Alexandra Danilova (1904–1997). Russian ballerina and teacher

Alexandra Danilova was born in Russia in 1904. She trained at the Imperial Ballet School in St Petersburg (later named Petrograd) and joined the former Imperial Ballet at the Maryinsky Theatre where she became a soloist in 1922. Danilova left Russia at the same time as George Balanchine in 1924, both joining Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. After Diaghilev’s death in 1929, Danilova danced with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, creating, over the next decade, a splendid partnership with Frederic Franklin. It was with Franklin that she danced with the Sadler’s Wells Ballet at the Royal Opera House in London in 1949, and also with London Festival Ballet in 1951. Her farewell performance, as a guest with Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, was at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York in 1957. She danced in the first of many musicals on Broadway in 1944 with Song of Norway. By 1964, after Danilova had retired from dancing, she started teaching at the School of American Ballet where she became a legendary coach until her retirement in 1989. Alexandra Danilova died in 1997.