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Elaine Fifield
Elaine Fifield (28 October 1930 - 11 May 1999) was an Australian ballerina, perhaps best known for creating the title role in John Cranko's comic ballet ''Pineapple Poll'' in 1951. Early life Elaine Fifield was born in Sydney, New South Wales on 28 October 1930. She trained at the Scully School and with Leon Kelloway, in Australia. In 1945, she won a Royal Academy of Dance scholarship, and trained at the Royal Ballet School. Career In 1947, Fifield joined Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet. Her work there included lead dancer in ''Selina'' (1948), a ballet choreographed by Andrée Howard to the music of Rossini, scenario and design by Peter Williams. She also appeared as a dancer in the 1948 Crown Film Unit film, ''Steps of the Ballet'', also with choreography by Howard, and music by Arthur Benjamin, directed by Muir Mathieson. In 1954 moved to The Royal Ballet, where the following year she danced in the Frederick Ashton ballet (to music by Benjamin Britten) ''Variations on a Theme ...
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John Lanchbery
John Arthur Lanchbery OBE (15 May 1923 – 27 February 2003) was an English-Australian composer and conductor, famous for his ballet arrangements. He served as the Principal Conductor of the Royal Ballet from 1959 to 1972, Principal Conductor of the Australian Ballet from 1972 to 1977, and Musical Director of the American Ballet Theatre from 1978 to 1980. He continued to conduct regularly for the Royal Ballet until 2001. Lanchbery was widely considered (including by Nureyev) to be the greatest ballet conductor of his time, and to be ‘a conductor and music director of unmatched experience’ who was ‘directly responsible for raising the status and the standards of musical performance'. Maina Gielgud, Artistic Director of Australian Ballet, stated that "He anchberyis not only the finest conductor for dance of his generation and probably well beyond". One critic wrote that ‘the music was always on its best behaviour’ when Lanchbery was conducting. He was also famous for h ...
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The Royal Ballet
The Royal Ballet is a British internationally renowned classical ballet company, based at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London, England. The largest of the five major ballet companies in Great Britain, the Royal Ballet was founded in 1931 by Ninette de Valois, Dame Ninette de Valois. It became the resident ballet company of the Royal Opera House in 1946, and has purpose-built facilities within these premises. It was granted a royal charter in 1956, becoming recognised as Britain's flagship ballet company. The Royal Ballet was one of the foremost ballet companies of the 20th century, and continues to be one of the world's most famous ballet companies to this day, generally noted for its artistic and creative values. The company employs approximately 100 dancers. The official associate school of the company is the Royal Ballet School, and it also has a sister company, the Birmingham Royal Ballet, which operates independently. The Prima ballerina assoluta of the Royal Bal ...
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People From Sydney
A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of property, or legal responsibility. The defining features of personhood and, consequently, what makes a person count as a person, differ widely among cultures and contexts. In addition to the question of personhood, of what makes a being count as a person to begin with, there are further questions about personal identity and self: both about what makes any particular person that particular person instead of another, and about what makes a person at one time the same person as they were or will be at another time despite any intervening changes. The plural form "people" is often used to refer to an entire nation or ethnic group (as in "a people"), and this was the original meaning of the word; it subsequently acquired its use as a plural form of per ...
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Australian Ballerinas
Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal Australians, indigenous peoples of Australia as identified and defined within Australian law * Australia (continent) ** Indigenous Australians * Australian English, the dialect of the English language spoken in Australia * Australian Aboriginal languages * ''The Australian ''The Australian'', with its Saturday edition, ''The Weekend Australian'', is a broadsheet newspaper published by News Corp Australia since 14 July 1964.Bruns, Axel. "3.1. The active audience: Transforming journalism from gatekeeping to gatew ...'', a newspaper * Australiana, things of Australian origins Other uses * Australian (horse), a racehorse * Australian, British Columbia, an unincorporated community in Canada See also * The Australian (disambiguation ...
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1999 Deaths
File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shootings in the United States; the Year 2000 problem ("Y2K"), perceived as a major concern in the lead-up to the year 2000; the Millennium Dome opens in London; online music downloading platform Napster is launched, soon a source of online piracy; NASA loses both the Mars Climate Orbiter and the Mars Polar Lander; a destroyed T-55 tank near Prizren during the Kosovo War., 300x300px, thumb rect 0 0 200 200 Death and state funeral of King Hussein rect 200 0 400 200 1999 İzmit earthquake rect 400 0 600 200 Columbine High School massacre rect 0 200 300 400 Kosovo War rect 300 200 600 400 Year 2000 problem rect 0 400 200 600 Mars Climate Orbiter rect 200 400 400 600 Napster rect 400 400 600 600 Millennium Dome 1999 was designated as the ...
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1930 Births
Year 193 ( CXCIII) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Sosius and Ericius (or, less frequently, year 946 '' Ab urbe condita''). The denomination 193 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years. Events By place Roman Empire * January 1 – Year of the Five Emperors: The Roman Senate chooses Publius Helvius Pertinax, against his will, to succeed the late Commodus as Emperor. Pertinax is forced to reorganize the handling of finances, which were wrecked under Commodus, to reestablish discipline in the Roman army, and to suspend the food programs established by Trajan, provoking the ire of the Praetorian Guard. * March 28 – Pertinax is assassinated by members of the Praetorian Guard, who storm the imperial palace. The Empire is auctioned o ...
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Peggy Van Praagh
Dame Margaret van Praagh (1 September 1910 – 15 January 1990) was a British ballet dancer, choreographer, teacher, repetiteur, producer, advocate and director, who spent much of her later career in Australia. Early life Peggy van Praagh was born in London and was of Dutch, Scottish and English descent. Her father, Harold John van Praagh, was a British physician with a Jewish background and her mother was Ethel Louise née Shanks. She was educated at King Alfred School, London where she meet A.S. Neill who heavily influenced her passion for dance through artistic thinking and creativity which aided her in the dance community. Throughout the course her schooling, she was involved in a series of plays and productions. Dancing She began dancing very early in London at the age of 4. One review stated: "At last night's concert a dainty extra was a very charming dance by little Peggy van Praagh ... Peggy is only six but she is quite a clever little artiste and is booked again ...
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The Australian Ballet
The Australian Ballet is the largest classical ballet company in Australia. It was founded by J. C. Williamson Theatres Ltd and the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust in 1962, with the English-born dancer, teacher, repetiteur and director Dame Peggy van Praagh as founding artistic director. Today, it is recognised as one of the world's major international ballet companies. History The roots of the Australian Ballet can be found in the Borovansky Ballet, a company founded in 1940 by the Czech dancer Edouard Borovansky. Borovansky had been a dancer in the touring ballet company of the famous Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova and, after visiting Australia on tour with the Covent Garden Russian Ballet, he decided to remain in Australia, establishing a ballet school in Melbourne in 1939, out of which he developed a performance group which became the Borovansky Ballet. The company was supported and funded by J. C. Williamson Theatres Ltd from 1944. Following Borovansky's death i ...
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Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976, aged 63) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other vocal music, orchestral and chamber pieces. His best-known works include the opera '' Peter Grimes'' (1945), the '' War Requiem'' (1962) and the orchestral showpiece ''The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra'' (1945). Born in Lowestoft, Suffolk, the son of a dentist, Britten showed talent from an early age. He studied at the Royal College of Music in London and privately with the composer Frank Bridge. Britten first came to public attention with the '' a cappella'' choral work '' A Boy was Born'' in 1934. With the premiere of ''Peter Grimes'' in 1945, he leapt to international fame. Over the next 28 years, he wrote 14 more operas, establishing himself as one of the leading 20th-century composers in the genre. In addition to large-sca ...
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Frederick Ashton
Sir Frederick William Mallandaine Ashton (17 September 190418 August 1988) was a British ballet dancer and choreographer. He also worked as a director and choreographer in opera, film and revue. Determined to be a dancer despite the opposition of his conventional middle-class family, Ashton was accepted as a pupil by Léonide Massine and then by Marie Rambert. In 1926 Rambert encouraged him to try his hand at choreography, and though he continued to dance professionally, with success, it was as a choreographer that he became famous. Ashton was chief choreographer to Ninette de Valois, from 1935 until her retirement in 1963, in the company known successively as the Vic-Wells Ballet, the Sadler's Wells Ballet and the Royal Ballet. He succeeded de Valois as director of the company, serving until his own retirement in 1970. Ashton is widely credited with the creation of a specifically English genre of ballet. Among his best-known works are ''Façade'' (1931), '' Symphonic Varia ...
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Muir Mathieson
James Muir Mathieson, OBE (24 January 19112 August 1975) was a Scottish conductor and composer. Mathieson was almost always described as a "Musical Director" on many British films. Career Mathieson was born in Stirling, Scotland, in 1911. After attending Stirling High School, he went to the Royal College of Music in London. In the 1930s he became head of the music department for Alexander Korda at Denham Film Studios; Mathieson being one of only three heads of Departments at London Films who were British. His first work was as an uncredited Musical Assistant on the 1933 film ''The Private Life of Henry VIII''. Mathieson told Korda that he did not wish to be a composer but wished to ''choose'' first rate composers and arrange and conduct their scores. Composer James Bernard called him the "Tsar of music for British films. If you wanted to write music for films at that time you had to be 'in' with Muir". Mathieson wanted to show the world the United Kingdom had composers of r ...
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John Cranko
John Cyril Cranko (15 August 1927 – 26 June 1973) was a South African ballet dancer and choreographer with the Royal Ballet and the Stuttgart Ballet. Life and career Early life Cranko was born in Rustenburg in the former province of Transvaal, Union of South Africa. As a child, he would put on puppet shows as a creative outlet. Cranko received his early ballet training in Cape Town under the leading South African ballet teacher and director, Dulcie Howes, of the University of Cape Town Ballet School. In 1945 he choreographed his first work (using Stravinsky's Suite from ''L'Histoire du soldat'') for the Cape Town Ballet Club. He then moved to London, studying with the Sadler's Wells Ballet School (later called the Royal Ballet) in 1946Dromgoole, Nicholas"John Cranko" ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', retrieved 19 March 2015, and dancing his first role with the Sadler's Wells Ballet in November 1947. London Cranko collaborated with the designer John Piper ...
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