Lucia Cormani was a 19th and early 20th-century Italian ballet dancer and one of the founders of the Royal Academy of Dance.
Lucia's life is not well documented, in part because she never danced in the most famous female roles. She was probably born about 1854 and died shortly after 1934. Her name appears on posters of ballet performances in Berlin, Brussels, St Petersburg, Guatemala, Boston (1883) and New York City (1884). In 1889 she appeared as the Premiere Danseuse Assoluta in Cinderella; Or, Ladybird, Ladybird, Fly Away Home at Her Majesty's Theatre, London and in 1900 she danced the role of Canio in a Metropolitan Opera production of Pagliacci (Philadelphia).
Because of her tall muscular frame, Lucia was several times cast as a "travesty dancer" (a woman dressed as a man) -- for example as a male pirate chief in the ballet "Algeria" in 1887, and as a sorcerer in "Enchantment." Such roles were sometimes added for effect in ballets without being properly integrated into the plot.
Lucia's greatest success was as a choreographer from about 1893 to 1911. In 1903 she choreographed a production of Carmen for the Alhambra Theatre in London. She also taught, using the stage of the Alhambra since she had no studio of her own. In 1920, she collaborated with four other great dancers -- Adeline Genée, Tamara Karsavina, Edouard Espinosa, and Phyllis Bedells—to form the Association of Teachers of Operatic Dancing, which was later to become the Royal Academy of Dance. Between them, the five represented the principal dance training methods of the time - Genée the Danish school, Karsavina the Russian school, Cormani the Italian school, Espinosa the French school, and Bedells the English school. In 1923 the association began a series of Annual Matinées; ten of Cormani's students participated in the premier performance, dancing a tarantella.
Her collected letters are in the London Theatre Museum and there are dozens of photographs of Cormani in the National Portrait Gallery.
The Royal Academy of Dance (RAD) is a UK-based examination board specialising in dance education and training, with an emphasis on classical ballet. The RAD was founded in London, England in 1920 as the Association of Teachers of Operatic Dancing, and was granted a Royal Charter in 1935. Queen Camilla is patron of the RAD, and Darcey Bussell was elected to serve as president in 2012, succeeding Antoinette Sibley who served for 21 years.
Tamara Platonovna Karsavina was a Russian prima ballerina, renowned for her beauty, who was a principal artist of the Imperial Russian Ballet and later of the Ballets Russes of Sergei Diaghilev. After settling in Britain at Hampstead in London, she began teaching ballet professionally and became recognised as one of the founders of modern British ballet. She assisted in the establishment of The Royal Ballet and was a founder member of the Royal Academy of Dance, which is now the world's largest dance-teaching organisation.
Dame Adeline Genée DBE was a Danish-British ballet dancer.
Dame Antoinette Sibley is a British prima ballerina. She joined the Royal Ballet from the Royal Ballet School in 1956 and became a soloist in 1960. She was celebrated for her partnership with Anthony Dowell. After her retirement from dancing in 1989 she became President of the Royal Academy of Dance in 1991, and guest coach at the Royal Ballet (1991) and Governor, Royal Ballet Board (2000).
Katti Lanner was a Viennese ballet dancer, choreographer, and ballet mistress who found fame in Germany and England, where she staged many productions at the Empire Theatre in London.
Dame Beryl Elizabeth Grey was a British ballet dancer.
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.
Laurel Martyn was an Australian ballerina.
Phyllis Bedells was a British ballerina and dance teacher.
Edouard Espinosa (1872–1950) was a British ballet dancer and teacher. He was also the co-founder of the Royal Academy of Dancing and established the British Ballet Organization.
Léon Espinosa (1825–1904) was a Dutch-Spanish ballet dancer. He became the first in a long line of dancers and dance teachers, making the name Espinosa "recognised worldwide as one of the most important influences in the development of dance and training of dancers."
Doreen Patricia Vane-Tempest-Stewart, Marchioness of Londonderry is a British former ballet dancer.
The Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Award is an honour presented annually by the Royal Academy of Dance, to people who have made a significant contribution to the ballet and dance industry. The award was instituted by Dame Adeline Genee in 1953, to mark the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II and her appointment as Royal Patron of the Academy. The first winner of the award was Dame Ninette de Valois, founder of the Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet and Royal Ballet School. The award has since been presented to a number of notable people, and is recognised as the highest honour awarded by the Academy.
Harriet Augusta Sinden (1877–1950), known professionally as Topsy Sinden, was an English dancer, actress and singer. She was best known for her performances in Edwardian musical comedy and pantomime, both in London and on tour. Sinden was an accomplished tap dancer and skirt dancer.
Dora Estella Knatchbull was a British composer and pianist. She composed works for orchestra, keyboard and voice, and music for opera and ballet, including ballets for performance by the dancer Adeline Genée.
Mona Inglesby , was a British ballet dancer, choreographer, director of the touring company International Ballet, and the person who saved the Sergeyev Collection for posterity.
International Ballet was a British ballet company that operated, with great success, between 1941 and 1953. Its director throughout its existence was Mona Inglesby, who was also its principal ballerina. Although it was Britain's largest ballet company during the war years, and performed to an audience of between one and two million in wartime Britain and between ten and twenty million in its twelve-year life, its contribution to the growth of British ballet has been largely overshadowed by that of the other four ballet companies that were operating in 1953. All are state subsidised, and are still operating: Sadler's Wells Ballet, Ballet Rambert, Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet now, and the newly formed Festival Ballet.
Céline Gittens is a Trinidadian ballerina. She is a principal dancer at the Birmingham Royal Ballet, in Birmingham, England.
Emma Amalia Virginia Palladino was an Italian ballet dancer who for seven years was the prima ballerina at the Alhambra Theatre in London where she danced to the ballet music of the theatre's resident composer and conductor Georges Jacobi.
Rachel Cameron was an Australian ballet dancer and teacher. She was one of the leading dancers in early Australian ballet in the 1940s, performing with the Borovansky and Kirsova ballet companies, and was one of the first ballet dancers in Australia to reach the rank of principal. After emigrating to Great Britain she was an inspirational educator of ballet teachers at the Royal Academy of Dance in London for over forty years. In 2010, she received the Royal Academy of Dance's prestigious Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Award in recognition of her outstanding services to ballet.