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Natasha Oughtred
Natasha Oughtred is an English ballerina and retired principal dancer with the Birmingham Royal Ballet. Biography Natasha Oughtred was born in North Cave, a village near Kingston upon Hull in the East Riding of Yorkshire. She began to study dance at the age of 3 with the Skelton Hooper School of Dance in Hull, under the guidance of the Principal Vanessa Hooper, a former soloist of The Royal Ballet. She has achieved examination passes with the Royal Academy of Dance and the International Dance Teachers' Association. She later received additional coaching in ballet from Niall McMahon, a former dancer with the Scottish Ballet and artistic director of New English Contemporary Ballet. After reaching the semi-finals of the prestigious Prix de Lausanne, she received a scholarship to continue her training at the upper school of the Royal Ballet School and joined The Royal Ballet company in 2000, eventually being promoted to the rank of Soloist. Oughtred joined the Birmingham Roy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Principal Dancer
A principal dancer (often shortened to principal) is a dancer at the highest rank within a professional dance company, particularly a ballet company. A principal may be male or female. The position is similar to that of '' soloist''; however, principals regularly perform not only solos, but also pas de deux. Principal dancers can be hired into a dance company or can also be a company dancer that is a corps de ballet dancer that gets promoted from within the company. That process can take multiple performance seasons or even years to achieve based on skill level and company interest. It is a coveted position in the company and the most prominent position a dancer can receive. The term is used mostly in ballet but can be used in other forms as well, such as modern dance. They are usually the star of the ballet. The term ''senior principal dancer'' is sometimes used as well. Synonyms and origin The Italian derived term ''prima ballerina'' (female dancers) (''primo ballerino'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sir 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 Variat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dame Monica Mason
Dame Monica Mason (born 6 September 1941) is a former ballet dancer, teacher, and artistic director of The Royal Ballet. In more than fifty years with the company, she established a reputation as a versatile performer, a skilled rehearsal director, and a capable administrator. Early life and training Monica Margaret Mason was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, into a family of British ancestry. She studied ballet from a young age with Ruth Inglestone, Reina Berman, and Frank Staff in her home city and, later, with Nesta Brooking in London. As an advanced student, she entered the Royal Ballet School in 1956, where she continued her education in both dance and academics. Performing career Taken into the ''corps'' of the Royal Ballet in 1958, Mason was, at 16, the company's youngest member. She soon caught the eye of choreographer Kenneth MacMillan, who had been commissioned to create yet another dance version of ''The Rite of Spring'', set to Igor Stravinsky's score that had cau ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Sleeping Beauty (ballet)
''The Sleeping Beauty'' ( rus, Спящая красавица, Spyashchaya krasavitsa ) is a ballet in a prologue and three acts, first performed in 1890. The music was composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Opus 66). The score was completed in 1889, and is the second of his three ballets. The original scenario was conceived by Ivan Vsevolozhsky, and is based on Charles Perrault's '' La Belle au bois dormant''. The choreographer of the original production was Marius Petipa. The premiere performance took place at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg on January 15, 1890. The work has become one of the classical repertoire's most famous ballets. History Tchaikovsky was approached by the Director of the Imperial Theatres in St. Petersburg, Ivan Vsevolozhsky on 25 May 1888 about a possible ballet adaptation on the subject of the story of ''Undine''. It was later decided that Charles Perrault's '' La Belle au bois dormant'' would be the story for which Tchaikovsky would co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scènes De Ballet (Ashton)
''Scènes de ballet'' is a one-act ballet choreographed by Frederick Ashton, who created it during 1947–1948 to Igor Stravinsky's eponymous music from 1944. The first performance was given by the Sadler's Wells Ballet, at the Royal Opera House, London. Creation, choreography and design Ashton's choreography is along classical lines, in the tradition of Marius Petipa's 19th-century works. Instead of Petipa's symmetry, however, Ashton used a system of Euclidean geometry, with geometric theorems adapted to serve as floor patterns for the dancers. As a result, the ballet is unusual in that it makes sense from all angles, as Ashton himself explained, "I wanted to do a ballet that could be seen from any angle – anywhere could be front, so to speak. So I did these geometric figures that are not always facing front – if you saw ''Scènes de ballet'' from the wings, you'd get a very different but equally good picture." The ballet was originally designed by André Beaurepaire, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Les Rendezvous
''Les Rendezvous'' is a plotless one-act ballet created in 1933, with choreography by Frederick Ashton to the music of Daniel Auber (the ballet music from his opera '' L'enfant prodigue'') arranged by Constant Lambert and with designs by William Chappell. It was the first major ballet created by Ashton for the Vic-Wells company.Bland A. The Royal Ballet – the first 50 years. Threshold Books, London, 1981. It was first performed on Tuesday, 5 December 1933 by Vic-Wells Ballet at Sadler's Wells Theatre, with Alicia Markova and Stanislas Idzikowsky in the lead roles; these were later taken by Margot Fonteyn and Robert Helpmann. The choreography was revised in 1934 and the work was performed every season up to 1945, then from 1959 to 1963, when it used the set by Sophie Fedorovitch for Act 1 of '' La Traviata''. It was revived in 1984 by Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet to celebrate Ashton's 80th birthday, and by the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden in 2000 with updated sets. The balle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Nutcracker
''The Nutcracker'' ( rus, Щелкунчик, Shchelkunchik, links=no ) is an 1892 two-act ballet (""; russian: балет-феерия, link=no, ), originally choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov with a score by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Op. 71). The libretto is adapted from E. T. A. Hoffmann's 1816 short story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King". Although the original production was not a success, the 20-minute suite that Tchaikovsky extracted from the ballet was. The complete ''Nutcracker'' has enjoyed enormous popularity since the late 1960s and is now performed by countless ballet companies, primarily during the Christmas season, especially in North America. Major American ballet companies generate around 40% of their annual ticket revenues from performances of ''The Nutcracker''. The ballet's score has been used in several film adaptations of Hoffmann's story. Tchaikovsky's score has become one of his most famous compositions. Among other things, the score is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mayerling (ballet)
''Mayerling'' is a ballet choreographed by Kenneth MacMillan to the music of Franz Liszt, arranged by John Lanchbery, scenario by Gillian Freeman and designed by Nicholas Georgiadis. The ballet is based on the Mayerling incident, a series of events surrounding the apparent murder–suicide of Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria (21 August 1858 – 30 January 1889) and his lover, Baroness Mary Vetsera (19 March 1871 – 30 January 1889). The ballet premiered on 14 February 1978, at the Royal Opera House, danced by The Royal Ballet, with David Wall as Prince Rudolf and Lynn Seymour as Vetsera. Synopsis ] ''Prologue: The cemetery at Heiligenkreuz, Lower Austria, Heiligenkreuz before dawn'' Act I ''Scene 1: The ballroom at the Hofburg Palace, Vienna'' A ball to celebrate the marriage of Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria-Hungary and Princess Stephanie of Belgium is in full swing. Rudolf flirts shamelessly with Stephanie's sister, Princess Louise, offending both ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sir Peter Wright
Sir Peter Wright CBE (born 25 November 1926) is a British ballet teacher, choreographer, director and former professional dancer. He worked as a choreographer and as the artistic director of Birmingham Royal Ballet, a classical ballet company based in Birmingham, England. On retiring from the company in 1995, he was bestowed the honorary title of Director Laureate of the company. Early life As a child, Wright was educated at Leighton Park School and then went on to Bedales. At the age of 16, his mother took him to a performance of ''Les Sylphides'' by the International Ballet, and it was this experience that led him to pursue dance as a career. His father was an accountant and, being a Quaker, was also very religious. He did not approve of his only son wanting to pursue a career in dance, which led to Wright leaving both home and school at the age of 17. Career After leaving home, Wright auditioned for Ninette de Valois, to join what is now the Royal Ballet School, but was rej ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giselle
''Giselle'' (; ), originally titled ''Giselle, ou les Wilis'' (, ''Giselle, or The Wilis''), is a romantic ballet (" ballet-pantomime") in two acts with music by Adolphe Adam. Considered a masterwork in the classical ballet performance canon, it was first performed by the Ballet du Théâtre de l'Académie Royale de Musique at the Salle Le Peletier in Paris on 28 June 1841, with Italian ballerina Carlotta Grisi as Giselle. It was an unqualified triumph. It became hugely popular and was staged at once across Europe, Russia, and the United States. The ghost-filled ballet tells the tragic, romantic story of a beautiful young peasant girl named Giselle and a disguised nobleman named Albrecht, who fall in love, but when his true identity is revealed by his rival, Hilarion, Giselle goes mad and dies of heartbreak. After her death, she is summoned from her grave into the vengeful, deadly sisterhood of the Wilis, the ghosts of unmarried women who died after being betrayed by their lo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sir Kenneth MacMillan
Sir Kenneth MacMillan (11 December 192929 October 1992) was a British ballet dancer and choreographer who was artistic director of the Royal Ballet in London between 1970 and 1977, and its principal choreographer from 1977 until his death. Earlier he had served as director of ballet for the Deutsche Oper in Berlin. He was also associate director of the American Ballet Theatre from 1984 to 1989, and artistic associate of the Houston Ballet from 1989 to 1992. From a family with no background of ballet or music, MacMillan was determined from an early age to become a dancer. The director of Sadler's Wells Ballet, Ninette de Valois, accepted him as a student and then a member of her company. In the late 1940s, MacMillan built a successful career as a dancer, but, plagued by stage fright, he abandoned it while still in his twenties. After this he worked entirely as a choreographer; he created ten full-length ballets and more than fifty one-act pieces. In addition to his work for ba ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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