Jack Carter (1923-1999). British dancer and choreographer

Jack Carter was born in Shrivenham in 1923. In 1938, in the face of parental opposition, he joined Sadler’s Wells Ballet School in order to pursue his ambition to become a choreographer. His training was interrupted by six years of service during World War Two, after which he also studied under Vera Volkova in London and Olga Preobrajenska in Paris. As a dancer, Carter worked with Molly Lake’s Continental Ballet, the Original Ballet Russe, Ballet Rambert and London Festival Ballet.

As a choreographer, Carter staged productions of the classics as well as his own original ballets, and his work took him all over Europe as well as to Japan and South America. From 1954 to 1957 he was with Amsterdam’s Ballet der Lage Landen, where his most famous work, The Witch Boy, was staged in 1956. In 1959 he choreographed Noël Coward’s London Morning for London Festival Ballet. From 1966 to 1970, Carter was resident choreographer for London Festival Ballet where, among other things, he mounted Swan Lake in 1966 and Coppélia in 1968. His own Cage of God was staged for Western Theatre Ballet in 1967.

Carter worked for some years in Japan, after which he created Three Dances to Japanese Music for Scottish Ballet in 1973 and Shukumei for The Royal Ballet in 1975. He also staged a version of Wedekind’s Lulu for The Royal Ballet in 1976. Carter always maintained that among all his work, his own favourite was Agrionia (1964), for the short-lived London Dance Theatre, a tale of the punishment of three sisters by Dionysos himself for refusing to participate in one of his orgies. Jack Carter died in London in 1999.