Ninette de Valois
Dame Ninette de Valois OM CH DBE (born Edris Stannus; 6 June 1898 – 8 March 2001) was an Irish-born British[1] dancer, teacher, choreographer, and director of classical ballet. 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 one of the leading ballet companies in the world. She also established the Royal Ballet School and the touring company which became the Birmingham Royal Ballet. She is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of ballet and as the "godmother" of English and Irish ballet.[2][3][4]
Ninette de Valois
8 March 2001 (aged 102)
- Lila Field Academy for Children
- Edouard Espinosa
- Enrico Cecchetti
- Nicholas Legat
- Ballet dancer
- Ballet teacher and coach
- Choreographer
- Company director
1900s–1990s
Founder and Artistic Director
1931–1963 (Royal Ballet)
None (Founder)
- Albert Medal (1964)
- Laurence Olivier Award (1992)
Legion of Honour - Knight (1950)
Life[edit]
Early life and family[edit]
Ninette de Valois was born as Edris Stannus on 6 June 1898 at Baltyboys House, an 18th-century manor house near the town of Blessington, County Wicklow, Ireland, then still part of the United Kingdom. A member of a gentry family, she was the second daughter of Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Stannus DSO,[5] a British Army officer, and Elizabeth Graydon Smith, a glassmaker known as "Lilith Stannus".[6][7] She was the maternal great-granddaughter of the diarist Elizabeth Grant Smith and the maternal great-great granddaughter of Scottish politician John Peter Grant.[8] Through her mother she was also the great grandniece of Sir John Peter Grant and a first cousin twice removed of Lady Strachey. In 1905 she moved to England,[9] to live with her grandmother in Kent. She started attending ballet lessons in 1908, at the age of ten.
Early dancing career[edit]
At the age of thirteen Stannus began her professional training at the Lila Field Academy for Children. It was at this time that she changed her name to Ninette de Valois and made her professional debut as a principal dancer in pantomime at the Lyceum Theatre in the West End.
In 1919, at the age of 21, she was appointed principal dancer of the Beecham Opera, which was then the resident opera company at the Royal Opera House. She continued to study ballet with notable teachers, including Edouard Espinosa, Enrico Cecchetti and Nicholas Legat.[9]
Ballets Russes[edit]
In 1923, de Valois joined the Ballets Russes, a renowned ballet company founded by the Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev. She remained with the company for three years, performing around Europe and being promoted to the rank of Soloist, and creating roles in some of the company's most famous ballets, including Les biches and Le Train Bleu.[9] During this time, she was also mentor to Alicia Markova who was only a child at the time, but would eventually be recognised as a Prima Ballerina Assoluta and one of the most famous English dancers of all time. Later in her life, Valois said that everything she knew about how to run a ballet company she learned from working with Diaghilev.[4] She stepped back from regular intense dancing in 1924, after doctors detected damage from a previously undiagnosed case of childhood polio.[1]
London and Dublin dance schools[edit]
After leaving the Ballets Russes, in 1927, de Valois established the Academy of Choreographic Art, a dance school for girls in London[4] and the Abbey Theatre School of Ballet, Dublin.[10] In London, her ultimate goal was to form a repertory ballet company, with dancers drawn from the school and trained in a uniquely British style of ballet.[9] Students of the school were given professional stage experience performing in opera and plays staged at the Old Vic Theatre, with de Valois choreographing several short ballets for the theatre. Lilian Baylis was the owner of the Old Vic at that time, and in 1928 she also acquired and refurbished the Sadler's Wells Theatre, with the intention of creating a sister theatre to the Old Vic. She employed de Valois to stage full-scale dance productions at both theatres and when the Sadler's Wells theatre re-opened in 1931, de Valois moved her school into studios there, under the new name, the Sadler's Wells Ballet School. A ballet company was also formed, known as the Vic-Wells Ballet. The Vic-Wells ballet company and school would be the predecessors of today's Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet and Royal Ballet School.
Also in 1927, in May, W. B. Yeats, poet and co-founder of the Abbey Theatre, suggested to de Valois while she was visiting Dublin the establishment of a ballet school in the city, and from around November, she took responsibility for the setting up and the programming of the Abbey Theatre School of Ballet in Dublin. This, the first of perhaps five Irish national ballet school projects during the 20th century,[11] ran until June 1933, and 7 of the 16 final students continued in active dancing, with 2 founding the next national ballet project, the "Abbey School of Ballet".
Choreography[edit]
During these years de Valois produced a number of ballets each year, mostly to her own choreography. She also worked with music specially commissioned from Irish contemporary composers such as Harold R. White's The Faun (April 1928),[12] Arthur Duff's The Drinking Horn and John F. Larchet's Bluebeard (both in July 1933).[13][14]
Honours and awards[edit]
Honours[edit]
Ninette de Valois was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) on 1 January 1947[α] and was promoted Dame Commander (DBE) on 1 January 1951.[β] She became a Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) on 31 December 1981[γ] and was honoured by HM The Queen with the Order of Merit (OM) on 2 January 1992.[δ]
She was appointed a knighthood of France's Legion of Honour on 1 May 1950.[ε] and received the Order of Merit of the Republic of Turkey on 2 January 1998.[ζ]
Awards[edit]
Ninette de Valois received the Bronze award presented for services to Ballet from the Irish Catholic Stage Guild in 1949.[η] She was the first recipient of the Royal Academy of Dance Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Award in 1953–1954.[θ] She was made Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Dance on 19 July 1963[ι] and of the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing on 8 March 1964[κ] In 1964 she received the Royal Society of Arts Albert Medal[λ] and in 1974, the Praemium Erasmianum Foundation Erasmus Prize.[μ] The Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal was awarded on 7 June 1977[ν] and the Royal Opera House Long Service medal in 1979.[ξ]
She received the Critics' Circle Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts in 1989[ο] and the Society of London Theatre Laurence Olivier Award Special Award in 1992.[π]
In the United States, she received the Dance Theatre of Harlem Emergence Award on 27 July 1981.[ρ]
Honoris causa degrees[edit]
Ninette de Valois received Doctor of Music (DMus) degrees from the University of London in 1947, the University of Sheffield on 29 June 1955,[σ] Trinity College, Dublin in 1957 and Durham University in 1982.
She received DLitt from the University of Reading in 1951, the University of Oxford in 1955 and the University of Ulster in 1979.
In 1958 she received an LLD from the University of Aberdeen and on 5 July 1975 Doctor of Letters from the University of Sussex.[τ]
From the Royal Opera House