Ninette de Valois
Ninette de Valois
Dame Ninette de Valois OM CH DBEwas an Anglo-Irish dancer, teacher, choreographer, and director of classical ballet. She began life in Ireland as Edris Stannus. Most notably, she danced professionally with Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, later establishing the Royal Ballet, one of the foremost ballet companies of the 20th century and still one of the leading ballet companies in the world. She also established the Birmingham Royal Ballet and the Royal Ballet School. She is widely regarded as one of...
NationalityIrish
ProfessionDancer
Date of Birth6 June 1898
CountryIreland
Exactly the same with dancing, you can't dance until you've learnt steps, the things your feet can do.
Well it, nothing is done easily, you first have the thing, then the thing has a success, then all sorts of difficulties arise through the success.
It's like the voice. We don't force a voice which we decide is lower than a lot of others, we teach it to sing in what we call their key, don't we?
So it takes years to make a solid company.
Oh yes, after the war, and we were all starving - we had no proper food or anything - no proper shoes.
Well, I mean, we are developing the other parts, and we can't give quite all our attention to the upper part, but soon the lower parts will be developed, and the upper part and the lower part will become partners, that will be wonderful.
Oh yes, technique has definitely advanced. But you never advance without losing something en passant, and you lose it because you're paying so much attention to the new thing.
It's either not good enough and dies altogether, or it develops.
All Ballets' fundamental steps are derived from the folk dances of Western Europe.
Diaghilev was the first to notice good character dancers and that sort of thing.
You can't dance until you've learnt steps, the things your feet can do.
There would never have been a British Ballet without Diaghilev. He had a wonderful influence
Nearly everything in life goes in threes and fours.
And then you have the classical ballerinas, they're like sopranos. Applied to the dance.