Leonide Massine

Léonide Massine
Massine in a portrait by Léon Bakst, 1914
Native name	Леони́д Фёдорович Мя́син
Born	Leonid Fyodorovich Myasin (1896-08-09)9 August 1896 Moscow, Russian Empire
Died	15 March 1979(1979-03-15) (aged 82) Borken, West Germany
Occupation	Dancer, choreographer
Years active	1915–1948
Spouse(s)	Vera Savina (née Vera Clark) Eugenia Delarova Tatiana Orlova (div. 1968) Hannelore Holtwick
Children	Lorca, Tatiania, Peter, and Theodor
Awards	National Museum of Dance's Mr. & Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney Hall of Fame, 2002

Leonid Fyodorovich Myasin (Russian: Леони́д Фёдорович Мя́син), better known in the West by the French transliteration as Léonide Massine (9 August [O.S. 28 July] 1896 – 15 March 1979), was a Russian choreographer and ballet dancer. Massine created the world's first symphonic ballet, Les Présages, and many others in the same vein. Besides his "symphonic ballets," Massine choreographed many other popular works during his long career, some of which were serious and dramatic, and others lighthearted and romantic. He created some of his most famous roles in his own comic works, among them the Can-Can Dancer in La Boutique fantasque (1919), the Hussar in Le Beau Danube (1924), and, perhaps best known of all, the Peruvian in Gaîté Parisienne (1938).

Léonide Massine was born in Moscow and was a ballet student at the Imperial Theater School in that city.

From 1915 to 1921 he was the principal choreographer of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes.

Following the departure of Vaslav Nijinsky, the company's first male star, Massine became the preeminent male star and took over Nijinsky's roles. His first ballet, in 1915, called Le Soleil de Nuit, used Russian folklore as elements. In 1917, Massine collaborated with composer Erik Satie and artist Pablo Picasso to create the ballet Parade.

One of his most famous ballets, The Three-cornered Hat (Le Tricorne or El sombrero de tres picos), (1919, music by Manuel de Falla) displayed Massine's talent in character dances. His collaborators, all Spanish, helped to make this ballet more authentic to its subject matter. Again, Picasso designed the sets and costumes; the story was based on Pedro Antonio de Alarcón's novel, El Sombrero de tres picos. Massine spent a lot of time in Spain doing anthropological research for The Three-cornered Hat, in order to understand authentic Spanish dances and their style.