The Ballet Site

Margot Fonteyn was born in Reigate, Surrey, England 1919, as Margaret Hookham. Joined Vic-Wells Ballet in 1934. She had quick progress and in 1939 she had already danced Giselle, Odette-Odile and Aurora. She became the world's greatest ballerina and could have retired as such when she was 40. But her meeting with Rudolf Nureyev in 1962 gave the world the magic of their great partnership and her career continued until she was 58.

Anna Pavlova was born in St Petersburg in 1881. She studied with the Imperial Ballet School attached to the Mariinsky Theatre. Her main teacher was Marius Petipa. She made her debut at 17, and by 1906 she had become the Mariinsky's principal ballerina. In 1907 she made her first foreign tour, and in 1908, on her second, joined Diaghilev's Ballets Russes.

In 1912 she purchased Ivy House in Hampstead, England, where she established her own school of dance. She made her last appearance in St. Petersburg in 1913 and spent the rest of her career almost constantly on tour, bringing ballet to millions for the first time through the drawing power of her legendary name.

Beryl Grey was born in London 1927. She joined Sadler's Wells Ballet in 1941 and danced the full-length Swan Lake in 1942 on her 15th birthday. She was a famous Lilac Fairy and Queen of the Wilis. In 1957 she became the first English dancer to appear as guest ballerina with the Kirov and Bolshoi Ballet.

She holds numerous honorary doctorates and was awarded the CBE for her services to dance in 1973 and created a Dame of the British Empire in 1988. She has been Vice President of the Royal Academy of Dancing since 1980, is President of the Imperial Society of Dancing and a Director of The Birmingham Royal Ballet. In September 1997 she was presented with the Queen Elizabeth Coronation Award by Dame Antoinette Sibley. The Award is given by the Royal Academy of Dancing to individuals in recognition of great contribution to the world of ballet. Previous holders include Dame Ninette de Valois and Rudolf Nureyev.

Alicia Alonso was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1920. She studied in Havana, then in New York with Vilzak and at the School of American Ballet, and later with Volkova in London. She joined the American Ballet Theatre in 1940 and danced with them until 1960. She was an intensely dramatic dancer as well as a pure technician. With Youskevithc she formed a great partnership.

Her most famous role was Giselle, but she also created roles in Tudor's Undertow (1945), Balanchine's Theme and Variations (1947), de Mille's Fall River Legend (1948), and the title role in Alberto Alonso's Carmen (1967).

She founded Ballet Alicia Alonso in Cuba in 1950. It changed it's name to National Ballet of Cuba in 1960. She was the director and prima ballerina, and they toured widely in the USSR, China and Europe.

Darcey Bussell was born in London in 1969. She studied at the Royal Ballet School. She joined SWRB in 1987 and moved to The Royal Ballet as a Soloist in 1988. She was promoted to First Soloist and then to Principal in 1989.

She created Princess Rose (Prince of the Pagodas), Masha (Winter Dreams), Mistress Truth-on-Toe (Mr Worldly Wise) and roles in The Spirit of Fugue, Bloodlines, Dances with Death, Pavane pour une infante défunte and Towards Poetry.

Repertoire includes:
Juliet (Romeo and Juliet), Giselle (Giselle), Odette/Odile (Swan Lake), Cinderella (Cinderella), Aurora and Sugar Plum Fairy (Sleeping Beauty), Nikiya (La Bayadere), Terpsichore (Apollo), Raymonda, Manon, Mitzi Caspar (Mayerling), Black Queen (Checkmate), Mathilde Kschessinska (Anastasia), Pas de Deux (Birthday Offering) and roles in Serenade, Duo Concertant, Agon, Ballet Imperial, Tchaikovsky pas de deux, Symphony in C, In the middle, Somewhat Elevated, Push Comes to Shove.

Awards:
Won the Prix de Lausanne, 1986.
Received the 1990 Evening Standard Ballet Award and the Variety Club Award for Most Promising Newcomer.
Awarded an OBE in 1995.

Julie Kent was born in 1969. She began her dance training with Hortensia Fonseca at the Academy of the Maryland Youth Ballet. She attended the School of American Ballet before joining American Ballet Theatre as an apprentice in 1985. In 1986, she was the only American to win a medal at the Prix de Lausanne International Ballet Competition, and she became a member of ABT's corps de ballet. She was appointed a Soloist with ABT in 1990 and a Principal Dancer in 1993, the year in which she won the Erik Bruhn Prize in Toronto.

Her roles with the ABT include the title role in Anastasia, Terpsichore and Calliope in Apollo, Nikiya in La Bayadère, the third movement in Bruch Violin Concerto No. 1, the title role in Cinderella, Medora in Le Corsaire, the Lady with Him in Dim Lustre, Kitri and the Queen of the Driads in Don Quixote, Titania in The Dream, the Dying Swan, the second girl in Fancy Free, the Glove Seller in Gaîté Parisienne, Giselle in Giselle, Caroline in Jardin aux Lilas, Manon in Manon, Hanna Glawari in The Merry Widow, the Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker, Tatiana in Onegin, Desdemona in Othello, the pas de deux Other Dances, the pas de deux in Les Patineurs, Hagar in Pillar of Fire, the Siren in Prodigal Son, the Ranch Owner’s Daughter in Rodeo, Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, a Lover in Sin and Tonic, Princess Aurora, the Lilac Fairy, and Princess Florine in The Sleeping Beauty, the Sylph in La Sylphide, Odette-Odile in Swan Lake, the second movement in Symphony in C, the Prelude in Les Sylphides, Katherina in The Taming of the Shrew, the Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux, the Woman in Weren’t We Fools? and leading roles in Ballet Imperial, Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes, Gong, The Leaves Are Fading, Meadow, Sinfonietta, “…smile with my heart”, Spring and Fall, Stepping Stones, Symphonie Concertante and Theme and Variations. She created Artemis in Artemis, Sibyl Vane in Dorian, His Memory and His Experiences in HereAfter and leading roles in Americans We, Baroque Game, The Brahms/Haydn Variations, Clear, Concerto No. 1 for Piano and Orchestra, Cruel World, Getting Closer, Known by Heart, Rigaudon, States of Grace, Within You Without You: A Tribute to George Harrison and Without Words.

In April 2000, Kent won the “Prix Benois de la Danse” which was held in Stuttgart. She is the only American ever to have won this prize.

Born in Santa Cruz, California, Radetsky began his ballet studies in the San Francisco Bay Area with Damara Bennett and Ayako Takahashi and Damara Bennett. At the age of 15, he was invited to study in Moscow at the Bolshoi Academy under world-renowned men’s teacher Pytor Pestov. After a year in Russia, he studied on scholarship at the Kirov Academy in Washington, D. C. under Rudolph Kharatian and Andrei Garbouz. He toured with the Kirov Ballet throughout the United States and internationally. He also studied on scholarship at the summer programs of the School of American Ballet, American Ballet Theatre’s School of Classical Ballet with Mikhail Baryshnikov, the San Francisco Ballet School and the Bolshoi Ballet Academy in Vail, Colorado.

Radetsky joined American Ballet Theatre as an apprentice in 1995, became a member of the corps de ballet in 1996 and a soloist in 2003. His repertoire includes Lankendem and Birbanto in Le Corsaire, Benno and von Rothbart in Swan Lake, Espada and the lead gypsy in Don Quixote, the Head Fakir in La Bayadère, Bluebird in The Sleeping Beauty, Hilarion and the peasant pas de deux in Giselle, Orion in Sylvia, Cavalier and the Nutcracker-Prince in The Nutcracker, Bernard in Raymonda, Tybalt and Benvolio in Romeo and Juliet, Hortensio in The Taming of the Shrew, the second sailor in Fancy Free, the Champion Roper in Rodeo, the Warrior Chieftain in Polovtsian Dances, the third movement in Bruch Violin Concerto No. 1, the fourth movement in Symphony in C, the pas de deux in Jabula, the “Guitar” pas de deux from Within You Without You: A Tribute to George Harrison, and many others. He has danced the works of acclaimed choreographers such as George Balanchine, Mark Morris, Paul Taylor, Lars Lubovitch, Kenneth MacMillan, Twyla Tharp, Antony Tudor, John Cranko, Agnes de Mille, Jerome Robbins, Anne Reinking, Christopher Wheeldon and Jírí Kylián. He is an original member of the troupe “Stiefel and Stars” and has been a frequent guest performer and teacher will ballet companies across the United States and abroad.

In 2000, Radetsky starred as Charlie in the movie Center Stage as well as in pop singer Mandy Moore’s music video "I Wanna Be With You" from the Center Stage soundtrack. He has appeared in numerous television and print commercials as well as starring roles in the PBS movie Home at Last and in the NBC television series Midnight Caller.