Dame Marie Rambert, Mrs Dukes DBE was a Polish-born English dancer and pedagogue who exerted great influence on British ballet, both as a dancer and teacher.
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.
Dame Siobhan Davies DBE, often known as Sue Davies, is an English dancer and choreographer. She was a dancer with the London Contemporary Dance Theatre during the 1970s, and became one of its leading choreographers creating work such as Sphinx] (1977). In 1988, she founded her own company, Siobhan Davies Dance.
Donald McKayle was an American modern dancer, choreographer, teacher, director and writer best known for creating socially conscious concert works during the 1950s and '60s that focus on expressing the human condition and, more specifically, the black experience in America. He was "among the first black men to break the racial barrier by means of modern dance." His work for the concert stage, especially Games (1951) and Rainbow Round My Shoulder (1959), has been the recipient of widespread acclaim and critical attention. In addition, McKayle was the first black man to both direct and choreograph major Broadway musicals, including the Tony Award-winners Raisin (1973) and Sophisticated Ladies (1981), and he worked extensively in television and film. As a young man he appeared with some of the twentieth century's most important choreographers, including Martha Graham, Anna Sokolow, and Merce Cunningham, and in some of Broadway's landmark productions, including House of Flowers (1958) and West Side Story (1957), where he served for a time as the production's dance captain. A Tony Award and Emmy Award nominee, McKayle held an endowed chair for the last decades of his life in the Dance Department at UC Irvine, where he was the Claire Trevor Professor of Dance. He previously served on the faculties of Connecticut College, Sarah Lawrence College, and Bennington College.
Antony Tudor was an English ballet choreographer, teacher and dancer. He founded the London Ballet, and later the Philadelphia Ballet Guild in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S., in the mid-1950s.
Dame Catherine Margaret Mary Scott, was a South African-born pioneering ballet dancer who found fame as a teacher, choreographer, and school administrator in Australia. As the first director of the Australian Ballet School, she is recognised as one of the founders of the strong ballet tradition of her adopted country.
CityDance Ensemble was founded in 1996 and was a contemporary repertory dance company based in Washington, D.C., and North Bethesda, Maryland. The company was disbanded in 2011 and the founder and Artistic Director, Paul Emerson departed. CityDance Ensemble, now is composed of three other divisions: an outreach education arm that teaches and performs to over 25,000 students annually, the CityDance Center at Strathmore in North Bethesda, Maryland, and OnStage, a program that brings companies to the region's performance venues and supports emerging artists to create and present original work. CityDance is directed by Executive Director Alexandra Nowakowski. The organization's studio education division and Conservatory program is led by Lorraine Audeoud Spiegler.
Rowland Sutherland is a British flautist, who studied flute at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Kathryn Lukas, Philippa Davies and Peter Lloyd and participated in master classes given by the late Geoffrey Gilbert. He studied jazz with the late pianist Lionel Grigson in the mid-1980s. Sutherland performs in new music ensembles, jazz groups, symphony orchestras, various non-Western groups, pop outfits and as a soloist. Many of Sutherland's solo contemporary flute performances have been broadcast on BBC Radio 3. He has also composed and arranged music for groups, ensembles and for the BBC.
Jane Mary Attenborough was an English arts administrator and arts manager. The eldest daughter of the actor and filmmaker Richard Attenborough and the actress Sheila Sim, she was first employed as overseas membership secretary at the Royal Academy of Dance. Attenborough later joined the Arts Council of Great Britain to its national touring programme in 1979 before moving to the Rambert Dance Company as dance liaison officer, expanding its education programme from schools activities to local community events.
Joan Denise Moriarty was an Irish ballet dancer, choreographer, teacher of ballet and traditional Irish dancer and musician. She was a key figure in the development of both amateur and professional ballet in Ireland.
The Vienna Festival Ballet, is a classical ballet company founded in 1980 by Peter Mallek. Based in the United Kingdom, they typically spend eight months of the year touring small and medium venues around the country, with the occasional foreign trip.
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. The main difference between the two is that The Royal Ballet School trains professional dancers, the Royal Academy of Dance trains teachers.
Didy Veldman is a Dutch choreographer. She trained at the Scapino Academy in Amsterdam. She has danced with Scapino Ballet, Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève and Rambert Dance Company, working with international choreographers such as Jiri Kylian, Mats Ek, Ohad Naharin and Christopher Bruce, among others.
Rambert is a leading British dance company. Formed at the start of the 20th century as a classical ballet company, it exerted a great deal of influence on the development of dance in the United Kingdom, and today, as a contemporary dance company, continues to be one of the world's most renowned dance companies. It has previously been known as the Ballet Club, and the Ballet Rambert.
Mamela Nyamza is a dancer, teacher, choreographer, curator, director and activist in South Africa. She is trained in a variety of styles of dance including ballet, modern dance, African dance, the Horton technique, Spanish dance, jazz, movement and mime, flying low technique, release technique, gumboot dance and Butoh. Her style of dance and choreography blends aspects of traditional and contemporary dances. Nyamza has performed nationally and internationally. She has choreographed autobiographical, political, and social pieces both on her own and in collaboration with other artists. She draws inspiration from her daily life and her childhood growing up in Gugulethu, as well as her identity as a homosexual, Black, South African woman. She uses her platform to share some of the traumas faced by South African lesbians, such as corrective rape. Additionally, she has created various community outreach projects that have spread dance to different communities within South Africa, including the University of Stellenbosch's Project Move 1524, a group that uses dance therapy to educate on issues relating to HIV/AIDS, domestic violence and drug abuse.
William Chappell was a British dancer, ballet designer and director. He is most noted for his designs for more than 40 ballets or revues, including many of the early works of Sir Frederick Ashton and Dame Ninette de Valois.
Frank Staff was a South African ballet dancer, choreographer, producer, and company director. He was a major figure in the history of European theatrical dance in South Africa.
Alexander Bennett was a British ballet dancer, choreographer, ballet master, and teacher.
Darshan Singh Bhuller is a British dancer, teacher, artistic director, filmmaker, and choreographer. Considered "one of the brightest stars of his generation" and a "darkly powerful performer," Bhuller danced for London Contemporary Dance Theatre, Siobhan Davies Dance Company, and was assistant director for Richard Alston Dance Company before revitalizing Phoenix Dance Theatre as its artistic director.
Nadine Paula Ann Baylis was a British stage and costume designer, who "set the standard for modern dance costume".
