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Olga Preobrajenskaya
Olga Iosifovna Preobrajenska (russian: О́льга Ио́сифовна Преображе́нская; born Preobrazhenskaya; – 27 December 1962) was a Russian ballerina of the Russian Imperial Ballet and a ballet instructor. Biography She was born in Saint Petersburg as Olga Preobrazhenskaya (the final syllable of her surname was dropped to shorten her name for professional purposes, and she used the French transliteration, Preobrajenska). Olga—born frail and with a crooked spine—was an unlikely prima ballerina. But she had dreams of being a dancer, and for years her parents tried unsuccessfully to get her enrolled in dance school. The selection committee repeatedly rejected her as a candidate. But after three years of trying, her parents succeeded and the eight-year-old Olga entered the Imperial Ballet School in 1879. Despite her physical shortcomings, Preobrazhenskaya grew strong with training under Marius Petipa, Lev Ivanov and Anna Johansson. She developed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Little Humpbacked Horse (ballet)
''The Little Humpbacked Horse, or The Tsar Maiden'' (a.k.a. ''Konyok Gorbunok ili Tsar-Devitsa'', or ''Le Petit cheval bossu, ou La Tsar-Demoiselle'') is a ballet in four acts and eight scenes with apotheosis. Story of the ballet The libretto is by Arthur Saint-Léon, based on the fairy tale '' The Little Humpbacked Horse'' by Pyotr Yershov. However, the choreographer substantially deviated from Yershov's original tale. The ballet shows how Ivan the fool, with the aid of a magical horse, defeats an evil Khan and wins the hand of the Tsar- Maiden. Eventually Ivan replaces the ineffective and incompetent Tsar and becomes Tsar himself. Choreography of Saint-Léon The original choreography was created by Arthur Saint-Léon and was set to music by Cesare Pugni. The ballet was first presented by the Imperial Ballet on at the Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia. Marfa Muravyova (as the Tsar Maiden) and Timofey Stukolkin (as Ivanushka) were planned as pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Les Sylphides
''Les Sylphides'' () is a short, non-narrative '' ballet blanc'' to piano music by Frédéric Chopin, selected and orchestrated by Alexander Glazunov. The ballet, described as a "romantic reverie","Ballet Theater", until 1955. A compact disk of ABT's production, with Mikhail Baryshnikov as the dreamer, is available from Kultor, entitled "American Ballet Theatre at the Met – Mixed Bill (1985)". See Olga Maynard's definitive account, based on information from Fokine's son Vitale Fokine: "Les Sylphides", ''Dance Magazine'' Portfolio: December 1971, advertised separately by some online booksellers. is frequently cited as the first ballet to be simply about mood and dance. ''Les Sylphides'' has no plot but instead consists of several white-clad sylphs dancing in the moonlight with the "poet" or "young man" dressed in white tights and a black tunic. Its original choreography was by Michel Fokine, with Chopin's music orchestrated by Alexander Glazunov. Glazunov had already set so ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alan Bergman (dancer)
Alan Bergman (1943 – September 24, 2010) was an American ballet dancer, photographer and businessman. He was the product of two generations of Russian/ Polish Yiddish actors: Glicka and Morris Balavsky, co-founders of Nordska Films, the Actors Studio and his mother, Miriam, a child star in the Yiddish theater. Dance career At age 8 years Alan Bergman was spotted by Andre Eglevsky, who took Bergman on as his protégé and taught him privately for two years. When Bergman was 10 years old Eglevsky took him to George Balanchine’s School of American Ballet where he was offered a full scholarship. Bergman’s teacher’s were Anatole Oboukoff, Pierre Vladimirov, (the partner of Anna Pavlova and contemporary of Vaslav Nijinsky), and Felia Doubrovska. He was also coached by Olga Preobrajenska and studied with Alexandra Danilova. By age 15, Bergman was dancing soloist roles and soon became a principal dancer with a number of major companies such as the San Francisco Ballet and a Gue ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maurice Béjart
Maurice Béjart (; 1 January 1927 – 22 November 2007) was a French-born dancer, choreographer and opera director who ran the Béjart Ballet Lausanne in Switzerland. He developed a popular expressionistic form of modern ballet, talking vast themes. He was awarded Swiss citizenship posthumously. Biography Maurice-Jean Berger was born in Marseille, France, in 1927, the son of French philosopher Gaston Berger. Fascinated by a recital of Serge Lifar, he decided to devote himself entirely to dance. In South France days, he had studied under Mathilde Kschessinska. In 1945, he enrolled as a corps de ballet at the Opéra de Marseille. From 1946, he had studied under Madam Rousanne (Sarkissian), Léo Staats, Madam Lyubov Yegorova and Olga Preobrajenska at "Studio Wacker", etc. in Paris. In 1948, he also trained with Janine Charrat, Yvette Chauviré and then with Roland Petit, in addition he had studied under Vera Volkova at London. In 1954, he founded the Ballet de l'Étoile co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alberto Alonso
Alberto Julio Rayneri Alonso (22 May 1917 – 31 December 2007) was a Cuban dancer and choreographer, the brother of Fernando Alonso and brother-in-law of Alicia Alonso (née Martinez). He was influential in the development of the Cuban style of ballet, a combination of Russian and Western techniques with a Latin style. Biography Alonso was born in Havana, and attended Springhill College in Mobile, Alabama. On returning to Cuba, he began ballet training in 1932 at the ''Sociedad Pro-Arte Musical'' arts school in Havana with Nikolai Yavorsky. He studied in Paris with several teachers including Preobrazhenska and Idzikowski, and danced with the Ballets Russes de Colonel W. de Basil from 1936 to 1940, performing principal roles in several ballets created by Michel Fokine. He subsequently danced with the Ballet Theatre from 1943 to 1945, in works created by Fokine, George Balanchine and Leonid Massine. Back in Cuba in 1948, he co-founded with Alicia and Fernando Alonso ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Russian Cemetery
Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Russian Cemetery (french: Cimetière russe de Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois) is part of the ''Cimetière de Liers'' and is called the Russian Orthodox cemetery, in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois, Paris, France. History The ''Cimetière de Liers'' was created as the second communal cemetery on February 8, 1879 in the city of Sainte Geneviève des Bois in France, 25 km south from Paris. To house the burials of the White Russians who arrived in Moscow after the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, some of the land was granted in 1927 to an English benefactress, Dorothy Paget who had set up with Elena Orlov and her sister Princess Vera Meshchersky a still active retirement home for Russian émigrés nearby in the Château de la Cossonnerie. This part of the cemetery is since known as ''the Russian Cemetery''. In 1938–39 Albert Benois designed the Dormition Church (Église de la Dormition-de-la-Mère-de-Dieu) which serves the cemetery. The church is regarde ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Igor Youskevitch
Igor Youskevitch (russian: link=no, Игорь Юскевич, uk, Ігор Юскевич) (13 March 1912 – 13 June 1994) was a ballet dancer and a choreographer of Russian-Ukrainian origin, famous as one of the greatest male ballet dancers of the 20th century, as a master of the classic style, e.g., in ''Afternoon of a Faun'', and as a dance partner to Alicia Alonso. Early years Born in the village of Pyriatyn, Poltava Oblast, (then part of the Russian Empire, now Ukraine in central Ukraine), Youskevitch was the son of a judge. The family fled the Russian Revolution and in 1920 settled in Belgrade. Youskevitch was educated in Belgrade and graduated with a degree in engineering from Belgrade University. He did not begin his ballet training until the age of twenty although prior to that he was active in a Slavic athletic organisation and received early training as a gymnast. In 1932, the Yugoslavian ballerina Zenia Grunt saw him at a tournament and persuaded him to take u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tamara Toumanova
Tamara Toumanova ( ka, თამარა თუმანოვა; 2 March 1919 – 29 May 1996) was a Georgian-American prima ballerina and actress. A child of exiles in Paris after the Russian Revolution of 1917, she made her debut at the age of 10 at the children's ballet of the Paris Opera. She became known internationally as one of the Baby Ballerinas of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo after being discovered by her fellow émigré, balletmaster and choreographer George Balanchine. She was featured in numerous ballets in Europe. Balanchine featured her in his productions at Ballet Theatre, New York, making her the star of his performances in the United States. While most of Toumanova's career was dedicated to ballet, she appeared as a ballet dancer in several films, beginning in 1944. She became a naturalized United States citizen in 1943 in Los Angeles, California. Career Toumanova was the daughter of Yevgenia [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tatiana Dokoudovska
Tatiana Dokoudovska (13 January 1921 – 21 September 2005) was a French ballet dancer, choreographer and ballet master of Russian origin. Biography Tatiana Dokoudovska was born on 13 January 1921 in Beausoleil, Alpes-Maritimes, Beausoleil, France, near Monte Carlo, from Alexis and Nadia Dokoudovsky. His father was the son of a Russian nobleman and the Italian grandfather of her mother Nadia, an opera singer. A student of Olga Preobrajenska, prima ballerina of the Mariinsky Theatre, Russian Imperial Theatre, Dokoudovska at the age of 12 started her professional career, dancing in operettas and films. While attending the Ecole des Artes (Professional School), she danced for the lyric season in Monte Carlo, then was hired as a soloist by the Ballet Russe de l'Opera Comique in Paris. In 1939 she traveled to the United States and joined the Mikhail Mordkin, Mordkin Ballet, with which she toured and spent a season in New York City, continuing with the company that would later be calle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Irina Baronova
Irina Mikhailovna Baronova FRAD (; 13 March 1919 – 28 June 2008) was a Russian ballerina and actress who was one of the Baby Ballerinas of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, discovered by George Balanchine in Paris in the 1930s. She created roles in Léonide Massine's ''Le Beau Danube'' (1924), ''Jeux d'enfants'' (1932), and ''Les Présages'' (1933); and in Bronislava Nijinska's ''Les Cent Baisers'' (1935). Biography Baronova was born in Saint Petersburg (then known as Petrograd) in 1919, the daughter of a lieutenant in the Imperial Navy, Mikhail Baronov, and his wife Lidia (). In November 1920, the Baronov family escaped the Russian Revolution by dressing as peasants and crossing the border into Romania. After first arriving in Arges, Romania, the family eventually settled in Bucharest. Irina's father found work at a factory and, for the next several years, the Baronov family lived in the slums surrounding the various factories where Mikhail was employed. Their start on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
White émigré
White Russian émigrés were Russians who emigrated from the territory of the former Russian Empire in the wake of the Russian Revolution (1917) and Russian Civil War (1917–1923), and who were in opposition to the revolutionary Bolshevik communist Russian political climate. Many white Russian émigrés participated in the White movement or supported it, although the term is often broadly applied to anyone who may have left the country due to the change in regimes. Some white Russian émigrés, like Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, were opposed to the Bolsheviks but had not directly supported the White Russian movement; some were apolitical. The term is also applied to the descendants of those who left and who still retain a Russian Orthodox Christian identity while living abroad. The term "émigré" is most commonly used in France, the United States, and the United Kingdom. A term preferred by the émigrés themselves was first-wave émigré (russian: link= no, эм� ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
October Revolution
The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key moment in the larger Russian Revolution of 1917–1923. It was the second revolutionary change of government in Russia in 1917. It took place through an armed insurrection in Petrograd (now Saint Petersburg) on . It was the precipitating event of the Russian Civil War. The October Revolution followed and capitalized on the February Revolution earlier that year, which had overthrown the Tsarist autocracy, resulting in a liberal provisional government. The provisional government had taken power after being proclaimed by Grand Duke Michael, Tsar Nicholas II's younger brother, who declined to take power after the Tsar stepped down. During this time, urban workers began to organize into councils ( soviets) wherein revolutionaries criticized ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
