Walter Gore (8 October 1910 – 16 April 1979) was a British

ballet dancer A ballet dancer ( it, ballerina fem.; ''ballerino'' masc.) is a person who practices the art of classical ballet. Both females and males can practice ballet; however, dancers have a strict hierarchy and strict gender roles. They rely on yea ...

, company director and

choreographer Choreography is the art or practice of designing sequences of movements of physical bodies (or their depictions) in which motion or form or both are specified. ''Choreography'' may also refer to the design itself. A choreographer is one who cr ...

Early life

Walter Gore was born in

Waterside, East Ayrshire Waterside is a village in East Ayrshire, Scotland, situated about five miles north of Galston on the Craufurdland Water in the Parish of Fenwick. It lies a few miles north of Moscow on the A719 and had a population of 141 in the Census of 2 ...

Scotland in 1910 into a theatrical family. From 1924, he studied acting at the

Italia Conti Academy The Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts is a performing arts conservatoire based in Woking, England. It was founded in 1911 by Italia Conti, an actress. The first production at Italia Conti Academy was the play ''Where the Rainbow Ends''. For ...

, and dance with

Léonide Massine Leonid Fyodorovich Myasin (russian: Леони́д Фёдорович Мя́син), better known in the West by the French transliteration as Léonide Massine (15 March 1979), was a Russian choreographer and ballet dancer. Massine created the wo ...

and with

Marie Rambert Dame Marie Rambert, Mrs Dukes DBE (20 February 188812 June 1982) was a Polish-born English dancer and pedagogue who exerted great influence on British ballet, both as a dancer and teacher. Early years and background Born to a liberal Lithuan ...

Career

Gore was a dancer with

Ballet Rambert Rambert (known as Rambert Dance Company before 2014) is a leading British dance company. Formed at the start of the 20th century as a classical ballet company, it exerted a great deal of influence on the development of dance in the United Kingd ...

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 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 ...

Simple Symphony The ''Simple Symphony'', Op. 4, is a work for string orchestra or string quartet by Benjamin Britten. It was written between December 1933 and February 1934 in Lowestoft, using material that the composer had written as a young teenager, between 1 ...

also entitled ''

'' for the Ballet Rambert. The work was largely created on

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 bal ...

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 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 ...

. He founded his own company, The Walter Gore Ballet, in 1953. He led the Frankfurt Ballet from 1957 to 1959, then became the founder and director of the

London Ballet London Ballet was a short lived British ballet company founded by the British choreographer and former Ballet Rambert dancer Antony Tudor in 1938, along with Rambert members Hugh Laing, Andrée Howard, Agnes de Mille, Peggy van Praagh, Maude Lloyd a ...

from 1961 to 1963. At that time he also became director of the recently founded Gulbenkian Ballet, Lisbon. He was also the founder and artistic director of the Australian Theatre Ballet, Melbourne. He has to his credit more than 80 choreographies.

Personal life

He met his future wife

Paula Hinton Paula Doris Hinton (1 June 1924 – 5 November 1996) was an English ballet dancer who became the wife and dancing partner of the choreographer Walter Gore. Biography Born in Ilford, Essex, Hinton was the daughter of travelling opera singers who s ...

while both were dancers in Ballet Rambert. Gore died on 16 April 1979 in

Pamplona Pamplona (; eu, Iruña or ), historically also known as Pampeluna in English, is the capital city of the Chartered Community of Navarre, in Spain. It is also the third-largest city in the greater Basque cultural region. Lying at near above ...

, Spain.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gore, Walter 1910 births 1979 deaths British male ballet dancers British choreographers Alumni of the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts Rambert Dance Company dancers