Australia Dancing - Kirsova Ballet (1941

Kirsova Ballet (1941 - 1944)

Dupain, Max: Rachel Cameron (left), Henry Legerton and Strelsa Heckelman in costume for 'Faust' Act III, Kirsova Ballet, 1941

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The Kirsova Ballet was founded in Sydney in 1941 and in that year gave its inaugural performance at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. The company, Australia's first professional ballet company, subsequently gave several seasons in Sydney and toured to Brisbane, Melbourne and Adelaide. It was disbanded in 1944, the same year the Borovansky Ballet, with the support of the J. C. Williamson organisation, became a fully professional company.

Much of the choreography for the Kirsova Ballet was by its founder, Helene Kirsova (1910-1962). Kirsova had come to Australia in 1936 as a leading dancer with the Monte Carlo Russian Ballet and had married the Danish Vice Consul in Sydney in 1938. As well as producing her own works, which included both full-length pieces and shorter one-act ballets, Kirsova restaged some works from the Ballets Russes repertoire. She was a significant patron of Australian stage designers including Loudon Sainthill and Amie Kingston. For a list and chronology of the repertoire of the Kirsova ballet see Australian Performing Arts (PROMPT) Collection: Kirsova Ballet.

For more about the Kirsova Ballet see 'A dancer's dream' National Library of Australia News, August 2000

Bibliography:

Peter Bellew, ed., Pioneering Ballet in Australia (Sydney: Craftsman Bookshop, [1945]); Edward H. Pask, Ballet in Australia: The Second Act, 1940-1980 (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1982), pp. 15-22; Michelle Potter, 'Helene Kirsova in Australia', in Brolga, 11 (December 1999), pp. 39-49.

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Find more about Kirsova Ballet in:

Internet - Google
Articles - New York Public Library Dance Collection
Pictures - Picture Australia