of Mendelssohn's A minor Symphony (minus the 1st movement) classical dance is infused with a Romantic Scottish atmosphere, particularly in the second of its three movements which makes reference to La Sylphide. It has been revived for Munich State Opera Ballet (1964), the Kirov (1989), and others.

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Scottish Ballet.

Scotland's national ballet company. It was originally founded in 1957 as the Western Theatre Ballet by Peter Darrell and Elizabeth West . It operated from Bristol (it was the first regionally based British ballet company) but toured extensively, aiming to create new audiences by focusing on the dramatic elements of ballet. Darrell, who gradually became its chief choreographer (and sole director after West's death in 1962), experimented with a wide range of sometimes controversial material—domestic drama, homosexuality, murder—often collaborating with playwrights and theatre producers. His early works included The Prisoners (1957), Mods and Rockers (1963) which was the first Beatles ballet, and also Britain's first full-length ballet with a contemporary setting, Sun into Darkness (1966). Also in the repertoire were other dramatic works like Béjart's Sonate à trois and MacMillan's Las Hermanas. Surviving near-bankruptcy in its early years, the company gained an international profile at various festivals during the 1960s and in 1969 was invited by the Scottish Arts Council to form the basis of a national ballet company for Scotland. Renamed Scottish Theatre Ballet, it attempted to marry its commitment to experimental work with the need to incorporate popular classics into the repertoire, though it inevitably became less pioneering in style. In 1972 it was renamed Scottish Ballet (with its official school, the Dance School of Scotland, also based in Glasgow). Darrell himself choreographed several full-length populist works for the company, including Beauty and the Beast (1969), Tales of Hoffmann (1972), Mary Queen of Scots (1976), and Cinderella (1979). He remained artistic director until his death in 1987, after which there were a series of temporary replacements until Galina Samsova took on the post in 1991. She increased the emphasis on classics in the repertoire, including her own new production of Swan Lake (1995), and introduced neo-classic ballets by Balanchine , Robert Cohan , and Mark Baldwin , among others. Samsova resigned in 1997 and Robert North was appointed to replace her in 1999.

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Scriabin , Alexander

(b Moscow, 6 Jan. 1872, d Moscow, 27 Apr. 1915).
Russian composer. He wrote no ballet scores but some of his concert music has been used for dance particularly his Poème de l'extase which has been used by Sokolow (New York, 1956), Petit (Milan, 1968), Cranko (Stuttgart, 1970), Beatty (Stockholm, 1972), and others. Other ballets created to his music include Neumeier's Dämmern (Frankfurt, 1972) and R. North's Scriabin Preludes and Studies (London Contemporary Dance Theatre, 1978).

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Second Stride.

British modern dance company. It was formed in 1982 by choreographers Richard Alston , Ian Spink , and Siobhan Davies . Each had initially run their own company, Richard Alston and Dancers (1977–80), the Ian Spink Group (1978–81), and Siobhan Davies and Dancers (1981), and the combined ensemble was initially intended to last only one season (the name referred to Alston's first, seminal group Strider (1972–6)). Its first programme included Alston's Doublework (1978, revived 1982), Davies's Plain Song (1981), and Spink's Canta (1981) and was so well received that the company continued. Alston withdrew after a second season because of choreographic commitments at Ballet Rambert, after which Spink and Davies initially shared performances then presented alternate programmes. Davies stopped showing work in 1986 and set up her own company in 1988. In 1988 Second Stride began a three-year residency at Basildon's Towngate Theatre and from that time it moved increasingly towards collaborative, multi-disciplinary work. In 1990 Spink and designer Antony McDonald worked with composer Judith Weir to create the dance opera Heaven Ablaze in his Breast (based on Hoffmann's tale The Sandman) which was performed by both dancers and singers (and later filmed by the BBC). In Lives of the Great Poisoners (1991) with text by playwright Caryl Churchill and score by Orlando Gough , the central roles were taken by singers. McDonald returned to dance-theatre in Escape at Sea (1993) which he directed and designed. Its choreography (by Spink and Ashley Page ) starred ballerina Lynn Seymour . The company ceased to be viewed as a dance group and in 1991 the Arts Council's Dance Department ceased funding it. It was then supported by a special budget for multi-media work until 1997.

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seguidilla.

One of the oldest Spanish dances. It currently exists in several variations, the most popular being the seguidillas sevillanas (dubbed ‘the mother of Spanish dance’) and the seguidillas machegas.

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Self , Jim

(b Greenville, Ala., 6 Mar. 1954).
US dancer and choreographer. He studied locally, then at the Merce Cunningham Studio and with Maggie Black, performing with Chicago Dance Troupe (1972–4), MoMing Dance and Arts Center (1974), Self Performing Arts Company (1975–6), Cunningham Dance Company (1976–9), and Jim Self and Dancers (1980–8). He also choreographed and performed in Robert Wilson's The CIVIL Wars (1980–4). His movement style is partially influenced by Cunningham but his work is often categorized as performance art, due to its reliance on theatrical and visual elements. He has taught and lectured widely.

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Semenyaka , Ludmila (orig. Lyudmila Ivanovna ;

b Leningrad, 16 Jan. 1952).
Soviet dancer. She trained at the Leningrad Choreographic School with Belikova and danced with the Kirov (1970–2) before moving to the Bolshoi as a principal dancer. Here, under the tutelage of Ulanova, her technical purity and brilliance acquired a new lyricism and dramatic subtlety which equipped her both for the 19th-century classics (especially Raymonda, Swan Lake, and Sleeping Beauty) and for the more expansive Grigorovich roles like Phrygia in Spartacus. Between 1979 and 1986 Bolshoi tours of Britain and America were halted by defections from the company but when the company again travelled to the West Semenyaka rapidly acquired an international reputation. Since 1991 she has guested abroad, including performances with Moscow City Ballet on its British tour and English National Ballet, and also with her own concert group in Japan (1991). She was made Honoured Artist of the Russian Federation in 1976.

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Semonova , Marina (orig. Marina Semyonova ;

b St Petersburg, 12 June 1908).
Russian dancer. She studied under Vaganova (the latter's first great pupil) at the Petrograd (later Leningrad) Choreographic School (1919–25) and graduated into GATOB (later Kirov) before moving to the Bolshoi in 1930 as prima ballerina. In both companies she was renowned for her regal bearing and virtuosity. She also guested with the Kirov and in Paris (1935) where she performed Giselle with Lifar. She created or danced the leading roles in many new ballets by Zakharov (The Prisoner of the Caucasus, 1938, and Taras Bulba, 1941) and Vainonen (Flames of Paris, Moscow version, 1933), as well as excelling in classic roles like Nikiya in Bayadère and Odette-Odile in Swan Lake. Her career as well as her personal life suffered when her second husband was detained in 1936 during a Stalin purge but she continued to dance and teach with the Bolshoi until 1952. In 1953 she was appointed teacher at the Moscow Choreographic School and repetiteur at the Bolshoi, where she has taught for over four decades. Her pupils included Plisetskaya and Bessmertnova. She was married to dancer and teacher Victor Semonov and made People's Artist of the USSR, 1975.

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Septet.

Modern dance work in one act with choreography by Cunningham , music by Satie , and design by R. Charlip . Premiered by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company at Black Mountain College, N. Carolina , on 22 Aug. 1953, with Cunningham, C. Brown , Farber , Melsher , Charlip , P. Taylor , and Dencks. This alternately grave and witty setting of Satie's Trois morceaux en forme de poire is one of Cunningham's rare surviving settings of a pre-existent score. It is now danced by six people (seven at premiere), but is in seven movements. It has been revived for Rambert Dance Company (Glasgow, 1987), Pacific Northwest Ballet (Seattle, 1989), White Oak Dance Project (Fort Lauderdale, 1996), and others.

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Seraphic Dialogue.

Modern dance work in one act with choreography by Graham , music by Dello Joio , set by Noguchi , costumes by Graham , and lighting by Rosenthal . Premiered 8 May 1955 by the Martha Graham Dance Company at the ANTA Theater, New York, with Margolies, Birch, Hinkson, Turney, and Ross. A dance portrait of Joan of Arc. It was originally choreographed as a solo (same music, 1950) under the title Triumph of St Joan. In the revised version Joan looks back over her life in a series of danced dialogues with her guiding spirit, St Michael, and with three figures who represent different aspects of her nature—maid, warrior, and martyr. At the work's close the transfigured Joan finally takes her place among the saints.

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Seregi , László

(b Budapest, 12 Dec. 1929).
Hungarian dancer and choreographer. He studied dance while a member of the Hungarian Army Ensemble, and with Nádasi and Harangozó, and in 1957 became a character dancer with the Hungarian State Opera Ballet. In 1965 he began choreographing for opera and in 1968 created his version of Spartacus (mus. Khachaturian ) which was considered seminal in the way it combined Soviet and Hungarian traditions. In 1970 he choreographed three works to Bartók's music: The Miraculous Mandarin, The Wooden Prince, and dances for the opera Duke Bluebeard's Castle. The first, in a new 1981 version, has become the trademark ballet of the Hungarian State Ballet. His works are driven by powerful drama and characterization, and his 1975 ballet The Cedar Tree (mus. Hidas ) is profoundly Hungarian in character. But his 1972 version of Sylvia (mus. Delibes ) is a more light-hearted mix of folk, classical Greek culture, and neo-classical dance and later works like On the Town and Serenade, both made in 1977 to music by Bernstein , reflect more Western influences. In 1974 he was appointed chief choreographer for Hungarian State Opera Ballet and between 1977 and 1984 he directed the Budapest State Opera Ballet. In 1994 he choreographed The Taming of the Shrew (mus. K. Goldmark ). His work is still not widely known in the West, even though he has choreographed and staged ballets in W. Germany , Zurich, and Vienna, and Australian Ballet revived his Spartacus in 1994. In his own country he has a considerable reputation.

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Serenade.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Balanchine and music by Tchaikovsky . Premiered 10 June 1934 by students of the School of American Ballet in a private performance at Felix M. Warburg's estate, White Plains, New York; given its first public performance 8 Dec. 1934, Avery Memorial Theater, Hartford, Connecticut, and its first professional performance, with scenery by Gaston Longchamp and costumes by Jean Lurcat , on 1 Mar. 1935 by American Ballet at Adelphi Theater, New York. This setting of Tchaikovsky's Serenade in C major for String Orchestra (with the 3rd and 4th movements of the score interchanged) is probably the most popular and widely performed of all Balanchine's works. It is essentially a plotless ballet, though romantic images are suggested in its final movement which refer to earlier ballets such as Swan Lake and Giselle. Its pure dance sections are largely performed by women, reflecting the gender balance of students for whom it was first choreographed, and two moments—when a woman arrives late to take her place amongst the rows of dancers, and when another woman falls to the floor—were famously incorporated from real events which occurred during rehearsal. After 1936 the work was performed without scenery and new costumes were designed for later productions such as those by Karinska , 1964. It has been revived for many companies, including Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo (1940), Paris Opera Ballet (1947), Royal Danish Ballet (1957), La Scala, Milan (1960), Royal Ballet (1964), Australian Ballet (1970), Berlin Opera Ballet (1970), Hungarian State Opera Ballet (1977), Dance Theatre of Harlem (1979), and Matsuyama Ballet (1982).

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Sergeyev , Konstantin

(b St Petersburg, 5 Mar. 1910, d St Petersburg, 1 Apr. 1992).
Soviet dancer and choreographer. He took evening classes at the Leningrad Choreographic School and danced with the Joseph Kschessinsky company (1928–9) before returning full-time to the LCS. In 1930 he joined GATOB (later Kirov Ballet) where he remained until 1961. Revered as a ‘poet of dance’, his lyric, Romantic style was showcased in all the major classic roles in which he usually partnered Ulanova or his second wife Dudinskaya. He was also considered the definitive Kirov Romeo, creating the role in Lavrovsky's 1940 ballet opposite Ulanova, and he created roles in many other new ballets including Vatslav in Zakharov's The Fountain of Bakhchisarai (1934), Armen in Anisimova's Gayané (1942), and Andrei in Fenster's Taras Bulba (1955). In 1946 he choreographed the first Leningrad production of Prokofiev's Cinderella casting himself as the Prince, and he created several other original ballets including Path of Thunder (mus. Karayev , 1957) and Hamlet (mus. Chervinsky , 1970). He also staged many productions of the classics including Raymonda (1948), Swan Lake (1950), and Sleeping Beauty (1952), all for the Kirov. He was artistic director of the Leningrad Choreographic School (1938–40 and 1973–82) and was also artistic director of the Kirov (1951–6 and 1960–70), leading the company on its first Western tours. His career was not without political complications but he is widely credited with having preserved the Kirov's classical heritage. Among his many honours were People's Artist of the USSR, 1957, and Honorary Award, Academy of Dance, Paris, 1965.

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Sergeyev , Nicholas

(b St Petersburg, 27 Sept. 1876, d Nice, 24 June 1951).
Russian dancer, teacher, ballet master, and director. He studied at the Imperial Theatre School and graduated into the Maryinsky Theatre in 1894, becoming a soloist in 1904. In 1903 he became the company's regisseur in charge of notation and in 1914 its regisseur general. During this time he recorded 21 ballets in the Stepanov notation (in varying degrees of completeness) and when he left Russia after the October Revolution he took his scores with him. From these he mounted the productions of the standard classics in the West which in turn formed the basis of most subsequent Western productions, including The Sleeping Princess (Sleeping Beauty) for Diaghilev (1921), Giselle for Spessivtseva at Paris Opera (1924), for London's Camargo Society (1932), for Markova-Dolin Ballet (1935), and for Vic-Wells Ballet (1934), Coppélia for Vic-Wells Ballet (1933) and Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo (1938), Nutcracker and Swan Lake for Vic-Wells Ballet (1934), and Sleeping Beauty for Vic-Wells Ballet (1939). (The historical accuracy of his stagings was recognized when the Royal Ballet took this last production to Leningrad in 1961 and it was compared with older Kirov stagings.) He worked as a ballet master in Riga (1922–4) and also for Pavlova's company and for Opera Privé de Paris (1927–9). In 1934 he founded and directed his own Sergeyev Russian Ballet (performing in the UK) and was chief regisseur for Inglesby's International Ballet (1941–8). The Stepanov scores are now in the Harvard Theater Collection.

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Servant of Two Masters (orig. Czech title Sluha dvou pánu).

Ballet in three acts with choreography by Nmeek , libretto by J. Rey , music by J. Burghauser , and design by V. Heller . Premiered 9 May 1958, Tyl Theatre, Prague, with Kra. It is based on Goldoni's comic play and became one of the most popular ballets in the Czech repertoire, also appearing in different versions throughout the Eastern Bloc. Fenster also used the play as a basis for The False Bridegroom (mus. Chulaki , Maly Theatre, Leningrad, 1946).

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Set and Reset.

Modern dance work in one act with choreography by Trisha Brown , music by Laurie Anderson , and costumes and film projections by Rauschenberg . Premiered 1983 by Trisha Brown Dance Company. It is one of Brown's most popular works with densely counterpointed dance and images of great visual wit.

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Setterfield , Valda

(b Margate, 17 Sept. 1934).
British dancer She studied with Rambert and A. de Vos , and danced briefly with Ballet Rambert before touring Italy in a revue during 1956. In 1958 she moved to America where she danced with Waring (1958–60), Cunningham (1960–1 and 1965–74), Rainer (1971–2), and Grand Union (1976). She is married to David Gordon and they have danced together in many of his works, including Offenbach Suite (1985).

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Seven Deadly Sins, The (orig. Ger. title Die sieben Todsünden der Kleinburger; title of 1st Fr. production Les Sept Péchés capitaux).

Ballet with songs in seven scenes with prologue and epilogue, choreography by Balanchine , text by Berthold Brecht , music by Kurt Weill , and design by C. Neher . Premiered 7 June 1933 by Les Ballets 1933, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Paris, with Lenya (singing) and Losch. The heroine, Anna, is played by a singer and a dancer, the former narrating Anna's story as she travels around America in search of money to build a home for her family. In each of seven cities she encounters one of the seven sins. It was revived for New York City Ballet in 1958 with new choreography by Balanchine and design by Ter-Arutunian , with Lenya and Kent. There have been many other versions, including those of H. Lander (Copenhagen, 1936), Béjart (Brussels, 1961), MacMillan (Edinburgh Festival, 1961 and Royal Ballet, 1973), and Prokovsky (PACT Ballet, 1975).

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Seventh Symphony.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Massine , music by Beethoven , and design by Bérard . Premiered 5 May 1938 by Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, Monte Carlo, with Markova , Theilade , Franklin , and Youskevitch . It is set to Beethoven's 7th Symphony and was one of Massine's most influential symphonic ballets. Though essentially plotless, its underlying theme is the creation and destruction of the Earth and its four movements are entitled: ‘The Creation’, ‘The Earth’, ‘The Sky’, and ‘Bacchanale’. Isadora Duncan also created a work to this score in New York, 1908.

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Seymour , Lynn (orig. Lynn Springbett ;

b Wainwright, Alta., 8 Mar. 1939).
Canadian dancer and choreographer. She studied in Vancouver and then at Sadler's Wells School. In 1956 she joined Covent Garden Opera Ballet, then moved to the Touring Royal Ballet in 1957, and a year later to the Royal Ballet as a soloist, becoming principal in 1959. Her first created role was the Adolescent in MacMillan's The Burrow (1958), the first of many ballets on which she worked with the choreographer. Her lyrical technique and intense dramatic powers were developed through the wide range of roles which she created with him including the Girl in Invitation (1960), the Fiancée in Baiser de la fée (1960), Juliet in Romeo and Juliet (1965, though Fonteyn danced the role at the ballet's premiere), Anna Andersen in the one-act version of Anastasia (1967) and later the Grand Duchess Anastasia in the three-act version (1971), and Mary Vetsera in Mayerling (1978). These works established her as the leading dance-actress of her generation, but she also danced the classic roles, including Odette-Odile (1958), Giselle and Aurora (both 1960), and created roles in Ashton ballets including the Young Girl in Two Pigeons (1961) and Natalia Petrovna in A Month in the Country (1976). She was prima ballerina at Berlin Opera Ballet (1966–9) under MacMillan's direction, after which she guested with various companies including London Festival Ballet, National Ballet of Canada, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, London Contemporary Dance Theatre, and American Ballet Theatre. In 1971 she returned to the Royal Ballet as principal guest ballerina (until 1978) and created her first ballet for the Royal Ballet Choreographic Group in 1973, Night Ride (mus Finnissy). Her other works include Gladly, Sadly, Badly, Madly for LCDT (mus. Davis , 1975), Wolfie for Rambert Dance Company (mus. Mozart , 1987), and Bastet for Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet (mus. Berkeley , 1988). She was artistic director of Munich State Opera Ballet (1978–80), then rejoined the Royal briefly as a dancer in 1981, and subsequently as occasional coach. She has also danced with Northern Ballet Theatre in Lynne's A Simple Man (1987), with Second Stride in Escape at Sea (1993), and with Adventures in Motion Pictures in M. Bourne's Swan Lake (1996) and Cinderella (1997), in which she created the role of the Stepmother.

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Shabelevsky , Yurek

(b Warsaw, 1911).
Polish-US dancer and director. He studied at Warsaw Opera Ballet School and with Nijinska, joining Ida Rubinstein's company in Paris in 1928. A glamorous virtuoso with an innate, versatile sense of style, he danced with many companies including Spessivtseva's (1930), with which he created the leading role in Nijinska's Paysage enfantin; de Basil's Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo (1932–9), with which he created roles in many ballets by Balanchine , Massine , and Nijinska ; with Ballet Theatre (1940); and with Teatro Colón (various seasons, 1937–47). He was guest artist at La Scala, Milan (1949–50), and directed his own touring groups in the US and S. America from the 1940s.

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Shadowplay.

Ballet in one act with choreography and libretto by Tudor , music by Charles Koechlin , and design by Michael Annals . Premiered 25 Jan. 1967 by the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden, London, with Dowell, Rencher, and Park. It was Tudor's only created work for the Royal and he referred to it as a ‘Buddhist ballet in disguise’. Its allegorical plot tells the story of a wild boy who is confronted by various animals and beings with whom he has to grapple before reaching adult knowledge. These include an imposing male figure, the Terrestrial, and a seductive goddess, the Celestial. Koechlin's score, Les Bandar-Log (interpolated with an excerpt from La Course de printemps), was partly inspired by Kipling's The Jungle Book, as was Tudor's choreography which mixed suggestions of animal movements with elements from Cambodian and Hindu dance. It was revived for American Ballet Theatre in 1975 with Baryshnikov, Kirkland, and Jonas Käge.

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Shakers, The.

Modern dance work in one act with choreography by Humphrey and music and costumes by Pauline Lawrence . Premiered 12 Nov. 1930 by the Humphrey Weidman Company at Hunter College, New York. It was originally titled Dance of the Chosen, and portrays a religious meeting held by the Shaker sect during the early pioneer period of American history. Its first professional performance was 1 Feb. 1931 at the Craig Theater, New York, and it has been revived several times, by Welsh Dance Theatre (1975) and others. The Shakers were a unique Christian sect who valued dance and song as part of their religious ritual. Shaker dance dates back to early converts who were known to break into ecstatic trembling movements. After a time such movements were deliberately performed and eventually choreographed into formal dances.

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Shakespeare ballets.

(See also under individual titles of plays.) The plays of Shakespeare (1564–1616) have proved a rich source of character and plot for choreographers. Versions of The Taming of the Shrew include Béjart (mus. D. Scarlatti , Paris, 1954), Cranko (mus. D. Scarlatti , arr. Stolze, Stuttgart, 1969), and L. Falco in Kate's Rag (1980); versions of Romeo and Juliet include Eusebio Luzzi (Venice, 1785), Galeotti (mus. C. Schall , Copenhagen, 1811), Nijinska (mus. Lambert , Monte Carlo, 1926), Bartholin (mus. Tchaikovsky , Paris, 1937), Psota (mus. Prokofiev , Brno, 1938), with other versions of Prokofiev's score including Lavrovsky (Leningrad, 1940), Ashton (Copenhagen, 1955), Lifar (Paris, 1955), Cranko (Stuttgart, 1962), MacMillan (London, 1965), van Dantzig (Amsterdam, 1967), Neumeier (Frankfurt, 1971), Smuin (San Francisco, 1976), Vinogradov (Maly Theatre, Leningrad, 1976), Nureyev (London Festival Ballet, 1977), and Grigorovich (Moscow, 1979); later versions to other scores include T. Gsovsky (mus. L. Spies , Leipzig, 1942), Tudor (mus. Delius , New York, 1943), Skibine (mus. Berlioz , Paris, 1955); versions of A Midsummer Night's Dream include M. Petipa (mus. Mendelssohn , St Petersburg, 1877), also to the same score Balanchine (New York, 1962), Ashton (The Dream, London, 1964), and Neumeier (mus. Ligeti and Mendelssohn , Hamburg, 1977); versions of Twelfth Night include Tudor (in Cross-Gartered, mus. Frescobaldi , London, 1937) and Howard (mus. Grieg , Liverpool, 1942); versions of Hamlet include Francesco Clerico (mus. by himself, Venice, 1788), L. Henry (mus. W. R. Gallenberg , Paris, 1816), Nijinska (mus. Liszt , Paris, 1934), Helpmann (mus. Tchaikovsky , London, 1942), V. Gsovsky (mus. Blacher , Munich, 1950), Sergeyev (mus. Chervinsky , Leningrad, 1970), Neumeier (in Hamlet: Connotations, mus. Copland , American Ballet Theatre, New York, 1976), MacMillan (in Sea of Troubles, mus. Martin and Webern , London, 1985), Paeper (mus. Klatzow , Cape Town, 1992), and P. Schaufuss (mus. Black Sun and R. Langgaard , Elsinore, 1996); versions of The Merry Wives of Windsor by Bourmeister and I. Kurilov (mus. V. Oransky , Moscow, 1942); versions of Much Ado About Nothing by V. Boccadoro (mus. T. Khrennikov , Moscow, 1976); versions of Othello by S. Viganò (mus. various, Milan, 1818) and Lubovitch for San Francisco Ballet and American Ballet Theatre (1998), Limón in The Moor's Pavane (mus. Purcell , New London, Conn., 1949), Chabukiani (mus. V. Machavariani , Tblisi, 1957), Nmeek (mus. J. Hanu , Prague, 1959), Lifar in Le Maure de Venise (mus. Thiriet , Amsterdam, 1960), Darrell (mus. Liszt , Trieste, 1971), and Brandstrup (mus. I. Dearden , London, 1994); versions of Macbeth by Le Picq (mus. Locke , arr. Barthelémon, London, 1785), Galeotti (mus. Schall , Copenhagen, 1816), H. Henry (mus. Pugni , Milan, 1830), and Pistoni (mus. R. Strauss , Milan, 1969); versions of Antony and Cleopatra by Noverre (Stuttgart or Ludwigsburg, after 1761), Aumer (mus. Kreutzer , Paris, 1808), and dell'Ara (mus. Prokofiev , Milan, 1971); versions of Coriolanus by S. Viganò (mus. Weigl , Milan, 1804); versions of The Tempest by Coralli (mus. Schneitzhoeffer , Paris, 1834), F. Taglioni (in Miranda, London, 1838), Howard (mus. Tippett , London, 1964), Eck (mus. Sibelius , Helsinki, 1974), Tetley (mus. Nordheim , Ballet Rambert, 1979), Smuin (mus. Chihara after Purcell , San Francisco, 1981), and Nureyev (mus. Tchaikovsky , London, 1982). Other ballets based on Shakespearian material include Lacotte's Such Sweet Thunder (mus. Ellington , Berlin, 1959, also Bintley's The Shakespeare Suite, Birmingham, 1999, set to the same music) and MacMillan's Images of Love (mus. P. Tranchell , London, 1964).

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Shankar , Uday

(b Udaipur, 8 Dec. 1900, d Calcutta, 26 Sept. 1977).
Indian dancer and choreographer who was the first to introduce a serious understanding of Indian dance to the West. He studied dance at the J.J. School of Arts in Bombay, and in 1920 went to London with his father to produce plays in aid of Indian soldiers wounded in the war. He started to study painting at the Royal College but Pavlova saw him performing and invited him to collaborate with her on two ballets, including Radha Krishna (1923). He partnered her to great acclaim in London and the US. He went on to tour the world as a soloist and later with his own company. In 1938 he established a dance school in Almora, India, where he helped encourage the revival of dance as a creative art. It closed in 1942 and he toured with various companies of his own, also setting up another school in Calcutta. He continued performing until the early 1960s.

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Shaw , Brian (orig. Brian Earnshaw ;

b Huddersfield, 28 June 1928, d London, 2 Apr. 1992).
British dancer and teacher. He studied at the Sadler's Wells School and joined Sadler's Wells Ballet in 1944, becoming soloist and principal. He was one of the finest classical male dancers of his generation, creating roles in Ashton's Symphonic Variations (1946), Ondine (1958), and Monotones (1966). He also created roles in Cranko's Prince of the Pagodas (1957) and MacMillan's Noctambules (1956). His virtuoso technique made him outstanding in roles such as the Blue Bird in Sleeping Beauty. He became a principal teacher with the company in 1972 and received the Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Award in 1975.

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Shawn , Ted

(b Kansas City, 21 Oct. 1891, d Orlando, Fla., 9 Jan. 1972).
US dancer, teacher, and choreographer. He began studying ballet in Denver in order to recover his strength after an illness and made his first public appearance as a dancer there in 1911. He opened a dance school in Los Angeles where he appeared in one of the very first dance films, Dance of the Ages. During 1914 he toured with a small company and in New York he met and married Ruth St Denis . They toured together as partners, then in 1915 founded Denishawn. Both as a school and a company this was seminal in the development of American Modern Dance. The company toured widely until it was disbanded in 1931 after his separation from St Denis . He formed his own Company of Male Dancers in 1933, partly with the aim of countering popular prejudice against men dancing. His choreography drew on folk, aboriginal, and popular American material. In 1933 he also bought a farm in Massachusetts called Jacob's Pillow which he turned into a dance studio. After disbanding his company in 1940 he became director of the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival and summer school which was to become the most important American dance festival, offering teaching courses and performances in many aspects of dance. He continued to perform until he was over 70. He was a prolific choreographer, creating around 190 works for Denishawn which included many solos and duets for himself and St Denis, as well as group works such as Prometheus Bound (mus. Scriabin , 1929). He also choreographed over 50 works for his own male company, including Kinetic Molpai (1935). He wrote many books including Ruth St Denis: Pioneer and Prophet (1920), Gods Who Dance (1929), Every Little Movement (1954), and also his autobiography (with Gray Poole), One Thousand and One Night Stands (1960).

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Shearer , Moira (orig. Moira Shearer-King ;

b Dunfermline, 17 Jan. 1926).
British dancer and actress who became world famous after starring in Powell and Pressburger's film The Red Shoes. She began her training in N. Rhodesia and in England studied with Flora Fairbairn , then at the Legat School and Sadler's Wells Ballet School. She made her debut with International Ballet in 1941 then joined Sadler's Wells Ballet in the same year, becoming ballerina from 1944 to 1952. She created roles in several Ashton ballets including The Quest (1943), Symphonic Variations (1946), and Cinderella (1948) as well as in Helpmann's Miracle in the Gorbals (1944) and Massine's The Clock Symphony (1948). The polished brilliance of her style set her apart from the lyricism of her British contemporaries (when Balanchine mounted Ballet Imperial on Sadler's Wells Ballet in 1950 he preferred her to Fonteyn) and this may have hindered her career. But her stage career was also disrupted by her popular success at the age of 22 in The Red Shoes (1948), which was followed by other films including Tales of Hoffmann (1951), The Man Who Loved Redheads (1955), and Black Tights (1960). She guested with Ballets de Paris in 1950, with Sadler's Wells Ballet from 1952, and with London Festival Ballet in 1954 but increasingly concentrated on acting, for example playing Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream (Edinburgh Festival, 1954). She married author and broadcaster Ludovic Kennedy.

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Shéhérazade.

See Scheherazade.

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Shelest , Alla

(b Smolensk, 29 Feb. 1919, d St Petersburg, 7 Dec. 1998).
Russian dancer and teacher. She studied at the Leningrad Choreographic School with E. Gerdt and Vaganova and graduated in 1937 into the Kirov Ballet where she danced until 1963. Her technique was characterized by a huge jump, lyrical fluency, and a classical purity of style. These qualities, combined with the boldness of her dramatic interpretations, made her one of the company's most popular ballerinas. Ulanova wrote of her: ‘She is a tragic and inspired ballerina. You can always recognise [her] by the perfection of the sketch, by the emotion and by the dancer's self-abandon.’ She performed many of the standard ballerina roles, famed especially for her portrayal of Nikiya in La Bayadère, and created the role of Aegina in Jacobson's Spartacus (1956) and Zarema in Fountain of Bakhchisarai. She was married for a time to Grigorovich. She performed in several ballet films and television programmes, and was artistic director of the Kuibyshev Ballet (1970–3) and ballet mistress of the Kirov (1977–9). She was made People's Artist of the Russian Federation in 1957.

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shoes.

The shoes worn by dancers have played a crucial role on the development of style and technique. During the 18th century light, heeled shoes showed off the dancers' feet and ankles and focused attention on the brilliant footwork of the period, particularly enhancing stamping steps. They did not, though, have the suppleness necessary for the preparations and landings of very high jumps, nor did they allow the dancers to skim the floor at speed or dance on pointe. By the early 19th century women dancers began to wear the new thin, heelless, satin ballet slipper, tied with ribbons around the ankle and stiffened at the toe by rows of darning. These allowed ballerinas to stand, very briefly, on their toes, which were protected by cotton wadding. This new feat ushered in a new dance vocabulary of hovering balances and quick, light bourrées, as well as a new image of the ballerina as gravity-defying sylph. Low-heeled slippers were also worn by women, and both sexes wore a wide variety of other footwear as determined by the nature of their role; for example, boots, sometimes with spurs, were worn by both sexes in Polish roles, low-heeled shoes with bows were worn by male courtiers, and sandals were sometimes worn by gypsy characters. The boxed-toe shoe (stiffened through layers of shellac and wadding around the toe area and with a strong, springy inner shank to support the arch) began to be developed in the latter half of the 19th century and paved the way for another quantum leap in female technique. It made possible a range of bravura effects which we now regard as standard, including multiple pirouettes and hopping on pointe. It also changed the nature of the pas de deux, since ballerinas could now sustain extended balances during which their partners could angle them through the numerous flattering positions.
When Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham chose to perform barefoot at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th, this not only changed the appearance of dance but was also a powerful statement of their artistic philosophies. Now that they no longer had a thin-soled ballet slipper to create a slippery divide between them and the floor, or pointe shoes on which to perch, Duncan and Graham presented themselves as women of the earth, acknowledging gravity rather than floating away from it. The naked traction of their feet against the floor gave their dancing a more vigorous, sensuous, and emphatic rhythm and provided the leverage necessary for some of Graham's most vertiginous backward falls.
Some later choreographers returned to shoes, but these fulfilled very different functions from the classical ballet slipper. Trainers were favoured by the 1960s' avant-garde who were creating minimalist, anti-virtuoso dance. These shoes were designed by sports manufacturers for speed, comfort, and cushioning, and on the feet of dancers they not only carried no suggestion of art or glamour but also implied that dance was a kind of task to be performed in the most practical and sensible way. By the 1980s a new generation of choreographers had lighted on another item of street fashion, the Doc Marten. These blunt, heavy, rubber-soled shoes were closely linked with the crashing momentum, violence, and risk taking that characterized that decade's New Dance.
Tap shoes have thin metal plates, usually made of aluminium, screwed onto the sole and heel, allowing dancers to create percussive effects as they move.

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Shostakovich , Dmitri

(b St Petersburg, 25 Sept. 1906, d Moscow, 9 Aug. 1975).
Soviet composer. He wrote three ballet scores: The Golden Age (chor. Kaplan , Vainonen , Tchesnakov , and Jacobson , 1930), Bolt (chor. Lopukhov , 1931), and The Bright Stream (chor. Lopukhov , 1935). These were seminal in their realistic treatment of contemporary subject-matter but at the time were criticized and repressed by the Soviet authorities for their ‘incorrect’ representation of class issues and, in the case of Bright Stream, inappropriate use of classical forms. Much of his concert music has also been adapted for dance, including the 7th Symphony (chor. Massine in Leningrad Symphony, New York, 1945, and by Belsky , Leningrad, 1961); the 1st Piano Concerto (chor. Cranko in The Catalyst, Stuttgart, 1961); the 2nd Piano Concerto (chor. MacMillan in Concerto, W. Berlin, 1966, and by Mitchell in Fête noire, New York, 1971); the Cello Sonata in D minor (chor. Morris , in Vestige, minus the 1st movement, Spokane, 1984); and various pieces in Béjart's Trois études pour Alexandre (Paris, 1987).

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Shuraleh.

Ballet in three acts with choreography by Jacobson , libretto by Jacobson and A. Faysi , music by Farid Yarullin , and design by P. Speransky . First staged for the Kazan Theatre for Opera and Ballet in 1945 but the definitive version, briefly re-titled Ali-Batyr and with revised instrumentation by V. Vlasov and V. Fereh , and design by L. Milchin and I. Vano , was premiered 28 May 1950 by the Kirov, Leningrad, with Shelest, Dudinskaya, Zubkovsky, Sergeyev, Makarov, Belsky, and Gerbeck. It is a uniquely Tartar-based work, using Tartar folk tales and mixing classical vocabulary with Tartar national dance, and was seminal in the development of Soviet ballet in its seamless blending of dance and mime. The title refers to a malicious wood-sprite of Tartar lore, and the ballet tells the story of a maiden Suimbike who has been turned into a bird but falls in love with a hunter, Ali-Batyr. The sprite Shurale vindictively tries to keep them apart but in the end, by risking death together, the couple break the spell which has been cast on Suimbike and she is able to return Ali-Batyr's love as a woman. Under its original title it has been revived for many companies in Eastern Europe.

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Sibelius , Jean

(b Hämeenlinna, 8 Dec. 1865, d Jarvenpaa, 21 Sept. 1957).
Finnish composer. He wrote the music for the ballet Scaramouche in 1913, which was premiered in Copenhagen, 1922, with choreography by E. Walbom . Much of his other theatre and concert music has also been adapted for dance, including selected piano pieces (chor. Ashton in Lady of Shalott, London, 1931), Perisynthion (chor. Helpmann , Sydney, 1974), The Tempest (chor. Eck , Helsinki , 1974), Swan of Tuonela (numerous versions including Dolin, Ulbrich, and Bintley), and Tapiola (chor. Montagnon in Sleepwalkers, Stuttgart, 1979).

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Sibley , (Dame) Antoinette (orig. A. S. Corbett ;

b Bromley, 27 Feb. 1939).
British dancer. She studied at the Cone-Ripman School and Sadler's Wells School and joined Sadler's Wells Ballet in 1956 (just before it became the Royal Ballet). She was promoted to soloist in 1959 and principal in 1960. She danced her first Odette-Odile aged 20 with only two weeks' notice and from then on danced all the standard ballerina roles. The elegant clarity of her technique, coupled with her innate musicality, made her the natural successor to Fonteyn in ballets like The Sleeping Beauty, but her more flamboyantly dramatic qualities were brought out in created roles such as Titania in Ashton's The Dream (1964) and in the title role of MacMillan's Manon (which she created only part of, due to injury, prior to premiering the part in 1974). In these ballets she danced with Dowell, with whom she developed an internationally celebrated partnership. She also created roles in MacMillan's Anastasia (1971 version) and Triad (1972), among others, and in Ashton's Monotones (1966), Jazz Calendar and Enigma Variations (both 1968), and Meditation from Thaïs (1971). In 1979 she retired but returned to the stage in 1981 and continued dancing occasional guest performances until 1989. In the same year she was appointed vice-president of the Royal Academy of Dancing, becoming president in 1991. She was married to Michael Somes (1964–9). Awarded the title Dame Commander of the British Empire in 1996.

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Siddiqui , Nahid

(b Karachi, 1956).
Pakistani dancer and choreographer. She studied with Maharaj Ghulam Hussain at the Lucknow School and with Birju Naharaj in Delhi. She came to London in 1978 where she now choreographs and performs with her own company. Her works not only explore the Muslim roots of traditional kathak but also introduce more contemporary elements of composition, as in Visions of Khusrau (mus. Srikumar Banerjee , 1990).

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Siegel , Marcia B.

(b New York, 17 Sept. 1932).
US dance writer. She was educated at Connecticut College and has been the longstanding dance critic of the Hudson Review, and of the Boston Phoenix since 1996. She founded Dance Scope (1964–6) and has contributed to many publications. She is author of At the Vanishing Point (New York, 1972), Watching the Dance Go By (Boston, 1977), The Shapes of Change (Boston, 1979, repr. California), Days on Earth—the Dance of Doris Humphrey (Yale, 1987, repr. Duke Univ. Press), and The Tail of the Dragon: New Dance 1976–1982 (Duke Univ. Press, 1991). She taught on the faculty of Performing Arts at New York University from 1983 to 1999 and has lectured internationally on dance history and criticism.

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Simone , Kirsten

(b Copenhagen, 1 July 1934).
Danish dancer and teacher. She studied at Royal Danish Ballet School with Volkova and joined the Royal Danish Ballet in 1952. She was promoted to soloist (principal) in 1956 and 1st soloist in 1966. A dancer with an unusually clean and powerful classical technique, she was initially considered somewhat cool in performance, but subsequently developed into a fine mime and character dancer. She danced all the standard ballerina roles (Petipa and Bournonville) as well as the 20th-century repertory (Ashton , Balanchine , MacMillan , Petit , etc.), and created roles in Flindt's The Three Musketeers (1966), von Rosen's Don Juan (1967), and H. Lander's Fête polonaise (1970 version). She guested with several companies, including American Ballet Theatre and London Festival Ballet, and has taught at the RDB school and abroad. She continues to perform character roles with RDB.

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Sinfonietta.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Kylián , music by Janáek , and design by Walter Nobbe . Premiered 9 June 1978 by Netherlands Dance Theatre at Spoleto Festival, Charleston, S. Carolina . It is set to Janáek's 1926 score of the same title and the exuberant physicality of the choreography reflects the composer's own stated desire to express ‘the contemporary free man, his spiritual beauty and joy, his strength, courage and determination’. It has become one of NDT's signature pieces and has been revived for several other companies including Paris Opera (Paris, 1989) and American Ballet Theatre (New York, 1991). P. Smok has also choreographed a ballet to the same score (Basle, 1971).
Also the title of Ashton's one-act ballet to M. Williamson's score, premiered by Touring Royal Ballet at Stratford-upon-Avon, 10 Feb. 1967, and revived for Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet, 1981.

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Singapore.

Singapore still retains some of its own dance traditions and in recent years has also attempted to develop a more international dance culture. In 1950 the Goh sisters founded the Singapore Academy for the teaching of ballet and in 1988 the city founded its first professional dance company, Singapore Dance Theatre. This is dedicated to Singapore-born choreographer Choo-San Goh , who developed an international reputation before his early death, and it performs many of his works as well as those by Murphy , G. Lustig , and some emergent Asian choreographers. Singapore also runs a biennial arts festival which programmes some modern and classical dance.

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Singin' in the Rain.

Film directed by Kelly and Donen (1952) which features Kelly's famous tap sequence along a rain-drenched street.

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Sirènes, Les.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Ashton , music by Lord Berners , and design by Beaton . Premiered 12 Nov. 1946 by Sadler's Wells Ballet at Covent Garden, London with Fonteyn , Helpmann , and Ashton . It is loosely based on Ouida's novel Moths and is set in 1904 on the beach at Trouville at the height of the Season, where various eccentric characters feign social bon-homie to mask their private desolation.

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sissonne

(from the Fr. ciseaux). A scissor-like movement where the dancer jumps from both feet onto one.

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Sizova , Alla

(b Moscow, 22 Sept. 1939).
Soviet dancer. She studied at the Leningrad Choreographic School and graduated to the Kirov Ballet in 1958 where she danced until 1988. Her high leaps earned her the nickname ‘flying Sizova’ and the classical elegance of her style made her a natural Aurora which she danced in Sergeyev's 1964 film of The Sleeping Beauty. Though slightly overshadowed by ballerinas like Kolpakova she was one of the company's most popular ballerinas and created roles in Belsky's Leningrad Symphony (1961) and Sergeyev's Hamlet (1971). After retiring she taught at the Vaganova School. She was made People's Artist of the USSR in 1983.

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Skating Rink.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Börlin , music by Honegger , and design by Léger . Premiered 20 Jan. 1922 by Ballets Suédois at Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Paris, with Figoni, K. Smith , and Börlin . Dominated by Léger's monumental Cubist designs it portrays skaters as grotesque caricatures of urban people. It was staged by Hodson for Zurich Ballet in 1996.

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Skeaping , Mary

(b Woodford, 15 Dec. 1902, d London, 9 Feb. 1984).
British dancer, choreographer, ballet director, and international authority on early ballets. She studied with some of the great teachers of the period, including Massine , Astafieva , Egorova , and Craske and danced with Pavlova's company (1925 and 1930–1) and with the Nemchinova-Dolin company (c.1927–30). She also appeared in cabaret, music hall, and experimental theatre productions as well as dancing occasionally for Ballet Club. Between 1948 and 1951 she was ballet mistress of Sadler's Wells Ballet and she directed the first live full-length classic for the BBC, Sleeping Beauty (1951). She worked as guest ballet mistress and producer of ballets for various companies in Cuba and Canada (1952–4), after which she was appointed director of the Royal Swedish Ballet (1953–62) where she not only produced the standard 19th-century classics but revived historic Swedish court ballets (often in collaboration with Ivo Cramér), including Cupid Out of his Humour (mus. Purcell , Drottningholm Court Theatre, 1956). She became an authority on the 17th-century ballet de cour and published many articles. She mounted several early ballets for the Royal Ballet's Ballet for All group and after researching into the 1841 Giselle she mounted a production for London Festival Ballet (1971) which was widely praised for capturing the original's Romantic style and content. She was also a freelance producer of the classics in Finland and the USA. She was awarded the King's Own Medal, Sweden, in 1980.

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Skibine , George (orig. Yuril Borisovich Skibin ;

b Yasnaya Poliana, Ukraine, 20 Jan. 1920, d Dallas, Tex., 14 June 1981).
Russian-US dancer, choreographer, and ballet director. The son of Boris Skibine , a dancer with Diaghilev's company, he studied with various teachers including Preobrajenska , Sedova , and Volinine . He made his debut as a can-can dancer at the Bal Tabarin night-club and as a classical dancer with Ballet de la Jeunesse in 1937. Throughout his career his romantic good looks and elegant style made him popular in roles such as Romeo and the Poet in Les Sylphides, as well as in the 19th-century classics, though he also created roles in many new works. As a young dancer he performed with several companies: (Denham's) Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo (1938–9), de Basil's Ballets Russes (1939–41), and American Ballet Theatre (1941–2), where he created the role of the Hermit in Massine's Aleko, partnering Markova. After military service he danced with the Markova-Dolin Ballet (1946) and Original Ballet Russe (1947), then from 1947 to 1956 he danced with Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas becoming étoile in 1959. Here he choreographed his first ballet, Tragédie à Vérone (mus. Tchaikovsky , 1950). His later works include Romeo and Juliet (mus. Berlioz , Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas, 1955), Daphnis and Chloe (mus. Ravel , Paris Opera, 1959), The Firebird (mus. Stravinsky , for French television, 1967, and for Dallas Civic Ballet, 1968), and Gloria (mus. Poulenc , Dallas Civic Ballet, 1974). After a brief period partnering his wife, Marjorie Tallchief, with Ruth Page's Chicago Ballet (1956–7 and again in 1959), he and Tallchief joined Paris Opera as danseurs étoiles. He was also choreographer there and ballet master between 1958 and 1962. In 1964 he became artistic director and choreographer of Harkness Ballet; from 1967 he worked as freelance choreographer in the US and Europe; and from 1969 he was artistic director of Dallas Civic Ballet and its school. He was made Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et Lettres in 1967.

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Skoog , Matz

(b Stockholm, 10 Apr. 1957).
Swedish dancer and director. He studied at the Royal Swedish Ballet School and later in Leningrad (1978) and danced with the Royal Swedish Ballet as apprentice (1973–5) then as full company member (1975–9). In 1979 he moved to London Festival Ballet where he was promoted to principal in 1981. He remained there until 1989 (apart from a season with Netherlands Dance Theatre, 1982–3) and danced leading roles in the classics as well as the 20th-century repertory creating roles in Tetley's Pulcinella (1984), C. Bruce's Swansong (1987), and others. He then worked as a freelance dancer and producer, for example staging La Sylphide in Rome (1991), after which he was ballet master at London City Ballet (1991–3), assistant artistic director at Aterballetto (1993–4), dancer and teacher with Rambert Dance Company (1994), and was also guest teacher with many companies. In 1996 he became artistic director of the Royal New Zealand Ballet.

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Skouratoff , Vladimir

(b Paris, 12 Mar. 1925).
French dancer and teacher. He studied in wartime Paris with Preobrajenska, Volinine, and Kniaseff and began performing in the corps at the Lido, Paris, also appearing with Janine Charrat in recitals and with Jeanmaire in Lifar ballets. He became soloist with Nouveaux Ballets de Monte Carlo in 1946; joined Original Ballet Russe in 1947, and Ballets de Paris in 1948, touring with Chauviré and Toumanova. In 1951 he danced with Ballets des Champs-Elysées then joined Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas (1952–7). In 1958 he turned freelance, partnering T. Lander in the musical Le Rendezvous manqué (written by Françoise Sagan , chor. John Taras , for Opera de Monte Carlo), and guesting with various companies including London Festival Ballet (1959) and Scandinavian Ballet (1960). He never ranked highly as a pure classical dancer, but excelled in both character roles and the modern repertory, creating roles in many ballets including Lifar's Dramma per musica and Chota Roustaveli (both 1946) and Skibine's Idylle (1954). He was ballet master with Strasbourg Opera, then with Bordeaux Opera (1970–90).

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Slaughter on Tenth Avenue.

Ballet from the musical comedy On Your Toes. With choreography by Balanchine , music by R. Rodgers , set by Joe Mielzner , and costumes by Sharaff it was premiered 11 Apr. 1936 at Imperial Theatre, New York, with Bolger, Geva, and G. Church. The hero is an American dancer with a Russian ballet company who finds himself dancing for his life as gangsters pursue him. It was produced as a separate ballet 2 May 1968 by New York City Ballet, State Theater, New York, with Farrell and Mitchell and has been revived by Birmingham Royal Ballet (Birmingham, 1999) and others.

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Slavenska , Mia (orig. Mia Corak ;

b Slavonski-Brod, 20 Feb. 1916).
Yugoslavian-US dancer, teacher, choreographer, and ballet director. She studied at the Ballet School of the National Ballet Theatre in Zagreb with Josephine Weiss and Margarita Froman , took further ballet studies with Leo Dubois in Vienna, and modern dance with Gertrud Kraus , then went to Paris where she studied with Egorova , Kshessinska , and Preobrajenska , later studying with Vincenzo Celli in New York. She had made her stage debut as a child prodigy in 1922 and became renowned for her virtuoso ‘terre-à-terre’ technique. In 1930 she joined Zagreb Opera Ballet as a soloist, becoming prima ballerina (1934–5), then danced in London and Paris before becoming principal with (Denham's) Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo (1938–42, later returning as guest artist for various seasons, 1948–56). Between 1944 and 1945 she directed her own touring group, Slavenska, Tihmar and Company, then the Slavenska Ballet Variante which toured N. and S. America for various seasons between 1947 and 1952. In 1952 she co-founded the Slavenska-Franklin Ballet which toured N. America and abroad for three years. She choreographed several works for these companies including Trilogy (mus. Chopin , Slavenska Tihman and Company, 1945) and also created the role of Blanche in Bettis's A Streetcar Named Desire (with Slavenska-Franklin Ballet, 1952). She continued to guest with many companies including London Festival Ballet and Ballet Theatre (both 1951) and Metropolitan Opera Ballet, New York (1954–5). She was ballerina and guest director with Louisville Ballet (1956–8) and director of Fort Worth Civic Ballet (1958–60). She taught at her own studio in Hollywood (1946–7) and subsequently at several other institutions including University of California and California Institute of the Arts. She starred in Benoit-Levy's film, La Mort du cygne (1938).

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Sleep , Wayne

(b Plymouth, 17 July 1948).
British dancer. He studied at the Royal Ballet School and joined the Royal Ballet in 1966, becoming soloist (1970) and principal dancer (1973–83). Though too short for the standard Prince roles, his virtuoso technique made him very popular in demi-caractère roles like Puck in The Dream. He created roles in Ashton's Jazz Calendar, Enigma Variations (both 1968), and A Month in the Country (1976), also in MacMillan's Anastasia (1971 version), Elite Syncopations, Manon (both 1974), and The Four Seasons (1975). He formed his own dance group, Dash, in 1980 which also toured under the names The Hot Shoe Show and Bits and Pieces as well as developing a successful freelance career in film, theatre, and opera, creating a role in the Lloyd Webber musical Cats. He choreographed his first work, David and Goliath, for London Contemporary Dance Theatre in 1975 (with Robert North , mus. C. Davis , London), Savoy Suite for English National Ballet (mus. Gilbert and Sullivan , arr. C. Davis , 1993), and many works for his own company. In 1997 he made a guest appearance with Scottish Ballet as Alain in their staging of Ashton's Fille mal gardée.

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Sleeping Beauty, The (Fr. title La Belle au bois dormant; Russ. title Spyashchaya krasavitsa).

Ballet in prologue and three acts with choreography by Petipa , libretto by Petipa and Ivan Vsevolozhsky , music by Tchaikovsky , and design by Vsevolozhsky (costumes) and Ivan Andreyev , Mikhail Botcharov , Konstantin Ivanov , Heinrich Levogt , and Matvei Shishkov (sets). Premiered 15 Jan. (public dress rehearsal), 16 Jan. (first perf.) 1890 at the Maryinsky Theatre, St Petersburg, with Brianza as Aurora, Gerdt as Prince Désiré, Maria Petipa as the Lilac Fairy, and Cecchetti as Carabosse and the Blue Bird. It is widely considered to be a summation of 19th-century classicism, with its exemplary collaboration between composer and choreographer. The libretto is based on Perrault's familiar fairytale, but Petipa did much more with it than tell the story of Aurora's 100-year sleep and magical awakening. Rather, he created a homage to 17th- and 18th-century French ballet. The choreography makes detailed reference to court ballets in its use of period dances and processionals and the costumes were designed in Louis XIV style. (It was reputed to be the most expensive ballet produced at the Imperial Theatres.) At the same time, the ballet features Petipa's own brilliant syntheses of contemporary French, Italian, and Russian styles in passages of technically complex and stylistically varied dance. His variations for the fairies in the Prologue and for the fairytale characters in Act III vividly display their different virtues, while the choreography for Aurora shows her developing from a young girl in Act I (where she has to perform the notoriously testing balances of the Rose Adagio), to an ethereal spirit in the Vision Scene of Act II, to a radiant bride in Act III.
The ballet made a profound impression on younger artists such as Benois because of its unusually harmonious accord between dance, music, and design (in the 19th century it was rare to aim for an overall consistency of style and period in ballet productions). It certainly encouraged Diaghilev to stage his own production for the Ballets Russes in 1921, which was so lavish that it nearly bankrupted his company. He salvaged a shortened version, based largely on the final act, called Le Mariage de la belle au bois dormant which was staged in Paris in 1922. Other productions of the ballet had been staged in the West including Savocco's staging at La Scala in 1896 and Clustine's 48-minute version which Pavlova danced in New York in 1916, but it was Diaghilev's which inspired de Valois to revive the ballet for Vic-Wells Ballet in 1939. This was staged by Sergeyev who also mounted the more lavish and famous production of 1946 which the company danced when they moved to Covent Garden after the war, and also at their first New York season at the Met. With its luminous designs by Oliver Messel , this production stayed in the repertoire for eighteen years and formed the basis for later productions at the Royal Ballet: Peter Wright's (1968, with additional choreography by Ashton ), MacMillan's (1973 and 1977, with additional choreography by Ashton and de Valois ), and Anthony Dowell's (1994, excising most later additions in an attempt to revert to the original choreographic text). The Royal's 1946 production was also a model for others outside Britain, including MacMillan (Berlin Opera Ballet, 1977) and Nureyev (La Scala, 1966, revived National Ballet of Canada, 1972, and London Festival Ballet, 1975). In June 1999 Makharbek Vaziev saw a production for the Kirov based on the 1890 staging and designs, which was claimed to be the most authentic in the repertory. Other productions include Nijinska-Helpmann (Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas, 1960), Grigorovich (Bolshoi Ballet, 1973), Helpmann (Australian Ballet, 1973), Alicia Alonso (Paris Opera Ballet, 1974), Mary Skeaping (American Ballet Theatre, 1976), and Peter Martins (New York City Ballet, 1991). Béjart's Ni fleurs, ni couronnes, based on images from Petipa's choreography, was created for Ballet of the 20th Century (Grenoble, 1968), and a chamber ballet version by H. W. Henze was produced by A. Bortoluzzi (Essen, 1951). Other versions of the story include Aumer's La Belle au bois dormant (mus. Hérold , Paris, 1829), Laban's Dornröschen (mus. J. Strauss , Berlin Staatsoper, 1934), and Ek's Sleeping Beauty (Hamburg, 1996). There are various films of the ballet including K. Sergeyev's , Leningrad, 1965, and the BBC's film of the Royal Ballet's recent production (1994).

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Sleeping Princess, The.

The title of Diaghilev's production of The Sleeping Beauty when it was first danced in London in 1921, also of the 1939 Vic-Wells production.

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Slingsby , Simon.

Eighteenth-century British dancer, about whom little is known except that he may have been the first British dancer to have had a career at the Paris Opera, where he danced during the 1790s. He also performed with Baccelli and A. Vestris during the 1780s at London's King's Theatre.

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Slonimsky , Yuri

(b St Petersburg, 12 Mar. 1902, d Moscow, 23 Apr. 1978).
Soviet dance writer and librettist. He took some private dance lessons in 1918, and began writing dance criticism in 1919. In 1921 he was a founder member of the Young Ballet group (with Balanchine and others). During the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s he lectured on ballet history in Moscow and Leningrad and in 1937 he worked with Lopukhov in organizing a new choreography department at the Leningrad Ballet School. As a critic he was one of the first writers to bring an analytic approach to Soviet ballet. He wrote many books of history and criticism, including Didelot (1958) and In Honour of Dance (Moscow, 1968), as well as several ballet librettos, including Sergeyev's Path of Thunder (1957) and Belsky's Coast of Hope (1959).

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Slovak National Theatre Ballet.

The company dates back to the opening of the Slovak National Theatre in Bratislava in 1920, in which year a performance of Coppélia was given, choreographed by Czech choreographer Václav Kalina. Under the direction of Stanislav Remar (1948–55) many Soviet dance-dramas were staged in this theatre as well as some national Slovak ballets. Karol Tóth was director from 1961 and, after a period of decline in the 1970s, it regained its vigour and a newly varied repertory under Boris Slovak and Toth (returning as director in 1980). Emil Bartko took over in 1990 and has encouraged work by younger choreographers, including Libor Vaculík and Ondrej Soth .

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Smith , George Washington

(b Philadelphia, c.1820, d Philadelphia, 18 Feb. 1899).
US dancer, ballet master, and teacher who helped establish ballet as a popular dance form in the US. He began his career as a clog dancer but also studied ballet, and during Elssler's American tour of 1840–2 he joined her company as a member of the corps and studied with her then partner, James Sylvain. From then on he partnered most of the great European and American ballerinas who appeared in the US. He was America's first Albrecht, partnering Mary Ann Lee (Boston, 1846), and he was appointed principal dancer and ballet master at the New York Bowery Theater in 1847 and at Brougham's Lyceum Theatre in 1850, during which time he staged and danced in several Romantic ballets including Giselle (after Coralli, Perrot, 1847). He toured the US with Lola Montez (1851–2) and in 1859 was principal dancer with the Ronzani Ballet (the first Italian company to tour the US; one of their dancers was Cecchetti). He continued to perform numerous Harlequinade roles, and staged numerous divertissements and circus ballets. He taught a variety of dance forms throughout his career and opened a school in Philadelphia in 1881 where he taught until his death. His son, Joseph Smith, became a well-known choreographer of musicals.

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Smith , Janet.

See Janet Smith and Dancers.

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Smith , Oliver

(b Waupawn, Wis., 13 Feb. 1918, d 1994).
US designer and director. He became co-director (with Lucia Chase) of American Ballet Theatre in 1945 and continued there until 1980, returning in 1990. During much of this time he was American Ballet Theatre's resident designer, designing over 30 works for it (and other companies), including de Mille's Rodeo (1942) and Fall River Legend (1948), Robbins's Fancy Free (1944), David Blair's productions of Swan Lake (1967) and Giselle (1968), and Tetley's Contredances (1979). He also designed many Broadway shows, including West Side Story (chor. Robbins , 1957), and several films, including Oklahoma! (dir. Zinnemann , 1955), Guys and Dolls (dir. Mankiewicz , 1955), and Porgy and Bess (dir. Preminger , 1959). He was awarded the Handel Medallion (New York, 1975).

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Smok , Pavel

(b Levoa, 22 Oct. 1927).
Czech dancer, choreographer, and ballet director. He began his training late, after having pursued a brief but successful acting career, and graduated from Prague State Conservatory aged 26. He danced with the Army Ensemble (1952–5) and in Pilsen (1955–8) but an operation on his back forced him to turn to choreography. He was appointed ballet master in Usti nad Labem (1958–60) then at Ostrava (1960–4). In 1964 he co-founded Prague Ballet with Lubos Ogoun where he was ballet master until 1970, then became ballet director of Basle Ballet (1970–3). He worked as a freelance choreographer until forming the Chamber Ballet Prague in 1975, where he was director and choreographer. His ballets, such as Intimate Letters (mus. Janáek , 1969), Sinfonietta (mus. Janáek , 1971), and Stabat Mater (mus. Dvoák , 1995), frequently use Czech and Slovak scores, the tense angular style of his early ballets softening into a more rounded lyricism in the later works. In 1990 he was appointed professor in the music faculty of the Prague Academy of Arts.

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Smuin , Michael

(b Missoula, Mont., 13 Oct. 1938).
US dancer and choreographer. He studied with the Christensen brothers in Utah and at San Francisco Ballet School, dancing first with University of Utah Ballet (1955–7) then with San Francisco Ballet (1957–62). Between 1962 and 1967 he worked freelance, performing with his wife Paula Tracy , and choreographing for night-clubs and television, after which he moved to American Ballet Theatre as principal dancer and choreographer (1969–73). He was then appointed co-director (with Lew Christensen ) of San Francisco Ballet, becoming the company's sole director (1984). His many ballets for that company included Pulcinella Variations (mus. Stravinsky ) and Gartenfest (mus. Mozart , both 1968), Shinju (mus. P. Chihara , 1975), Romeo and Juliet (mus. Prokofiev , 1976), and The Tempest (mus. P. Chihara , 1980), and demonstrated his commitment to accessible, highly emotional dance theatre. He worked extensively on Broadway, for example choreographing and directing the Broadway musical Sophisticated Ladies (mus. Ellington , 1981). In 1991 he founded his own company, Smuin Ballets S/F for which he has created many ballets, including Pinocchio (1999).

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Snoek , Hans (orig. Johanna Snoek ;

b Geertruidenberg, 29 Dec. 1910).
Dutch dancer, choreographer, and ballet director. She studied with Jooss and Leeder and during the war (illegally) opened her own school in Amsterdam, staging ‘underground’ performances in aid of artists working in the resistance movement. In 1945 she founded the Scapino Ballet to present dance for children, for which she choreographed many ballets, and she was a pioneer in Dutch dance education. She was made Officer of the Order of Oranje Nassau in 1960 and retired from Scapino in 1970.

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Snow Maiden, The.

Ballet in three acts with libretto and choreography by Bourmeister , music by Tchaikovsky , and design by Yuri Pimenov and Gennadi Epishin . Premiered 17 July 1961 by London Festival Ballet at Royal Festival Hall, London, with B. Wright , Burr , and Briansky . It is set to Tchaikovsky's incidental music for Ostrovsky's fairy-tale play Snegurochka (as well as the first two movements of his 1st Symphony) and follows Ostrovsky's poignant story of a snow maiden who visits a human village and falls in love for the first time with the youth Mizgir, but is melted away when the spring sun shines on her. It was revived for the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Lyric Theatre (Moscow, 1963). Other ballets using the same subject are by Nijinska (mus. Glazunov , Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, 1942), Varkovitsky (mus. Tchaikovsky , Bolshoi Ballet School, 1946), and Ben Stevenson (mus. Tchaikovsky , arr. Lanchbery , Houston Ballet and American Ballet Theatre, 1998).

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S.O.A.P.

Frankfurt-based dance company operating during the 1990s and named after the old soap factory where it rehearsed. It specialized in witty, often surreal, dance theatre, using text, movement, and props, such as Rui Horta's 1995 Object Constant which was part pure dance, part comic deconstruction of the clichés of post-modern dance. It disbanded in 1997.

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Sobeka.

The pen-name used by Kochno for several of the librettos he wrote for Diaghilev.

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Socialist Realism.

In the Soviet Union during Stalin's regime, dance was expected to conform to Party doctrine. Ideally, choreographers were meant to portray contemporary life in a realistic style while at the same time glorifying the workers' revolution and denouncing the bourgeoisie. Not all artists toed the official line, some finding subtle ways of introducing irony into their work, but the plots of many ballets created between the late 1920s and 1950s show remarkable political correctness. One of the earliest examples was Lashchilin and Tikhomirov's The Red Poppy; another notable instance was Belsky's Coast of Hope (mus. A. Petrov , Kirov, Leningrad, 1959). This ballet is set in two contrasting fishing villages, one on the Soviet side of the sea, whose citizens are happy and loyal, and one on the other side where life is unhappy and repressive. A Soviet fisherman is shipwrecked on the other shore and its people take him prisoner in order to convert him to their ways. He remains faithful to his own comrades, though, and one day the walls of his prison magically burst open and he finds himself back home. Some of the most apparently correct librettos, such as Lopukhov's The Bright Stream, did not always find approval, though. While this ballet showed Socialist morals triumphing over regressive behaviour, its use of classical dance to portray the lives of ordinary people was considered unacceptable as was Lopukhov's use of Shostakovich's score and he was dismissed from his post as ballet chief of the Maly Theatre.

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soft shoe dance.

A close relative of tap dance, but performed in soft-soled shoes with no metal taps.

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Soirées de Paris, Les.

A season of ballet performances organized at Paris's Théâtre de la Cigale by Comte Étienne de Beaumont, 17 May to 30 June 1924. Its premieres included Mercure (mus. Satie , des. Picasso ), Salade (mus. Milhaud , des. Braque ), and Le Beau Danube (mus. J. Strauss , arr. Desormière , des. V. Polunin ), all choreographed by Massine . The season also featured Cocteau's production of Romeo and Juliet (des. J. Hugo ).

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Soirées musicales.

A suite of Rossini melodies composed by Britten (1936), which has often been used for dance. The first version was choreographed by Tudor and premiered 26 Nov. 1938 for a Cecchetti Society matinée at Palladium Theatre, London, with Larsen, Lloyd, Laing, Tudor, and van Praagh. Later versions include Zolov (Metropolitan Opera House, 1955) and Cranko (in Bouquet garni, Stuttgart, 1965).

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Sokolova , Evgenia

(b St Petersburg, 1 Dec. 1850, d Leningrad, 2 Aug. 1925).
Russian dancer and teacher. She studied at the Imperial Theatre School, St Petersburg, making her unofficial debut while still a student in 1862 and in 1869 graduated into the St Petersburg Bolshoi Theatre as a premiere danseuse. A lyrical, expressive dancer she was often overshadowed by the technical brilliance of her contemporary, Ekaterina Vazem, who was preferred by Petipa , but she did create several roles in the latter's works including the title role of Mlada (1879) and Galatea in his Pygmalion (1883), as well as dancing the lead in many ballets. She retired from the stage in 1886 and became a teacher at the Maryinsky Theatre. Among her pupils were Pavlova, Karsavina, Egorova, Spessivtseva, and Trefilova.

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Sokolova , Lydia (orig. Hilda Munnings ;

b Wanstead, 4 Mar. 1896, d Sevenoaks, 5 Feb. 1974).
British dancer. She studied at Stedman's Academy, London, and with Pavlova, Mordkin, Clustine, and, later, Cecchetti. She toured with Mordkin's company in 1911 and danced with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes (1913–22 and 1923–9). She was among the first English dancers to perform for Diaghilev and it was he who chose her Russian name saying: ‘I hope you will live up to the name of Sokolova as it is that of a great dancer in Russia.’ Between 1922 and 1923 she danced with Massine's company and with her husband, Nicholas Kremnev , in music halls. She was a lively and dramatic dancer rather than a classical technician and created roles in many Massine ballets, including Boutique fantasque (1919), Le Chant du rossignol, and Sacre du printemps (both 1920). The Miller's Wife in Le Tricorne (1919) was also choreographed on her though Karsavina performed it at the premiere. She also created roles in Nijinsky's Till Eulenspiegel (1916), Nijinska's Les Biches and Le Train bleu (both 1924), Romeo and Juliet (1926), and Balanchine's Le Bal (1929). After Diaghilev's company disbanded she danced with Woizikowski's company in London in 1935 and Lydia Kyasht's Ballet de la Jeunesse Anglaise in 1939. She returned to the stage to perform in Massine's revival of The Good-Humoured Ladies for the Royal Ballet in 1962. Her memoirs, Dancing for Diaghilev, were edited by Richard Buckle (London, 1960).

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Sokolow , Anna

(b Hartford, Conn., 9 Feb. 1910, d New York, 29 Mar. 2000).
US dancer, choreographer, and teacher. She studied with various teachers including Graham and Horst and at the New York Metropolitan Opera Ballet School, leaving home at 15 to join Graham's company with which she danced until 1938. In 1934 she formed the first of several temporary companies which performed until the late 1960s. From the beginning her work dealt with social issues, for instance in Slaughter of the Innocents (mus. Alex North , 1934), and throughout her career she remained uncompromising both in her choice of harrowing contemporary subject-matter, such as the Spanish Civil War and the Holocaust, and in the bleak realism of her handling of themes such as urban alienation. In 1939 she began working as a choreographer and teacher in Mexico City where she founded the first Mexican modern dance company, La Paloma Azul. She frequently returned there and created some of her most important works, including Lyric Suite (mus. Berg , 1953) and Dreams (mus. Bach and Webern , 1961). She stopped dancing in 1954 but continued choreographing, mostly for her own company in the US, including Rooms (mus. Hopkins , 1955) and Steps of Silence (mus. Vieru , 1968). She also worked in opera and musicals, choreographing Candide (1956) and the off-Broadway production of Hair—she is credited with much of its staging though her name was excised from the credits. She occasionally choreographed for other dance companies including Netherlands Dance Theatre (The Seven Deadly Sins, mus. Weill , 1967), Ballet Rambert (Deserts, mus. Varèse , 1967), and Batsheva Dance Company (In memoriam No. 52436, mus. Baird , 1973). For many years she taught at the Juilliard.

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Soldier's Tale, The (Fr. title L'Histoire du soldat).

Dance theatre score, composed by Stravinsky and with a libretto by C. F. Ramuz . Its first production was staged with a combination of dance, mime, and spoken word and, with design by R. Auberjonois , was premiered 28 Sept. 1918 in Lausanne with Ansermet conducting and performers G. Rosset , J. Vilard-Gilles , and G. and L. Pitoëff . It tells the story of a soldier's battle of wits with the Devil. Later productions include Rennert and Helpmann (Edinburgh Festival, 1954) and Babilée (Spoleto, 1967). Pure dance versions set to the concert suite include Cranko (Cape Town, 1942), Feld (American Ballet Theatre, 1971), P. Martins (New York City Ballet, 1981), A. Page (Soldat for Rambert Dance Company, 1988), and Javier De Frutos (The Fortune Biscuit, De Rotterdamse Dansgroep, 1998).

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Solitaire.

Ballet in one act with choreography by MacMillan , music by Arnold , and design by D. Heeley . Premiered 7 June 1956 by Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet at Sadler's Wells Theatre with M. Hill , S. Neil , Annette Page , M. Boulton , and D. Britton . This setting of Arnold's two Suites of English Dances portrays a young woman who attempts to join in the activities of her friends but always ends up alone. MacMillan described it as ‘A kind of game for one’. It has been revived for Stuttgart Ballet and Royal Danish Ballet (1961), Berlin Opera Berlin (1967), and London City Ballet (1996).

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solo-dancer.

Traditional term given to the highest rank in the Royal Danish Ballet, equivalent to étoile or principal in other companies, though for international purposes the company has now standardized its terminology. Occasionally, dancers were given the title of first solo-dancer (e.g. K. Simone ) but Margot Lander was the only one to have been granted the rank of prima ballerina.

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Solomons , Gus, jun.

(b Boston, 27 Aug. 1940).
US dancer, choreographer, and writer. He studied at the Martha Graham School and performed with the companies of Donald McKayle (1961–4), Graham (1964–5), and Cunningham (1965–8) before founding his own company in 1969. He has choreographed many works, which frequently incorporate chance procedures and improvisation with set choreography. He has taught widely and reviewed for various publications, including Village Voice and Dance Magazine.

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Soloviev , Yuri

(b Leningrad, 10 Aug. 1940, d nr. Leningrad, 12 Jan. 1977).
Soviet dancer. He studied at the Leningrad Choreographic School and graduated into the Kirov in 1958 where he became one of its most virtuoso principals. His pure technique and extraordinary elevation were shown off to an exceptional degree in the role of the Blue Bird, but he also danced the standard danseur noble roles including the Prince in the Kirov's 1965 film of Sleeping Beauty. He created roles in several ballets, including Belsky's Leningrad Symphony (1961), Sergeyev's The Distant Planet (1963), Jacobson's Land of Miracles (1967), and the title role in Belsky's Icarus (1974). He was made People's Artist of the USSR in 1973. His death was apparently by suicide, and was possibly prompted by despair at being trapped in the stagnant political and artistic climate of his era (the same frustration which impelled other contemporaries, such as Nureyev, to defect).

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Solymosi , Zoltan

(b Budapest, 1967).
He studied at Budapest Ballet Academy and in 1986 joined Dutch National Ballet as a principal, moving to Munich State Opera in 1989 and La Scala, Milan, in 1990. From 1989 he was also permanent guest artist with Hungarian State Ballet. In 1992 he joined the Royal Ballet where he danced all the standard classic roles as well as creating roles in Matthew Hart's 1993 Fanfare. In 1995 he left to join English National Ballet and subsequently London City Ballet, leaving in 1996 to return to Hungary.

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Somes , Michael

(b Horsley, 28 Sept. 1917, d 19 Nov. 1994).
British dancer and ballet director. He studied with Espinosa and Bedells and in 1934 won the first male scholarship to Sadler's Wells School. In 1936 he joined Vic-Wells Ballet becoming principal in 1938. His career was disrupted by war service and injury, and this prevented him from realizing his early technical potential. But when Helpmann retired in 1949 he became the company's leading male dancer and also Fonteyn's partner. His commanding stage presence, coupled with his quiet strength and lyricism, made him an important role model for younger male dancers. He danced leading roles in all the classics and created roles in many ballets including Ashton's The Wanderer (1941), Symphonic Variations (1946), Scènes de Ballet and Cinderella (both 1948), Sylvia (1952), Homage to the Queen (1953), Birthday Offering (1956), and Ondine (1958); also in Massine's Clock Symphony (1948) and Cranko's Antigone (1959). He retired from dancing in 1961 though he continued to perform mime roles, creating Capulet in MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet (1965) and the title role in Layton's O.W. (1972). He was assistant director of Royal Ballet (1963–70) and principal repetiteur and teacher until 1984, particularly responsible for revivals of Ballets Russes works and the Ashton repertoire. He was married to the dancers Deirdre Dixon, Antoinette Sibley, and Wendy Ellis.

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Somnambule ou l'Arrivée d'un nouveau Seigneur, La.

Ballet in three acts with choreography by Aumer , music by Hérold , and sets by Ciceri . Premiered 19 Sept. 1827 at Paris Opera. Its sleepwalking heroine, Thérèse, causes an inadvertent scandal by wandering, unconscious, into the bedroom of the lord of the manor. Her fiancé Edmond breaks off their engagement, but then fortuitously discovers the truth of her condition. It inspired Bellini to write his opera La sonnambula. For Balanchine's ballet La Somnambule see Night Shadow.

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Song of a Wayfarer (orig. Fr. title Chant du compagnon errant).

Ballet in one act with choreography by Béjart and music by Mahler . Premiered 11 Mar. 1971 by the Ballet of the 20th Century at Forest National, Brussels, with Paolo Bortoluzzi and Nureyev. This frequently performed duet is set to Mahler's song-cycle Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen and portrays a romantic youth who rages in despair but is soothed by the dark figure of Fate. It has been revived for many different pairs of dancers.

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Song of the Earth (orig. Ger. title Das Lied von der Erde).

Ballet in one act with choreography by MacMillan and music by Mahler . Premiered 7 Nov. 1965 by the Stuttgart Ballet, Stuttgart, with Madsen , Haydée , and Barra . It is set to Mahler's song-cycle of the same title, but its six episodes are atmospheric rather than literal interpretations of the text (German translations of 8th-century poets of the T'ang Dynasty). They are linked by archetypal figures of a man, a woman, and Death. MacMillan had originally wanted to choreograph the work for the Royal Ballet but had been told Mahler's score was inappropriate for dance. He therefore took the idea to Cranko and the Stuttgart production proved so successful that it was revived by the Royal Ballet six months later, with designs by Georgiadis , and later by Paris Opera (1978), Australian Ballet (1987), and National Ballet of Canada (1988). Earlier settings of the same score are Tudor (Shadow of the Wind, American Ballet Theatre, 1948) and Koner (last movement only, Farewell, 1962).

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Song of the Nightingale.

See Chant du rossignol, Le.

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Sons of Horus, The.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Bintley , music by P. McGowan , design by Terry Bartlett , and lighting by J. B. Read . Premiered 30 Oct. 1985 by the Royal Ballet, Covent Garden, London. It portrays the myths and death rituals of the ancient Egyptians.

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Sorcerer's Apprentice, The (orig. Fr. title L'Apprenti sorcier).

Dukas's 1897 score, Scherzo d'après une ballade de Goethe, has inspired ballets by several choreographers including Fokine (Maryinsky Theatre, Petrograd, 1916) and H. Lander (Royal Danish Ballet, Copenhagen, 1940).

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Sorley Walker , Katherine

(b Aberdeen).
British dance writer. She studied at the University of London, Besançon University, and Trinity College of Music, becoming critic for Playgoer (1951–6) and for the Daily Telegraph (1962–95). She has contributed to many publications including Dancing Times and Encylopaedia Britannica and has edited the collected criticism of A. V. Coton . She is author of several books, including Robert Helpmann (Rockliff, 1957), Eyes on the Ballet (London, 1963), and Ninette de Valois (London, 1987).

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Sorokina , Nina

(b 13 May 1942).
Soviet dancer. She studied at the Bolshoi School, and graduated into the company in 1961 where she became one of its most celebrated ballerinas. She created roles in Vasiliev's The Geologists (1964); Vinogradov's Asel (1967), and Vasiliev's Icarus (1971).

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Sorrell , Walter

(b Vienna, 2 May 1905).
Austrian-US dance writer. He studied at the Universities of Vienna and Columbia and contributed to Dance Magazine, Ballet Today, and Dance News as well as being contributing editor of Dance Scope. He lectured at Barnard College and has written several books, including The Dancer's Image (New York, 1971), The Mary Wigman Book (Middletown, 1975), and Dance in its Time (New York, 1981). He was author-editor of The Dance has Many Faces (New York, 1951).

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Soto , Jock

(b New Mexico, 1965).
US dancer. He studied ballet in Phoenix, and at the School of American Ballet, joining New York City Ballet in 1981 aged 16, and becoming principal in 1985. A dancer of exceptional musicality and an instinctive partner, he has danced leading roles in many Balanchine and Robbins ballets, and also created roles in works by Martins , such as Fearful Symmetries, A Schubertiad, and Songs of the Auvergne; by Dean , Weiss , Bonnefoux , and Tanner in the 1988 American Music Festival, and also by Taylor-Corbett , Woetzel , O'Day , Mahdaviani , and Wheeldon . He has made many television appearances as a dancer, also as a celebrity chef.

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soubresaut

(Fr., sudden leap). A jump both taking off from and landing in fifth position with the legs tightly crossed and feet pointed in the air.

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Source, La.

Ballet in three acts with choreography by Saint-Léon , libretto by Saint-Léon and Charles Nuitter , music by Minkus (1st and 4th scene) and Delibes (2nd and 3rd scene), sets by E. Desplechin , J.-B. Lavastre , A. Rubé , and Chapérone , and costumes by P. Loumier and Albert . Premiered 12 Nov. 1866 at the Paris Opera with Salvioni as Naila (replacing the injured Grantzow on whom the role had been conceived), Fiocre, and Mérante. It was created in an attempt to revive the public's flagging interest in ballet and combined spectacular stage effects with virtuoso dancing and a popular score. It tells the story of Naila, Spirit of the Spring, who is protected by the hunter Djemil from a gypsy who is threatening to poison her water. In return she helps Djemil to win his beloved Nouredda. Though the ballet made little lasting impact, it established a creative relationship between Nuitter , Saint-Léon , and Delibes which achieved much greater success in Coppélia. Saint-Léon choreographed a new version of the ballet as Le Lys for St Petersburg in 1869 and re-staged it as Naila for the Vienna Court Opera in 1878. Other productions include A. Koppini (staged after Saint-Léon as Ruchei, St Petersburg, 1902) and Vaganova and Ponomarev (staged after Saint-Léon as Naila, Leningrad, 1925). Staats choreographed a new version as Soir de fête using H. Busser's arrangement of the score (Paris Opera, 1925), and pas de deux versions were choreographed by Cranko (Stuttgart Ballet, 1964) and Balanchine (New York City Ballet, 1968, restaged with additional ensemble in 1969).

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soutenu

(Fr., sustained). A very controlled, drawn-out execution of a movement.

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South Africa.

Black South Africa has always had rich indigenous dance traditions, but the European settlers who came to the area were less quick to establish their own. In Cape Town during the 19th century ballet masters and their pupils put on amateur productions which imitated the fashions of Europe, but no professional companies were established. In 1926 the Cape Town Dance Teachers Association was formed and Édouard Espinosa visited as its first examiner. In 1934 Dulcie Howes (returning from touring with Pavlova) started up the University of Cape Town School of Ballet and later the University of Cape Town Ballet company. In Johannesburg the Dancing Teachers Association, established in 1923, staged some performances and in the early 1940s other companies were formed including the Johannesburg Festival Ballet and the Pretoria Ballet Club. In 1947 Faith de Villiers and Joyce van Greems started a professional company, Ballet Theatre, which collaborated with UCT Ballet for its first programme. Frank Staff founded the South African Ballet company, producing fifteen ballets for them between 1955 and 1958, but like other companies it was short-lived because it had no financial backing from the state. In 1960 de Villiers founded the Johannesburg City Ballet which was to form the nucleus for the PACT Ballet which emerged in 1963 after the government began to subsidize the performing arts (in 1981 it was relocated to Pretoria). Other professional companies to emerge were CAPAB Ballet and NAPAC (Natal Performing Arts Council; 1964–78). South Africa finally had an opportunity to hold on to its talented dancers and choreographers who prior to 1963 had always left to work abroad (Maude Lloyd , Howes , Nadia Nerina , Maryon Lane , Frank Staff , John Cranko , Monica Mason , Deanne Bergsma , and Vyvyan Lorrayne ). However, during the worst era of apartheid ballet in South Africa developed largely in isolation from the rest of the world, as international sanctions blocked the free exchange of dancers and companies, though Ballet International, founded in 1976 with backing from the Performing Arts Council of the Orange Free State (PACOFS), was actually based in Britain. Under the artistic direction of Larry Long its first performance was at the Oppenheimer Theatre, Welkom, Transvaal, and its repertoire included full-length classics staged by Ben Stevenson and modern works. Among its guest dancers were Samsova and Nagy . Under apartheid black and white dance remained segregated though S. African dance forms were increasingly performed outside the country by black companies, such as the British-based Adzido which has aimed to research and revive the black African dance heritage.
In the new S. Africa some links were forged between black and white dance, and the newly liberalized atmosphere saw a large expansion of dance companies, such as Soweto Dance Theatre which originated from a break-dance troupe, Bop dance company based in Bobothuthaswan and performing work by local choreographers, and the country's largest modern dance group, PACT Dance Company. Vita Life Dance Umbrella (founded 1988) became S. Africa's most important platform for modern dance and regularly boasted seasons of new works; the Dance Factory in Johannesburg (founded 1992) is a major presenter and training facility for modern dance; and Dance Alliance (founded in Johannesburg in the early 1990s) emerged as an important lobbying organization. New artists to emerge include Sowetan-born Vincent Mantsoe . However, changes in funding structures have had a major impact on the dance scene. Bop dance company was disbanded in 1995 (though its director, David Krugel , has subsequently founded the Batho Dance Company). PACT Dance Company and PACT Ballet lost their full state subsidy in 1997 and, after a period of turmoil, were merged into the single State Theatre Ballet under the continuing direction of Dawn Weller . NAPAC Ballet was scaled down to become the Durban-based Playhouse Dance Theatre but was disbanded soon after. In 1997 CAPAB Ballet also lost its state subsidy and, as a newly independent company, changed its name to Cape Town City Ballet, still under the direction of Veronica Paeper . Visits from major foreign companies were rare, due to funding shortages, but Dance Theatre of Harlem went in 1992, Birmingham Royal Ballet in 1998, and Netherlands Dance Theatre in 1999.

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South Korea.

See Korea.

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Soviet Realism.

See Socialist Realism.

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Soviet Union.

See Russia.

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Spain.

Spanish dance tended to adhere to its own traditions during the 19th and much of the 20th century, rather than slavishly following the ballet trends set by the rest of Europe. The dominant dance form was escuela bolera which dated from the early 19th century and fused Spanish dance forms like the bolero and the cachucha with elements from French ballet. During the second half of the 19th century flamenco began to change from an intimate social dance to a professional artform with the establishment of performances in clubs and bars. Some foreign ballet was presented in major theatres and the Teatro del Licea in Barcelona and the Teatro Real in Madrid had corps de ballet, while the Real ran its own ballet school. Few permanent professional companies were founded during this period but several individual performers emerged as stars on the international scene. One of the most famous was Buenos Aires-born Antonia Mercé who called herself La Argentina . She trained as a classical dancer and became prima ballerina of the Royal Opera Theatre, Real Madrid, in 1899 at the age of 11. At 14 she gave up classical dance and studied traditional Spanish dance with her mother, after which she began touring the world as a concert artist, displaying an extraordinary castanet technique, and using largely Spanish music. In 1928 she formed her own company and choreographed several ballets on Spanish themes. European and American audiences at this time were fascinated by Spanish dance and culture. Massine's popular Le Tricorne (1919), with its flamenco-inspired choreography and music by de Falla, was widely performed and the Ballet de Madrid, founded in 1927 by Encarnacion López Julvez (who called herself La Argentinita in homage to Mercé) with Federico García Lorca, scored a huge success in New York during 1928. In 1933 La Argentinita attempted the first large-scale theatrical presentation of authentic flamenco in Las calles de Cadiz and in 1939 she collaborated with Massine on Capriccio espagnol. Her sister, Pilar López danced in her company and after the latter's death in 1946 López created her own company, Ballet Espagnol, with José Greco . She trained a new generation of male dancers who in turn left to form their own companies. José Greco launched a company in America with his wife Nila Amparo which toured widely and also established a Foundation of Spanish Dance in America. Antonio Gades , who also danced with López, trained in both Spanish and classical dance and collaborated with Dolin in creating Bolero for Rome Opera. In 1964 he set up his own company which blended Spanish idioms with modern and classical dance.
Other international stars were gypsy-born Carmen Amaya who toured the world with a company drawn from her relatives between the late 1920s and 1940s, and the two cousins Antonio and Rosario who also danced at the Edinburgh Festival in 1950. In 1953 Antonio formed his own Spanish ballet company, Antonio and the Ballets de Madrid. More recently Cristina Hoyos , originally a dancer with Gades , has formed her own renowned flamenco company, which along with the government-sponsored Cumbre Flamenco has generated a new international vogue for gypsy-style flamenco. Joaquín Cortés has drawn new audiences with his fusion of flamenco and rock, as has Sara Baras (b 1971) with her contemporary virtuoso style. The first government-sponsored Spanish company to operate on a permanent basis was the National Dance Company of Spain (replacing the Ballet Antología Española), founded in 1978, under Gades, for the performance of Spanish dance, and now known as the National Ballet of Spain. There have been recent attempts to establish a classical dance culture in Spain but they have been slow to take off. Ballet Clásico was founded in 1979, becoming Ballet Lírico Nacional, but under the direction of Nacho Duato since 1990 the repertory has become exclusively contemporary and has been renamed Compañia Nacional de Danza. The chamber ensemble Ballet de Zaragoza performs some classics, such as The Nutcracker and Coppélia, alongside 20th-century ballets but has faced possible closure. In 1997, however, Victor Ullate's company became resident at the newly rebuilt Opera House in Madrid, officially called Ballet de la Comunidad de Madrid but better known as Ballet Ullate, performing neo-classical and classical works. Ullate, who has run a school in Madrid since 1979, has nurtured some fine dancers, including Angel Corella and Tamara Rojo , though most have tended to move elsewhere. The country's most energetic area of growth has been in modern dance as a new generation of choreographers has begun to look outside Spain. Companies like Danat Danza, Mal Pelo, Lanonima Impérial, and Cia. Vicente Saez have all gained international reputations.

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Spartacus (orig. Russ. title Spartak).

Ballet in four acts with libretto by Nikolai Volkov and music by Khachaturian . The ballet tells the story of the slave-leader Spartacus who incites his fellow slaves to revolt against their Roman oppressors. It is now one of the world's most popular modern ballets, although its first production was not a success. Jacobson's version, premiered 27 Dec. 1956 by the Kirov, Leningrad, with designs by V. Khodasevich , was too choreographically static to enjoy much popularity, while Moiseyev's 1958 version for the Bolshoi had only nine performances. The definitive version was choreographed by Grigorovich , with design by Simon Virsaladze , and was premiered 9 Apr. 1968 by the Bolshoi. Vasiliev danced the ardent, idealistic Spartacus and Maximova his virtuous wife Phrygia, M. Liepa was the cruel and narcissistic Roman general Crassus, and Timofeyeva the sensual, whoring Aegina. The ballet's combination of high-energy choreography and sharply delineated characters created a sensation when it was first performed in the West (London, 1969). Several other versions have been mounted including László Seregi's for Budapest (1968).

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Speaking in Tongues.

Modern dance in one act with choreography by Paul Taylor , music by Matthew Patton , design by Santo Loquasto , and lighting by Tipton . Premiered 1988 by the Paul Taylor Dance Company. One of Taylor's most darkly dramatic works, it portrays the emotional and spiritual conflicts within a group of fundamentalist Christians, under the warped, charismatic leadership of their preacher, designated simply as a Man of the Cloth. It was later filmed for television and won an Emmy Award.

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Spectre de la rose, Le.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Fokine , libretto by J.-L. Vaudoyer , music by Weber , and design by Bakst . Premiered 19 Apr. 1911 by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes at Théâtre de Monte Carlo with Karsavina and Nijinsky . It is set to Weber's Invitation to the Dance (orch. Berlioz ), and its libretto, based on lines from a poem by Gautier , portrays a young girl who returns from a ball with a rose and, on falling asleep, dreams that the spirit of the rose is dancing with her. In the ballet, the spirit disappears with a spectacular leap through her window and she awakes. Its atmosphere was defined by its original dancers—Karsavina tenderly lyrical as the Young Girl, Nijinsky eerily inhuman as the Spirit of the Rose—and few dancers have been able to re-create their impact. The ballet has, however, been frequently revived, by, among others, American Ballet Theatre (1941), Sadler's Wells Ballet (1944, with designs by Rex Whistler ), London Festival Ballet (1950 and 1962), Bolshoi Ballet (1967), Joffrey Ballet (1979), and Kirov Ballet (London, 1997). New versions include John Neumeier (Hamburg Ballet, 1986) and Angelin Preljocaj (Compagnie Preljocaj, 1993).

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Spessivtseva , Olga (also Olga Spessiva , Olga Spessivtzeva ;

b Rostov, 18 July 1895, d Tolstoy Farm, NY, 16 Sept. 1991).
Russian dancer, widely considered one of the greatest classical ballerinas in history. She studied at the St Petersburg Imperial Ballet Academy, graduating in 1913 to join the Maryinsky Theatre. She soon became one of the most admired dancers in the company, promoted to soloist (1916) and ballerina (1918). During 1916 and 1917 she was in the US with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and also guested in their production of The Sleeping Princess (1921–2). Similar in type to Pavlova, she was regarded by many as the greater artist with her long slender limbs, exquisite face, her air of spiritual purity, and her fine classical technique. Her most famous role was Giselle, though she performed all the other standard ballerina roles as well. She left Russia for the last time in 1924 to become étoile at the Paris Opera where she remained until 1932, creating roles in Nijinska's Les Rencontres (1925), Lifar's Creatures of Prometheus (1929), and Bacchus and Ariadne (1931). She also appeared with Diaghilev in 1927 and 1929, creating the title role in Balanchine's La Chatte (1927), though it was danced by Nikitina at the premiere. In 1931 she danced at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires (she had visited previously in 1923) and in 1932 she danced Giselle for the Camargo Society in London. In 1934 she was ballerina of the Victor Dandré and Alexander Levitov Ballet, touring Australia, and in 1935 she danced in Fokine's ballets at Paris's Opéra Comique. She gave her farewell performance at the Teatro Colón in 1939 and in the same year moved to the US, where she became adviser to Ballet Theatre. She was already showing signs of depression and in 1943 suffered a nervous breakdown. She remained in a mental hospital until 1963 when friends, including Dolin , Doubrovska , and Dale Fern , got her settled into the Tolstoy Farm, a Russian settlement in Rockland County, New York, maintained by the Tolstoy Foundation. In 1998 Eifman based his ballet Red Giselle around her.

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Spink , Ian

(b Melbourne, 8 Oct. 1947).
Australian-British dancer, choreographer, and director. He studied at the Australian Ballet School and briefly with Cunningham, and danced with Australian Ballet (1969–74), Australian Dance Theatre (1973), Dance Company of New South Wales (now Sydney Dance Company, 1975–7), Richard Alston and Dancers (1978–9), and Basic Space Dance Theatre (1978–9). He created his first work in 1971 for the Australian Ballet Workshop and subsequently choreographed for various companies, forming his own group in the UK in 1978. He became co-artistic director of Second Stride in 1982 (sole director in 1988), and his experimental, densely allusive style of dance theatre has frequently been made in close collaboration with his composers and designers, including Bosendorfer Waltzes (mus. Orlando Gough , des. Antony McDonald , 1986), Heaven Ablaze in his Breast (mus. Judith Weir , des. McDonald , 1989), Lives of the Great Poisoners (mus. Gough , text Caryl Churchill, 1991), and The Soul Cages (London, 1999, mixed-media collaboration with composer Philip Cashian). He has also choreographed for many opera productions and directed both operas and plays, including Judith Weir's The Vanishing Bridegroom (1990) and Strindberg's The Pelican (Citizen's Theatre, Glasgow, 1994).

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Spira , Phyllis

(b Johannesburg, 18 Oct. 1943).
South African dancer. She studied in Johannesburg and in 1959 attended London's Royal Ballet School. In 1960 she joined the Royal Ballet touring company, becoming soloist (1961–5), though returning to S. Africa as principal dancer of PACT Ballet (1963–4). In 1965 she returned again, as ballerina with CAPAB. She then toured with National Ballet of Canada (1967–8) and in 1968 returned to CAPAB as guest artist, then ballerina.

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Spoerli , Heinz

(b Basle, 8 July 1941).
Swiss dancer, choreographer, and ballet master. He studied with Walter Kleiber in Basle then at the School of American Ballet, American Ballet Center, and London Dance Centre. He was a soloist with Basel Ballet (1960–3), then danced with Cologne Ballet (1963–6), Royal Winnipeg Ballet (1966–7), and Les Grands Ballets Canadiens (1967–71). In 1971 he became choreographer and soloist with Geneva Ballet where he created his first work, Le Chemin (mus. Gaudibert , 1971), after which he was ballet director with Basel Ballet (1973–91). Here, he raised the company's technical standards (bringing in frequent guests like Evdokimova) and introducing works from many choreographers, such as Balanchine, Béjart , Taylor, and Cranko . He also choreographed over 80 works including Petrushka (mus. Stravinsky 1974), A Midsummer Night's Dream (mus. Mendelssohn , 1976), Romeo and Juliet (mus. Prokofiev , 1977), and Stabat Mater (mus. Pärt , 1987). His style is neo-classical but his dramatic, full-length ballets feature distinctive characterization and humour. His version of La Fille mal gardée, created for the Paris Opera in 1981, is widely considered to be the most successful since Ashton's. He has created works for many other companies, including Berlin Opera Ballet and Stuttgart Ballet, as well as choreographing for television and film. In 1991 he was appointed artistic director and choreographer of the German Opera on the Rhine, Düsseldorf, where he raised the company's technical standards and built up audiences with a neo-classical repertoire that includes his own works plus those of choreographers like Balanchine and van Manen . In 1996 he returned to direct the Zurich Ballet where he has introduced works by choreographers like van Manen and Forsythe as well as creating his own ballets, including his fourth version of A Midsummer Night's Dream and Cinderella (mus. Prokofiev , 2000). He has worked as guest choreographer and teacher all around the world.

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Spohr , Arnold

(b Rhein, Sask., 26 Dec. 1927).
Canadian dancer, choreographer, and director. He studied in London, New York, Hollywood, and Leningrad with various teachers including Pushkin and Volkova . He joined Winnipeg Ballet in 1945, becoming principal (1947–54). He then worked with Canadian television and partnered Markova in the London production of Where the Rainbow Ends (1956–7). In 1958 he was appointed director of Royal Winnipeg Ballet, and successfully established the company's international reputation until retiring in 1988. He then became co-director of the Toronto-based company Ballet Jorgen. He has choreographed several ballets and has also been a professional pianist.

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sport.

The physical language and energy of the sporting world have inspired several choreographers. It is frequently claimed that the sportiness of American culture influenced Balanchine as he was evolving his own athletic version of 20th-century classicism. Early ballets tackling the subject were Katti Lanner's Sports of England (1887) and Nijinsky's Jeux (1913). In the latter, the three dancers are dressed in approximations of Edwardian tennis dress, and stylized versions of sporting gestures (leaps and arm swings) are performed. (Nijinsky, however, possessed only a hazy idea of the game; the first version of the tennis ball which appeared in rehearsals was the size of a football.) Tennis also inspired Schilling whose 1971 ballet Match is a pas de deux in the form of a tennis match. A football player stars in Kurdyumov's three-act ballet The Footballer (Bolshoi, 1930), though the plot is more concerned with class satire than sport, and Moiseyev choreographed the comic ballet Football in 1948. Jo Strømgren choreographed his award-winning Dance Tribute to the Art of Football (1998) in collaboration with his home team, Brann, portraying the rituals of football from training ground to locker room. In Arpino's Olympics (1966) the choreography is based on various all-male events (wrestling, running, jumping, etc.) and features a linking figure who runs through the ballet holding a torch. MacMillan's 1969 ballet Olympiad was also inspired by athletics. The conventions of wrestling are deconstructed in Mark Morris's Championship Wrestling (1984), while the dancers in Darshan Singh Bhuller's Heart of Chaos (1993) were given boxing lessons in order to master authentic boxing moves.

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spotting.

A means of avoiding giddiness while turning. Dancers fix their eyes on a chosen spot in the studio or theatre and during a sequence of one or more turns aim to keep focusing on it until the last possible moment, when they rapidly whip their heads around to ‘spot’ it again.

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square dance.

American couple dance in which the dancers are positioned in a square formation, though some regional variants include line formations and circles. At a square dance event, the various moves are called out by a caller.

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Square Dance.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Balanchine music by Corelli and Vivaldi . Premiered 21 Nov. 1957 by New York City Ballet with P. Wilde and Magallanes , and Elisha C. Keeler (caller). Balanchine's classical version of a square dance is choreographed for one leading couple and six other couples. Its sophisticated and elegant classical vocabulary makes witty reference to American folk and social dance, even while being set to the baroque music of Vivaldi (Concerti Grossi, Op. 3, Nos. 10 and 12, 1st movement only) and Corelli's Sarabande, Giga, and Bandineri. A revised version was premiered by the same company, with Mazzo and Cook in 1976. It has been revived for several companies including Joffrey Ballet (1971), Pacific Northwest Ballet (1981), and English National Ballet (1994).

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Staats , Léo

(b Paris, 26 Nov. 1877, d Paris, 20 Feb. 1952).
French dancer, choreographer, ballet master, and teacher. He studied at the Paris Opera Ballet School under Mérante, and made his debut with the company aged 10. In 1893 he joined the company, dancing principal roles, and was appointed premier danseur (1898–1909), partnering Zambelli. He was ballet master between 1908 and 1909 and again between 1919 and 1926, leaving the Opera between 1910 and 1914 to become artistic director of Théâtre des Arts where he choreographed Le Festin de l'araignée (mus. Albert Roussel , 1913). Among his many ballets for the Paris Opera were Cydalise et le chèvre-pied (mus. Pierné , 1923) and Soir de fête (mus. Delibes , arr. H. Busser , 1925). The latter is often regarded as a precursor of Balanchine's plotless ballets. He also revived works by other choreographers, including Sylvia (after Mérante, 1919) and La Péri (after Coralli, 1931), and created numbers for music hall and revue. In 1926 he invented the Defilé du corps de ballet which is still part of company tradition. He opened his own school where he taught until his death.

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Staatsoper Berlin.

See German State Opera Ballet.

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Stabat Mater.

Many composers have composed settings of this devotional text including Pergolesi, Vivaldi, and Rossini. Dance versions include R. Cohan's (mus. Vivaldi , 1975) and Mark Morris (mus. Pergolesi , 1986).

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Staff , Frank

(b Kimberley, 15 June 1918, d Bloemfontein, 10 May, 1971).
South African dancer and choreographer. He studied with Helen Webb and Maude Lloyd in Cape Town before going to London where he studied with Rambert and Tudor. Between 1933 and 1945 he danced with Ballet Club (later Ballet Rambert) as well as with Vic-Wells Ballet (1934–5 and 1938–9), and he created roles in several ballets by Howard , Ashton , and de Valois , including Cupid in Ashton's Cupid and Psyche (1939). He also danced with London Ballet in 1940, creating Julien in Howard's La Fête étrange (1940) and appeared in Herbert Farjeon's revue Spread it Around (chor. Walter Gore , 1936). He began choreographing in 1938, displaying a facility for witty invention, and his works include Peter and the Wolf (mus. Prokofiev , 1940) and Enigma Variations (mus. Elgar , 1940), both for Ballet Rambert. After military service he became an international freelance choreographer, returning to S. Africa in 1953 where he became founder and director of S. African Ballet (1955–8). He was then choreographer with UCT/CAPAB Ballet, Cape Town (1963–4), choreographer for PACT Ballet, Johannesburg (1965–8), and director of Performing Arts Council Orange Free State Ballet (1969–71). His later works included Romeo and Juliet (mus. Prokofiev , 1964), Raka, a three-act ballet on S. African themes (mus. G. Newcater , 1967), and Soirée (mus. Rossini , Britten, 1968). He was married four times, his last wife being dancer Veronica Paeper .

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Stages.

Multi-media work in two sections with choreography by Robert Cohan , music by Arne Nordheim (1st section or ‘Stage’) and Bob Downes (2nd stage), film sequences and projections by A. McCall , lighting by J. B. Read , and scenery by Peter Farmer . Premiered 22 Apr. 1971 by London Contemporary Dance Theatre at The Place Theatre, London, with Louther, Lapzeson, and North. The audience sat on the stage while the dancers occupied the area normally taken up by the seating. The action presents a mythic world in which a space age protagonist questions his perceptions and beliefs. It became one of LCDT's most popular works, helping to establish a British audience for modern dance.

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Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theatre Ballet (Stanislavsky Ballet).

The ballet company of Moscow's second opera house which evolved from the Arts Ballet, founded by V. Krieger in 1929, and which was inspired by Stanislavsky's principles of theatrical realism. Under Krieger and Bourmeister (respectively director and chief choreographer, 1930–71), the company performed ballets which made a feature of dramatic realism and emotional truth. Its first production was The Rivals (a version of La Fille mal gardée, chor. N. Kholfin and P. Markov , 1933) and other ballets included Lola (chor. Bourmeister , mus. Vasilenko , 1943), Coast of Happiness (chor. Bourmeister , mus. A. Spadavecchia , 1948), Swan Lake (chor. Bourmeister , 1953), Pictures from an Exhibition (chor. Lopukhov , mus. Mussorgsky , 1963), Dmitri Briantzev's new version of Le Corsaire (mus. Adam , 1989), and Vasiliev's Romeo and Juliet (mus. Prokofiev , 1991). Its first appearance in the West was in Paris, 1956, and it gave its New York debut in 1998. Dmitri Briantzev was appointed director in 1985.

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Stars and Stripes.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Balanchine , music by Sousa (arr. H. Kay ), set by David Hays , and costumes by Karinska . Premiered 17 Jan. 1958 by New York City Ballet at City Center, New York, with Kent , D. Adams , Hayden , Barnett , and d'Amboise . This setting of Sousa's marches was described by the choreographer as a ‘balletic parade, led by four “regiments”’. La Fosse choreographed a parody (Stars & Stripes Forever) for Les Ballets Trockaderos de Monte Carlo, 1996.

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Starzer , Joseph

(b Vienna, 1726, d Vienna, 22 Apr. 1787).
Austrian composer who wrote the music for many Noverre ballets, including Diana and Endymion (1770) and The Horatians and the Curatians (1774), as well as some ballets for Angiolini.

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Steifel , Ethan

(b Tyrone, Pa., 13 Feb. 1973).
US dancer. He trained locally in Wisconsin, then at Milwaukee Ballet School and Pennsylvania Youth Ballet before moving to New York where he studied at American Ballet Theatre's school and at the School of American Ballet. A precocious talent, he joined New York City Ballet aged 16 and after a season with Zurich Ballet (1992) returned as soloist, becoming principal in 1995. He danced principal roles in a wide range of Robbins and Balanchine ballets and created roles in several works including Martins's Fearful Symmetries (1990) and his staging of Sleeping Beauty (1991). In 1997 he joined American Ballet Theatre as principal, dancing many classical roles and creating roles in Tharp's Known by Heart (1998), among others. In 2000 he starred in the film Centre Stage (dir. Nicholas Hytner ).

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Stepanov , Vladimir

(b 29 June 1866, d St Petersburg, 28 Jan. 1896).
Russian dancer, teacher, and inventor of dance notation system. He studied anatomy at St Petersburg University while dancing with the Maryinsky and as a result developed his notations system based on the principles of musical notation which he published as Alphabet des mouvements du corps humain in Paris in 1892. (This was not geared specifically to ballet, though it was used for that purpose.) His system was not published in Russia until after his death and though it was never very widely adopted it was used to notate the Maryinsky classics in St Petersburg. Sergeyev took these notations with him to the West and used them as the basis from which to mount productions of Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, etc. in England and in France.

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step dancing.

Traditional solo dance performed in a variety of styles in the British Isles, Nova Scotia, and the US. All forms are characterized by deft, complicated footwork usually performed in a tightly restricted floor area. Many forms are percussive, the sound being produced by a range of hard shoes, such as wooden clogs, or shoes with hard leather soles or metal taps. In Ireland and parts of the US it has become a competition form, characterized by complex footwork and flamboyant aerial manœuvres, performed with a rigid torso. The show Riverdance brought Irish step dance to a world-wide audience.

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Stevenson , Ben

(b Southsea, 4 Apr. 1937).
British dancer, choreographer, teacher, and director. He studied at Arts Educational School and in 1953 joined the Theatre Arts Ballet. In 1956 he danced with Sadler's Wells Opera Ballet, then with Sadler's Wells Ballet (1957–9). In 1959 he joined London Festival Ballet as soloist, after which he danced in theatre and television, returning to LFB as principal and ballet master and mounting Sleeping Beauty in 1967 with Beryl Grey . In 1969 he moved to America as Director of Harkness Youth Company for which he choreographed Bartók Concerto. He was then assistant director and subsequently artistic director of R. Page's Chicago Ballet (1971–5) and artistic director of Houston Ballet from 1976. As well as creating many new works he has also produced many popular versions of the standard classics, including Nutcracker (1991) and Cinderella (1992) for English National Ballet. In 1998 he created The Snow Maiden (mus. Tchaikovsky ) for both American Ballet Theatre and Houston Ballet.

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Stevenson , Hugh

(b 1910, d London, 16 Dec. 1946).
British designer who worked on Tudor's early ballets, such as Jardin aux lilas (1936) and Soirée musicale (1938), as well as several other important British productions including de Valois's The Gods Go a-Begging (1936), Cranko's Pastorale (1950), and Swan Lake for Vic-Wells Ballet (1934).

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Still/Here.

Dance theatre work in two acts with choreography by Bill T. Jones , music by Kenneth Frazelle and Vernon Reid , visual concept by Gretchen Bender , costumes by Liz Prince , and lighting by Robert Wierzel . Premiered 14 Sept. 1994 at TNP Villeurbanne, Lyons, by Bill. T. Jones /Arnie Zane and Dancers. It explores the experience of being sentenced to an early death using material gleaned from workshops with terminally ill patients. The patients' words and gestures are woven into both the songs and the movement and they also feature in videos projected on stage. The work became the subject of considerable controversy when critic Arlene Croce claimed in her article ‘A Critic at Bay: Discussing the Undiscussable’ (New Yorker, 26 Dec. 1994–2 Jan. 1995) that the work constituted a piece of ‘victim art’ and that it was inherently un-reviewable due to the raw emotional nature of its material.

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Stimmung.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Béjart , music by Stockhausen , set by R. Gernard , and costumes by J. Roustan . Premiered 19 Dec. 1972 by the Ballet of the 20th Century at the Free University, Brussels. It aims to create a dance equivalent of the music's hypnotic spacious quality, using slow motion gesture and some free improvisation around the choreographed material.

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Stockhausen , Karlheinz

(b Mödrath, 22 Aug. 1928).
German composer. He has written no dance scores but during the 1960s and 1970s especially his music was frequently used for dance, including Gesang der Jünglinge and a section of Kontakte (chor. Tetley in Ziggurat, Ballet Rambert, 1967), two pieces from Aus den sieben Tagen (chor. Tetley in Field Figures, Royal Ballet, 1970), Mixtur and Telemusic (chor. Tetley and van Manen in Mutations, Netherlands Dance Theatre, 1970), Hymnen (chor. Desombey , Garnier , and others, Amiens, 1970), and Stimmung (chor. Béjart , Ballet of the 20th Century, 1972). K. Stuyf used his music in Reflections on Pale Silence (Foundation Contemporary Dance, 1964), as did Manfred Taubert in Electra (Brunswick, 1972).

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Stone Flower, The (orig. Russ. title Kamenni tsvetok).

Ballet in three acts with choreography by Lavrovksy , libretto by Lavrovsky and Mira Mendelson-Prokofieva , music by Prokofiev , and design by T. Starzhensky . Premiered 12 Feb. 1954 at the Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow, with Ulanova, Plisetskaya, and Preobrajenska. The definitive version was choreographed by Grigorovich and designed by Simon Virsaladze and was premiered 25 Apr. 1957 by the Kirov, Leningrad, with Kolpakova , Osipenko , and Gribov . It is set to Prokofiev's last ballet score and its plot is based on fairytales collected from the Urals and is an allegory of the artist's impulse to create. The story focuses on Danila, a stone-worker, who dreams of creating the most beautiful stone vase ever made. The Mistress of the Copper Mountain leads him to her subterranean kingdom where she commands him to work until he is master of his art. As he labours, his beloved, Katerina, is threatened by the aggressive attentions of the stone-workers' steward, Severyan. She goes in search of Danila, pursued by Severyan who is swallowed up by the Earth. Meanwhile, the Mistress of the Copper Mountain has fallen in love with Danila and is unwilling for him to return to the human world with the newly discovered secret of his art (symbolized by a Stone Flower). Katerina, however, begs successfully for his release. Lavrovsky's production was not a success, as it was considered to be over-burdened with mime scenes. In Grigorovich's version the dramatic integration of choreography and design was hailed as a landmark in Soviet choreography and it was revived for the Bolshoi in 1959 with Maximova and Vasiliev, and for the Royal Swedish Ballet in 1962. Other versions include Erich Walter's for German Opera on the Rhine (Düsseldorf, 1976).

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Stowell , Kent

(b Idaho, 1939).
US dancer, choreographer, and director. He studied with Willam Christensen and at the University of Utah, performing first with San Francisco Ballet and then New York City Ballet (1962–70). In 1970 he joined Munich Opera Ballet as dancer and choreographer, then in 1973 moved to Frankfurt Ballet as ballet master and choreographer, becoming co-artistic director in 1975. In 1977 he moved to Pacific Northwest Ballet as choreographer and artistic director. He has created many works for the company including Orpheus Portrait, Carmina Burana (mus. Orff ), and Quaternary (mus. Rachmaninov ) and mounted productions of several classics including Nutcracker and Swan Lake. He is married to Francia Russell .

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Strauss , Johann II

(b Vienna, 25 Oct. 1825, d Vienna, 3 June 1899).
Austrian composer. He wrote only one ballet score, Cinderella, which was discovered after his death and has been used by E. Graeb (Berlin, 1901) and R. de Warren (Manchester, 1979). Many ballets have been set to arrangements of his other music, including Massine's Le Beau Danube (1924), Lichine's Graduation Ball (1940), Bourmeister's Straussiana (1941), Balanchine's Vienna Waltzes (with additional music by Lehár and R. Strauss , New York, 1977), J. Burrows's Stoics (London, 1991), Naharin's Perpetuum (Geneva, 1992) and De Frutos's Jota Dolce (Barcelona, 1993). The German Wiesenthal sisters were well-known interpreters of his waltzes.

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Strauss , Richard

(b Munich, 11 June 1864, d Garmisch, 8 Sept. 1949).
German composer. He wrote the music for The Legend of Joseph (chor. Fokine , Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, Paris, 1914) and Schlagobers (chor. Kröller , Vienna State Opera, 1924). In 1923 Kröller also choreographed a work to his Couperin Dance Suite, a score that was later extended for the ballet Verklungene Feste (chor. Mlakers , Munich State Opera Ballet, 1941). Several of his other scores have also been used for dance, including Till Eulenspiegel (chor. Nijinsky , Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, New York, 1916; chor. Babilée , 1949, and chor. Balanchine , 1951), extracts from Salome (chor. Gorsky in Salome's Dance, Bolshoi, Moscow, 1921; for other versions see under Salome), Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (chor. Balanchine , Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, 1932, and chor. Tudor in Knight Errant, Royal Ballet, 1968), Death and Transfiguration (chor. Milloss , Augsburg, 1934, and chor. van Dantzig in Blown in a Gentle Wind, Dutch National Ballet, 1975), Burlesque for Piano (chor. Tudor in Dim Lustre, Ballet Theatre, 1943), and Four Last Songs (many versions, including Macdonald, Royal Swedish Ballet, 1966; van Dantzig, Dutch National Ballet, 1977; and Béjart, in Serait-ce la mort?, Marseilles, 1970).

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Stravinsky , Igor

(b Oranienbaum, 17 June 1882, d New York, 6 Apr. 1971).
Russian-French-US composer, one of the greatest and most prolific composers for dance in the 20th century. His first ballet score, The Firebird, commissioned by Diaghilev and choreographed by Fokine in 1910, already displayed the rhythmic invention and brilliant variations of timbre and colour that were to make much of his music so atmospheric and danceable. In Petrushka (chor. Fokine , 1911) he developed a distinctive Russian sound using folk themes woven into the music's fabric, and in Rite of Spring (chor. Nijinsky , 1913) he created a radical sound of clashing tonalities and violent irregular rhythms that, together with the primitivist choreography, generated a storm of controversy on the opening night. The score was subsequently used by Massine in 1920 and by many other choreographers (see Rite of Spring) and is now a classic of the concert hall repertory. Other commissions from Diaghilev included Pulcinella (chor. Massine 1920) and Les Noces (chor. Nijinska , 1923), and later scores written specially for dance included Le Baiser de la fée (chor. Nijinska , Ida Rubinstein's Company, Paris, 1928), Perséphone (chor. Joos , Ida Rubinstein's Company, Paris, 1934), and Scènes de Ballet (chor. Dolin for Seven Lively Arts revue, Ziegfeld Theater, New York, 1948). It is, though, with Balanchine that Stravinsky's music has become most closely associated. Apollon musagète was first used by Bolm in Washington in 1928, but when Balanchine came to choreograph his own version later that year he claimed it as a personal turning point, Stravinsky's austere neo-classicism inspiring a luminous clarity in his own invention. Stravinsky composed only four ballet scores for Balanchine—Jeu de cartes (American Ballet, New York, 1937), Circus Polka, a ballet for elephants (Barnum and Bailey Circus, New York, 1942), Orpheus (Ballet Society, New York, 1948), and Agon (New York City Ballet, 1957)—but the latter used many of the concert works for his ballets, including Danses concertantes (1944), Jewels (‘Rubies’ section, set to Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra, 1967), Duo Concertant (1972), and Symphony in Three Movements (1972).
The rhythmic wit and drive of Stravinsky's music, coupled with its frequent incorporation of dance forms and popular themes, have made it popular with many other choreographers, including Béjart , MacMillan , Robbins , and A. Page , and among the concert pieces most frequently used for dance are the Concerto in D (chor. Hoyer , Hamburg, 1950; chor. Robbins in The Cage, New York City Ballet, 1951; chor. van Manen in Tilt, Netherlands Dance Theatre, 1972); Ebony Concerto (chor. Taras , New York City Ballet, 1960; chor. Cranko , Munich State Opera, 1970; chor. van Manen, Dutch National Ballet, 1976; chor. Woitzel , NYCB, 1994; chor. A. Page , Royal Ballet, 1995) and the Concerto for Piano and Brass Instruments (chor. Taras in Arcade, New York City Ballet, 1963; chor. Robbins in Dumbarton Oaks, NYCB, 1972). On 25 June 1972 NYCB began a week-long Stravinsky Festival featuring 31 ballets to his music, 21 of them new creations. A second festival was held in 1982. Stravinsky's published writings include Chronicle of My Life (London, 1936), Conversations with Igor Stravinsky (with Robert Craft , New York, 1959), Dialogues and a Diary (with Robert Craft , New York, 1963 and London, 1968), and Themes and Episodes (with Robert Craft, New York, 1966).

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Streb , Elizabeth

(b Rochester, NY, 23 Feb. 1950).
US dancer, choreographer, and director. She studied at the State University of New York and with various teachers, including Cunningham . She made her debut with Margaret Jenkins's company (1972–4), then moved to New York where she began to choreograph and perform her distinctively acrobatic, risk-taking works, such as Fall Line (1981), a duet in which she and her partner performed on a platform angled at 35 degrees, and Little Ease (1985) in which she attempted to dance in a small, cramped box. In 1985 she formed her own company, Ringside, choreographing for larger numbers and using sophisticated equipment like flying harnesses, trampolines, walls, and platforms to facilitate more strenuous and daring moves. The titles of her works frequently indicate the nature of the action: Impact (1991), Up (1995), and Breakthru (1995). Her early works were performed in silence, except for the amplified sound of the dancers, but more recently Streb has worked with composer Matthew Ostrowski.

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Streetcar Named Desire, A.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Bettis , music by Alex North (arr. Rayburn Wright ), and costumes by Saul Bolasni . Premiered 9 Oct. 1952 by the Slavenska-Franklin Ballet at Her Majesty's Theatre, Montreal, with Slavenska and Franklin . It is based on Tennessee Williams's 1947 play and has been revived for American Ballet Theatre (1954), Washington National Ballet (1974), and Dance Theatre of Harlem (1982).

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Stretton , Ross

(b Canberra, 6 June 1952).
Australian dancer and director. He studied at the Australian Ballet School and graduated into the company, where he became principal. In 1979 he moved to America where he joined the Joffrey Ballet and then American Ballet Theatre in 1981. He retired in 1990 to become assistant to the directors, company regisseur, and then assistant director (from 1992). In 1997 he was appointed director of Australian Ballet and in 2001 director of the Royal Ballet.

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Strider.

Modern dance group founded by Richard Alston in 1972. Featuring choreography by himself, Jacky Lansley, Sally Potter, and others, it was one of the first small-scale independent dance groups in the UK and had a seminal influence on the development of modern dance. It folded in 1975 and was a forerunner to Second Stride.

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Stroman , Susan.

US choreographer. She was active during the 1980s, choreographing for various regional productions, but it was with the off-Broadway show And the World Goes Round (1991), which she co-conceived and choreographed, that she was acknowledged as a leading talent in musical theatre. She has since received numerous awards for her choreography, including Crazy for You (Broadway, 1992), Show Boat (Broadway, 1994), Steel Pier (Broadway, 1997), and Oklahoma! (London, 1998). She has also choreographed works for the Graham company, But Not For Me (mus. Gershwin , 1998), and for New York City Ballet, Blossom Got Kissed, the final section of Duke! (mus. Ellington , 1999). In 1999 she choreographed, directed, and co-created (with author John Weidman) the acclaimed dance theatre work Contact (mus. various, Lincoln Center, New York) and in 2001 directed and choreographed the multi-award winning musical The Producers. She has also choreographed for New York City Opera, and for television, including An Evening with the Boston Pops: A Tribute to Leonard Bernstein.

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Struchkova , Raissa

(b Moscow, 5 Oct. 1925).
Russian dancer. She studied at the Moscow Ballet School with E. Gerdt from whom she acquired a classical technique which was unusually pure for Moscow dancers of that time. She made her debut while still a student, in The Little Stork (1937), creating the title role, and in 1944 she graduated into the company where she danced until 1978. Her light, lyrical style equipped her for all the standard ballerina roles though she was also noted for her distinctive dramatic interpretations of contemporary roles including Cinderella, which she danced in the 1961 Bolshoi film, and Parasha in Zakharov's The Bronze Horseman. She created roles in Song of the Woods (1961) and Lieutenant Kije (1963)—both by Tarasova and her husband Lapauri , with whom she also famously danced in display pieces like Spring Waters. In 1967 she became a teacher of the choreographer's faculty at GITIS (State Institute of Theatrical Art) and in 1981 she became writer and editor of the ballet magazine Sovetsky Ballet. She staged a production of Swan Lake for English National Ballet in 1993. She was made People's Artist of the USSR in 1959.

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Studio Wacker.

The Paris studio at 69 Rue de Douai where Preobrajenska , Rousanne , V. Gsovsky , and others taught for many years and which served as an unofficial networking centre for the international dance community until it was demolished in 1974.

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Stukolkin , Timofei

(b 6 May 1829, d St Petersburg, 1894).
Russian dancer who was considered one of the greatest character dancers of the Maryinsky Theatre during his time there (1848–94). He created the roles of Catalabutte in Sleeping Beauty (1890) and Drosselmeyer in Nutcracker (1892).

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Sturman , Marjorie

(b London, 1902).
British teacher and director. She studied with Ray Espinosa in Johannesburg and with E. Espinosa and Volkova in London. In 1922 she began her teaching career in Pretoria and went on to open a school in Johannesburg in 1934. She formed Pretoria Ballet Club in 1943 and co-founded Festival Ballet Society in 1944, from which PACT Ballet developed.

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Stuttgart Ballet, The.

Germany's leading classical ballet company, based in Stuttgart. The city has a long history of ballet that dates back to court ballets performed there in 1609, and the flourishing period (1684–1709) when Jacques Courcelles was court ballet master. It came to international prominence when Noverre became ballet master of the Württemburg Court (1759–67). During his tenure he pioneered the ballet d'action and choreographed many works, including Rinaldo und Armida and Medea und Jason. He enlarged the company and attracted many guest artists, including G. Vestris , Dauberval , and Heinel . The Duke of Württemburg supported a school between 1771 and 1794. In 1824 F. Taglioni became ballet master (remaining until 1828) and his highly successful ballet Jocko, or the Brazilian Ape was premiered in 1826 with Marie Taglioni in the leading role. After this, ballet productions were largely subsumed into opera, though foreign companies continued to visit. In 1922 Schlemmer's Triadic Ballet had its first complete performance in the city's Landes Theater and between 1927 and 1939 Lina Gerza was an active choreographer and director of what was then known as the Ballet of the Württemberg State Theatre. She was succeeded there by six more ballet directors but in 1957 the company appointed Beriozoff who renewed public interest in classical ballet with his stagings of the 19th-century classics such as Sleeping Beauty (1957) and Swan Lake (1960) and the Fokine repertoire. He brought in international guest artists like Chauviré , Marjorie Tallchief , and his daughter Svetlana Beriosova , and in 1960 invited Cranko to come and create his Prince of the Pagodas. In 1961 Cranko took over direction of what had become known as the Stuttgart Ballet, turning it into one of the world's leading companies. Under his care Marcia Haydée developed into a great dramatic ballerina, in partnership with Richard Cragun , and Cranko's concern to raise technical standards produced many other fine principals, including Keil and Hanke. (Stuttgart Ballet School, founded in 1958, was made residential in 1971 under his direction and renamed the John Cranko School in 1974.) Cranko choreographed many works for the company including Romeo and Juliet (1962), Onegin (1965), and The Taming of the Shrew (1969), and he also brought in works by MacMillan , P. Wright , and others. The repertoire's strong dramatic bias developed dancers less famous for their uniformity of style than for their acting ability, personality, and adaptability to both classic and contemporary roles. As foreign tours became more extensive (New York, 1969, Russia, 1971), a second company, the Noverre Ballet, was formed to perform in opera productions and give its own chamber performances, but it was re-absorbed into the main company in 1973. The Noverre Society, formed in Stuttgart in 1958, developed into an important platform for new choreographers during this period with Kylián, Neumeier, and more latterly Forsythe showing their first works there. After Cranko's death in 1973, Tetley became director but though he created three works for the company, including Voluntaries, his style was not liked and Haydée took over in 1976. She continued there for nineteen years, maintaining the Cranko inheritance and acquiring a repertory of new work from Béjart, van Manen , and others. However, she came under increasing criticism for her frequent absences while running her other company in Santiago de Chile. With less new work coming into the repertory and the younger dancers getting insufficient nurturing, the Stuttgart declined from its golden age of the 1960s and 1970s. Reid Anderson was appointed director in 1996.

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Stuyf , Koert

(b Amsterdam, 6 June 1938).
Dutch dancer, choreographer. teacher, and director. He studied in Holland and the US, performing with various companies including Netherlands Ballet, Scapino Ballet, and the companies of Lang , Tudor , Limón , and Butler . In 1962 he and his wife Ellen Edinoff established the Foundation Contemporary Dance, for which he choreographed many works, including Reflections on Pale Silence (mus. Stockhausen , 1964), many of which made use of art works and props and were close in spirit to happenings. The foundation was reorganized in 1975 and gave no performances beyond that date.

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Subligny , Marie-Thérèse

(b Paris, July 1666, d possibly 1735).
French dancer. She appeared in the last court ballets given by Louis XIV and was premiere danseuse at Paris Opera (1690–1705), appearing in the opera ballets of Lully and Campra . This was at a time when women were just beginning to enter the dance profession and when she performed in London in 1699 she was the first professional ballerina ever seen by English audiences, performing with Claude Ballon.

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Suite en blanc.

Ballet in one act with choreograhy by Lifar , music by Lalo , and design by Dignimont . Premiered by Paris Opera Ballet, 19 June 1943 at Zurich, with Schwarz , Chauviré , Darsonal , and Lifar . It is set to Lalo's Suite from Namouna and is one of Lifar's rare plotless ballets, designed to display the elegance and virtuosity of its dancers. It was given its title because the original cast wore all-white costumes. On subsequent revivals the men wore black tights (Nouveau Ballet de Monte Carlo, 1946) and black boleros (London Festival Ballet, 1966) and the title was changed to Noir et blanc. Australian Ballet revived it under its original title in 1981.

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Summers , Elaine

(b Perth, Australia, 20 Feb. 1925).
US dancer, choreographer, and film-maker. She studied with Graham , Cunningham , and others and was one of the original members of the New York Judson Church dance collective. One of the first choreographers to explore the use of multimedia in dance, she created the show Fantastic Garden in 1964. She subsequently became director of the Experimental Intermedia Foundation, then co-director of the Sarasota Visual Arts Center.

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Summerspace.

Modern dance work in one act with choreography by Cunningham , music by Morton Feldman , and design by Rauschenberg . Premiered 17 Aug. 1958 by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company at Connecticut College, New London, Connecticut, with Cunningham, Brown , Farber , and Charlip . It is choreographed for six dancers and deals with changing tempos, the dancers performing jumps at contrasting speeds in an airy space created by the pointillist effect of costumes and backdrop. It was Cunningham's first work to enter the repertoire of classical ballet companies. In the New York City Ballet revival (1966) the dancers wore shoes and danced on pointe. It has also been revived for Cullberg Ballet (1967), Boston Ballet (1974), and Theatre du Silence (1976).

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Sunshine Matinées.

Annual dance performances established in London in 1919 by P. J. S. Richardson and D. Claremont (from the Sunshine Home for Blind Babies) which at the time formed a significant showcase for English dancing. The first took place at the London Queen's Theatre and the series ended in 1930 when the Camargo Society took over its function. During that time it featured dancers such as Wigman , Trefilova , Dolin , Bedells , de Valois , and Astafieva . In 1924 the All England Sunshine Dancing Competition was founded for young dancers which developed into the Sunshine Galas in 1965, giving the Beryl Grey award to the best classical dancer.

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Surinach , Carlos

(b Barcelona, 14 Mar. 1915, d Connecticut, 12 Nov. 1997).
Spanish-US composer who wrote several dance scores including Graham's Embattled Garden (1958) and Acrobats of God (1960). His concert music was also used for dance, for example in Ailey's Feast of Ashes (1962) and P. Taylor's Agathe's Tale (1967).

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Svetlana.

Ballet in a prologue and three acts with choreography by Radunsky , Pospekhin , and Popko , music by D. Klebanov , and design by R. Makarov . Premiered 20 Dec. 1939 at Bolshoi Filial Theatre, Moscow, with Lepeshinskaya , Kondratov , and Messerer . It is set in Taiga and it tells the story of Svetlana's heroic decision to set fire to her own house in order to warn frontier guards of enemy danger. It appeared in many different versions throughout the USSR.

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Swan Lake (Fr. title Lac des cygnes; Russ. title Lebedinoe ozero).

Ballet in four acts, arguably the most famous, and certainly one of the most frequently performed works in the international repertory. The first production was choreographed by V. Reisinger , with libretto by V. P. Begitchev and Vasily Geltser , music by Tchaikovsky , and design by H. Shangin , K. Valts , and H. Groppius (sets) and H. Simone and Vormenko (costumes). It was premiered 4 Mar. 1877 at the Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow, with P. Karpakova , but neither the ballet nor its ballerina were well received. Joseph Hansen's revised versions of 1880 and 1882 continued in the Bolshoi repertory for over 40 performances but Petipa and Ivanov's production for the Maryinsky Theatre, St Petersburg, became the definitive version. Ivanov originally choreographed Act II for a Tchaikovsky Memorial Matinée, 1 Mar. 1894, with Legnani and P. Gerdt . The full ballet, with Acts I and III choreographed by Petipa and Acts II and IV by Ivanov and with designs by M. I. Bocharov and H. Levogt , was performed 27 Jan. 1895, again with Legnani and Gerdt . Some major changes were made in the order of Tchaikovsky's score.
The ballet's libretto is based on German folk tale elements and tells the story of the Princess Odette who is turned into a swan by the magician Rothbart . She and her companions can only be restored to human form if a man swears true love for her. One night she is met by Prince Siegfried hunting by the lake—she tells him her story; he falls in love and vows to rescue her. Back at his castle, Siegfried attends a ball where he is expected to choose his future bride. Rothbart appears with his daughter Odile who is disguised as a black swan and appears to be identical to Odette (in most productions the roles of Odette and Odile are danced by the same ballerina). Though her dancing is much harder and flashier than Odette's she ruthlessly imitates the latter's characteristic motifs, such as her fluttering, lyrical arm movements. Siegfried is dazzled by Odile's trickery and begs to marry her. Once his vow to Odette is broken Rothbart and his daughter triumphantly reveal their true identity. Heartbroken, Siegfried races back to the lake to console Odette. In some versions he fights with Rothbart, overcomes him and the spell is broken. In others he and Odette plunge into the lake together, and in a final apotheosis are shown to find perfect love and happiness after death. The enduring success of the ballet owes much to the music's dramatic variety and exquisite lyricism. The extreme challenge between the romantic purity of Odette and the seductive virtuosity of Odile make this dual role one of the greatest challenges in the ballerina's repertory.
The Petipa-Ivanov production has formed the basis of most subsequent stagings around the world. The first London production was a two-act version, shown at the Hippodrome in 1910 (with Preobrajenska), and Diaghilev's company also toured a two-act version in 1911, staged and revised by Fokine . In New York an abridged version was first produced by Mordkin in 1911, but the complete ballet was not seen in the West until 1934 when Nicolai Sergeyev staged it for the Vic-Wells Ballet. This itself formed the basis for many subsequent versions outside Russia (see below). Performances of the ballet in Leningrad were disrupted during the revolution and First World War but Vaganova staged an important production for the Kirov in 1933. Lopukhov's 1945 staging for the Kirov later became the basis for an important version by Bourmeister in 1953 (for the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Theatre) which restored Tchaikovsky's music to its original order. At the Bolshoi in Moscow, performances were more continuous. Gorsky mounted a version in 1901, which was to be the basis for most later productions.
Outside Russia there were countless new productions during the 20th century, including Balanchine's extended version of Act II for New York City Ballet, 1951, Cranko's for Stuttgart Ballet, 1963, Ashton's for the Royal Ballet, 1963, Nureyev's for the Vienna State Opera Ballet, 1964, Erik Bruhn's for National Ballet of Canada, 1966, Yuri Grigorovich's for Bolshoi Ballet, 1969, Dowell's for the Royal Ballet, 1986, Tomasson's for San Francisco Ballet, 1988, Peter Martins's for Royal Danish Ballet, 1996, and Peter Schaufuss for Berlin Opera Ballet, 1992. Most versions retain the core of what is considered the original Petipa-Ivanov text, though with some new choreography added. Over the years some additions have become regarded as standard, such as the Prince's solo just before he meets Odette, and Rothbart and Odile's fantastical entrance in Act III. In some productions the story is presented from a new perspective. Bruhn's 1966 version presents Rothbart as a woman, implying that Siegfried suffers from an oedipal complex while Christopher Gable's for Northern Ballet Theatre 1992 presents Rothbart as a fascist dictator.
There are a few productions which retain little or none of the original choreography. Neumeier's Illusions—Like Swan Lake (chor. for Hamburg Ballet, 1976) recasts Siegfried as the mad King Ludwig of Bavaria. Mats Ek's , for Cullberg Ballet, pivots around the Prince's oedipal relationship with his mother; and Matthew Bourne's for Adventures in Motion Pictures (1995) presents Odette as a male swan and Odile as a glamorous stud. Both characters function as seductive alter egos for Siegfried in a version that puts the Prince and his search for love and identity at the centre of the plot and re-casts the traditional female swan choreography into dance that is raw, powerful, and very male.

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Swan of Tuonela.

Sibelius's Legend for Orchestra has been used by several choreographers including A. Saxelin (Helsinki, 1948), W. Ulbrich (Leipzig, 1958), Dolin (Guatemala, 1965), Bintley (Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet, 1982), and Ek (pas de deux for Finnish National Ballet, 1998).

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Swansong.

Ballet in one act with choreography and design by C. Bruce and music by Phillip Chambon . Premiered Nov. 1987 by London Festival Ballet in Bilbao with Koen Onzia , Matz Skoog , and Kevin Richmond . A stark male trio evoking the psychological and physical torture experienced by political prisoners.

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Sweden.

Ballet came to Sweden in the 17th century when Antoine de Beaulieu staged court ballets in the French style. These were particularly brilliant during Queen Christina's reign. The first professional troupe and ballet school were founded by King Gustav III in 1773 at the Royal Opera and Louis Gallodier was the ballet master. Antoine Bournonville joined the company in 1781 bringing with him the new style of ballet d'action, and in the early 19th century many foreign artists performed with it. F. Taglioni was premier danseur (1803–4) and also ballet master in 1818. Marie , his daughter, was born in Stockholm and danced in the city in 1841 with the Swedish dancer C. Johansson just before he left to pursue his career in St Petersburg. Several ballets by August Bournonville were staged for the Royal Swedish Ballet, and Anders Selinder , its first Swedish ballet master, created many folk ballets for its repertoire. Towards the end of the 19th century ballet went into a decline though public interest was revived by performances by Isadora Duncan (1906) and Pavlova (1908) in Stockholm. Fokine worked with the RSB (1913–14) staging Carnaval, Les Sylphides, etc. and dancing leading roles with V. Fokina , but war interrupted plans for his appointment as ballet master. In 1920 Rolf de Maré founded Les Ballets Suédois in Paris taking some of the best dancers from RSB with him, and the ballet company became largely subsumed into opera productions. Some dance activity persisted elsewhere, such as the Gothenburg Opera Ballet (see below), which staged some extracts of the classics, the company of Birgit Cullberg (founded 1939), and the Svensk Dansteatre which Cullberg later co-founded with Ivo Cramér . However, in 1949 the Royal Theatre engaged Tudor to overhaul the ballet. He staged Giselle and several of his own works including Jardin aux lilas and Gala Performance. In 1953 Skeaping took over adding other standard classics like Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty and also new works by Swedish choreographers like Cullberg , Åkesson and Cramér . The RSB began to acquire an international reputation with dancers like von Rosen and Andersen . A succession of directors followed including Tudor (1961 and 1963) who choreographed Echoing of Trumpets (1963) for the company, Bruhn (1967–72) who introduced works by Robbins , Tetley , MacMillan , and others, and Cramér (1975–80). Under the direction of Frank Andersen the company ran an ambitious programme of works to celebrate its 225th anniversary, including a revival of MacMillan's Mayerling, the reconstruction of four works from Les Ballets Suédois's repertory, and Neumeier's Peer Gynt.
In Gothenburg the Stora Theatre became a full-time opera house in 1920 with a ballet company attached. At first it performed largely in opera productions but after 1967 directors C. Borg , von Rosen , and U. Gadd succeeded in raising both artistic and innovative standards. In 1988 the new director, Juhani Terasvuori, shifted the emphasis more towards the 19th-century classics, but when Robert North was director (1991–5) he restored a more contemporary focus, introducing several of his own works into the repertory. Gadd was re-appointed director 1995–9.
The 1960s was generally a fruitful period for dance in Sweden, with many new companies emerging. The Scandinavian Ballet, founded by von Rosen, and A. Fridericia , presented a Swedish-Danish repertoire of works by Bournonville , van Rosen , and Cramér , and Cullberg became director of the state-subsidized Cullberg Ballet which presented her own works. She was succeeded by her son Mats Ek , whose own work dominated the repertory, and briefly by C. Carlson . In 1968 Cramér founded Cramérballetten in Stockholm to present his own ballets. The ballet company attached to the Stadsteatern at Malmö until 1994 performed a repertory of largely neo-classical works and has since relocated to the town of Lund. Since the 1980s a small but vigorous independent dance scene has also developed, with companies like Efva Lilja Danceproduction, Rubicon, and the Modern Dance Theatre presenting regular dance performances in Stockholm, and choreographer Per Jonsson acquiring an international reputation.

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Swinson , Cyril

(b London, 1910, d St Albans, 3 Jan. 1963).
British publisher and writer. As a director of A. & C. Black, London, he encouraged the company to publish many important dance books in England and America. He was also associate editor of Ballet Annual for seventeen years, and author, sometimes under the pen-names of Joseph Sandon or Hugh Fisher , of several books, including The Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet (London, 1956) and several volumes in the series Dancers of Today.

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Switzerland.

There is no national Swiss ballet but companies are attached to opera houses in Zurich, Berne, Basel, St Gall, Lucerne, and Geneva. In Zurich, ballet was subservient to opera, for much of this century, though during the 1930s Mlakar bolstered its image with the success of his own original ballets. It was only when Beriozoff was appointed ballet master in 1964 that a regular repertory was established, with stagings of the classics, works from the Fokine repertoire, and some of his own ballets. After he left in 1971 he was followed by a succession of short-lived ballet directors including G. Cauley (1973–5) and H. Meister and J. Burth (1975–8). Stability returned with the appointment of P. Neary (1978–85) who revived many Balanchine works. She was succeeded by Uwe Scholz and then Bernd Bienert who brought in many experimental works by Amanda Miller , M. Ek , and himself. In 1996 Heinz Spoerli was appointed director. In Geneva public interest in dance was galvanized at the beginning of the century through performances by Isadora Duncan and pupils of Jaques-Dalcroze but regular ballet performances only started with the opening of the rebuilt Grand Theatre and its associate company, directed by J. Charrat (1962–4), A. Catá (1969–73) who established a Balanchine repertory, P. Neary (1973–8), who continued the emphasis on Balanchine , Araiz (1980–8), Gradimir Pankov (1988–96), and since 1996 by François Passard and Giorgio Mancini , who have introduced works by younger choreographers such as A. Miller and Naharin into the repertory. At Basel, ballet became a major force within its Municipal Theatre when V. Orlikovsky was ballet director (1955–67). He staged many of the standard classics and ballets from the Soviet repertory including the first W. European production of The Stone Flower (1962). Standards declined after he left, but they began an upturn under the direction of P. Smok (1970–3) which was furthered by Spoerli (1973–92). Under his direction Basel became an international centre for dance, with a repertory composed of both classical and contemporary works, many by himself. He was succeeded by Youri Vámos and in 1996 the company was disbanded and replaced by a Tanztheater directed by Joachim Schlömer . In Windisch, Jean Deroc founded the Swiss Chamber Ballet in 1968. Ballet activity is also focused on Lausanne where the international Prix de Lausanne was founded for students aged 16–19 (see under competitions). The city is also home to Béjart's company which was renamed Béjart-Ballet Lausanne when it moved there in 1987.
Modern dance was established in the country when Laban set up his ‘Dance Farm’ near Locarno and later his school in Zurich. This was one of the focal points of Central European modern dance just prior to, and during, the First World War. Dancer Charlotte Bara built herself the Teatro San Martino at Ascona and staged modern dance performances there for many years. There was also strong interest in modern dance in Basel when R. Chladek and H. Rosen performed regularly at the Municipal Theatre during the late 1920s and 1930s. Since the 1980s a small number of independent modern dance companies have emerged, despite the shortage of subsidy, such as Compagnie Philippe Saire, which is based in Morges and has established a high international reputation.

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Swope , Martha

(b c.1933).
US photographer who has been official photographer of New York City Ballet, Martha Graham Dance Company, and Dance Theatre of Harlem. Some of her portraits have become iconic images of 20th-century dance. She is co-author of Martha Graham (with L. Leatherman ; New York, 1967) and New York City Ballet (with L. Kirstein ; New York, 1973).

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Sydney Dance Company.

Australian modern dance company. It was founded by S. Musitz in 1965 as an education group and re-formed as the Dance Company of New South Wales in 1971. Jaap Flier was artistic director 1975–6 and introduced works by himself, Tetley, Sokolow, and others into the repertory. In 1976 G. Murphy took over, and the company dances many of his own works including Synergy with Synergy (1992), created with the percussion group Synergy, The Protecting Veil (mus. J. Tavener , 1994), the dance theatre piece Free Radicals (mus. M. Askill , 1996), and Salome (mus. various, 1999). The company's home performance base moved to Sydney Opera House where it has performed twice a year since 1977. It undertakes frequent international tours—its European debut was in 1980 and its New York debut in 1981.

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Sylphide, La.

Ballet in two acts with choreography by F. Taglioni , libretto by A. Nourrit , music by Schneitzhoeffer , sets by P. L. C. Ciceri , and costumes by E. Lami . Premiered 12 Mar. 1832 at the Paris Opera with M. Taglioni , Noblet , Mazilier , and Elie . It was the first fully fledged Romantic ballet. Based on Charles Nodier's Trilby, ou le Lutin d'Argail (1822), its plot and atmosphere were also inspired by the supernatural ‘Ballet of the Nuns’ which had appeared in Meyerbeer's opera Robert le diable (1831). It tells the story of a young Scottish farmer, James , who is visited by the Sylphide on the eve of his wedding to Effie. She entices him away to the woods, where, enchanted by her, he wishes to keep her for ever. The evil witch Madge gives him a magic shawl to put around her shoulders but when he does so the Sylphide's wings fall off and she dies. As in so many Romantic ballets, the hero haplessly pursues an otherworldly beauty and in doing so destroys his chances of happiness in the real world. In the final scene, as James stands alone and distraught, Effie passes by on her way to marry her other suitor, Gurn. The ballet introduced many of the elements that dominated the Romantic movement—female dancers as supernatural beings dressed in white tulle, an intensely poetic atmosphere (created by the recently installed gas lamps at the Opera), and at the centre Taglioni herself, with her famously light jump and graceful facility in dancing on pointe. The ballet was performed all around the world, premiering in London and Berlin in 1832, New York and St Petersburg in 1835, and Vienna in 1836. An earlier version had been choreographed by L. Henry in Milan (1828) as La silfide, and Bournonville staged his own new version with music by Løvenskjold in Copenhagen 28 Nov. 1836 with himself and Grahn in the leading roles. This production is still in the repertoire of the Royal Danish Ballet and has been revived many times, including by von Rosen (Ballet Rambert, 1960), Bruhn (National Ballet of Canada, 1964), Lander (American Ballet Theatre, 1964), Brenaa (Scottish Ballet, 1973), and P. Schaufuss (English National Ballet, 1979). Productions using the Schneitzhoeffer score have been staged by V. Gsovsky (Ballets des Champs-Elysées, 1946), Adama (a version which also goes back to the original sources, Bremen, 1964), and Lacotte (Paris Opera, 1972).

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Sylphides, Les (orig. Russ. title Chopiniana).

Ballet in one act with choreography by Fokine and music by Chopin . The original version was premiered 23 Feb. 1907 at the Maryinsky Theatre, St Petersburg, with Pavlova , Fokina , and Oboukhoff . It was set to five piano pieces orchestrated by Glazunov and unlike the final version was Polish rather than Romantic in character. The opening Polonaise in A major (Op. 40, No. 1) was set in a ballroom; the Nocturne in A flat (Op. 32, No. 2) represented Chopin, dreaming feverishly in Majorca; the Mazurka in C sharp minor (Op. 50, No. 3) depicted a Polish wedding; the Valse in C sharp minor (Op. 64, No. 2) was a pas de deux in which the ballerina wore Romantic ballet dress; and the final Tarantella in A flat major (Op. 43) represented a Neapolitan folk scene. A year later Fokine revised the ballet, taking the Romantic pas de deux as his inspiration. Some extra Chopin pieces (orch. Maurice Keller ) were added to the score and the ballet became a plotless work in which a poet dances with a group of sylphides, the choreography recreating the soft lines and lilting ballon of the Romantic style. This version was premiered 21 Mar. 1908 at Maryinsky Theatre, St Petersburg, with Preobrajenska, Pavlova, Karsavina, and Nijinsky. The third version, which is the one seen today, was created for Paris. Diaghilev , initially against Fokine's wishes, retitled it Les Sylphides and added new designs by Benois which placed the sylphides in the setting of a ruined monastery. It was premiered 2 June 1909 by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes at Théâtre du Chatelet with Pavlova, Karsavina, Baldina, and Nijinsky. It opens with the Polonaise in A major (although in Western performances this tends to be replaced by the Prelude in A major (Op. 28, No. 7), and is followed by the Nocturne in A flat major (Op. 33, No. 2) which is danced by three female soloists, one male soloist, and the corps. After this comes the Valse in G flat major (Op. 70, No. 1) danced by the first female soloist; the Mazurka in D major (Op. 32, No. 2), usually danced by the ballerina; the Mazurka in C major (Op. 67, No. 3), danced by the Poet; the repeated Prelude in A major (Op. 28, No. 7) danced by the second female soloist; the Valse in C sharp minor (Op. 64, No. 2), which is the pas de deux for the Poet and Ballerina in the original version; and finally the Grande Valse in E flat major (Op. 18) for the whole ensemble. For a later production Fokine choreographed the Mazurka in C major (Op. 33, No. 3) as an alternative variation for the Poet, which is still danced by the Kirov. Fokine revived the work for many companies around the world including Ballet Theatre (1940). The Royal Ballet's production goes back to Markova's staging for the Vic-Wells Ballet (1932). Fokine wrote about its creation in Memoirs of a Ballet Master (Boston, 1961).

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Sylvia, ou La Nymphe de Diane.

Ballet in three acts with choreography by Mérante , libretto by Jules Barbier and Baron de Reinach , music by Delibes , sets by Chéret , Rubé , and Chaperon , and costumes by E. Lacoste . Premiered 14 June 1876 at the Paris Opera with Mérante and Sangalli. Delibes's score is considered to be one of the masterpieces of the ballet repertoire with its vividly descriptive orchestration and exquisite melodies, but the ballet's success has always been hampered by its contrived and flimsy libretto (written after Tasso's pastoral Aminta). It tells the story of the shepherd Aminta who falls in love with Sylvia, a nymph of Diana. She rejects him but, undaunted, he pursues her and attempts to rescue her when she is captured by the huntsman, Orion. Sylvia's escape is finally facilitated by Eros rather than Aminta as the former has been keeping a benign watch over the lovers' fate. But even so, Sylvia decides she loves Aminta and confesses this to Diana. At first the goddess forbids the match but, after the intervention of Eros, she blesses their union.
Though Mérante's version was short-lived, Staats subsequently used it as a basis for his revival at Paris Opera in 1919. Many other choreographers have also been drawn to Delibes's score including Ivanov, for Maryinsky Theatre in 1901; Lifar for Paris Opera in 1941 (revived by Lycette Darsonval in 1979); and Balanchine, whose Act III pas de deux for New York City Ballet was first danced by Maria Tallchief and Magallanes in 1950. Ashton choreographed a complete new version for Sadler's Wells Ballet (premiered 3 Sept. 1952 at the Royal Opera House) with Fonteyn and Somes. This libretto was revised but still suffered from two-dimensional characters and a clumsy plot. Despite praise for the music and for Ashton's choreography for Fonteyn, the ballet did not remain long in the repertoire (though Ashton compressed it into a one-act version in 1967). Bintley's version for Birmingham Royal Ballet (1993) was similarly flawed. Though the choreography for Sylvia (M. Yoshida ) and Aminta (J. Cipolla ) was considered lyrically inventive and the designs by Sue Blane added a contemporary twist (Eros drove a large limousine through the leafy archaic setting), these did not successfully conceal the cracks in the old plot. In 1997 another new version was choreographed by Neumeier for Paris Opera. Updated to a contemporary, minimalist world it is subtitled ‘Three Choreographic Poems on a Mythical Theme’.

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symphonic ballets.

The term used to describe several ballets choreographed by Massine during the 1930s which were settings of entire symphonies, including Les Présages (Tchaikovsky's 5th, 1933); Choreartium (Brahms's 4th, 1933), and Symphonie fantastique (Berlioz, 1936). Massine claimed to express the form and content of the music through pure dance, though some dramatic elements of character and symbolism were also conveyed. His use of symphonic scores outraged members of the music establishment who argued that they had not been written for dance, even though Massine was not the first choreographer to use symphonic music. Duncan had performed to Beethoven's 7th in New York, 1908; Gorsky had choreographed Glazunov's 5th, Moscow, 1915; and Lopukhov had set Beethoven's 4th in Dance Symphony, 1923. The term has dropped out of use and many choreographers use symphonies with impunity, such as Béjart's setting of Beethoven's 9th and Tharp's of Beethoven's 7th.

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Symphonic Variations.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Ashton , music by Franck , and design by Fedorovitch . Premiered 24 Apr. 1946 by Sadler's Wells Ballet at Covent Garden, London, with Fonteyn, May, Shearer, Somes, Shaw, and Henry Danton. It is set to Franck's score of the same title. The horrors of the Second World War and the death of his mother had inspired Ashton to undertake a study of mysticism during the 1940s and though this ballet has no plot its defining atmosphere is one of transcendence and calm. It was also the first work he choreographed for the Royal Opera House stage (after the company moved there from the smaller Sadler's Wells) and he exploited its scale in choreography of a profoundly spacious quality. Its six dancers seem to move on the ebb and flow of Franck's music, and though the choreography is pared to essentials it requires precise musicality and transparently pure technique. The ballet has since been revived by Dutch National Ballet (1979) and American Ballet Theatre (1992).

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Symphonie fantastique.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Massine , music by Berlioz , and design by Bérard . Premiered 24 July 1936 by Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo at Covent Garden, London, with Massine and Toumanova. This symphonic ballet follows closely both the music and libretto of Berlioz's score. It shows a young musician who, in a series of opium-induced dreams, pursues his unattainable Beloved or idée fixe through a ballroom, an idyllic landscape, a prison, and a witches' sabbath where she appears hideously transformed. Each of its five scenes is choreographed in a very distinct style. It has been revived by several companies, such as Paris Opera (1957), sometimes as Episode in the Life of an Artist. Petit choreographed a new version for Paris Opera in 1975.

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Symphonie pour un homme seul

(Eng. title Symphony for a Lonely Man). Ballet in one act with choreography by Béjart and music by P. Henry and P. Schaeffer . Premiered 26 July 1955 by Ballet de l'Etoile, Paris, with Béjart and Seigneuret . It was Béjart's first success and explores the dilemma of modern man, trapped between his instincts and modern technology. It has been revived for his various companies and for Cologne Ballet (1963).

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Symphony in C (orig. Le Palais de cristal).

Ballet in one act with choreography by Balanchine , music by Bizet , and design by L. Fini . Premiered 28 July 1947 by Paris Opera with Darsonval , Toumanova , Bardin , Kalioujny , Ritz , Renault , and Bozzoni . It was created as a showcase for the talent of the whole company. A different ‘team’ of dancers (corps, two demisoloist couples, and a principal couple) dance each of the first three movements, with a fourth ‘team’ initiating the final movement before being joined by the whole cast on stage. Balanchine re-staged it a year later for New York City Ballet as Symphony in C and it has subsequently been revived for companies all round the world, including Royal Danish Ballet (1953), Dutch National Ballet (1962), Berlin Opera Ballet (1969), Stuttgart Ballet (1976), and Royal Ballet (1991).

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Symphony in Three Movements.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Balanchine and music by Stravinsky . Premiered 18 June 1972 by New York City Ballet at State Theater, New York, with Leland, Villella , and Tomasson . This plotless setting of Stravinsky's 1945 score contains some of Balanchine's fleetest and most densely patterned dance. Van Manen choreographed a work to the same music for Netherlands Dance Theatre (1963).

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Symphony of Psalms (orig. Psalmensymfonie).

Ballet in one act with choreography by Kylián , music by Stravinsky , set by W. Katz , and costumes by J. Stokvis . Premiered 24 Nov. 1978 by Netherlands Dance Theatre at Circustheater, Scheveningen. In this celebrated setting of Stravinsky's 1930 score, the sixteen dancers frequently appear to move as a single unit through the surging patterns of the choreography, giving powerful physical expression to emotions of both ecstasy and sorrow. Sparemblek used the same score in a version for Gulbenkian Ballet (1972).

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Szeged Contemporary Ballet.

Hungarian modern dance company. It took its present name in 1993 but dates back to ballet performances staged in the city by Károly Zsedényi during the 1940s. A full-time company was formed at the Szeged National Theatre in which Zoltán Imre came to prominence as dancer and choreographer. Economic problems caused its decline but it was relaunched in 1987 as Szeged Ballet by Roland Boker under the guidance of Imre, performing modern dance works and contemporary ballets. In 1993 András Patki and Tamás Juronics were appointed directors bringing in works by Juronics , Roberto Galvin , and Uri Ivgi .

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T

Taglioni.

Famous Italian family of dancers and choreographers. See Taglioni , Filippo; Taglioni , Marie; Taglioni , Marie the younger; Taglioni , Paul; Taglioni , Salvatore.

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Taglioni , Filippo

(b Milan, 5 Nov. 1777, d Como, 11 Feb. 1871 (some sources 11 Sept. 1871)).
Italian dancer and choreographer, and the originator of La Sylphide, the world's first Romantic ballet. The son of Carlo T. and the father of Marie T. and Paul T. He made his debut in 1794 as a child dancing female roles in Pisa. After travelling and performing around Italy he moved to Paris in 1799 where he studied with Coulon and danced at the Paris Opera. In 1802 he left the Opera and was appointed principal dancer and ballet master in Stockholm. A peripatetic and tireless choreographer, he travelled throughout Europe, working in Vienna (where he made his choreographic debut in 1805), Munich, Milan, Turin, Stuttgart, Paris, Berlin, St Petersburg, and Warsaw before retiring to Como. As a choreographer his preferred style was light and airy, his subject-matter tending towards the mystical. His most important work probably took place in Paris, where he choreographed the first productions of the operas Le Dieu et la bayadère (1830), Robert le diable (1831), Gustave III (1833), and Les Huguenots (1836), and the ballets La Sylphide (mus. Schneitzhoeffer , 1832), Nathalie; ou, La Laitière suisse (mus. Gyrowetz , Carafa , 1832), Brézilia; ou, La Tribu des femmes (mus. von Gallenberg , 1835), and La Fille du Danube (mus. Adam , 1836). With his daughter Marie as ballerina he was visiting ballet master to the Imperial Theatres, St Petersburg (1837–42). For St Petersburg he made Miranda (mus. Auber and Rossini , 1838), La Gitana (mus. Schmidt and Aumer , 1838), L'Ombre (mus. Maurer , 1839), L'Écumeur de mer (mus. Adam , 1840), and Aglaë, ou L'Élève d'amour (mus. Keller , 1841). For Stuttgart he made Danina, or Jocko the Brazilian Ape (1826). Much of his energy was devoted to furthering his daughter's career. For her debut in Vienna he created La Réception d'une jeune nymphe à la cour de Terpsichore (1822) and it was his La Sylphide which launched Marie as the foremost Romantic ballerina of her day.

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Taglioni , Marie

(b Stockholm, 23 Apr. 1804, d Marseilles, 22 Apr. 1884).
Swedish-Italian dancer. One of the greatest names in the history of ballet and the most famous dancer of the Romantic era, she was the first Sylphide. Daughter of Filippo T. and sister of Paul T. She studied with her father in Vienna and Cassel and with Coulon in Paris. She made her debut on 10 June 1822 at the Hoftheater in Vienna, dancing in her father's divertissement La Réception d'une jeune nymphe à la cour de Terpsichore. After performing in Munich and Stuttgart, where she created the title role in her father's Danina (1826), she made her Paris debut in 1827 dancing a variation inserted into the ballet Le Sicilien. She was a star of the Paris Opera for the next ten years, adored by the public and so famous that they named cakes after her. In London she counted among her fans the young princess who would become Queen Victoria. The product of her father's aesthetic ideals, she became the most ethereal dancer of the Romantic era, the embodiment of elusive spirituality and supernatural grace. It was she who transformed dancing on pointe from a mere technical trick into a sublime expression of poetic dance. She was also a character dancer of the highest order, and won great acclaim, for instance, for her gypsy dancing as the title character in La Gitana. She caused a sensation wherever she went. Among her greatest creations in Paris were leading roles in Aumer's La Belle au bois dormant (1829) and in her father's La Sylphide (1832), Nathalie; ou, La Laitière suisse (1832), La Révolte au sérail (1833), Brézilia (1835), and La Fille du Danube (1836), along with dancing roles in the operas Le Dieu et la bayadère (1830) and Robert le diable (1831). In 1832 she married Comte Gilbert de Voisins in London, but they separated three years later. She enjoyed a high-profile rivalry with Elssler at the Paris Opera. From 1837 to 1842 she was the toast of St Petersburg, where she was the star ballerina, and she danced to great acclaim all over Europe, including her native Stockholm. In St Petersburg she created roles in her father's Miranda (1838), La Gitana (1838), L'Ombre (1839), L'Écumeur de mer (1840), Aglaë, ou, L'Élève d'amour (1841), and Gerta, Queen of the Elfrides (1842). She created the title role in her father's staging of La Péri at La Scala in Milan (1843), while at Her Majesty's Theatre in London she created roles in Perrot's Pas de quatre and Le Jugement de Pâris (1846). She gave her farewell performance in 1847, retiring to Lake Como, but by 1858 she was back in Paris (forced back to work, said some, by her father's profligate handling of her finances). In 1860 she choreographed her only ballet, Le Papillon (mus. Offenbach ), in Paris for her protégé, the tragically short-lived Emma Livry . She was Inspectrice de la Danse at the Paris Opera (1859–70) and initiated the system of examinations at the Opera. In the war of 1870–1 she lost her entire fortune and was forced to make a living by teaching ballroom dancing in London. She died in Marseilles where she had been living with her son since 1880.

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Taglioni , Marie, the younger

(b Berlin, 27 Oct. 1833 (some sources say 1830), d Neu-Aigen, nr. Vienna, 27 Aug. 1891 (some sources say 27 Apr. 1891)).
German dancer. Daughter of Paul T., granddaughter of Filippo T., and niece of the more famous Marie T., with whom she is sometimes confused. She studied with her father and made her debut in his Coralia at Her Majesty's Theatre in London in 1847. Subsequent roles included his Théa ou La Fée aux fleurs (1847) and Perrot's Les Quatre Saisons (1848). From 1853 to 1856 she danced in Vienna; and she was prima ballerina of the Berlin Court Opera until 1866 when she married Prince Joseph Windisch-Grätz . She created roles in her father's Flick und Flocks Abenteuer (1858), Des Malers Traumbild (1859), and Sardanapal (1865). Johann Strauss wrote the Taglioni-Polka for her.

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Taglioni , Paul

(b Vienna, 12 Jan. 1808 (some sources say 12 Jan. 1800), d Berlin, 6 Jan. 1884 (some sources say 1888)).
German dancer and ballet master. Son of Filippo T., brother of Marie T., and father of Marie T. the younger. He studied with his father and with Coulon in Paris. He made his debut in Stuttgart in the 1820s, dancing the pas de deux Zémire et Azor with his older sister. For several years he became Marie's partner, appearing with her in Vienna, Munich, Paris, and Berlin. In 1829 he married the ballerina Anna Galster in Berlin, where he eventually settled. In 1839 the two of them toured America. He choreographed his first major ballets in Berlin: Amors Triumph (mus. H. Schmidt , 1835) and Der arme Fischer (mus. H. Schmidt , 1836). He appeared as a guest choreographer and dancer in Vienna (where he had a long association from 1853 to 1874), Naples (1853–6), and Milan (1861–2). He was ballet master of the Berlin Court Opera (1856–83) and ballet master of Her Majesty's Theatre in London (1847–51, 1856, and 1857). He staged about 40 ballets. His important creations include Undine, die Wassernymphe (mus. Schmidt , Berlin, 1836), which was revised as Coralia for London in 1847, Don Quixote (mus. Gährich , Berlin, 1839), Théa ou La Fée aux fleurs (mus. Pugni , London, 1847), Fiorita et la reine des Elfrides (mus. Pugni , London, 1848), Electra (mus. Pugni , London, 1849, notable for its use of electric lighting, then revolutionary), Les Plaisirs de l'hiver (mus. Pugni , London, 1849), Les Métamorphoses (mus. Pugni , London, 1850), Santanella (mus. Hertel , Berlin, 1852); Flick und Flocks Abenteuer (mus. Hertel , Berlin, 1858), La Fille mal gardée (after Dauberval, new music by Hertel , Berlin, 1864), Sardanapal (mus. Hertel , Berlin, 1865), Fantasca (mus. Hertel , Berlin, 1869), and Militaria (mus. Hertel , Berlin, 1872). His daughter, Marie the younger, starred in most of his ballets until her retirement in 1866.

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Taglioni , Salvatore

(b Palermo, 1789, d Naples 1868).
Italian dancer, teacher, and choreographer. Brother of Filippo T., father of Luisa T. (1823–93), a ballerina at the Paris Opera, and Fernando T. (1810–74?), a composer. He studied in Paris with Coulon and from about 1806 danced in Lyons and Bordeaux. He then returned to Italy where with Louis Henry he established a ballet school in Naples in 1812, attached to the opera house of Teatro San Carlo . He was ballet master in Naples and had a flourishing company based at the opera house, but he also worked as a choreographer in Milan, Turin, and Florence, often casting himself and his wife, Adélaide Perraud , in his ballets. He is credited with choreographing more than 200 ballets, among them Romanow (1832), which used horses on stage, I promessi sposi (1836), and Faust (1838). Most were based on historical or literary subjects.

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T'ai Chi.

A form of Chinese martial arts which is characterized by the grace and liquidity of its slowly unfolding movement. It has influenced several choreographers, most notably Glen Tetley , whose Embrace Tiger and Return to Mountain (1968) was directly inspired by T'ai Chi .

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Tait , Marion

(b London, 7 Oct. 1950).
British dancer and ballet mistress. She studied at the Royal Ballet School, graduating in 1968 into the Royal's touring company. She was promoted to principal in 1974 and remained with the company, then called Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet but later renamed Birmingham Royal Ballet, until she retired from the stage in 1995. She created roles in Christopher Bruce's Unfamiliar Playground (1974), J. Carter's Shukumei (1975), D. Morse's Pandora (1976), Bintley's Meadow of Proverbs (1979), Punch and the Street Party (1979) and Night Moves (1981), MacMillan's Playground (1979), and Corder's Day into Night (1980). She was particularly acclaimed for her performances in the MacMillan repertoire, in ballets such as Las Hermanas, The Invitation, and The Burrow. An intense and dramatic dancer, who none the less had a flair for comedy, she was also a noted Juliet and a fine Tudor heroine. After her retirement she became ballet mistress of Birmingham Royal Ballet and continued to perform character roles with the company.

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Takei , Kei

(b Tokyo, 30 Dec. 1946).
Japanese-US dancer, choreographer, company director, and teacher. She studied at the Sakaki Bara Dance School, the Kaitani Ballet School, and the Kenji Hinoki School. In 1966, after having been spotted by Anna Sokolow in a Tokyo dance class, she moved to New York to take up a Fulbright fellowship to study at the Juilliard School of Music (1967–9). She trained with Nikolais , Cunningham , and Trisha Brown . She founded her own company, Moving Earth, in 1969. In 1992 she moved to Tokyo and renamed her company Moving Earth Orient Sphere. Her life's work as a choreographer has been the ongoing Light, a dance-cycle begun in 1969 which has been added to over the course of 30 years; by 1998 it comprised 31 chapters. Inspired by Japanese butoh and Western contemporary dance, Light is considered a single theatrical entity, even though it is far too long to be performed all at once.

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Tales of Beatrix Potter.

Originally a 1971 ballet film directed by Reginald Mills with choreography by Ashton , music by Lanchbery , designs by Christine Edzard and masks by R. Doboujinsky . Based on the famous children's stories, and featuring such well-loved characters as Mrs Tiggy-Winkle, Peter Rabbit, and Jemima Puddle-Duck, it was danced by members of the Royal Ballet, including Ashton , A. Grant , K. Martin , Mead , Last , Coleman , Sleep , Collier , and L. Edwards . In 1992 Ashton's choreography was staged by Anthony Dowell for Covent Garden.

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Tales of Hoffmann.

Ballet in three acts with choreography and libretto by Peter Darrell , music by Offenbach (arr. Lanchbery ), and designs by Alistair Livingstone . Premiered 6 Apr. 1972 by Scottish Theatre Ballet at the King's Theatre in Edinburgh, with Cazalet , Aitken , Hilary Debden , Marian St Claire , and E. McDonald . Based on Offenbach's opera, the ballet departs from its source by placing the Antonia act in the middle (between those of Olympia and Giulietta) and making Antonia a would-be ballerina rather than a would-be singer. It remains in the repertoire of Scottish Ballet. It was revived for American Ballet Theatre (des. P. Docherty ) in 1973, a staging that saw one ballerina dance all three heroines. In 1961 Béjart choreographed a dance production of the opera at the Monnaie Theatre in Brussels. And in 1951 Massine provided choreography for Powell and Press-burger's film of the opera.

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Tallchief , Maria

(b Fairfax, Okla., 24 Jan. 1925).
US dancer, teacher, and ballet director. Sister of Marjorie Tallchief . The daughter of a Native American father (a member of the Osage tribe) and a Scottish-Irish mother. Early on, the family moved to Los Angeles where she studied with Earnest Belcher and, most significantly, with Bronislava Nijinska . Later she studied at the School of American Ballet in New York. She danced with Serge Denham's Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo (1942–7), where she became a soloist and danced Gaîté parisienne and Scheherazade and created roles in Balanchine's Danses concertantes (1944), Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (1944), and Night Shadow (1946). From 1946 to 1951 she was married to Balanchine , joining him as a guest at the Paris Opera Ballet in the summer of 1947, dancing in his Serenade, Apollon musagète, and Baiser de la fée. Later in 1947 she joined Ballet Society in New York and went on to become the leading ballerina of New York City Ballet for almost twenty years, as well as Balanchine's muse. He created more than 25 roles for her. She was the first truly virtuosic American ballerina, and one of the first to achieve widespread popularity. Her performance in the title role of Balanchine's Firebird made an enormous impression on the dance-going public; the work, with its pyrotechnics and dramatic attack, became her signature piece. She performed in nearly all of Balanchine's ballets, and created leading roles in his Symphonie concertante (1947), Symphony in C (new staging, 1948), Orpheus (1948), Firebird (1949), Bourée fantasque (1949), Sylvia Pas de deux (1950), Jones Beach (1950), Swan Lake (Odette, 1951 one-act staging), Caracole (1952), Scotch Symphony (1952), Nutcracker (1954), Pas de dix (1955), Allegro brillante (1956), and Gounod Symphony (1958). She also created leading roles in Robbins's The Guests (1949) and Bolender's The Filly (1953). She also appeared as a guest with American Ballet Theatre (1949, 1960–2), where she danced the Tudor and Cullberg repertoire, Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo (1955), and the Hamburg Ballet (1965), where she created the title role in van Dyk's Cinderella. At one time, when she danced with Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in the 1950s, she was reported to be the highest paid ballerina in the world. She left New York City Ballet in 1966. She was artistic director of the Chicago Lyric Opera Ballet from 1975, and in 1981 she founded Chicago City Ballet, where she remained as artistic director until 1987, when the company folded. She also appeared in films, including the 1952 Hollywood movie The Million Dollar Mermaid. She is currently associated with the George Balanchine Foundation. Her autobiography, Maria Tallchief: America's Prima Ballerina, was published in 1997.

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Tallchief , Marjorie

(b Denver, Colo., 19 Oct. 1927).
US dancer. Younger sister of Maria Tallchief . Like her sister, she studied with Nijinska and Lichine in Los Angeles. Later she studied with Preobrajenska in Paris. She began her career dancing with Ballet Theatre (1944–6) and de Basil's Original Ballet Russe (1946–7). Although somewhat eclipsed by her more famous sister in America, she achieved great success in Europe. In 1947 she married the dancer and choreographer George Skibine and with him joined the European-based Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas. Until 1957 she was one of the company's leading ballerinas, excelling in works such as Lifar's Noir et blanc, Nijinska's Les Biches, and Fokine's Les Sylphides. A very strong and technically accomplished dancer, she was admired for her virtuosity, although in later years she was also praised for the lyricism of her dancing. While with the de Cuevas company she created roles in Skibine's Annabel Lee and Le Prisonnier du Caucase (1951), L'Ange gris (1953), Idylle (1954), and Romeo and Juliet (1955), and in Balanchine's Pas de trois classique (1948). From 1957 to 1962 she was premiere danseuse étoile at the Paris Opera, becoming the first American to hold the prestigious title. In Paris she created roles in Skibine's Concerto (1958), Conte Cruel (1959), and Pastorale (1961). She appeared as a guest ballerina with Ruth Page's Chicago Opera Ballet in 1956 and 1958 and created a leading role in Page's Camille (1958). She also danced with the Harkness Ballet (1964–6), where she created a principal role in Bruhn's Scottish Fantasy (1965) and the title role in Ailey's Ariadne (1965). She was associate director of the Dallas Ballet (1967–81) and director of the ballet school of the Chicago City Ballet (1981–7). She later taught in Florida.

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tambourin.

A lively Provençal dance in 2/4 time accompanied by a tambourin. It was at its most popular in the 18th century, when J. P. Rameau composed many examples of it.

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Taming of the Shrew, The.

Ballet in two acts with choreography and libretto by Cranko , music by Kurt-Heinz Stolze after Scarlatti , and designs by Elisabeth Dalton . Premiered 16 Mar. 1969, by the Stuttgart Ballet at the Württembergische Staatstheater in Stuttgart, with Haydée , Cragun , Madsen , Neumeier , and Clauss . A comic ballet based on Shakespeare's play, it tells of the battle for supremacy in the marriage of Petruchio and Katherine . It was revived for Bavarian State Opera Ballet (1976), the Royal Ballet (1977), Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet (1980), Joffrey Ballet (1981), Australian Ballet (1986), Rome Opera Ballet (1989), English National Ballet (1991), and National Ballet of Canada (1992). A previous version was choreographed by Béjart (mus. Alwyn-Scarlatti ) for the Ballets des Étoiles de Paris in 1954, while Louis Falco staged it as Kate's Rag in 1980.

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Tamiris , Helen (orig. Helen Becker ;

b New York, 24 Apr. 1905 (some sources 23 Apr. 1903), d New York, 4 Aug. 1966).
US dancer, choreographer, company director, and teacher. She studied dance with I. Lewinson , Fokine , and Galli . She first performed with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet and in night-clubs and revues before turning to modern dance in 1927. She became known for her modern dance recitals in America and Europe, creating 27 solo dances in two years. In the 1930s she began to choreograph for her own group of dancers; an artist with a strong social conscience, she made works that criticized the ills of modern society and highlighted the plight of the oppressed. Her works include Walt Whitman Suite (1934), Cycle of Unrest (1935), Salut au monde (1936) about the struggle for racial equality, and How Long, Brethren? (1937). Ironically, this last, which was based on African-American songs of protest, was performed by an all-white company of women. From 1945 to 1957 she worked on Broadway where she choreographed many musicals, including Up in Central Park (1945), Show Boat (1946), Annie, Get Your Gun (1946), Touch and Go (1949) for which she won a Tony Award, Fanny (1954), and Plain and Fancy (1955). With her husband Daniel Nagrin she directed the Tamiris-Nagrin Dance Company (1960–3). She also taught stage movement for actors for many years.

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tango.

South American dance in slow 2/4 time which is characterized by sensual duets in which men and women embrace in a danced representation of male-female seduction. It was based on dances brought to Argentina by African slaves and was originally performed in the slums of Buenos Aires in the 1860s. In the 1920s, however, the tango became popular world-wide as a form of ball-room dancing. In the 1930s and 1940s it was further popularized by Hollywood in such films as Flying Down to Rio (1933) and Down Argentine Way (1940). Today tango shows can be seen in theatres around the world; one of the most successful was Tango Argentino, which opened in Paris in 1983 and went on to become a big hit on Broadway and in London's West End. The improvisation of tango in the dance hall gives way on stage to choreographed movement that is often highly stylized, while today's musical accompaniment has grown from small bands to full orchestras. Several choreographers have used the tango in their ballets, including Ashton in Façade, Bolender in Souvenirs, Flindt in Tango Chicane, van Manen in 5 Tangos, and Araiz in his full-length Tango.

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Tankard , Meryl

(b Darwin, 8 Sept. 1955).
Australian dancer, choreographer, and company director. She studied dance at the Australian Ballet School and joined the Australian Ballet in 1974. She danced with the company for three years and while there made her first ballet, Birds Behind Bars (1977), part of a tribute programme to Dame Peggy van Praagh. In 1977 she joined Pina Bausch's Tanztheater Wuppertal and for the next six years was a leading soloist, featuring in important Bausch creations such as Le Sacre du printemps and Bluebeard. While in Germany she co-wrote and starred in an experimental film, Sydney on the Wupper, which was awarded a gold medal at the Berlin Film Festival in 1983. In 1984 she returned to Australia as a freelance choreographer and performer, although she continued to appear as a guest artist with Bausch's company on its international tours (1984–8). She was director of the Meryl Tankard Company in Canberra (1989–92) and director (1993–9) of the Australian Dance Theatre in Adelaide, which was subsequently renamed the Meryl Tankard Australian Dance Theatre during her directorship. As a choreographer she has been greatly influenced by Bausch's brand of image-based dance theatre. Her works include Echo Point (1984), Travelling Light (1986), Two Feet (1988), Furioso (1993), Songs with Mara (1993), Banshee (1989), Nuti (1990), Aurora (1994), a postmodern version of The Sleeping Beauty, Possessed (1995), Rasa (1996), and Inuk (1997). She also choreographed Death in Venice (1989) and Orphée et Eurydice (1993) for the Australian Opera and The Deep End (1997) for the Australian Ballet, a work set in and around a swimming pool.

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tanztheater

(Ger., dancetheatre). An aesthetic which proposes that dance does not primarily have to be about choreography, that dance is theatre, and that theatre is inseparable from real life. Dance, therefore, should be an expression of true emotion. The leading exponent of tanztheater is the German choreographer Pina Bausch .

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tap dancing.

An American dance form characterized by rapid foot-tapping movement. The dancer wears special shoes with metal cleats (plates) so that when the toe or heel is tapped on the floor it makes a distinctive percussive sound. Tap routines encompass complex rhythmical patterns and syncopated phrasing, and can be performed to a wide variety of musical styles, but most especially jazz. A cultural product of the slave trade, tap dancing was derived from Irish jigs and Lancashire clog dancing but was heavily influenced by the musicality of African tribal dances. Although the fusion of West African and British Isles traditions began in the mid-17th century, tap dancing did not become truly popular as a form of stage entertainment in America until the mid-19th century, first through variety shows (the minstrel shows, in which white men blackened their faces to perform the dance and music of black slaves) and then through early Hollywood musicals. At the turn of the century tap dancing absorbed elements from social dances (like the cakewalk strut or the camel walk), and by the 1920s it had absorbed the new jazz rhythms and found a home on Broadway, where the tap dancing chorus line was born. The term tap dancing came into widespread usage in the early 20th century. In the 1930s the extraordinary Fred Astaire brought a new kind of sophisticated and elegant tap dancing to the cinema, in films such as The Gay Divorcee (1934) and Top Hat (1935). Other famous tap dancers include William Henry Lane , Bill (‘Bojangles’) Robinson , John W. Bubbles , Ruby Keeler , Ginger Rogers , Eleanor Powell , Ray Bolger , Ann Miller , Donald O'Connor , Paul Draper , and Gene Kelly , whose film Singin' in the Rain (1951) contains one of the most famous tap dances ever committed to celluloid. By the 1950s jazz and ballet had replaced tap as the dance of choice on Broadway, although the 1970s and the 1990s both saw a revival of interest in tap dancing through musicals such as No, No, Nanette (1971), Jelly's Last Jam (1991), and Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk (1996), the latter staged by George Wolfe and choreographed by Savion Glover , whose great achievement was to bring tap up to date by welding it to the heavy bass beat of contemporary African-American music.

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tarantella.

An Italian folk dance executed in accelerating 3/8 or 6/8 time. It is usually danced by couples and takes its name from the Italian city of Taranto where, legend has it, in the 14th century people who had been bitten by a tarantula spider used to dance until the spider's poison was sweated out of their systems. There have been ballets based on the tarantella, including Coralli's La Tarentule (1839) and Milloss's La Tarantola (1942), while the third act of Swan Lake contains ballet's most famous example of the tarantella. The tarantella was one of Fanny Elssler's most popular show pieces.

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Taras , John

(b New York, 18 Apr. 1919).
US dancer, choreographer, and ballet master. He began dancing as a child in a Ukrainian folk dance ensemble in New York and came late to ballet training, starting in 1936 in his late teens. He studied first with Fokine , then with Vilzak , Schollar , Anderson-Ivantzova , and at the School of American Ballet. His early career saw him work with Ballet Caravan (1940), Catherine Littlefield's Philadelphia Ballet (1939–41), and Ballet Theatre (1942–6), where he was soloist, choreographer, and ballet master. He left Ballet Theatre in order to pursue a career as a choreographer and worked with many companies in that capacity, including the Markova-Dolin Ballet in Chicago (1946), de Basil's Original Ballet Russe (1946), Ballet Society (1947), Metropolitan Ballet (1948), San Francisco Ballet (1948), and Les Ballets des Champs-Elysées (1949). From 1948 to 1953 he was principal choreographer and ballet master with the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas. From 1959 he was ballet master of New York City Ballet, an association that continued until Balanchine's death in 1983. He was joint ballet master (with Balanchine and Robbins ) of New York City Ballet (1972–83). He also worked as ballet master of the Paris Opera (1969–70) and ballet director at the Berlin Opera Ballet (1971–2). Following his departure from New York City Ballet, he became associate director of American Ballet Theatre in 1984. He later staged Balanchine's ballets for companies around the world. A list of his own ballets includes Graziana (mus. Mozart , Ballet Theatre, 1945), Camille (mus. Schubert , arr. Rieti , Original Ballet Russe, 1946), The Minotaur (mus. E. Carter , Ballet Society, 1947), Designs with Strings (also Design for Strings, mus. Tchaikovsky , Metropolitan Ballet, 1948), Piège de lumière (mus. J. M. Damase , de Cuevas , 1952), Le Fôret romantique (mus. Glazunov , 1957, Monte Carlo Opera), Ebony Concerto (mus. Stravinsky , New York City Ballet, 1960), Arcade (mus. Stravinsky , New York City Ballet, 1963), Jeux (mus. Debussy , New York City Ballet, 1966), Concerto for Piano and Winds (mus. Stravinsky , New York City Ballet, 1972), Le Sacre du printemps (mus. Stravinsky , La Scala, Milan, 1972 or 1973), Daphnis and Chloe (mus. Ravel , New York City Ballet, 1975), Souvenir de Florence (mus. Tchaikovsky , New York City Ballet, 1981), Firebird (mus. Stravinsky , Dance Theatre of Harlem, 1982), Francesca da Rimini (mus. Tchaikovsky , American Ballet Theatre, Miami, 1986), and Trio (mus. Tchaikovsky , Pittsburgh Ballet, 1991).

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Taras Bulba.

Ballet in three acts with choreography by Lopukhov , libretto by Semyon Kaplan , music by Soloviev-Sedoy , and designs by Vadim Rindin . Premiered 12 Dec. 1940 by the Kirov Ballet at the Kirov (Maryinsky) Theatre in Leningrad, with Dudinskaya and Chabukiani . Based on Gogol's short story, the ballet tells of the struggle for freedom by the 16th-century Cossack general Taras and the Ukrainians against Polish aggressors. Andriy , the general's second son, falls in love with a Polish girl, Pannochka , and joins the enemy. Taras is then forced to kill him and watch in horror as his other son, Ostap, is executed. Subsequent versions were staged by Zakharov at the Bolshoi Ballet (1941) and Fenster at the Kirov (1955).

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Tarentule, La.

Ballet in two acts with choreography by Coralli , libretto by Scribe , music by Casimir Gide , sets by Séchan , Diéterle , Feuchères , and Despléchin , and costumes by Lormier . Premiered 24 June 1839 at the Paris Opera, with Elssler and Mazilier . In the ballet, Luigi is bitten by a tarantula and can be healed by Dr Omeopatica only if he agrees to hand over his lover Lauretta to the lecherous doctor. Lauretta agrees to this, but secretly plots to get her own back on the doctor. In the end the lovers are reunited and Dr Omeopatica is back with his wife. It was one of the few comic ballets produced at the Paris Opera during the Romantic period. The ballet helped to popularize the tarantella.

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Taylor , Paul

(b Edgewood, Pa., 29 July 1930).
US dancer, choreographer, and company director. Having trained extensively as a swimmer, he took up dance while studying art at Syracuse University on a swimming scholarship. Moving to New York in 1952, he went on to study modern dance with Graham , Humphrey , Limón , and Cunningham , and ballet with Tudor and Craske . He danced with Cunningham (1954) and Lang (1955) and, most importantly, with the Martha Graham Dance Company (1955–62). He created the role of Aegisthus in her Clytemnestra (1958), the Stranger in Embattled Garden (1958), a leading role in her Alcestis (1960), Acrobats of God (1960), and a role in Episodes (1959), the joint Graham-Balanchine work in which Balanchine choreographed a solo for Taylor. He founded his own company in 1954, only a year after making his first piece. He collaborated with the painter Robert Rauschenberg and, like him, worked as a window dresser at Tiffany's, the New York jewellers, in order to finance his early works. Their first collaboration was Jack and the Beanstalk (1954); Rauschenberg then designed all of Taylor's works in the 1950s, including Three Epitaphs (1956) and Seven New Dances (1957). With his company he travelled the world and consolidated his position as one of the giants of American modern dance. Like Graham before him, he helped to re-define the parameters of modern dance in the 20th century, encompassing a wide range of influences into his choreography and producing some of the most accessible modern dance to be found anywhere. He was an early experimenter: Duet (1957), part of his Seven New Dances evening, saw him and his pianist not moving for the entire duration of the piece, set to John Cage's ‘non-score’; the critic Louis Horst responded to Seven New Dances by giving it a blank review space in Dance Observer. Almost twenty years later Esplanade saw Taylor using a vernacular movement vocabulary that consisted of nothing more sophisticated than walking, running, jumping, and falling. His 1980 The Rehearsal, a reworking of The Rite of Spring, was typically imaginative: it combined a tale of gangsters and kidnapping with Nijinsky's original ballet. His 1991 Second World Warera Company B was Taylor at his most nostalgic and emotional. His works can be roughly divided into three camps: the joyously lyrical, the whimsically humorous, and the darkly psychological. Because his buoyant and often flowing style shares many characteristics with ballet, his works can be found in the repertoires of classical companies the world over, including the Royal Danish Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Joffrey Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, and Les Grands Ballets Canadiens. Aureole, Airs, and Arden Court, three of his sunniest pieces, are particularly popular among ballet-goers. He retired from dancing in 1974. A list of his works includes 3 Epitaphs (mus. Laneville-Johnson Union Brass Band, 1956), Seven New Dances (mus. Cage and various sounds, 1957), Images and Reflections (mus. Feldman , 1958), Meridian (mus. Boulez , later Feldman , 1960), Fibers (mus. Schoenberg , 1960), Insects and Heroes (mus. John Herbert McDowell , 1961), Junction (mus. Bach , 1961), Tracer (mus. James Tenny , 1962), Piece Period (mus. various, 1962), Aureole (mus. Handel , 1962), Poetry in Motion (mus. L. Mozart , 1963), Scudorama (mus. Clarence Jackson , 1963), Party Mix (mus. Haieff , 1963), Duet (mus. Haydn , 1964), Post Meridian (mus. E. Lohoeffer de Boeck , 1965), From Sea to Shining Sea (mus. McDowell , 1965), Orbs (mus. Beethoven , 1966), Agathe's Tale (mus. Surinach , 1967), Lento (mus. Haydn , 1967), Public Domain (mus.-collage McDowell , 1968), Churchyard (mus. Cosmos Savage , 1969), Private Domain (mus. Xenakis , 1969), Foreign Exchange (mus. Morton Subotnick , 1970), Big Bertha (mus. Band Machines from the St Louis Melody Museum, 1970), The Book of Beasts (mus. vars., 1971), Guests of May (mus. Debussy , 1972), American Genesis (mus. vars., 1973), Sports and Follies (mus. Satie , 1974), Esplanade (mus. Bach , 1975), Runes (mus. Gerald Busby , 1975), Cloven Kingdom (mus. Corelli , Cowell , 1976), Polaris (mus. Donald York , 1976), Images (mus. Debussy , 1977), Dust (mus. Poulenc , 1977), Aphrodisiamania (mus. vars., 1977), Airs (mus. Handel , 1978), Diggity (mus. D. York , 1978), Nightshade (mus. Scriabin , 1979), The Rehearsal (mus. Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, 1980), Arden Court (mus. William Boyce , 1981), House of Cards (mus. Milhaud , 1981), Lost, Found and Lost (mus. ‘wallpaper’ muzak, 1982), Mercuric Tidings (mus. Schubert , 1982), Musette (mus. Handel , 1983), Sunset (mus. Elgar , 1983), Byzantium (mus. Varèse , 1984), Last Look (mus. York , 1985), Musical Offering (mus. Bach , 1986), Kith and Kin (mus. Mozart , 1987), Syzygy (mus. York , 1987), Brandenburgs (mus. Bach , 1988), Counterswarm (mus. Ligeti , 1988), Danbury Mix (mus. Ives , 1988), Speaking in Tongues (mus. Matthew Patton , 1988), Minikin Fair (mus. vars., 1989), The Sorcerer's Sofa (mus. Dukas , 1990), Of Bright and Blue Birds and the Gala Sun (mus. Donald York , 1990), Fact and Fancy (mus. New Orleans jazz and reggae, 1991), Company B (mus. TheAndrews Sisters , 1991), Oz (mus. Wayne Horvitz , 1992), Spindrift (mus. Schoenberg , 1993), Field of Grass (mus. Harry Nilsson , 1993), Funny Papers (1994), Moonbine (mus. Debussy , 1994), Offenbach Overtures (1995), Prime Numbers (mus. David Israel , 1996), Eventide (mus. Ralph Vaughan Williams , 1996), Piazzolla Caldera (mus. Astor Piazzolla , 1997), The Word (mus. David Israel , 1998), Oh, You Kid! (mus. ragtime, 1999), and Cascade (mus. Bach , 1999). Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France (1990). Emmy Award (for television production of Speaking in Tongues), 1991. Subject of the 1999 film documentary Dancemaker. Kennedy Center Award, Washington, DC, 1992. Author of autobiography Private Domain (New York, 1987).

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Tchaikovsky , Pyotr

(b Votkinsk, 7 May 1840, d St Petersburg, 6 Nov. 1893).
Russian composer. The most significant ballet composer of the 19th century, he wrote the music for three ballets: Swan Lake (staged Moscow 1877, restaged St Petersburg 1895), The Sleeping Beauty (St Petersburg 1890), and The Nutcracker (St Petersburg, 1892). To this day, they remain the most popular ballet scores of all time, thanks to the emotional depth and rich drama of Tchaikovsky's writing for dance. Much of his concert music has also been used by choreographers. A list of ballets using Tchaikovsky's music includes Autumn Song (Nijinska, 1915), Eros, Francesca da Rimini, Prelude, Romance (all Fokine, 1915), Andantino (Fokine, 1916), The Seasons (Lavrovsky, 1928), Mozartiana (Balanchine, 1933), Les Présages (Massine, 1933), Serenade (Balanchine, 1934), Kittens (Jacobson, 1936), Romeo and Juliet (Bartholin, 1937), Francesca da Rimini (Lichine, 1937, Lifar, 1958), Meditations (Jacobson , 1938), Romeo and Juliet (W. Christensen , 1938, also Lifar, 1942, Jacobson, 1944, Skibine, 1950), Ballet Imperial (Balanchine, 1941), Aleko (Massine, 1942), Hamlet (Helpmann , 1942), Ancient Russia (Nijinska , 1943), Tchaikovsky Waltz (Taras , 1946), Theme and Variations (Balanchine , 1947), Designs with Strings (Taras , 1948), Waltz (Jacobson , 1948), Tragédie à Verone (Skibine , 1950), Les Oiseaux d'or (Lichine , 1954), Eugene Onegin (V. Gsovsky , 1954), Allegro Brillante (Balanchine , 1956), L'Amour et son destin (Lifar , 1957), Beauty and the Beast (L. Christensen , 1958), Pas de deux (Balanchine , 1960), La Dame de pique (Lifar , 1960, also Petit, 1978), Snow Maiden (Bourmeister , 1961), Mirror Walkers (P. Wright , 1963), Onegin (Cranko , 1965), Jewels (Balanchine , 1967, ‘Diamonds’ section), Ni fleurs ni couronnes (Béjart , 1968), Suite No. 3 (Balanchine , 1970), Anastasia (MacMillan , 1971), Nijinsky, clown de Dieu (Béjart , 1971), Reflections (Arpino , 1971), War and Peace (Panov , 1980), Souvenir de Florence (Taras , 1981), Capriccio italien (Martins , 1981), Symphony No. 1 (Martins , 1981), Andantino (Robbins , 1981), Piano Pieces (Robbins , 1981), Family Portraits (Cullberg , 1985), Le Chat botté (Petit , 1985), Battleship Potemkin (Vinogradov , 1986), Winter Dreams (MacMillan , 1991), and Alice in Wonderland (Deane, mus. Tchaikovsky , arr. Carl Davis , 1995).

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Tchelitchev , Pavel

(b Moscow, 21 Sept. 1898, d Rome (or Frascati), Italy, 31 July 1957).
Russian-US painter and designer. He worked as a stage designer in Paris, New York, London, and Monte Carlo from 1923 and settled in America in 1934. Ballets he designed include Ode (Massine, Ballets Russes de Diaghilev , 1928), L'Errante (Balanchine , Les Ballets 1933, Paris), Orpheus and Eurydice (Balanchine , Metropolitan Opera House, 1936), Nobilissima visione (Massine , Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, London, 1938), Balustrade ( Balanchine , Original Ballet Russe, New York, 1941), and Apollon musagète (Balanchine , new production Teatro Colon, Buenos Aires, 1942). With Ode, he became the first designer to use film projections in a ballet.

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Tcherepnin , Nicolai

(b St Petersburg, 15 May 1873, d Issy-les-Moulineaux, 26 June 1945).
Russian composer. He was conductor of the Ballets Russes de Diaghilev from 1909 to 1914 and wrote the music for several ballets, including Fokine's Le Pavillon d'Armide (St Petersburg, 1907), Cléopâtre (Diaghilev , 1909), and Narcisse (Diaghilev, 1912). For Pavlova he wrote Dionysus (1922), Russian Fairy Tale (1923), and The Romance of a Mummy (1924). For Mordkin he wrote The Goldfish (1937). He was the father of Alexander Tcherepnin (b 1899, d 1977), who wrote the music for Petit's Déjeuner sur l'herbe (1945), Lifar's Chota Roustaveli (1946), and Charrat's La Femme et son ombre (1948).

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Tcherina , Ludmila (orig. Monika Tchemerzina (Monique Tchemerzina )

b Paris, 10 Oct. 1924).
French dancer, actress, and painter. She studied with Blanche d'Alessandri , Preobrajenska , and Clustine . She started dancing at the Opéra de Marseilles at the age of 16 and then danced with the Ballets de Monte Carlo, where she was spotted by Lifar . She made her Paris debut creating the role of Juliet in Lifar's Romeo and Juliet at the Salle Pleyel in 1942. She was a principal dancer with the Ballets des Champs-Elysées (1945) and performed in dance concerts in Paris with her husband Edmond Audran (who was killed in a car accident in 1951). She also danced with the Ballets de Paris and the Nouveaux Ballets de Monte Carlo (directed by Lifar ). She created roles in Lifar's Mephisto Waltz (1945), A la mémoire d'un héros (1946), and the title role in Le Martyre de Saint-Sébastien (1957) and in Béjart's Gala (Venice , 1961). She appeared frequently as a guest ballerina, at the Paris Opera, the Bolshoi, and the Kirov in Russia, and the Metropolitan Opera in New York, where she appeared as principal dancer in Joseph Lazzini's production of The Miraculous Mandarin (1967), later filmed and televised. She had her own company (1958–9) which performed at the Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt. She acted in several films including Les Rendezvous, The Red Shoes (1948), and Tales of Hoffmann (1951), for which she won an Academy Award in 1952. She also appeared in several television productions. A painter in her spare time, she had several exhibitions of her work in Paris. She also wrote two novels about dance: L'Amour au miroir (1983) and La Femme à l'envers (1986).

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Tcherkassky , Marianna

(b Glen Cove, NY, 28 Oct. 1952).
US dancer. She studied with her mother Lillian Oka , at the Washington School of Ballet with Mary Day and Edward Caton , and at the School of American Ballet in New York from 1967. She danced with the André Eglevsky Ballet in 1968 before joining American Ballet Theatre in 1970. She was promoted to principal in 1976. She created roles in Feld's Eccentrique (1971), Tudor's The Leaves are Fading (1975), Tharp's Push Comes to Shove (1976), Baryshnikov's The Nutcracker (Clara , 1976), Choo-San Goh's Configurations (1981), Vernon's In a Country Garden (1984), and Bujones's Grand pas romantique (1985). She was also acclaimed for her performances in the 19th-century repertoire. In 1997, following her retirement from ABT, she became ballet mistress at Pittsburgh Ballet Theater. She married the dancer Terry Orr .

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Tchernicheva , Lubov

(b St Petersburg, 17 Sept. 1890, d Richmond, Surrey, 1 Mar. 1976).
Russian-British dancer, teacher and ballet mistress. She studied at the Imperial Ballet School in St Petersburg with Fokine ; later with Cecchetti . Upon graduation in 1908, she joined the Maryinsky Theatre (the Kirov) where she married the ballet regisseur Grigoriev in 1909. Together they went to the Diaghilev company in 1911. She became a principal dancer with Diaghilev and stayed with the company until it folded in 1929, one of its finest character dancers. She created many roles, among them parts in Massine's The Good-Humoured Ladies (1917), La Boutique fantasque (1919), Pulcinella (1920), Zéphire et Flore (1925), and Le Pas d'acier (1927), Nijinska's Les Noces (1923) and Les Fâcheux (1924), and Balanchine's Jack-in-the-Box (1926), The Triumph of Neptune (1926), Apollon musagète (Calliope , 1928), and The Gods Go a-Begging (1928). She was also a great success in the Fokine roles of Zobeide, Thamar, and Cleopatra. In 1926 she was appointed ballet mistress to the Diaghilev company. In 1932 she and her husband joined de Basil's Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, where she worked as ballet mistress, remaining with the company (later the Original Ballet Russe) until de Basil's enterprise finally folded in 1952. She came out of retirement to create the title role in Lichine's Francesca da Rimini (1937). In 1952 she settled in England. Thereafter she and her husband staged productions of the Diaghilev repertoire, including Firebird for Sadler's Wells Ballet in 1954 and Petrushka for the Royal Ballet in 1957. She worked as a teacher for both Sadler's Wells Ballet and London Festival Ballet. She made her last stage appearance in 1957 as Juliet's mother in Cranko's Romeo and Juliet.

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television.

In Britain television first began broadcasting dance in 1936 when the BBC presented a programme of nine pieces by dancers from Marie Rambert's company. Later that same year de Valois's Job was televised. Tudor's Fugue for Four Cameras, created as a solo for Maude Lloyd in 1937, was one of the earliest examples of dance made especially for television. After the Second World War the BBC continued to televise dance; in 1952 a full-length Sleeping Beauty directed by Mary Skeaping was broadcast. In 1957 the producer Margaret Dale (herself a former dancer with Sadler's Wells Ballet) began televising a series of classical ballets which were condensed and specially adapted for the smaller television studio in which they were performed for the camera. In the late 1960s technical developments made it possible to relay actual stage performances to audiences at home in their living rooms. An example of this was the Bolshoi Ballet's Romeo and Juliet, a live performance filmed for international television to celebrate the company's 200th anniversary. In the rest of Europe efforts were made to mount ballets especially for television. In Sweden, in particular, Birgit Cullberg staged several important television productions; in Miss Julie, for example, she changed the original stage choreography to cater for a fixed camera. Later, with the introduction of colour television, Cullberg mounted Red Wine in Green Glasses (1971), a pas de deux in which the performers danced inside the paintings of Watteau , Fragonard , and Bruegel . In Denmark, Flemming Flindt produced many television ballets, including The Young Man Must Marry (1968) and Felix Luna (1973). In Canada, Norman McLaren filmed an extraordinary high-speed Pas de deux, which allowed dance to be subverted to the technical tricks of the camera. In the US commercial television began transmitting dance programmes in the 1940s, showcasing the work of Erick Hawkins , Eugene Loring , Agnes de Mille , and Ruth Page among others. By 1946 Pauline Koner and Kitty Doner were presenting a weekly programme that experimented with choreography made for television. In 1949 the CBS series Through the Crystal Ball offered an original ballet choreographed for television every week; it included Balanchine's Cinderella, Helen Tamiris's Ali Baba, and Todd Bolender's The Wild West. In 1950 American Ballet Theatre's Giselle was televised (starring Nora Kaye and Igor Youskevitch ); in 1955 NBC presented the Royal Ballet dancing The Sleeping Beauty, which was watched by 30 million Americans, and in 1957 the Royal Ballet returned in Ashton's Cinderella. The 1962 CBS broadcast of Stravinsky and Balanchine's The Flood, however, was a disaster due to technical problems. In the mid-1960s USA: Dance offered videotaped dance performances of works by Anna Sokolow and Balanchine . But it was not until 1976, with the launch of Dance in America on PBS, that a truly fine showcase existed on television for America's leading dance companies. Important stage productions were brought to a mass audience in the 1970s and 1980s, and important choreographers such as Robbins , Graham , Taylor , and Balanchine were featured. Series such as Live from Lincoln Center and In Performance at Wolf Trap telecast live events into American living rooms. Alive from Off Center, from KTCA in Minneapolis, highlighted experimental dance on video. Choreographers have made innovative new work which is tailor-made for the medium of television, playing with the seemingly unlimited possibilities offered by technology. In this, Merce Cunningham leads the field; indeed even going so far as to create choreography for the camera and then subsequently transferring it to the stage. His Channels/Inserts (1982), directed by Charles Atlas , was the groundbreaking work in this field. In Britain today BBC2 (with its Dance for the Camera series) and Channel 4 are the prime outlets for new dance on television. See also under film.

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Tempest, The.

Ballet in two parts with choreography by Tetley , music by Arne Nordheim , and designs by Baylis . Premiered 3 May 1979 by Ballet Rambert at Schwetzingen, with Christopher Bruce , L. Burge , Gianfranco Paluzi , Thomas Yang , and Mark Wraith . Based on Shakespeare's play, the ballet is, according to Tetley , ‘about voyage and loss, and regaining that which is lost’. It was revived for the Norwegian Ballet in 1980.

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tendu.

In classical ballet, a movement which is stretched or held.

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Tennant , Veronica

(b London, 15 Jan. 1947).
British-born Canadian dancer. She studied at the Cone-Ripman School in London (1952–5) and at the National Ballet School of Canada in Toronto (from 1956), a student of Betty Oliphant. She joined the National Ballet of Canada as a principal dancer in 1965 to dance the role of Juliet in Cranko's Romeo and Juliet. Her intense dramatic style revealed itself right from the start (a quality later to be exploited when she undertook Cranko's Onegin) and although she had to overcome the limitations of a physique not ideally suited to classical ballet, she quickly established herself as the company's main ballerina. She followed Juliet with Kitri , Odette-Odile , and Cinderella , all within the space of three years. She was the National's first true international star, touring extensively with it and leading the company when it made its London debut in 1972 and its Metropolitan Opera debut in 1973. Her partners included Nureyev and Dowell , and she was the first ballerina to partner Baryshnikov following his defection in Toronto in 1974, dancing in a CBC-TV production of Erik Bruhn's La Sylphide. She guested with companies throughout North America. She also made numerous appearances on Canadian television, including in Romeo and Juliet (1965), the Emmy Award-winning Cinderella (CBC, 1967), and the Emmy Award-winning Sleeping Beauty (CBC/PBS 1972). During her 25 years with the National she danced all the major ballerina parts and created roles in Petit's Kraanerg (1969), Kudelka's Apples (1974), The Party (1976), Washington Square (1978), All Night Wonder (1981), and Hedda (1982), Swanilda in Bruhn's new staging of Coppélia (1975), in Vesak's Whispers and Darkness (1975), Ditchburn's Mad Shadows (1979), Macdonald's Newcomers (1980), Patsalas's Paranda Criolla (1980), Liebestod (1982), and Canciones (1983), Nebrada's Portrait of Love and Death (1982), David Allan's Etc! (1985), Villanella (1986), Capriccio (1986), Masada (1987), and Botticelli Pictures (1988). Two documentaries were made about her: Veronica Tennant: A Dancer of Distinction (CBC, 1983) and Veronica: Completing the Circle (CBC, 1989). She retired from the stage in 1989; her farewell performance was as Juliet , the role which had brought her to stardom 24 years earlier. Following her retirement, she pursued a career as an actress, television presenter, producer, and director. Author of two children's books: the novel On Stage, Please (Toronto, 1977) and The Nutcracker (Toronto, 1985). Officer of the Order of Canada 1975.

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Terabust , Elisabetta

(b Varese, 5 Aug. 1946).
Italian dancer and company director. She studied at the Rome Opera Ballet School and joined the Rome Opera Ballet in 1964. She became a principal in 1966, having danced her first Giselle in 1965. She remained with the company until 1974. She created roles in Milloss's Jeux (1967) and La pazzia senile (1969). From 1974 to 1977 she was a principal with Ballet National de Marseilles, where she created the role of Marie in Petit's new Nutcracker (1976) as well as performing in revivals of his Carmen and Notre-Dame de Paris. In 1973 she started appearing with London Festival Ballet, a company with which she enjoyed a long association, both as a permanent member and a guest artist. While there she created roles in Hynd's La Chatte (1978), Moreland's Fantaisie (1978), and Tetley's Pulcinella (1984) and starred in a revival of Peter Schaufuss's La Sylphide (1978). She also appeared as a guest artist with La Scala, Milan, the National Ballet of Canada, and Aterballetto. For this last she created roles in MacMillan's Verdi Variations (1982) and Amodio's Afternoon of a Faun (1983). From 1990 she was artistic director of the Rome Opera Ballet and it was there in 1992 that she created the role of Elisabeth , Empress of Austria, in Petit's La Valse triste. She also appeared frequently on television in Italy and featured in the 1983 BBC programme Dancer. Artistic director of La Scala Ballet (1993–6).

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Ter-Arutunian , Rouben

(b Tbilisi, Georgia, 24 July 1920, d New York, 17 Oct. 1992).
Armenian-US stage designer. He studied in Berlin, Vienna, and Paris before emigrating to the US in 1951. He designed many ballets for Balanchine , among them The Seven Deadly Sins (1958 staging), Ballet Imperial (1964 staging), Nutcracker (1964), Harlequinade (1965), Coppélia (1974), Union Jack (1976), Vienna Waltzes (1977), and Davidsbündlertänze (1980). He also worked frequently with Tetley , designing his Pierrot lunaire (1962), Sargasso (1964), Field Mass (1965), Ricercare (1966), Chronochromie (1971 Hamburg staging), Laborintus (1972), and Voluntaries (1973). He also designed Graham's Visionary Recital (1961), Macdonald's Time Out of Mind (1963), and Butler's Villon (1969). In all, he designed more than three dozen ballets. Other choreographers he worked with included Robbins , Taras , Ailey , Feld , and Arpino .

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Terpsichore.

One of the nine Muses of Greek mythology, she later came to be associated with lyric poetry and dance. Terpsichore , the daughter of Zeus and Mnemosyne , is symbolized by the lyre. Her most famous appearance in a ballet is in Balanchine's Apollo.

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terre à terre.

In ballet, a movement in which the feet barely leave the ground. It is also sometimes used to describe a dancer who lacks elevation and has a more earthbound quality to his or her dancing.

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Terry , Walter

(b New York, 14 May 1913, d New York, 4 Oct. 1982).
US dance critic and writer on dance. He studied dance at the University of N. Carolina, and with Markova , Dolin , Vilzak , Joffrey , Shawn , Graham , Humphrey , and Limón . He was dance critic of the Boston Herald (1936–9), New York Herald Tribune (1939–42 and 1945–66), and Saturday Review (1967–82). He was one of the first to educate American audiences about the newly emerging forms of modern dance in the 1930s and 1940s. Artistic director of Jacob's Pillow Festival 1973. Author of 22 books on dance, including Star Performance (1954), Ballet (1958), The Dance in America (1968), The Ballet Companion (1968), Isadora Duncan: Her Life, Her Art, Her Legacy (1963), Miss Ruth—The More Living Life of Ruth St Denis (1969), Ted Shawn—Father of American Dance (1976), I Was There (1978), Great Male Dancers of the Ballet (1978), and The King's Balletmaster (1980). He also lectured on dance. Knight of the Order of Dannebrog (1976).

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Teshigawara , Saburo

(b Tokyo, 15 Sept. 1953).
Japanese modern dancer, choreographer, and company director. He initially studied sculpture but then took up ballet studies with Saiga Toshiko. In 1981 he started presenting solo recitals as a dancer; by 1985 he had formed his own group, Company KARAS. Its first production, The Pale Boy, was performed as part of the Tokyo Scene Dance Series of 1986. He came to international attention when The Point of the Wind won the silver prize at the choreography competition in Bagnolet, France, in 1986. Performances in France followed; eventually he toured to Britain and the US. A list of his works includes The Arm of the Blue Sky (1987), The Moon is Quicksilver (1987), A Thought in the Night (1988), Dah-Dah-Sko-Dah-Dah (1991), Bones in Pages (1991), Noiject (1992), which has a score that consists of noise delivered at an exceedingly high volume, I Was Real-Documents (1996), Petrouchka (1997), and Triad (1999). For the Frankfurt Ballet he made White Clouds under the Heels, Part 1 (1994) and Part 2 (1995). He also directed the film Keshioko (1993) and wrote a book, Hone to Kuki (Bones and Air), which was published in 1994.

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Tetley , Glen

(b Cleveland, 3 Feb. 1926).
US dancer, choreographer, and ballet director. He began by studying medicine at New York University (1946–8) but then took up dance, training with Holm , Graham , Craske , Tudor , and at the School of American Ballet. From 1944 to 1946 he served in the US Navy. He began as a dancer working with Holm , appearing with her company (1946–51) and then with New York City Opera (1952–4), John Butler's company (1953–5), Joffrey Ballet (1956–7), Martha Graham (1958), American Ballet Theatre (1960–1), and Robbins's Ballets: USA (1961). He appeared on Broadway in Holm's productions of Kiss Me, Kate (1948) and Juno (1959) and he danced in the premiere of Gian-Carlo Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors (NBC Television, 1951), which was choreographed by Butler . He created the role of the Stranger in Graham's Embattled Garden and Apollo in her Clytemnestra (both 1958). In 1962 he started his own company which made an impressive New York debut. In 1964 he started working with Netherlands Dance Theatre as a dancer and choreographer, eventually becoming co-director (with van Manen , 1969–71). In 1967 he began a fruitful relationship with Ballet Rambert which helped that company's transition from ballet company to modern dance troupe. In 1974 he took over the artistic direction of the Stuttgart Ballet, where he remained for two years, adding ten of his works to the repertoire. From 1987 to 1989 he was artistic associate of the National Ballet of Canada.
He began choreographing in the 1940s but his breakthrough came in 1962 with Pierrot lunaire, which he made for his own company in New York and which featured himself in the title role. Its design feature was a scaffold structure created by Ter-Arutunian , who went on to work with Tetley on many other occasions. In 1968 Tetley's Embrace Tiger and Return to Mountain reflected the choreographer's fascination with T'ai Chi . As his work progressed into the 1970s his style moved from the cool modernity of Pierrot lunaire to a more balletic lyricism and he became a key figure in the crossover between classical ballet and modern dance. He is one of America's leading freelance choreographers, and has worked with many ballet companies. Over the years his closest associations have been with Netherlands Dance Theatre, Ballet Rambert, the Stuttgart Ballet, the National Ballet of Canada, and American Ballet Theatre. A list of his works includes Mountain Way Chant (mus. Chavez , Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, 1959), Pierrot lunaire (mus. Schoenberg , Glen Tetley company, 1962), The Anatomy Lesson (mus. M. Landowski , Netherlands Dance Theatre, 1964), Sargasso (mus. Krenek , Netherlands Dance Theatre, 1964), Fieldmass (mus. Martin , Netherlands Dance Theatre, 1965), Mythical Hunters (mus. O. Partos-Hezionot , Batsheva Dance Company, 1965), Ricercare (mus. M. Seter , American Ballet Theatre, 1966), Chronochromie (mus. Messiaen . Glen Tetley company, 1966), Psalms (mus. Partos-Tehilim , Batsheva Dance Company, 1966), Freefall (mus. M. Schubel , University of Utah Repertory Dance Theatre, 1967), The Seven Deadly Sins (mus. Weill , Glen Tetley company, 1967), Ziggurat (mus. Stockhausen , Ballet Rambert, 1967), Circles (mus. Berio , Netherlands Dance Theatre, 1968), Embrace Tiger and Return to Mountain (mus. Subotnick , Ballet Rambert, 1968), Arena (mus. Subotnick , Netherlands Dance Theatre, 1969), Field Figures (mus. Stockhausen , Royal Ballet, 1970), Imaginary Film (mus. Schoenberg , Netherlands Dance Theatre, 1970), Mutations (with van Manen , mus. Stockhausen , Netherlands Dance Theatre, 1970), Rag Dances (mus. A. Hymas , Ballet Rambert, 1971), Threshold (mus. Berg , Hamburg State Opera, 1972), Laborintus (mus. Berio , Royal Ballet, 1972), Small Parades (mus. Varèse , Netherlands Dance Theatre, 1972), Gemini (mus. Henze , Australian Ballet, 1973), Voluntaries (mus. Poulenc , Stuttgart Ballet, 1973), Le Sacre du printemps (mus. Stravinsky , Munich Ballet, 1973), Tristan (mus. Henze , Paris Opera, 1975), Daphnis and Chloe (mus. Ravel , Stuttgart Ballet, 1975), Greening (mus. A. Nordheim , Stuttgart Ballet, 1975), Sphinx (mus. Martin , American Ballet Theatre, 1977), Contredances (mus. Webern , American Ballet Theatre, 1979), The Tempest (mus. Nordheim , Ballet Rambert, 1979), Dances of Albion (mus. Britten , Royal Ballet, 1980), Summer's End (mus. Dutilleux , Netherlands Dance Theatre, 1980), The Firebird (mus. Stravinsky , Royal Danish Ballet, 1981), Murderer, Hope of Women (mus. Percussion arranged by Tyrrell , Ballet Rambert, 1983), Pulcinella (mus. Stravinsky , London Festival Ballet, 1984), Revelation and Fall (mus. Maxwell , Australian Dance Theatre, 1984), Dream Walk of the Shaman (mus. Krenek , Aterballeto, 1985), Alice (mus. Del Tredici , National Ballet of Canada, 1986), Orpheus (mus. Stravinsky , Australian Ballet, 1987), La Ronde (mus. Korngold , National Ballet of Canada, 1987), Tagore (mus. Zemlinsky , National Ballet of Canada, 1989), Amores (mus. Torke , Royal Ballet, 1997), and Lux in Tenebris (mus. Sofia Gubaidulina , Houston Ballet, 1999).

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Thaïs pas de deux.

See Meditation from Thaïs.

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Tharp , Twyla

(b Portland, Ind., 1 July 1941).
US dancer, choreographer, and company director. She grew up in California, where her parents ran a drive-in movie, thus exposing the young Tharp to the kind of American popular culture she would later incorporate into her choreography. She studied music and dance as a child, taking ballet classes with Beatrice Collenette, once a member of Pavlova's company. She also studied baton-twirling and Hawaiian tap in her youth. She studied art history at Barnard College in New York. She studied ballet with Igor Schwezoff , Richard Thomas , and Margaret Craske , modern dance with Graham , Nikolais , Cunningham , and Taylor , and jazz with Matt Mattox . From 1963 to 1964 she danced in Paul Taylor's company, but quickly struck out on her own as a choreographer, founding her own company in 1965. Her first dance concert, all of seven minutes long, took place at Hunter College on 29 Apr. 1965; it was a performance of Tank Dive, choreographed for herself and four non-dancers. Initially she was part of the avant-garde New York scene; for the first five years her choreography was performed without music and she set her works in unusual spaces (out of doors, in art galleries, in gymnasiums). One of her first creations, Re-Moves, performed at the Judson Memorial Church, ended with the dancers inside a giant box, invisible to the audience. Gradually, however, as she began to use music and to absorb elements of popular culture into her choreography her work became more mainstream. In 1973 Robert Joffrey invited her to work with his company; the result was the phenomenally successful Deuce Coupe. Set to songs by the Beach Boys, it marked a turning point in Tharp's career and also proved that modern dance had an important role to play in a ballet company. Tharp's loose-limbed, jazz-influenced style gave classically trained dancers a new performing attitude, and they loved it. The public responded to her choice of music, from the jazz of The Bix Pieces, Eight Jelly Rolls, Sue's Leg, and Baker's Dozen, to the smoochy romance of Nine Sinatra Songs. Her debut with American Ballet Theatre, Push Comes to Shove (1976), was a tailor-made showcase for Baryshnikov, redefining ballet's supreme classicist as a roguish bowler-hatted womanizer. It was one of the biggest successes in ABT's history. Later, the exhilarating speed and aggressive physicality of works such as In the Upper Room brought a new public to dance. From 1988 to 1990 she suspended her own company in order to take up a position as artistic associate at American Ballet Theatre. She also worked with the Paris Opera Ballet, and for the Royal Ballet broke new ground with Mr Worldly Wise, a full-length ‘themed’ ballet, loosely based on the life of Rossini. As a choreographer, Tharp has always shown a unique ability to draw on a wide range of influences, from everyday movement to the most virtuosic ballet step, but running through her work is a keen sense of ‘showbiz’ and the need to entertain and communicate with an audience. She created two full-length dance shows on Broadway: When We Were Very Young (mus. John Simon , 1980) and The Catherine Wheel (mus. David Byrne , 1981).
A list of her ballets includes Tank Dive (1965), Re-Moves (1966), After Suite (1969), Medley (1969), Group Activities (1969), Dancing in the Streets of London and Paris, Continued in Stockholm and Sometimes Madrid (1969), The Fugue (1970), The One Hundreds (1970), Eight Jelly Rolls (mus. Jelly Roll Morton , 1971), The Bix Pieces (mus. Bix Beiderbecke , 1971), The Raggedy Dances (mus. Scott Joplin , Mozart, 1972), Deuce Coupe (mus. Beach Boys, Joffrey Ballet, 1973), As Time Goes By (mus. Haydn , Joffrey Ballet, 1973), In the Beginnings (mus. Moss , 1974), Sue's Leg (mus. Fats Waller , 1975), Ocean's Motion (mus. Chuck Berry , 1975), Push Comes to Shove (mus. Haydn and Joseph Lamb , American Ballet Theatre, 1976), Give and Take (mus. various, 1976), Once More, Frank (mus. recordings by Frank Sinatra , 1976), Happily Ever After (mus. traditional American country music, Joffrey Ballet, 1976), After All (mus. Albinoni , for ice skater John Curry , 1976), Mud (mus. Mozart , 1977), Baker's Dozen (mus. Willie ‘the Lion’ Smith , 1979), Brahms' Paganini (mus. Brahms , 1980), Short Stories (mus. Supertramp , Bruce Springsteen , 1980), Third Suite (mus. Bach , 1980), Nine Sinatra Songs (mus. recordings by Frank Sinatra , 1982), Bad Smells (mus. Glenn Branca , 1982), Telemann (mus. Telemann , 1983), The Golden Section (mus. David Byrne , 1983), Bach Partita (mus. Bach , American Ballet Theatre, 1983), Brahms/Handel (with Robbins , mus. Brahms , New York City Ballet, 1984), Sinatra Suite (mus. recordings by Frank Sinatra , American Ballet Theatre, 1984), The Little Ballet (mus. Glazunov , American Ballet Theatre, 1984), In the Upper Room (mus. Glass , 1986), Quartet (mus. Terry Riley , American Ballet Theatre, 1989), Bum's Rush (mus. Dick Hyman , American Ballet Theatre, 1989), Rules of the Game (mus. Bach , Paris Opera Ballet, 1989), Brief Fling (mus. Colombier , Grainger , American Ballet Theatre, 1990), Grand Pas: Rhythm of the Saints (mus. Paul Simon , Paris Opera Ballet, 1991), The Men's Piece (1991), Octet (mus. Edgar Meyer , 1991), Sextet (mus. Bob Telson , Peter Melnick , 1992), Demeter and Persephone (mus. various, klezmer, Martha Graham company, 1993), Pergolesi (mus. Pergolesi , White Oak Dance Project, 1993), Waterbaby Bagatelles (mus. various, Boston Ballet, 1994), How Near Heaven (mus. Britten , American Ballet Theatre, 1995), Americans We (mus. Donald Hunsberger , ABT, 1995), Jump Start (mus. Wynton Marsalis , ABT, 1995), Mr Worldly Wise (mus. Rossini , Royal Ballet, 1995), Sweet Fields (mus. William Billings , 1996), Heroes (mus. Glass , 1996), 66 (mus. various, 1996), The Storyteller (mus. Kiyong Kim , Australian Ballet, 1997), Roy's Joys (mus. Roy Eldridge , 1997), Known By Heart (mus. Mozart , Donald Knaack , Steve Reich , ABT, 1998), Diabelli Variations (mus. Beethoven , 1999), Grosse Sonate (mus. Beethoven , 1999), The Beethoven Seventh (mus. Beethoven , New York City Ballet, 2000). She also choreographed and directed the Broadway musical Singin' in the Rain (1985) and did the choreography for the films Hair (1979), Ragtime (1981), Amadeus (1984), and White Nights (1985). She made the award-winning television programme Making Television Dance in 1977. Author of autobiography Push Comes to Shove (New York, 1992).

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Theatre Piece.

Modern dance in eight parts with choreography by Humphrey , music by W. Riegger , and costumes by P. Lawrence . Premiered 19 Jan. 1936 by the Humphrey-Weidman Company, at the Guild Theater, New York. A group work for nineteen dancers, it depicts the world as a grim and dehumanizing place. Humphrey played the part of someone who rebels against the prevailing ethos. Theatre Piece was part of a trilogy, with New Dance and With My Red Fires.

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Theme and Variations.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Balanchine , music by Tchaikovsky , designs by Woodman Thompson . Premiered 26 Nov. 1947 by Ballet Theatre in New York, with Alonso and Youskevitch . A plotless ballet set in a chandeliered ballroom, it is Balanchine's tribute to the Imperial Russian ballet tradition he grew up with and pays obvious homage to Petipa's The Sleeping Beauty. It is set to the final movement of Tchaikovsky's Suite for Orchestra No 3. It was later taken into the repertoire of New York City Ballet, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, Dutch National Ballet, Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet, the Kirov Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, and the Royal Danish Ballet. In 1970 Balanchine choreographed the first three movements of Tchaikovsky's suite. The complete ballet is called Suite No. 3.

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Théodore , Mlle (orig. Marie-Madeleine de Crépé or Marie-Madeleine Crespé ;

b Paris, 6 Oct. 1760, d Audenge, 9 Sept. 1796).
French dancer. She studied with Jean-Barthélemy Lany in Paris and made her debut at the Paris Opera in 1777, where she excelled in ballets by Noverre and Gardel . Within a few years, however, she was performing abroad, in Brussels and London (1781–4, King's Theatre), and was imprisoned for eighteen days in 1783 for allegedly breaking her contract with the Paris Opera. That same year she left the Paris Opera, along with her husband, the choreographer Dauberval . She and Dauberval then went to the Grand Theatre in Bordeaux, he as ballet master and she as principal dancer (1785–90). It was there that she created the role of Lise in the first production of Dauberval's La Fille mal gardée (1789). She later returned to London (1791–2) to dance at the Pantheon and Haymarket Theatres. It is said she was once involved in a duel with Mlle Beaumesnil of the Paris Opera; apparently it came to nothing when both their pistols misfired.

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There is a Time.

Modern dance in one act with choreography by Limón , music by Dello Joio , and costumes by P. Lawrence . Premiered 20 Apr. 1956 by the José Limón Dance Company at the Juilliard Concert Hall, New York, with Limón, Koner , Currier , B. Jones , L. Nielsen , and Hoving . The ballet is based on the passage from Ecclesiastes: ‘To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.’

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Thesmar , Ghislaine

(b Peking, 1943).
French dancer. She studied at the Paris Conservatoire and made her debut with the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas in 1961. She danced with Pierre Lacotte's company, Ballet National des Jeunesses Musicales de France, and married him in 1968. She also danced with Ballet Rambert, Petit's company, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, and from 1972 to 1985 was an étoile at the Paris Opera Ballet. She created roles in Petit's Formes (1967), Shéhérazade (1974), and La Nuit transfigurée (1976), Nault's Catulli Carmina (1969) and Pas Rompu (1969), and created the title role in Lacotte's television production of La Sylphide in 1971. She appeared as a guest artist with New York City Ballet in 1976. From 1986 to 1988 she and Lacotte were joint artistic directors of the Ballets de Monte Carlo. She later taught at the Paris Opera Ballet.

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Thordal-Christensen , Aage

(b Frederiksberg, 30 Oct. 1965).
Danish dancer, choreographer, and ballet director. He trained at the Ballet School of the Royal Theatre, Copenhagen (1972–82); later studied at the School of American Ballet in New York and at the National Ballet School in Toronto. He joined the Royal Danish Ballet in 1984 but left for America the following year. He was a dancer with Pacific Northwest Ballet for six years (1986–92), becoming a principal in 1989. In 1992 he returned to the Royal Danish Ballet as a soloist, where he danced a wide range of roles in both the traditional and modern repertoire. He made his debut as a choreographer in Copenhagen in 1994 with Behind the Curtain (mus. Kim Helweg ) and followed that with Room 7 (mus. Luigi Ceccarelli , 1994) and Something Like That (mus. Helweg , 1995). He was appointed artistic director of the Royal Danish Ballet in 1999.

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Three-Cornered Hat, The (also Le Tricorne).

Ballet in one act with choreography by Massine , libretto by Martinez Sierra , music by de Falla , and designs by Picasso . Premiered 22 July 1919 by the Ballets Russes de Diaghilev at the Alhambra Theatre, London, with Massine , Karsavina , Woizikowski , and Idzikowski . Based on a story by Pedro Antonio de Alarcón (El sombrero de tres picos, 1874), this comic and earthy ballet tells of the miller's neglected wife who attempts to teach her husband a lesson by pursuing the ageing Corregidor, who turns out to be not as feeble as he seems. Massine's choreography was strongly influenced by the folk dances of northern Spain. The ballet is widely regarded as one of the most successful collaborations between choreographer, composer, and designer in the 20th century. Massine revived it for Ballet Theatre (1943), Sadler's Wells Ballet (1947), Royal Swedish Ballet (1956), City Center Joffrey Ballet (1969), and London Festival Ballet (1973).

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3 Epitaphs.

Modern dance in one act with choreography by Paul Taylor , music early New Orleans jazz recorded by the Laneville-Johnson Union Brass Band, costumes by Rauschenberg . Premiered 27 Mar. 1956 by the Paul Taylor Dance Company at the Master Institute of United Artists, New York, part of the Dance Associates concerts. The dancers, their faces completely hidden, are dressed head to toe in black costumes with tiny mirrors that mark out their eyes and their hands. It was later reworked as Four Epitaphs. It is Taylor's oldest surviving work.

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Three Virgins and a Devil.

Ballet in one act with choreography by de Mille , libretto by Ramon Reed , music by Respighi , set by Arne Lundborg , and costumes by Motley . Premiered 11 Feb. 1941 by Ballet Theatre at the Majestic Theatre in New York, with de Mille , Chase , Lyon , Loring , and Robbins . The Devil lures the three Virgins into Hell.

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tights.

A body-hugging garment which covers the dancer's body below the waist. Today's tights are made of a stretchy fabric which allows for complete freedom of movement in the legs and hips.

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Tikhomirov , Vassily

(b Moscow, 29 Mar. 1876, d Moscow, 20 June 1956).
Russian dancer, choreographer, and teacher. He studied at the Moscow Ballet School, pupil of Ivan Ermolov, Platon Karsavin, and Alexander Shiryaev, from 1886. In 1891 he graduated and was sent to St Petersburg to join Pavel Gerdt's class de perfection at the Imperial Ballet School. After two years there, he returned to Moscow and joined the Bolshoi Ballet; from 1899 he was its leading premier danseur. He created roles in Gorsky's Don Quixote (1900), The Goldfish (1903), The Magic Mirror (1905), Pharaoh's Daughter (1905), Salammbô (1911), Dance Dream (1911), Le Corsaire (1912, starred as Conrad), and Eunice and Petronius (1916). In 1911 he was leading dancer at the Alhambra Theatre in London, and he was Pavlova's partner during her 1913 world tour. He danced frequently with Geltser (later his first wife). He started to teach at the Moscow school in 1896, a distinguished career that saw him guiding the training of Volinine and Messerer, among others; from 1917 he was head of the school. He was a traditionalist and a conservative, and following the 1917 Revolution he worked to preserve the classics in the grand manner of Petipa, campaigning in opposition to Gorsky, who was working to find a more contemporary dramatic relevance for ballet in the 20th century. Tikhomirov succeeded Gorsky as chief ballet master of the Bolshoi Ballet (1925–30), and mounted several productions of the classics, as well as creating a new production of La Esmeralda (1926). He also choreographed (with Lashchilin ) The Red Poppy in 1927, the first contemporary Soviet ballet, which married a modern theme (the struggle of the Chinese against their English colonial masters) to the conventions of 19th-century Imperial Russian ballet (variations, pas de deux, a grand pas). The Red Poppy was a big success for Geltser, who took the role of the heroine, although Tikhomirov's choreography for the second act was judged by the critics to be archaic. None the less, it was very popular with audiences. He retired from teaching in 1937.

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Tiller Girls.

Troupes of English dancing girls founded in 1901 by John Tiller (c. 1851–1925). The original modern precision dance groups, they were trained in London by Mrs John Tiller and appeared in music halls and variety shows. They were the model for the famous US troupe the Rockettes.

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Till Eulenspiegel.

Richard Strauss's 1895 tone-poem has inspired several ballets, among them Nijinsky's version for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes (New York, 1916), Babilée's for the Ballets des Champs-Elysées (Paris, 1949), and Balanchine's for New York City Ballet (Tyl Ulenspiegel, New York, 1951).

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Timofeyeva , Nina

(b Leningrad, 11 June 1935).
Soviet dancer. She studied at the Leningrad Ballet School (the Vaganova Academy), graduating in 1953 and joining the Kirov. In 1956, however, she was invited to join the Bolshoi Ballet as a soloist. She went on to become one of the Bolshoi's leading ballerinas and stayed with the company until she retired in 1988. She created a total of 50 roles, including in Lavrovsky's Night City (1961), the title role in Vinogradov's Asel (1967), Aegina in Grigorovich's Spartacus (1968), and Lady Macbeth in Vasiliev's Macbeth (1980). She also appeared in fifteen films, including Fedra and the Twilight Nights (1971), Raymonda (1974), and The Three Cards (1983). She later settled in Israel, where she teaches. She married the conductor Gennadi Rozhdestvensky. People's Artist USSR (1969).

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Tippet , Clark

(b Parsons, Kan., 5 Oct. 1954, d Parsons, Kan., 28 Jan. 1992).
US dancer and choreographer. He studied in New York at Thalia Mara's National Academy of Ballet and briefly at the American Ballet Theatre School. He joined American Ballet Theatre in 1972, becoming a principal in 1976. He created a role in Tharp's Push Comes to Shove (1976). He appeared in the Hollywood film The Turning Point (1977). In 1979 he left ABT and joined the Cleveland Ballet. After dancing in Australia and Israel, he returned to ABT where he took up choreography in 1986; among his works was Bruch Violin Concerto No. 1 (1988). He also created works for Pacific Northwest Ballet (Gigue and Chrysalis Regarding). He died prematurely from an Aids-related illness.

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Tipton , Jennifer

(b Columbus, Ohio, 11 Sept. 1937).
US lighting designer. She studied dance with Graham and Limón , and stage lighting with Thomas Skelton (1963), becoming his assistant. She became resident lighting designer of the Paul Taylor Dance Company in 1966 and has continued to work with the choreographer for more than 30 years, lighting virtually all of his creations. She started a 30-year collaboration with Twyla Tharp in 1965, lighting dozens of Tharp ballets, including the acclaimed In the Upper Room. She also worked with the Joffrey Ballet, the Feld Ballet, the Limón Dance Company, American Ballet Theatre, and the National Ballet of Canada. In 1987 she began to work with the choreographer Dana Reitz ; in 1993 they joined forces with Sara Rudner on the revolutionary Necessary Weather, a work which featured lighting as a full partner to the choreography. She has worked extensively in theatre as a lighting designer and made her directorial debut in 1991 with a production of The Tempest in Minneapolis. She teaches lighting design at the Yale University School of Drama. She received a Tony Award for lighting design for her work on the 1989 Broadway musical Jerome Robbins' Broadway.

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Tivoli Pantomime Theatre.

A theatre situated in Copenhagen's Tivoli Gardens, opened in 1874; built by Vilhelm Dahlerup and Ove Petersen (who also designed the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen). Traditional pantomimes based on the Italian commedia dell'arte are regularly performed there in the summer months, along with small-scale ballets.

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Tobias , Tobi

(b New York, 12 Sept. 1938).
US dance critic and writer on dance. She studied at Barnard College (BA 1959) and New York University (MA 1962). Dance critic Soho News (1979–81). She had a long association with Dance Magazine, beginning in 1971, and was senior editor from 1983 to 1998. She also taught dance criticism at Barnard College (1977–92). She has been dance critic of New York Magazine since 1980. A leading authority on the Danish ballet, she initiated An Oral History of the Royal Danish Ballet and Its Bournonville Tradition. She is also a noted children's author, who has written two dozen books for children. Those on the subject of dance include Maria Tallchief (1970) and Arthur Mitchell (1975). She has also acted as a consultant and writer to the Dance in America television series (1976–90). One of the most senior and influential dance critics in the US.

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Tokyo Ballet, The.

Ballet company based in Tokyo which grew out of the city's first classical ballet school, the Tokyo Ballet Gakko, founded by Koichi Hayashi in 1960 and based on the Soviet model. When the company first performed it was known as the Tchaikovsky Memorial Ballet. In 1964, after going bankrupt, the school and company were reorganized by the impresario Tadatsugu Sasaki, who greatly expanded their activities. The repertoire includes the standard ballet classics, along with modern works by Western choreographers, including Petit , Béjart , Kylián , Neumeier , Hynd , and Alberto Alonso . The company made its first visit to Western Europe in 1970, and enjoyed an extensive European tour five years later, the first Japanese ballet company to do so. Russian and European stars frequently appear as guest artists with the company, which continues to tour internationally.

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Tomasson , Helgi

(b Reykjavik, 8 Oct. 1942).
Icelandic-US dancer, choreographer, and company director. He studied with Sigridur Arman, Erik Bidsted, Volkova, at the School of American Ballet in New York, and with Stanley Williams . He made his debut with the Tivoli Ballet in Copenhagen in 1958; joined the Joffrey Ballet in 1962 and the Harkness Ballet in 1964. He created roles in Joffrey's Gamelan (1963), Walker's Night Song (1967), Butler's A Season in Hell (1967), Neumeier's Stages and Reflections (1968), and Harkarvy's La Favorita (1969). In 1970 he joined New York City Ballet as a principal dancer, where he remained for fifteen years, acclaimed as one of the most elegant and technically accomplished classical male dancers in America. At NYCB he created roles in Robbins's The Goldberg Variations (1971), Dybbuk Variations (1974), and Introduction and Allegro for Harp (1975), in Balanchine's Symphony in Three Movements (1972), Divertimento from Le Baiser de la fée (1972), Coppélia (1974), Union Jack (1976), and Vienna Waltzes (1977) and in Martins's The Magic Flute (1982). He started choreographing in 1982 and retired from dancing in 1985 when he became artistic director of San Francisco Ballet. For San Francisco he has made many one-act ballets, including Handel—A Celebration, Meistens Mozart, Nanna's Lied, Sonata, and Con Brio, and staged Romeo and Juliet, Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, and Giselle. He is credited with revitalizing the San Francisco company.

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tombé.

(Fr., fallen). In ballet a movement which involves falling from one leg onto the other, or from two legs onto one, and landing with a bent knee.

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Toronto Dance Theatre.

Toronto-based Canadian modern dance company founded in 1968 by Patricia Beatty , David Earle , and Peter Randazzo . For the first twelve years the repertoire was made up of works by all three choreographers. In 1981 Christopher House became resident choreographer. Earle assumed artistic direction in 1987; House took over as director in 1994. The company, initially Graham-based, has had a major influence on the development of modern dance in Canada. Some of its former dancers, such as Peggy Baker and Robert Desrosiers , have gone on to run companies of their own. Toronto Dance Theatre has its own school.

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Torvill and Dean.

Jayne Torvill (b Nottingham, 7 Oct. 1957) and Christopher Dean (b Nottingham, 27 July 1958), British ice dancers and Olympic gold medallists. More than anyone else, they revolutionized ice dancing, bringing it closer to dance than it had ever been and thus raising questions about its viability as a sport. At the 1984 Olympic Games, where they won a Gold Medal, their free dance to Ravel's Bolero earned a perfect score from the judges and captured audiences' imagination the world over, making Torvill and Dean the most famous ice dancers in history. Dean's artistic choreography widened the horizons for competitive ice dancing and he eventually took his dance-writing skills to the ballet stage (in a work for English National Ballet). As professional skaters they mounted large-scale ice dancing shows and appeared in several television specials. They performed routines based on the musicals Mack and Mabel and Barnum, as well as tributes to ‘Fred and Ginger ’ and John Lennon .

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Toumanova , Tamara

(b Tyumen, Siberia, 2 Mar. 1919, d Santa Monica, Calif., 29 May 1996).
Russian-US dancer. An exotic and glamorous international ballerina, even her origins were special: she was born on a train near Shanghai as her parents were leaving Russia after the Revolution. Her earliest dance classes took place in China but when she was 5 the family moved to Paris, where she began to study with Preobrajenska; later she trained with Balanchine and Nijinska . She made her debut as a child prodigy in the 1929 Paris Opera production of L'Éventail de Jeanne, in which she had a leading role. She was one of the so-called ‘baby ballerinas’ (the others were Baronova and Riabouchinska ) hired by Balanchine for René Blum and de Basil's new Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo in 1932; she was 13 at the time of her first performance. There she created roles in Balanchine's Cotillon, La Concurrence, and Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (1932) and in Massine's Jeux d'enfants (all 1932). For much of her career she was closely associated with Balanchine: she joined his Les Ballets 1933 and created roles in his Les Songes, Mozartiana, and Fastes. She then returned to de Basil's Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, where she stayed until 1937, creating roles in Massine's Choreartium (1933), Union Pacific (1934), Jardin public (1935), and Symphonie fantastique (1936). In 1938 she danced with the new Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, which had Massine as its artistic director; during its London season she danced her first Giselle. She joined de Basil's Original Ballet Russe (successor to the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo) in 1939 and created a ballerina role in Balanchine's Balustrade (1941). She danced with Denham's Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo (1941–2) and took part in Massine's Labyrinth (1941) and Saratoga (1941). She danced with Ballet Theatre (1944–5), where she created roles in Massine's Moonlight Sonata (1944) and Nijinska's Harvest Time (1944). A sought-after guest artist, she worked as a freelance ballerina with companies in Europe and America, creating roles in Balanchine's Le Palais de cristal (Paris Opera, 1947), Lifar's Phèdre (title role, Paris Opera, 1950), L'Inconnue (Paris, 1950), and La Pierre enchantée (Paris, 1950), Wallmann's La vita dell'uomo (La Scala, Milan, 1951), Dolin's Rêve (London Festival Ballet, 1952), Charrat's The Seven Deadly Sins (Milan, 1956), and Taras's Le Fanfare pour le Prince (Monte Carlo, 1956). She also gave concert performances, appearing mainly with Vladimir Oukhtomsky as her partner. She appeared in many Hollywood films, including Days of Glory (1944, produced by her husband, Casey Robinson ), Tonight We Sing (1953), Deep in My Heart (1954), Invitation to the Dance (1956), Hitchcock's Torn Curtain (1966), and Wilder's The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970). She also appeared on stage, in the Broadway production of the musical Stars in Your Eyes (1939). A dancer of great beauty and virtuosity, she was admired for both her tragic and comedic skills as a performer.

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tour en l'air

(Fr., turn in the air). In ballet a movement which involves the dancer turning while at the same time jumping straight up into the air. There are multiple tours en l'air, mostly performed by the male dancer.

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Tragedy of Fashion, A, or The Scarlet Scissors.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Ashton , libretto by Ashley Dukes , music by Eugene Goossens (arr. Ernest Irving ), and designs by Fedorovitch . Premiered 15 June 1926 in the revue Riverside Nights at the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith, London, with Ashton and Rambert . The ballets tells of a couturier who is so dejected when his dress is rejected by a wealthy customer that he commits suicide by stabbing himself with his dressmaker's shears. It was Ashton's first ballet and was produced by Rambert and her company.

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Train bleu, Le.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Nijinska , libretto by Cocteau , music by Milhaud , curtain by Picasso , set by Henri Laurens , and costumes by Chanel. Premiered 20 June 1924, by the Ballets Russes de Diaghilev at the Théâtre de Champs-Elysées, Paris, with Nijinska , Sokolova , Dolin , and Woizikowski . A ballet with a sporting theme, it features a group of fashionable and rich friends amusing themselves on the Mediterranean coast. Cocteau's scenario was influenced by the Olympic Games, silent films, and jazz music, while Nijinska's choreography had a strong gymnastic element to it. Nijinska danced the role of the Champion Tennis Player, Woizikowski the part of a golfer, Dolin (an accomplished athlete) was the swimming champion. The Train Bleu itself, an express train between Paris and the Côte d'Azur, does not appear in the ballet. The ballet's first complete revival was at the Oakland Ballet in 1989; it was restaged at the Paris Opera in 1992.

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Transfigured Night (orig. Ger. title Verklärte Nacht).

A String Sextet by Schoenberg , written in 1899, it has inspired several ballets, among them Tudor's Pillar of Fire (Ballet Theatre, New York, 1942), Kylián's Transfigured Night (Netherlands Dance Theatre, 1975), and Petit's La Nuit transfigurée (Paris Opera, 1976).

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travestie, en.

Originally used to describe the practice of a man playing a woman's role on stage (and hence wearing female attire). The need for cross-dressing arose because women in ancient Greece were not allowed to appear on stage so the parts of female characters had to be performed by men. In W. Europe the early Christian Church also prohibited women from acting on stage and in Shakespeare's day men routinely played the women's parts. It was not until the 17th century (a century later in Italy) that women were generally allowed to perform in public. Today, the practice of en travestie on the ballet stage is usually associated mainly with burlesque and parody. The term can also be used to describe a woman playing a man's role (and hence wearing male attire). Famous examples of female impersonation in classical ballet today include the Widow Simone in Ashton's La Fille mal gardée, Carabosse in The Sleeping Beauty, and the witch Madge in Bournonville's La Sylphide. Les Ballets Trockadero, founded in New York in 1974, is an all-male troupe of dancers who perform the standards of the classical ballet repertoire en travestie.

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Trefilova , Vera

(b St Petersburg (or Vladikavkaz), 8 Oct. 1875, d Paris, 11 July 1943).
Russian dancer and teacher. She studied at the Imperial Ballet School in St Petersburg with Ekaterina Vazem and graduated in 1894. She later studied with Eugenia Sokolova , Nikolai Legat , and Enrico Cecchetti . She joined the ballet company at the Maryinsky Theatre (later the Kirov) in 1894 and was promoted to soloist in 1901. She created roles in Ivanov's Acis and Galatea (1896), N. and S. Legat's The Fairy Doll (1903), N. Legat's The Blood-Red Flower (1907), and Fokine's The Night of Terpsichore (1907). In 1906 she was promoted to principal but only four years later she resigned, either out of disaffection with the way the ballet was going (she was not a fan of Fokine's innovations) or because she fell victim to a campaign against her led by Kschessinska , the Maryinsky's reigning ballerina. In 1915 she made her debut as an actress at the Mikhailovsky Theatre in St Petersburg. In 1917 she left Russia and opened a ballet school in Paris. Her place in the history books was ensured when Diaghilev invited her to dance Aurora in his 1921 London production of The Sleeping Princess. In 1924, almost 50 years old, she danced Odette-Odile for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in Monte Carlo, still amazing audiences with her fouettéturns. She gave her final performance at His Majesty's Theatre in London in 1926. She was described as a ballerina of great expressive power, and the finest Aurora since Carlotta Brianza, who created the role. She was married to the dance critic Valerian Svetlov, who wrote Contemporary Ballet (St Petersburg, 1911), a standard reference work.

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Trend.

Modern dance in six parts with choreography and libretto by Hanya Holm , music by Wallingford Riegger and Edgard Varèse , set by Arch Lauterer , and costumes by Betty Joiner . Premiered 13 Aug. 1937 by the Hanya Holm Company at Bennington College for Women in Vermont. Holm's signature work, it is an ambitious 55-minute dance for an all-female cast which deals with the theme of the destruction of society through its own decadence.

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trepak.

A bravura Ukrainian folk dance in 2/4 time performed exclusively by men. It features deep squats and split leaps. There is a famous theatrical example in the second act of The Nutcracker.

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Triadic Ballet.

Modern dance by Oskar Schlemmer . Premiered 30 Sept. 1922 at the Landes Theater in Stuttgart, with Schlemmer , Albert Burger , and Elsa Hötzel . Schlemmer , one of the leading lights of the Bauhaus movement, used the piece to explore the relationship between the moving body and abstract space. It was prefigured by earlier productions in 1911 and 1916. The work was in three parts, each colour-coded to reflect the changing mood from humour to seriousness: Lemon yellow, Pink, and Black. There were twelve dances performed by three people (two men, one woman) who wore eighteen costumes. The costumes, made up of spirals, triangles, and cones, were constructed of padded cloth and papier-maché and were coated with metallic paint. The choreography was simple, consisting mainly of repetitive movements. For subsequent performances Hindemith composed music for a mechanical organ. In 1970 Margarethe Hasting reconstructed Triadic Ballet for German television.

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Tricorne, Le.

See Three-Cornered Hat, The.

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Trinity.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Gerald Arpino , music by Alan Raph and Lee Holdridge . Premiered 9 Oct. 1970 by the City Center Joffrey Ballet at City Center in New York. One of the first ballets to draw upon the alienated youth culture of 1960s America, its message was hope and its inspiration was flower power. Unusually, it featured a live rock band in the orchestra pit. For many years it was the Joffrey's signature piece. When it was performed in Moscow in 1974 it reportedly generated 42 curtain calls on closing night.

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Triomphe de l'amour, Le.

Ballet de cour in twenty entrées with text by I. de Benserade and P. Quinault , music by Lully , production and choreography by Beauchamps and Pécour , and designs by J. Bérain . Premiered 21 Jan. 1681 at the Château de Saint-Germainen-Laye, with Beauchamps as Mars and Pécour in various entrées. The ladies and gentlemen of the court provided the rest of the cast in this baroque extravaganza. The work's finale celebrates Love as the ruler of both gods and men. Four months after its premiere, a performance (at the Paris Palais Royal) featured the first appearance of a professional ballerina, Mlle Lafontaine. Harald Lander staged a new version for the Royal Danish Ballet in 1962.

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Tristan ballets.

The legend of Tristan and Isolde has provided the subject for several ballets, including Massine's Mad Tristan (mus. Wagner , Ballet International, 1944), Ashton's Picnic at Tintagel (mus. Bax , New York City Ballet, 1952), Charrat's Tu auras nom … Tristan (mus. Jef Maes , Geneva, 1963), T. Gsovsky's Tristan (mus. Blacher , German Opera Berlin, 1965); Béjart's Les Vainqueurs (mus. Tibetan music and Wagner, Brussels, 1969), and Tetley's Tristan (mus. Henze , Paris Opera, 1974), which starred Nureyev and Carlson.

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Triumph of Death, The.

Television ballet choreographed by Flindt , with music by Thomas Koppel , sets by Poul Arnt Thomsen , and costumes by Soren Breum . Premiered by Danish television on 23 May 1971 with Flindt , F. Schaufuss , Eliasen , and Vivi Flindt . It is based on Ionesco's Jeu de massacre, and is a strident and deliberately shocking attack on capitalist ideology. In the famous nude scene, the choreographer himself appeared with his body sprayed with pink disinfectant. The piece was first performed on the stage on 19 Feb. 1972 by the Royal Danish Ballet in Copenhagen.

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Troy Game.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Robert North , music by Bob Downes and Batucada (Brazilian), and costumes by Peter Farmer . Premiered 3 Oct. 1974 by London Contemporary Dance Theatre at the Royal Court Theatre in Liverpool. A bravura and humorous ballet for men, it parodies the muscle-bound athleticism of the macho male. It was revived for Dance Theatre of Harlem in 1979, for the Royal Ballet in 1980 and for Scottish Ballet in 1991.

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Tudor , Antony (orig. William John Cook ;

b London, 4 Apr. 1909, d New York, 19 Apr. 1987).
British dancer, choreographer, and teacher. He began his training with Marie Rambert in 1928, and later studied with Pearl Argyle , Harold Turner , and Margaret Craske . In 1930 he joined Rambert's company as a dancer, and also acted as her assistant. He immediately began choreographing ballets, and his early works (all of which he starred in) included Cross-Garter'd (mus. Frescobaldi , 1931), Lysistrata (mus. Prokofiev , 1932), Adam and Eve (mus. Lambert , Camargo Society, 1932), The Planets (mus. Holst , 1934), The Descent of Hebe (mus. Bloch , 1935), and two of his most famous works, Jardin aux lilas (Lilac Garden, mus. Chausson , 1936) and Dark Elegies (mus. Mahler , 1937), both of which explored new psychological avenues in dance, thus establishing the genre of ‘psychological ballet’. In 1937 he left Rambert's company and with de Mille established Dance Theatre, with Hugh Laing as principal dancer, but the company was disbanded after one week in Oxford. He choreographed The Judgment of Paris (mus. Weill ) in 1938 for an ad hoc company at the Westminster Theatre in London. Later that year he formed the London Ballet with Laing , Maude Lloyd , and Peggy van Praagh as its stars; for this troupe he created Soirée musicale (mus. Rossini and Britten ) and Gala Performance (mus. Prokofiev ). In 1939 he and Laing moved to New York, where he became choreographer for Ballet Theatre, as well as dancing with the newly formed company. For Ballet Theatre he created Goya Pastoral (mus. Granados , 1940), Pillar of Fire (mus. Schoenberg , 1942), The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet (mus. Delius , 1943), Dim Lustre (mus. R. Strauss , 1943), Undertow (mus. W. Schuman , 1945), and Shadow of the Wind (mus. Mahler , 1948). He worked for the Royal Swedish Ballet (1949–50), and New York City Ballet (1951–2), for whom he made Lady of the Camellias (mus. Verdi , 1951) and La Gloire (mus. Beethoven , 1952). In 1950 he left Ballet Theatre and was appointed director of the Metropolitan Opera Ballet School; later (1957–63) he was ballet director of the Juilliard School. He made Offenbach in the Underworld for the Philadelphia Ballet Company (1954); and Echoing of Trumpets (mus. Martin , 1963) for the Royal Swedish Ballet, where he briefly served as artistic director. As a busy freelance choreographer he made Shadowplay (mus. Koechlin , 1967) and Knight Errant (mus. R. Strauss , 1968) for the Royal Ballet, a company which had neglected him for decades; and The Divine Horsemen (mus. Egk , 1969) for the Australian Ballet. He joined American Ballet Theatre as associate director in 1974, and choreographed The Leaves Are Fading (mus. Dvoák , 1975) and The Tiller in the Fields (mus. Dvoák , 1978), both of them made for Gelsey Kirkland. Although not especially prolific, Tudor was one of the great choreographers of the 20th century. He was an astute observer of human nature and behaviour, and was able in his ballets to transmit a wealth of psychological detail—especially sorrow and yearning—with a single step or gesture. He was one of the first choreographers to concentrate on the emotional anguish of ordinary men and women, exploring the darkness of their interior lives with extraordinary grace and sympathy.

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Tulip of Haarlem, The.

Ballet in three acts with choreography by Ivanov , music by Baron Fitingoff-Shell (or Baron Boris Shel ). Premiered 4 Oct. 1887 at the Maryinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, with Emma Bessone , Legat , and P. Gerdt . Emma , a Dutch peasant girl, is turned into a tulip; a kiss from her sweetheart Peter returns her to human form. It was Ivanov's first original full-length ballet.

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Tune , Tommy

(b Wichita Falls, Tex., 28 Feb. 1939).
US dancer, director, and choreographer. He studied ballet with Camille Hill, Emma Mae Horn , and Shirley Dodge . At six ft. six in. he was too tall for a career in ballet, so he turned to the theatre. He began as a performer in Broadway musicals, including Baker Street (1965), A Joyful Noise (1966), How Now Dow Jones? (1967), and Seesaw (1973), for which he won his first Tony Award. He revealed his skill as a tap dancer in such films as Hello, Dolly (1969) and The Boy Friend (1971). He made his New York directing debut in 1976 with The Club. His subsequent production, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, which he co-directed and co-choreographed, was a huge hit, winning him a 1978 Tony Award as Best Director of a Musical. He won additional Tonys in 1980 for direction and choreography on A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine. Other successes followed, including Caryl Churchill's non-musical Cloud 9 (1981) and Nine (1981), a musical based on Fellini's film 8½; both productions earned him further directing awards. In 1983 he starred in, directed and co-choreographed (with Thomie Walsh ) My One and Only, in which he and Twiggy donned top hats to sing and dance to a selection of George Gershwin show tunes. This resulted in another Tony award, this time for Best Actor in a Musical. After two attempts at Stepping Out (1983 and 1987), Tune staged the darker Grand Hotel (1989) and The Will Rogers Follies (1991), winning Tonys for both shows. In all, he has won nine Tony Awards. He published his autobiography, Footnotes: A Memoir, in 1997.

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Turkey.

Before the Second World War, theatrical dance in Turkey was restricted to appearances by foreign dance companies. Following a visit by Ninette de Valois , a national ballet school was set up in Istanbul in 1948, with Joy Newton as director. In 1950 it was moved to the Ankara State Conservatory. In 1960 the company, today known as the Ankara State Ballet, staged its first professional performance; Robert Harrold's production of Manuel de Falla's El amor brujo featured an all Turkish cast. Lorna Mossford staged the first production of The Sleeping Beauty in Turkey in 1963. De Valois contributed several works to the repertoire in the 1960s, including Cesmebast (At the Fountain), which used a score by the Turkish composer Ferit Tuzun , and Sinfonietta, with music by Nevit Kodali . Richard Glasstone (director 1965–9) staged Sylvia and Prince of the Pagodas, as well as Hancerli Hanim (The Lady with the Dagger), which took as its theme a famous tale of love, jealousy, and murder in 17th-century Istanbul. In 1968 the company performed the first ballet by a native choreographer, Sait Sokmen . The ballet, called Cark (The Wheel), was an abstract work set to Ravel's String Quartet. It helped to pave the way for other Turkish choreographers. In 1970 a second company was founded, called the Istanbul State Ballet. Contemporary dance in Turkey is represented by Modern Dance Turkey, a company based in Ankara, founded in 1993.

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Turner , Harold

(b Manchester, 2 Dec. 1909, d London, 2 July 1962).
British dancer and teacher; one of the key figures in early British ballet. He studied with Alfred Haines in Manchester and performed in his company; further studies with Rambert in London from 1927. He danced with Dolin and Karsavina's companies (partnering Karsavina when he was just 20) and with Rambert's Ballet Club (1928–32). He created roles in Ashton's Nymphs and Shepherds (1928) and Capriol Suite (1930); in de Valois's Suite of Dances (1930) and Cephalus and Procris (1931); and in Salaman's Le Rugby (1930). In 1935 he joined Vic-Wells Ballet, becoming one of its principal dancers and remaining with the company (with two interruptions) until 1951. From 1941 to 1942 he danced with Mona Inglesby's International Ballet; he also served with the Royal Air Force during the Second World War. He created roles in de Valois's The Rake's Progress (1935), Checkmate (1937), The Emperor's New Clothes (1938), and Don Quixote (1950); and in Ashton's Le Baiser de la fée (1935), Apparitions (1936), A Wedding Bouquet (1937), and Les Patineurs (1937). After returning to Sadler's Wells in 1945, he shone in Massine's ballets, La Boutique fan-tasque and The Three-Cornered Hat (Le Tricorne). He also created a role in Massine's Clock Symphony (1948). An outstanding virtuoso dancer (who inspired Ashton to create the Blue Boy in Les Patineurs), he transformed himself in maturity into an acclaimed character actor. After retirement, he taught at Sadler's Wells Ballet School and worked as ballet master of the Covent Garden Opera Ballet, as well as appearing as a guest artist with Sadler's Wells Ballet. He died during rehearsals for a 1962 Sadler's Wells revival of Massine's The Good-Humoured Ladies, in which he was to appear as the Marquis di Luca.

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Turning Point, The.

A 1977 Hollywood film (made by Twentieth-Century Fox) about an ageing ballerina (Anne Bancroft) and her erst while colleague (Shirley MacLaine), who gave up her career in order to raise a family. The plot revolves around the latter's daughter (real-life ballerina Leslie Browne ) who wants to pursue the career her mother never had. The film goes behind the scenes into the daily life of a major ballet company (American Ballet Theatre) and features many real-life dancing stars, including Mikhail Baryshnikov as the daughter's love interest, Antoinette Sibley, and Alexandra Danilova. There is also performance footage of Fernando Bujones , Richard Cragun , Suzanne Farrell , Marcia Haydée , and Peter Martins . The script was written by Arthur Laurents ; direction was by the former dancer and choreographer Herbert Ross, whose wife, the former ballerina Nora Kaye, assisted him.

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turnout.

A fundamental requirement of all classical ballet, which involves rotating the legs and feet outwards from the hips so that the feet point sideways while the hips remain facing forward. Turnout was declared an essential element for dance by Blasis in 1820, although it had been around for more than 200 years before his pronouncement. The use of turnout was documented in Feuillet's Chorégraphie (1700), which codified the five positions of the feet. The idea of turnout is to give the lower body greater freedom of movement in every direction. Turnout depends on flexibility in the hip socket, which is developed over many years of careful ballet training.

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tutu.

The standard bodice and skirt worn by female ballet dancers. It is usually made from layers of tarlatan, muslin, silk, tulle, gauze, or nylon. It first came into prominence in the 1830s when Taglioni wore a tutu for her performance in La Sylphide. Early Romantic tutus were longer, extending down the leg towards the ankle. In the late 19th century, Classical ballet shortened the tutu to above the knee, to allow greater virtuosity of movement in the lower body and to show off the ballerina's legs. Modern tutus are frequently hip length and stand out stiffly from the hips.

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Twilight.

Ballet in one act with choreography by van Manen , music by Cage , and designs by Vroom . Premiered 20 June 1972 by the Dutch National Ballet at Stadsschouwburg in Amsterdam with Radius and Ebbelaar . The ballet is set to Cage's Perilous Night and tells of a man and a woman who are engaged in an aggressive and confrontational relationship. It was revived for the Royal Ballet in 1973.

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Two Pigeons, The.

Ballet in two acts with choreography and libretto by Ashton , music by André Messager , arranged by John Lanchbery , and designs by Jacques Dupont . Premiered 14 Feb. 1961, by the Royal Ballet Touring Company at the Royal Opera House in London, with Seymour , Gable , and Anderton . Loosely based on La Fontaine's fable, Ashton's ballet transposes the story to Bohemian Paris in the late 19th century. A young painter, bored with his domestic life, flirts with a gypsy girl but is finally reconciled with his forgiving fiancée. The ballet's lightly comic demeanour hides a deeper, more serious statement about the loss of innocence in love. One of the ballet's many charms is its use of two live pigeons to represent the lovers. It was restaged for the Royal Ballet in 1962 (with Seymour and Gable ). Also revived for CAPAB Ballet (1968), Australian Ballet (1975), National Ballet of Canada (1979), and Teatro Regio Ballet (1992). Les Deux Pigeons, the original production of the Messager score, with choreography by Louis Mérante , was premiered at the Paris Opera on 18 Oct. 1886 with Rosita Mauri and Marie Sanlaville . The hero was danced en travestie.

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U

Ulanova , Galina

(b St Petersburg, 8 Jan. 1910, d Moscow, 21 Mar. 1998).
Soviet dancer and teacher. One of the definitive Russian ballerinas of the 20th century. She was born the daughter of the ballet regisseur Serge Ulanov and the dancer Maria Romanova . She studied first with her mother (from 1919) and then with Vaganova at the St Petersburg Ballet School (the Petrograd Choreographic Institute). She graduated in 1928 into the Maryinsky Theatre company (then called the GATOB, later the Kirov). She danced the leading ballerina roles in Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, and Giselle and was acclaimed for her poetic sensitivity, her exceptional musicality, and her psychological exploration of character. But it was in the new Soviet ballets that she made her greatest impact. She created the role of Maria in Zakharov's The Fountain of Bakhchisarai (1934) and Coralie in his Lost Illusions (1936), Masha in Vainonen's The Nutcracker (1934) and—most significantly—Juliet in Lavrovsky's Romeo and Juliet (1940). During the Second World War she was evacuated to Perm with the Kirov Ballet (1941–2) and to Alma-Ata (1942–3). In 1944, however, she joined the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow where she remained until the end of her career. She created Tao-Hoa in Lavrovsky's new version of The Red Poppy (1949) and Katerina in his The Stone Flower (1954). It is said that Prokofiev was inspired by Ulanova when he wrote the scores for Romeo and Juliet and The Stone Flower. She made her first appearance in the West in 1945, with a trip to Vienna, and was the Bolshoi's leading ballerina when the company visited London in 1956 and New York in 1959. The response from Western critics was rapturous; the magnificence of her performances, even as she approached 50, confirmed her reputation as one of the world's leading ballerinas. She gave her farewell performance in 1962 but continued to work with the Bolshoi as ballet mistress and coach. Her pupils included Nina Timofeyeva , Ekaterina Maximova , Ludmila Semenyaka , and Nina Semizorova . As Soviet ballet's shining star, she became the most famous Russian ballerina of the postwar era and one of its most passionate spokesmen. Several films have captured her unique presence, among them Stars of the Ballet (1946), Ballerina (1947), Trio Ballet (1953), Romeo and Juliet (1954), and The Bolshoi Ballet (British film, 1957). She was chairman of the jury at the Varna international ballet competitions from 1964 to 1972. People's Artist of the USSR (1951). Lenin Prize (1957).

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Ullate , Victor

(b Saragossa, 9 May 1947).
Spanish dancer, choreographer, and ballet director. He studied with María de Avila and Rosella Hightower . He danced with Antonio's company (1962–5) before joining Béjart's Ballet of the 20th Century, where he remained for fourteen years. He created roles in Béjart's Ni fleurs, ni couronnes (1967), Offrande chorégraphique (1970), Nijinsky, clown de Dieu (1971), Golestan (1973), and I trionfi di Petrarca (1974). In 1979 he was invited by the Spanish Ministry of Culture to form the Ballet Nacional Clásico. Four years later he founded his own school in Madrid and in 1988 formed his own Madrid-based ballet company, Ballet de Victor Ullate, known abroad as Ballet Ullate. The repertoire includes works by Balanchine , van Manen , Nils Christe , Jan Linkens , and Micha van Hoecke , as well as ballets by Ullate (including Come To Be Tempted and Jaleos). Ullate has also staged Les Sylphides, Giselle, and Don Quixote for his company.

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Ullmann , Lisa

(b Berlin, 17 June 1907, d Chertsey, 25 Jan. 1985).
German-British dance and movement teacher. She studied dance at the Berlin Laban School, graduating in 1929. She taught in Nuremberg and at the Essen Folkwang School, where she worked for Kurt Jooss . In 1933, to escape Nazi persecution, she went to England with Jooss and his company. She taught at Dartington Hall until 1940, lectured regularly and choreographed extensively, and for twenty years (1938–58) she was Laban's main collaborator. She was cofounder of the Laban Art of Movement Guild in 1945 and the Art of Movement Studio in Manchester in 1946. She was responsible for revising several books written by Laban , and catalogued the Laban Archives.

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Ulrich , Jochen

(b Osterode, 3 Aug. 1944).
German dancer, choreographer, and company director. He studied at the Cologne Institute of Theatre Dance (1964–7). He joined the Cologne Opera Ballet in 1967, becoming a leading soloist and choreographer whose works gave the company a more contemporary emphasis. In 1971 the company was renamed the Dance Forum of the Cologne State Opera, with Ulrich as one of three directors. In 1978 he became sole director and chief choreographer. In 1995 the Cologne Dance Forum, by now one of Germany's leading modern dance outfits, became an independent company; two years later, however, it folded. The company had collaborated with many leading modern choreographers, including Christopher Bruce , Hans van Manen , and Glen Tetley . A large part of the repertoire was made up of works by Ulrich , many of them full length. A list of his works includes Lewis C. (mus. Ivo Malec , 1970), The Miraculous Mandarin (mus. Bartók , 1980), American Landscapes (mus. Gershwin and Ives , 1983), Lyric Suite (mus. Berg , 1984), Neue und Curieuse Theatralische Tantz-Schul (mus. Mauricio Kagel , 1988), Lulu (mus. Nino Rota , 1990), Graf Dracula (mus. Samuelina Tahija , 1991), Carmen (mus. Egberto Gismondi , 1993), Peer Gynt (mus. Sibelius and Górecki , 1994), Goya (mus. Bo Spaenc , 1995), and Get Up Early (mus. Joachim Kühn , 1996).

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Undertow.

Ballet in one act with prologue and epilogue, with choreography and libretto by Tudor , music by William Schuman , and designs by Raymond Breinin . Premiered 10 Apr. 1945 by Ballet Theatre at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, with Hugh Laing , Diana Adams , Alicia Alonso , John Kriza , Lucia Chase , Patricia Barker . The ballet explores the disturbed psychological background of a young man who murders a prostitute (by choking her to death) during the sex act. All the characters in the ballet, with the exception of the young man (known as the Transgressor), have names taken from Greek and Roman mythology.

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unitard.

All-in-one leotard and tights.

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United Kingdom.

See Great Britain.

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United States, The.

In the 18th and 19th centuries ballet was imported to America by European artists and companies. The earliest recorded ballet performance took place in 1735, when America was still a British colony: the English dancer Henry Holt appeared in The Adventures of Harlequin and Scaramouche and The Burgo'master Trick'd in Charleston, S. Carolina . In 1792 the Frenchman Alexandre Placide presented an entire season of ballet in New York, offering The Bird Catcher, The Return of the Labourers, and The Philosophers, or the Merry Girl. America's first professional dancer was said to be John Durang (1768–1822), who was a member of Placide's company. Mme Placide (in reality Suzanne Vaillande) later settled in New Orleans where she became prima ballerina and staged several original ballets—she was in effect America's first woman choreographer. Placide, meanwhile, opted to stay in Charleston, where he continued to stage ballets until he died in 1812. In those days most ballets were derived from the Paris Opera model of Noverre, Dauberval, and Gardel. The first truly American production occurred in 1794 when La Forêt noire was staged for Anna Gardie in Philadelphia, an important early centre of dance. In Charleston ballet was apparently flourishing: the French choreographer Jean Baptiste Francisqui presented 34 ballets there during the 1794–5 season. Later, Francisqui, along with Durang and Gardie , went to New York where they danced in Pygmalion, The Milkmaid, or The Death of the Bear, and The American Heroine (a ‘grand historic and military pantomime’). The Englishman James Byrne enjoyed great success when he brought his Harlequin pantomimes to Philadelphia at the turn of the century. In the 1820s a wave of French artists, bringing with them a much more virtuosic style, delighted American audiences. The US saw La Sylphide for the first time in 1835 and Giselle (in Boston) in 1846. Elssler's US tours (1840–2) were very popular; the Cecchetti family (including young son Enrico) also toured the US in 1857; and the Ravel family spent more than 30 years on the road in America, with a repertoire of original ballets, pantomimes, and circus acts. One of the most important productions of the 19th century was The Black Crook, a theatrical extravaganza which opened in 1866 in New York and ran for more than a year before being reincarnated in revivals and touring productions which continued until 1903. Through it, thousands of Americans were introduced to dance, albeit of the music hall variety. The Metropolitan Opera House opened in New York in 1883, although dance played a small role in its productions. Coppélia and Sylvia were introduced to America through Theodore Thomas's American Opera Company. America produced its first native-born ballerinas in the 19th century, among them Mary Ann Lee , Julia Turnbull , and, most importantly, Augusta Maywood , who achieved international fame.
The 19th century also saw the development of the first truly American theatrical dance form: tap dancing. William Henry Lane (c.1825–52), an African-American known as Master Juba, introduced the form to Europe where he was acclaimed by the critics for his fusion of W. African rhythms with European hard-shoe step dances. White American popular culture drew heavily on African-American song and dance, a trend that has continued to this day. However, it was not until the 20th century that American theatrical dance began to rival—and even outstrip—its European counterpart. In the early years of the 20th century audiences were still inspired by visits from foreign troupes: those of Pavlova , Genée , and Mordkin , not to mention Diaghilev's Ballets Russes (1916). With the arrival of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in 1938 ballet in the US finally took hold as an indigenous artform. During the 1930s the School of American Ballet was founded; Kirstein and Balanchine formed their first company (the American Ballet, which was resident at the Metropolitan Opera House for two years). In 1940 today's American Ballet Theatre was founded. At the same time, companies were springing up outside New York, among them Littlefield's in Philadelphia (1935–41), Page and Stone's in Chicago, and the San Francisco Ballet (founded in 1933). The Atlanta Ballet, founded in 1929, was America's first regional ballet company. Meanwhile, US modern dance was already well advanced, thanks to the pioneering work of Isadora Duncan , Ruth St Denis, Martha Graham , Doris Humphrey , Charles Weidman , and others in the first four decades of the 20th century. Graham , with her highly structured system of modern dance training, exerted an influence that was felt around the world, fostering new companies and inspiring choreographers everywhere. On Broadway, show dancing absorbed the rhythms of the jazz age and defined a new theatrical style; Hollywood committed to celluloid some of the most dazzling large-scale ensemble choreography ever seen, while Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers became household names around the world. After the Second World War dance exploded in America. New York City Ballet was founded, while Joffrey , Cunningham , Taylor , Limón , and Ailey ran successful modern dance companies of their own based in New York. Regional ballet companies flourished. The 1960s saw huge growth in the independent dance sector. It was a time when many influential choreographers began working, including Twyla Tharp , Trisha Brown , Lucinda Childs , and Steve Paxton . In the 1980s a new generation of choreographers, including Mark Morris and Stephen Petronio , formed their own companies, while Miami City Ballet was born, thus continuing the development of the American dance scene.

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Un jour ou deux.

Modern dance in one act with choreography by Cunningham , music by Cage , and designs by Jasper Johns . Premiered 6 Nov. 1973 by the Paris Opera Ballet, with Piollet , Denard , Guizerix , and Ariel . It had a cast of 26 dancers and lasted more than 90 minutes without an intermission. According to a programme note at the time of its premiere, ‘the dance will be comprised of a number of separate dance events—solos, duets, trios, quintets and larger groups—sometimes seen as a single entity, and sometimes in multiple with several going on at once. There are no predetermined characters and there is no prearranged story, so the characters of the dance become the characters of the individual dancers themselves, and the story is the continuity of the events as they succeed one another.’

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Urban Bush Women.

All-female black dance company founded by Jawole Willa Jo Zollar in New York in 1984. Zollar's politically outspoken choreography draws on the folk traditions of the African diaspora as well as on the music and dance of modern American black culture. The company's productions tackle tough subject-matter, including racism, abortion, and the disenfranchisement of black American women. A list of its evening-length works includes Anarchy, Wild Women and Dina (1986), Heat (1988), Praise House (1990), and Bones and Ash: A Gilda Story (mus. Toshi Reagon , 1995).

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USSR.

See Russia and the USSR.

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Uthoff , Ernst

(b Duisburg, 28 Dec. 1904, d Santiago de Chile, 19 Feb. 1993).
German-Chilean dancer, choreographer, teacher, and company director. He studied with Laban , Jooss , and Leeder and joined the Folkwang Ballet in 1927. He created the role of Standard Bearer in Jooss's landmark The Green Table (1932) and the Libertine in his Big City. Along with the other members of the Jooss company, he left Germany in the mid-1930s (when the Nazis took over) and settled in England. However, following the Ballets Jooss tour to South America in 1940, he decided to settle in Santiago with his wife Lola Botka a year later. Together they opened a dance school at the University of Chile, out of which was born the Chilean National Ballet (Ballet Nacional Chileno). He choreographed many dance theatre works for the company and retired in 1965 after 24 years as director. A list of Uthoff's ballets includes Drosselbart, Don Juan, Petrushka, The Prodigal Son, Alotria, and Carmina Burana, his greatest success. His son Michael , a dancer, choreographer, and ballet director, worked in America. Among the companies he directed were the Hartford Ballet and Ballet Arizona.

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V

Vaganova , Agrippina

(b St Petersburg, 26 June 1879, d St Petersburg, 5 Nov. 1951
). Soviet dancer, teacher, and ballet director. She trained at the Imperial Ballet School in St Petersburg, a student of Ivanov , Vazem , Pavel Gerdt , and Nikolai Legat ; later studies with Preobrajenska . She graduated in 1897 and joined the Maryinsky Theatre, but despite possessing a considerable technique she was not promoted to ballerina until 1915, a year before she retired. It certainly did not help her career that she was dancing at the same time as Pavlova, Karsavina, Preobrajenska, and Kschessinska, and lacked their influence in high places. The critic Valerian Svetlov once described her as ‘the queen of variations’. Disillusioned with her own career as a dancer, Vaganova none the less achieved lasting fame as one of the most important teachers in the history of ballet. She began teaching at a private ballet school in St Petersburg, the School of Russian Ballet run by Akim Volynsky , in 1917. In 1920 she transferred to the Imperial Ballet School (by now renamed the Leningrad Choreographic School) where she remained until her death in 1951. Her students included Semonova , Ulanova , Dudinskaya , Moiseyeva , Kolpakova , and Volkova . One of her first efforts at choreography, The Visions of a Poet (1927), was made for the school's theatre. A woman of great analytical ability, she developed her own system of teaching which carries her name. It gave birth to the new Soviet style and today is used as the basis of ballet training both in Russia and in the West. She published the details of her system in Fundamentals of the Classic Dance in Leningrad in 1934 (English translation by Anatole Chujoy , New York, 1937). Her system took elements from the graceful French school and the more athletic Italian school, and added to them the dramatic soulfulness of the Russian national character. From 1917 to 1951 she taught and coached at the Kirov; from 1931 to 1937 she was artistic director of the Kirov Ballet. She encouraged the first productions of Vainonen's Flames of Paris (1932) and Zakharov's Fountain of Bakhchisarai (1934), and herself staged new productions of Swan Lake (1933) and La Esmeralda (1935). In 1957 the St Petersburg ballet school was renamed the Vaganova Institute in her honour.

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Vainonen , Vasily

(b St Petersburg, 21 Feb. 1901, d Moscow, 23 Mar. 1964
). Soviet dancer, librettist, and choreographer. He studied at the Imperial Ballet School in St Petersburg, with Leontiev , Shiryaev , and Ponomarev , and graduated in 1919. He joined the Kirov Ballet (then known as the GATOB) and won acclaim as a character dancer, continuing to perform with the Kirov until 1938. As a choreographer, starting out in the 1920s, one of his first works was Moszkovsky Waltz for the Evenings of Young Ballet; his early work reflected the influence of Isadora Duncan and Fokine. From 1930 to 1938 he was a choreographer with the Kirov. His first important production was the full length The Golden Age (mus. Shostakovich , Kirov , 1930), which introduced elements of acrobatics into the choreography and revealed the influence both of the cinema and of Russian propaganda posters. He followed that with Asafiev's Flames of Paris (1932), a heroic ballet based on the French Revolution; it was a notable success for both him and the Kirov. Then came Nutcracker (1934), a staging which remained in the Kirov's repertoire for decades. He was also ballet master and choreographer of the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow (1946–50, 1954–8). A list of his other ballets includes Partisan Days (mus. Asafiev , Kirov , 1936), Mirandolina (mus. Sergei Vasilenko , Bolshoi Ballet, Moscow, 1949), The Coast of Happiness (mus. Antonio Spadavecchia , Novosibirsk , 1952), and Gayané (mus. Khachaturian , Bolshoi Ballet, Moscow, 1957).

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Valberkh , Ivan

(b Moscow, 14 July 1766, d St Petersburg, 26 July 1819
). Russian dancer, choreographer, teacher, and ballet master. He trained at the St Petersburg Ballet School with Angiolini and Canziani, and graduated in 1786. He was premier danseur at the Bolshoi Theatre in St Petersburg from 1786, and ballet inspector of the company from 1794. He began making ballets in 1795, the first was A Happy Repentance, and he went on to choreograph more than 36 ballets and divertissements, many of them with moral and patriotic themes (especially during the Napoleonic wars). He worked with Charles Didelot at the Bolshoi Theatre in St Petersburg (from 1801) and succeeded Didelot as ballet master when the Frenchman left in 1811. He taught at the Bolshoi Theatre in St Petersburg (from 1794) and at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow (1808). A list of his ballets includes The New Werther (mus. Serge Titov , 1799), Blanca, or, A Marriage of Revenge (mus. Titov , 1803), The Count Castelli, or A Murderous Brother (mus. various, 1804), Orpheus and Eurydice (mus. Gluck , 1808), Romeo and Juliet (tragic ballet with choruses, 1809), The New Heroine, or The Cossack Woman (1811), The People's Volunteer Corps, or Love for the Motherland (mus. Catarino Cavos , 1812), Russians in Germany, or What Comes of Love for the Motherland (mus. Cavos , 1813), Cossack in London (1813), Festival in the Allied Armies' Camp at Montmartre (1813), The American Heroine, or Perfidy Punished (1814), and Russian Victory, or The Russians in Paris (1814). He was Russia's first native-born ballet master and choreographer.

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Valois , (Dame) Ninette de (orig. Edris Stannus ;

b Baltiboys, Ireland, 6 June 1898, d London, 8 Mar. 2001
). Irish-born British dancer, choreographer, teacher, and ballet director. Founder of the Royal Ballet and one of the great figures in 20th-century dance. She studied with Lila Field , Édouard Espinosa and Cecchetti in London, later with Nikolai Legat . She made her professional debut in 1914, dancing in Jack and the Beanstalk, a pantomime at the Lyceum Theatre in London. Revues and pantomimes provided her early employment; then in 1919 she appeared in the Covent Garden Opera season and in 1922 appeared as a principal dancer with the Massine-Lopokova company in their London season. She joined Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in 1923 and stayed with the company until 1925, returning as a guest artist the following year. With Diaghilev she created roles in Nijinska's Les Biches, Les Fâcheux, and Le Train bleu and in Balanchine's Le Rossignol. She also danced with Anton Dolin's company (1926) and with the Covent Garden Opera (1928). In 1926 she opened her own school in London, the Academy of Choreographic (sic) Art, and began her association with Lilian Baylis at the Old Vic, a relationship that provided the foundation for what would become the Royal Ballet. De Valois gave movement classes to the actors at Baylis's theatre and her dancers appeared in the opera productions. She also worked as a dancer and choreographer for the Abbey Theatre in Dublin (where she collaborated with W. B. Yeats ) and the Festival Theatre in Cambridge. She made her first ballet at the Old Vic, Les Petits Riens, in 1928. In 1931 she closed her school and moved over to the official school linked to the newly re-opened Sadler's Wells Theatre; it eventually became the Royal Ballet School. She now had a company based at the Wells, the Vic-Wells Ballet, which gave regular performances. It later became the Sadler's Wells Ballet which, in 1946, moved to the Royal Opera House. In 1956 the company became the Royal Ballet. She also founded a second company in 1946, first called the Sadler's Wells Opera Ballet, then Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet, Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet and, in 1990, Birmingham Royal Ballet. She continued to dance until 1937, and created roles in Ashton's Regatta (1931), Les Rendezvous (1933), and A Wedding Bouquet (1937). She choreographed for the Camargo Society and Ballet Club (later Ballet Rambert). She created many ballets for her own company, including The Rake's Progress, Checkmate, and The Prospect Before Us. She also brought the Petipa-Ivanov classics into the repertoire, thus helping the great Russian Ballet heritage to become established in the West. Under her direction, both the Royal Ballet and the Royal Ballet School became internationally recognized as leading dance institutions. She was artistic director of the Royal Ballet until she retired in 1963, although she continued to work at the Royal Ballet School. She was founder and director of the Turkish School of Ballet in Ankara (1948) and the Turkish State Ballet (1956). A list of her ballets includes Danse sacrée et danse profane (mus. Debussy , Camargo Society, 1930), La Création du monde (mus. Milhaud , Camargo Society, 1931), Job (mus. Vaughan Williams , Camargo Society, 1931), The Jackdaw and the Pigeons (mus. Bradford , Vic-Wells, 1931), Narcissus and Echo (mus. Bliss , Vic-Wells, 1932), The Origin of Design (mus. Handel , arr. Beecham , Camargo Society, 1932), The Wise and Foolish Virgins (mus. Atterberg , Vic-Wells, 1933), Bar aux Folies-Bergère (mus. Chabrier , Ballet Rambert, 1934), The Haunted Ballroom (mus. G. Toye , Vic-Wells, 1934), La Jarre (mus. Casella , Vic-Wells, 1934), The Rake's Progress (mus. G. Gordon , Vic-Wells, 1935), The Gods Go a-Begging (mus. Handel , arr. Beecham , Vic-Wells, 1936), Barabau (mus. Rieti , Vic-Wells, 1936), Prometheus (mus. Beethoven , Vic-Wells, 1936), Checkmate (mus. Bliss , Vic-Wells, 1937), Le Roi nu (mus. Françaix , Vic-Wells, 1938), The Prospect Before Us (mus. Boyce , arr. Lambert , Vic-Wells, 1940), Orpheus and Eurydice (mus. Gluck , Sadler's Wells Ballet, 1941), Promenade (mus. Haydn , arr. Evans , Jacob , Sadler's Wells Ballet, 1943), Don Quixote (mus. R. Gerhard , Sadler's Wells Ballet, 1950), At the Fountainhead (mus. Tuzun , Turkish State Ballet, 1964), Sinfonietta (mus. Kodalli , Turkish State Ballet, 1966), and The Wedding of Harlequin (with Ashton, Ballet for All, 1973). Author of Invitation to the Ballet (1937), Come Dance With Me (1957), and Step by Step (1977). Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire 1951. Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur, 1950. Erasmus Prize, 1974. Companion of Honour, 1983. Order of Merit, 1992.

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Valse, La.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Nijinska , music by Ravel , and designs by Benois . Premiered 12 Jan. 1929 by the Ida Rubinstein Company in Monte Carlo, with Rubinstein and Vilzak . An abstract ballet for waltzing couples in a ballroom. Ravel described the ballet as ‘a kind of apotheosis of the Viennese waltz’. The score, which was rejected by Diaghilev , who had commissioned it, has inspired many choreographers, including Fokine , Harald Lander , Massine , and Charrat . The two most famous versions are by Balanchine and Ashton . Balanchine's version (costumes by Karinska , lighting by Rosenthal ) was premiered 20 Feb. 1951 by New York City Ballet at City Center in New York, with LeClercq , Magallanes , and Moncion . Balanchine coupled the score with Ravel's earlier Valses nobles et sentimentales. Ashton's version (des. André Levasseur ) was first performed by the La Scala Ballet in Milan, 31 Jan. 1958, and revived for the Royal Ballet on 10 Mar. 1959.

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Valses nobles et sentimentales.

Ravel's group of eight short waltzes for piano has inspired several choreographers, including Clustine (Paris, 1912), Lifar (Paris Opera, 1938), Ashton (Sadler's Wells Ballet, London, 1947), and MacMillan (German Opera, Berlin, 1966). Balanchine used them as the introduction to his version of La Valse (New York City Ballet, New York, 1951).

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van.

Names preceded by ‘van’ are listed under the family name. See Dantzig , Hamel , Manen , Praagh , Schayk .

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Vandekeybus , Wim

(b Herentals, Flanders, 1964).
Belgian dancer, choreographer, film-maker, and company director. He studied psychology at the University of Leuven, before turning to theatre and film. He worked for two years with the theatre director Jan Fabre and founded his own dance-theatre company, Ultima Vez, in 1985. He made his first choreography in 1987 (What the Body Does Not Remember). His training as an acrobat is reflected in his physically forceful choreography, which subjects dancers to bodily risk and high-impact partnering. By and large, his works are non-linear and highly imagistic, often using film to embellish their themes. He was artist in residence at the Royal Flemish Theatre in Brussels (1993). For Batsheva Dance Company he choreographed Exhaustion from Dreamt Love (1996). A list of works for his own company includes Les Porteuses de mauvaises nouvelles (1989), Immer das Selbe gelogen (1991), Her Body Doesn't Fit Her Soul (1993), Mountains Made of Barking (1994), Bereft of a Blissful Union (1996), 7 for a Secret Never to be Told (1997), and In Spite of Wishing and Wanting (1999).

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Vangsaae , Mona

(b Copenhagen, 29 Apr. 1920, d Copenhagen, 17 May 1983).
Danish dancer and teacher. She studied at the Royal Danish Ballet School with Harald Lander and later studied in Paris and London. In 1938 she joined the Royal Danish Ballet and was a soloist with the company from 1942 to 1962. She created roles in Lander's The Land of Milk and Honey (1942) and Quasi una fantasia (1945), in Ralov's Passiones (1944), in Larsen's Sylvia (1948), Desire (1952), Capricious Lucinda (1954), and Vision (1957), and in Theilade's Metaphor (1950). Most importantly, though, she created the role of Juliet in Ashton's Romeo and Juliet (1955) and the title role in Cullberg's Moon Reindeer (1957). She was co-director (with her former husband Frank Schaufuss ) of the Danish Ballet Academy and its associated performing group Danish Ballet Theatre until it was disbanded in 1974. She choreographed two works, both in 1958: Spectrum (mus. Scriabin , Royal Danish Ballet) and A Note Page (mus. Mozart , Charlottenborg ). She staged Bournonville's Conservatoire for London Festival Ballet (1973) and Bournonville's La Sylphide for the Stuttgart Ballet (1982). She also worked as a guest teacher, including the Royal Ballet School (1982–3). Mother of the dancer Peter Schaufuss .

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variation.

In classical ballet, a solo dance performed by both male and female dancers usually within a structured dance such as a pas de deux. It is designed to showcase a dancer's individual virtuosity.

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Variations.

Ballet in three parts with choreography by Balanchine , music by Stravinsky , and lighting by R. Bates . Premiered 31 Mar. 1966 by New York City Ballet, at the State Theater in New York, with Farrell . A plotless work set to Stravinsky's Variations for Orchestra, which is played three times for three different groups of dancers, the first comprising twelve women, the second six men, and the third one ballerina.

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Variations for Four.

Divertissement with choreography by Dolin , music by Marguerite Keogh , and costumes by Tom Lingwood . Premiered 5 Sept. 1957 by London Festival Ballet at the Royal Festival Hall, London, with Gilpin , Flindt , Godfrey , and Prokovsky . A virtuoso display piece for a quartet of male dancers.

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Varna, International Ballet Competition.

See competitions.

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Varone , Doug

(b Syosset, NY, 5 Nov. 1956
). US dancer, choreographer, and company director. He studied tap dancing as a child, then dance at the State University of New York at Purchase, and ballet with Maggie Black and Zena Rommett. He danced with José Limón's company (1978–9) and with Lar Lubovitch (1979–86). He founded his own company, Doug Varone and Dancers, in 1986 and has made many works for it. He choreographed his first piece, Mendet, in 1978; he has since staged dances for more than two dozen companies internationally. A list of his works includes Cantata 78 (mus. Bach , 1987), Rise (mus. John Adams , 1993), Possession (mus. Philip Glass , 1995), In Thine Eyes (mus. Michael Nyman , 1996), and Sleeping With Giants (mus. Nyman , 1999). In 1997 he made his Broadway debut with the musical Triumph of Love. In 1998 he choreographed and staged the US premiere of George Antheil's opera, Transatlantic, for the Minnesota Opera.

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Vasiliev , Vladimir

(b Moscow, 18 Apr. 1940
). Russian dancer, choreographer, and company director. He studied at the Moscow Ballet School, a student of Mikhail Gabovich , and graduated into the Bolshoi Ballet in 1958. He was quickly promoted to principal dancer and for the next twenty years was the Bolshoi's biggest male star. Heroic and dynamic, and with an unparalleled virtuoso technique, he came to embody the strong new Bolshoi male. He displayed his dramatic athleticism to superb effect in his greatest role, Spartacus, but was also acclaimed for the romantic intensity of his Albrecht. He created leading roles in Radunsky's new staging of The Humpbacked Horse (1960), Tarasova and Lapauri's Song of the Forests (1961), Lavrovsky's Pages of (from) a Life (1961), Goleizovsky's Leili and Medzhnun (1964), Grigorovich's Nutcracker (1966), Spartacus (1968), Sleeping Beauty (1973), and Angara (1976), and Béjart's Petrushka (1977). He also created the leading roles in his own ballets Icarus, Macbeth, and Anyuta. He started making ballets in the 1970s for the Bolshoi and other Moscow theatres. He often appeared abroad as a guest artist, especially in concert tours with his wife, the ballerina Ekaterina Maximova , and danced with Béjart's Ballet of the 20th Century, the Ballet de Marseilles, and American Ballet Theatre. The couple performed more and more in the West after they openly criticized Grigorovich's directorship of the Bolshoi in the late 1980s and were banished from the Bolshoi's stage. In the 1980s he worked as a guest choreographer in Berlin, Budapest, Naples, and Riga. From 1990 he was a member of the board of directors of the Ballet Theatre of the Kremlin Palace of Congress, for whom he made several ballets, including Cinderella (1991). He was artistic director of the Rome Opera Ballet (1993–5). In 1995 he returned to the Bolshoi Ballet as Grigorovich's successor, with the enhanced responsibility for the opera and ballet companies at the Bolshoi Theatre. His first priorities as artistic director of the Bolshoi Theatre were to open up the ballet's repertoire to outside choreographers and to encourage young choreographers at home. He also staged new productions of the classics, including Giselle and a much-criticized Swan Lake. He was replaced in 2000. A list of his ballets includes Icarus (mus. S. Slonimsky , 1971), These Charming Sounds (mus. Rameau , Mozart , and others, 1978), Macbeth (mus. K. Molchanov , 1980), Juno and Avos (mus. Rybnikov , 1981), Anyuta (mus. Gavrillyn , 1986), and Romeo and Juliet (mus. Prokofiev , 1990). He has appeared in many films including The Humpbacked Horse (1961), Secret of Success (1967), Narcissus (1971), Duet (also directed, 1972), Spartacus (1976), Gigolo and Gigoletta (also directed, 1980), The World of Ulanova (also directed, 1981), These Charming Sounds (also directed, 1981), La traviata (dir. Zeffirelli , 1982), Anyuta (also directed, 1982), I Want to Dance: Fragments of a Biography (also directed, 1985), and Fouetté (also directed, 1986). He also directed … And there remains, as always, something else (1990). Gold medal Varna (1964); Nijinsky Prize (Paris, 1964); Lenin Prize (1970).

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Vaughan , David

(b London, 17 May 1924
). British dancer, administrator, archivist, and writer. He studied dance with Rambert and Audrey de Vos in London and at the School of American Ballet in New York, and with Tudor and Cunningham . He settled in the US in 1950 and was co-founder with James Waring of Dance Associates in 1951. He danced with the companies of Shirley Broughton , Louis Johnson , Katherine Litz , Paul Taylor , and Waring . He was associated with Merce Cunningham for more than 30 years, as administrator of the Cunningham Studio, as company tour manager, and from 1976 as archivist of the Cunningham Dance Foundation. Author of The Royal Ballet at Covent Garden (1975), Frederick Ashton and his Ballets (London, 1977), and Merce Cunningham: Fifty Years (New York, 1997); co-author (with Mary Clarke ) of The Encyclopedia of Dance and Ballet (London, 1977).

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Vazem , Ekaterina

(b Moscow, 25 Jan. 1848, d Leningrad, 14 Dec. 1937
). Russian dancer and teacher. She studied at the Imperial Ballet School in St Petersburg with Ivanov , graduating in 1867. From 1867 until 1884 she was a leading dancer with the St Petersburg Bolshoi Theatre, and she was one of the first Russians to rival the technically superior Italian ballerinas of the day. She was Petipa's favourite Russian ballerina and it was she who provided the inspiration for Nikiya in his La Bayadère. Among the ballets he made for her were Le Papillon (1874), The Bandits (1875), La Bayadère (1877), The Daughter of the Snows (1879), Zoraya (1881), Night and Day (1883), and the Grand Pas in his re-staging of Paquita (1881). She appeared as a guest artist in America and visited the Paris Opera School in 1880. She retired in 1884, but continued to teach at the Imperial Ballet School (1886–96) where her students included Pavlova and Vaganova . She taught privately for many years. Author of Memoirs of a Ballerina of the St Petersburg Bolshoi Theatre (Leningrad, 1937). In her memories she described herself as ‘an expert in technically difficult virtuoso dancing, and not endowed with an ability to fly’.

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Vaziev , Makharbek

(b Alagir, 16 June 1961).
Russian dancer and company director. He trained at the Vaganova Ballet Academy and joined the Kirov Ballet in 1979. His repertoire included the leading male roles in Swan Lake, Don Quixote, La Sylphide, Giselle, La Bayadère, and The Sleeping Beauty, as well as dancing Ali in Le Corsaire and the slave in Scheherazade. In 1997 he was appointed to succeed Oleg Vinogradov as director of the Kirov Ballet, reportedly the youngest director in the company's history. Since taking over, he has promoted a new generation of younger dancers, among them Uliana Lopatkina and Diana Vishneva . One of his major achievements has been the four hour reconstruction of Petipa's 1890 production of The Sleeping Beauty, complete with reproductions of the original sets and costumes.

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Vecheslova , Tatyana

(b St Petersburg, 25 Feb. 1910, d St Petersburg, July 1991).
Russian dancer, teacher, and ballet mistress. She studied at the St Petersburg (Leningrad) Ballet School, a pupil of Maria Romanova and Vaganova . Upon graduation in 1928 she joined the GATOB (later the Kirov) where she became a leading ballerina. She created the title role in Vaganova's new staging of Esmeralda (1935), the role of Florine in Zakharov's Lost Illusions, the title role in Bourmeister's Tatyana (1947), and roles in Chabukiani's Heart of the Hills (1938) and Laurencia (1939). She was the first Soviet ballerina to tour abroad when she and Chabukiani went to the US in 1934. She retired from the stage in 1953. She taught (1950–70) at the Leningrad Ballet School, which she also directed (1952–4). She was rehearsal director of the Kirov Ballet (1954–71). She also wrote several books about dance, including I am a Dancer (1964) and Of the Things I Value Most (Leningrad, 1984).

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Ventana, La.

Ballet in one act with choreography and libretto by Bournonville , music by Christian Lumbye and Wilhelm Christian Holm . Premiered 19 June 1854 by the Price family at the Casino Theatre in Copenhagen. The ballet, the title of which means ‘the window’, is a divertissement in which a young Señorita dreams of a handsome man she has just met. Its most famous scene sees the ballerina dancing with her image in the mirror (performed by a second ballerina dancing in unison). Bournonville created the ballet for Juliette Price , a member of the famous English circus family, whom he idolized. He revised La Ventana for the Ballet's premiere at the Royal Danish Ballet (Royal Theatre, Copenhagen) in 1856. For the latter staging, he added a seguidilla which he admittedly borrowed from Paul Taglioni and a pas de trois. La Ventana was revived by Frank Schaufuss and Hans Brenaa for the Royal Danish Ballet in 1941 and has been revived for various companies abroad, including the Bolshoi Ballet. Erik Bruhn staged the pas de trois from La Ventana for American Ballet Theatre in New York in 1975 for himself, Cynthia Gregory , and Nureyev . Revived for Western Theatre Ballet (Sadler's Wells, 1968), Scottish Theatre Ballet (1969–71), and Irish Ballet (Cork, 1977).

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Verchinina , Nina

(b Moscow, 1912, d Rio de Janeiro, 16 Dec. 1995).
Russian-Brazilian dancer, teacher, and choreographer. She was born (with the title Countess of Beausacq) in Russia, was raised in Shanghai and studied dance with Preobrajenska and Nijinska , later modern dance with Laban in Germany. From 1929 she danced with Ida Rubinstein's company. She joined de Basil and Blum's Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo in 1933, where she created roles in Massine's Les Présages and Choreartium (1933), and Symphonie fantastique (1936). She stayed with de Basil following his break with Blum, dancing with de Basil's Original Ballet Russe from 1939. She began to choreograph in 1937 and was invited to work with the San Francisco Ballet (1937–8) and the Ballet Opera of Havana (1942–5). In 1949 she founded her own company in Madrid, for whom she made The Quest and Valse Triste. In the 1950s she moved her career to South America, where she worked initially in Argentina. In 1954 she arrived in Brazil where she was a choreographer at the Rio de Janeiro City Theatre. Her works there included Tahina Can, with music by Villa-Lobos , and Zuimaaluti, with music by Claudio Santoro . She gave up choreography in the 1960s to devote herself to teaching. With her emphasis on expressionist dance theatre, she was a major influence in the development of modern dance in Brazil.

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Verdi , Giuseppe

(b Le Roncole, 10 Oct. 1813, d Milan, 27 Jan. 1901).
Italian composer. He wrote no ballets in their own right, although several of his operas contain notable ballet sequences, especially those he revised for Paris. These include Jérusalem (or I lombardi, Paris, 1847), Les Vêpres siciliennes (Paris, 1855), Il trovatore (Paris, 1857), Macbeth (Paris, 1865), Don Carlos (Paris, 1867), Aida (Cairo, 1871), and Otello (Paris, 1894). The Four Seasons ballet from Vêpres siciliennes is often performed as a separate ballet; versions include those by MacMillan (Royal Ballet, 1975) and Robbins (New York City Ballet, 1979). His operas have inspired several ballet adaptations, including Filippo Termanini's Rita Gauthier (La traviata, Turin, 1857) and Page's Revanche (Il trovatore, 1951) and Camille (La traviata, 1957). Ballets using Verdi's music include Cranko's The Lady and the Fool (arr. Mackerras , Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet, 1954) and Prokovsky's The Three Musketeers (arr. G. Woolfenden , Australian Ballet, 1980).

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Verdon , Gwen

(b Culver City, Calif., 13 Jan. 1925).
US dancer, singer, actress, and choreographer. She studied ballet with Ernest Belcher and Aida Broadbent and Spanish dance with Eduardo Cansino (Rita Hayworth's father); later studied ballet with Carmelita Maracci and East Indian dance with La Meri . She danced with Jack Cole's jazz troupe, appearing in night-clubs and on Broadway. She got her big stage breakthrough with Cole Porter's Can-Can in 1953, a role which launched her Broadway career and won her the first of her four Tony Awards. She had notable successes in the musicals Damn Yankees (1955), New Girl in Town (1957), Redhead (1959), Sweet Charity (title role, 1966), and Chicago (1975). A sultry performer, she brought an erotic sparkle to many Hollywood films, including David and Bathsheba (1951), Meet Me After the Show (1951), On the Riviera (1951), The ‘I don't care’ Girl (1952), The Merry Widow (1952), The Farmer Takes a Wife (1953), Mississippi Gambler (1953), Gentlemen Marry Brunettes (1955), and the big-screen version of Damn Yankees (1958), in which she reprised her stage role as the 172-year-old witch Lola. She was married to the choreographer and director Bob Fosse , with whom she often worked. In the 1990s she was involved in reviving and staging her husband's choreography and acted as artistic adviser to the 1999 Broadway show Fosse: A Celebration in Song and Dance.

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Verdy , Violette (orig. Nelly Guillerm ;

b Pont-l'Abbé, 1 Dec. 1933).
French dancer and ballet director. She studied with Rousanne Sarkissian and Victor Gsovsky in Paris and made her debut in 1945 with the Ballets des Champs-Elysées, with whom she danced for several years, graduating from children's roles into soloist's roles. Her early career was marked by a restless energy. In 1950 she joined Petit's Ballets de Paris (and rejoined 1953–4); and danced with the company of Maggio Musicale Fiorentino (1951), Chauviré's Ballet de Marigny (1952), London Festival Ballet (1954), La Scala, Milan (1955), Ballet Rambert (1957, where she danced her first Giselle), and American Ballet Theatre (1957–8), for whom she created the title role in ABT's production of Cullberg's Miss Julie. In 1958, with the temporary closure of ABT, she moved to New York City Ballet, the company which was to be her home until she retired from the stage in 1976. A sparkling and lively ballerina, she inspired Balanchine to create six roles for her within her first two years. Of all the roles he eventually did make for her, Tchaikovsky Pas de deux and the ‘Emeralds’ section of Jewels are the ones she is most closely identified with. Her partnership with Edward Villella in the Balanchine repertoire was widely acclaimed. She also appeared as a guest artist with other companies, performing the 19th-century repertoire; she danced her first Aurora in 1964 with the Royal Ballet. In 1976, three years after her third foot operation, she retired from New York City Ballet to become the first woman to direct the Paris Opera Ballet (1977–80). After leaving Paris, she became associate director of the Boston Ballet (1980–4). From 1984 she worked as a teaching associate with New York City Ballet and later was in charge of ballet at Indiana University. She created leading roles in many ballets, including Petit's Le Loup (1953), Rodrigues's Romeo and Juliet (Verona, 1955) and Cinderella (Milan, 1955), Howard's Conte fantastique (London, 1957), Balanchine's Episodes (1959), Tchaikovsky Pas de deux (1960), Figure in the Carpet (1960), Liebeslieder Walzer (1960), Electronics (1961), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1962), Jewels (1967), La Source (1968), and Sonatine (1975), Robbins's Dances at a Gathering (1969), In the Night (1970), and A Beethoven Pas de deux (1973), and Balanchine and Robbins's Pulcinella (1972). She also worked as an actress, appearing with Madeleine Renaud and Jean-Louis Barrault's company; and in films, including Ballerina (in America, Dream Ballerina, 1950, directed by Berger ) and The Glass Slipper (directed by Walters , with choreography by Petit , 1954). Author of Giselle (New York, 1970) and Giselle: A Role for a Lifetime (New York, 1977).

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Vesak , Norbert

(b Vancouver, 22 Oct. 1936, d Charlotte, NC, 2 Oct. 1990).
Canadian dancer and choreographer. He studied with Cunningham , Craske , La Meri , Volkova , G. Holder , and Pauline Koner . After performing as a guest artist with companies in Canada, he began to work as a choreographer for the Vancouver Playhouse Theatre Company in 1964. His biggest successes were made for the Royal Winnipeg Ballet: The Ecstasy of Rita Joe (mus. Mortifee , 1971), which highlighted the plight of North American Natives in a brutal white society, and What to Do till the Messiah Cometh (mus. Chilliwack , Werren , and Syrinx , 1972), a visionary ballet (set to a rock music score) which featured the famous ‘Belong’ pas de deux. For the National Ballet of Canada he choreographed Whispers of Darkness (mus. Mahler , 1974); for the Royal Winnipeg Ballet he also made In Quest of the Sun (mus. G. Martindale , 1975). He was director of the Metropolitan Opera Ballet in New York from 1976 to 1980 and subsequently worked as a guest choreographer at the Met.

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Vestris.

A famous Italian-French family of dancers and actors who were influential in the 18th and 19th centuries. See Vestris, Auguste; Vestris, Gaetano; Vestris, Teresa.

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Vestris , Auguste (orig. Marie-Jean Augustin Vestris ,

b Paris, 27 Mar. 1760, d Paris, 5 Dec. 1842).
French dancer and teacher. Illegitimate son of Gaetano Vestris and the dancer Marie Allard . He studied with his father and made his debut in the divertissement La Cinquantaine in 1772, at the age of 12. He enjoyed his first major success as Amor in his father's ballet Endymion the following year. In 1776 he was appointed a soloist at the Paris Opera; in 1778 he became premier danseur and in 1780 premier sujet de la danse. He danced in the first production of Noverre's Les Petits Riens (1778) and in Gluck's Alceste (1778). In 1780 he began a prolific association with the King's Theatre in London, where he performed on and off for more than ten years. So famous were the appearances on stage of him and his father that Parliament even stopped sitting to see them dance. In London and Paris, he created many roles in ballets by his father, and by Dauberval , Gardel , and Noverre . A short dancer, he was possessed of an extraordinary elevation and unparalleled virtuoso technique that made him the most famous dancer in Europe. His rapid beats and dizzying multiple pirouettes were considered superhuman and inspired improvements in technique throughout the dance world. In 1807, it is said, Napoleon refused to allow the dancer to leave Paris, saying: ‘Foreigners must come to Paris to see Vestris dance.’ By 1803, however, he had to contend with a rival: Louis-Antoine Duport , a 22-year-old whose challenge to the older Vestris was the subject of much gossip. Vestris retired from the Paris Opera in 1816. In 1819 he was imprisoned for debt, although his financial situation subsequently improved. He was also one of the leading teachers of the day, counting among his pupils Didelot , Perrot , Elssler , Bournonville , and Marie Taglioni , with whom he performed a minuet at the Paris Opera in 1835, when he was 75. He choreographed several unremarkable ballets, all for the King's Theatre in London: The Nymphs of Diana (1781), Le Premier Navigateur (1786), dances in Grétry's opera L'Épreuve villageoise (1786), and Les Folies d'Espagne (1791).

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Vestris , Gaetano (orig. Gaetano Apolline Baldassare Vestris

b Florence, 18 Apr. 1728 (or 1729), d Paris, 23 (or 27) Sept. 1808).
Italian dancer and choreographer. Father of Auguste Vestris . He studied in opera houses in Italy and Germany and with Louis Dupré in Paris. After dancing at various opera houses in Italy, he made his debut at the Paris Opera in 1748 and was appointed premier danseur in 1751. He performed in works by Rameau and Lully , and danced in court spectacles with his sister Teresa and his brother Angiolo (1730–1809). In 1754, however, he ran foul of the ballet master Lany whom he challenged to a duel on behalf of Teresa . The duel never took place, but Vestris was briefly imprisoned. Once released, he worked in Berlin and Turin, where he was ballet master for a short time. Returning to the Paris Opera in 1755 he continued to enjoy enormous popularity; during his more than 30 years there he danced leading roles in more than 70 ballets and operas. From 1761, on leave from the Paris Opera, he also danced with Noverre in Stuttgart, the latter exercising a great influence over Vestris's style. He created leading roles in Noverre's Admète et Alceste (1761), La Mort d'Hercule (1762), Médée et Jason (1763), and Orpheus und Eurydice (1763). In 1761 he was appointed co-choreographer (with Dauberval ) of the Paris Opera and in 1770 he succeeded Lany as chief choreographer, a post he held until 1776 when Noverre succeeded him. As chief choreographer, he introduced the ballet d'action to the Paris Opera. In 1781 he danced with his son Auguste at the King's Theatre in London, a venue he returned to over the years. Their appearance there caused such a sensation that Parliament even suspended its sitting to see them dance. He continued to dance at the Paris Opera until 1782, although he devoted much of his time to running the Paris Opera Ballet School and furthering the career of his son Auguste . Tall, long-legged, noble and very dignified (in contrast to his small and athletically virtuosic son), he was considered a modernist and was one of the first dancers ever to appear on stage without a mask. He was also vain, once declaring that there were only three great men in Europe: Frederick the Great of Prussia, Voltaire , and himself. Still, there were those who would agree with him: he was often referred to as ‘Le Dieu de la danse’—the god of dance.

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Vestris , Teresa (also Thérèse Vestris ;

b Florence,1726, d Paris, 18 Jan. 1808).
Italian dancer. Sister of Angiolo and Gaetano Vestris . She studied in Naples and made her debut in Palermo. While performing in Vienna she became the mistress of Prince Esterhazy , a liaison which prompted a jealous Empress Maria Theresa to order the dancer's immediate transfer to Dresden. From there she went to Florence before settling in Paris in 1746. Socially well-connected, she was able to secure positions at the Paris Opera for her brothers Angiolo and Gaetano; in 1751 she made her debut at the Paris Opera. Frequently embroiled in intrigues and plots, she left the Paris Opera in 1754 with her brothers and went to Berlin. However, a year later she was back. Dubbed ‘the Italian Beauty’, Vestris often danced with her brother Gaetano and was particularly acclaimed in Lully's Alceste and Amadis. She continued as a soloist until 1766.

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Vic-Wells Ballet, The.

See Royal Ballet, The.

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Vienna.

See Austria.

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Vienna Children's Ballet.

In the early 1800s Friedrich Horschelt's Children's Ballet was a very popular enterprise. It adapted existing full-length ballets, such as Louis-Antoine Duport's Aschenbrödel (Cinderella), so that all the adult roles were performed by children. However, an investigation by the Viennese Police in 1818 found that the boys and girls, who ranged in age from 8 to 19, were in danger of having their morals corrupted by being in Horschelt's company. This finding prompted the Empress Caroline Augusta to order the disbanding of the company, and by 1822 Horschelt had left Vienna to accept a post in Munich. In 1841, however, children's ballet in Vienna was revived when Josefine Maudry Weiss started an all-girls' company at the Theatre in der Josefstadt. This troupe, known as the Danseuses Viennoises, toured not only Austria, but Germany, Italy, London (1845, 1846, and 1849), and Canada and the US (1846 and 1847) with great success. The company was disbanded in 1852 after the sudden death of Weiss .

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Vienna State Opera Ballet.

Austrian ballet company based at the Vienna Staatsoper. The first ballet production at the new Opera House on the Ring, which opened in 1869, was a revival of P. Taglioni's Sardanapal. The German dancer Karl Telle , who ran the ballet company until 1890, staged productions of Coppélia (1876) and Sylvia (1877). His successor, Josef Hassreiter , staged nearly 50 ballets during his reign, which continued until 1920. Heinrich Kroller (1922–8) offered ballets to music by Richard Strauss . Margaretha Wallmann directed the State Opera Ballet and its school (1934–9). During the Second World War the theatre's stage and auditorium were gutted by bombs and the Staatsoper was rebuilt, opening again in 1955. Erika Hanka , who ran the company for more than fifteen years until her death in 1958, made about 50 ballets, including Der Mohr von Venedig (The Moor of Venice), which was premiered on 29 Nov. 1955 to celebrate the first evening of dance in the reopened Staatsoper. Hanka brought current ideas in European modern dance into the repertoire, although she was also responsible for introducing the classics to the new theatre. After Hanka's death the company underwent a period of instability. Key productions in the 1960s and 1970s included Nureyev's stagings of Swan Lake (1964, revived 1996) and Don Quixote (1966), and Grigorovich's Nutcracker (1973). Russian guest artists frequently performed with the company; and the Russian ballet mistress Elena Tchernichova did much to improve technical standards when she directed the company (1991–3). Gerhard Brunner , artistic director from 1976 to 1990, commissioned new ballets from Neumeier (Josephslegende, 1977), van Manen (Grand Trio, 1978), van Dantzig (Ulysses, 1979), and Jochen Ulrich (Tantz-Schul, 1988). In 1995 Renato Zanella was appointed director. In 1999 the dancer Vladimir Malakhov staged La Bayadère for the company.

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Vienna Waltzes.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Balanchine , music by Johann Strauss II, Franz Lehár , and Richard Strauss , sets by Ter-Arutunian , and costumes by Karinska . Premiered 15 June 1977 (gala preview) and 23 June 1977 by New York City Ballet, at the State Theatre, New York, with von Aroldingen and Lavery , McBride and Tomasson , Leland and Cook , Mazzo and Martins , Farrell and Donn . A suite of waltzes inspired by nostalgia for Vienna in the 19th century, the ballet is set to Tales from the Vienna Woods, Voices of Spring, Explosion Polka, Gold and Silver Waltz, and the waltzes from Der Rosenkavalier. The sets move from the Vienna Woods to an art nouveau café and a mirrored ballroom.

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Viganò , Salvatore

(b Naples, 25 Mar. 1769, d Milan, 10 Aug. 1821).
Italian dancer and choreographer. Son of the dancer and choreographer Onorato Viganò and the ballerina Maria Boccherini , he studied composition with his uncle, the composer Luigi Boccherini . He later studied dance with Jean Dauberval . He made his debut in 1783 dancing female roles. He danced in Rome (1786) and Venice (1788), and in 1789 he danced in Spain appearing in the coronation festivities of Charles IV. It was in Spain that he met Dauberval , whom he followed to Bordeaux and London (1791). In 1789 he married the Spanish dancer Maria Medina and with her frequently toured Europe, especially Venice, Vienna, Paris, Prague, Dresden, Berlin, and Hamburg, until their separation ten years later. He made his first ballet in Venice in 1791: Raoul Signor de Crequi or Raul Signore di Crequi, for which he also composed the music (as he frequently did). From 1799 to 1803 he worked in Vienna, then in Italy where he choreographed Shakespeare's Coriolanus for Milan. From 1811 (some sources say 1813) until his death in 1821 he was ballet master at La Scala, Milan, where his most important ballets were made. One of his greatest achievements was his ability to incorporate pantomime into his ballets and make it look like part of the dance. As someone who had studied painting, he was also particularly concerned with the look of the tableaux he created in his choreography. He was also known for favouring lavish costumes: one ballet alone at La Scala was said to use 1,085 dresses. A list of his ballets includes Die Tochter der Luft, oder: Die Erhöhung der Semiramis (Vienna, 1793), Richard Löwenherz, König von England (mus. Weigl , Vienna , 1795), Das gefundene Veilchen (Vienna, 1795), Clothilde, Herzogin von Salerno (after Gozzi, Vienna, 1799), The Creatures of Prometheus (mus. Beethoven , Vienna , 1801), I giuochi istmici (mus. Weigl , Vienna , 1803), Cajo Marzio Coriolano (mus. Weigl , Milan, 1804), Gli Strelizzi (Venice, 1809), Prometeo (mus. Beethoven , Milan, 1813), Gli Ussiti sotto a Naumburgo (Milan, 1814), Numa Pompilio (Milan, 1815), Mirra; o sia, La Vendetta di Venere (Milan, 1817), Psammi, re d'Egitto (Milan, 1817), Otello (mus. various, Milan, 1818), La vestale (Milan, 1818), I titani (mus. Ayblinger , Milan, 1819), Alessandro nell'Indie (mus. Ayblinger , Milan, 1820), Giovanna d'Arco (mus. Ayblinger , Milan, 1820), and Didone (mus. Ayblinger , Milan, 1821).

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Villella , Edward

(b Bayside, NY, 1 Oct. 1936).
US dancer and ballet director. He studied at the School of American Ballet from 1946 as a scholarship student and at the High School of Performing Arts. His training was interrupted when, at his parents' urging, he attended New York State Maritime College in Fort Schuyler (1951–5), but he returned to the School of American Ballet in 1956. He joined New York City Ballet in 1957, soon becoming a soloist and promoted to principal in 1960. Throughout his twenty years with the company he was one of its top male dancers; indeed, he was one of America's first big male ballet stars. An athletic and virile dancer of compact build, he had great power and speed in his dancing, an exciting elevation to his jumps and an earthy dynamism that marked him out from most of his male colleagues. He partnered several ballerinas successfully, most of all Patricia McBride . In 1959 Balanchine revived Prodigal Son for him. He created roles in Balanchine's Electronics (1961), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1962), Bugaku (1963), Tarantella (1964), Harlequinade (1965), Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet (1966), Jewels (1967), Suite No. 3 (1970), Symphony in Three Movements (1972), and Scheherazade (1975); in Robbins's Dances at a Gathering (1969), Watermill (1972); and in Balanchine and Robbins's Pulcinella (1972). He also starred in musicals, including Brigadoon (1962) at the City Center of Music and Drama in New York. He choreographed his first major ballet, Narkissos (mus. R. Prince ), in 1966, although he quickly realized that choreography was not his future. In 1968 NBC-TV made a documentary about his career, called Man Who Dances; in the 1970s he worked as a producer and director on the PBS series, Dance in America. After leaving New York City Ballet in 1979 he was artistic co-ordinator of the Eglevsky Ballet (1980–4) and was director of Ballet Oklahoma (1983–5). In 1986 he founded Miami City Ballet, which he also directs, turning it into one of the most successful regional companies in America. He published (with Larry Kaplan ) his autobiography, Prodigal Son, in New York in 1992.

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Vilzak , Anatole

(b Vilnius, Lithuania, 29 Aug. 1896 (some sources say St Petersburg, 31 Aug. 1896), d San Francisco, 15 Aug. 1998).
Russian-US dancer and teacher. He studied at the Imperial Ballet School in St Petersburg, graduating in 1915. He joined the Maryinsky Theatre (later the Kirov) upon graduation, becoming a principal in 1917. But four years later he and his wife, the ballerina Ludmila Schollar , left the Maryinsky and their homeland for a life in the West. They joined Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, where he created roles in Nijinska's Les Biches (1924) and Les Fâcheux (1924). As the company's leading danseur noble, he danced the role of Prince Charming in Diaghilev's production of The Sleeping Princess in 1921. In 1923 he staged Swan Lake (with Schollar) for the Ballets Russes. In 1925, however, he was dismissed by Diaghilev for supporting industrial action against the impresario. He danced for Bronislava Nijinska at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires in 1926. With Ida Rubinstein's company, where he was premier danseur, he danced in the first productions of Nijinska's Les Noces de Psyché et de l'Amour, La Bien-aimée, Baiser de la fée, and Bolero (all 1928) and La Valse (1929), Jooss's Persephone (1934), and Fokine's Diane de Poitiers. He was ballet master and principal dancer at the State Opera in Riga (1932–4) and in 1932 performed with Théâtre de la Danse Nijinska, creating roles in her Les Comédiens jaloux and Variations. In 1935 he joined the Ballets Russes de Paris and in 1936 René Blum's Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, where he created the title role in Fokine's Don Juan. He danced in America with Balanchine's American Ballet at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York (1936–7). In 1940 he began his teaching career in America at the School of American Ballet. He later taught at his own Vilzak-Schollar School in New York (1940–6), the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo School in New York (1949–51), the American Ballet Theatre School (1951–63), Washington School of Ballet (1963–5) and the San Francisco Ballet School (1965–86). He was one of the most important teachers of the Russian style in America.

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Vinogradov , Oleg

(b Leningrad, 1 Aug. 1937).
Soviet dancer, choreographer, and ballet director. He studied at the Leningrad Ballet School, a student of Aleksandr Pushkin , graduating in 1958. He joined the Novosibirsk company (1958–65) as a character dancer, and there began his career as a choreographer by making ballets for opera productions, as well as acting as assistant ballet master to Petr Gusev . His first important ballet stagings were Prokofiev's Cinderella (1964) and Romeo and Juliet (1965), fresh and radical productions which brought him much attention throughout Russia. In 1967 the Bolshoi Ballet invited him to stage Asel (mus. V. Vlasov ) and in 1968 the Kirov asked him to stage Goryanka (Mountain Girl, mus. M. Kashlaiev ). From 1968 to 1972 he was a choreographer with the Kirov and from 1973 to 1977 he was artistic director and chief choreographer of the Maly Theatre Ballet in Leningrad, where his experimentation did much to restore the theatre's reputation for innovation and daring. In 1977 he returned to the Kirov as artistic director and chief ballet master, where his first act was to fire more than half of the dancers, most of whom were of pensionable age. During almost twenty years at the helm of the Kirov he revivified the company: he brought in younger dancers, broadened the repertoire and opened it to foreign choreographers like Petit , Béjart, and Balanchine , and imposed a strict aesthetic on the look and style of his dancers. The company toured abroad frequently, spending more time on the road than in its home theatre, and critics later complained that productions were becoming stale. Vinogradov maintained the company's proud heritage repertoire and introduced many exciting young dancers to an international public. In 1997 his directorship ended when Kirov Opera director Valery Gergiev took over the ballet company as well. From 1998 Vinogradov directed the Universal Ballet in Seoul. A list of his works includes Alexander Nevsky (mus. Prokofiev , Kirov , 1969), La Fille mal gardée (mus. Hérold , Maly Theatre Ballet, 1971), The Enchanted Prince, or Prince of the Pagodas (mus. Britten , Kirov, 1972), Yaroslavna (mus. B. Tishenko , Maly Theatre Ballet, 1974), The Fairy of the Rond Mountains (mus. Grieg , Kirov , 1980), The Government Inspector (mus. A. Tchaikovsky , 1980), Testaments of Past Times (mus. various, Kirov , 1983), The Knight in Tigerskin (mus. Machavarian , Kirov , 1985), Battleship Potemkin (mus. Tchaikovsky , Kirov , 1986), Petrushka (mus. Stravinsky , Scottish Ballet, 1989), and Adagio (mus. S. Barber , Kirov , 1991).

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Violin Concerto.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Balanchine , music by Stravinsky , and lighting by R. Bates . Premiered 18 June 1972 by New York City Ballet at the State Theatre in New York, with von Aroldingen , Mazzo , Bonnefoux , and Martins . A plotless ballet for two couples and a corps de ballet of sixteen, it was made for New York City Ballet's Stravinsky Festival. It features two strongly contrasting pas de deux. The work, later renamed Stravinsky Violin Concerto, has been revived for other companies, including the Paris Opera Ballet (1989) and the Royal Ballet (1990). Balanchine used the same music for his 1941 ballet, Balustrade.

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Violon du Diable, Le.

Ballet in two acts with choreography and libretto by Saint-Léon , music by Pugni , sets by Despléchin and Thierry , and costumes by Lormier . Premiered 19 Jan. 1849 at the Paris Opera, with Cerrito and Saint-Léon . In the ballet, a retelling of the Faustian legend, the young violinist Urbain is in love with Hélène and allows the sinister Doctor Matheus (Satan in disguise) to bewitch his violin so that its beautiful sound will win over the reluctant Hélène. When Matheus comes to claim the violinist's soul, Urbain refuses. The ballet ends happily when Urbain is delivered from evil and the lovers are united. At the ballet's premiere Saint-Léon played the violin as well as dancing the role of Urbain.

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Virsaladze , Simon

(b Tbilisi, 24 Jan. 1909, d Tbilisi, 9 Feb. 1989).
Soviet ballet designer. As a child he studied both ballet and art, and although he went on to design for plays, operas, and films it is as a ballet designer that he made his name. He was chief designer for the Paliashvili Theatre for Opera and Ballet in Tbilisi (1932–6) and designed Chabukiani's The Heart of the Hills (1938) for the Kirov in Leningrad, where he eventually became chief designer (1945–62). He also designed for the Maly Theatre Ballet and the Novosibirsk Theatre. He was chief designer of the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow from 1964 until his death. He collaborated with Chabukiani on many productions in Tbilisi, but he was best known internationally as Grigorovich's designer, having collaborated on all of his major ballets. For Grigorovich he designed The Stone Flower (1957), Legend of Love (1961), Sleeping Beauty (1965 and 1973), Nutcracker (1966), Spartacus (1968), Swan Lake (1969), Ivan the Terrible (1975), Angara (1976), Romeo and Juliet (1979), The Golden Age (1982), and Raymonda (1984). He also designed Sergeyev's Raymonda (Kirov, 1948), Swan Lake (Kirov, 1950), and The Sleeping Beauty (Kirov, 1952) and Vainonen's The Nutcracker (Kirov, 1954).

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Vishneva , Diana

(b St. Petersburg, 13 July 1976).
Russian dancer. She trained at the Vaganova Ballet Academy with Ludmila Kovaleva and graduated in 1995. She joined the Kirov Ballet that same year and was promoted to principal in 1996. She dances the ballerina roles in the classical repertoire, as well as in ballets by Balanchine and Petit . One of the Kirov's fastest rising young stars.

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Vivandière, La.

Ballet in one act with choreography and libretto by Saint-Léon and Cerrito , music by Pugni , and designs by Despléchin , Séchan and Diéterle . Premiered 23 May 1844 at Her Majesty's Theatre in London with Cerrito and Saint-Léon . The ballet, set in a village in Hungary, follows the amorous fortunes of Kathi and Hans, who have to overcome the jealousy of the Burgomaster and the Baron, both of whom have their eye on Kathi. The ballet introduced the Redowa, or ‘Original Polka of Bohemia’, to London. La Vivandière was later staged for the Paris Opera (1848), the Bolshoi Theatre in St Petersburg (re-staged Jules Perrot , 1855), and the Bolshoi Theatre in St Petersburg (restaged Petipa , 1881). In 1979 the Kirov Ballet performed a reconstruction of the Pas de six by Pierre Lacotte after Saint-Léon . In 1982 Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet performed the Pas de six in a reconstruction by Ann Hutchinson Guest . Saint-Léon and Cerrito staged an earlier version in 1843 in Rome with music by Enrico Roland .

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Viva Vivaldi!

Ballet in one act with choreography by Arpino , music by Vivaldi . Premiered 10 Sept. 1965 by the Joffrey Ballet at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park, New York, with Blankshine , Fuente , Horvath , and Singleton . A plotless ballet set to Vivaldi's Violin Concerto in D major (arranged for orchestra with solo classical guitar). One of the most popular works in the Joffrey repertoire.

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Vladimiroff , Pierre or Pierre Vladimirov (orig. Piotr Vladimiroff ;

b St Petersburg, 13 Feb. 1893, d New York, 25 Nov. 1970).
Russian-US dancer and teacher. He studied at the Imperial Ballet School in St Petersburg, a student of Sergei Legat and Mikhail Fokine . He graduated in 1911 and joined the Maryinsky Theatre company (later the Kirov), where he danced until 1918. There he inherited some of Nijinsky's most famous roles (he was a virtuoso and athletic dancer like his great predecessor) and became a principal in 1915. He created roles in Fokine's Francesca da Rimini and Eros (both 1915). He left revolutionary Russia in 1920, literally skiing his way to freedom with his wife, the ballerina Felia Doubrovska . In the West he joined Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, with whom he had guested in 1912 and 1914. In 1921 he created the role of the Prince in Diaghilev's London production of The Sleeping Princess. From 1922 he toured independently with Doubrovska , and later toured with Karsavina (1924), with the Mordkin Ballet (1925–7), and with Pavlova's company (1928–31), appearing internationally as her favoured partner in places as far-flung as India, Egypt, and S. America. He eventually settled in New York, where he taught at the School of American Ballet (1934–67). His students included Todd Bolender , William Christensen , William Dollar , Tanaquil LeClercq , and Maria Tallchief , thus making him one of the most influential Russian teachers in America.

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Vladimirov , Yuri

(b Kosterovo, 1 Jan. 1942).
Soviet dancer. He studied at the Bolshoi Ballet School, graduating in 1962. He joined the Bolshoi Ballet and became one of the company's leading soloists, a dancer noted for his daring and roughly hewn bravura. He created major roles in Kasatkina-Vasiliov's Heroic Poem (1964) and Sacre du printemps (1965), in Vasiliev's Icarus, and the title role in Grigorovich's Ivan the Terrible (1975), also appearing in the film of Ivan the Terrible. Gold medal (Varna, 1966; Moscow, 1969). He retired from dancing in the 1990s.

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Volinine , Alexandre (orig. Aleksandr Volinin ;

b Moscow, 16 Sept. 1882, d Paris, 3 July 1955).
Russian-French dancer and teacher. He studied at the Bolshoi Ballet School, with Tikhomirov and Gorsky , graduating in 1901. He joined the Bolshoi Ballet in 1901 and was promoted to principal in 1903. He created roles in Gorsky's Robert and Bertram (1906) and Nur and Anitra (1907), and danced all the leading male roles in the classical repertoire. He was unusual among Bolshoi dancers in having not only strength and athletic vigour, but elegance too. He left the Bolshoi in 1910, first dancing with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in the 1910 Paris season, when he created a principal role in Fokine's Les Orientales, and then touring with Lydia Lopokova (1910–11) in America. He appeared with Gertrude Hoffmann's so-called Ballets Russes at the Winter Garden Theater in New York in 1911 and with Mordkin's All-Star Imperial Russian Ballet (1911–12). He partnered Adeline Genée on tour to America, Australia, and New Zealand (1912–13); also partnered Lydia Kyasht at the Empire Theatre in London in 1913. He danced with Pavlova's company on its various world tours from 1914 to 1925, partnering Pavlova and creating the role of the Young Poet in her Autumn Leaves (1919). In 1926, having retired from the stage, he opened a famous school in Paris, where his students included Babilée , Eglevsky , Jeanmaire , and Lichine . In 1946 he staged Giselle for the Royal Danish Ballet. P. J. S. Richardson , editor of Dancing Times, described Volinine as ‘the finest male dancer of his generation’.

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Volkova , Vera

(b St Petersburg, 7 June 1904, d Copenhagen, 5 May 1975).
Russian dancer and teacher. A late starter to ballet training, she studied with Vaganova and Maria Romanova (Galina Ulanova's mother) at Volynsky's private Russian Choreographic School (1920–5). She danced with the GATOB (later the Kirov) from 1925 to 1929 and then toured Japan and China with a small ensemble. In 1929, thinking she would join Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, she defected in Shanghai, but upon hearing of Diaghilev's death she decided to remain in China. There she danced with Georgi Goncharov's Russian ballet company and taught in his school. In 1932 she founded her own school in Hong Kong. In 1936 she and her husband, the architect Hugh Finch Williams , moved to London where she opened another ballet school and taught at the Sadler's Wells Ballet and its school (1943–50). She eventually became the leading Western authority on the Vaganova teaching method and was a great influence on a generation of British dancers, including Fonteyn . In 1950 she went to La Scala, Milan, as a teacher and artistic adviser, and the following year went to Copenhagen, where she became a permanent teacher and artistic adviser to the Royal Danish Ballet (1952–75), doing much to improve standards and restore the company's international reputation. Among her students in Copenhagen were Erik Bruhn , Peter Martins , and Peter Schaufuss . She also worked as a guest teacher for various companies, including Kurt Jooss's Folkwang Ballet, New York City Ballet, and the Harkness Ballet. Knight of Order of Dannebrog (1956).

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volta

(It. and Fr., turn). A fast dance for couples performed in simple triple time, it is related to the Italian galliard. It features quick, leaping turns during which the woman is lifted by her male partner. A lusty dance considered by some to be immoral, it was a favourite dance of Queen Elizabeth I. In Britten's opera Gloriana the volta is danced by Elizabeth I and her court.

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Voluntaries.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Tetley , music by Poulenc , and designs by Ter-Arutunian . Premiered 22 Dec. 1973 by the Stuttgart Ballet at the Württembergische Staatstheater in Stuttgart, with Haydée , Cragun , Keil , R. Anderson , and Stripling . The ballet, created as a memorial to the choreographer John Cranko , who had died suddenly earlier in the year, is set to Poulenc's Concerto in G minor for Organ, Strings, and Timpani. According to Tetley , ‘Voluntaries—by musical definition—are free-ranging organ improvisations, often played before, during and after religious service. The Latin root of the word can also connot flight or desire, and the ballet is conceived as a series of linked voluntaries.’ It was revived for the Royal Ballet (1976), American Ballet Theatre (1977), Royal Danish Ballet (1978), Paris Opera Ballet (1982), Australian Ballet (1984), the National Ballet of Canada (1988) and English National Ballet (2000).

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Volynsky , Akim

(b Zhitomir, 11 Apr. 1865, d Leningrad, 6 July 1926).
Russian dance critic, art historian, and ballet school director. One of the most influential ballet critics in St Petersburg in his day and an outspoken critic of Fokine, whom he blamed for leading ballet away from its true course. Author of Problems of Russian Ballet (1923) and The Book of Exultation: A Primer in the Classical Dance (1926). He founded the private Russian Choreographic School, where Vaganova had her first teaching job.

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von Aroldingen , Karin.

See Aroldingen , Karin von.

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von Rosen , Elsa-Marianne.

See Rosen , Elsa-Marianne von.

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Vsevolozhsky , Ivan

(b 1835, d 1909).
Russian diplomat, theatre director, and designer. He was director of the Russian Imperial Theatres from 1881 to 1899 and was responsible for commissioning Tchaikovsky to write The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker, as well as commissioning many ballets from Petipa. He also designed the costumes for about 25 ballets, including The Sleeping Beauty, Nutcracker, and Raymonda. After he left the Imperial Theatres he was appointed Director of the Imperial Hermitage, a post he held until his death.

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Vyroubova , Nina

(b Gurzof, Crimea, 4 June 1921).
Russian-French dancer and teacher. As a child she emigrated to Paris with her grandmother and widowed mother. She was inspired to dance after seeing Pavlova perform at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in 1931. She studied dance with her mother and with Trefilova , Preobrajenska , Egorova , Yves Brieux , and later Victor Gsovsky and Serge Lifar . She made her debut as Swanilda in Caen in 1937. She danced with the Ballets Polonais (1939), the Ballet Russe de Paris (1940), and as a soloist in recitals (1941–4), including at the famous Vendredis de la Danse at the Sarah Bernhardt Theatre where she met Petit . In 1945 she danced in Petit's Les Forains, which began the Ballets des Champs-Elysées. The following year, with the same company, she danced the title role in Victor Gsovsky's La Sylphide. In 1949 she appeared with Petit's Ballets de Paris in London before Serge Lifar invited her to join the Paris Opera Ballet as an étoile. She stayed with the Opera from 1949 until 1956, when she left to join the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas (1957–62). After the de Cuevas company folded, she appeared as a guest ballerina with many companies. She created roles in Petit's Ballet blanc (1944), Le Rossignol et la rose (1944), Un American à Paris (1944), Les Forains (1945), Treize danses (1947), and L'œuf à la coque (1949); in V. Gsovsky's La Sylphide (1946); in Lifar's Blanche-neige (1951), Fourberies (1952), Variations (1953), The Firebird (title role, 1954), Les Noces fantastiques (1955), Apollon musagète (1956), and L'Amour et son destin (1957); in Golovine's La Mort de Narcisse (1958); and in van Dyk's Abraxas (1965). She appeared in the films Le Calvaire de Cimiez (1932), Le Spectre de la danse (chor. Lifar , 1960), and L'Adage (1965). She taught privately at her own studio in Paris and at the Troyes Conservatoire (1983–8). A lyrical dancer noted for her sensitivity and romantic expressiveness.

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W

Wagner , Richard

(b Leipzig, 22 May 1813, d Venice, 13 Feb. 1883).
German composer. He wrote no ballet scores but some of his music (often in extracted form) has been used for dance: Tannhäuser (chor. Massine in Bacchanale, New York, 1939, also Béjart in Bacchanale de Tannhäuser, a dance initially performed within the opera at Bayreuth, 1961, then as a separate ballet, Brussels, (1963); Tristan and Isolde (chor. Massine in Mad Tristan, New York, 1944, and H. Ross in Tristan, New York, 1955); Siegfried Idyll (chor. Sparemblek , Brussels , 1965), Wesendonck Lieder (chor. Joffrey in Remembrances, New York, 1973, and Spoerli in Dreams, Stuttgart, 1980); and extracts from the Ring Cycle (chor. Béjart in Ring around the Ring, Berlin, 1990, and More Powerful Than Gold and Death, chor. M. Lavrovsky , Moscow, 1996). P. Schaufuss combined extracts of Wagner's music with the songs of Elvis Presley in The King, Holstebro (1999).

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Wagoner , Dan

(b Springfield, W. Va., 31 July 1932).
US dancer and choreographer. He came to professional dance late, studying with Ethel Butler and Graham and making his debut in Graham's company in 1958 where he stayed until 1962. He also danced a season with Cunningham (1959–60) and became a full-time member of Paul Taylor's company in 1962 creating roles in Aureole (1962), Orbs (1966), and other works. He choreographed his first work in 1968, and in 1969 formed his own company which has toured the US, S. America, and the UK. His works, choreographed for his own company as well as for Ballet Rambert and London Contemporary Dance Theatre, frequently employ American vernacular music and themes. They include Flee as a Bird (mus. trad. jazz and ragtime, 1985), An Occasion for Some Revolutionary Gestures (mus. M. Sahl , 1985), and White Heat (mus. Bartók , 1990). He was also artistic director of LCDT(1988–91). In 1994 he disbanded his own company due to lack of funding and has since taught and choreographed on a freelance basis.

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Wakevich , Georges (or Georges Wakevitch ;

b Odessa, 18 Aug. 1907, d Paris, 11 Feb. 1984).
Russian-French designer. He created the designs for many ballets, including Petit's Le Jeune Homme et la mort (Ballets des Champs-Elysées, 1946), Dollar's The Combat (American Ballet Theatre, 1953), Lifar's Firebird (Paris Opera, 1954) and L'Amour et son destin (Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas, 1957), Hanka's Moor of Venice (Vienna State Opera, 1955), and Taras's Petrushka (Berlin Opera Ballet, 1971).

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Walkaround Time.

Modern dance work in one act with choreography by Cunningham , music by David Behrman , and design by Jasper Johns . Premiered 10 Mar. 1968 by Merce Cunningham Dance Company at State University, Buffalo, New York, with Cunningham , Brown , B. Lloyd, Neels, Setterfield , Harper , Reid , Solomons , and Slayton . Various elements of the work were conceived as a homage to Marcel Duchamp : Johns's set consisted of seven vinyl boxes with images from Duchamp transcribed onto them, the improvisatory section which divided the two parts of the dance was a reference to Relache, and the title of Behrman's score (‘…for nearly an hour’) refers to the Duchamp painting titled To Be Looked at with One Eye, Close to, for Almost an Hour.

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Walker , David

b Calcutta, 18 July 1934
). British designer. He studied at Central School of Arts and Crafts and began his career with Joan Littlewood at Theatre Workshop. He has created costume designs for many ballet and opera companies, including Royal Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, Stuttgart Ballet, and Houston Ballet. His designs include The Dream (1964), the 1965 revival of Ashton's Cinderella —both for the Royal Ballet —and The Nutcracker (Boston Ballet, 1979 and 1995).

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Walking on the Walls.

Trisha Brown's 1971 ‘equipment piece’ in which performers were rigged into harnesses and traversed the walls of the Whitney Museum, New York. A documentary film record is in the New York Public Library Archieves.

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Wall , David

(b Chiswick, 15 Mar. 1946).
British dancer. He studied in Windsor and at Royal Ballet School, joining the Royal Ballet Touring Company in 1963, becoming soloist in 1964 and principal in 1966 and joining the main company in 1970 as a principal. A strong technician with an equal talent for romantic and comedy roles he was especially outstanding as Lescaut in MacMillan's Manon which he created in 1974. Other created roles were in Ashton's Sinfonietta (1967), MacMillan's Anastasia (1971 version), Elite Syncopations (1974), and Mayerling (1978), Nureyev's Tempest (1982), and Tudor's Knight Errant (1971, though injury prevented him from dancing the first night). He frequently partnered Fonteyn . After retiring in 1984 he became associate director of the Royal Academy of Dancing (1984–7) and then director (1987–91). In 1995 he became ballet master with English National Ballet.

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Wallis , Lynne

(b Windsor, 11 Dec. 1946).
English dancer and director. She studied at the Royal Ballet School and graduated into the Royal Ballet Touring Company. In 1969 she became ballet mistress at the RB Upper School and in 1981 deputy ballet principal of the RB School. She has worked as ballet mistress and staged the classical repertory for companies all around the world and in 1984 became artistic co-ordinator of National Ballet of Canada. Between 1987 and 1989 she was co-artistic director of that company with Valerie Wilder . In 1990 she became deputy artistic director of English National Ballet, and in 1994 artistic director of the Royal Academy of Dancing.

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Wallmann , Margarete (also Margarita Wallmann ;

b Vienna 22 July 1904, d Monte Carlo, 2 May 1992).
Austrian dancer and choreographer. She studied at the schools of the Berlin State Opera and Munich State Opera, and in 1923 began studying with Wigman in Dresden. In 1929 she took over the Berlin branch of Wigman's school, and a year later, she and her company, the Tanzer-Kollectiv, performed with Ted Shawn in Munich. She became a leading exponent of expressionist dance and choreographed for many opera productions particularly at the Salzburg Festival. In 1934 she became ballet director of the Vienna State Opera and its school, and during the 1930s also choreographed for Hollywood and La Scala. Between 1938 and 1948 she worked at the Teatro Colón, where she staged productions of Die Josephslegende and Don Juan. After 1949 she worked mainly in Italy and New York, producing opera.

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Walpurgis Night.

Ballet divertissement, choreographed by Henri Justament for the last act of Gounod's opera Faust. Premiered 3 Mar. 1869 at Paris Opera. It is often performed as a separate ballet, such as Lavrovsky's version for the Bolshoi Ballet (Moscow 1941) or Balanchine's version which was first choreographed for the Faust production at Paris Opera, 1975, and then danced alone by New York City Ballet in 1980.

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Walsh , Christine

(b Sydney, 22 Mar. 1954).
Australian dancer. She studied at the Australian Ballet School with M. Scott and with M. Besobrasova in Monte Carlo, joining Australian Ballet in 1972 and becoming soloist (1975) and principal (1978). She remained with the company until 1990 apart from two seasons with Petit's Ballet National de Marseilles (1977–8 and 1980–1), a season with Nantes Opera Ballet as guest ballerina (1982), and several other guest engagements. Although her technique was never outstanding her powerful personality and dramatic intelligence made her renowned in a variety of roles from the classics through to the modern repertory of Kylián, Béjart, etc. She created roles in Murphy's Tekton (1978) and Beyond Twelve (1987) and Tetley's Orpheus (1987), among others. In 1990 she co-founded On Stage Artists, producing tours of ‘Australian Stars of Ballet’, and has become guest teacher in a variety of institutions.

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Walter , Erich

(b Fürth, 30 Dec. 1927, d Herdecke, 23 Nov. 1983).
German dancer, choreographer and director. He studied with Olympiada Alperova in Nuremberg and danced with Nuremberg Opera Ballet (1946–50), Göttingen Ballet (1950–1), and Wiesbaden Ballet (1951–3). In 1953 he was appointed ballet master at Wuppertal where he established a highly successful relationship with designer Heinrich Wendel. Together they built up a repertoire of ambitious neo-classical ballets which established Wuppertal as one of Germany's leading companies. These included Pelleas and Melisande (mus. Schoenberg , 1955), Jeux (mus. Debussy , 1958), Romeo and Juliet (mus. Berlioz , 1959), and Ondine (mus. Henze , 1962). In 1964 he was made ballet director at Düsseldorf's German Opera on the Rhine, building up such a successful ballet company that a second had to be formed in 1970 to perform in opera productions. He also worked as guest choreographer for other companies, including Berlin Opera Ballet, Vienna State Opera, and La Scala, Milan. His later ballets included String Quartet no. 1 (mus. Janáek , 1966), Dance Around the Golden Calf (as part of the Düsseldorf production of Schoenberg's Moses and Aaron, 1968), and Le Sacre du printemps (Stravinsky, 1970), as well as stagings of several classics.

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waltz

(Ger. Walzer; Fr. valse). A German-Austrian turning dance in 3/4 or 3/8 times whose origins are not clear, though it bears similarities to the volta, the weller, and the ländler. The last was danced in Austria and Bavaria for centuries and was also called the deutsch. The name waltz appeared in the late 18th century and the dance itself gained widespread popularity through the ballroom waltz music of Lanner and the Strausses. Some authorities tried to ban it on account of the daringly close embrace required between male and female dancers. Its first stage appearance was in Vicente Martíny Soler's opera La cosa rara (Vienna, 1786) and its first ballet showing was in Gardel's La Dansomanie (Paris, 1800). It features prominently in Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcracker, while individual works have been choreographed in celebration of its music and its romantic associations, including Nijinska's La Valse (mus. Ravel , Monte Carlo, 1929, also several later versions including one by Ashton , 1958), Balanchine's Liebeslieder Walzer (mus. Brahms , New York, 1960), and his Vienna Waltzes (mus. J. Strauss II, Lehár , and R. Strauss , New York, 1977); also Mark Morris's New Love Song Waltzes (mus. Brahms , New York, 1982).

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Wanderer, The.

Ballet in one act with libretto and choreography by Ashton , music by Schubert , and design by Graham Sutherland. Premiered 27 Jan. 1941 by Sadler's Wells Ballet at New Theatre, London, with Helpmann and Fonteyn . It is set to Schubert's Wanderer Fantasie and portrays a man recalling important moments from his life. Balanchine used the same music (arr. Liszt ) for his ballet Errante (Paris, 1933).

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Waring , James

(b Alameda, Calif., 1 Nov. 1922, d New York, 2 Dec. 1975).
US dancer, choreographer, and teacher. He studied in San Francisco, at the School of American Ballet, and with Vilzak , Tudor , Cunningham , Halprin , and Horst . He created his first work in 1946 at the Halprin-Lathrop Studio Theater, San Francisco, and in 1951 was co-founder of a choreographers' co-operative called Dance Associates in New York. From 1954 to 1969 he presented annual concerts with his own company. Considered one of dance's great eccentrics, his style was characterized by strikingly individual qualities of wit, musicality, and fantasy. He created over 135 works both for his own and other companies, including Netherlands Dance Theatre and Manhattan Festival Ballet. These include Dances before the Wall (mus. Schubert , Cage, Satie , and many others, 1958), Variations on a Landscape (mus. Schoenberg , 1971), and Sinfonia semplice (mus. Mozart , 1975). He was artistic director of New England Dinosaur (1974–5).

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Warren , Robert de

(b Montevideo, 1933).
British dancer, choreographer, and director. He studied with Goncharov, Grigorieva, and at the Sadler's Wells School then in 1954 joined National Ballet of Uruguay, subsequently dancing with Covent Garden Opera Ballet (1958–60), Stuttgart Ballet (1960–2), and Frankfurt Ballet (1962–4). In 1968 he was appointed director of the National Ballet of Iran (until 1970) and in 1971 formed the Mahalli folk dance troupe, choreographing the full-length ballet Simorgh (mus. Tjeknavorian , 1975). He was then artistic director of Northern Ballet Theatre (1976–87), for which he choreographed several ballets including Romeo and Juliet… Tragic Memories (mus. Tchaikovsky , 1978), Cinderella (mus. J. Strauss , 1979), and A Midsummer Night's Dream (mus. Mendelssohn , arr. Salzedo , 1981). He was artistic director of La Scala (until 1992) and in 1994 was appointed artistic director of Sarasota Ballet, Florida, where he has created many works including Eva Peron: A Dance Portrait (1997) and a new staging of Swan Lake (1999).

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Warsaw Ballet.

Polish ballet company. It was founded in 1818 at Warsaw's National Theatre under the direction of L. Thierry and in 1833 moved into the newly built Great Theatre. Maurice Pion was director (1826–43), followed by F. Taglioni (1843–53) and Roman Turczynowicz (1853–66), and during this period it was an important centre of Romantic ballet. With the general decline of ballet in Europe artistic standards fell, though under the direction of Piotr Zajlich (1917–34) it was rejuvenated with a repertory that included the 19th-century classics, various Ballets Russes works, and some nationally inspired ballets. The theatre was destroyed during the Second World War and the company worked in temporary quarters. In 1965 it moved back to the rebuilt theatre, presenting a largely 20th-century repertory, though economic conditions in Poland have made its continuing survival difficult.

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Washington , Shelley

(b Washington, DC, 3 Nov. 1954).
US dancer. She studied at the Interlochen Arts Academy and at the Juilliard School and performed with the Martha Graham company (1974–5). In 1975 she joined Tharp's company as a dancer and in 1988 was also appointed soloist with American Ballet Theatre in association with Tharp. She retired from the stage in 1991 since when she has continued to assist Tharp and has also staged many of Tharp's works, for the Royal Ballet, Australian Ballet, Dutch National Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, and Rambert Dance Company, among others.

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Washington Ballet.

US ballet company. It dates back to a school opened by Lisa Gardiner in Washington in 1922 which incorporated a small company called Washington Ballet. A second school was founded in 1944 by Gardiner and Mary Day , which in 1946 started to run its own performing ensemble and became known as Washington Ballet in 1956. Frederic Franklin was co-artistic director with Day until 1961, when the company ceased operation. Day re-established it in 1974 and in 1976 appointed Choo-San Goh as resident choreographer. After his death in 1987 his works continued to dominate the repertoire, alongside ballets by Balanchine and others. In 1992 Elvi Moore joined Day as co-director, and both were succeeded in 1999 by Septime Webre .

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Watermill.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Robbins , music by Teiji Ito , set design by Robbins and David Reppa , and costumes by P. Zipprodt . Premiered 3 Feb. 1972 by New York City Ballet, at State Theatre, New York, with Villella. The choreography reflects the style of Japanese noh theatre and portrays a man looking back over his life.

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Waterproof.

Dance event, for Olympic-sized swimming pools, created by Daniel Larrieu , with a sound score by J.-J. Palix (including music by Mahler ), lighting by F. Michel , costumes by R. Fléa , and video by L. Riolon . Premiered in 1986 by Astrakan Dance Company at the Jean Bouin municipal pool, Angers. The dancers wear black swimsuits and goggles and perform on, under, and out of the water while video screens project the choreography filmed from underwater cameras. It has been staged at various pools around the world and filmed for British television (Channel 4).

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Water Study.

Modern dance work in one act with choreography by Humphrey , no music, and design by P. Lawrence . Premiered 28 Oct. 1928 by the Humphrey-Weidman Group at Civic Repertory Theater, New York. The sixteen dancers combine to create images of the energy and movement of water.

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Watts , Heather

(b Long Beach, Calif., 27 Sept. 1953).
US dancer. She studied in California and at the School of American Ballet with S. Williams , Eglevsky , and Danilova and joined New York City Ballet in 1970, where she was promoted to soloist (1978) and principal in 1979. A dancer gifted with unusual elevation and dramatic intensity she projected a challenging independence on stage. She performed a wide range of works and created roles in, among others, Balanchine's Walpurgisnacht Ballet (1980) and Davidsbündertänze (1980), Robbins's Four Seasons (1979), Piano Pieces (1981), Four Chamber Works (1982), and Tango (1983), and Martins's Calcium Light Night (1977) and Fearful Symmetries (1990). She retired from the stage in 1995. From 1982 she was also director of New York State Summer School of the Arts.

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Weaver , John

(b Shrewsbury, baptismal date 21 July 1673, d Shrewsbury, 24 Sept. 1760
). British dancer, choreographer, teacher, and dance theorist, regarded as the father of British pantomime and a pioneer of the ballet d'action. The son of a dancing master, he himself was apprenticed to a dancing master in Shrewsbury, probably Edward Dyer , and became a dancing master in Shrewsbury from 1695. From 1700 to 1736 he danced in the London theatres of Drury Lane, Lincoln's Inn Fields, and York Buildings, performing mostly comic and character roles, and he choreographed his first work The Tavern Bilkers (1702/3) at Drury Lane. His seminal work was The Loves of Mars and Venus (mus. Symonds , 1717), in which he fused dance and mime in a genuinely narrative ballet and he continued his narrative experiment with Orpheus and Euridice (1718) and The Judgement of Paris (after the masque by Congreve , mus. Seedo , 1733). He wrote his own libretti and in addition notated many court dances, translated Feuillet's Chorégraphie (pub. as Orchesography, 1706), and was author of, among other works, An Essay towards a History of Dancing (1712), Anatomical and Mechanical Lectures upon Dancing (1721), and The History of Mimes and Pantomimes (1728).

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Weber , Carl Maria von

(b Eutin, 18 Dec. 1786, d London, 5 June 1826).
German composer. He wrote no ballet scores but he composed many polkas, waltzes, and polonaises and some of his concert music has been used for dance, including Invitation to the Dance (orch. Berlioz , chor. Fokine , in Spectre de la rose, 1911) and Konzertstück (chor. van Dyk , 1965, and K. Stowell , 1972).

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Webern , Anton von

(b Vienna, 3 Dec. 1883, d Mittersill, 15 Sept. 1945
). Austrian composer. He wrote no ballet scores but his music has frequently been used for dance, such as Graham and Balanchine's Episodes (Martha Graham Dance Company and New York City Ballet, 1959) in which Graham used the Passacaglia, Op. 1, and Six Pieces for Orchestra, and Balanchine used the Sinfonie, Op. 21, Five Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 6, Concerto for Orchestra, Op. 24, Variations for Orchestra, Op. 30, and the Ricercare from Bach's Musical Offering. Other music which has been used includes Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 6 and 10 (chor. Béjart in Temps, 1960, and MacMillan in My Brother, My Sisters, 1978), Passacaglia, Op. 1 (chor. Cranko , Opus 1, 1965), six Bagatelles, Op. 9, and String Quartet, Op. 5 (chor. van Dantzig in Moments, 1968), and various excerpted pieces (chor. Kylián in No More Play, 1988 and Sweet Dreams, 1990).

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Webster , Clara Vestris

(b Bath, 1821, d London, 17 Dec. 1844).
British dancer. She studied in Bath with her father Benjamin Webster (who had himself studied with Vestris, hence her middle name) and in 1830 made her debut at the Theatre Royal, Bath, in a pas de deux with her brother, Arthur Webster . In 1836 she went to London where she danced at the Haymarket and subsequently went on to dance in Dublin, Liverpool, and Manchester. She was one of the first British dancers to perform the cachucha and the tyrolienne (which she danced with her brother) and might have become an outstanding Romantic ballerina had she not died after her costume caught fire during a performance of The Revolt of the Harem at Drury Lane Theatre.

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Wedding Bouquet, A.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Ashton , libretto, music, and design by Lord Berners . Premiered 27 Apr. 1937 by Vic-Wells Ballet at Sadler's Wells Theatre, London, with Honer , Helpmann , de Valois , and Fonteyn . This comic ballet is based on and accompanied by text from Gertrude Stein's play They Must be Wedded To Their Wife. It is set at a French provincial wedding and portrays the various eccentricities of the guests, who include several of the groom's former mistresses. Stein's text was originally sung by a chorus but subsequently it has been spoken by a narrator seated at a table on the stage. The ballet has been revived by Royal Ballet Touring Company (1974) and Joffrey Ballet (1979).

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Weidman , Charles

(b Lincoln, Nebr., 22 July 1901, d New York, 16 July 1975
). US dancer, choreographer, and teacher. He studied with E. Frampton , T. Koslov , and at Denishawn and after dancing in Shawn's Broadway show, Xochitl, and briefly with Graham in 1921 he joined Denishawn. He toured widely with the company until 1927 when he and Humphrey left to form their own school and company which lasted until 1945. The works he choreographed for this, such as And Daddy Was a Fireman Too (1943) often dealt with American social themes and featured his distinctive satirical wit. He also collaborated with Humphrey on several works, including New Dance (1935), and choreographed for Broadway. In 1945 he founded his own school and in 1948 his own company for which he choreographed many more works, including A House Divided (about Lincoln, 1945), Fables for Our Time (after Thurber, 1947), and Is Sex Necessary? (1959). He later choreographed for New York City Opera and for various drama productions as well as teaching in New York and California. In 1960 he founded the Expression of Two Arts Theater in New York with the sculptor Mikhail Santaro where he taught and gave regular concerts until his death. Limón and Bob Fosse were among his pupils.

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Weidt , Jean

(b Hamburg, 7 Oct. 1904, d Berlin, 29 Aug. 1988).
German dancer and choreographer. He first danced with a youth folk dance troupe and later studied with Leeder and Olga Brandt-Knaack . He gave his first solo concert in Hamburg in 1925, including the first version of his signature piece, The Worker. In the same year he formed his own company, with which he moved to Berlin in 1929 where it became known as the Red Dancers. The political content of his works grew stronger with the rise of fascism and he was briefly arrested in 1933. He then lived and worked in Moscow, Prague, and Paris, continuing to choreograph work with intense political and humanitarian concerns, such as The Cell (1947). From 1948 to 1950 he directed the Dramatic Ballet at the Volksbühne in E. Berlin , then worked at opera houses in Schwerin and Karl-Marx-Stadt and at Berlin's Komische Oper (1958–66 and 1978–80).

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Weiss , Josephine

(b 1805, d Vienna, 18 Dec. 1852).
Austrian dancer and ballet mistress. She was soloist at the Kärntnertor Theater, Vienna (1820–6) then ballet mistress at the Josephsstädter Theater where she formed Les Danseuses Viennoises (see Vienna Children's Ballet) and, after 1845 toured widely with them.

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Welch , Garth

(b Brisbane, 14 Apr. 1936
). Australian dancer, choreographer, and director. He studied ballet with P. Danaher , V. Gsovsky , Northcote , van Praagh , and others and later modern dance with Graham (1966–7), making his debut in the musical Call me Madam in 1953. In 1954 he joined Borovansky Ballet then in 1958 moved to Western Theatre Ballet, returning to Borovansky Ballet (1960–1) and joining Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas as soloist, becoming leading dancer (1961–2). In 1962 he joined Australian Ballet where he remained as principal until 1973, performing modern and classical roles. A powerfully dramatic dancer he was outstanding as both Albrecht and Hilarion in Giselle and he continued to dance some character roles after retiring from the company, including von Aschenbach which he created in Murphy's After Venice (1984). In 1964 he choreographed his first ballet, Variations on a Theme (mus. Arensky , Australian Ballet) which was followed by Othello (mus. Jerry Goldsmith , Australian Ballet School, 1968, revived Australian Ballet, 1970), Images (mus. Rachmaninov , Ballet Victoria, 1974), The Tempest (1983), and Voyage Within (mus. G. Koehne , 1989, both for West Australian Ballet), among others. He has staged several classics including Giselle. He was assistant artistic director of Ballet Victoria (1974–6) then associate, becoming artistic director of West Australian Ballet (1979–82). He has also taught at various institutions including his own school (1983–8). He was married to dancer Marilyn Jones and his son is Stanton Welch . He was awarded Order of Australia in 1981.

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Welch , Stanton

(b Melbourne, 15 Oct. 1969).
Australian dancer and choreographer. He started studying at 17 but a year later won a scholarship to San Francisco Ballet School, also performing small roles with the company. In 1989 he joined Australian Ballet and in 1990 created his first work for the company, The Three of Us, followed by Of Blessed Memory (mus. Canteloube , 1991), Divergence (1994), and others. He was appointed resident choreographer of Australian Ballet in 1995 and in the same year created Madam Butterfly (mus. Puccini , arr. Lanchbery ) for the company. He has since created several other works for AB including Cinderella (1997). His classically based style reflects the influence of modern choreographers such as Graham and Limón in its weight and fluency, but also tends towards a more fractured edginess. He has become one of the most sought-after choreographers of his generation, making Powder (mus. Mozart , 1998) for Birmingham Royal Ballet and Indigo (mus. Vivaldi , 1999) for Houston Ballet, as well as works for San Francisco Ballet and Royal Danish Ballet.

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Weller , Dawn

(b Durban, 16 Dec. 1947).
South African ballet dancer and director. She studied locally with Iris Manning and Arlene Speark and in 1964 joined Natal Performing Arts Council Ballet, then PACT Ballet in 1965 where she was appointed principal in 1968. A musical and dramatic dancer, she was highly acclaimed in Prokovsky's Anna Karenina (1980). In 1983 she was appointed artistic director of PACT and in 1986 she was made prima ballerina, but in 1987 injury forced her to retire from the stage. In 1994 she took over direction of PACT Ballet School, retaining direction of the company which became State Theatre Ballet in 1997. In 1996 she staged a full-length version of La Bayadère for the company.

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Wells , Bruce

(b Tacoma, Wash., 17 Jan. 1950).
US dancer and choreographer. He studied with P. Cairns and at the School of American Ballet, joining New York City Ballet in 1967 and becoming soloist in 1970. In 1975 he became resident choreographer at Connecticut Ballet where his ballets included Coppélia (1977) and Beauty and the Beast (mus. Debussy , 1979). In 1979 he moved to Boston Ballet as resident choreographer, principal dancer, and teacher. He choreographed many ballets, such as La Fille mal gardée (1990), and became associate artistic director. During the mid-1990s he was resident choreographer for Pittsburgh Ballet Theater. He has also choreographed for other companies, including Hunchback of Notre Dame (mus. Bartók , 1981) for Australian Ballet.

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Wells , Doreen

(b Walthamstow, 25 June 1937
). British dancer. She studied at the Bush-Davies School and Sadler's Wells School and danced in pantomime (1952–3). In 1955 she joined Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet and in 1956 Sadler's Wells Ballet (becoming Royal Ballet) where she became soloist. From 1960 to 1974 she was ballerina of Touring Royal Ballet (while still dancing with the main company). An elegant dancer with a pure classical line, she created the title role in Nureyev's production of Raymonda (Spoleto, 1964) and also roles in, among others, Ashton's The Creatures of Prometheus (1970). After retiring she made occasional guest appearances in musicals and with London City Ballet. She became Marchioness of Londonderry on her marriage in 1972.

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West , Elizabeth

(b Alassio, 1927, d nr. Matterhorn, 28 Sept. 1962).
British dancer, choreographer, and director. She studied with E. Espinosa and at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. From 1946 she worked at the Bristol Old Vic, choreographing occasionally there and at the Shakespeare Festival in Stratford-upon-Avon. In 1957 she founded Western Theatre Ballet (now Scottish Ballet) with Darrell . As well as choreographing Stravinsky's Pulcinella and Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf (both 1957) for the company she was the visionary driving force behind it. She died in a climbing accident.

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Western Symphony.

Ballet in one act with choreography by Balanchine , music by H. Kay , set by John Boyt , and costumes by Karinska . Premiered 7 Sept. 1954 by New York City Ballet at City Center, New York, with D. Adams , Bliss , Reed , Magallanes , P. Wilde , LeClercq , and d'Amboise . It evokes the atmosphere and dance vernacular of the American West within the frame of classical ballet. It was danced in practice clothes at its premiere.

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Western Theatre Ballet.

See Scottish Ballet.

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West Side Story.

Musical, produced and choreographed by Jerome Robbins , with libretto by A. Laurents , music by Bernstein , sets by Oliver Smith , and costumes by Irene Sharaff . Premiered 26 Sept. 1957 at Winter Garden Theater, New York. This updating of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet to a story of modern gang warfare in New York was a huge popular and critical success and was staged all around the world. A film version was produced in 1961 and in 1995 Robbins produced a suite of dances, West Side Story Suite, for New York City Ballet. Neumeier produced and choreographed a version for Hamburg State Opera in 1978.

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Wheeldon , Christopher

(b Somerset, 22 Mar. 1973).
British dancer and choreographer. He studied locally and at the Royal Ballet School, and graduated into the company in 1991. In 1993 he moved to New York City Ballet, where he created roles in several ballets, including Martins's Symphonic Dreams, and was appointed soloist in 1999. He began choreographing as a student and created several ballets for student performances before making works for, among others, the Royal Ballet (Pavane pour une infante défunte, mus. Ravel , 1996), New York City Ballet (Slavonic Dances, 1998), and Boston Ballet (Corybantic Ecstasies, 1999). In 1999 he was appointed guest choreographer at Boston Ballet for the years 2000–3.

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Whelan , Wendy

(b Louisville, Ky., c.1972).
US dancer. She studied ballet locally, at Louisville Ballet Academy, and the School of American Ballet. In 1984 she became an apprentice with New York City Ballet, becoming full member in 1986 and principal in 1991. An exceptionally long-limbed, athletic dancer she has performed many leading roles in Balanchine and Robbins ballets and created roles in many works, including Martins's Adams Violin Concerto, Ash, Concerti Armonici, Jazz, Les Petits Riens, and Reliquary; Robbins's Brandenburg; and also works by Dove , O'Day , C. d'Amboise , and La Fosse .

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Whims of Cupid and the Ballet Master, The (orig. Dan. title Amors og Balletmesterens Luner).

Ballet in one act with libretto and choreography by Galeotti and music by Jens Lolle . Premiered 31 Oct. 1786 by the Royal Danish Ballet, Copenhagen. This comic work is the oldest ballet to survive with its original choreography and is still in RDB's repertory. It portrays several couples of different nationalities who come to pay tribute to Cupid but who are then blindfolded by the god (played by a child) and re-paired, with comic results. It has been revived by Paris Opera (1952) and Netherlands Ballet (1957).

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White-Haired Girl, The.

Ballet in eight acts with choreography and libretto by Hu Rongrong , Fu Aidi , Cheng Laihui , and Lin Yangyang , music by Yan Dinxian , and design by Du Shixiang and Zhu Shichang . Premiered May 1965 at Shanghai School of Dancing with Cai Kuoying , Long Guiming , and Ga Xiamei . It is based on a 1945 Chinese opera which tells the story of a young girl who suffers at the hands of her oppressive landlord until rescued by the Red Army. Originally only half an hour long it was later extended to its full eight acts, and the title role became so strenuous it had to be performed by several ballerinas during the course of one performance. It was filmed by Shanghai Film Studio in 1972.

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White Oak Dance Project, The.

Dance company founded in 1990 by Mikhail Baryshnikov in collaboration with Mark Morris . Led by Baryshnikov it draws on a pool of mature, independent dancers from a wide range of backgrounds, including Jamie Bishton (ex-Tharp company), Rob Besserer (ex-Morris company), and Patricia Lent (ex-Cunningham company). During its first year it performed only Morris's choreography, but it has since added new works by Taylor , Tharp , Robbins , Lubovitch , Reitz , G. Murphy , and others, and revived works by Graham , Holm , Dudley , M. Monk , Limón , and Cunningham , among others. With a base at the White Oak Plantation wild life reserve, it tours internationally and in the US.

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Who Cares?

Ballet in one act with choreography by Balanchine , music by Gershwin , lighting by R. Bates , and costumes by Karinska . Premiered 5 Feb. 1970 by New York City Ballet at State Theater, New York, with von Aroldingen , McBride , Marnee Morris , and d'Amboise . A suite of dances to melodies like ‘Fascinatin' Rhythm' and ‘The Man I Love’ (all arr. H. Kay ), it presents classical dance in the style of a Gershwin musical.

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Wiesenthal , Grete

(b Vienna, 9 Dec. 1885, d Vienna, 22 June 1970).
Austrian dancer and choreographer. She and her sister Elsa (1887–1967) were both dancers with the Vienna Court Opera Ballet but she left in 1904 to choreograph and perform her own work, which was accompanied primarily by waltz music (Chopin and J. Strauss ). She proved so popular that her sisters Elsa and Berta joined her in works that communicated a (then) revolutionarily ecstatic response to waltz rhythms. The sisters moved to Berlin where they performed together until 1910, after which she worked independently, choreographing and performing in vaudeville, film, and opera around Europe and the US. The Grete Wiesenthal Dance group (1945–56) toured the world and two of its members subsequently staged her dances for the Vienna State Opera Ballet.

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Wigman , Mary (orig. Marie Wiegmann ;

b Hanover, 13 Nov. 1886, d Berlin, 18 Sept. 1973).
German dancer, choreographer, teacher, and leading pioneer of European modern dance. In 1911 she began studying with Dalcroze in Hellerau/Dresden and then from 1913 with Laban in Munich and Zurich, becoming his assistant. She gave her first solo recital in 1914 in the earliest version of her famous solo Witch Dance, whose distorted body shapes and dramatic intensity prefigured the spare expressionism of her mature and extremely influential style. She worked largely without music and her dances had no plot. Further recitals in Zurich and Hamburg (1919) established her reputation and in 1920 she opened her own school in Dresden which became the centre of German modern dance. Holm, Georgi, and Palucca were among her pupils and also appeared in her performing group. She choreographed many solos and group dances and toured widely, making her London debut in 1928. Branches of her school were established throughout Germany, and the one in the US, under Holm's direction, numbered almost 2,000 pupils. She was condemned by the Nazis, who closed her school, and she gave up performing in 1942. After the war she opened a school in Leipzig and in 1949 moved to W. Berlin where her school again became a focus of European modern dance activity. She also began choreographing for several German opera houses, including Gluck's Orpheus and Euridice (fully choreographed, Leipzig, 1947, and later for Berlin Opera Ballet, 1961), Stravinsky's Sacre du printemps (Municipal Opera, Berlin, 1957), and Gluck's Alcestis (Mannheim, 1958). She was author of Deutsche Tanzkunst (Dresden, 1935), Die Sprache des Tanzes (Stuttgart, 1963, American trans. The Language of the Dance, Middletown, Conn., 1966), and the posthumous Mary Wigman Book (ed. W. Sorrell , Middletown, Conn., 1973).

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Wilde , Patricia

(b Ottawa, 16 July 1928).
Canadian-US dancer, teacher, and director. She studied with G. Osborn , C. and D. Littlefield , at the School of American Ballet, and later with Preobrajenska. She danced with American Concert Ballet (1943–4), then with Ballet International (1944–5), Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo (1945–9), and with Petit's Ballets de Paris, and Metropolitan Ballet, England (1949–50). In 1950 she became principal with New York City Ballet, where, as a dancer of exceptional speed, clarity, and power, she created roles in many Balanchine works, including La Valse (1951), Caracole and Scotch Symphony (both 1952), Western Symphony and Ivesiana (both 1954), Divertimento no. 15 (1956), Square Dance (1957), and Raymonda Variations (1961), also Robbins's Quartet (1954). She left in 1965 to become director of Harkness Ballet School (until 1967). She then taught for various companies and was director of American Ballet Theatre School (1977–82), until becoming artistic director of Pittsburgh Ballet Theater in 1982 where she remained until 1997, bringing works by Balanchine into the repertory. She was succeeded in Pittsburgh by Terence Orr.

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Wilde ballets.

Ballets based on Oscar Wilde's writings include Bolm's Birthday of the Infanta (mus. J. A. Carpenter , Chicago, 1919), Dolin's The Nightingale and the Rose (mus. H. Frazer-Simson , Nemchinova-Dolin Ballet, London, 1927, Etchévery's Ballade de geôle de Reading (mus. Ibert , Opéra Comique, Paris, 1947), several versions of The Picture of Dorian Gray, for example Orlikowsky (mus. M. Lang , Basle , 1966), D. Deane (mus. Carl Davis , 1987, Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet), and Layton , titled Double Exposure (mus. Scriabin and H. Pousseur , City Center Joffrey Ballet, New York, 1972). Layton also choreographed a ballet based on Wilde's life: Oscar Wilde (mus. Walton , Royal Ballet, London, 1972). For ballets based on the play Salome, see Salome.

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Wildor Sarah

(b Eastwood, 29 Jan. 1972).
British dancer. She studied at the Royal Ballet School and graduated into the company in 1991 where she was promoted first soloist in 1995 and principal in 1999. A dancer of outstanding musicality, she performs some classical roles with individuality but is renowned for the originality and intensity of her dramatic interpretation in roles such as Manon. She has created roles in Tharp's Mr Worldly Wise (1995) and in M. Bourne's Cinderella (1997, as guest artist with Adventures in Motion Pictures).

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Wiley , Roland John

(b California, 27 Jan. 1942).
US musicologist and writer. His closely researched study Tchaikovky's Ballets (New York, 1985) has shed important light on the history and construction of The Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty, and Swan Lake as well as on the state of ballet in Petipa's time. It has influenced several stagings of the classics including P. Schaufuss's Nutcracker (London Festival Ballet, 1986) and A. Dowell's Swan Lake (Royal Ballet, 1986). His subsequent publications include A Century of Russian Ballet (1990) and The Life and Ballets of Lev Ivanov (1997).

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Williams , Dudley

(b New York, Aug. 1938).
US dancer. He studied tap and ballet locally, after which he attended the High School of Performing Arts, and studied ballet with Tudor and others and modern dance with May O'Donnell . He joined her company in 1958 then danced with McKayle (1960), Graham (1962–6), and Ailey from 1964. A dancer of considerable dramatic fervour and technical control, he created roles in many of Ailey's works including the solo Love Songs (1972), and continued to perform with the company in his sixties as well as teaching.

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Williams , Ellen Virginia (known as E. Virginia Williams ;

Salem, Mass., 12 Mar. 1914, d Boston, 8 May 1984).
US teacher, choreographer, and director who played a pioneering role in the development of American ballet. She studied with M. Winslow (of Denishawn) and Balanchine, among others, becoming dancer with San Carlo Opera. She began teaching at the age of 16 and established numerous schools including the E. Virginia Williams School of Ballet in Boston (1940). In 1958 she was founder and artistic director of New England Civic Ballet from which developed the professional Boston Ballet in 1964. As director of the company (until 1980) she brought in many guest stars, including Fonteyn , Nureyev , and Makarova , and pursued the often-controversial policy of commissioning work from modern dance choreographers. She was co-director of the company with V. Verdy (1980–3) and then artistic adviser (1983–4). She was also adviser to the Lyric Opera of Chicago (1971–3). She choreographed several works for Joffrey, Boston, and Pennsylvania Ballets, among others.

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Williams , Peter

(b Burton Joyce, 12 June 1914, d Cornwall, 10 Aug. 1995).
British dance writer and adviser. He was educated at the London Central School of Art and Design and in 1949 was assistant editor of Buckle's magazine, Dance. In 1950 he founded Dance and Dancers which he edited until 1980. He was also dance critic of the Daily Mail (1950–3), chairman of the Arts Council Dance Advisory Committee (1973–80), and founder-chairman of the Dancers Resettlement Fund from 1975. He occasionally designed for ballet, such as Howard's Selina whose libretto he also wrote (Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet, 1948). He taught dance design at the Slade and was author of Masterpieces of Ballet Design (1981). The Peter Williams Design for Dance Project was founded in his memory.

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Williams , Stanley

(b Chappel, 1925, d New York, 21 Oct. 1997).
British-Danish dancer and teacher. He grew up in Copenhagen where he studied at the Royal Danish Ballet School and graduated into the company. A gifted mime and exponent of the Bournonville style he was promoted soloist (principal) in 1949 and became a teacher at the school in 1950. After leaving in 1963 he joined the School of American Ballet (1964) where he was one of its most respected teachers.

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Williams-Yarborough , Lavinia

(b Philadelphia, Pa., 2 July 1926, d Haiti, 19 July 1989).
US dancer and teacher. She studied with Sokolow , Lisan Kay , and at the Graham school and danced with Eugene von Grona's Negro Ballet (1937–9). In 1940 she danced with Ballet Theatre in de Mille's Obeah as well as appearing in musicals and films. In 1953 she went to Haiti where she remained until 1980, helping to found various schools, including the National School of Dance and the National Dance Troupe of Jamaica, as well as the Haitian Institute of Folklore and Classic Dance. She taught and choreographed widely in the W. Indies and Europe, returning to the US in 1980 where she taught at Ailey's school and her own Brooklyn-based school (1983). She returned to Haiti in the mid-1980s. She was the mother of the dancer Sarah Yarborough .

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Wilson , Robert

(b Waco, Tex., 4 Oct. 1941).
US artist and director. His works range from art installations to theatre events, in which music, text, dance, and the visual arts are combined to often hallucinatory effect. His most frequent dance collaborators have been Andy de Groat and L. Childs who was the dancer in his production of P. Glass's opera Einstein on the Beach (Avignon, 1976) and in La Maladie de la mort (1993). His first production was Dance Event at the 1965 New York World's Fair and others include The Life and Times of Sigmund Freud (New York, 1969), and The CIVIL Wars (sic), a fourteen-hour extravaganza which was created over four years and was to have been premiered at the Los Angeles Olympic Arts Festival in 1984, but proved too unwieldy. He also works as a film-maker, painter, and workshop director and was invited by Nureyev to stage Le Martyre de Saint-Sébastien (mus. Debussy ) for the Paris Opera Ballet in 1988.

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Wilson , Sallie

(b Fort Worth, Tex., 18 Apr. 1932).
US dancer. She studied with Craske, Tudor, and others and in 1949 joined Ballet Theatre. After a period with Metropolitan Opera Ballet (1950–5) she returned to American Ballet Theatre, becoming soloist in 1957 and ballerina in 1961. She stayed with the company until 1980 except for a period with New York City Ballet (1958–60), and was considered one of their greatest dance actresses, performing in many Tudor works. She created the role of Queen Elizabeth in Graham's section of Episodes (1959) as well as roles in Robbins's Les Noces (1965), among others. Since retiring from the stage she has worked as guest teacher and producer, reviving Tudor ballets for companies all round the world and also choreographing several works of her own, including The Idol (Fort Worth Ballet, 1983).

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Winter , Ethel

(b Wrentham, Mass., 18 June 1924).
US dancer, choreographer, and teacher. She studied at Bennington College and with Graham , joining her company in 1946. Here she danced many leading roles, including Graham's own in Herodiade and Frontier. She also danced with other companies, including her own, and created roles in Sokolow's Lyric Suite and Maslow's The Dybbuk (1964), among others. As a choreographer she worked with Batsheva Dance Company and Repertory Dance Theater of Utah. She taught at the Graham company and school until 1993.

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Winterbranch.

Modern dance work in one act with choreography by Cunningham , music by LaMonte Young , and design by Rauschenberg . Premiered 21 Mar. 1964 by the Cunningham Dance Company at Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut, with Cunningham , Brown , Farber , B. Lloyd , W. Davies , and Paxton . It was conceived as a plotless work but its abrasive music and glaring lighting design have notoriously inspired many audiences to interpret it as piece about impending violence, such as a holocaust or a shipwreck. The New York premiere was 4 Mar. 1965 at New York State Theater, and it was revived for Boston Ballet in 1974.

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Witch Boy, The.

Ballet in one act with libretto and choreography by J. Carter , music by Salzedo , and design by N. McDowell . Premiered 24 May 1956 by Ballet der Lage Landen, Amsterdam, with McDowell, A. Bayley , and Carter . It is based on the ‘Ballad of Barbara Allan’ and tells the story of a love affair between a girl and a witch boy who is murdered by villagers suspicious of his strangeness. The boy is reborn, however, suggesting that the situation will endlessly repeat itself through time. It was revived for several companies, including London Festival Ballet (Manchester, 27 Nov. 1957) and for Buenos Aires (1998).

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With My Red Fires.

Modern dance work in one act, which constitutes the middle piece in Humphrey's dance trilogy (parts 1 and 3 being Theater Piece and New Dance). With music by W. Riegger and design by P. Lawrence . Premiered 13 Aug. 1936 by the Humphrey-Weidman Company at Bennington College. The title is taken from Blake's poem Jerusalem, II and its two sections, subtitled ‘Ritual’ and ‘Drama’, portray a pair of lovers affirming their love against the oppressive rule of a Matriarch. It was filmed in 1972.

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Woetzel , Damian

(b Boston, c.1968).
US dancer, choreographer, and teacher. He studied locally and at the Boston Ballet School. He then danced for a year with Los Angeles Ballet (1983–4), spending a further six months training at the School of American Ballet before joining New York City Ballet in 1985, where he was promoted principal in 1989. He has danced over 50 leading roles and created roles in several works, including Robbins's Ives Songs and Quiet City, Martins's Les Gentilhommes, A Musical Offering, and Sleeping Beauty, and works by Tharp , Taylor-Corbett , Tanner , and O'Day . He has also choreographed several works, including Ebony Concerto (mus. Stravinsky , NYCB, 1994), Glazunov pas de deux (NYCB, 1994), and a version of An American in Paris (mus. Gershwin , Gershwin Centennial Gala, 1998). Since 1994 he has been director of the ballet programme at New York State Summer School and is guest teacher at the School of American Ballet.

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Woizikowski , Léon (orig. Léon Wójcikowski , also spelled Léon Woizikowsky ;

b Warsaw, 20 Feb. 1899, d Warsaw, 23 Feb. 1974).
Polish dancer, ballet master, and teacher. He studied at Imperial Theatre School, Warsaw, and with Cecchetti, joining Diaghilev's Ballets Russes (1915–29). A dancer of unusual suppleness, vitality, and wit, he became the company's leading character dancer creating roles in, among others, Massine's Las Meninas (1916), Les Femmes de bonne humeur, and Parade (1917), La Boutique fantasque and Le Tricorne (both 1919), Les Matelots (1925), and Le Pas d'acier (1927); Nijinska's Les Noces (1923), Les Biches and Le Train bleu (both 1924); and Balanchine's The Gods Go a-Begging (1928), Le Bal, and Prodigal Son (1929). He also danced in many Fokine ballets, including L'Après-midi d'un faune which he later staged and danced for Ballet Rambert in 1931. After Diaghilev's Ballets Russes disbanded he performed with Pavlova's company (1929–30), Ballet Club, later Rambert (1930–1), Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo (1932–4), and de Basil's Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo (1936–45). He was also director of his own company, Les Ballets de Léon Woizikowsky which toured Europe (1935–6) and for which he also choreographed several ballets, also of Ballets Russes de Léon Woizikowsky which toured Australia (1936–7), and Europe (1937–8). In 1938 he was dancer and ballet master with the Polish Ballet for its European and American tour. After 1945 he returned to Warsaw where he taught at Opera Ballet School and choreographed for the Polish Opera Ballet. After 1958 he worked mainly in the West, staging Petrushka and Scheherazade for London Festival Ballet in 1958 and 1960. He also danced with Massine's company (1960), was ballet master with London Festival Ballet (1961), and worked in Cologne, Bonn, and Antwerp teaching and staging the Diaghilev repertory.

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Wooden Prince, The (orig. Hung. title A Fából Faragott Királyfi; also known as The Woodcut Prince).

Ballet in one act with choreography by Ottó Zobisch and Ede Brada , libretto by Béla Balász , music by Bartók , and design by Count Bánffy . Premiered 12 May 1917, Budapest, with Anna Palley (en travestie as the Prince), Emilia Nirschy , Brada , and Boriska Hormat . Its fairytale plot tells the story of a prince who tries to win a princess's love by carving her a wooden prince. She falls in love with the toy instead and only when she tires of it does she seek in earnest to win back the affections of the real man. Other versions include Harangozó (Budapest, 1939), Milloss (Venice, 1950), Walter (Wuppertal, 1962), Seregi (Budapest, 1970, also for Hungarian television), and Cauley (London Festival Ballet, 1981).

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Woolliams , Anne

(b Folkestone, 3 Aug. 1926, d Canterbury, 8 July 1999).
British dancer and teacher. She studied with J. Espinosa and Volkova and danced with, among others, Kyasht Ballet, Russian Opera Ballet, and in the film The Red Shoes. She taught at Essen Folkwang School (1958–63), was character artist, ballet mistress, and then assistant director at Stuttgart Ballet (1963–75) and also director of Cranko Ballet school which she co-founded with Cranko in 1964. In 1976 she became artistic director of Australian Ballet (1976–8) where she staged a new version of Swan Lake (1977). She was appointed Dean of Dance at Victoria College of Arts, Melbourne. In 1988 she returned to Europe and established the Schweizerische Ballett-berufsschule in Zurich, then in 1993 became artistic director of the Vienna State Opera Ballet, finally retiring to live in Canterbury.

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Wright , Douglas

(b Tuakau, S. Auckland, 1956).
New Zealand dancer and choreographer. He trained locally in dance and gymnastics and in 1980 joined Limbs Dance Company with which he toured New Zealand, Australia, the Far East, and the US and for which he choreographed several works. Between 1983 and 1987 he danced with P. Taylor's company and in 1988 with DV8. In 1984 he formed his own company in New York, which was established in New Zealand as the Douglas Wright Dance Company in 1989. He has choreographed many works for this, including Gloria (mus. Vivaldi , 1990) and Forever (mus. various, 1993). He has also created works for Australian Dance Theatre, Royal New Zealand Ballet, and others.

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Wright , (Sir) Peter

(b London, 25 Nov. 1926).
British dancer, choreographer, and director. He studied with Jooss , Volkova , and van Praagh and danced with Ballets Jooss (1945–7 and 1951–2), Metropolitan Ballet (1947–9), St James' Ballet (1948), and Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet (1949–51 and 1952–5) where he also became assistant ballet master. He taught at the Royal Ballet School (1957–9), and was ballet master at Stuttgart Ballet (1961–7) where he choreographed several works and staged Giselle in 1965. During this period (1963–5) he also worked at the BBC as ballet master and choreographer for television productions, creating Peter and the Wolf (mus. Prokofiev , 1965), and others. He subsequently worked as freelance choreographer and ballet master for such companies as Cologne and Western Theatre Ballet until 1970 when he was appointed associate director of Royal Ballet, becoming director of the Royal Ballet Touring Company in 1975 (renamed Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet and subsequently Birmingham Royal Ballet). He created his first ballet in 1957, A Blue Rose (mus. Barber , for Royal Ballet Touring Company) and later works included The Mirror Walkers (mus. Tchaikovsky , 1962, for Stuttgart Ballet), Arpège (mus. Boieldieu , 1974), and Summertide (mus. Mendelssohn , 1976, both for Royal Ballet Touring Company). However, it has been his detailed, dramatically realistic stagings of the classics which have brought him greatest acclaim, including Swan Lake (1981) and Giselle (1965 and 1987). As a director he has also been admired, turning the Touring Company into a major classical company, with a fine ensemble of dancers and a distinctive repertory that spanned the standard classics, revivals of major 20th-century works such as Massine's Choreartium and Jooss's The Green Table, and new works by company members like Bintley and Oliver Hindle. He oversaw the company's historic re-location to Birmingham in 1990 before retiring in 1995. He was knighted in 1993.

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Wuppertal Dance Theatre (Tanztheater Wuppertal).

The dance company of Pina Bausch . It was established in Wuppertal in 1973 at the city's invitation after the success of Bausch's highly individual opera stagings for Wuppertal Opera House. It has around 30 dancers and tours internationally.

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Wu Xiao-bang

(b Jiangsu, 18 Dec. 1906, d Beijing, 8 July 1995).
Chinese dancer, choreographer and teacher, considered the father of Chinese modern dance. He studied ballet and modern dance and in 1931 opened a dance studio in Shanghai with the intention of bringing Western ballet to China. This met with no success and he went on to develop his own New Chinese Dance style, influenced by German expressionism and Duncan—his bare feet causing outrage among traditionalists. His many works during the 1930s were political attacks on the invading Japanese, but in 1949 he began to create more utopian works using traditional Chinese music to accompany his still experimental dance style. In 1960 he was forced to stop performing and teaching and for eighteen years remained inactive, but subsequently continued his activities as a committed dance educator.

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Y

Yakobson , Leonid.

See Jacobson , Leonid.

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Yaroslavna.

Ballet in three acts with choreography, libretto, and designs by Vinogradov , and music by Boris Tischenko . Premiered 30 June 1974 by the Maly Theatre Ballet at the Maly Theatre in Leningrad, with Tatiana Fesenko as Yaroslavna and Nikita Dolgushin as Igor. The ballet comes from the same literary source as Borodin's opera Prince Igor, but takes a different perspective on the anonymous medieval tale of Igor Svyatoslavich's doomed military campaign against the Polovtsians. Vinogradov's ballet focuses on the suffering of those left behind, particularly Igor's wife, Yaroslavna. The choreography, with its use of turned-in legs and soft shoes (the victorious Polovtsians are on pointe), brought a modernist style to the historical subject-matter. The ballet was directed by Yuri Lyubimov , from Moscow's Taganka Theatre.

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Yermolayev , Alexei (Aleksei)

(b St Petersburg, 23 Feb. 1910, d Moscow, 12 Dec. 1975).
Soviet dancer, choreographer, and teacher. He studied at the Leningrad Choreographic School with Vladimir Ponomarev, graduating in 1926 after having completed the standard eight years of training in just five. He joined GATOB (later the Kirov) as a soloist and spent four years with the Leningrad company. A virtuoso dancer who did much to expand the boundaries of male technique, he particularly excelled in the heroic modern roles. He created roles in Lopukhov's The Ice Maiden (1927) and in Lopukhov, Ponomarev, and Leontiev's The Red Poppy (1929). From 1930 to 1958 he was a principal dancer with the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow. He created the role of Jerome in Vainonen's Moscow version of The Flames of Paris (1933), Ripafrata in Vainonen's Mirandolina (1949), Tybalt in Lavrovsky's Moscow version of Romeo and Juliet (1946), Severyan in Lavrovsky's The Stone Flower (1954), and Yevgeny in Zakharov's The Bronze Horseman (1949). He danced the role of Tybalt in the Soviet film of Romeo and Juliet (1954). From 1960 until his death he was a teacher and coach at the Bolshoi Ballet; from 1968 to 1972 he was artistic director of the Moscow Choreographic School (the Bolshoi's school). He made his first major ballet in 1939, Nightingale (with Lopukhov, mus. M. Kroshner ), for the Byelorussian Theatre of Opera and Ballet in Minsk, where he made his last ballet, Burning Hearts or Fiery Hearts (mus. V. Zolotarev ), in 1955.

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YMHA.

The Young Men's (and Young Women's) Hebrew Association. Situated on East 92nd Street in New York, it has since 1937 been the site of many important dance recitals. It is widely known as the 92nd Street Y.

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York , Lila

(b Syracuse, NY, 29 Nov. 1948).
US dancer and choreographer. She studied ballet with Gertrude Hallenbeck and Finis Jhung , and modern dance with Paul Sanasardo and at the Graham school. She was a member of Paul Taylor's company from 1973 to 1985, performing in more than 60 works. She created roles in many Taylor works, including Cloven Kingdom, Esplanade, Mercuric Tidings, Sunset, Byzantium, and Lost, Found and Lost. After leaving Taylor's company she collaborated with Martha Clarke on Vienna: Lusthaus and appeared in Clarke's The Garden of Earthly Delights. From the mid-1980s she worked as a freelance choreographer; she also staged Taylor's works for companies around the world. She has choreographed for the Boston Ballet (Celts, 1996, Ode to Joy, 1998), the San Francisco Ballet (El Grito, 1997), Pacific Northwest Ballet (Psalms, 1992, Windhover, 1995), Birmingham Royal Ballet (Sanctum, 1997), Houston Ballet (Rules of the Game, 1999), and Atlanta Ballet (Gloria, 1998). Her Rapture (1995), made for the Juilliard Dance Ensemble, has been taken into the repertoire of several ballet companies, including Pacific Northwest Ballet, Houston Ballet, Cincinnati Ballet, Atlanta Ballet, and Scottish Ballet. From 1989 to 1994 she was director of Pacific Northwest Ballet Offstage, a showcase for new choreography in Seattle.

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Yoshida , Miyako

(b Tokyo, 28 Oct. 1965).
Japanese-British dancer. She trained in Tokyo and joined Britain's Royal Ballet School in 1983 after winning the Prix de Lausanne. In 1984 she joined Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet (later Birmingham Royal Ballet) where she was promoted to principal in 1988. In 1995 she joined the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden. Her repertoire includes the leading roles in the 19th-century Russian classics, as well as in ballets by Ashton , Bintley , and MacMillan . She created roles in Wheeldon's A Royal Ballet (1998) and Corder's Masquerade (1999). An intensely musical dancer, she also possesses an outstanding classical technique and excels as Petipa's two most demanding heroines, Aurora and Odette-Odile.

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Youskevitch , Igor

(b Piriatin or Pieyatin, Ukraine, 13 Mar. 1912, d New York, 13 June 1994).
Russian-US dancer and teacher. He left Russia at the age of 8, fleeing the Revolution with his family. Raised in Belgrade and educated (in engineering) at Belgrade University, he trained as a gymnast and took part in the Prague Olympic Games of 1932 as a member of the Yugoslavian team. That same year, at the age of 20, he began to study ballet with Xenia Grunt , who chose him as her stage partner; further studies were with Preobrajenska in Paris and Anatole Vilzak and Alexandra Fedorova in New York. He made his debut as a professional dancer only two years later, in 1934, with the Ballets Russes de Paris, and then danced with Woizikowski's company (1935–6) and de Basil's Ballets Russes Australian tour (1936–7) and European tour (1937–8). From 1938 to 1944 he was a principal dancer with Serge Denham's Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, where he created roles in Massine's Gaîté parisienne (1938), Seventh Symphony (1938), Bogatyri (1938), Rouge et noir (1939), Vienna 1814 (1940), and The New Yorker (1940), in Nijinska's The Snow Maiden (1942), and Ancient Russia (1943), and Igor Schwezoff's The Red Poppy (1943). After war service with the US Navy, he danced with Massine's Ballet Russe Highlights in 1946 before joining (American) Ballet Theatre, the company that was his home for the next nine years. At ABT he created roles in Balanchine's Theme and Variations (1947), Tudor's Shadow of the Wind (1948), and Nijinska's Schumann Concerto (1951). A distinguished and elegant stylist, romantic and masculine, he was the perfect danseur noble, much in demand in the 19th-century repertoire. Albrecht was considered his greatest classical role. He made frequent guest appearances as the favoured partner of Alicia Alonso ; they were together on stage for fourteen years. He appeared with her company in Cuba (later the National Ballet of Cuba) from its beginning in 1948 until 1960, and created the role of Romeo in Albert Alonso's 1956 staging of Romeo and Juliet in Havana. From 1955 to 1957 he returned to the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo as principal dancer and artistic adviser. He retired from the stage in 1962. With his wife, the dancer Anna Scarpova , he ran a school in Massapequa, Long Island, New York (1962–80), which also served as the base for his touring company, Ballet Romantique. From 1983 until his death he was artistic director of the New York International Ballet Competition. He appeared in Gene Kelly's 1956 film Invitation to the Dance. He was one of the most important dancers of 20th-century American ballet, and provided inspiration to an entire generation of male dancers, including Erik Bruhn .

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Yugoslavia.

The diverse cultural groups which made up the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia enjoyed their own traditional dance forms for centuries before Yugoslavia was created in 1918. Western theatrical dance took hold in the late 19th century. Pietro Coronelli's company was the first full ballet troupe to visit the country in 1876; in 1894 the first ballet company was established at the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb, under the management of Stjepan Miletic . Early productions included Coppélia and Giselle; one of the first choreographers was the Budapest-born Erna Grondona . Following Miletic's departure at the turn of the century, however, the ballet was more or less forgotten. In the 1920s Russian dancers (such as Margarita Froman in Zagreb and Jelena Poljakova in Belgrade) helped to revitalize the ballet, bringing the Russian repertoire to Yugoslav audiences and encouraging the development of native choreographers and the creation of ballets with native themes. Froman staged the first Yugoslav ballet, The Gingerbread Heart (mus. Kresimir Baranovic ), in Zagreb in 1924. From 1921 Belgrade had a ballet company attached to its opera house, and shortly thereafter a ballet school. However, many Yugoslavian dancers chose to make their careers abroad where the opportunities were greater. It was only after the Second World War, with the introduction of healthy government funding, that a truly Yugoslavian national style emerged. Ballet companies sprang up all over the country and full-length contemporary ballets were added to the repertoire by choreographers such as Froman , the husband-and-wife-team of Pia and Pino Mlakar , Franjo Horvat , and Dimitrije Parlic . The first big ballet production after the war was Froman's The Legend of Ochrid (mus. Stevan Hristíc ), staged in Belgrade in 1947. Based on a Macedonian folk tale, it became the most famous Yugoslavian ballet. Modern dance, meanwhile, began to make an impact in the 1930s, thanks to the students of Rudolf Laban whose Berlin school was enormously influential throughout Europe. Ana Maletic was one of the pioneers of modern dance in Yugoslavia; in 1955 a state school, the Zagreb School for Rhythmics and Dance, was established thanks to her initiatives. Her daughter, Vera Maletic , opened the Studio of Contemporary Dance in Zagreb in 1962. In Yugoslavia, as elsewhere, the 1960s saw an explosion of experimental dance and a growth in the number of small modern dance companies. Today, following the breakup of Yugoslavia, the National Theatre in Belgrade maintains its ballet company in difficult circumstances, while the Serbian National Theatre in Novi Sad also has a ballet company.

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Yuriko (orig. Yuriko Kikuchi ;

b San Jose, Calif., 2 Feb. 1920).
US dancer, teacher, and choreographer. She was raised and educated in Japan where she danced with the Konami Ishii Dance Company of Tokyo (1930–7). Upon returning to the US she became a member of the Dorothy S. Lyndall Junior Dance Group in Los Angeles (1937–41). After being interned in Arizona during the Second World War, she moved to New York to study with Martha Graham and from 1944 to 1967 she was a member of Graham's company, after which she appeared as a guest artist for many years. She created roles in Canticle for Innocent Comedians (1952), Clytemnestra (1958), and Embattled Garden (1958) and inherited many of Graham's own roles. From 1968 she had her own company, for which she choreographed many works. She also danced on Broadway as Eliza in Jerome Robbins's choreography for The King and I (1951–4) and in the film version (1956). She later returned to the Graham company to teach and assist in revivals of Graham's works; from 1991 to 1994 she was associate artistic director of the Graham company.

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Z

Zakharov , Rostislav

(b Astrakhan, 7 Sept. 1907, d Moscow, 14 Jan. 1984).
Soviet dancer, choreographer, ballet director, and teacher. He studied at the Petrograd State Ballet School (later the Leningrad Choreographic Institute), a pupil of Vladimir Ponomarev, and graduated in 1926. He joined the Kharkov Ballet, then the Kiev Ballet (1926–8) before returning to Leningrad to further his studies at the Leningrad Institute of Theatrical Art, where he studied directing with Vladimir Soloviev, graduating in 1932. He cut his teeth as a choreographer by creating sketches for students at the School for Circus and Variety Actors. In 1934, at the invitation of the director Sergei Radlov , he joined GATOB (later the Kirov) as dancer and choreographer. After staging dances in several operas he choreographed The Fountain of Bakhchisarai (mus. Asafiev , 1934), one of the most important ballets in the Kirov's repertoire and Zakharov's biggest success; it has been staged by virtually every ballet company in Russia and the old Soviet Union. It, like his other works, was influenced by Stanislavsky's ideas about theatre, effectively turning ballets into danced dramatic plays. It also derived from a literary source (in this case Pushkin's narrative poem), a practice Zakharov repeated when he followed Fountain of Bakhchisarai with Lost Illusions (mus. Asafiev , 1935), based on Balzac; this ballet, however, was not a success. In 1938 he joined the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow as a choreographer and opera director, remaining there until 1956. There he choreographed The Prisoner of the Caucasus (mus. Asafiev , 1938), based on Pushkin; Don Quixote (mus. Minkus , 1940), Taras Bulba (mus. Soloviev-Sedoy , 1941), based on Gogol, Cinderella (mus. Prokofiev , 1945), and Mistress into Maid (mus. Asafiev , 1946), again based on Pushkin. For the Kirov, he also choreographed The Daughter of the People (mus. Kreyn , 1947) and The Bronze Horseman (mus. Glière , 1949). His last ballet, Into the Port Came Russia (mus. Soloviev-Sedoy , 1964), was also for the Kirov, although it was considered a total failure. He was artistic director of the Moscow Choreographic School (1945–7) and head of the choreography department at the State Institute for Theatrical Art (the Lunacharsky Institute) in Moscow from 1946 until his death. Author of The Art of the Choreographer (Moscow, 1954), Conversations on Dance (Moscow, 1963), The Choreographer's Work with Dancers (Moscow, 1967), Notes of a Choreographer (Moscow, 1976), and On Dancing (Moscow, 1977). A pioneer of new Soviet ballet, he was one of the most important influences in the spread of ‘dram-ballet’, although his critics complained about the lack of truly inventive dance in his productions. Zakharov, however, retaliated in print, frequently attacking young choreographers such as Yuri Grigorovich and Igor Belsky .

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Zaklinsky , Konstantin

(b Leningrad, 28 May 1955).
Russian dancer. He studied at the Leningrad Ballet School (the Vaganova School), a pupil of Abdurakhman Kumysnikov , and graduated in 1974. He joined the Kirov Ballet, where he was promoted to principal in 1980. An outstanding danseur noble, he excelled as Prince Siegfried in Swan Lake, Prince Désiré in The Sleeping Beauty and Solor in La Bayadère, although he also displayed a real flair for comedy, as revealed in the role of the slave-trader in Le Corsaire. When Natalia Makarova had her live televised reunion with the Kirov Ballet in London in 1988, dancing the white pas de deux from Swan Lake, she chose Zaklinsky as her partner. He created roles in Vinogradov's The Fairy of the Rond Mountains (1980) and The Knight in Tigerskin (1985). He frequently appeared as an international guest artist, including with the Royal Ballet in London (1989–90). He retired from dancing in the late 1990s and now teaches. He appeared in a number of films, including Tristan and Isolde (1976), Cowboys (1976), Galatea (1978), Fouetté (1986), and Chapliniana (1988). Gold medal Tokyo, 1984. He married the Kirov Ballerina Altynai Asylmuratova .

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Zambelli , Carlotta

(b Milan, 4 Nov. 1875, d Milan, 28 Jan. 1968).
Italian dancer and teacher. She studied at the La Scala Ballet School, a pupil of Adelaide Viganò and Cesare Coppini, from 1884; further studies at the Paris Opera Ballet School with Rosita Mauri. She made her debut at the Paris Opera in 1894 and was promoted to étoile in 1898. She caused a sensation in 1896 when she executed fifteen fouetté turns—never done before in Paris—in a divertissement from the opera La Favorita. She was the reigning ballerina of the Paris Opera from 1898 to her retirement in 1930. She created leading roles in Staats's Namouna (1908), Javotte (1909), España (1911), Sylvia (1919), Taglioni chez Musette (1920), and Cydalise et le chèvre-pied (1923), and in Nijinska's Impressions de music-hall (1927). She was a guest ballerina with the Maryinsky Theatre in St Petersburg in 1901, where she danced Coppélia, Paquita, and her first Giselle. She toured extensively, performing for the troops in the First World War. Following her retirement from the stage she became a senior teacher at the Paris Opera Ballet School, where she remained until 1955.

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Zane , Arnie

(b New York, 26 Sept. 1947, d New York, 30 Mar. 1988).
US dancer and choreographer. He was a photographer when he met Bill T. Jones , who was in college on a sports scholarship and had just started studying dance. They formed American Dance Asylum, a collective based in Binghamton, New York (1974–6). In 1982, after touring internationally as a modern dance duo, they formed Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane and Dancers. Zane's famed stage partnership with Jones relied for effect on their striking physical contrast: Zane was short and white, and moved with an agitated energy; Jones was tall and black, and moved with a generous grace. Their duets, influenced by Jones's studies of Contact Improvisation, were athletic and to some extent autobiographical (they were partners off stage as well), and their dances explored a wide range of issues, from racism and sexism to religion and the nuclear age. Among their creations was a trilogy of one-act works: Monkey Run Road, Blauvelt Mountain (both 1979), and Valley Cottage (1980). In 1984 the duo achieved massive box office success—and a more mainstream audience—with Secret Pastures, which featured sets by the graffiti artist Keith Haring , an art-rock score by Peter Gordon , and costumes by the fashion designer Willi Smith . In it Zane played a mad scientist who creates a Fabricated Man (Jones ), whose instant celebrity brings many temptations in the modern world. Zane and Jones collaborated on Ritual Ruckus (How to Walk an Elephant) for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 1985. Following Zane's premature death from an Aids-related illness, Jones kept their dance company going.

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Zelensky , Igor

(b Labinsk, Krasnodar, 13 July 1969).
Russian dancer. He studied at the Tbilisi Ballet School with Chabukiani and then at the Vaganova Academy (the St Petersburg Ballet School) with Gennady Seliutsky . He joined the Kirov Ballet in 1988, and was promoted to principal in 1991. He danced all the leading male roles in the repertoire. In 1990 he won the Gold Medal and the Grand Prix at the Paris International Competition. He danced with the Berlin Opera Ballet (1990–1) and New York City Ballet (1992–7), where he performed more than 25 works by Balanchine , Robbins , and Martins . From 1996 he appeared as an international guest artist, most notably partnering Darcey Bussell at the Royal Ballet, while retaining his links with the Kirov. From 1999 he was principal guest dancer at La Scala.

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Zhdanov , Yuri

(b Moscow, 29 Nov. 1925, d Moscow, 9 Apr. 1986).
Soviet dancer and ballet director. He studied at the Bolshoi Ballet School, graduating in 1944 and joining the Bolshoi Ballet. He was promoted to principal in 1951 and was Ulanova's regular partner. He danced the role of Romeo to her Juliet in the Bolshoi Ballet film of Lavrovsky's Romeo and Juliet (1954). He also partnered Struchkova and Plisetskaya. He danced with the Bolshoi for 25 years. He was director of the State Ensemble of Classical Ballet in Moscow (1972–6), for which he choreographed Francesca da Rimini (mus. Tchaikovsky ), among other works. He toured widely with his company to Europe. He was also a noted painter.

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Ziggurat.

Modern dance in one act with choreography by Tetley , music by Stockhausen , designs by Baylis , and projections by Alan Cunliffe . Premiered 20 Nov. 1967 by the Ballet Rambert at the Cochrane Theatre in London with Chesworth , Curtis , Smith , Taylor , and Craig . According to the programme note, ‘The Ziggurat was a mighty temple-tower of ascending rectilinear terraces built by the Assyrians and worshipped as the earth-soul. It is said to have been the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, perhaps the stairways of Jacob's dream, and the origin of the Tower of Babel.’ This was Tetley's first created work for Rambert.

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Zollar , Jawole Willa Jo

(b Kansas City, Mo., 21 Dec. 1950).
US dancer, choreographer, and company director. She studied dance with Joseph Stevenson, a student of Katherine Dunham, for ten years. She received a BA in dance from the University of Missouri at Kansas City and a Master of Fine Arts from Florida State University. In 1980 she moved to New York where she studied with Dianne McIntyre and danced with McIntyre's Sounds in Motion company (1980–3). In 1984 she formed Urban Bush Women, a modern dance troupe devoted to exploring issues that affect African-American women in the US. Possessed of a strong social and political consciousness, Zollar creates full-length dance-theatre works which have incorporated choreography, text, music, and visual art with subject-matter ranging from racism and sexism to self-determination and survival in a hostile world. A list of her works includes Anarchy, Wild Women, and Dinah (1986), Heat (1988), Song of Lawino (1988), Praise House (1990), Batty Moves (1995), Bones and Ash: A Gilda Story (1995), and Self Portrait (1997). In 1992 she was awarded the New York Dance and Performance Award (the Bessie award).

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Zorina , Vera (orig. Eva Brigitta Hartwig ;

b Berlin, 2 Jan. 1917).
German-US dancer and actress. She studied dance with Eugenia Eduardova and Tatiana and Victor Gsovsky in Berlin. She made her stage debut at the age of 13 performing as a First Fairy in Max Reinhardt's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream (1930). She went to London in 1933 where she studied with Nikolai Legat and Marie Rambert . That same year she partnered Anton Dolin in the West End staging of Ballerina, a play by Lady Eleanor Smith with ballet interludes choreographed by Dolin . That led to an invitation to join de Basil's Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo (1934–6), which is where she picked up her Russianized stage name. In 1937 she appeared as the temperamental Russian ballerina Vera Barnova in the London staging of the Rodgers and Hart musical On Your Toes, a performance which brought her to the attention of film and theatrical producers from America. In 1938 she began appearing on Broadway and signed a seven-year contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Now committed to Hollywood, she appeared in a string of film musicals which helped to popularize ballet in America. A list of her film credits includes The Goldwyn Follies (1938), On Your Toes (1939), I Was an Adventuress (1940), Louisiana Purchase (1941), Star Spangled Rhythm (1942), Follow the Boys (1944), and Lover Come Back (1946). She was married to Balanchine (1938–46), with whom she had worked on Broadway and in Hollywood. She appeared on Broadway in I Married an Angel (1938) and Louisiana Purchase (1940), both of which were choreographed by Balanchine . After her Hollywood contract expired Zorina returned to the ballet stage, as a guest artist with Ballet Theatre (1943), but her return to the world of dance was not a success. However, she did enjoy a career as a narrator-performer of dramatic oratorios, including Honegger's Joan of Arc at the Stake (1948), Stravinsky's Persephone (1955), and Debussy's Le Martyre de Saint-Sébastien. She later worked as an opera director for the Santa Fe Opera, the New York City Opera, and the Norwegian Opera. She published her autobiography, Zorina, in New York in 1986.

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Zucchi , Virginia

(b Parma, 10 Feb. 1849, d Nice, 9 Oct. 1930).
Italian dancer and teacher. She studied with Blasis and Lepri in Milan, making her debut in Varese in 1864. She danced throughout Italy and at La Scala (1874–6, 1882–3); also at the Berlin Opera (1876–8), the Royal Italian Opera at Covent Garden (1878), and Paris (1883). In 1885 she was invited to St Petersburg to appear at a relatively minor theatre, Kin Grust. So successful was she that she was taken on at the Imperial Theatres (1885–8). Russian audiences delighted in her Italian virtuosity and box office takings doubled accordingly. Although not a personal favourite of Petipa's, she was acclaimed for her performances in his ballets, including La Fille mal gardée, La Fille du Pharaon, Esmeralda, Paquita, and Coppélia. Her popularity helped to revitalize the public's interest in the ballet and while at the Maryinsky Theatre she helped to perfect the technique of students at the Imperial Ballet School. She also danced in Moscow (1888) with her own company, and again in St Petersburg (1889 and 1892). She performed in Nice (1889, 1890) and at the Bayreuth Festival, where she produced the Venusberg scene in Wagner's Tannhäuser (1891). She made her debut at the Paris Opera in 1895 and performed for the last time in Milan in 1898. After retirement she opened a school in Monte Carlo.

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Zurich Ballet.

Part of the Zurich Opera House, the company has throughout its history played second fiddle to the opera. Comparatively few ballets were staged in the 19th century and after the new municipal theatre was opened in 1891 only a small number of ballets were staged for decades; the most popular by far was Die Josephslegende. In the 1930s Pino and Pia Mlakar , both former students of Rudolf Laban, worked as ballet directors and added significant new works to the limited repertoire, including The Devil in the Village (1935) and The Ballad of Medieval Love (1937), both with music by the Yugoslav composer Fran Lhotka . However, during the Second World War the ballet was virtually non-existent and even after the war it was many years before the ballet began to assert itself. In 1964, with the appointment of Nicholas Beriozoff as artistic director, the company began to build its repertoire, adding the classics along with modern works by Beriozoff himself. When Beriozoff left in 1971, the management turned to Rudolf Nureyev for an expensive new production of Raymonda designed to put Zurich on the ballet map. A series of directors failed to make any lasting impact until 1978 when the American Patricia Neary , a former Balanchine dancer, took over. She added Balanchine works to the repertoire, along with Heinz Spoerli's successful production of Giselle (1980). Neary also helped to raise technical standards before she left in 1985. Under the direction of Bernd Roger Bienert , the Zurich Ballet came to international attention again in the 1990s when it invited Millicent Hodson and Kenneth Archer to stage their reconstructions of Nijinsky's Le Sacre du printemps and Jean Börlin's Skating Rink. In 1996 Heinz Spoerli , Switzerland's leading choreographer, was appointed artistic director. His initial productions, Goldberg Variations and A Midsummer Night's Dream, were well received.

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Zvereff , Nicholas

(b Moscow, 1888, d St Raphael, June 1965).
Russian-French dancer, ballet master, and teacher. He danced with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes (1912–26), appearing mostly in character roles. With his wife, the ballerina Vera Nemchinova (they later divorced), he toured internationally. He was ballet director of the Kaunas Opera House (1930–6); soloist and ballet master of Blum's Ballets de Monte Carlo (1936–45); he reorganized the ballet company at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels (1952); and was ballet master of the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires (1957–60). He had his own dance studio in Paris (1946–52). He also staged revivals of the Diaghilev repertoire at the Paris Opera Ballet and at La Scala, Milan.

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OXFORD

UNIVERSITY PRESS
The Oxford Dictionary of Dance

Debra Craine and Judith Mackrell
The Oxford Dictionary of Dance offers wide coverage of dancers, choreographers, teachers, composers, technical terms, major works, important films, and organizations involved in the dance world. It embraces the new activity within traditional forms like ballet as well as the stream of new dance languages invented by fresh generations of choreographers and the many dance forms imported from the rest of the world. There is information on classical ballet, Spanish flamenco, Indian Bharata Natyam, Japanese Butoh, and jazz. The volume also covers post-modern dance, examining everything from Balanchine to recent practitioners of Eurocrash, minimalism, and contact improvisation. Ranging from the history of music to the changing design of the ballet shoe, this is a comprehensive dictionary compiled by two leading authorities on dance.
Debra Craine is the deputy arts editor and chief dance critic for The Times.
Judith Mackrell is the dance critic for The Guardian.

ISBN 0198608470

© Oxford University Press 2000, 2002

First published 2000

E-book copyright © 2003.