Brian Shaw (1928-1992). British dancer and teacher

Brian Shaw (originally Earnshaw) was born in Golcar, Yorkshire, in 1928. He studied under Ruth French until moving to the Sadler’s Wells Ballet School in 1943. He made early appearances with the Royal Academy of Dance’s Production Club before joining the Sadler’s Wells Ballet in 1944.

For many years Shaw was renowned as a virtuoso dancer and one of the main male principals with Sadler’s Wells (later Royal) Ballet. In 1946 he was one of the original dancers in Frederick Ashton’s Symphonic Variations, and he then went on to create roles in further works by Ashton, as well as for John Cranko and Kenneth MacMillan. In the classical repertoire he was particularly noted as a Blue Bird in The Sleeping Beauty. It was while dancing that role in New York in 1967 that he sustained a serious injury, after which he confined himself to character and comedy roles, notably Widow Simone in Ashton’s La Fille mal gardée. In 1972 Shaw became a principal teacher for The Royal Ballet. He also taught and staged revivals of Ashton’s ballets around the world. He died in London in 1992.