Podcast » Monica Ratcliffe
Monica Ratcliffe, one of British ballet’s earliest voices, shares a wonderful collection of memories and anecdotes with Patricia Linton. She talks about her years, in the 1920s, at Ninette de...
ballets » Les Sylphides
This picture of Les Sylphides, choreographed by Mikhail Folkine, designed by Alexandre Benois was taken in 1911 when Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes were in London for the coronation of King George V.
Credit: First London Performance of the 1909 ballet Les Sylphides, choreographed by Mikhail Fokine. This picture, taken in 1911, was reproduced in Ballet Panorama: An Illustrated Chronicle of Three Centuries (A.L. Haskell 1938). Wikimedia Commons
Podcast » Noel Bronley
Noel Bronley was a member of International Ballet from 1946 until it closed in 1953. Little remembered now, at the time International Ballet was a very large undertaking of over 100 people. It toured...
Podcast » David Wall
David Wall was one of the greatest male dancers of his era, with an extraordinary stage charisma, range, theatricality and honesty. In this interview he talks to Frank Freeman, a former colleague,...
Podcast » Joan Seaman
Joan Seaman gives us a wonderful bird’s eye view of VE Day, which she spent seeing Sadler’s Wells Ballet stars Margot Fonteyn and Robert Helpmann dance Coppélia, and her interview is...
Podcast » Brenda Hamlyn
Natalie Steed talks to Brenda Hamlyn-Bencini about training under Marie Rambert, the post-war dance scene and touring Germany with ENSA in the immediate aftermath of WWII. At 92, Brenda...
Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes (1909-1929) That Serge Diaghilev believed in Russian art and its spirit can never be doubted. His company, the Ballets Russes, exploded every myth about dance. From...
Timeline Event » 1912 – Anna Pavlova buys Ivy House and settles in London
Anna Pavlova was born in St Petersburg in 1881, and entered the Imperial Ballet School in 1891. In 1897 she first danced on the Maryinsky stage, and graduated in 1899. She was accorded...
Russian Dancer and choreographer, Vaslav Nijinsky was a legendary performer in the history of dance. Born in Kiev, he was a brilliant graduate from the Imperial Ballet School, St Petersburg in 1907,...
Timeline Event » 1937 – Les Ballets Trois Arts established
John Regan had trained with Enrico Cecchetti and Nicholas Legat before he joined Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes and the Markova-Dolin Ballet. In 1937 Regan formed his own group, the International...