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Ninette de Valois

Dame Ninette de Valois
OM CH DBE
Ninette de Valois, 1914.jpg
Ninette de Valois aged 16
Born Edris Stannus
(1898-06-06)6 June 1898
Blessington,
County Wicklow,
Ireland
Died 8 March 2001(2001-03-08) (aged 102)
Barnes, London, England
Nationality English
Citizenship British
Education
Occupation
  • Ballet Dancer
  • Ballet Teacher
  • Choreographer
  • Company Director
Years active 1900s–90s
Organization
Known for Ballet
Notable work
Home town London
Title Founder & Artistic Director
Term 1931–1963 (Royal Ballet)
Predecessor None (Founder)
Successor Sir Frederick Ashton
Spouse(s) Arthur Connell
Awards Albert Medal (1964)
Laurence Olivier Award (1992)

Dame Ninette de Valois OM CH DBE (6 June 1898 – 8 March 2001) was an Anglo-Irish dancer, teacher, choreographer, and director of classical ballet. She began life in Ireland as Edris Stannus. 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 still one of the leading ballet companies in the world. She also established the Birmingham Royal Ballet and the Royal Ballet School. 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.

Ninette de Valois was born 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, the second daughter of Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Stannus DSO, a British Army officer, by his marriage to Elizabeth Graydon Smith, a distinguished glassmaker known as Lilith Stannus. She was named Edris and in 1905 moved to England, to live with her grandmother in Kent.

The young Edris Stannus started attending ballet lessons in 1908, at the age of ten, and at the age of thirteen she 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.


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