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Margaret Scott (dancer)
Dame Catherine Margaret Mary Scott, (26 April 1922 – 24 February 2019) was a South African-born pioneering ballet dancer who found fame as a teacher, choreographer, and school administrator in Australia. As the first director of the Australian Ballet School, she is recognised as one of the founders of the strong ballet tradition of her adopted country. Early life and training Margaret Scott was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, the youngest of three, including twins Joan and Barbara. As a child, she was encouraged by her free-spirited family to pursue her interest in dance, which had developed early in her childhood. Throughout her youth, she attended ballet classes at the Conmee School of Dancing, where, under the direction of London-trained Ivy Conmee, instruction was given according to the syllabus of the Royal Academy of Dancing. On graduation from the Parktown Convent School, Scott went with her mother to London in 1939, when she was 17, and auditioned successfully for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dame
''Dame'' is an honorific title and the feminine form of address for the honour of damehood in many Christian chivalric orders, as well as the Orders, decorations, and medals of the United Kingdom, British honours system and those of several other Commonwealth realms, such as Australia and New Zealand, with the masculine form of address being ''Sir''. It is the female equivalent for knighthood, which is traditionally granted to males. Dame is also style used by baronetesses Suo jure, in their own right. A woman appointed to the grades of the Dame Commander or Dame Grand Cross of the Order of Saint John (Bailiwick of Brandenburg), Order of Saint John, Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre, Most Honourable Order of the Bath, the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George, the Royal Victorian Order, or the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire becomes a dame. A Central European order in which female members receive the rank of Dame is the Order of St. George (H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michel Fokine
Michael Fokine, ''Mikhail Mikhaylovich Fokin'', group=lower-alpha ( – 22 August 1942) was a groundbreaking Imperial Russian choreographer and dancer. Career Early years Fokine was born in Saint Petersburg to a prosperous merchant and at the age of 9 was accepted into the Saint Petersburg Imperial Ballet School. That same year, he made his performing debut in '' The Talisman'' under the direction of Marius Petipa. In 1898, on his 18th birthday, he debuted on the stage of the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre in ''Paquita'', with the Imperial Russian Ballet. In addition to being a talented dancer, Fokine was also passionate about painting and displayed talent in this area as well. He also played musical instruments, including mandolin (played on stage in ensemble led by Ginislao Paris), domra, and balalaika (played in Vasily Andreyev's Great Russian Orchestra). Transition to choreographer He became frustrated with the life of a dancer and began considering other paths, includin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Laurel Martyn
Laurel Martyn (; 23 July 1916 – 16 October 2013) was an Australian ballerina.Obituary theaustralian.com.au; Retrieved 26 December 2013. In 1933, she left Australia for England and studied with Phyllis Bedells. In 1934 she won a choreographic scholarship from the Association of Operatic Dancing (later the ) for ''Exile'', her first composition. In 1935 she became the first Australian to win the Adeline Genée Gold Medal. Martyn joined the Vic-Wells Ballet (later |
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century and a pivotal figure in modernist music. Stravinsky's compositional career was notable for its stylistic diversity. He first achieved international fame with three ballets commissioned by the impresario Sergei Diaghilev and first performed in Paris by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes: ''The Firebird'' (1910), ''Petrushka'' (1911), and ''The Rite of Spring'' (1913). The last transformed the way in which subsequent composers thought about rhythmic structure and was largely responsible for Stravinsky's enduring reputation as a revolutionary who pushed the boundaries of musical design. His "Russian phase", which continued with works such as '' Renard'', ''L'Histoire du soldat,'' and ''Les noces'', was followed in the 1920s by a period ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apollo (ballet)
''Apollo'' (originally ''Apollon musagète'' and variously known as ''Apollo musagetes'', ''Apolo Musageta'', and ''Apollo, Leader of the Muses'') is a neoclassical ballet in two ''tableaux'' composed between 1927 and 1928 by Igor Stravinsky. It was choreographed in 1928 by twenty-four-year-old George Balanchine, with the composer contributing the libretto. The scenery and costumes were designed by André Bauchant, with new costumes by Coco Chanel in 1929. The scenery was executed by Alexander Shervashidze, with costumes under the direction of Mme. A. Youkine. The American patron of the arts Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge had commissioned the ballet in 1927 for a festival of contemporary music to be held the following year at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. The story centres on Apollo, the Greek god of music, who is visited by three Muses: Terpsichore, muse of dance and song; Polyhymnia, muse of mime; and Calliope, muse of poetry. The ballet takes Classical antiquity a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Antill
John Henry Antill, CMG, OBE (8 April 190429 December 1986) was an Australian composer best known for his ballet ''Corroboree''. Biography Antill was born in Sydney in 1904, and was educated and trained in music at Trinity Grammar School, Sydney and St Andrew's Cathedral School. Upon leaving school in 1920, he was apprenticed to the New South Wales Government Railways. He left the railways five years later to study full-time at the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music under Alfred Hill. After graduation, he played in both the NSW State Orchestra and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and, from 1932 to 1934, he toured with the J. C. Williamson Imperial Opera Company as a tenor and a rehearsal conductor. In 1936, he became assistant Music Editor with the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC). He remained with the ABC until his retirement in 1968, having taken up the position of ABC Federal Music Editor in the meantime. His most famous work, ''Corroboree'', was first perfo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Corroboree (ballet)
''Corroboree'' is a ballet written by Australian composer John Antill in the early 1940s. The first full version of the score was completed in 1944 and it was first performed as a concert suite in 1946. On 3 July 1950 it was performed as a ballet, at the Empire Theatre in Sydney, choreographed by Rex Reid, with dancers of the Melbourne-based National Theatre Ballet. Wildly successful and seen as a national "coming-of-age",Michelle Potter, (March 2004), Corroboree, ''National Library of Australia News'' Volume XIV Number 6 accessed 8 June 2011 the ballet was performed again with new choreography by American-born dancer, choreographer and writer Beth D ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gertrude Johnson
Gertrude Emily Johnson (13 September 1894 – 28 March 1973) was an Australian coloratura soprano and founder of the National Theatre Movement in Melbourne. Early life Johnson was born in 1894 at Prahran, Melbourne. She was the second child of George and Emily Johnson. George was a professor of music and both parents had been born in Victoria. Gertrude was educated at Presentation College Windsor. On the advice of Nellie Melba, Johnson enrolled at the age of 17 in the University of Melbourne Conservatorium of Music as a student of Anne Williams. In 1915, she followed Williams to Melba's new women's singing school at the Albert Street Conservatorium, East Melbourne (later the Melba Memorial Conservatorium). Johnson was accepted into Melba's classes, and the relationship developed to the point where Melba gave Johnson her own personal cadenzas, a valuable professional asset. The director of Albert Street, Fritz Hart, had a particular interest in Mozartian opera and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sally Gilmour
Sarah Gilmour (2 November 1921 – 23 May 2004), was a British ballet dancer, and Ballet Rambert's "leading ballerina of the 1940s". The ''ODNB'' notes that she was "acclaimed in the 1940s as second only to Margot Fonteyn among British ballerinas". Early life Sarah Gilmour was born in Sungai Lembing, Malaya (now Malaysia) on 2 November 1921. Her father, Colin Gilmour, was the Chief Medical Officer there. Aged four or five, she was sent back to boarding school in London, and only visited her parents every two or three years. Career Gilmour enrolled at the Rambert School at the age of 12, and her talent was soon recognised by Marie Rambert. She was trained by the choreographer Antony Tudor and the ballerina Tamara Karsavina. She was in the original cast of the 1934 ballet '' Bar aux Folies-Bergère'' by Ballet Rambert, alongside Alicia Markova, Frederick Ashton, Pearl Argyle, Diana Gould, Elisabeth Schooling and Leslie EdwardsVaughan D. ''Frederick Ashton and his Ball ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walter Gore
Walter Gore (8 October 1910 – 16 April 1979) was a British ballet dancer, company director and choreographer. Early life Walter Gore was born in Waterside, East Ayrshire Scotland in 1910 into a theatrical family. From 1924, he studied acting at the Italia Conti Academy, and dance with Léonide Massine and with Marie Rambert. Career Gore was a dancer with Ballet Rambert from 1930 to 1935. He returned as a choreographer in 1938 with his first ballet ''Final Waltz''. In 1944, whilst on leave from Army duty in France, Gore created a ballet based on Benjamin Britten's Simple Symphony also entitled ''Simple Symphony'' for the Ballet Rambert. The work was largely created on Sally Gilmour and Margaret Scott. He remained at Ballet Rambert until 1950 and then worked occasionally with the Ballets des Champs-Elysées and the Sadler's Wells Ballet. He founded his own company, The Walter Gore Ballet, in 1953. He led the Frankfurt Ballet from 1957 to 1959, then became the founder a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frank Staff
Frank Staff (15 June 1918 – 10 May 1971) was a South African ballet dancer, choreographer, producer, and company director. He was a major figure in the history of European theatrical dance in South Africa. Early life Frank Cedric Staff was born to an Irish mother and an English father in the diamond mining town of Kimberley, in what is now the Northern Cape Province of South Africa. As a teenager, he moved to Cape Town, where he attended Diocesan College and received his early dance training from Helen Webb and Maude Lloyd, who had studied with Marie Rambert in London. After Lloyd returned to England in 1933, she encouraged her young pupil to join her. At age fifteen, Staff moved to London to continue his training at Rambert's school in Bedford Gardens. Career Staff was soon invited to join Rambert's Ballet Club, as her performing group was then called. For the next twelve years, from 1933 to 1945, he worked with the Rambert company as both a dancer and choreographer. Excep ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andrée Howard
Andrée Howard (3 October 1910 – 18 April 1968), originally Andrea, was a British ballet dancer and choreographer. She created over 30 ballets, of which almost nothing remains. Early life Andrée Howard was born in London on 3 October 1910. Her career as a dancer began as a pupil of Marie Rambert and she also studied in Paris where she danced in early performances of Léonide Massine's '. Career Her ballet ''Death and the Maiden'' (choreography and costumes) for Ballet Rambert based on the music by Franz Schubert was premiered at the Duchess Theatre, London, on 23 February 1937, danced by herself as The Maiden, and John Bryon as Death. On 18 January 1940, it received its American Ballet Theatre premiere at The Center Theatre, New York, danced by Howard, and with Kurt Karnakoski as Death. Her 1939 ''Lady into Fox'' was based on David Garnett's 1922 first novel under his own name ''Lady into Fox''. Reviewing the 2006 reinterpretation, Judith Mackrell of The Guardian called it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
