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...
decade » 1940s
Podcast » Violette Verdy
This interview with Violette Verdy is introduced by the dance critic and historian Alastair Macaulay. Violette Verdy’s laughter and intelligence shine through in this discussion with Clement...
Timeline Event » 1940 – The Anglo Polish Ballet established
Initially formed in 1940 by the dancers Czeslaw Konarski and Alicja Halama, the Anglo-Polish Ballet was led by Jan Cobel from 1941 onwards. They toured Britain with some success, performing Swan...
Timeline Event » 1940 – Premiere of Ninette de Valois’ The Prospect Before Us by the Vic-Wells Ballet
In July 1940, Ninette de Valois created a comedy character ballet called The Prospect Before Us. Full of wit and finely drawn characterisations, it required a full range of acting, as well as dancing...
Timeline Event » 1940 – The Pauline Grant Ballet established
Dancer and choreographer Pauline Grant formed her first ballet company at the Neighbourhood Theatre in Kensington in 1940. Grant’s company led an itinerant life, moving between venues when they...
La Fête étrange is a one-act ballet by Andrée Howard that she created in 1940, initially for London Ballet, and then for Ballet Rambert. Howard was a well-regarded choreographer and created more...
Timeline Event » 1941 – Mona Inglesby’s International Ballet founded
Mona Inglesby was born in London in 1918. She studied under a range of teachers and danced with Marie Rambert’s Ballet Club, and with Ballet Rambert. In 1939 she joined Victor Dandré’s...
Established as a “non-profit making organisation to encourage and develop the art of ballet”, the founding members of The Ballet Guild included Christmas Humphreys, Keith Lester, Derrick Lynham,...
Timeline Event » 1941 – The Vic-Wells Ballet renamed Sadler’s Wells Ballet
By 1935, the Vic-Wells Ballet had stopped dancing regularly at the Old Vic for a variety of reasons, not least the expense and confusion of moving between the Old Vic and Sadler’s Wells, where the...
Timeline Event » 1941 – Jay Pomeroy Ballet founded
We associate the Jay Pomeroy Ballet with four companies that existed in different permutations between 1941 and 1945. The original Pomeroy ballet was established in September 1941 as part of theatre...
Timeline Event » 1942 – Allied Ballet established
Jashf Crandall made his performing debut in the United States of America with Mikhail Mordkin’s Russian Ballet in 1926. Crandall had also danced with Ruth St. Denis, Ted Shawn, Adolph Bolm and...
Timeline Event » 1944 – Cone-Ripman School (later the Arts Educational Trust) opens
The Cone Sisters School of Dancing was founded in 1919 by Gracie, Valli and Lily Cone. In 1944, the school integrated with the Ripman School, an organisation established by Olive Ripman in 1922. The...
Timeline Event » 1944 – Anglo-Russian Ballet established
Daughter of the editor of The Stage, Letitia Browne opened the Wimbledon Ballet Club in 1935. Browne worked with ENSA (the Entertainments National Service Association) during World War Two, taking...
Timeline Event » 1944 – Premiere of Robert Helpmann’s Miracle in the Gorbals by Sadler’s Wells Ballet
Miracle in the Gorbals is a dramatic one-act ballet, choreographed in 1944 by Robert Helpmann to music by Arthur Bliss and designs by Edward Burra. It was first performed at Sadler’s Wells in...
Timeline Event » 1945 – Sadler’s Wells Opera Ballet created
Thanks to economist John Maynard Keynes, Ninette de Valois’ Sadler’s Wells Ballet was invited to become resident ballet company at the Royal Opera House after the theatre transitioned from its...
Timeline Event » 1945 – Les Ballet des Champs Élysées established
Les Ballet des Champs Élysées was an experimental company that performed at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées from 1945 until 1950. It was the brainchild of the director Roger Eudes, who was...
Timeline Event » 1946 – The Arts Council founded
In recognition for the tremendous impact the arts had made on public morale during World War Two, the new Labour Government of 1945 was instrumental in founding The Arts Council of Great Britain. A...
In 1946 the Sadler’s Wells Ballet opened their first season at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, with a new production of The Sleeping Beauty. The scenery and costumes were designed by Oliver...
Timeline Event » 1946 – First performances by Sadler’s Wells Opera Ballet, later Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet
Having appeared in operas at Sadler’s Wells, the new Sadler’s Wells Opera Ballet’s first purely ballet evening took place on 8 April, 1946, with a programme comprising Ninette de Valois’ 1943...
Timeline Event » 1946 – Premiere of Frederick Ashton’s Symphonic Variations for Sadler’s Wells Ballet
Frederick Ashton’s Symphonic Variations was something of a blueprint for British ballet after the narrative-heavy works of the war years. It remains a touchstone for the lyrical and musical...
Timeline Event » 1946 – Les Ballet Nègres established
Berto Pasuka arrived in Britain from his native Jamaica in the early years of World War Two. Pasuka studied ballet with Anna Severskaya and Mme Verushka, touring Britain in various shows. He...
Timeline Event » 1946 – P.W. Manchester’s Ballet Today magazine published
As well as the Dancing Times and Richard Buckle’s Ballet, 1946 saw the launch of another magazine dedicated to dance. Ballet Today was launched by the dance critic P.W. Manchester.
Timeline Event » 1947 – The Metropolitan Ballet launched
Impresario Leon Hepner (born 1904) had launched two ballet companies during the World War Two: Fortune Ballet and London Ballet (a separate company from Antony Tudor’s ensemble of the same name),...
With music by Igor Stravinsky and designs by André Beaurepaire, Scènes de ballet was Frederick Ashton’s homage to the choreography of the great Franco-Russian master Marius Petipa. Fascinated at...
Timeline Event » 1948 – Alan Carter’s The St James’ Ballet formed
Alan Carter joined the Vic-Wells Ballet in 1936. After war service with the RAF from 1941 to 1946, Carter returned to join Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet, then left the company to dance in the...
Danced by Sadler’s Wells Ballet in 1948 to music by Serge Prokofiev in designs by Jean-Denis Malclès, Cinderella was the first full-evening ballet made by a British choreographer. It shows...
Timeline Event » 1949 – Festival Ballet established in London
Alicia Markova and Anton Dolin returned to Britain in 1949 after dancing in the United States of America and resumed touring the country, at first using dancers taken from the Cone-Ripman School....
Timeline Event » 1949 – The Gregory’s School of Russian Ballet established
The Gregory’s School of Russian Ballet was founded in December 1949 under the direction of John and Barbara Gregory. It was opened by Alicia Markova and Anton Dolin and focused on passing on the...
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,...
All the arts, including ballet, played their own part in the war effort. The Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA) was the brainchild of one man. Basil Dean began his career in repertory...
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 » 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...