Lydia Sokolova (1896–1974). British ballerina

Lydia Sokolova was born Hilda Munnings in Wanstead, Essex, in 1896. She started her dance training at Stedman’s Academy in London and continued with many of the most famous dancers and teachers of the day, including Anna Pavlova and Alexander Shiryaev and later Enrico Cecchetti and Nicholas Legat. She made her stage debut at the Savoy Theatre in 1910. The following year she toured the United States of America with the All Star Imperial Russian Ballet, and then spent time with Theodore Kosloff’s company in London and Europe.

In 1913, Sokolova, as she now became (having previously been ‘Muningsova’), joined Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, and remained with the company as its principal character dancer until Diaghilev’s death in 1929, with the exception for two short breaks. The first was during World War One when she danced with Nicolas Kremnev in British music halls. Later, for a short while in the 1920s, she joined Léonide Massine and Lydia Lopokova’s groups.

Sokolova continued to dance after 1929, notably with Léon Woizikovsky’s company in 1935, with whom she had a long relationship, and also with Lydia Kyasht’s Ballet de la Jeunesse Anglaise in 1939. She danced in a revival of Massine’s The Good Humoured Ladies with The Royal Ballet at the Royal Opera House in 1962. She also taught and coached for many years and supported Richard Buckle with his famous 1954 Diaghilev Exhibition. Buckle also asked her to stage dances and groupings for Sotheby’s auction of Ballets Russes costumes in 1968 and 1969. Sokolova wrote a book, Dancing for Diaghilev, in 1960. Sokolova had a daughter with her first husband, Nicholas Kremnev, whom she married in 1917. Following her subsequent relationship with Leon Woizikovsky, Sokolova then married Ronnie Mahon.

She died in 1974 after a life lived through extraordinary balletic events. Her career was inextricably tied to all the great names and events of the legendary phenomenon that was the Ballets Russes.