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…
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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…
Timeline Event » 1920 – Founding of The Association of Operatic Dancing of Great Britain (now the Royal Academy of Dance, (RAD))
On 31 December, 1920, Philip JS Richardson and Edouard Espinosa established The Association of Operatic Dancing of Great Britain, which would later become the Royal Academy of Dancing (RAD) in…
Timeline Event » 1919 – Lydia Kyasht opens her school
Lydia Kyasht (1885-1959). Russian dancer, teacher, director and choreographer Born in St Petersburg in 1885, Lydia Kyasht studied under Pavel Gerdt in a class alongside Anna Pavlova and Tamara Karsavina….
Podcast » Gillian Lynne
The great choreographer and director Gillian Lynne tells Lynn Wallis how it was a giant, but ultimately rewarding step, to leave Sadler’s Wells Ballet in 1951. We have a ten-minute…
Timeline Event » 1906 – Phyllis Bedells makes her London debut
Phyllis Bedells (1893-1985) was a British dancer and teacher, and founder of the Royal Academy of Dance. She rose to ballerina level using her own English name at a time…
Adeline Genée (1878-1970) was a Danish ballerina and founder-president of the Royal Academy of Dance. At the age of three she started taking dancing lessons from her uncle Alexander Genée…
Podcast » Pamela May
This ‘voice’ of British Ballet is that of Pamela May. She was born in 1917 and after retiring as a ballerina with The Royal Ballet became the teacher par excellence…
Podcast » Jean Bedells
Jean Bedells talks about the 1930s as if it was yesterday. Full of detail and feats of memory, we are given an idea of the sense of foreboding that descended…
To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of Ninette de Valois’ Academy for Choregraphic Art in March 1926, and to mark 25 years since her death, Patricia Linton talks…