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Famous Ballet Dancers

        1.   Marie Taglioni (1804-1884)

        Marie Taglioni became the great influence on the Romantic era of ballet.

Taglioni was soon remembered as a legend in ballet after starring in the role La Sylphide where she created a new and idolized image for ballet pointe shoes.

Taglioni was born into family of dance. Her father, Filippo Taglioni, was an Italian choreographer and therefore it gave her the unique opportunity to dance a ballet especially created for her.

The La Sylphide performance soared her fame to success and the audience admired her graceful and airy quality in pointe shoes. 

Taglioni was also the first to shorten her ballet skirt which displayed her intricate pointe work for the audience to see.

Taglioni continued to teach after her dancing career and it is clear to say she became one of the most famous Italian ballerinas. The audience loved her so much that they even named cakes after her!                                                                                        (Taglioni dancing en pointe)

   2.  Anna Pavlova (1881-1931)

   

   Anna Pavlova is known as one of the finest classical ballet dancers. A Russian ballerina, widely recognised today, she is also particularly famous for her creation of The Dying Swan.

The Dying Swan was choreographed especially for Pavlova, by Mikhail Fokine. She danced it about 4,000 times and became the first ballerina to tour around the world.

Pavlova was accepted with the Imperial Ballet in 1899 and appeared in La Fille Mal Gardee the same year she joined. By 1905, Pavlova was appointed prima ballerina.

Pavlova had very high insteps and had to re-equiped her pointe shoes for her to dance in them. She is often said to have influenced the start of the modern pointe shoe.

During her career, Pavlova also danced with the famous Ballets Russes of Sergei Diaghilev.

  

 ( Anna Pavlova in "Dying Swan")

3.  Vaslav Nijinsky (1890- 1950)

Today, Vaslav Nijinsky is still remembered as one of the greatest male ballet dancers of the early 20th century.

Nijinsky was a Russian dancer and rose to fame through his unique individuality and magnificent jumps.

Nijinsky first joined the Mariinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg, in 1907. He was a magnificent classical dancer and performed in the well known ballets such as The Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake.

Nijinsky was recognised for his range and strength in characterisation and had many roles created for him.

When he later went on to join Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in 1909, the choreographer Michel Fokine created Le Spectre de la rose especially for him.

4.Rudolf Nureyev (1983-1993)

Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn

Rudolf Nureyev gained bigger audiences than any other dancer. Nureyev was a Russian dancer and made his first appearance in London with the Royal Ballet.

When Nureyev performed Giselle with the famed Margot Fonteyn, their partnership grew to make a famous history in ballet.

Nureyev gave a new light to the male dancer and expressed an artistic skill that had not been seen before.

Nureyev became was not only a talented dancer but also a choreographer, director, partner showing true influence on ballet history.

5.Margot Fonteyn (1919-1991)

Fonteyn spent her whole career with the Royal Ballet. She carried on dancing until she was 58 and her partnership with Rudolf Nureyev became a worldwide sensation.Margot Fonteyn is widely known as the greatest English ballerina. For more than 40 years, Fonteyn's name dominated British ballet.

The British choreographer Frederick Ashton took a shine to Fonteyn and she become his muse for many of his ballets. Ashton created several roles especially for Fonteyn, displaying her unique quality of musicality and technical skill.

6. Mikhail Baryshnikov

Mikhail Baryshnikov is a Russian-American ballet dancer who choreographed several iconic pieces which have made him one of the greatest ballet dancers of the 20th century.

Mikhail Baryshnikov - Brilliant Ballet Dancer (TV-14; 01:12) Watch a short video about Mikhail Baryshnikov and how the man who's considered the greatest dancer of the 20th century escaped Russia.

Synopsis

Mikhail Baryshnikov was born in Latvia in 1948. An experienced and respected ballet dancer in the Soviet Union during the 1960s, Baryshnikov was a beloved part of his nation. Unfortunately, the feelings weren't mutual at the time. He defected from the Soviet Union to the United States in 1974 in hopes of having a better opportunity to express himself creatively. His technique transcended any cultural barriers he experienced through immigrating, as Americans loved his precision and grace as a ballet dancer just as the Soviets did. Baryshnikov worked with the American Ballet Theatre until 1978 before becoming its artistic director in the '80s.

Early Life and Career

Born in Riga, Latvia, on January 27, 1948, Mikhail Nikolaevich Baryshnikov went on to become one of the leading dancers of the 20th century. Baryshnikov's early years were difficult. His father was a Soviet colonel, and the two didn't get along. As he explained to The New York Times, his father "was not a very pleasant man." However, Baryshnikov later drew inspiration from his father. "His mannerisms, his military habits, I put them in my interpretation," the dancer once said.

In his early teens, Baryshnikov lost his mother to suicide. He began studying ballet around this same time, and in 1963, at the age of 16, began training with distinguished choreographer Alexander Pushkin at the Vaganova Choreographic Institute.

In 1967, Baryshnikov made his stage debut with the Kirov Ballet in Giselle, later starring as the dance company's premier danseur noble in Gorianka(1968) and Vestris (1969). Choreographer Leonid Jakobson is said to have tailored Vestris to suit Baryshnikov specifically. The work is now considered to be one of the dancer's signature pieces. Baryshnikov landed his first major honor in 1966, winning a gold medal at the Varna, Bulgaria, dance competition, and went on to win another gold medal at the First International Ballet Competition in Moscow in 1969.

Dazzling audiences with his astounding physical and technical skills as well as his emotional expressiveness, Baryshnikov's fame quickly grew. By the late 1960s, he was one of the Soviet Union's leading ballet dancers.

World-Famous Dancer

Despite his fame, Mikhail Baryshnikov soon grew tired of the stifling atmosphere in communist Russia, and in 1974—following a performance of the Bolshoi Ballet in Toronto—defected from the Soviet Union to the West in search of greater personal and creative freedom. He later explained his departure from his native country to the New Statesman, saying, "I am individualist and there it is a crime."

In the United States, Baryshnikov joined the American Ballet Theatre, where he appeared in numerous productions. Audiences turned out in droves to see "his flawless, seemingly effortless classical technique and the extraordinary airborne maneuvers he executed with such zest and precision," as Laura Shapiro wrote in Newsweek.

Outside of ballet, Baryshnikov explored other professional opportunities. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his acting in the dance world drama The Turning Point (1977), starring Anne Bancroft and Shirley MacLaine, which ignited popular interest in ballet.

Baryshnikov left the ABT for the New York City Ballet in 1978. There, he had a chance to work with such leading choreographers as George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins. Around this same time, in 1979 and 1980, Baryshnikov won two Emmy Awards for television dance specials. His time with the NYCB proved to be short, however. Baryshnikov returned to the ABT as artistic director and a principal dancer in 1980.

Continuing to explore other forms of expression, Baryshnikov starred opposite Gregory Hines in the 1985 dancing drama White Nights. He also appeared in the 1989 production of Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis. In addition to performing on stage and in film, Baryshnikov started his own perfume line, called Misha (his nickname).

Later Career

In 1990, Baryshnikov left the ABT to create the avant-garde White Oak Dance Project with Mark Morris—a move reflecting a shift toward contemporary dance. "It's less mannered, more democratic, more transparent and, from my point of view, closer to the hearts of people," Baryshnikov told the New Statesman. Through this new company, he worked and supported new pieces created by the likes of Twyla Tharp, Jerome Robbins and Mark Morris.

In December 2000, Baryshnikov was recognized, along with other cultural luminaries, for a lifetime of extraordinary achievement at the Kennedy Center Honor Awards.

In 2002, Baryshnikov disbanded the White Oak Project to focus on his next big project. Through his foundation, he opened the Baryshnikov Arts Center in New York City in 2004. This facility was created as "a gathering place for artists from all disciplines," according to its website. It houses a theater and a performance space as well as studios and offices to use for different creative endeavors.

While he spent a lot of time working behind the scenes on BAC, Baryshnikov never stepped away from performing. He made a memorable guest appearance in the cable comedy Sex and the City as a Russian artist and the love interest of Sarah Jessica Parker from 2003 to 2004. Despite knee troubles, Baryshnikov continued to dance into his 50s and 60s.

Baryshnikov put aside his dancing shoes for some of his most recent projects, however. He starred in the play In Paris in 2011 and 2012, which is based on a story by Ivan Bunin. The following year, Baryshnikov starred in an experimental theater production called Man in a Case in Hartford, Connecticut.

Personal Life

Mikhail Baryshnikov is married to former ABT ballerina Lisa Rinehart. The couple has three children together: Peter, Anna and Sofia-Luisa. Baryshnikov has a fourth child, a daughter named Alexandra (born in 1981), from his previous relationship with actress Jessica Lange. Baryshnikov has also been romantically linked to dancer Gelsey Kirkland, who he worked with at both the New York City Ballet and the ABT.

Introduction to ballet!

                 Ballet! What a beautiful word! Many people don't know the terminology of the word ''ballet''. It comes from ''ballo'' in italian, which means ''to dance''. A lot of people think that ballet started in Russia or France, but actually, it started in Italy (15th century). The vocabulary of ballet moves is based on French terminolgy. Now that you had a little introduction to the world of ballet, we can start!
               The art of ballet can be performed by both males and females.
   


               Male:   ( Impressive,eh?)




             Female:  ( Really stretched out there!)


            A ballerina often uses her pointes. Here's a little lesson about them:




      Mastering the pointes require a lot of work. You can start learning mastering the pointes after finishing the basics in ballet and after you muscles are ready for this! You should not start doing exercises on pointes or on the tiptoe too early or you are going to have problems with the legs and the bones after some time!
      Come back after a week so you can learn more about ballet from the new post! Next time: History of ballet and famous ballet dancers!