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...
decade » 1930s
Podcast » Wendy Toye
The dancer and choreographer Adam Cooper introduces this wonderful interview with the dancer, choreographer, stage and film director Wendy Toye who begins by recalling chatting to Serge Diaghilev at...
The ballet writer Gerald Dowler is joined in a special episode of Voices of British Ballet by Monica Mason (former Royal Ballet student, principal dancer and director), Jane Pritchard (curator of...
Timeline Event » 1930 – Establishment of the British Ballet Organization (BBO)
Edouard Espinosa left the Association of Operatic Dancing in Great Britain (later the Royal Academy of Dancing) and formed the British Ballet Organization (BBO) in 1930 alongside his wife Louise Kay,...
Timeline Event » 1930 – First public performance by the Marie Rambert Dancers
The Marie Rambert Dancers gave their first public performance at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith on the 25 February 1930 in a programme, which included Capriol Suite. It proved so popular that two...
Capriol Suite was first performed by the Marie Rambert Dancers at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, on 25 February 1930, it had choreography by Frederick Ashton, music by Peter Warlock and designs by...
Timeline Event » 1930 – The Ballet Club opens at the Mercury Theatre, London
Marie Rambert married English playwright Ashley Dukes in 1918. In 1928, Dukes purchased a disused church hall in Notting Hill Gate and converted it into the Mercury Theatre. This provided a permanent...
Timeline Event » 1930 – The First performance by The Camargo Society
The Camargo Society was a subscription ballet club formed in 1930 to support and nurture British ballet. Set up by Philip J.S. Richardson, the editor of the Dancing Times, and the critics Arnold...
The Vic-Wells Ballet gave its first full evening of ballet on 5 May 1931 at the Old Vic, with Anton Dolin as guest star. Ballets performed included de Ninette de Valois‘ Les Petits Riens, Danse...
Timeline Event » 1931 – The Vic-Wells Ballet School moves to Sadler’s Wells
The school attached to Ninette de Valois’ company took up residence at Sadler’s Wells Theatre from 1931 upon Lilian Baylis’ invitation. It provided the company with a basic income, ameliorated...
Timeline Event » 1931 – Premiere of Frederick Ashton’s Façade by the Camargo Society
Façade was originally an ‘entertainment’ in which Edith Sitwell, from 1922, recited a selection of her poems accompanied to music composed by William Walton. This musical setting was expanded...
Timeline Event » 1931 – Premiere of Ninette de Valois’ Job by the Camargo Society
Job is a masque for dancing in eight scenes, choreographed and produced by Ninette de Valois. It was first presented by the Camargo Society at the Cambridge Theatre, London in July 1931 and then...
Timeline Event » 1932 – The Royal Academy of Dance’s Production Club
Formed by the then Royal Academy of Dancing to give stage experience to young dancers and choreographers, the Production Club gave Sunday performances that provided Robert Helpmann and John Cranko...
Timeline Event » 1932 – The Vic-Wells Ballet dances Act II of Swan Lake
This was the first performance of classical choreography by the Vic-Wells Ballet. Swan Lake is a ballet with music by Pytor Ilyich Tchaikovsky with choreograhy created by Marius Petipa (Acts I and...
Timeline Event » 1933 – Nicholas Sergeyev stages Coppélia for the Vic-Wells Ballet
In March 1933, the company performed the first two acts of Coppelia, the ballet created by Arthur Saint-Léon, with Lydia Lopokova as Swanilda for the first two performances. Ninette de Valois then...
Timeline Event » 1933 – First London season by the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo at the Alhambra Theatre
With the death of Serge Diaghilev in 1929 the powerhouse of the Ballets Russes company he had created died with him. Creative life and the young never stand still for long, and from both necessity...
Frederick Ashton choreographed Les Rendezvous for the Vic-Wells Ballet in 1933, with Alicia Markova and Stanislas Idzikowski as its first stars (their roles were later taken over by Margot Fonteyn...
Timeline Event » 1935 – Founding of the Markova-Dolin Ballet
An established partnership, Alicia Markova and Anton Dolin set up their own ballet company in London in 1935, backed by Laura Henderson of the Windmill Theatre, famous for its ‘nude’ revues. The...
The Rake’s Progress was first performed by the Vic-Wells Ballet at the Sadler’s Wells on 20 May, 1935. It is a ballet in six scenes with music by Gavin Gordon and sets and costumes by Rex...
Timeline Event » 1936 – Premiere of Antony Tudor’s Jardin aux lilas (Lilac Garden) by Ballet Rambert
Jardin aux lilas (or Lilac Garden as it is also titled) is a dramatic ballet in one act choreographed by Antony Tudor. The music is by Ernest Chausson and the original sets and costumes by Hugh...
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...
Frederick Ashton choreographed Les Patineurs for the Vic-Wells Ballet in 1937. A group of 15 dancers ‘skate’ their way through this exuberant one-act ballet. An icy pond on the edge of a snowy...
Timeline Event » 1937 – Premiere of Antony Tudor’s Dark Elegies by Ballet Rambert
Dark Elegies was created by Antony Tudor for Ballet Rambert in London in 1937 and it premiered at the Duchess Theatre, London. In 1940 it was premiered in New York, where its choreographer was to...
Checkmate is one of the only two ballets by Ninette de Valois to survive in the repertoire. It makes allegorical use of a chess game to represent a battle between love and death. Arthur Bliss, the...
Timeline Event » 1938 – London Ballet founded
Antony Tudor founded his own company, the London Ballet, after he left Ballet Rambert in 1937, giving regular performances at the Toynbee Hall in east London. The company’s repertory featured...
Timeline Event » 1938 – London ballet wars London ballet wars between the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and the Original Ballet Russe
The ‘London Ballets wars’, as it was called, occurred during simultaneous seasons by two rival visiting ballet companies in the British capital. Starting in the summer, the Russian Ballet...
Timeline Event » 1939 – The Arts Theatre Ballet established
The owner of The Arts Theatre, Harold Rubin, enlisted Keith Lester, former choreographer and dancer with the Markova-Dolin Ballet, to form The Arts Theatre Ballet as part of his mission to make his...
Timeline Event » 1939 – Lydia Kyasht opens Ballet de la Jeunesse Anglaise
Opening with performances at the Cambridge Theatre, London, in May 1939, Lydia Kyasht’s company toured Britain intermittently from November 1939. From 1944 to the company’s closure in 1946, the...
First performance of The Sleeping Princess by the Vic-Wells Ballet, with choreography by Marius Petipa staged by Nicholas Sergeyev, music by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and designs by Nadia Benois. The...
Timeline Event » 1939 – Premiere of Andrée Howard’s Lady into Fox by Ballet Rambert
Based on David Garnett’s story about a girl who transforms into a fox, Andrée Howard’s Lady into Fox provided Sally Gilmour with the role for which she is best remembered. The first cast also...
Timeline Event » 1939 – First issue of Richard Buckle’s Ballet magazine
Richard Buckle (1916–2001) was a British dance critic and writer. In 1939 he founded Ballet magazine, which run had to be suspended during the course of World War Two. During the war, Buckle served...
Timeline Event » 1939 – ENSA (Entertainments National Service Association) formed
The Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA) was an organisation established by Basil Dean and Leslie Henson. Their mission was to provide entertainment for the British armed forces...
Grace Note » …and on: Fashion & Ballet in Step
Fashion and ballet have a symbiotic relationship, each drawing on the other. Twice a year, fashion designers must cast around for hot influences. These might come from anywhere but time and again,...
Grace Note » 1940s onwards: The Wartime Quartet
It wasn’t only in ballet that women were leading British ballet forward. But in philosophy too, four redoubtable women change the face of the subject. G. E. M. Anscombe (1919 – 2001),...
Grace Note » 1930s: Art and Literature in Britain in the 1930s
Artists in Britain in the early and mid 20th Century were influenced by contemporary developments in Europe. However, they also looked back to a quintessentially native? Romanticism. There is no...
Grace Note » 1920s – 1950s: Neo-Romanticism and After
According to Virginia Woolf, ‘on or about December 1910 human character changed’. The event from 1910 she was referring to was the famous exhibition entitled ‘Manet and the...
T S Eliot was a, if not the, major figure in English literature for much of the 20th Century. Is his attempt to reconcile modern modes of expression with ancient traditions reflected in British...