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«Potrait of Ninette de Valois»
Artist Rinat Kuramshin
The Historical and Art Exhibition "NINETTE DE VALOIS" is held as part of the International Festival and Dance Contest VALOIS FEST. Many famous people in the field of Theatre, Dance, Music and Fine Arts have supported the VALOIS FEST project, the Ninette de Valois exhibition.
Dame Ninette de Valois (1898-2001) is an outstanding ballerina, choreographer and teacher, the founder of the Royal Ballet of Great Britain; she also participated in the creation of the national ballets of Turkey, Canada, Ierland, Australia and Iran.
The exhibition is a kind of tribute to the memory of the Ninette de Valois whose work was highly appreciated by her contemporaries.
The historical section of the exhibition presents unique theatrical costumes and accessories, autographed photographs of famous personalities, albums and books, awards, musical instruments and much more.
The central exhibit of the exhibition is "Portrait of Ninette de Valois" by artist Rinat Kuramshin. The art section of the exhibition presents unique exhibits of the 20th century period: paintings and graphic works, portraits of contemporaries of Ninette de Valois, famous composers, choreographers, ballet dancers; photographs, sketches of scenery and costumes for the ballets The Nutcracker, Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty and other art objects.
Contemporaries of Ninette de Valois were famous composers, choreographers, ballet dancers, among them: Anna Pavlova, Sergei Diaghilev, Marie Rambert, Benjamin Britten, Frederick Ashton, Kenneth MacMillan, Margot Fontaine, Rudolf Nureyev and others.
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ARTISTS OF THE NINETTE DE VALOIS EXHIBITION
The exhibition presents art objects by famous British and European artists XIX-XX centuries:
WILLIAM RUSSELL FLINT, RINAT KURAMSHIN, LAURA KNIGHT, HENRI MATISSE, KONSTANTIN LOMYKIN,
PABLO PIKASSO, ROBERT DEMACHY, EDGAR DEGAS, WALTER ERNEST WEBSTER, UMBERTO BRUNELLESCHI,
GEORGE BARBIER, JEAN-GABRIEL DOMERGUE, ADOLF DE MEYER, DORIS & ANNA KATRIN ZINKEISEN,
ZINAIDA SEREBRYAKOVA and others.
The exhibition presents books by Ninette de Valois: "Dance with me", the books "Step by Step", "Invitation to Ballet", in which she describes the history of ballet and excerpts from her biography.
Dame Ninette de Valois made her debut in London when she was 16 years old. Following Anna Pavlova, she danced "The Dying Swan" and received the nickname «Little Pavlova».
At the age of 21, she became the prima ballerina of the Beecham Theatre's Opera Ballet Company, performing at the Theater Royal, Covent Garden. In 1923, de Valois joined the Ballets Russes, a renowned ballet company founded by the Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev. Later in her life, Valois said that everything she knew about how to run a ballet company she learned from working with Diaghilev.
In 1926, she founded the Academy of Choreographic Art in London, largely based on the traditions of the Russian ballet school. Five years later, at the Sadler's Wells Theatre, Ninette de Valois organized the first ballet company in England.
After the Second World War, the overgrown Saddlers Wells Ballet moved to the Covent Garden Opera House, and in 1956 the troupe received state status and became known as the Royal Ballet of Great Britain. Elizabeth II herself became the patron of the troupe.
After 32 years as director, Ninette de Valois retired in 1963 and was succeeded by Frederick Ashton. However, she remained closely involved with the Royal Ballet School until the early 1970s and, even after that, was frequently seen in its classrooms. In 1977, she supervised a new production of The Sleeping Beauty for the Royal Ballet.
Royal Opera House. London
State Opera and Ballet. Ankara
Throughout the years, she was also a patron of the the Irish National Ballet and Iranian National Ballet. She sent trusted colleagues to help Canada, Australia and Turkey set up national ballet companies too.
She urged John Cranko to take on the directorship of the Stuttgart Ballet, and sent Celia Franca to Canada in 1951, where she founded its National Ballet. In 1963 she persuaded Peggy van Praagh to become director of the Australian Ballet.
Ninet de Valois is a chevalier of several Britain’s and foreign orders and a winner of various awards. She was awarded The Order of Merit (Britain’s highest honour). She received an Irish Community Award, a Turkish Honour of Merit, the Dutch Erasmus Prize, the French Legion of Honour and countless honorary doctorates for her contributions to culture.
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Ninette de Valois exerted a great deal of influence on the development of ballet in Turkey. In 1947, she was invited by the Turkish Government to research the possibility of establishing a ballet school in the country and subsequently she visited the country to open a school following the same model as her ballet school in London. At the beginning, very few people took this project seriously, but the school did become firmly established and led to development of the Turkish State Ballet. Ninette de Valois established the first ballet school in Turkey. Formed as the ballet school of the Turkish State Opera and Ballet in Istanbul, the school was later absorbed into and became the School of Music & Ballet at Ankara State Conservatory, a department of the Hacettepe University.
She was granted degrees of Doctor of Literature of Oxford and Doctor of Music at London University. Ninett de Valois organized an educational system and raised the Brittain’s Royal Ballet to a level of acknowledged ballet leaders. Having retired, Ninett de Valois actively promoted reconstruction of the Covent-Garden building. She wrote the Come Dance with me biography, the Step by Step, the Travelling to the World of Ballet, she also wrote poems and prose.
The exhibition "NINETTE DE VALOIS" presents rich and varied information about the many-sided talent of Ninette de Valois, as well as about the wondeful world of ballet, to which she devoted her whole life.