Ileana Leonidoff

Ileana Leonidoff
Born	Elena Sergeevna Pisarevskaya 1893 Sevastopol, Russian Empire
Died	after 1966
Nationality	Russian
Other names	Helena Leonidof, Ileana Leonidova
Occupation	singer, dancer, silent film star
Years active	1917-1966

Ileana Leonidoff (1893-after 1966) is a pseudonym for Elena Sergeevna Pisarevskaya (Russian: Елена Сергеевна Писаревская) Russian-born emigrée who first made a career in Italy in silent films and then as a noted dancer and choreographer. She was the founder and lead dancer of the Dance School of Teatro dell'Opera di Roma. During World War II, she fled to South America first teaching in Argentina and then in Ecuador in 1950. She was the first director of the Ballet Oficial de Bolivia, then served as the director of the Guayaquil Ballet in Ecuador, and became the founder of the Ballet School of Trujillo, Peru. She was honored as a knight of the Order of the Condor of the Andes in 1953.

Elena Sergeevna Pisarevskaya was born in 1893 in Sevastopol, a town on the Black Sea on the Crimean Peninsula during the Russian Imperial Period to Cleopatra Gavrilovna (née Sudkovskaya) and rear admiral Sergei Petrovic Pisarevsky. Her maternal uncle was the landscape painter, Rufin Sudkovsky and her father was a career naval officer who led the detachment of cruisers of the 3rd Squadron of the Pacific Fleet during the 1877-1878 Russo-Turkish War and in 1905 was made a Vice Admiral of the Black Sea Fleet. Pisarevskaya had two siblings: a brother, also named Sergei (1882-1949), who later served in the Russian army and a sister, Lida (later Marskaja), who would also become a dancer. After their father's death in 1908, Cleopatra brought her daughters to Milan around 1911, where Pisarevskaya's first performances were for charitable events and concerts held by the Accademia Filarmonica Romana in 1916. A few months later in her second performance, she developed laryngitis and performed as a dancer, changing the direction of her career.

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