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Monotones (ballet)
''Monotones'' is a one-act ballet in two parts choreographed by Frederick Ashton to music by Erik Satie. ''Monotones II'' was created first as a gala piece for a gala performance in aid of the Royal Ballet Benevolent Fund in 1965. Ashton had long been inspired by the '' Gymnopedies'' by Erik Satie of 1888 and took orchestrations by Claude Debussy and Roland-Manuel as the basis of a ''pas de trois'' for two men and one woman. The premiere was on 24 March 1965 with Vyvyan Lorrayne, Anthony Dowell, and Robert Mead. The piece was a great success – so much so that in 1966 Ashton enlarged the piece so that it would be long enough to be performed in the normal repertory, by the addition of ''Monotones I'', which formed an overture to the earlier work. This piece in many ways forms a mirror image of ''Monotones II''. Based on Satie's ''Gnossiennes'', it is another ''pas de trois'', but in this case for two women and one man; the premiere was given by Antoinette Sibley, Georgina Par ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antoinette Sibley
Dame Antoinette Sibley (born 27 February 1939) is a British prima ballerina. She joined the Royal Ballet from the Royal Ballet School in 1956 and became a soloist in 1960. She was celebrated for her partnership with Anthony Dowell. After her retirement from dancing in 1989 she became President of the Royal Academy of Dance in 1991, and guest coach at the Royal Ballet (1991) and Governor, Royal Ballet Board (2000). Early years Sibley was born in the London suburb of Bromley, the daughter of Edward G Sibley and his wife Winfred, ''née'' Smith."Sibley, Dame Antoinette, (Dame Antoinette Corbett)" ''Who's Who 2013'', A & C Black, online edition Oxford University Press, November 2012, accessed 5 July 2013 She was educated at the [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1965 Ballet Premieres
Events January–February * January 14 – The Prime Minister of Northern Ireland and the Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland meet for the first time in 43 years. * January 20 ** Lyndon B. Johnson is sworn in for a full term as President of the United States. ** Indonesian President Sukarno announces the withdrawal of the Indonesian government from the United Nations. * January 30 – The state funeral of Sir Winston Churchill takes place in London with the largest assembly of dignitaries in the world until the 2005 funeral of Pope John Paul II. * February 4 – Trofim Lysenko is removed from his post as director of the Institute of Genetics at the Academy of Sciences in the Soviet Union. Lysenkoist theories are now treated as pseudoscience. * February 12 ** The African and Malagasy Common Organization ('; OCAM) is formed as successor to the Afro-Malagasy Union for Economic Cooperation ('; UAMCE), formerly the African and Malagasy Union ('; UAM). * F ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ballets By Frederick Ashton
The following is a list, by decade, of ballets created by the English choreographer Frederick Ashton. 1920s * ''A Tragedy of Fashion'' (music by Eugene Goossens, arranged by Ernest Irving) (1926) * ''Various dances'' for a Purcell Opera Society production of ''The Fairy-Queen'': (music by Henry Purcell) (1927) * ''Pas de deux'' (music by Fritz Kreisler) (1927) * ''Suite de danses'' (music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart) (1927) * ''Argentine Dance'' (music by Artello) (1927) * ''Nymphs and Shepherds'' (music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart) (1928) * ''Leda'' (music by Christoph Willibald Gluck) (1928) * ''Various dances'' for ''Jew Süss'' (incidental music arranged by Constant Lambert) (1929) 1930s * ''Capriol Suite'' (music by Peter Warlock) (1930) * ''Pomona'' (music by Constant Lambert) (1930) * ''Regatta'' (music by Gavin Gordon) (1931) * ' (music by Léo Delibes) (1931) * ' (music by William Walton) (1931) * ''The Lady of Shalott'' (music by Jean Sibelius) (1931) * ' (music by Lord ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tony Dyson
Anthony John Dyson (13 April 1947 – 4 March 2016) was a British SPFX designer, best-known for working on the R2-D2 droid props used in the Empire Strikes Back and subsequent films in the ''Star Wars'' film series. Life Born in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire he visited the private Stratton House School in Abingdon. He founded rocking horse manufacturer The White Horse Toy Company in Crawley, a small village near Oxford. The company was commissioned by special visual effects supervisor Brian Johnson to fabricate fibreglass shells for the rebuilt R2-D2 props. These were used in the Star Wars sequel, the Empire Strikes Back, and were based on the designs of Ralph McQuarrie, John Stears and others. His team built around eight bodies. Two were used by Kenny Baker, two were stunt shells used for scenes such as shooting the droid from the swamp onto the shore on Dagobah, and most of the rest were mechanized with radio controllers by an effects team at EMI Studios. Dyson also created roboti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Symphonic Variations (ballet)
''Symphonic Variations'' is a one-act ballet by Frederick Ashton set to the eponymous music (M. 46) of César Franck. The premiere, performed by the Sadler's Wells Ballet, took place at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, on 24 April 1946 in a triple bill; the other works were Ashton's '' Les Patineurs'' and Robert Helpmann's ''Adam Zero''. The ballet was conducted by Constant Lambert and the set designed by Sophie Fedorovitch. Background During the Second World War, Ashton listened to Franck's '' Symphonic Variations'' a great deal and he decided to develop an elaborate scenario to be set to the music. Constant Lambert, music director for the Sadler's Wells Ballet, at first objected to the use of Franck's music for a ballet; Ashton dropped his original scenario and created an abstract ballet. During the war, the repertory had become increasingly literary, and Ashton's purpose was to counteract this. It was not his intention to display ingenuity of invention but to construct ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brian Shaw (dancer)
Brian Shaw (28 June 1928 – 2 April 1992) was a British ballet dancer and teacher. As a leading dancer with the Royal Ballet during the 1950s and 1960s, he was widely regarded as "one of the finest classical male dancers of his generation". Early life and training Brian Earnshaw was born in Huddersfield, England, a large market town in West Yorkshire, halfway between Leeds and Manchester. Having begun his dance studies in his home town, he moved to London as a teenager and continued his training at the Sadler's Wells Ballet School. In the summer of 1943, in the midst of World War II, Londoners were "keeping calm and carrying on," as they were advised to do by the British Ministry of Information. In July, the Production Club of the Royal Academy of Dancing arranged a matinee performance of Sadler's Wells students in ''Suite of Dances'', set by resident choreographer Andrée Howard to Handel's jauntily life-affirming ''Water Music''. Among the talented students dancing that afterno ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Georgina Parkinson
Georgina Parkinson (20 August 1938 – 18 December 2009) was an English ballet dancer and ballet mistress. She joined The Royal Ballet in 1957 and was promoted to principal dancer in 1962. Best known for dancing 20th-century works, she was a frequent collaborator of choreographer Kenneth MacMillan, and had also created roles for Frederick Ashton. In 1978, she accepted the invitation to become a ballet mistress at the American Ballet Theatre for a year, before assuming the position permanently in 1980. She also performed character roles with the American Ballet Theatre. Early life Parkinson was born on 20 August 1938 in Brighton, England. She went to a convent school in Rottingdean, where she took weekly ballet classes. The nuns at the school noticed the shape of her feet and encouraged her parents to send her to pursue ballet training outside of the school. She trained with a local teacher before entering the Sadler's Wells Ballet School (now The Royal Ballet School) on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gnossiennes
The ''Gnossiennes'' () are several piano compositions by the French composer Erik Satie in the late 19th century. The works are for the most part in free time (lacking time signatures or bar divisions) and highly experimental with form, rhythm and chordal structure. The form as well as the term was invented by Satie. Etymology Satie's coining of the word ''gnossienne'' was one of the rare occasions when a composer used a new term to indicate a new "type" of composition. Satie used many novel names for his compositions (''vexations'', '' croquis et agaceries'' and so on). ''Ogive'', for example, is the name of an architectural element which was used by Satie as the name for a composition, the ''Ogives''. ''Gnossienne'', however, was a word that did not exist before Satie used it as a title for a composition. The word appears to derive from ''gnosis''. Satie was involved in gnostic sects and movements at the time that he began to compose the ''Gnossiennes''. However, some published ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Erik Satie
Eric Alfred Leslie Satie (, ; ; 17 May 18661 July 1925), who signed his name Erik Satie after 1884, was a French composer and pianist. He was the son of a French father and a British mother. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire, but was an undistinguished student and obtained no diploma. In the 1880s he worked as a pianist in café-cabaret in Montmartre, Paris, and began composing works, mostly for solo piano, such as his ''Gymnopédies'' and '' Gnossiennes''. He also wrote music for a Rosicrucian sect to which he was briefly attached. After a spell in which he composed little, Satie entered Paris's second music academy, the Schola Cantorum, as a mature student. His studies there were more successful than those at the Conservatoire. From about 1910 he became the focus of successive groups of young composers attracted by his unconventionality and originality. Among them were the group known as Les Six. A meeting with Jean Cocteau in 1915 led to the creation of the ballet '' Par ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anthony Dowell
Sir Anthony James Dowell (born 16 February 1943) is a retired British ballet dancer and a former artistic director of the Royal Ballet. He is widely recognized as one of the great ''danseurs nobles'' of the twentieth century. Early life and training Born in London, Dowell began his dance training there in 1948, at the age of five. His first ballet teacher was June Hampshire, who nurtured her young pupil and instilled in him the discipline necessary for serious students of ballet. When he was ten years old, he enrolled in the Sadler's Wells Ballet School, then located in Barons Court, and embarked on a course of training for young people interested in pursuing a career in dance. In 1955, the school moved to White Lodge, Richmond Park, and became residential, combining general education and vocational ballet training. In 1956, when a royal charter was granted to the Sadler's Wells Ballet, the school was renamed the Royal Ballet School. Dowell continued his training there, moving ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vyvyan Lorrayne
Vyvyan Lorrayne (20 April 1939 – August 2022) was a South African ballet dancer. Noted as a "softly classical stylist," she won acclaim as a principal dancer for England's Royal Ballet during the 1960s and 1970s. Early life and training Lorrayne was born in Pretoria, the executive capital of South Africa, located in the northern province of Transvaal (now Gauteng). Her parents were Anglophones of British stock, although Pretoria was at the time largely populated by Afrikaners. Having contracted polio when she was four and a half years old, she was sent to numerous dance classes to help in her recovery. Upon finding that only the strict Russian systems of ballet training really helped, she became a pupil of Faith de Villiers, a popular teacher of the Cecchetti method in Johannesburg, not far from her home town. In the early 1950s, the teenage Lorrayne danced with the Johannesburg City Ballet, directed by de Villiers, and, in Natal (now KwaZulu-Natal), with the Durban Civic Ballet, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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