Alexandre Volinine's Birthday Today-September 16, 1882

Alexandre Volinine was born in Moscow on September 16, 1882. He was a Russian-French dancer and teacher. Volinine studied at the Bolshoi Ballet School, with Tikhomirov and Gorsky and he graduated in 1901. After graduating, he was invited to join the Bolshoi Ballet and was quickly promoted to principal danseur in 1903. Volinine created roles in Gorsky's Robert and Bertram (1906) and Nur and Anitra (1907), and danced all the leading male roles in the classical repertoire.

He left the Bolshoi in 1910, first dancing with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in the 1910 Paris season. It was here that he danced a Principal role in Fokine's Les Orientales, and then toured with Lydia Lopokova (1910-11) in America. He appeared with Gertrude Hoffmann's so-called Ballets Russes at the Winter Garden Theater in New York in 1911 and with Mikhail Mordkin's All-Star Imperial Russian Ballet (1911-12). Later Volinine partnered Adeline Genée on tour to America, Australia, and New Zealand (1912-13); also partnered Lydia Kyasht at the Empire Theatre in London in 1913.

Volinine most famous partner was Anna Pavlova. He danced with Anna Pavlova's company on its various world tours from 1914 to 1925, partnering Pavlova and creating the role of the Young Poet in her Autumn Leaves (1919).

In 1926, having retired from the stage, he opened a famous school in Paris, where his students included Babilée, Eglevsky, Jeanmaire, and Lichine. In 1946 he staged Giselle for the Royal Danish Ballet.

Olga Alexandrovna Spessivtzeva Born 9/16,1895

Olga was born in Rostov-on-Don, Russia. She was the daughter of an opera singer. After her father's death, she was sent to an orphanage in St. Petersburg with theatrical connections. She entered St. Petersburg's Imperial Ballet Academy in 1906, where she was a student of Klavdia Kulichevskaya and later of Agrippina Vaganova. After graduating in 1913, Olga joined the Mariinsky Theater, where she was promoted to Soloist in 1916. An exquisite romantic dancer with perfect technique, ideally suited for roles such as Giselle and Odette-Odile in Swan Lake, she quickly became one of the most admired dancers in the company.

In 1916, Diaghilev invited her to tour with his Ballets Russes in the United States. Olga danced with Nijinsky in Le Spectre de la Rose, Les Sylphides and the Bluebird pas de deux from Sleeping Beauty. In 1918 she returned to the Mariinsky, and was promoted to Ballerina.

In 1921, Olga performed with Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes as Aurora, in his revived The Sleeping Princess in London. She continued to perform with the Ballets Russes abroad, at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires in 1923. With the aid of her ex-husband Boris Kaplun, she left Russia for the last time in 1924, accepting an invitation to dance as an étoile (prima ballerina) at the Paris Opera Ballet, where she remained until 1932.

In 1932, Olga made another memorable guest appearance in London, dancing Giselle with Anton Dolin. From 1932 to 1937, she toured with a number of companies throughout the world, performing roles from both the classical repertoire and contemporary ballets by choreographers such as Michel Fokine and Bronislava Nijinska. In 1939, Olga moved to the United States where she taught and served as an advisor to the Ballet Theatre Foundation.

Olga suffered a nervous breakdown in 1943, and she was hospitalized. She remained institutionalized until 1963 when, with the help of her friends Anton Dolin and Felia Doubrovska, she was discharged and settled in Valley Cottage on the Tolstoy Farm. The Tolstoy Farm is a Russian community run by the Tolstoy Foundation in New York's Rockland County. It was founded by Countess Alexandra Tolstoy, daughter of the novelist, as a rest home for Russians. Recovered, she lived there in peaceful retirement for nearly three decades, dying at the age of 96.

Andre Derain Artist of the Ballets Russes

André Derain was a French painter and co-founder of Fauvism with Henri Matisse. André Derain was born in 1880 in Chatou, Yvelines, Île-de-France, just outside Paris. In 1898, while studying to be an engineer at the Académie Camillo, he attended painting classes under Eugène Carrière, and there met Henri Matisse. Matisse persuaded Derain's parents to allow him to abandon his engineering career and devote himself solely to painting; subsequently Derain attended the Académie Julian.

Derain and Matisse worked together through the summer of 1905 in the Mediterranean village of Collioure and later that year displayed their highly innovative paintings at the Salon d'Automne. In March 1906, the noted art dealer Ambroise Vollard sent Derain to London to compose a series of paintings with the city as subject. Derain put forth a portrait of London that was radically different from anything done by previous painters of the city such as Whistler or Monet. These London paintings remain among his most popular work.

In 1907 art dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler purchased Derain's entire studio, granting Derain financial stability. He experimented with stone sculpture and moved to Montmartre to be near his friend Pablo Picasso. In 1914 he was mobilized for military service in World War I and until his release in 1919 he would have little time for painting.

After the war, Derain in 1919 he designed the ballet La Boutique Fantasque for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. A major success, it would lead to his creating many ballet designs. The 1920s marked the height of his success, as he was awarded the Carnegie Prize in 1928 and began to exhibit extensively abroad — in London, Berlin, Frankfurt, Düsseldorf, New York City and Cincinnati, Ohio.

During the German occupation of France in World War II, Derain lived primarily in Paris and was much courted by the Germans because he represented the prestige of French culture. A year before his death, he contracted an eye infection from which he never fully recovered. He died in Garches, Hauts-de-Seine, Île-de-France, France in 1954 when he was struck by a moving vehicle.

Today, paintings by Derain sell for as much as $6 million US dollars. The London paintings were the subject of a major exhibition at the Courtauld Institute in 2005-06.

Anniversary of Serge Grigoriev's Passing

Serge Grigoriev was born October 5, 1883 in Russia and died in London on June 28, 1968. He studied at the St. Petersburg Imperial School, graduating in 1900, and danced with the Maryinsky Ballet until Diaghilev appointed him ballet master in 1909. Serge Grigoriev danced the classic ballets from the repertory of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes.

He became régisseur of the Ballets Russes on their first trip to Paris in 1909 and remained in that position for twenty years. Grigoriev was a friend of Mikhail Fokine, and Fokine recommended him to rehearse the ballets for the 1909 season. As a dancer he created the role of Shah Shariar in Fokine's Scheherazade (1910), Guidone in Fokine's Le Coq d'or (1914), and the Russian Merchant in Massine's La Boutique Fantasque (1919). Fokine however, left the Ballets Russes over issues with Nijinsky, but Grigoriev stayed.

After Diaghilev fired Vaslav Nijinsky he needed to rehire Fokine. Before he agreed to return, Fokine made many demands: to dance leading roles; that all of Nijinsky's ballets be dropped from the repertoire; and that Grigoriev and his wife, the ballerina Lubov Tchernicheva, be discharged from the company. He got everything but the termination of Grigoriev. Diaghilev got Fokine, Grigoriev and Tchernicheva to reconcile. Grigoriev remained with Diaghlev’s Ballets Russes until the death of Serge Diaghilev.

After the death of Diaghilev in 1929, the company disbanded; Grigoriev and his wife joined Colonel de Basil's Ballet Russe in 1932, restaging the original choreography of Diaghilev's repertoire and remaining until 1948. Working with his wife, Lubov Tchernicheva, he produced several Fokine revivals for Sadler's Wells/Royal Ballet: Firebird (1954), Les Sylphides (1955), and Petrushka (1957) and the Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor (1965).

The Firebird - Premiered June 25, 1910

The Firebird is a 1910, neoclassical ballet with music by Igor Stravinsky and choreography by Michel Fokine. The ballet is based on Russian folk tales of the magical glowing bird of the same name that is both a blessing and a curse to its captor.

The music premiered as a ballet by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in Paris on June 25, 1910 conducted by Gabriel Pierné. It was the first of their productions with music specially composed for them. Originally the music was to have been written by Russian composer Anatol Liadov but when he was slow in starting to compose the work, Diaghilev transferred the commission to the 28-year old Stravinsky. The ballet has historic significance not only as Stravinsky's 'breakthrough piece, but also as the beginning of the collaboration between Diaghilev and Stravinsky. They would later produce Petrushka and The Rite of Spring.

Firebird was to originally be danced by Anna Pavlova, but when she heard Stravinsky’s music she declared it “noise” and refused to dance to it. Tamara Karsavina was given the iconic role.

Aynsley Inglis, "For Lena" Rehearsal in NYC

The shawl in the dance, belonged to Madame Antonova (Lena). She was the wife of Leon Woizikowski and a member of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes from 1915. It was given to my daughter as a gift. The dancer is my daughter, Aynsley Inglis.

It is an homage to Lena and the Ballets Russes.

The piece was choreographed by Tony Award winning choreographer, Margo Sappington. It is being performed at the 2010 International Ballet Competition in Jackson, by my daughter who is a competitor there this week.

Daphnis Et Chloe - Premiered June 8, 1912

Daphnis et Chloe is a choreographic symphony in one act and three scenes, by Michel Fokine and Maurice Ravel. The décor and costumes were done by Leon Bakst. Daphnis et Chloe premiered at Theatre de Chatelet in Paris on June 8, 1912.

Maurice Ravel accepted a commission from Diaghilev to write Daphnis et Chloe, in 1909. He was slow to deliver, so Diaghilev sent him to St. Petersburg to work with Fokine and Bakst. The three men got along so well that it just extended the creative process and Ravel did not finish Daphnis et Chloe until 1912.

The idea itself for adapting the Longus pastoral tale for the stage was Fokine’s. His friend Isadora Duncan had influenced his interest in ancient Greece. The ballet was originally scheduled for the 1911 repertoire, but Narcisse was substituted when Daphnis et Chloe was not yet finished. When rehearsals for Daphnis et Chloe finally began in 1911, Diaghilev was completely distracted by Nijinsky’s L’Apres-Midi and Diaghilev’s lack of interest in Daphnis et Chloe was said to be the main reason for Fokine leaving the Ballets Russes Company in June of 1912, right after its premiere.

A few years later, in 1919, Ravel was commissioned again by Diaghilev to do La Valse, but they disagreed on the scenic concept, that topped with Massine’s departure led Diaghilev to abandon the ballet’s production. Ravel was so stunned by Diaghilev’s behavior that years later they ran into one another in the lobby of the Hotel de Paris in Monte Carlo, and Ravel would not shake hands with Diaghilev.