Dame Ninette de Valois was an Irish-born British dancer, teacher, choreographer, and director of classical ballet. 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 one of the leading ballet companies in the world. She also established the Royal Ballet School and the touring company which became the Birmingham Royal Ballet. 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.
Sir Frederick William Mallandaine Ashton was a British ballet dancer and choreographer. He also worked as a director and choreographer in opera, film and revue.
The International Dance Teachers Association (IDTA) is a dance teaching and examination board based in Brighton, England. Operating internationally, the IDTA currently has over 7,000 members in 55 countries. The IDTA is recognised by the national qualifications regulators in England and Wales, Ofqual and the Council for Dance Education and Training, and is also affiliated to the British Dance Council, the Central Council of Physical Recreation and the Theatre Dance Council International. The IDTA works in partnership with the Royal Academy of Dance. The IDTA publishes a print and online magazine for members titled Dance International four times a year.
Dame Alicia Markova DBE was a British ballerina and a choreographer, director and teacher of classical ballet. Most noted for her career with Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and touring internationally, she was widely considered to be one of the greatest classical ballet dancers of the twentieth century. She was the first British dancer to become the principal dancer of a ballet company and, with Dame Margot Fonteyn, is one of only two English dancers to be recognised as a prima ballerina assoluta. Markova was a founder dancer of the Rambert Dance Company, The Royal Ballet and American Ballet Theatre, and was co-founder and director of the English National Ballet.
The Royal Ballet is a British internationally renowned classical ballet company, based at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London, England. The largest of the five major ballet companies in Great Britain, the Royal Ballet was founded in 1931 by Dame Ninette de Valois. It became the resident ballet company of the Royal Opera House in 1946, and has purpose-built facilities within these premises. It was granted a royal charter in 1956, becoming recognised as Britain's flagship ballet company.
Sir Kenneth MacMillan was a British ballet dancer and choreographer who was artistic director of the Royal Ballet in London between 1970 and 1977, and its principal choreographer from 1977 until his death. Earlier he had served as director of ballet for the Deutsche Oper in Berlin. He was also associate director of the American Ballet Theatre from 1984 to 1989, and artistic associate of the Houston Ballet from 1989 to 1992.
Sir Anthony James Dowell is a retired British ballet dancer and a former artistic director of the Royal Ballet. He is widely recognized as one of the great danseurs nobles of the twentieth century.
Sir Peter Wright CBE is a British ballet teacher, choreographer, director and former professional dancer. He worked as a choreographer and as the artistic director of Birmingham Royal Ballet, a classical ballet company based in Birmingham, England. On retiring from the company in 1995, he was bestowed the honorary title of director laureate of the company.
Timothy John Rushton MBE is a British choreographer and from 2001 to 2018 artistic leader of the Copenhagen-based Danish Dance Theatre, Denmark's largest modern dance company.
Deanne Bergsma is a South African ballerina, who made her career in the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden. She was born in 1941 and showed early promise as a dancer, She first came to London in 1957 to take up a place in the Royal Ballet School, having been talent-spotted by Claude Newman, former principal dancer and ballet-master of the Vic-Wells Ballet and now a visiting examiner of the Royal Academy of Dance. In two years she had graduated from the school and joined the Royal Ballet company in 1957. She climbed rapidly through the ranks to become a principal ballerina and appeared in a wide array of roles, both classical and contemporary, until her retirement in 1975. This eighteen-year career coincided with an exciting period for the Royal Ballet. Apart from the stream of new works from Ashton and Macmillan the company's resident director-choreographers, it was the heyday of the partnership of Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev. The company was touring worldwide and was rarely out of the headlines.
Maryon Lane was a South African ballet dancer who became well known in Britain as a ballerina of the Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet and as a soloist with the Royal Ballet.
Sir David Julian Bintley is an English former ballet dancer, the artistic director of the Birmingham Royal Ballet, and co-artistic director of the New National Theatre Tokyo ballet company.
British ballet is most recognised for two leading methods, those of the Royal Ballet School and the Royal Academy of Dance. The identifying characteristic of British ballet is the focus on clean, precise technique and purity of line that is free of exaggeration and mannerisms. The training of dancers in Britain is noted for its slow progression, with a great deal of attention paid to basic technique. British ballet methods operate on the principle that establishing correct technique and strength slowly makes it much easier for the student to adapt to more difficult vocabulary and techniques later on.
Natasha Oughtred is an English ballerina and retired principal dancer with the Birmingham Royal Ballet.
Alexander Marshall Grant was a New Zealand ballet dancer, teacher, and company director. After moving to London as a young man, he became known as "the Royal Ballet's most remarkable actor-dancer in its golden period from the 1940s to the 1960s."
David Dawson is a British dancer and choreographer who has received numerous honours and awards for his atmospheric and emotionally physical works. His style is based on the vocabulary of classical ballet and, though Dawson disagrees with the association, is often said to be influenced by William Forsythe.
Sophie Fedorovitch was a Russian-born theatrical designer who worked with ballet choreographer Sir Frederick Ashton from his first choreographed ballet in 1926 until her accidental death in 1953.
Henry Danton was a British dancer, teacher, and stager of classical ballet.
Alan Carter, was an English ballet dancer, choreographer, teacher, and company director, active in numerous countries in Europe and the Middle East. Perhaps best remembered for his work in films, notably The Red Shoes and The Tales of Hoffmann, he was known in his later years as a ballet master and as a gifted painter, pianist, composer, and writer.
Andrew Wilson is an Irish ballet dancer, ballet teacher, choreographer and academic administrator from Dublin, Ireland. The second of three Irish male students of the Royal Ballet School, he is a former Soloist of the Birmingham Royal Ballet. As of 2022, he is Head of Ballet and Contemporary Dance at Bird College, London, where he has taught since 2000.
