Fredrick Ashton

Although we think of Frederick Ashton as the most English of choreographers, he was actually born in Ecuador, on September 17th 1904, and then spent his early years in Peru, where his father was a diplomat. It was while he was at school in Lima that he first saw Anna Pavlova, an event which changed his life: he became determined to be a dancer - and not just any dancer, but 'the greatest dancer in the world' - and his love for Pavlova remained a major influence on his choreography throughout his whole career.

Ashton came to England when he was 15, as a boarder at Dover College, and left school after three unhappy years only to move into a dreary job which he hated. He started ballet lessons with Leonide Massine on Saturday afternoons, and eventually persuaded his family that he should train full-time. When Massine moved away from London he sent Ashton to Marie Rambert - one of those seemingly unimportant decisions which changes history, for it was Rambert's clever eye which saw the potential choroegrapher in the would-be dancer, and entrusted him with his first ballet, A Tragedy of Fashion.

Ashton left Rambert for a year to dance with Bronislava Nijinska, another of the the major influences on his work, and when he returned he began choreographing regularly for Rambert, making works for her Ballet Club, to be performed on the handkerchief-sized stage of the Mercury Theatre. At the same time he started making work for Ninette de Valois and the Vic-Wells ballet, and in 1935 he left Rambert and joined de Valois permanently. (Poor Rambert, fated so often to develop a wonderful talent and watch it walk away.) His first major work for the Vic-Wells was the 1933 Les Rendezvous, made for Alicia Markova; when Markova left the company he focused his attention on her successor, a young girl called Margot Fonteyn.

http://www.ballet.co.uk/ashton/ashton_biography.htm

Though Ashton's choreography encompasses many modes – mime, pantomime, pure classicism, popular and folk dances – you could see it as essentially influenced by three women. Foremost is Pavlova, who inspired his undying love of classical technique, and of all the "carry-on" that accompanies ballet: its airs and graces, its manners and mannerisms (Ashton's love of the pantomime dame is the flipside to this reverence). Second is Nijinska, whose innovative use of the upper body affected Ashton's technique, where the head, shoulders, arms and hands are much more articulated than in the more "leggy" Russian or American styles. Third is Isadora Duncan, for whom deep-felt sincerity, simplicity of action and seriousness of intent were the motives behind steps and style.

Ashton often encoded his own biography in his ballets. Bisexual as a youth and later gay, the objects of his romantic and sexual desire – often distanced in terms of age, geography or affection – fuelled his work. Julie Kavanagh's definitive biography Secret Muses explains the background, though you don't need to know it to appreciate the ballets.

Whatever piece you watch, see if you can spot the Fred step, a little signature that Ashton put into many of his works, like a lucky charm. He got it from Pavlova.

"I believe simply that a ballet must be a good work of art, that it must express the choreographer's vision of experience as truthfully and beautifully as possible. Insofar as it does this, it will express his most profound sense of values and thus be likely to concern itself with matters of more permanent significance than topical issues. He should deal with that which is spiritual and eternal rather than that which is material and temporary."
Ashton (1959) in Ballet Annual, quoted by D Vaughan Frederick Ashton and His Ballets (1976)http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2010/mar/02/dance-frederick-ashton

rudolph Nureyev

His first performances after his defection were with the Ballet of Marquis de Cuevas, in an overdressed production of Sleeping Beauty, but it was his appearances in London with the Royal Ballet, and particularly his first Giselle with Margot Fonteyn, that really established his reputation as a great dancer as well as a media star.
For nearly thirty years Nureyev danced anywhere, everywhere, seemingly every night - his passion for performance was insatiable and he drove himself far harder than any maitre de ballet would have dared. In the end the continual work took its toll on his body and his technique, and the touring programmes of his final years as a dancer saddened many of his admirers. But it was inevitable: he was cut from whole cloth, and the will-power which kept him dancing then was the same will-power which had made him a dancer in the first place.

Was actually a closeted homosexual at a time when it was considered immoral and even illegal. His repression of his true nature forced him to keep his relationships shrouded in secrecy and made him a very hostile and angry man. He remained closeted all the way to his death.

Was not even thirty when he was being touted as "the greatest living male dancer."

He kept every single pair of ballet slippers he had ever owned. It was rumored that it was because he was superstitious, when in fact, it was merely sentimental value.

Initially, the producers of "The Muppet Show" (1976) had such difficulty casting guest stars that they had to call upon all their personal friends in the entertainment industry for help. This changed dramatically after Nureyev's guest appearance. The publicity of a renowned ballet dancer appearing on such a bizarre show created such positive publicity that the show became popular and soon celebrities were lining up to appear on the show. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0638159/bio  

http://www.ballet.co.uk/nureyev/

Margot Fonteyn

 Fonteyn's name dominated British ballet for more than 40 years. One of the truly great dancers of our time, she was the most famous ballerina of the second half of the century, Ashton's muse, the perfect exemplar of the English style - and all of that even before the wonderful Indian summer of her partnership with Nureyev. For anyone who saw her, she is still the one against whom all others are measured.
Margot Fonteyn was born in England in 1919 - her real name was Peggy Hookham - and spent some of her childhood in China.
By the time the war broke out in 1939 Fonteyn had danced Aurora, Giselle, and Odette/Odile, and - perhaps more importantly - had already created half a dozen roles for Ashton. After a stormy start caused by mutual incomprehension, she and the choreographer established a happy relationship which over the next 25 years produced most of her greatest roles and his greatest ballets. The company's nomadic wartime existence ended with the invitation take up residence at Covent Garden, and their opening night performance ofSleeping Beautyshowed how far Fonteyn, still only 26, had travelled on the path to prima ballerina.
By about 1960, though, talk of possible retirement had begun to creep into reviews and interviews.Fonteyn gave her final performance in the early 70s, and retired to Panama to live with her husband, who had been paralysed in a shooting incident. She died of cancer in 1991. Her musicality and her understated eloquence and elegance made her the perfect embodiment of what we have come to think of as the English style, whilst her modesty and dignity set the tone for the whole company in its developing years. If this makes her sound too 'ladylike', though, remember that not only has she been described as 'the most passionate of dancers', she was also arrested probably more often than the average prima ballerina assoluta.http://www.ballet.co.uk/old/legend_js_margot_fonteyn.htm