Pavlo Virsky

Pavlo Pavlovych Virsky (Ukrainian: Павло Павлович Вірський) (1905–1975) was a dancer, balletmaster, choreographer, and founder of the P. Virsky Ukrainian National Folk Dance Ensemble, whose work in Ukrainian dance was groundbreaking and influenced generations of dancers.

Pavlo Virsky was born on February 25, 1905 in Odessa, Russian Empire. After graduating from the Odessa Music and Drama School in 1927, he continued his studies in Moscow, at the Theater Technicum, from 1927-28. Beginning in 1925, state theaters began to be organized throughout the Ukrainian SSR, allowing for gainful employment for artists, and upon his return to Odessa in 1928, Virsky joined the Odesa Opera and Ballet Theatre as a dancer and choreographer. It was at this theater that he collaborated with Mykola Bolotov in their first joint production: Gliere's The Red Poppy. Virsky left the Odessa in 1931, and worked as a balletmaster at various theatres, including those in Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, and Kiev, working on productions of ballets such as Raymonda, La Esmeralda, Le Corsaire, Swan Lake, and Don Quixote.

...
Wikipedia