Adam Darius (10 May 1930 – 3 December 2017) was a Turkish origin American dancer,

mime artist A mime artist, or simply mime (from Greek language, Greek , , "imitator, actor"), is a person who uses ''mime'' (also called ''pantomime'' outside of Britain), the acting out of a story through body motions without the use of speech, as a the ...

, writer and choreographer. As a performer, he appeared in over 86 countries across six continents.The extensive archives of Adam Darius´s career as dancer, mime artist and author are now housed in Espoo, Finland and at the Royal Academy of Dance in London. As a writer, he published 19 books and wrote 22 plays. A full catalogue of Adam Darius' publications can be seen at th
Mime Centre
. In a program devoted to his career, the BBC World Service described him as "one of the most exceptional talents of the 20th century".In a program devoted to his career, broadcast in October, 1993, the

BBC World Service The BBC World Service is a British Public broadcasting, public service broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC. It is the world's largest external broadcaster in terms of reception area, language selection and audience reach. It broadcas ...

in London, hosted by the voice of Latin America, Araceli Uriarte, described Adam Darius as "one of the most exceptional talents of the 20th century".

Biography

Adam Darius was born in

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

, New York City, into a family of Turkish and

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

ancestry.

Ballet career

Adam Darius began his ballet and contemporary dance training in 1945, at the age of 14, and went on to study with, among others, Anatole Oboukhov, George Goncharov, Olga Preobrajenska and

José Limón José Arcadio Limón (January 12, 1908 – December 2, 1972) was a dancer and choreographer from Mexico and who developed what is now known as 'Limón technique'. In the 1940s, he founded the José Limón Dance Company (now the Limón Dan ...

. His professional career began in 1946 with appearances at New York's Metropolitan Opera House, and then with numerous ballet companies including Britain's International Ballet (1953), Canada's

Royal Winnipeg Ballet The Royal Winnipeg Ballet is Canada's oldest ballet company and the longest continuously operating ballet company in North America. History It was founded in 1939 as the "Winnipeg Ballet Club" by Gweneth Lloyd and Betty Farrally (who also fou ...

(1954), and Denmark's Scandinavian Ballet (1962). He was also choreographer of the Israel National Opera (1963–1964), where he choreographed four operas for opera star

Plácido Domingo José Plácido Domingo Embil (born 21 January 1941) is a Spanish opera singer, conductor, and arts administrator. He has recorded over a hundred complete operas and is well known for his versatility, regularly performing in Italian, French, ...

; (''Don Giovanni'', ''Carmen'', ''La Traviata'' and ''The Pearl Fishers'', all of which premièred at the Israel National Opera in Tel-Aviv in 1963). From 1964–1966, Adam Darius was the director of his own company, the Israeli Ballet. Principal ballets: *''Pierrot the Wanderer'' - Choreographed for American prima ballerina Melissa Hayden and premièred at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) in Toronto, Canada in 1955. *''Quartet'' - Choreographed for American prima ballerina

Cynthia Gregory Cynthia Kathleen Gregory (born July 8, 1946) is an American former prima ballerina. Career Born in Los Angeles, Gregory took up dancing when she was five, with the encouragement of her parents, who hoped exercise would stem her history of childho ...

and premièred at the San Gabriel Mission Playhouse, California in 1958. *''The Anne Frank Ballet'' - Premièred in Long Beach, California in 1959. Produced for Italian Television in 1967. Released as a video in 1989, in which Mr Darius danced the role of

Anne Frank Annelies Marie Frank (, ; 12 June 1929 – February or March 1945)Research by The Anne Frank House in 2015 revealed that Frank may have died in February 1945 rather than in March, as Dutch authorities had long assumed"New research sheds new li ...

's father, Otto Frank. *''Marilyn'' - A ballet based on the life of

Marilyn Monroe Marilyn Monroe ( ; born Norma Jeane Mortenson; June 1, 1926 August 4, 1962) was an American actress and model. Known for playing comic "Blonde stereotype#Blonde bombshell, blonde bombshell" characters, she became one of the most popular sex ...

, which ran for five weeks at the

Arts Theatre The Arts Theatre is a theatre in Great Newport Street, in Westminster, Central London. It opened on April 20, 1927. History It opened on 20 April 1927 as a members-only club for the performance of unlicensed plays, thus avoiding theatre cen ...

in London's West End in February 1975. *''

Firebird Firebird and fire bird may refer to: Mythical birds * Phoenix (mythology), sacred firebird found in the mythologies of many cultures ** Fenghuang, sometimes called Chinese phoenix * Vermilion bird, one of the four symbols of the Chinese constella ...

'' - Choreographed to

Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ( – 6 April 1971) was a Russian composer and conductor with French citizenship (from 1934) and American citizenship (from 1945). He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of ...

's music. Presented by the Las Vegas Civic Ballet at the Reed Whipple Cultural Center, Las Vegas, in April 1986.

Expressive mime

In 1967, Adam Darius broke away from the traditional world of ballet and premièred his own fusion of dance and mime, described as 'expressive mime', at the Spoleto Festival in Italy and at the Arts Lab in London. In the years that followed he toured many countries, including: South Africa (1970); the Soviet Union (1971); the Philippines, Papua New Guinea and Australia (1971); Syria, Iran and Afghanistan (1976); Japan (1984); and Greenland (1998). Adam Darius' concept of

physical theatre Physical theatre is a genre of theatrical performance that encompasses storytelling primarily through physical movement. Although several performance theatre disciplines are often described as "physical theatre", the genre's characteristic aspe ...

was also realized in the London productions of ''Yukio Mishima'' (1991), ''Rimbaud and Verlaine'' (1992) and ''Tower of Babel'' (1993), in collaboration with Kazimir Kolesnik. Among their further joint productions was ''A Snake in the Grass'', presented in Amman, Jordan (2001) and acknowledged with the Noor Al Hussein Award.

Teaching

In 1978, Adam Darius and

Marita Crawley Marita Georgina Knight (''née'' Phillips; formerly Crawley; born 28 May 1954 in London, England) is a British songwriter and author. Her lyrics have been recorded by artists such as Peter Skellern, Demis Roussos, William Lovelady and Art Garfu ...

founded the Mime Centre in London. In Britain he taught, among others, mime artist, dancer and director, Kazimir Kolesnik, rock star

Kate Bush Catherine Bush (born 30 July 1958) is an English singer, songwriter, record producer, and dancer. Bush began writing songs at age 11. She was signed to EMI Records after David Gilmour of Pink Floyd helped produce a demo tape. In 1978, at the ...

, Hollywood film star

Kate Beckinsale Kathrin Romany Beckinsale (born 26 July 1973) is an English actress. The only child of actors Richard Beckinsale and Judy Loe, she debuted in the series premiere of the 1975 daytime drama ''Couples.'' In 1993, she made her theatrical film deb ...

, and West End principal

Warren Mitchell Warren Mitchell (born Warren Misell; 14 January 1926 – 14 November 2015) was an English actor best known for playing bigoted cockney Alf Garnett in television, film and stage productions from the 1960s to the 1990s. He was a BAFTA TV A ...

Death

Darius died on 3 December 2017 in

Espoo Espoo (, ; ) is a city in Finland. It is located to the west of the capital, Helsinki, in southern Uusimaa. The population is approximately . It is the most populous Municipalities of Finland, municipality in Finland. Espoo is part of the Helsi ...

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

at the age of 87.

Books by Adam Darius

Honours and awards

* 1976: Silver medallion of the Belgrade Monodrama Festival (Yugoslavia) * 1976: Honorary membership of the North Sumatran Community (Indonesia) * 1978: American Television Emmy (US) * 1984: Premio Positano

Léonide Massine Leonid Fyodorovich Myasin (), 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 world's first symphonic ballet, ''Les Présages'', and ...

Per L'arte Della Danza (Italy) * 1987: Key to the City of Las Vegas (US)Presented by Mayor Bill Briare * 1998: Shetland Dance and Mime Award (UK) * 2001
Noor Al Hussein Foundation
Award (Jordan) * 2002: Beirut Festival du Rire Trophy (Lebanon) * 2003
Noor Al Hussein Foundation
Award (Jordan) * 2009: Order of Luis Manuel Gutiérrez (Venezuela) * 2012: Ministerio del Poder Popular para la Cultura Award (Venezuela) * 2014: Gjakova Komedia Fest Appreciation Award (Republic of Kosovo) * 2016: Simon Bolívar Award (Venezuela)

International performances since January 2000

Unless marked as being a SOLO performance, all shows were given in partnership wit
Kazimir Kolesnik

Notes

External links

Adam Darius at the mimecentre.comAdam Darius on FacebookDansmuseet, Stockholm, Sweden
{{DEFAULTSORT:Darius, Adam 1930 births 2017 deaths American male ballet dancers American mimes American people of Russian descent American people of Turkish descent American ballet choreographers Dance writers 20th-century American novelists Emmy Award winners Writers from Manhattan American autobiographers 21st-century American novelists 20th-century American dramatists and playwrights American male novelists American male dramatists and playwrights 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American male writers Novelists from New York (state) 20th-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers American male non-fiction writers 20th-century American ballet dancers