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Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo
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Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo was an influential ballet company founded by René Blum and Colonel Vassily de Basil in 1933. The company followed Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, which had stopped operating when Diaghilev died in 1929. In 1938 the company was split into two: René Blum and Léonide Massine kept the original name Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, while de Basil named his company Original Ballet Russe.
Choreographers Léonide Massine and George Balanchine, who had both created works for Diaghilev's Ballet Russes, joined the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and created some major new works with it.
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Encyclopedia
Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo was an influential ballet company founded by René Blum and Colonel Vassily de Basil in 1933. The company followed Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, which had stopped operating when Diaghilev died in 1929. In 1938 the company was split into two: René Blum and Léonide Massine kept the original name Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, while de Basil named his company Original Ballet Russe.
Choreographers Léonide Massine and George Balanchine, who had both created works for Diaghilev's Ballet Russes, joined the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and created some major new works with it. Ballerinas such as Alexandra Danilova, who had danced with the Ballets Russes, joined the company. It attracted dancers from Great Britain, Europe and the United States. In the 1940s American Maria Tallchief danced with the company. British dancer Frederic Franklin and Jo Savino also joined the company. Franklin danced with them from 1938-1952.
Massine later became director of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, which toured chiefly in the United States after WWII broke out. The company introduced audiences to ballet in cities and towns across the country where people had never seen classical dance. In 1968, the company went bankrupt. Before then, many of its dancers had moved on to other careers.
The company's principal dancers performed with other companies, and founded dance schools and companies of their own across the United States and Europe. They taught the Russian ballet traditions to generations of Americans and Europeans. Among the most notable was George Balanchine's founding of the School of American Ballet and New York City Ballet, for which he created works for 40 years. Alexandra Danilova taught for 30 years in his School of American Ballet. Maria Tallchief, who was one of Balanchine's wives, danced with the New York City Ballet for years. Also, Roya Curie, a protégé of David Lichine and premier dancer with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo International established a school in upstate New York in 1950.
Other examples were Frederic Franklin, who was a director of the Washington Ballet and still advises Dance Theatre of Harlem, and Jo Savino, who formed the St. Paul Ballet in Minnesota. Many dancers of the corps de ballet also taught and passed on the Russian traditions, establishing ballet studios across the United States. For example, in the late 1940s, Marian and Illaria Ladre set up their Ballet Academy in Seattle, where they taught students who went on to dance and teach in their turn. Students who had professional dance careers included James De Bolt of the Joffrey Ballet and Ann Reinking of "All That Jazz".
In 1994 Mrs. Illaria Ladre was among the first American dancers, choreographers and writers honored by receiving the newly established Vaslav Nijinsky Medal, sponsored by the Polish Artists Agency in Warsaw, for work carrying on the tradition of Nijinsky. Other awardees were Gerald Arpino, Ann Barzel, Oleg Briansky, Vladimir Dokoudovsky (1919-1998), Peter Ostwald, Richard Philp, Jennie Schulman, Mr. Turnbaugh, Anatole Vilzak and George Zoritch.
A feature documentary about the company, featuring interviews with many of the dancers, was released in 2005, with the title Ballets Russes.
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